When Non's Are Complaining

It’s understandable why Non’s might become frustrated and make such statements. It can be exasperating to live and work with someone who is mentally ill. I work with a woman who is also Borderline. Despite the fact that I relate to a lot of what she says, I also find her incredibly annoying and childish. Sometimes I just want to shake her and yell “stop whining and do your stupid job!”

In most any other scenario you can paint a picture; you can tell a story that will allow others to imagine what a particular experience is like. You can’t really do that with something as nebulous as mental illness. There’s no way for them to experience what happens to you internally. You can describe the emotions or physical sensations, but they’ll just interpret it through their own rational point of view. I might relate to my colleague’s distress, but I also don’t understand it. I deal with the same dumb crap she does after all.

I’ve never been a fan of comparisons. I’ve never found them helpful. They just make me feel guilty, pathetic and weak. Your psychiatrist may have had good intentions, but what he said was stupid. The Dali Llami is a unique individual in a unique culture. Millions of people are in awe of this person. How he thought that was a reasonable comparison is beyond me. The concentration camp analogy was even worst. Yes, there were people who survived the horrors of the holocaust. There were also many more who perished or took their own life.

Telling me that there are children starving in a third world country just makes me feel like a jerk. Am I supposed to be happy that other people are suffering? Does telling me that my life could be worse address any biological factors that might be causing my depression? Does it provide me with direction or tools on how to regulate my emotions or solve problems? Do the people who offer this advice NEVER struggle or complain about anything in their life because, after-all, their life could be worse? Even if someone found such comparisons helpful, they are little more than a band aid. Something to get you over that little hump.

Haha I was upset when I wrote this.

I didn't mean to offend anyone. It was such a thought.

Thanks for your replies.

I actually was quite happy with my BPD partner. When you are with a BPD and they are in their upswing they are fantastic people to be around. It's the downswing that bites. And that a non partner who is aware of the condition can do lot to prevent.

To my mind this is the reason why non's fall out with BPD. They both don't know they have it, or the BPD doesn't tell. And if you are unaware of the condition and you see your loving partner change into a fury from hell over a (to you insignificant) thing evidently the non is going to react aversely.

PS

The dalai lama is a representative of a feudal oppressive regime that abused Tibetans for centuries.

It's one of those things, we attack boundaries of people, I think mostly because our emotional well being hinges on emotional connection to us. Anything a person does that slights us and we are prone to an emotional outburst. It's actually hurt, but when a borderline is not connected with their feelings it ends up anger. Since we're so different emotionally to the average person, they never know what might set us off and we never know what sets them off, so there is mass confusion all the way around with horrible relationship threatening turmoil. I've taken that step from mostly anger to mostly hurt, but I still slip back under the most stressful situations (mostly lack of sleep and difficult social environment combined.)

As a, "for example" of borderline to non difference, I consider cutting someone off emotionally to be the absolute worst thing you can do to a person because it's one of the worst things I've ever experienced. On the flip side, if a person is brutally honest with a non, they consider that a type of act worthy of emotional withdrawl/punishment. They consider it a common sense boundary that if crossed is absolutely intentional They do not feel the need to talk to you about it. It's a known rule (except we don't know it) and we earned it. If a person is brutally honest with me (happened several times in the workplace), I'm one of the few that can get along with the people who are known as incredibly difficult. Usually the incredibly difficult are the brutally honest. It seems to be the reason they don't get along. It's something I can handle if it's just for the sake of honesty (there is a difference.) If someone slights me and behind the slight is emotional ice, along with group bullying, it can destroy me.

We're so different emotionally, it's all a big guessing game, on both ends. Where we end up disordered and they end up fine is, almost all people feel similarly to them, so the universal rule is we get punished and we earn it.

We have to find ways to first stop crossing those boundaries and second, to cope and self-sooth. It's not easy to do when you feel like you're 1 against 100, but that's the challenge and we have to be up to it and prepared for it. I talk big, but I falter too.

MrEmMak wrote: It's something I can handle if it's just for the sake of honesty (there is a difference.) If someone slights me and behind the slight is emotional ice, along with group bullying, it can destroy me.

We're so different emotionally, it's all a big guessing game, on both ends. Where we end up disordered and they end up fine is, almost all people feel similarly to them, so the universal rule is we get punished and we earn it.

