Join my email list and you will be able to join me in free conference calls and ask me your questions about BPD and BPD Recovery.
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Archive for the ‘Loved Ones’ Category
Tips To Curb Emotional Overreactions
Tips To Curb Emotional Overreactions
Psyche Whisperer Radio Show Interview
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Psychiatric Oppression of Biopsychiatry – Interview with Dr. John Breeding Ph.D.
Are you normal? Do the concepts of Mental Health and Mental Illness serve any purpose other than to divide people arbitrarily and cause people shame that alienates them from themselves? Does psychiatry today, and more specifically biopsychiatry even believe that anyone is or can be normal? What is normal? Many argue that biopsychiatry – the direction the psychiatric profession is taking in defining mental illlness as “brain disorder” or “brain disease” and then seeking to treat it with all kinds of medications, many that do way more harm than good, is predicated on labeling almost everyone with something which calls into question just what disordered means.
Dr. John Breeding Ph.D. was my guest on The Psyche Whisperer Radio Show, Wednesday August 4th, live at 3pm EST. You can now listen to the archived interview here. Dr. Breeding talked about, among other things, psychiatric oppression and what mental health consumers really do need to know and think more about when it comes to what mental illness is and how it can be most effectively treated and coped with if it even is what it is thought by so many people to be. What are the implications of biopsychiatry for people given the label and diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder?
LISTEN HERE
The Psyche Whisperer Radio Show & A.J. Mahari – All rights reserved.
The Journey Beyond Borderline Personality
Is it possible to get beyond Borderline Personality? What does that even mean? Am I just aiming this at people diagnosed with Borderline Personality? No! It is possible to get on the path that is the journey beyond borderline personality if you’ve been diagnosed it with – there is hope for recovery and all that means and more. It is also possible to get on the path that is the journey beyond borderline personality if you are a loved one of someone diagnosed with BPD.
Want to know more? CLICK HERE
© A.J. Mahari, July 24, 2010 – All rights reserved.
Biopsychiatry – Mental Illness as “Brain Disease” – the major problem with modern psychiatry
Have you heard that mental illness, according to some in the profession of psychiatry (mainly in the United States) is “brain disease”? What do you think? Is it a coincidence that many studies aiding in these theories of what is known as biopsychiatry are being made on the basis of the outcomes of studies that are largely funded by pharmaceutical companies in the United States? Do you think that all psychiatrists or even all psychologists agree with this un-proven conclusion? Many do not agree. One very well known opponent of his own profession’s all-too-common practice in recent years is Australian psychiatrist, Dr. Niall (Jock) McLaren. On Friday July 23, 2010, 7pm EST on The Psyche Whisperer Radio Show on blogtalkradio, A.J. Mahari will interview Dr. McLaren on this topic and talk to him about the two books he’s authored and the very courageous stance he has taken that has not left him popular in the profession of psychiatry.
Niall (Jock) McLaren, MD, is an Australian psychiatrist, author and theoretician. His work opposes the mainstream view in psychiatry to the extent that he argues modern psychiatry has no scientific basis whatsoever. However, he insists that he is not “anti-psychiatry,” but a committed scientist following his duty of criticizing the prevailing models in his field in order to improve it. He is the author of the two books, Humanizing Madness: Psychiatry and the Cognitive Neurosciences. 2007; and Humanizing Psychiatry: The Biocognitive Model. 2009. He is working on another book due out later this year.
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© A.J. Mahari and The Psyche Whisperer Radio show
Borderline Personality Books for BPD and Loved Ones
Author, Life Coach, Mental Health and BPD Coach, A.J. Mahari has written 6 Books specifically about Borderline Personality Disorder and 4 Books specifically for Loved Ones about Borderline Personality Disorder.
A.J. Mahari has also written and narrated 12 Audio Programs about Borderline Personality Disorder, along with 4 Audios about BPD Recovery and 13 Audio Programs specifically for Loved ones with someone with BPD in (or who was in) their lives.
A.J. Mahari also has Books and Audios about various topics under the category of Self Help that can be of help to those with BPD and/or to their loved ones as well.
