This would be a good time to remind people that I am working towards in recovery and areas of my life that use to cause incredible chaos are much tamer now as I have realized that there is consequences to my actions no matter the size. That being said the last person in the world you want to get in an argument with is someone with Borderline Personality Disorder for we never lose and we have had a lot of practice.

I don’t fight fair and I know it and for those poor souls who caught me at the wrong time are very well aware of this. See the Borderline Personality Disorder self image is basically a series of wooden blocks stacked upon each other so if you are able to prove one area wrong then the whole tower is going to shake which I could not allow for if my tower crumbled then there would be nothing left as everything is basically a series of illusions and false self images that are not held together very well. So when some one “appears” to be going after my core belief I was going to bite and some days it did not take much as my perception was right out of whack. An example might be that your questioning my performance on a work assignment but my brain does not take it like your talking about one small area but sees it as “He/she says I messed up the report so that must mean he or she thinks I mess up everything which means I am a useless person”. So the other person may think we are talking/arguing about one area but I see it as a full on battle and act what my brain believes is accordingly. Once the person is in this mind frame then a rage is set off which are never pretty. Here are some guidelines:

1) It does not matter what you say because I am not listening as the only thing that matters is I get my point across. All the facts in the world will not make a difference for my perspective just sees my viewpoint.

2) Nothing is off limits. The second I believed that you were “attacking” me everything became fair game. At the end of this I need to still be able to appear as the better person and the easiest way to do this is by destroying you. A lot of rages also carry the intention of making the person leave the BPDs life so potential consequences really do not matter as that person is gone anyway. What made me good as a social worker also fueled my confrontations as I can find weak spots rather quickly and one side of my life it was used to make the person stronger on the other side it was basically used to destroy them.

3) The only thing that matters is the moment that I am in. I told you yesterday that I loved you and now I am telling you that I hate you makes complete sense in my world as what happened before does not carry any weight with me.

4) I will use everything from the past against you. Part of the survival techniques that were developed a long time ago was to read people and remember what they said. If a persons demeanor suddenly changed I would be ready to act and if a persons story started to change or red flags were jumping out this was stored so I could use this information to my advantage whether to take it to severe the relationship with this person, ready to run or to use it in any confrontation that may happen. My memory is very good and seems to remember anything that I took as negative for example someone on one of the forums I participate on said something I did not like a year ago then spent the next year saying the complete opposite my brain will not allow me to forget the one negative comment.

5) I may not always be right but I am never wrong.

Confrontations have many different levels. There are confrontations that I plan long in advance such as the one that is coming up with my doctor but this type is the safest of the bunch as I have complete control over it. I know what I want to say, I know what he is going to say and I know how I am going to respond so basically I am rehearsing a conversation well in advance. How close I stick to the script will depend where I am mentally and emotionally that day which is why I tend to write out most of them to make sure it does not go to far and that it is coming from a logic standpoint and not an emotional one.

The worst confrontations are the ones you just don’t remember. I remember how it started and I remember the aftermath but nothing in between and it is a neat trick trying to justify something that you have no idea what took place. There were people in my life who will now not come near me due to a bad confrontation that I don’t remember happening. The stories I hear from others what happened I had trouble believing for a long time that I actually said that.

Well there is the nasty side of my personality and I am glad to say it has come a long way. There have been small flare ups here and there but usually it happens when I have allowed my stress level to get to high. I think the last one was in the hospital a number of months ago as some nurse said I should not be counseling patients and I responded with “I wouldn’t have too if you knew how to do your job”. The nurse did the right thing by walking away as it had the potential of getting ugly really quickly. Don’t argue with someone in the middle of a BPD rage as there is no point and the best thing to do is leave the situation and wait for the person to return to a more rational position when they will actually listen to what you are saying.

As I have mentioned numerous times through out this blog there is no such thing as a typical Borderliners as we do share some certain tendencies but the rest run the scales. There are people who constantly have black out rages but there are many more which this never occurs. Take care

Related posts:

1. Borderline Personality Disorder Test
2. BPD Awareness Month – The Borderline Personality Disorder Test
3. If 2 Plus 2 Equals 5 Then It Better Be The Same Tomorrow
4. Judgemental People Piss Me Off
5. Reading Between The Lines
6. A New Comment That I Need To Address
7. A Open Book
8. Mental Health Diagnosis
9. Repost Online Dating And Mental Illness
10. Highs And Lows Of BPD