Home Health & Wellbeing
If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.

Borderlines, empathy and evil

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I'm not sure whether to put this here or in Politics and Debate, but I've decided to put it here because of the subject matter of Borderline Personality Disorder.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/27/the-science-of-empathy

What do people think of that? Personally it scares me a bit, because I can see myself in quite a bit of that, especially when the RAGE descends. But I know I would never ever ever be as extreme as the examples chosen, deliberately no doubt because they were extreme.

What do other borderlines on here think? And everyone else?

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm not sure whether to put this here or in Politics and Debate, but I've decided to put it here because of the subject matter of Borderline Personality Disorder.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/27/the-science-of-empathy

    What do people think of that? Personally it scares me a bit, because I can see myself in quite a bit of that, especially when the RAGE descends. But I know I would never ever ever be as extreme as the examples chosen, deliberately no doubt because they were extreme.

    What do other borderlines on here think? And everyone else?

    As a borderline I relate to a lot of that. I can't bear to be alone. If Randomboy goes away for the weekend I become a suicidal wreck. Even if I'm doing relatively okay before he goes, I just can't bear it. It feels as if he's left me, abandoned me, even though he come back two days later as planned. It was the same in my previous relationship. I even went as far as to lock him up so he couldn't go out for a bit as I was freaking out.

    Also I can be very mean to Randomboy, without even realising it. I won't go into the details here because it is embarassing but basically I can't really think how my comments will make him feel and then when he gets hurt he has to explain to me what I've done.

    I've had a lot of treatment for my BPD and used to be much worse but I'm still not good.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Thats an amazing and really important artical for people to read I think.
    Thanks for posting that x
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i am a big fan of simon baron-cohen and admire his work hugely. i tried to read this as a scientist rather than as me, to save upset.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Randomgirl wrote: »
    basically I can't really think how my comments will make him feel and then when he gets hurt he has to explain to me what I've done.

    I got this a lot last year. Basically, I was really clingy and had more than one person tell me this. My friend also told me how he really feels sometimes. Half the time, I don't understand exactly what I've done wrong.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Melian wrote: »
    Half the time, I don't understand exactly what I've done wrong.

    I think you just summed things up for me.

    I could relate to a lot of that and I guess my idea of empathy comes across as a bit clingy, if that makes sense? Like, I try to be there for people but I guess I come across as very attached to them.

    The older I get and the more I read about it, the more I wonder if I'll ever be able to have a good relationship with someone without driving them away with my I want you/get the hell away from me swings.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I want you/get the hell away from me swings.

    i hate you / please don't leave me.

    story of my life.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The older I get and the more I read about it, the more I wonder if I'll ever be able to have a good relationship with someone without driving them away with my I want you/get the hell away from me swings.

    You will be able to, but I think it takes a certain sort of person to be able to date a Borderline without eventually getting fed up of the games. I'm lucky in that I have such a woman, she understands what happens sometimes and she's good enough to know it isn't personal. That's not to say it doesn't upset her- it does- but she is able to understand that it's not me really.

    She won't play the games with me, she never has done, and that is probably very good for me.

    It was the shouting things thing in the article that really got to me. I generally tried to read it dispassionately, as I didn't expect the article to be about what it was, but that bit really got me. Because I do do that. Sometimes, especially if someone's got too close and I want to scare them away, I will say things that I know will get them to go away. It isn't even that I mean it, I really don't, but I know which buttons to press to get them to definitely go away. And then I don't think anything more of it. I certainly don't expect them to be traumatised by it, although with my Normal Head on I should know that they will be.

    A friend says that she's spotted it in some things that I've posted on here before. If I've shown a bit too much vulnerability I'll disappear back behind the gruff exterior and call someone a cunt. It's something I know I do and understand it, but sometimes it's just too easy to cause an argument with the intention of hiding behind it. Very difficult behaviour to explain to a lot of people, although I know there's a fair few people on here who will know exactly what I mean by it.

    I too don't always understand what I've done wrong. But sometimes I do know exactly what I've done, because I've done it deliberately to be left alone. What I don't understand is where the RAGE comes from, because I know I shouldn't be getting so angry about little things. I shouldn't be running after a bus driver who didn't stop at a zebra crossing for me and baby. Yet I do it anyway.

    I do genuinely understand why so many psychs consider Borderline to be untreatable. I was lucky, I had a therapist who understood it and would- tactfully- not play the games. If I revealed too much in one session she understood that I'd get random illnesses to try and avoid going and I'd just get told to stop being so silly when I did go back. That worked for me. But I understand how it can be so frustrating to treat someone who keeps withdrawing, and can withdraw in pretty nasty ways if they get too threatened. I was never that bad, but I can understand how people are.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I don't know that I believe in it, I'm not convinced.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    omg hi wrote: »
    i hate you / please don't leave me.

    story of my life.

    And mine too.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There is somebody in my life who I think has characteristics of BPD... They were always terrified of being alone, even just going out to town... They went really angry sometimes and it got frightening (I have felt at risk of serious attack and been hit before)... They also went on these drug or sex binges, poisoned themselves, self-harmed... They can be very manipulative and controlling, but I don't know if that is BPD, or the fact that they are replicating something they grew up seeing...

    For parts of my life, I thought they were evil. I don't want to write a lot here, as people I know use the board...

    On another note, my Mum thinks my Dad is a sociopath and evil. He has threatened her with violence before and refused to pay child support (she was too scared to go through official procedures). When she was crying, saying she can't afford to heat our house, he told her that she should go to the forest and chop wood... Whenever I speak to him, I never get the feeling of empathy. He is just so self-absorbed, a heavy drinker and he used to sometimes get really angry... His girlfriend was also 'evil' to us... She used to psychologically abuse us, tried to make my brother kiss her feet on a few occasions and tell me I was fat.

    When I think about things like brain development, I wonder if it can be applied to these two people. When you're young and being abused or seeing abuse, you blame yourself, or wonder if you provoked it... But looking at it from a medical point of view, it makes it feel less guilty... If that makes sense...

    I don't want to offend anybody, as I'm not saying all people with BPD, or low empathy, or are psychopaths abuse kids obviously...

    I just mean that the article has helped me put some things in to a better perspective. I think I'll read more on it.
Sign In or Register to comment.