You can also purchase coaching sessions with A.J. Mahari
© Phoenix Rising Publications and Touchstone Life Coaching Services – All rights reserved.
Does Darth Vader meet the diagnostic criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder?
Does Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker meet the diagnostic criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder? This was a questions posed, for some reason, and for an even less understandable reason answered by Eric Bui and colleagues at Toulouse University Hospital in France in what has been described as “a brazen act of arm-chair diagnosis”. Who does this serve? Who does this help -anyone? What is the meaning of this? Does it matter?
How can this “diagnosis” of a fictional character help anyone understand Borderline Personality Disorder? Isn’t it likely really to muddy the waters and be more of a case of mis-information? Just what BPD needs right? More confusion? How can anyone who loves or cares about someone with Borderline Personality Disorder really come to understand the the mind of those who are diagnosed with BPD? This diagnosis of a fictional character who many don’t believe is an accurate diagnosis anyway will only mislead loved ones away from the facts about BPD that they need to know, want to know, and will benefit from knowing.
How are people who have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder supposed to feel about this? How can this possibly be viewed as helpful? How can anyone with BPD think that people who already don’t understand their pain and suffering can possibly learn anything from such an irresponsible “diagnosis” of a movie character that isn’t even real?
Talk about a lack of sensitivity. What a lack of respect, really. Stigmatizing BPD while potentially trivializing it as well.
Does this “diagnosis” of a fictional character with Borderline Personality Disorder have any up-side? Perhaps, only in that it brought some media attention to Borderline Personality Disorder. Or some pop-culture attention. However, I think the negatives of this far outweigh that potential positive. It seems that when pop-culture or media mention or in anyway portray Borderline Personality Disorder (as they often do without making that clear) it ends up really only succeeding in the furthering of negative, damaging, and hurtful stigma against people who are living with BPD.
The down-side that I believe is being over-looked and that matters most is the way in which this further stigmatizes not only the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, but, even more importantly, the people diagnosed with it? Why? Because of the connection between the inherent evil of Darth Vader and the stigma that has long been perpetuated toward those with BPD as being evil.
- Purchase all 3 of ebooks for NON BORDERLINES or 3 Non Borderline Ebooks packaged together with audio.
- Purchase all 5 Core Wound of Abandonment in BPD ebooks
- Non Borderlines – You can purchase 6 ebooks packaged together without audio or
6 ebooks bundled together with 2 audio programs 6 ebooks packaged together with 2 audio programs - Those with BPD and/or Non Borderlines can purchase A.J. Mahari’s 3 “Core Wound of Abandonment” series ebooks or Mahari’s 3 “Core Wound ofAbandonment” series ebooks with From False Self To Authentic Self In BPD – The Inner Chid Audio Program
Dr. Bui, apparently came up with his “diagnosis” of Darth Vader while watching two of the three Star Wars prequel movies, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. He theorizes that young Anakin Skywalker was separated from his mother at an early age and his father was absent and that these are the factors that could have contributed to his mental illness.
Apparently in his theorizing, Bui, also believes that also indicative of this character’s supposed Borderline Personality Disorder are his “infantile illusions of omnipotence” and “dysfunctional experiences of self and others.” It is perceived and concluded that he often showed impulsive behavior and had difficulty controlling his anger. Anakin Skywalker’s eventual turn to the Dark Side and name change, to Darth Vader, could represent the ultimate sign of an identity disturbance is the apparent reasoning behind this entire exercise of “arm-chair diagnosis”.
It can be argued, though it’s hardly worth it, that “infantile illusions of omnipotence” would point more at Narcissistic Personality Disorder than BPD. As for “dysfunctional experiences of self and others” I think it reasonable to conclude that Walker/Vader’s transformation is not the experience of people who have Borderline Personality Disorder. Here’s where diagnosing a movie character makes it tricky doesn’t it? I mean, the archetypal nature of this shift in a character’s identity is a work of fiction that no doubt seeks to depict many epic human struggles and not just struggles or challenges that can be described as being the result of any mental illness, let alone Borderline Personality Disorder. The archetypal richness of this character speaks to many interpretations. However, ascribing this character’s experience or interal feelings, perceptions, and the like to BPD, let alone any mental illness is nothing short of ridiculous. It misses the entire point of the character really.
