The Role of Consistency in Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder

Yes! Absolutely but it requires treatment. Bpd does not mean someone has a few emotional issues. Bpd is major mental illness and they require targeted therapy like DBT for a minimum of 7–10 years before they will notice any major stability. I’ve known several pwbpd who have never stopped going to treatment because they will relapse and regress if they do. Bpd is not the only disorder that requires years of commitment to heal from! I’m personally a recovered addict (18 years sober) with significant war related ptsd. I still go to weekly NA 12 step groups and still see my therapist.

The only 3 things a borderline needs to do to recover is GO TO TARGETED TREATMENT LIKE DBT, GO TO TREATMENT CONSISTENTLY (you make every appointment like your life depends on it), AND TRY WITH A POSITIVE WILLING ATTITUDE. That’s literally all you have to do to heal!

There are several things that make pwbpd very hard to treat. They have trouble following through with things, when they don’t like something they run away or they turn a mole hill into a mountain, they can be extremely combative/ argumentative when they get upset, they have extreme black and white thinking, they often see themselves as the victim and everyone else as narcissistic abusers who stigmatize them, they constantly self sabotage, and the worst is magical thinking.

Look, every human on earth has a little magical thinking. It’s fair to call religion magical thinking even though I tend to believe faith and a moral foundation are good things regardless of your religion. Pwbpd do not have a stable sense of self and in many cases they have no self (no identity). This means they are classified as HIGHLY SUGGESTIBLE (easily influenced) because they don’t know who they are as people. Borderlines actually look for partners who they think will provide stability and they mirror them often liking and believing in the same things. They are drawn to people and groups who promise them a fast easy fix. I’ve watched clients dump tens of thousands in self help gurus and life coaches to only end up worse and in huge debt. I’ve known a lot of borderlines who end up in either enmeshed relationships, cultish groups, or very extreme (rigid) belief systems.

I’ve seen magical thinking destroy a borderlines recovery more than any other factor. They are drawn to things like psychics, tero cards, palm readers, astrology, manifestation, and basically any type of holistic alternative that offers them an external locus of control. Then they will live their entire life governed by the belief that external forces control them and take no accountability for their own choices. I’ve seen them do it with religion, where they go so overboard that everything now becomes gods will. Every choice is a prayer and every decision is completely governed by external forces or beliefs (it’s all gods will even when they screw up). Look, I’m not knocking beliefs or holistic therapies. If you get some comfort from those things then that’s great. But there’s a HUGE HUGE HUGE difference between a healthy adult who sees the occasional palm reader compared to a borderline who decides to marry someone cause a stranger told them they found their soul mate. Holistic therapies are literally as destructive and dangerous to a borderline as crack to a hard core addict. You’ll probably see some fairly sick untreated borderlines try to defend themselves in the comments or attack me because they need to believe that their magical thinking is true.

My greatest frustration is that toxic untreated borderlines are so dependent on their magical thinking that they will literally throw away an opportunity at real recovery to follow a fantasy. I’m here to tell you that no amount of faith, of manifestation, of astrology or tero card readings will have any positive effect on severe mental illness like bpd! This always triggers toxic untreated borderlines because they need to believe that they aren’t in control. They desperately want someone else to tell them how to live and what to do because they don’t have a stable sense of self (they NEED that external control and validation). All you codependent partners who stick with your toxic untreated borderline and keep forgiving them, overlooking bad behaviors, saying they can’t help it, ENABLING them are making them sicker which is also abuse. If it weren’t for all the rescuing/ caretaking codependent enablers pwbpd would be forced to face their illness far sooner. Both partners in the relationships are unwell even though the codependent is always the one picking up the pieces and being abused.

My point is that in almost 14 years of treating Pwbpd I’ve never seen any of them get better from anything less than long term targeted therapy! In fact, they often get far sicker by getting into holistic nonsense and self help courses because they actually apply what they learn and think is making them better. When you have a major mental illness like bpd you have a handicap and you need to learn coping skills. Imagine a professional cross country team who brings in a running couch to teach them better ways to run. Now imagine one person on that team has a prosthetic leg. The runner with the fake leg needs to learn COMPLETELY different skills based on their handicap to improve (there’s no shame in it). A borderline isn’t stable, has no identity or at best a very unstable self hating one, they are emotionally disregulated, raging, they discard, they idealize and devalue, they have bouts of psychosis, they often self harm, they have magical thinking to the extreme, they have black and white thinking! Bpd is possibly one of the most extreme mental illnesses on the planet and it requires significant work from a trained professional to even begin to learn basic coping skills and self soothing techniques. So please do not try to tell me your energy yoga group cured major mental illness 🙄.

