[modoasis] Daughter's friend answers about BPD

May 19, 2005

I'd tell her that what she knows about BPD is the surface description. The

fact that she has failed to glean, is that often BPD's are very high

functioning with acquaintances - is an acquaintance - she is not

someone who has a long term " close " relationship with a BPD - who are more

commonly the targets/victims of the BP's rages and abuses.. (BTW, Theresa,

in general it would be better to scrub names from things you post - your

name is fair game to include, but shouldn't include other's names)

Her friend obviously cares, but has no concept of the kind of irrational

abuse that she is capable of. Your daughter should tell her that doesn't she

think there must be something pretty serious for me to not to want to see

her? Don't you think there must have been something pretty serious for my

grandfather to just leave? I'd suggest she read SWOE if she's really

interested, but most likely I think it would best to J to respect and trust

your daughter, if she can't do that, she's not worth having as a friend.

It's also worth asking her if she has ever interacted with someone who is

crazy and was angry at them. The advice I got from a psychiatrist is,

" anytime you are expecting to have a rational conversation with someone with

BPD, you're setting yourself up for failure. "

I'd also point out to J that all the examples of past bad behavior she

indicates are recent due to the non-contact, I'm assuming that you and your

daughter have 100's (1,000's?) of examples of bad behavior in the past. It's

important to let her know that it's not about anything in that past couple

of months, it's because of YEARS of bad behavior and you are following

psychological advice because you were unwilling to continue the way it was.

Also I get the feeling from the note that she thinks your daughter is being

prevented from seeing grandma, it's actually the case that she's just as fed

up.

What she's not getting is that she's expecting someone with to be a raving,

drooling lunatic - They aren't, to superficial relationships they can seem

very normal, even really great. (It's called splitting . . . :-)

She's making a lot of assumptions and you need to challenge the assumptions:

- Why would nada's husband just up and leave?

- Why did she come to our house and physically break windows?

- why would we decide that a non-contact policy was best?

- Why do psychologists recommend non-contact with BP's?

- Why would we subject ourselves to all the trouble we are dealing

with regarding this if there wasn't something significant happening?

Good Luck,

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