Anakin Skywalker’s eventual turn to the dark side and name change do not have anything to do with BPD specifically or exclusively at all. Where this conclusion comes from who knows. It doesn’t follow any type of logic. But then, how could it? This eventual turn to the dark side of Walker’s as he took on the identity of Darth Vader is not something that bears any resemblance to the experience of people with BPD. People diagnosed with BPD do not have a stable sense of identity. This, however, does not mean they go from who they are (or the not being sure about who they are) to being drastically different and turning to some dark side. This comparison is evidence of the equating of BPD with evil which is irresponsibile and not accurate.
What is it in this world today, anyway, that everything has to be pathologized? Isn’t it ironic how black-and-white many people in the world are thinking – people who are not diagnosed with BPD? People who invoke the topic of BPD, diagnose fictional characters, like this psychatrist, Bui, or lay-people who are busy diagnosing anyone and everyone they know but themselves?
The dilemma here, in terms of understanding is hidden, perhaps for many, within the central and often over-looked definition of what Borderline Personality Disorder actually is. The way it is defined in the DSM-IV by psychiatrists outlines 9 traits. Out of these 9 traits a person must meet the criteria for 5 of them in order to be diagnosed as having BPD – by a professional.
The very traits that form the basis for what defines borderline personality disorder are human traits. They are human traits that are found more intensely and more often in those who meet the criteria for BPD. They are not some separate set of traits that just define BPD. My point here is that many others who may not meet the criteria for BPD will struggle with some of these traits. Why? Because they are human traits firstly and foremostly. Those with BPD and people who are not personality-disordered do not have different core traits. What is different is the way that these traits manifest themselves and are perceived and experienced – but not the traits themselves.
Is it any wonder then that people who love or care about someone with BPD may end up thinking they themselves have BPD? People are going around thinking this person or that person has BPD because he or she did or said this or that, or because he or she was angry or thought in a black-and-white way about something. In other words, there is this over-pathologizing going on. People pointing fingers at others and at each other. And, now, psychatrists at a fictional character for crying-out-loud – Vader – as having Borderline Personality Disorder.
- The Shame of Abandonment in BPD
- From False Self To Authentic Self In BPD – Getting In Touch With Your Inner Child
- BPD and Abandonment
- Finding Hope From the Polarized Reality of BPD
- Preparing For Recovery From BPD
- Emotion Dysregulation in BPD
- Rage Addiction in Borderline Personality Disorder
- Breaking Free of The Borderline Maze – Recovery For Nons
- Facing the Facts of BPD – On The Other Side For Nons
- Overcoming Denial About BPD and Love
Audio Programs © A.J. Mahari
Where has common sense gone? The traits that define BPD are human traits. Each and every one of us as human beings has these traits. It is not pathological to have these traits in reasonably balanced and paradoxical ways.
Bui, et al, diagnosing Darth Vader with Borderline Personality Disorder seems to give creedence to the many ways that people disparage people who have BPD. I don’t agree with this at all. I think the diagnosis of a fictional character – even if they get it right (let’s not forget there are many reasons to doubt Darth Vader would be a candidate for BPD if he were a real person) is in any way responsible or worth the time or effort given to it.
Why do I write about it here then? To say that the danger of this is the further stigmatizing of BPD and those who have BPD. It sensationalizes BPD and what it means to have BPD while at the same time trivializing it. It doesn’t serve anyone. I also have concern that this “arm-chair diagnosis” that equates BPD to this fictional character, who was a personification of evil, is highly irresponsibile and frankly, offensive.
Darth Vader has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Aside from the issues of that equating BPD with evil, so what, who cares?
Where’s the relevance? Where’s the significance? How can this be a worthwhile teaching tool for tomorrow’s psychiatrists? How can this benefit anyone with BPD? How can this really serve to help others understand BPD in balanced and compassionate ways?
The answer is - it can’t.
