Reversing Emotional Dysregulation In Individuals With Traits of BPD
Reversing Emotional Dysregulation In Individuals With Traits of BPD
Part 3 of the Blog Series: Traits of Borderline Personality Disorder in High Conflict Women
Part 3 of the Blog Series: Traits of Borderline Personality Disorder in High Conflict Women
Welcome to Part 3 of the Nicola Method Blog series on understanding high conflict women, those women who have some traits of borderline personality disorder, or BPD, but do not qualify for a diagnosis.
In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series we explored many of the differences between those with traits of BPD and the average person. In this last installment we will be exploring the similarities. It is through understanding the similarities between the average person and the person with traits of BPD that we find the key to stopping their destructive behavior.
At the end of this blog post you will be shown a technique that lets you use this understanding along with an awareness of human neurology to move a person with traits of BPD from a state of emotional dysregulation to an emotionally balanced state.
If you would like to skip this discussion about our similarities and learn how to stop these negative behaviors patterns right away, just scroll down to the section entitled “Reversing the Negative Behaviors”.
What Makes Someone With Traits of BPD Seem So Different
An individual with traits of BPD is actually no different than the average person as far as the emotions they are experiencing. However, they experience them at a much higher intensity level. They are also much more sensitive than we are to the negative judgment of others. Just like the rest of us, their sensitivity is greatly magnified when it concerns the judgment of a romantic partner.
But the most important thing the average person has in common with someone with traits of BPD might surprise you.
Why Insecurity Is Only Human
The characteristic that causes people with traits of BPD to lash out or try to control others is actually a character trait that almost all humans have in common. People are naturally very insecure socially. We all have a need for positive reassurance in our social interactions in order to feel emotionally safe. Because of this natural insecurity, if someone treats us in a neutral way, without all of the positive cues that we are used to receiving, we experience their treatment of us as slightly negative.
Most people live their lives completely unaware of their natural social insecurity. This is because acting positively towards others in assuring ways is a universal custom so common that we don’t think about why we do it. Whether it is a disarming smile, a light joke or a positive spin on a sensitive subject, we all participate in social reassurance on a regular basis. It is only when someone who does not share our characteristic of social insecurity interacts with us that we find ourselves feeling oddly uncomfortable.
The people who do not possess the characteristic of social insecurity are often those with light autism, in other words people with some traits of autism but not enough to be diagnosed. Because they do not share this characteristic, it doesn’t occur to them that others would have it. However, they soon find out that in order to fit in socially, they must learn not to trigger the many social sensitivities that average people seem to possess.
When people try to teach them appropriate social skills, it is usually the teacher who ends up confused and unable to answer the question so many autistic people ask about us. Interestingly enough, this question is the same one that we often ask about those with traits of BPD: “Why do I have to walk on eggshells in order not to upset them?”
In case you are still not convinced that this all too human character trait causes us to make errors in judgment of how people are treating us, just as we did in Part 1 of this blog series, we are going to borrow the concept of a spectrum of autism from the experts in that field.
This time we will adapt that scale to measure oversensitivity to what others think about us. For our purposes we will call this imaginary scale a spectrum of social sensitivity.
The Spectrum of Social Sensitivity
This scale represents a person’s sensitivity to social rejection. In other words, it tells us how suspicious someone will become that others might not like them. It also reflects just how much assurance a person needs from others in order to feel emotionally safe.
Let’s place a person with traits of BPD at the extreme end of our social sensitivity scale. We can then place the average person next to that individual. To further illustrate just how socially insecure even an average person is, we are going to place a person with light autism at the mid point of our scale.
Again, it might seem strange to say that someone with light autism would be placed in the middle instead of at the opposite end of insensitivity. We do this to show that although fear about social rejection may feel normal because we all suffer from it, it doesn’t erase the fact that most of us naturally suspicious creatures who can easily think the worst of others.
When we look at this spectrum, it is easy to imagine that the lightly autistic person may feel the same way about you as you do about the person with traits of BPD. They probably think that the average person is extraordinarily socially insecure and that they need tremendous amounts of assurance just to keep their suspicion levels down.
And if we are to be honest, we would have to admit that the autistic perspective is accurate and we are the ones that wear the glasses with a lens that distorts the intentions of others in a negative way. Imagining that distortion at an even higher magnification allows us to understand more clearly what a person with BPD might experience in their social interactions with others.
To gain even more clarity on the challenges that people with traits of BPD struggle with, let’s take this observation about human insecurity one step further.
Let’s imagine for a moment that we all had light traits of BPD. If we all felt extremely socially insecure, we would be putting a tremendous amount of time and effort into assuring those around us that we were not going to reject them. This effort would soon become part of our culture since it would be necessary for comfortable interaction. We would think of these extreme measures as normal.
Let’s now imagine a world where everyone had light character traits of autism. In a world where no one suffers from social insecurity, we would see no need for this type of assurance at all, and our culture would change to match that societal norm.
