A New Name

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  1. Paul Huxley
    Sep 01 - 4:18 pm

    My wife is diagnosed BPD (which is a poor name – Emotional Intensity Disorder is a potential replacement). She’s definitely improved since the STEPPS programme, which is largely CBT-based.

  2. Emma
    Sep 01 - 4:27 pm

    Thanks Paul – I’ve updated the post with your suggestion and any other comments or observations would be hugely welcome. Glad to hear that the STEPPS programme has been helping too.

  3. Paul Huxley
    Sep 02 - 9:42 am

    Well, I’ll share a bit since someone may well find their way to this page who’s struggling with it.

    I think the key skill Adele learnt was to notice the way her emotions are heading. Once you notice that, you can do something about it simply to get it roughly under control – just avoiding things getting worse.

    This is clearly not the perfect solution – it doesn’t deal with motivations, the heart and other things that make the condition worse. But unless you do this, you’re not going to sleep at night, you’ll wear yourself out with shouting/crying etc. Which is going to keep the cycle going.

    Over time, you can then start addressing the assumptions that drive some of the feelings and start challenging them.

    One particularly common ‘filter’ as they’re called in STEPPS, is fear of abandonment. This really is a viscious cycle as it leads to mega-clinginess in a relationship. Then the partner is stuck – either run with it and see no one else for weeks on end, or risk enforcing the belief that’s creating the behaviour. And if someone chooses the former, unless they’re really committed, they’ll get fed up and leave.

    I looked at some website forums for partners of BPDers and the advice was atrocious. ‘Get out now’ they said (or screamed). I understand why, but it’s selfish and cowardly (not to mention not being an option if you’re married).

    Really committed, stable, loving relationships will probably do more than anything else for someone suffering from BPD/EID. But they’re really hard to find.

    Finally – there is one positive thing about the emotional intensity. Because occasionally the emotions are positive ones, appropriate and joyful. It can lead to crazy fun moments like dancing in torrential rain watching fireworks explode from the top of a hill. But they’re not really crazy – it’s those who stay inside just because of a bit of water who are crazy.

  4. Emma
    Sep 02 - 4:18 pm

    Paul, this is tremendously helpful. Thank-you.

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