All this diagnosis of Darth Vader with Borderline Personality Disorder does is serve as a prime example of its being equated with evil. It serves as a prime example of the stigma of BPD. It may even give rise to more people with BPD distrusting the very body of professionals who are supposed to treat them, and I might add, with respect.
© A.J. Mahari, June 26, 2010 – All rights reserved.
Do Borderlines Play Mind Games?
Do people diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder play mind games? Life coach and author, A.J. Mahari, who herself, recovered from BPD 15 years ago answers this question based upon her own life experience and her experience coaching hundreds of clients with BPD and who are loved ones of those with BPD.
It can be asserted that Borderline Personality Disorder is the most stigmatized mental illness. At the center of that stigma is the often forwarded idea or belief that “borderlines play mind games”. Even some people with Borderline Personality Disorder blog about this online themselves. Does this make it so? Do they enough awareness to appreciate the paradoxical nature of two perspectives about BPD and mind games? Do they understand that much of what feels as if it is within their control is more to the point all that they are not in control of? What does this mean for the loved one of someone with BPD? Is there more to understand? Does it depend upon your perspective? Have you thought about how answering this question might affect decisions and choices you may need to make in your life?
- The Puzzle and Mystery of Hope on the Other Side of BPD
- Inside The Borderline Mind
- The Shame of Abandonment In BPD
- Breaking Free of The Borderline Maze – Recovery For Nons
- Facing the Facts of BPD – On The Other Side For Nons
- Overcoming Denial About BPD and Love
- Purchase
all 3 of ebooks for NON BORDERLINES or 3 Non Borderline Ebooks packaged together with audio. - Purchase all 5 Core Wound of Abandonment in BPD ebooks
- Non Borderlines – You can purchase 6 ebooks packaged together without audio or
6 ebooks bundled together with 2 audio programs 6 ebooks packaged together with 2 audio programs - Those with BPD and/or Non Borderlines can purchase
A.J. Mahari’s 3 "Core Wound of Abandonment" series ebooks or Mahari’s 3 “Core Wound of
Abandonment” series ebooks with From False Self To Authentic Self In BPD – The Inner Chid Audio Program
Touchstone Coaching, Phoenix Rising Publications and A.J. Mahari, June 26, 2010 – All rights reserved.
A.J. Mahari Interview with Lisa Johnson, Author of “Girl in Need of a Tourniquet”
On Tuesday June 29, 2010 at 7pm Eastern Standard Time A.J. Mahari interviewed Merri Lisa Johnson, author of Girl In Need of Tourniquet – Memoir of a Borderline Personality, who read a few excerpts from her book and talked about her experience and thoughts about Borderline Personality Disorder. You can listen to the archived show or download it on the pagePsyche Whisperer Radio Show with your host A.J. Mahari
Girl in Need
of A Tourniquet
Memoir of A Borderline Personality
An honest and compelling memoir, Girl in Need of A Tourniquet is Merri Lisa Johnson’s account of her borderline personality disorder and how it has affected her life and relationships. Johnson describes the feeling of “bleeding out” — unable to tell where she stopped and where her partner began. A self-confessed “psycho girlfriend,” she was influenced by many emotional factors from her past. She recalls her path through a dysfunctional, destructive relationship, while recounting the experiences that brought her to her breaking point.
In recognizing her struggle with borderline personality disorder, Johnson is ultimately able to seek help, embarking on a soul-searching healing process. It’s a path that is painful, difficult, and at times heart-wrenching, but ultimately makes her more able to love and coexist in healthy relationships.
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Coaching for Loved Ones of BPD With A.J. Mahari
Life Coach and BPD Coach, A.J. Mahari, talks about the reality of life on the other side of someone with Borderline Personality Disorder. A.J., in her role as a Life and BPD Coach helps loved one of those with BPD – non borderlines, bpd family members, to understand not only the difficult challenges they face but how to cope and how to take care of themselves. Mahari is also an expert at guiding loved ones out of the trap of codependence.