Funny you should say that. I have Aspergers and as such am linear honest. I like to think its my Aspergers that helped keeping me and my beloved BPD together now for 7 years. And ofcourse having Asperger am less inclined to react emotionally to an outburst.

petrossa wrote:

MrEmMak wrote: It's something I can handle if it's just for the sake of honesty (there is a difference.) If someone slights me and behind the slight is emotional ice, along with group bullying, it can destroy me.

We're so different emotionally, it's all a big guessing game, on both ends. Where we end up disordered and they end up fine is, almost all people feel similarly to them, so the universal rule is we get punished and we earn it.

Funny you should say that. I have Aspergers and as such am linear honest. I like to think its my Aspergers that helped keeping me and my beloved BPD together now for 7 years. And ofcourse having Asperger am less inclined to react emotionally to an outburst.

That's great that you two found each other. BPD people do have excellent partners out there, they are just much harder to find. My wife is a pretty good fit. She's the type who loves to be supportive, but I know she can only handle so much, so I try really hard to cope without weighting her down. I come here, I have my bro, I have therapy. Damn, I'm messed up, huh But yeah, I'm lucky. Now that I'm not the pissed off borderline, she can handle the severe lows that come once or twice a week and I"m getting better at handling those too.

There is an element of self fulfilling prophecy to BPD. One expects to be misunderstood so one assumes one is beforehand. At least my partner tends to do that. Always thinking ahead about things that can happen, finding something, getting worked up about it and then cause the thing to happen.

I am glad it works out for you 2 as well. Shows it's doable to lead a mostly tranquil life.

I don't know. I think of it this way: I don't want to put up with all this #######4 either.

I am sympathetic towards nons. No one wants to be around a downer all the time. Not even in third world countries. Not even the Dali Lama. Not even people with BPD. Sometimes I come here and I scroll down to see where I want to post and get soooooooooooooo ######6 tired of seeing about who wants to die or who wishes that someone would just love them. I want to say get over it. Just pick yourself up by your bootstraps you pussy. Then I realize I do the same thing so I don't say as much. I remember I was just going to pick myself up by the bootstraps and that's just not an option. Even as I have made a choice to be better and I am to be now that I know I have BPD, I still feel bad most of the time, if not all.

If I don't want to deal with this all the time, then why would anyone else? Others can just walk away. I usually just try to kill myself. In the end no ones want to deal with it all the time. I just want to treat the people I care about with love and not make them walk on eggshells.

Plus nons have their own problems that they have to deal with.

No offense intended to anyone, though. This is just my opinion.

I do and don't feel the same as Crimson. I do feel bad for them many times. I realize that most non's don't have the foggiest clue as to what we're going through, so it's unfair to expect them to understand why we're lashing out the way we do. At the time it's happening, though, I'm not thinking about it. I'm not really thinking about anything; it's just raw emotion. The only way I can explain it to myself is akin to an out-of-body experience. I know I shouldn't do it, I know it's bad and I know I want to stop, but I find myself going full bore anyway. I may as well be watching someone else do it on television - that's how much control I don't have over it right now.

iluminati wrote:Thanks for the post. I generally keep my mouth shut and keep the comments to a minimum because I learn so much from just sitting here and reading what you have to say.

Please don't keep your mouth shut!! Speak up more! It's easy enough for us to sit here and say "we know what it's like to _____", but without more non's like you speaking up, it's harder for us to understand the effect that we have on you, and your efforts to have an effect on us. Just like you're here to get the other side of the coin, we'd like to see things from your side, too!

MrEmMak wrote:As a, "for example" of borderline to non difference, I consider cutting someone off emotionally to be the absolute worst thing you can do to a person because it's one of the worst things I've ever experienced.

Ever watch "Oz" on HBO? Augustus Hill summed it up perfectly:

"You wanna kill a man? Stick a shank in his chest. You wanna torture a man? Feed his loneliness. Fiend him from friendship, from peace, he will search everywhere. And when he realizes he won't find it, he will destroy himself."

The reason therapists say "think of people in concentration camps" or "the dalai lama" is because it's a recognised technique for helping 'some' people feel less depressed. Some people does not include us with BPD! Normal people seem to find it helps though.....but it tends to just make us feel worse because we don't have 'massive' problems and 'shouldn't' feel so bad.

Just thought I'd add that to explain why it's such a common thing.