The DSM Says, The HPD Says...

let's talk emotions first...

Which is which?
They say hpd has a big problem regulating their emotions, right?

Why is it that they don't "fall in love" like the Bpd's (who also have erd?). Many hpd's do not like to hear the words, 'i love you'. Some do I guess, but don't like saying it back. Some I guess want to be loved but not for long (bye bye when they feel you love them).

So how could an hpd be emotional (so emotional) and not get emotional and get into the lovey dovey type stuff? There is an intricate base/experience that led to this question, but I noticed I could ask it without going into "my" experience...so, which is it?

And how could one be without the other?
What makes an hpd usually more high functioning than a bpd (yet both have an erd feature)?

Finally, what is YOUR opinion of what it means that the hpd has emotion regulation problems?

Ladies you know that passion you get and feel when your deeply attracted to a man? You know how it feels when you are so into a man that really makes you feel so good for some reason? If that isn't love, what is it? Then, if you don't call it love or anything like love, what is you definition of love?

(a side question to hpd's: you say that you don't love, or know how to love. well, what is love to "you"? for instance you couldn't say that you didn't know something or that you didn't do it "if" you didn't first have a perception of what that thing was you didn't think you were willing to do).

The dsm says: the hpd is easy to persuade (you'd think this would mean that they could be easily persuaded to love 'too').

The hpd often says: i don't know how to love, don't like love, or "love" turns me off. yet if a man was persuading you towards love, how then are you so resistant to love when the dsm says it is easy to persuade you?)

(another side question: if the hpd is easy to persuade as the dsm says, then why can't they be easily persuaded towards forgiveness? when an hpd gets angry, doesn't trust someone, or gets bitter, they really really have a hard time letting go and giving a second chance. well, it certainly isn't "easy" to persuade them for one).

Plus, if therapy is so bleak for "most" hpd's, how then can that be true if they are so "persuadeable" (not a word but it sure felt good to type). I mean how could the therapist not fix them up quick? They are "easy" to persuade! Therapy is a form of persuasion!

TL
Possibly your other post contains the answer...within the narrow range of behaviors HPD's are comfortable doing they are easy to persuade, etc.

Since love beyond infatuation is a complex, soul-searching affair that requires a lot of empathy, offset gratification, faith, and enduring hard, sometimes even dull work....

But it would be great to hear from the HPD's on this...

orion8591 wrote:TL
Possibly your other post contains the answer...

Yes, but that was part of why I asked. My answer is from only my view. I thought of that in the other post, "what hpd is not". I guess it is "not" what it "isn't" to the various individuals. I mean if they do not believe they can concentrate or that they can complete tasks and what not, I don't have the right really to tell an hpd how their disorder is or isn't-only from a nons perspective I can tell them "perfectly" how it interacts with us, hurts us, affects us, etc.

But to tell them how it hurts them or affects them, I should have been on the "asking" side. So in more fairness, I sort of reframed the question .

orion8591 wrote:Since love beyond infatuation is a complex, soul-searching affair that requires a lot of empathy, offset gratification, faith, and enduring hard, sometimes even dull work....

In other words: booooring!

I know what it's like. The other day my therapist kept asking me what "love" meant to me. I kept telling him it's a four-letter word. And to stop using it because it was a waste of time.

Desire, yes, I know it. Friendship, yes, I know it. "Love"? That's stuff some novelist invented. Stuff you see in the movies. Can't see any meaning in there beyond this. Unless you're talking about technical definitions, in which case I could talk about oxytocin or about projection of positive feelings.

Anagram
According to the Judao Christian Bible love is the last and the ultimate. Not only romantic love like between a man and woman, which is but one slice, but the entire pie, the inexplicable love that causes people to create things like Psych Forums...wish you could take a brief peek behind the scenes, not for any specific details, but to just behold the entire effort for a second or two; as far as I know, all volunteers.

Why do you think they do it? Why do they hope to give you a better eye to your own self-understanding?

Love's a marvelous mystery.

orion8591 wrote:According to the Judao Christian Bible

Novelists...

let's talk emotions first...

Which is which?
They say hpd has a big problem regulating their emotions, right?

Why is it that they don't "fall in love" like the Bpd's (who also have erd?). Many hpd's do not like to hear the words, 'i love you'. Some do I guess, but don't like saying it back. Some I guess want to be loved but not for long (bye bye when they feel you love them).

So how could an hpd be emotional (so emotional) and not get emotional and get into the lovey dovey type stuff? There is an intricate base/experience that led to this question, but I noticed I could ask it without going into "my" experience...so, which is it?

Many HPDs don't have a reliable yardstick to measure love by as children. My parents alternated between having the most horrendous rows when I was a child, rows so fierce that I felt afraid, and I would scream hysterically for them to stop, or I would pretend to faint to distract them. I was six years old. In each case I would be ignored. When they were in a more peaceful frame of mind, the emphasis was very much on humour. I can't remember any grey area in the middle. They did show my affection, particularly my mother, but it was the patronising, cosseting type of affection which made me feel swamped. For the most part I was ignored in that my real needs weren't listened to. So long as I was "good", compliant, pleasant, I would be paid a certain amount of attention, but it was patronising attention. I simply didn't know how to "be" around them. As I grew older, I began to equate love with attention, and never felt validated in any relationship, so I'd leave, always searching for that utopia that didn't exist. I felt a deep inner loneliness inside of me that I could never quite express or understand.

So how could an hpd be emotional (so emotional) and not get emotional and get into the lovey dovey type stuff? There is an intricate base/experience that led to this question, but I noticed I could ask it without going into "my" experience...so, which is it?

And how could one be without the other?
What makes an hpd usually more high functioning than a bpd (yet both have an erd feature)?