Coaching For Loved Ones of BPD
- The Puzzle and Mystery of Hope on the Other Side of BPD
- Inside The Borderline Mind
- The Shame of Abandonment In BPD
- Breaking Free of The Borderline Maze – Recovery For Nons
- Facing the Facts of BPD – On The Other Side For Nons
- Overcoming Denial About BPD and Love
Audio Programs For Loved Ones of BPD © A.J. Mahari
© A.J. Mahari, June 11, 2010 - All rights reserved.
Where It All Began Again – Excerpt A.J. Mahari BPD Memoir
A.J. Mahari first heard those three words, Borderline Personality Disorder, in the dark ages of “treatment”, in 1975. At a time when most mental health professionals deemed Borderline Personality Disorder untreatable and spared little time in banishing those diagnosed with it. Borderline Personality Disorder were three key words that would profoundly effect her life that, at the time, seemed screamingly-quiet words that meant nothing and that quickly faded into an obscurity that mirrored her own lostness.
It all began again in August of 1975, when at the age of 17, I physically left behind my family’s crazy dysfunction. Out into the world I plunged like a child diving into an ocean of life who didn’t understand that she had no idea how to swim. Drowning before I was aware of it. Lost before I knew it. So sure of all that I was unsure of. So oblivious to all that I lacked. Clueless. Clueless but feeling free.
Freedom at last, I thought back then. Freedom like a stone. A stone that I would push up the same few feet of my first mountain for 12 years only to have it roll back. Daily pushing the stone up a few feet. Daily having that stone roll back over me, knocking me off the mountain, flat on my emotional back. Day after day reality was obfuscated by my pretentious, swaggering, inverted display of courage. A courage that had at its core the helplessness of a terrorized child. A courage that wasn’t anything more than a narcissistic over-compensation for what was intolerable and vulnerable weakness – an extreme emotional sensitivity so easily shaken to its core.
I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder in what could be considered the dark ages of what that really meant. It was 1975 and I was just a few months short of my 18th birthday. I wanted to see a social worker at a local hospital, where I had seen a few before. This time, instead of being given an appointment I was first referred by the out-patient psychiatry department to a psychiatrist in the hospital. I had a short but intense history at this hospital. Most of my history with this hospital unfolded and was documented in the emergency department where I was frequently brought in by ambulance for what was suspected to be a neurological problem. There were also numerous visits that resulted from sports injuries and my burgeoning self-harm practices.
I had no idea why I was being told to go and see this doctor. Up until that time, I was able to get an appointment with a social worker in the out-patient mental health clinic without incident.
This is where it was all about to begin again. “It” was something I had absolutely no understanding about. “It” had a lot to do with how I experienced relating. Relating that really was only barely real within a more narrow context of the lack of it really. A lack of connection. An approach-avoidance dilemma that had a been a theme in my life all of my life.
“It” was about to begin again courtesy of my experience with the first psychiatrist I ever saw. A psychiatrist that I only saw this one time, at his request, not at my seeking him out. Just this one time – just long enough to be summoned and dismissed before I knew what hit me. “It” began again there. “It” began again there in a way that mirrored my lack of relationship with my parents. I had been invited in only to be pushed out. So unclear to me, yet so familiar. Abandonment. Rejection. Invalidation. That psychiatrist would remind me so much of my father. ”It” was all just beginning again. “It” was intensifying in a much more pervasive and palpable way than “it” had ever unfolded before.
He was about to give me my first experience with the stigma of mental illness, generally, and Borderline Personality Disorder, specifically. He threw those three words at me with disgust, “You have, Borderline Personality Disorder“. He literally threw my already thick hospital file toward me in an arching fashion and it crashed onto the round table that sat between us with a body-jarring thud. He seemed to garner some pleasure from his provoking display of both punitive power and judgment. He was angry. He was aggressive. He wasn’t kind or caring. He announced that they, meaning, I guess, every mental health professional in that entire hospital couldn’t help me. He inferred I should just go away. I remember thinking, he doesn’t even know me, how could he treat me this way. What had I done to deserve this?
He may not have known me. However from my hospital (out-patient) records he obviously knew more about “me” than I did. I didn’t know much about who I was or how others experienced me. I didn’t know that then, but, that would be become painfully obvious years later.
