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[content warning: discussion of rages, self-injury, suicidality, and abusive behavior]
Being borderline– not for everyone, but for most people– makes it harder not to hurt people.
One of the most iconic symptoms of borderline personality disorder is rages. They often come on suddenly, with other people having no idea what set them off. The borderline may cry, throw things, scream, insult people, hurl profanity, break possessions, threaten to leave their partners; some may even be violent. And then as quickly as the rage started, it subsides, and the borderline may be as horrified as anyone else at their behavior.
Even if they don’t rage, borderlines may have other difficulties with not harming others. For instance, most borderlines are suicidal or self-harm: out of fear that the borderline might harm themselves, people the borderline knows might find it difficult to set boundaries about how much time they’re willing to spend comforting the borderline, whether they give them money, or other subjects. Because it feels like being abandoned every time their friends go somewhere without them, borderlines may feel tempted to isolate people they’re close to. Many borderlines “test” people they’re close to (for instance, by giving them the silent treatment to see if they will initiate conversation on their own). Many borderlines are incredibly possessive. Moving away from the field of interpersonal relationships, most borderlines are impulsive, and sometimes this can lead to damaging others: for instance, driving recklessly can injure or even kill other people, and getting high while babysitting is risky for the child you’re taking care of.
This is a thought a lot of people are uncomfortable with. We know that you can have difficulties walking, or hearing, or turning in papers on time, or reading, but a lot of people seem to have this odd idea that it’s impossible to have an impairment in morality.
So I’ve noticed a couple different ways people try to resolve the conflict. First, many people demonize borderlines. It’s not that we’re people with a disability that makes it harder for us not to hurt others: it’s that we’re Inherently Evil. Some people claim that when borderlines self-harm it’s not a product of real pain, but just “manipulation” and “attention-seeking”. (Of course, if you need attention so badly you’re willing to cut yourself open for it, I’m… pretty sure you’re in some serious pain.) This ignores the obvious fact that many borderlines don’t want to hurt other people; indeed, borderlines whose emotions are not dysregulated are notoriously compassionate. For a lot of people, it’s not like they wake up in the morning and go “I know! I’m going to rage at my partner today!”; they just don’t know how else to handle anger.
Second, many people pretend that this is not an issue. For instance, they may claim that the idea that borderlines are sometimes awful people is “borderline stigma”. Of course, borderline personality disorder is very stigmatized. But the behavior I’m talking about wasn’t made up for Leaving The Horrible Bitch Demoness You’re Shackled To: A Guide For Innocent Nons Who Have Never Done Anything Wrong In Their Whole Entire Lives. A lot of it is literally in the diagnostic criteria: inappropriate, intense anger; substance abuse and reckless driving; recurrent suicidal behavior and self-harm. And the rest is well-attested in the literature, even by sympathetic people like Marsha Linehan.
Third, some people pretend that there’s not a problem with borderlines’ behavior. This is, for some reason, a very popular strategy on BPD Tumblr, large portions of which seem to be under the impression that not being okay with people screaming insults at you or needing to talk to you every thirty minutes is ableist. This is absurd. I do not intend to use moral culpability language here: I don’t think it’s particularly helpful. But the fact of the matter is that it is very difficult for us not to yell at or cling to people and sometimes it might even seem impossible– and it will cause harm to people we care about if we do it, not to mention causing other people to dislike us and maybe even try out that abandonment we were trying to avoid. That is not ableist or people falsely accusing borderlines of being abusive. It is a perfectly reasonable preference set.
I think it is hurtful for borderlines when people don’t realize that a lot of us have a hard time not hurting people, and it’s not because we’re evil. For one thing, the amount of work many borderlines put into not hurting people goes unrecognized. It literally does not occur to many people that not having rages is hard. Why would it? Most people have gone through their whole entire lives never having a rage because their partner bought the wrong kind of peanut butter. The amount of personal growth, self-awareness, and inner strength it takes to go “oh that fucker, I’m going to KILL– okay, deep breath, don’t do anything yet, check the facts, those are thoughts they’re not reality, now we’re going to go do jumping jacks to happy music until we’re calm” goes entirely unrecognized.
