Re: using diagnosis for manipulation?

October 22, 2012

Hi Eliza --

On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 4:38 AM, sevenlobsters eliza92@...>wrote:

> **

>

> Hi all, has anyone had a nada who decided that they did have BPD but

> refuse to get help for it and use it as justification for demanding more

> sympathy or emotional caretaking? At first I was excited thinking well now

> she'll finally get some help, but instead it's turned into a situation

> that's even worse than before. It's like she's using the idea of BPD to

> dramatize how wounded she is but yet has taken no responsibility or showed

> concern for the emotional harm that she's done over the years. I keep on

> being surprised by the ways in which this situation gets worse.

>

> Eliza

>

I've heard about this happening before, although it's a lot more common for

Nadas to simply refuse to believe there's anything wrong with them. There

was this one guy I knew, though, who was the brother-in-law of a friend of

mine. He had a lot of BPD traits and he had a diagnosis of some kind,

though I think it was bipolar -- which, by the way, is often what doctors

put down on the chart for people who are really BPD, because bipolar is

covered by insurance and they can get therapy, whereas BPD is not covered

by insurance. This guy would treat people really badly and then expect my

friend to clean up his messes on the grounds that he was too " emotionally

weak " to actually behave decently, or to apologize after the fact. I

suggested that she stop enabling him by requiring him to do his own dirty

work of cleaning up, and she said she had a duty to do it for him because

she was " emotionally stronger " and therefore had to pick up the slack. So

she bought into his line of BS and of course he's just gotten worse and

worse because of it. (Hey, it's working great for him, why should he

change??)

Anyway, your situation isn't unique by far. About the only way I know to

handle it is to set good limits and boundaries and refuse to clean up their

emotional messes. Let them deal with the consequences of their bad behavior

fully by themselves, and keep reminding them that it's their own

responsibility to manage their illness, not that of everyone around them.

It's okay to be supportive (driving them to therapy and such) if you want,

but you don't want to " validate the invalid " -- that is, you don't wnat to

encourage them to believe that just because they are ill, they can give up

the responsibility for caring for themselves and managing their illness as

best they can. You can point out to her that a diabetic has to monitor her

own glucose levels, watch her own diet, and give herself her own insulin

shots as required -- she doesn't get to sit around and expect other people

to snatch candy bars away from her mouth to keep her from eating them, or

demand that they don't eat candy in front of her themselves.

You might pick up some tips by communicating with the parents of BPD

teenagers (there's a forum on BPDFamily just for this sub-group of nons,

and there might be a sublist here on WTO, I'm not sure.) I think this " I'm

sick, now you have to do whatever I want " attitude is a lot more common

with young BPDs than parental BPDs, so parents of BPDs teens probably have

a lot more experience and ideas for dealing successfully with this

attitude. You also could just do a general Google search for tips on

dealing with ANYONE who is ill and refuses to get help, choosing instead to

use the illness as a reason why others should rearrange their lives to suit

the ill person, because I think this happens with a lot of different

illnesses, physical as well as mental, not just BPDs. As I said above, with

Nadas it's usually impossible to even get them to admit they're ill.

I remember this one young woman in my social group a while ago who wouldn't

even try to get a job because she said that " dealing with people made her

too anxious " , so I asked if she was getting therapy and considering

medication so she could get employment, and she said " Oh no, I can't do

that, and besides I'd rather stay home all day so I can be there when my

daughter gets home from school. " Given that her husband was incarcerated,

leaving her effectively a single mom, the only way she survived financially

that she convinced her husband's parents that they " had " to support her and

the grandchild, which they went along with probably because they felt

guilty for their son getting jailed and leaving her without her husband's

salary to live on. They've paid for rent and medical care and clothes and

toys and whatever else she needs, so she'll never get help for her

crippling anxiety and will probably eventually become housebound or

something else really bad because of it. I haven't seen this young woman in

a year but I heard that Granddad passed suddenly a few months back of a

heart attack, leaving just Grandma to support the whole family, so I have

no idea what they're doing to manage now. Grandma and Grandpa didn't

actually do her any favors with all the handouts, unfortunately, because at

this point even if this woman actually gets help for her problems so she

feels able to work, she has zero job skills since she's never had the

opportunity to acquire any. But they probably thought the idea of their

only grandchild going without necessities until Mom got her act together

was too painful to endure, so now they're all stuck.