That was my introduction to a diagnosis not really sought, not professionally given or communicated. That was my introduction to systemic rejection, systemic abandonment, systemic invalidation, and it devastated me. It was devastating in a bland and rather numb way. I was angry as hell but I didn’t really feel much. I wanted to punch his lights out. I remember literally sitting on my hands. I was full of rage. His judgment challenged me inside. It was like he had rung some proverbial bell that I felt compelled to answer. I immediately felt agitated. I had this massive adrenalin rush that I knew would be futile and dangerous to answer. Still my body began to shake. I held my breath. I was reacting to his dismissal of me. I didn’t really understand or care much about what he’d just told me. How could I? There was no explanation. I had no understanding of what he had just told me. In some ways I knew way more than I was aware of. In other ways, I was clueless.
It was the summer of 1975. I was a month away from starting College having just escaped my abusive and dysfunctional family that summer at the age of 17. I had no idea who I was or what I was supposed to do or how to function or relate to people. All I really knew was I wasn’t ever going to know me if I lived with them – my family.
Those three words, Borderline Personality Disorder, were not known then, as they are today. There was no internet. There wasn’t the plethora of books that are out there now. The words though they seemed to be thrown at me in some punishing and rejecting way really meant nothing to me. I had no way to find out what they meant. I didn’t even ask. I didn’t ask the doctor and I didn’t ask anyone else. Though I knew rage well, there were these long periods of quiet desperate suffering deep inside. The times when I felt so far away from any reaction inside. Times when it felt as if I had just curled up into a fetal position somewhere deep inside.
I was lost. I didn’t exist. I was too busy just trying to survive all that I had no skills to cope with to even stop to consider what those three words meant. I quickly and intensely vacillated between feeling four years old and feeling so tough that no one could get the better of me. I was competently-incompetent. Living in a world of illusion and delusion that was for me, my reality.
Where “it” all began again was also the place where “it” was again going to escape the “me” that I wasn’t.
For the next 12 years of my life I wouldn’t ever again think of those three words. I didn’t ever hear those words spoken to me despite seeing numerous therapists over this period of time. I was always a seeker. I continued to seek. Problem was I had no clue as to what it was I was seeking after. I was in search of answers to questions that I hadn’t yet even contemplated. Life in the dark. Life in the bright-light of an enduring darkness.
There was no connection in those 12 years, for me, between those three words and my intense lostness and incredible emotional suffering. Nothing, nothing, existed, really, nothing other than an abandoned and disconnected free-floating anxiety that was the partner of my rage.
Blindly I went on. Somehow, I went on. Failing miserably. Lost. Disconnected. Alienated. Lonely. Feeling the incredible pain of numbness. A searing lack of sensation that alternated with an abundance of sensations, terrifying sensations played out in my body in most distressing ways.
Blindly I went on dysfunctioning my way, in circles, through what should have been one of the most wonderful and exciting times of my life – my 20′s. Gone. Lost. Lost to three words that had no meaning or context to me. There wasn’t any information. There wasn’t any help. There wasn’t any support. There wasn’t any enduring connectedness. There wasn’t any sense of direction. There wasn’t any stable sense of identity for me.
For the next 12 years of my life I saw one mental health professional after another, too many to tally really. Surely, those three words were following me around on paper? No one ever mentioned them again to me in those years. All that seeking. 12 years worth of seeking in circles. Seeking in the dark. Being kept in the dark. A dark most familiar. And yet a dark that was often, at times, also equally most suddenly strange.
Darkness that held both the coldest-warmth and the warmest-cold of significant-insignificance within the lostness of a self aborted. An aborted self that in its own death was fighting for its life.
The dark ages of Borderline Personality Disorder ushered in my failure to transition successfully through yet another stage of life development. I remained, oblivious that I was, a frustrated and wounded child in search of a mother.
© A.J. Mahari, and Phoenix Rising Publications – May 8, 2010 – All rights reserved.
Join my email list and you will be able to join me in free conference calls and ask me your questions about BPD and BPD Recovery.
Join my email list and you will be able to join me in free conference calls and ask me your questions about BPD and BPD Recovery.
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