For another, it can be very invalidating of our guilt. I’ve done things that hurt people, some of whom I loved very much. I feel guilty about this. That’s okay! It’s not unreasonable or a sign of my irrational guilt complex that I feel guilty about hurting people I care about; that is what people are actually supposed to feel guilty about. But if you don’t realize that this is an experience most borderlines have, you can treat their perfectly justified guilt like it’s a sign of their mental illness.
I feel like having to accept that it is harder for me to not hurt people has made it easier for me to accept other demanding moral premises. For instance, some people have argued that vegan ideologies are ableist because many people are disabled and can’t go vegan. My reaction to this is mostly “yeah, so?” Many people can’t go vegan, and not going vegan leads to the horrific suffering of thousands of animals. Both can be true.
//For instance, some people have argued that vegan ideologies are ableist because many people are disabled and can’t go vegan.//
What? I… I can’t really wrap my head around this. O.o.
//Many people can’t go vegan, and not going vegan leads to the horrific suffering of thousands of animals. Both can be true.//
Indeed.
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This may be folk virtue ethics. “Meat eating is bad” virtue_ethics_equal “meat eaters are bad people”. Calling someone who can’t act otherwise because of their disability a bad person is bad, and is therefore done by a bad person.
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Do you have a ritual or a standard procedure for damage control at times when you’re not able to control yourself?
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Speaking as a mostly-well-balanced individual (possible Aspergers and dark moods aside), I suspect it’s not so much that people have difficulty with the concept of being impaired morally – most people grasp the notion of psychopaths through that modality, even though it’s not strictly accurate.
I think it’s more that we’re taught over and over that “sick” people aren’t “bad” for their sickness, and in the case of sicknesses that affect behaviour, the line between the sickness and the person’s personal morality is much harder to draw than with, say, a cold.
But sometimes, as you say, the borderline’s behaviour would normally be interpreted as kind of terrible, so we have this moral intuition that the person is terrible. But they’re sick, so they’re not terrible. And this results in confusion, with people taking various means to resolve this confusion – denying the sickness as a legitimate excuse, giving the person a free pass, or whatever.
*shrug* Just my thoughts.
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When you’re running into issues that are sort of intrinsic to who someone is.
If I’m missing a leg and I get a prosthetic who I am doesn’t change much.
If I’m deaf and someone gives me a cochlear implant who I am doesn’t change much.
If I’m perfectly able bodied and someone gives me an implant to allow me to see microwaves who I am doesn’t change much.
But adjust my morality more than a tiny bit and I’d quickly become unrecognizable from the inside. Remove chunks of my existing morality and I don’t think I’d even like the person created. Add chunks and again… I wouldn’t be very much me.
Not sure how best to define this but I might phrase it as “if my mind was copied and this trait was edited out the copy wouldn’t be me very much”
For example if you took an autistic person and edited out all the unusual obsessions and edited in a good system 1 for judging social situations and various other additions then the person would quickly have trouble recognizing themselves as the same person on the inside rather than a construct which happens to share many memories.
What does the statement that “this person is terrible” even mean if we’re not counting what’s inside someones head?
yes there may me a section in the DSM that gives a name to ,say ,the category of people who don’t feel guilt when they hunt, kill and eat someone but does that mean that they’re all Hunky Dorey and shouldn’t perhaps be viewed as terrible for eating all those teenagers or scamming elderly people out of their life savings.
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Wonderful post.
My sister had BPD and it took me years (both in our fifties) to adequately (i.e., without too much distress or cognitive dissonance) parse all that intersubjectivity and see the whole ball of wax as acceptable in most directions.
The hardest thing was learning to name damage as damage, to draw compassionate lines, say “no, that is not OK with me”, yet still give her full recognition, my admiration, and–in the biggest picture–rights.
As I am just exploring “effective altruism”, “rationality” and its connecting filaments in ethics, philosophy, religion, and computer science, I have a better appreciation in this “modern” world for some of those ancient tropes of compassion and understanding (“love thy neighbor” “life is suffering”), which seem deeper and wiser than they did when I was young and smart.
On a practical note, the most useful mental shortcut I came up with (to help with my behavior toward my sister) was of seeing her as having been born (no fault of her own) with some sharp objects sticking out of her, that could cause both others and her pain (like that Marvel character Wolverine, but without the righteousness or victimization).
Thanks.
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Yes, you might want to check out my blog. I mention the same things. I do add humor, too. Humor helps me. BPD is painful 😦
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