In my case, my deep hurt was buried because I was afraid to feel and express it. It would come out and be felt, felt to such an extent that I felt afraid of the sheer pain and enormity of it, so I would bury it again. This was something I learnt to do because my emotions were never acknowledged or validated as a child. If I was ignored when I screamed hysterically for my parents to STOP fighting, the message they sent to me at that time was that tears won't be heard, that my emotions had no validity. Other people would also be afraid when I expressed deep emotions suddenly and because they seemed to the other person to be over dramatic and fake (they weren't) they would react in such a way that I felt invalidated once again. I simply didn't quite know what to DO with my feelings and emotions, and it really seemed to be easier and less painful to bury them, and express only the more positive feelings.

Ladies you know that passion you get and feel when your deeply attracted to a man? You know how it feels when you are so into a man that really makes you feel so good for some reason? If that isn't love, what is it? Then, if you don't call it love or anything like love, what is you definition of love?

(a side question to hpd's: you say that you don't love, or know how to love. well, what is love to "you"? for instance you couldn't say that you didn't know something or that you didn't do it "if" you didn't first have a perception of what that thing was you didn't think you were willing to do).

The dsm says: the hpd is easy to persuade (you'd think this would mean that they could be easily persuaded to love 'too').

Everybody, disordered or not, feels an initial high when they first meet someone, when the body is flooded with oxytocin and other feel good chemicals. Of course, in order for love to last and be durable, these initial feelings change, the body produces less of these chemicals and dopamines, and the feelings are replaced by something that is deeper and more long lasting. In my case, because I had experienced so much negativity in my life, and probably therefore had more than my fair share of cortisol (the stress hormone), I was more receptive to oxytocin and dopamine highs than the average person. They literally took the pain away. I sought new love, new experiences, constantly, unaware of the deeper reasons why. As the initial "high" faded, I believed that I had fallen out of love, that my partner no longer loved me, and so nothing would last or be durable. I sensed on a certain level that something was very wrong, but it was only through therapy that I became aware of why I had acted in this way.

another side question: if the hpd is easy to persuade as the dsm says, then why can't they be easily persuaded towards forgiveness? when an hpd gets angry, doesn't trust someone, or gets bitter, they really really have a hard time letting go and giving a second chance. well, it certainly isn't "easy" to persuade them for one).

The HPD is easy to persuade because she is IMPRESSIONABLE, overly aware of outside circumstances, views, and opinions, and because she has a poor sense of self, she is easily IMPRESSED and therefore easily persuadable. Forgiveness, anger, bitterness and letting go are all internal subjective experiences, and in order to be free of them, a person needs to have a sense of self awareness, a sense of empathy, and to work upon the deep narcissistic hurt that caused the personality disorder in the first place. She cannot simply be "persuaded" to forgive or to let go. She can only do this is she addresses the core injury, recognises it, and begins to heal from within. As her sense of identity and self develops, so too will her empathy, and only then can she begin to learn to "let go".

Plus, if therapy is so bleak for "most" hpd's, how then can that be true if they are so "persuadeable" (not a word but it sure felt good to type). I mean how could the therapist not fix them up quick? They are "easy" to persuade! Therapy is a form of persuasion!

It is a misconception that the therapist does the fixing, or the persuading. The therapist is there to walk with the client, to hear the client, and by skilled reflections, to enable the client to recognise their core hurt for themselves. No one, non or disordered, can benefit from therapy until they recognise and see for THEMSELVES their own rock bottom.

Orion said

Anagram
According to the Judao Christian Bible love is the last and the ultimate. Not only romantic love like between a man and woman, which is but one slice, but the entire pie, the inexplicable love that causes people to create things like Psych Forums...wish you could take a brief peek behind the scenes, not for any specific details, but to just behold the entire effort for a second or two; as far as I know, all volunteers.

Why do you think they do it? Why do they hope to give you a better eye to your own self-understanding?

Love's a marvelous mystery.

I am so glad you became a mod. I wanted you to "see" it for yourself. It's pretty amazing and humbling at the same time there, isn't it? Yes, we're all volunteers. In many ways, hurt, pain and suffering can be turned around in ways that enable a person to reach out to others, and with the empathy that they've learnt, they can reach out, just a little bit, to someone else and help them to find their way. It's all about giving something back. It's all about turning life experience around into something that is constructive. It's all a continuation of the healing journey.

Every new day should and CAN be a part of someone's healing journey, and it's really never too late for anyone to begin to heal, and NO ONE is beyond healing. It's all down to choice.

Interesting replies, everyone.....

thank you.

I don't know if I believe that HPD's can't love. (based on my own life experiences)

I seem to be able to, although it might not be at the same level of a non-disordered person. Love to me feels like a warm high; unsatiable craving for that one person, constant endearing thoughts circulating throughout my mind. The problem is, I fall out of it quickly, simple disagreement
is enough to break the spell/attatchment. And I also realize this about myself: I can make myself fall in love with absolutely anyone. So, maybe it doesn't seem genuine to another, but it's real to me.

When I was younger, immature and less experienced, I had a hard time receiving love. I did not experience love from my parents, so being responsive to another's affection was uncomfortable, sickening and SCARY! Through just..... exposure I've allowed myself to receive the affection that I crave. Maybe we always wanted love, but didn't know how to accept it?? So until we are mature, we stay defensive and push people away. That's why "I love you" is so disturbing, we don't know how to process it.

But I like hearing "I love you" now. Especially if it's from someone I care about. I need it. I need that confirmation that they've fallen for me.

I don't know as a disordered human being whether or not I have the ability to love.

I was thinking about it a lot lately as a few close friends have been reunited and their relationship is once again exclusive... the excitement linked with that, the whole idea that they're still so new to each other, is something alien to me.