The Nightingale Center

How To Live With A Borderline

By Kathleen Brizendine, M.A.

A borderline swings between adult-like and child-like behavior. Adult behavior of the borderline crumbles suddenly and without apparent provocation into childish anger or tears. Having a sensitive adult disintegrate into a raging, "abandoned" or rejecting child is unnerving. The flip-flop emotions of a borderline are where the personality disorder got its name: the borderline between childhood and adulthood, good and bad, all or nothing.

The limited and yet volatile emotional rage displayed by a borderline can be overwhelming. Friends and family members are often surprised by its sheer explosive quality until they understand the borderline's limited "emotional tool kit".

When a person becomes aware they are dealing with a borderline personality, they may choose to limit contact or protect themselves emotionally. Several basic rules are required to nurture your equilibrium and mental/emotional health.

• Support System: Develop a support system of 3 or more healthy adults who are in no way blind to borderline behavior. They may have family members with borderline personality disorder and they must distinguish between adult and childish behavior styles. Every week, confidentially and respectfully share healthy adult viewpoints among support system members to counterbalance those of loved ones who function emotionally on the border between childhood and adulthood, sensitive empathy and hopelessness or rage.

 

• Personal boundaries: Become aware of personal limits, needs, desires, irritants, and aspirations. State these clearly to the borderline when he or she is functioning in their adult behavior pattern. Actively promote self-care in all interactions with the borderline. Be aware that any empathy they show to you must be repaid exponenentially. Don't do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable just because the borderline tries to convince you that you OWE it to them. Let the borderline deal with his or her disappointment when this happens. Return to active interaction with the borderline only after the childish, raging, hopeless or manipulative behavior stops. Trust your own judgment.

• List 3 behaviors neither person will tolerate: When the list has been agreed upon, make a sign and keep it where you both can see it. When either person breaks a rule, the other partner must point it out in private, calmly and with respectfully chosen words. The person who acted out must clearly apologize and state the plan they have in place for making certain this does not become a pattern in the future. If one partner ignores the agreement more than three times in any month, the relationship should be renegotiated and possibly terminated.

• Don't "be there" for them more than they are there for you: Borderlines are a lot like soap operas. In most cases, the drama never stops or gets any better. Tune in five years later and the same problems are still in place. Borderlines may ask their loved ones to "be there" for them as they create drama after drama in their lives. They may then become angry when a friend chooses to solve problems rather than become emotional. Create a simple format for developing solutions to recurring melodramas and apply this repeatedly as needed. At some point, the borderline will become bored and begin to create new soap operas.

• Tools for managing outbursts: No one should be allowed to treat others with disrespect. This includes words, tone, body-language, and innuendo. Everyone needs to let off steam. If someone needs to vent feelings, that person must take responsibility for those feelings, not blaming someone else for "making" him or her feel it. Any person who is being treated with disrespect, according to their own perception has the right to take time alone, or with other friends until the disrespectful behavior ends. Accept the required apology gracefully and move on.