Anyway, I wrote all that just to emphasize that enabling someone who's

taking this approach to " dealing " with their problems is almost always a

really bad idea as it makes things worse not better, so I'd suggest taking

steps to combat this attitude starting yesterday because otherwise she has

absolutely no incentive to improve. Just remember that in the end you

can't FORCE anyone to get the help they need, until the point where they've

actually hurt themselves or someone else (and even then what you can force

them to do is pretty limited.) If she continues to behave badly and

expects you to put up with it because of her illness, you might have to

just remove yourself from the situation as completely as you can manage so

she'll stop being able to emotionally feed off of you.

As one of my favorite psychologist writers puts it, " There's a difference

between a habit and a handicap. Handicaps need to be accommodated, and

habits never should be. " In his book called " How to Deal With Emotionally

Explosive People " he talks about a client he had who had rage issues

(severe road rage, bar fights, domestic abuse and so on) who was referred

to him for treatment. The guy insisted that he had a " bad temper " because

his father was alcoholic and abusive -- which was true, but the guy made no

progress on getting control of himself until Bernstein was able to get him

to see that, " good reason " or not, his behavior was getting him in legal

trouble and his wife was about to leave him and take the kids, because most

of the rest of society is not inclined to put up with near-psychotic rages

just because the dangerous person " has a good excuse. " This guy had the

attitude that having had a terrible childhood meant everyone else was

required to put up with his bad behavior, because he didn't want to see

that there's a difference between being compassionate with someone who has

had bad life experiences, and letting someone use those experiences as a

reason why it's okay for them to use you as a punching bag.

The analogy I tend to use is this: Suppose you encounter a man on the

street who has untreated paranoid schizophrenia, and you're aware of his

disability. But one day he comes up to you while holding a big stick and

demands that you stop beaming " evil thoughts " into his head, because he

knows you're doing it and he's not going to put up with it any longer, and

if you don't stop he's going to smash you over the head with his club. Do

you have to stand there and let him kill you just because he's ill and you

feel bad for him? Or is it perfectly okay for you to either run like

blazes or tackle him and take his stick away (depending on how athletic and

determined you are)? And can you call the cops on him? Well, no, he can't

demand that you have to stand there and let him hurt you just because it

would make him feel better, and you're very much allowed to call the cops

on him if you have to do it in order to protect yourself. The fact that

the guy has an entirely legitimate mental illness doesn't mean he gets to

do whatever he wants and everyone else just has to put up with it.

In his book " People of the Lie " , Peck (a psychiatrist, meaning a full

MD) uses the analogy of a man brought into the ER running a high fever who

is delusional and thinks the hospital staff are the Viet Cong trying to

capture and torture him and thus he keeps attacking them. Do they stand by

and let him? Hell no. They grab him and sedate him and try to treat the

underlying fever until he comes to his senses. But, for various reasons

(some of them good, some of them bad), we as a society have decided to let

certain classes of ill people go ahead and behave in ways that damage

themselves and others on the grounds that we don't have the right to force

treatment on them. Much of that attitude is born of the fact that for a lot

of these problems (like BPD) we simply don't HAVE effective treatments to

force on people anyway, and there's also the fact that the power to declare

someone " crazy " and use that diagnosis to do horrible things to them has

been severely abused lots of times and in many places -- not so long ago in

the United States, for example, people could be lobotomized for very little

or no cause. (Those real-life abuses inspired books like " One Flew Over

the Cuckoo's Nest " among others.) And that's a real issue, because it's a

lot easier to say " This person has a bacterial infection that's causing a

high fever with delirium and agitation and if we just pin him down and give

him antibiotics, he'll come out of it pretty quickly " than it is to say

" Well, this person just generally behaves really badly, and we don't know

what's causing it and we don't know what to do about it, " so people end up

going " We'll either ignore it, or we'll wait until he does something

horrible and then toss him in jail where he can't hurt anyone but other bad

people. "

