Category Archives: Psychology

Is Your Girlfriend Struggling with Borderline Personality Disorder?

Beautiful woman with a sledgehammer breaks the huge heart into splinters and upset man falls on his knees. (Used clipping mask)

Dating a Woman with Borderline Personality Disorder.

Women who suffer from BPD (borderline personality disorder) can profoundly affect the quality of their significant others’ lives. One minute, everything is fine, and the next, you feel as if you are walking on eggshells. You never know how she will react to a situation or to you; will it be with love or anger? Being with her can make you feel helpless and unable to cope. At times, you may want to end it, but simultaneously, you may feel addicted to her. Usually, the relationship is an intense one.

It is estimated that more than six million people in the U.S. have borderline personality disorder, and these individuals greatly impact the lives of at least 30 million others. There is some controversy regarding how many women might have BPD compared to men. Older studies suggest a 75/25 ratio, while newer studies indicate a 53/47 split. The ratio of my caseload is about 75/25, which is why I am writing this article.

What is borderline personality disorder  (BPD)?

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a mental health condition that affects an individual’s thoughts and emotions towards themselves and others, leading to difficulties in daily life. It is characterized by unstable and intense relationships, distorted self-perception, extreme emotions, and impulsive behaviors.

Individuals with BPD typically experience a strong fear of abandonment or instability, and they may find it challenging to be alone. However, their inappropriate anger, impulsive actions, and frequent mood swings can make it difficult for them to maintain meaningful and lasting relationships, despite their desire to do so.

The reason men often find themselves trapped in relationships with women who have borderline personality disorder is due to their ability to make their partners feel special and alive. Their intensity can be infectious, almost like a drug. At the beginning, you may want to be with her all the time, possibly even considering her your soulmate after a very short amount of time. Many times, the sexual chemistry is overwhelming. These women may also make you feel sorry for them, leading you to believe that only you can save them. Then, they might suddenly pull the rug out from under you.

You may feel on top of the world, having met the love of your life, only for her to abruptly push you away. When she pulls away, you may experience a painful withdrawal and yearn to have her back in your life. Then, just as suddenly, she comes back, and you feel like you are with that incredible person again. Unfortunately, the cycle usually starts all over again. This pattern can negatively impact your self-esteem, and you may find yourself obsessing about her constantly.

Here are some red flags that your girlfriend may have BPD (borderline personality Disorder.)

  • Dоеѕ she immediately ореn up tо you about abuse in her раѕt?
  • Dоеѕ ѕhе trаѕh her еx-bоуfriеnd or ex-husband even bеfоrе уоu hardly get tоknow her? Dоеѕ ѕhе ѕееm tо go on and on аbоut her еx and how he ruined her life?
  • Dоеѕ ѕhе have an intense bad relationship with her parents? Especially with her mother.
  • Is she always ѕауing bad things аbоut her раrеntѕ tо you? Does she blame her parents for all of her problems?
  • Does she seem to want tо move the rеlаtiоnѕhiр forward at a very quick pace? Maybe showing an intеrеѕt in moving in with you very early in the relationship?
  • Has she suffered or is currently suffering from an eating disorder?
  • Dоеѕ ѕhе have temper tantrums in front of уоu and others?
  • Dоеѕ ѕhе start horrible уеlling fights with уоu and when you try tо lеаvе she bеgѕ for уоu tо stay?
  • Has she bought you extravagant gifts early in the relationship?
  • Is she willing tо еxрlоrе risky ѕеxuаl behaviors?
  • Dоеѕ ѕhе аbuѕе drugs or аlсоhоl?
  • Does ѕhе ѕееm very quick to fall in love with уоu and almost view уоu аѕ her knight in shining аrmоr?
  • Does she have a difficult time being friends with оthеr women?
  • Does she have a lot of associates she calls friends?
  • Is she always busy?
  • Dоеѕ it lооk like a lot of bad things kеер hарреning tо her? Thrown out by her boyfriend, trouble with finаnсеѕ, trouble maintaining a job, еtс?
  • Dоеѕ ѕhе ѕееm to have very compelling excuses and rеаѕоning that explains why these bad things have happened tо her (example, her еx-bоуfriеnd made her run up her сrеdit саrd debts, and that’s why her credit is bad)

If she has one or even two of these traits, it’s probably alright. But if its more than that, it is probably something to look into.

You also may want to check out another list from Boomerang Love

How to Cope with the Woman with BPD

Dating a woman with borderline personality disorder is exhausting and соnfuѕing. This is because they lасk a ѕеnѕе of who thеу are. One minute she might think of hеrѕеlf as a rеаl реrѕоn and the next minute think of herself аѕ evil and flawed. Thoughts аbоut other реорlе fluctuate rарidlу, as well. She might want to trust others, but at the ѕаmе time, she dоеѕn’t think other реорlе are trustworthy. All of this confusion саn lеаvе her fееling empty, sad, and hollow inside.

The best way to cope is to try to understand what BPD is and how it is affecting you. Learn as much as you can about BPD, its symptoms, and what a sufferer of BPD goes through. Most importantly, take care of yourself first and do not take it personally. A qualified therapist can help you understand what is going on. They can also help you see if you can set boundaries and reduce the drama. A good therapist should be able to give you some strategies on how to try to change the dynamic of the relationship. Remember, you can only do so much since she has to work with you. If it appears it is not changing, do some deep soul searching and ask yourself, “Will I ever get what I need out of this relationship?”

As you can see, there is no winning with someone with BPD. It will always be an intense push-pull. One day you may feel you have it figured out, and the next day you are back where you started from. Will the drama ever stop? Unfortunately, many times these relationships cannot be salvaged.