By understanding our own tendency to distort the intentions of others due to fear of rejection, we can relate better to the struggles of a person who might have a few traits of BPD and those of someone who might have these characteristics in addition to negative experiences trusting others in their past.
A Perfect BPD World
Although this may surprise you, if you were to give a person with traits of BPD the kind of continual assurance they would need to keep their insecurity at bay, you could easily keep them from acting out against you. In fact, if you were able to eavesdrop in on their thoughts whenever they got upset and could see exactly what triggered them, you could overcome their fears.
You could simply tell them something like, “Oh, I can see how when I said that it made you think I didn’t care about you. I’m sorry it came out that way. That’s not at all the way I meant it.” If you could identify exactly what you did that made them suspicious and tell them why it might affect them that way, you would be able to instantaneously calm their fears of betrayal and they would stop acting out.
Using the Nicola Method to Regulate Emotions
The type of approach described in the last paragraph is, in fact, the technique that the Nicola Method for high conflict teaches partners of women with traits of personality disorders to stop them from using abusive or aggressive behaviors in their relationship.
To use this technique, partners must be taught the specific fears around betrayal which trigger people with traits of BPD to become emotionally dysregulated and which cause them to use defense mechanisms. They also need to learn which of these fears is their partner’s key trigger. They are then provided with language that has been developed to overcome that particular fear.
Although that method is for partners of individuals with traits of BPD, there is another technique from the Nicola Method that anyone can learn to temporarily regulate the emotions of a person with traits of BPD that works on an episode by episode basis.
Reversing the Negative Behaviors
You are now going to learn how to reverse the behaviors that people with traits of BPD use to defend themselves against feeling insecure by blaming those around them. You will be given a sentence to use that has been specifically constructed to pass through defenses of a person with traits of BPD without setting off any alarms. You will simply be making a very casual observation that will re-direct them to a certain way of thinking without them realizing it was you who got them there. Here is the sentence you will use.
“When you said that it seemed like you thought I did something wrong.”
Let’s take a look at why this sentence works to regulate emotions of anger which is what the person with traits of BPD uses to ward off feelings of social insecurity.
Natural Emotional Regulation
This sentence works several ways. One of the things it does is it directs a person’s thoughts in a way that encourages the individual to use a part of their brain that helps them think better by inhibiting or lowering their emotions. Most people are aware that when they get into a highly emotional state, their cognitive functions become incapacitated, in other words, they can’t think straight. What they might not know is that when you enter a highly cognitive or intellectual state, your emotions become incapacitated.
The use of the word “something wrong” in this sentence is there for a reason. Let’s say we used “something you didn’t like” in the place of “something wrong.” The sentence would read, “When you said that it seemed like you thought I did something you didn’t like.”
Although doing something wrong and doing something someone doesn’t like may sound similar, questions of right and wrong actually fall into the category of ethics. Ethical questions of right and wrong are philosophical questions that encourage us to use a neurological processing center in our brain that lowers emotions that get in the way of this kind of complex thinking.
Another way this sentence works is it dismantles the defense mechanism that most people with BPD use to protect themselves from shameful feelings due to their insecurity. Defense mechanisms themselves are a form of neurological phenomenon. Very uncomfortable emotions can actually cause us to divide our awareness into two separate parts. In order to try to protect us from uncomfortable feelings, our subconscious mind may tell our conscious mind things that are not true. The divide between these two parts is so real that our conscious mind may be completely unaware that our subconscious mind is feeding it incorrect information.
In order to dismantle this defense mechanism, we need to only show the person’s conscious mind the flaw in their thinking that is causing them to blame us. If you can get their conscious mind to focus directly on the flaw, which is the fact that you didn’t do anything wrong, the subconscious part of their mind will lose all of its power.
This can be quite a challenge. If you tell the person’s conscious mind that you are innocent, their subconscious will simply tell them that you are being defensive and not to believe what you say. The sentence you are going to use gets around that barrier by using a subtle suggestion that makes them want to look at it for themselves.
It is the combination of these two approaches that lets you both regulate their emotions and overcome the insecurity defense with one sentence. When both of these components are working together you will find that the person will be returned to a rational state of mind, and you will be able to once again communicate normally and productively.
Traits of Borderline Personality Disorder In High Conflict WomenDefense Mechanisms of the High Conflict Woman In Relationship
Dismantling The Defenses of Female Relationship Insecurity
If you would like to learn the Nicola Method so you can put an end to the high conflict situations you may be experiencing, click on this link to the welcome page of this website where you will find the resources you need.
If you want to try out some of the basic techniques of this method for free to see if this method is right for your situation, you can learn them from an intro guide flip-book here or a PDF version of the intro guide here.
Joanna,
I have a friend whom I believe has a high-conflict personality. She is very insecure, and when her insecurity is triggered, the emotional tsunami that issues forth is mind-boggling.