Anyway, that's a long digression (which is typical for me) but in sum, the

answer is that your Nada isn't the only person by far to take this

attitude, and that you don't have to put up with it -- and shouldn't, as it

will make her worse. I don't have any personal tips to offer because my

Nada is of the more common " Denial " type, but I'm sure there are people on

other lists here or in other forums or just out there on the Net in general

who can give you some good suggestions. You don't have to restrict

yourself to just the BPD community for ideas since this kind of attitude

goes with a lot of different illnesses, physical and mental.

Best of luck.

-- Jen H.

October 22, 2012

Hi Eliza,

Once diagnosed, my Nada has used BPD like a get - out - of - jail - free

card, to justify every kind of batshit cruel and manipulative behavior you

can think of. When challenged on bad behavior, she spits " Well, what did

you expect, *I'm a* *borderline!!!* "

Nada has been in therapy for tens of years, but has used it as a way to

learn how to become a better predator and manipulator.

Thus, although she has/is receiving therapy, she continues to claim special

treatment and dispensation because of her condition.

She uses BPD to justify .....

.. . . . . .cremating family members who had no wish (or or prior family

tradition) to be cremated, in the cheapest possible way, and transferring

the ashes to an ostentatious (but too small container) bought in the

scratch - and - dent - section of a local discount store. (... did I

mention she once did this on my grandmothers dining-room table, in front of

the air conditioner?) and then is angry at anyone who is disturbed by her

actions (...well, *I'm sorry* *You're* having problems dealing with *

Your*emotions,,,)

After all the hoopla of the funeral is over, she has been known to hold

the ashes hostage, by indefinitely delaying interment or dispersal of the

ashes, claiming ill health, ( although she is able to drive herself cross

country for pleasure trips...) and emotional exhaustion.

" Well, what did you expect! *I'm a borderline*!!! "

Next on the list would be " Lovingly Interfering " with family members

weddings, engagements, and marriages, destroying as many as possible,

through the well placed word....

.....and, she has impersonated myself on the phone, intercepted and

manipulated messages.....Eavesdropping and snooping.....planting

" evidence " .....

She gains vulnerable persons confidence - and everybody is vulnerable at

some point ...and uses their vulnerabilities to wound or destroy them.

She spreads propaganda, lies for sport, brags about manipulating her

therapist, all behaviors she can and does justify with;

" Well, what did you expect, *I'm a borderline!!! " *

What has really, really killed me, is that I have been designated as her

externalized conscience.

In a really sick dynamic, she misbehaves, or act-out in front of me, or

confess/flaunts her mis-behaviors to me, and then take steps to punish me

for knowing.

Since I was a child, she has spread devastating propaganda about my

mental health, and medical condition to friends and family, telling them

that I suffer from paranoia, brain cancer, brain lesions due to cancer

treatment, hypersensitivity, that I am a demanding, spoiled princess, and

so on. Thus, anything I say is to be treated with suspicion, and reported

back to her.

Character disordered individuals ore truly and genuinely dedicated to their

disorder. Everything they do is in the service of their disorder, and while

I must allow room for others to disagree, I believe it is the truly rare,

(as in pink unicorns, and spinning straw into gold rare) for these folks

to stop being what they are, and learn to be something different. I don't

see it happening.

They will, however, happily eat their children and grandchildren, snack on

neighbors and shopkeepers , and strafe entire villages of unwitting family

and friends, *because they are borderlines*

I finally get it. She is a Borderline, and her dedication to her disorder

is greater than any love she claims to feel or need. It's greater than my

ability to cope, or fulfill, and it will destroy, without compassion, any

relationship or success I attempt to build, if I allow her access to my

life. Damn.

....Because, She is a Borderline.

I finally get it.

Sunspot