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Can a Non-Borderline help a Borderline?

© A.J. Mahari

then it left me feeling unreal because my existence was dependant upon and defined by "other" and not from within myself. I had no identity all on my own. This is one of the major reasons why you can't help a borderline. It takes a lot of dedicated work in therapy over time to unwind the defense mechanisms that operate in BPD.

The people who tried to help me were played with and manipulated in my past. Sometimes it was calculated. Other times it was just habit. It was one of the toughest things to heal and to learn to STOP. Until a borderline takes personal responsibility for his/herself the games, manipulations and lies will not stop. Until a borderline learns how to feel their own feelings, cry, and take care of themselves emotionally there is just nothing anyone else can do to help them or to change how they relate to anyone else, or themselves for that matter.

The best thing to do if you love someone who has BPD is to put your energy toward suggesting that they get professional help. Even this can cause explosions and difficulties.

Each and everyone of you who loves someone with BPD the single-most important thing I want to convey to you, is this:

Take care of yourself first. By taking care of yourself and by staying out of the borderline dance of intimacy, dance of anger, dance of.......etc etc you can send a clear, honest, and loving (tough love, but loving) message to the person with BPD.

What helped me to change the most, aside from therapy and a dogged-determination to work through the thoughts and behaviour was beginning to realize what I was doing to myself and to others. It was the honest mirroring back of people, therapists first, people in my life, secondly, as I slowly began to let more people know me (and as I came to "know me") that made all the difference in the world for me. If people had continued to try to please me (which was IMPOSSIBLE anyway) I might never have suffered the heart-wrenching losses that I had to suffer and learn from in order to grow and to grow up.

Each of us must take care of ourself. It is nice to be able to care about someone else and to have some positive impact in their life. However, when it comes to personality disorders, and especially to BPD, the only saviour that exists is the individual borderline, him/herself.

Try to be supportive but in taking care of yourself you will