Do you feel trapped in the emotional web with someone with BPD, or do you feel like you're a satellite caught in their emotional orbit ? Do you feel exposed to their unpredictable moods and subject to the whim of what our frequent and seemingly unprovoked rages ? Well, if you do, you're not alone . Welcome to podcast number 3 of my inner torch . As always, I start with the disclaimer that if you are a person diagnosed with BPD or you suspect you have BPD, this podcast is not for you . There's a high probability that the content of this broadcast will be offensive to you . This is a podcast for survivors of BPD . Those involved with someone who has BPD, family member, significant other, or spouse . This podcast is a safe place to come for, if anything, some words of inspiration and reflection from someone who has been involved in a marriage of 18 years with someone who remains undiagnosed with the disease . In this podcast, I wanna focus on emotional intelligence of the BPD mind . Now I'm not sure that you're familiar with EI as it is also known, emotional intelligence . There are a lot of books out there that kind of tell you how emotionally intelligent are you, and it kind of boils down to how you handle things, emotionally, I guess, as to what your IQ, your emotional IQ is . And when it comes to people with BPD, a friend of mine provided me with an moment some years ago when I was describing a rage from my wife . And he told me, and I quote, the reason she acts the way she does is because she is emotionally retarded . Now even though I don't agree with the moniker retarded, I took a step back . And you know what ? I started to think about that . People with BPD tend to be emotionally dysregulated, and therefore, I guess, are emotionally unintelligent . They are not able to handle emotions . They're immature or undeveloped, and I think those are better words to use than what my friend used when he coined the moniker emotionally retarded . I like to think of my wife having the maturity well, actually, of a child trapped in an adult's body . I have to think of her as a 5 or 6 year old who's unable to process emotions like a mature adult would and goes about expressing emotions and acting out like a child with over the top tantrums, emotional outbursts, unfiltered literal streams of consciousness and comments that seem to come out of left field and broadside you and leave you reeling and hurt and dismayed . So, again, you know, hearkening back to all the bulletin boards that are out there, all the people like me and perhaps like you who are who are affected by people with BPD, I just still question why . And I think, you know, why do we put up with it ? Well, I think in some ways, we are emotionally unintelligent . We don't get it . It took me more than a decade to realize that my wife has BPD . Now as I said before, she's undiagnosed . She has not gone to, to a psychiatrist, to a psychologist, and she probably would not go to a psychologist or a psychiatrist . But I have read many, many, many books, many, many, many articles, and she is the archetype . She is the poster child for somebody with borderline personality disorder . I think the only thing left would be to determine how severe . She is a high functioning person with BPD . She holds a job, but she exhibits all the symptoms of this disease . And, yes, it is a disease even though it may not be pathological . It may not be something that you can determine through a blood test or through a biopsy, but it is a disease . It robs a person of empathy, compassion . I think you're gonna find that as you deal or are dealing with somebody with BPD, they have no compassion . They have no empathy . They don't behave like normal people do . It it amazes me that my wife can say the most hurtful things, and then act like she never said them, that she can distort reality and be completely convicted in this distorted reality . And you try to argue with her, and you try to reason with her . And I've come up with a statement that I tell a lot of my friends and I also try to impart to my children . If a lunatic, if a crazy person came running up to you and pointed a gun at you, would you argue with that person ? Would you argue with them ? Would you escalate the situation ? Yet, our very basic human way of being kinda puts us in the defense mode when somebody with BPD starts to dysregulate . You know, you you try to practice something called dialectical behavioral therapy, DBT, which has been shown to be very effective with people with BPD, that they go for DBT therapy, and it may be like the panacea . It may be not a cure, but it may be a way for them to learn how to deal . And, of course, you on the receiving end of their behaviors also have to learn how to deal . You and, basically, DBT is just kind of, for lack of a better term, acquiescing and accepting their behaviors, not becoming defensive, acknowledging their behaviors . But, you know, folks, we're human . We're human . And when you are being attacked verbally and emotionally, after a while, the animal in all of us says, hey . You know what ? I need to defend myself . And, of course, that's the worst thing that you possibly can do with somebody with BPD because it's like trying to argue with a 6 year old or a 5 year old throwing a temper tantrum and and saying, look . Calm down . Calm down . Okay . Stop crying . Stop crying . Don't do that . And, of course, it only escalates them . They start to scream louder . They start to cry harder . This is what we have to deal with when we're dealing with somebody from BPD . So or who suffers from BPD . It's very difficult, and I think my point to you and when I say these things, I'm actually talking to myself . Is it worth it ? Is it worth putting up with the emotional abuse, the emotional neglect ? Why why do we feel compelled to carry on ? Why do we feel that we should love that person ? Why ? Again, let's take the lunatic example that I talked about, and now let's put it into a friendship . Let's say that somebody, a friend of yours, is just a horrible person . They just constantly put you down . They constantly argue with you . They constantly tell you of a reality that is really kinda distorted and not really rooted in what is true . Would you continue that friendship ? That's the $1,000,000 question . And most of us would say instinctively, no . But then why, when we get involved with somebody with BPD, why do we feel compelled to stay with them ? Why do we feel compelled to be their constructive partner in trying to convince them that the world is not the bad place that they think it is ? I've been doing that for 19 years . What am I ? Am I codependent ? Am I am I an enabler ? What am I ? Am I a caretaker ? Maybe I'm all 3 . What's wrong with us ? Why do we put up with those things ? Why are those bulletin boards filled with people who are confused, hurt, discarded, victimized ? Why ? Why do we go back for more ? That's my question . And I would be interested to hear your response at myinnertorch@gmail.com . Myinnertorch@gmail dot com . Your thoughts, your comments, whether you agree or disagree, I'm interested to hear from you . In the next podcast, I will read an email from somebody that I received, which is heartbreaking because it reminds me of my marriage with my wife and how things go on . And it also reminds me of somebody that I knew, some years ago, an old, old couple . And at the time, I didn't understand what the wife was doing to the husband, but now I see what it is . And she had been doing it for 60 years . And this poor guy lived with this or chose to live with it for over half a century . Why why do we do that ? Why do we subject ourselves ? Myinnertorch@gmail.com . Thank you for listening . I hope that if I do anything, I hope you to take a step back, take a step out of that ring, take a step away from being an emotional satellite revolving around this person who draws us into their orbit, their orbit, their drama . You know, maybe you can step out for just a moment and kinda say, okay . You know what ? Maybe what this guy is saying makes some sense, provoke some thoughts in your mind, and give you an opportunity to say, you know what ? Yeah . That sounds like my life . And, yeah, I wanna make a change . And what that change is for you, I don't know . So what I say to you is thank you very much for listening . Please stay tuned for the 4th podcast in a series of podcasts as we go forward . Myinnertorch@gmail.com . Be well, and whatever you do, be good . Take care .