As a recovered addict, I spent my first year of sobriety in agony. I would be in my daily 12 step NA group shaking or running to the bathroom to puke my guts out. Recovery was hard as hell but it also saved my life. I’ve never once in the history of the world heard of an addict who healed from a psychic reading, self help books, or astrology. The 12 steps does ask that you find a higher power greater than yourself to believe in, but that’s one step out of 12! The other 11 steps are all internal work that have nothing to do with a higher power. Bpd is just as damaging as severe addiction (a lot of borderlines are addicts). I honestly don’t know if the 12 steps will work for bpd but I do know DBT therapy is proven to work if the borderline commits. The problem is that it’s so so so rare for a borderline to stick with anything they don’t like. Most my clients come to 2–4 sessions and then disappear. Two of my friends actually stopped working with cluster b clients because it was too inconsistent and they couldn’t pay their bills.

I know most borderlines truly believe the world stigmatizes them, therapist hate them, people are mean to them for no reason other than the fact that they are diagnosed with bpd. I’ve never once seen a borderline judged without first doing or saying something toxic or abusive. No one cares what your diagnosed with! People care how you treat them and how you behave (PERIOD). Borderlines have a EARNED REPUTATION for being toxic, abusive, difficult, and hurtful because they are toxic, abusive, difficult, and hurtful. Doctors do not hand out bpd diagnosis to someone whose got a couple issues. The only way you’ve been diagnosed bpd is if you are extremely toxic, unstable, and severely mentally ill. It’s a very very big deal to get diagnosed bpd.

I’m not judging borderlines! We all have our own demons to fight and unfortunately borderlines are forced to carry a massive amount of issues. Still, treatment is out there and all you need to do is commit to healing. I get so tired of excuses from borderlines. I’ll hear nonsense like “it’s expensive, doctors won’t see me, I can’t find help, therapist are terrible, treatment doesn’t work.” This is always from very low functioning extremely toxic borderlines who refuse to take any accountability for themselves. I’ll get clients who come in crying saying no one ever supported them only to find out that 20–30 discarded people gave everything they had and more to help the borderline. A very tragic part of bpd is their victim complex and need to see themselves as the victim (not all borderlines do this but most do). Some pwbpd are walking around 24/7 blaming themselves for everything. Still, taking accountability isn’t blaming yourself! Taking accountability is realizing there’s a problem and taking action to fix that problem. Pwbpd rarely take accountability because they know they are mentally ill but they refuse treatment. Borderlines also don’t communicate or understand terms properly. They talk about guilt when they really only feel shame (toxic levels of shame). True guilt is designed to motivate us to change. You cannot say you have felt guilty for years while simultaneously doing nothing to change your behavior. That’s called being ashamed and being embarrassed but not guilt. A person with true genuine guilt will take action to change their behaviors!

My point is to simply stop making excuses and get into targeted therapy! If you don’t have money ask family or charities. I personally took out a loan for $50,000 on my house which caused 7 years of debt so I could go to treatment. So please don’t cry to me about it being hard. If you can’t find a therapist get on Google and start searching for cluster b therapist in your area or over telehealth. I’ll get so many borderlines who gave up after making one phone call to someone who wouldn’t take their insurance. Look, do you want to heal or do you want to complain and make excuses? I know this might feel harsh but some of you need someone to stop coddling you. I’ve known several borderlines who were at rock bottom (as toxic as you can get). They decided no matter what they were going to stay single and heal (not date again until they were stable). The ones who committed are happy and healthy. You will only get out of recovery what you put into it. Just showing up is not enough! Imagine someone who wants to put on 30 lbs of muscle. They hire and personal trainer and go to the gym everyday but when it comes time to lift the weights out poor the excuses. That person could go to the gym for 50 years and not make any improvement. Recovery for bpd is the exact same! You must listen to the therapist and be willing and motivated to do all the work which will feel uncomfortable and hard (sorry, treatment is work).

Do not go to therapy with this weeks new drama or crisis. That will also completely halt recovery. To heal from bpd you must be willing to look at yourself and face many issues you’ve been carrying around your entire life. You won’t even start healing if you focus each session on drama and relationship problems. Personally I think all borderlines should be single the first 2 years of treatment otherwise they tend to focus on their issues with their partner. Or worse, their codependent partner enables them and it sabotages their recovery. All this is to say anyone can recover but you must make the choice to heal and be willing to bust your ass otherwise you’re wasting everyone else’s time and energy! If you really want to heal make the CHOICE that come hell or high water you’ll do whatever it takes to recover!