Recently, we had planned a playdate for our kids. The morning of the playdate, we finalized our itinerary. Later on, she sent me a text that revealed she was running about 2 hours behind so I texted back “Okay. Some other time maybe.” and she flipped-out. She made ad homiem attacks, she threatened to take someone else on the playdate just to manipulatively provoke me into revoking my cancellation. She peppered me with angry text messages, one after the next. I invited her to take the other child and said “no hard feelings”. Her wrath continued so I said I was going to stop talking now, and I turned off my ringer and walked away from my phone.
She felt rejected, I assume. She believed that I cancelled on her to go swimming. Even after she finally accepted my explanation, she insisted she was justified in calling me rude. She asserted that it is rude to cancel over text messaging. I tried to call her on the inconsistency. I asked how is it okay for you to text me that you’re running 2 hours behind, but it is not okay for me to reply to that text to cancel. She would not budge. She says that she always runs late and that since I know that, it is okay for her. But since it is rude to cancel plans via text message, and I’ve never set that precedent before, it is wrong and rude. I cannot convince her otherwise. I cannot make her see the inconsistency. I’m wrong. She’s got immunity. I should just let it go.
The thing is, I always let it go. This happens almost bi-weekly, this sort of behavior. Some incidents are small, and some are intolerable. I can’t take it anymore. When she feels insecure, she blame-shifts, criticizes me, lies to me, and tells other people lies about me. When I show her these behaviors she introduces more red herrings than I can count. I’ve known her for 23 years, and I don’t think I can do this anymore. She really believes I have done something wrong. I’m tired of being the one to own my actions and apologize and tired of her always making excuses, back-peddling, and giving weak blanket apologies.
Any advice?
Yes, you certainly have your hands full with this individual! There is not much you can do about her spreading lies about you to others. I think that kind of behavior might stop me from wanting to continue the friendship. However, since you have a history, here is some advice on how to put a stop to her anger episodes using my method.
When you sense that she is feeling betrayed or angry, you can use phrase, “When you said (or did) that it seemed like you thought I did something wrong.” If that’s too long and you’re sure you can maintain neutrality in your voice, you can say calmly, “It seems like you thought I did something wrong.”
This is your catch-all phrase to regulate or lower her anger. Here’s a scenario of how to stop an anger episode using your play-date example.
You: “Okay. Some other time, maybe.”
Her: “I can’t believe you just cancelled on me by text. What kind of friend are you!?”
You: “When you said that it seemed like you thought I did something wrong.”
Her: “It might not have been wrong, but it you shouldn’t have cancelled by text.”
You: “What do you feel is wrong about cancelling by text?”
Her: “Well, you should know that it is rude and can hurt peoples feelings.”
This language, which you can find in several of my blog posts, will allow her to transition from “It’s all your fault” to “That hurt my feelings,” which is her real issue with you.
If you want to take it further, you can use a technique from my workbook for partners of high conflict women. Here is the scenario continued:
Her: “Well, you should know that it is rude and can hurt people’s feelings.”
You: “I understand that you felt like I was being rude to you. And a text can really come across that way. So I can see how you would have interpreted it that way. But I want you to know that’s not at all how I meant it. In the future if anything I say or do makes you feel like I am betraying our friendship, I need you to let me know right away so I can clear it up.”
This last sentence will allow you, the next time she acts out, to ask her outright, “Are you feeling like I am doing something to betray our friendship?” When she answers yes, repeat this last paragraph. It takes a little time but if you keep it up, she will learn how to behave herself in your company.
I’m the one with high conflict personality. It ruins my relationship and I only behave like that towards my partner. Why is that, how can I help myself, how to stop it?
Maggie, good for you for recognizing this problem. That is a great first step. Strangely enough, although it is easy to stop emotional dysregulation in another person, it is very difficult to stop it in one’s self. The long-term solution is to get a workbook that will take you step by step through DBT. This is a technique that works very well for dysregulated individuals. A short-term solution is to talk to your partner about this difficulty and see if your partner would be willing to download and use my free workbook The Nicola Method Workbook for partners of high conflict women. This would allow your partner to learn to lower your emotions until you can do it for yourself. You might be able to get a clear understanding of your emotional patterns from reading this workbook as well. Best of luck!
Really enlightening, thank you Joanna. This gives me renewed drive to better understand and improve my relationship with my wife.
Jay, I’m so glad it was useful for you.
Will this also work to get back in touch with a high emotional female after a breakup that was pretty bad? I’d like to use this technique inorder to re-establisch communication as I need to because of our kids. Secondary, the only open communication line at this point is through whatsapp as she refuses to speak in person or on the phone.
Joe, I do have techniques for partners of individuals with traits of BPD who are causing problems with communication about children, but I have not yet blogged about it. It usually involves a formal sit-down conversation which is in a sense an intervention using non-confrontational techniques. This sets up a structure that allows the partners to disarm defensive behaviors going forward.
You are welcome to email me with details about your situation. I may be able to make some suggestions as to how to put these techniques in place to re-establish communication.