Usually, these relationships will end in one of two ways. The most common is that she will just cut you off. Suddenly, she won’t talk to you; it’s as if the relationship never happened, almost as if you never existed. She may block your phone and make you feel like a bad person just because you want closure. Other times, if you try to end it, they will not let go and create drama. Sometimes they may even stalk you. Usually, it is not an easy ending.

Why People Care More About Pets Than Other Humans

We love our pets. Two thirds of Americans live with an animal, and according to a 2011 Harris poll, 90 percent of pet owners think of their dogs and cats as members of the family. These relationships have benefits. For example, in a survey by the American Animal Hospital Association, 40 percent of married female dog owners reported they received more emotional support from their pet than from their husband or their kids. The pet products industry calls this “the humanization of pets.” One of my colleagues recently spent $12,000 on cancer treatments for her best friend Asha, a Labrador retriever.

More

Break Bad Habits by Changing Your Environment

By Thorin Klosowski From Life Hacker

We know that different types of triggers can cause us to fall back into certain habits, but actually doing something about that is harder than it seems. Over on NPR, a handful of psychologists explain how altering a physical place can help you break bad habits.

Over time, we integrate our habits into our environment and the environment itself becomes a trigger. The trigger itself isn’t always obvious either, sometimes it’s nothing more than a door:

“For a smoker, the view of the entrance to their office building — which is a place that they go to smoke all the time — becomes a powerful mental cue to go and perform that behavior,” Neal says.

Over time those cues become so deeply ingrained that they are very hard to resist. And so we smoke at the entrance to work when we don’t want to. We sit on the couch and eat ice cream when we don’t need to, despite our best intentions, despite our resolutions…

To battle bad behaviors then, one answer is to disrupt the environment in some way. Even small changes can help — like eating the ice cream with your nondominant hand. What this does is disrupt the learned body sequence that’s driving the behavior, which allows your conscious mind to come back online and reassert control.

Of course, adapting to your triggers is going to be different, but if you’re struggling to get into a good habit (or break a bad one), look around and see if you can do things a little differently.

What Heroin Addiction Tells Us About Changing Bad Habits | NPR

 

Do Dogs Grieve Over a Lost Loved One?

Psychology Today: Here to Help 

Do Dogs Grieve Over a Lost Loved One?

Can dogs comprehend the meaning of death and do they grieve because of it?

The Psychological Comforts of Storytelling

The Atlantic:

When an English archaeologist named George Smith was 31 years old, he became enchanted with an ancient tablet in the British Museum. Years earlier, in 1845, when Smith was only a five-year-old boy, Austen Henry Layard, Henry Rawlinson, and Hormuzd Rassam began excavations across what is now Syria and Iraq. In the subsequent years they discovered thousands of stone fragments, which they later discovered made up 12 ancient tablets. But even after the tablet fragments had been pieced together, little had been translated. The 3,000-year-old tablets remained nearly as mysterious as when they had been buried in the ruins of Mesopotamian palaces.

An alphabet, not a language, cuneiform is incredibly difficult to translate, especially when it is on tablets that have been hidden in Middle Eastern sands for three millennia. The script is shaped triangularly (cuneus means “wedge” in Latin) and the alphabet consists of more than 100 letters. It is used to write in Sumerian, Akkadian, Urartian, or Hittite, depending on where, when, and by whom it was written. It is also an alphabet void of vowels, punctuation, and spaces between words.

Even so, Smith decided he would be the man to crack the code. Propelled by his interests in Assyriology and biblical archaeology, Smith, who was employed as a classifier by the British Museum, taught himself Sumerian and literary Akkadian.

Read the whole story: The Atlantic

Childhood psychological abuse as harmful as sexual or physical abuse

From Medical News Today 10/10/2014

Children who are emotionally abused and neglected face similar and sometimes worse mental health problems as children who are physically or sexually abused, yet psychological abuse is rarely addressed in prevention programs or in treating victims, according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association.

“Given the prevalence of childhood psychological abuse and the severity of harm to young victims, it should be at the forefront of mental health and social service training,” said study lead author Joseph Spinazzola, PhD, of The Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute, Brookline, Massachusetts. The article appears in a special online issue of the APA journal Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy.

Researchers used the National Child Traumatic Stress Network Core Data Set to analyze data from 5,616 youths with lifetime histories of one or more of three types of abuse: psychological maltreatment (emotional abuse or emotional neglect), physical abuse and sexual abuse. The majority (62 percent) had a history of psychological maltreatment, and nearly a quarter (24 percent) of all the cases were exclusively psychological maltreatment, which the study defined as care-giver inflicted bullying, terrorizing, coercive control, severe insults, debasement, threats, overwhelming demands, shunning and/or isolation.

Children who had been psychologically abused suffered from anxiety,depression low self-esteem, symptoms of post-traumatic and suicidality at the same rate and, in some cases, at a greater rate than children who were physically or sexually abused. Among the three types of abuse, psychological maltreatment was most strongly associated with depression, general anxiety disorder,social anxiety disorder>, attachment problems and substance abuse. Psychological maltreatment that occurred alongside physical or sexual abuse was associated with significantly more severe and far-ranging negative outcomes than when children were sexually and physically abused and not psychologically abused, the study found. Moreover, sexual and physical abuse had to occur at the same time to have the same effect as psychological abuse alone on behavioral issues at school, attachment problems and self-injurious behaviors, the research found.

“Child protective service case workers may have a harder time recognizing and substantiating emotional neglect and abuse because there are no physical wounds,” said Spinazzola. “Also, psychological abuse isn’t considered a serious social taboo like physical and sexual child abuse. We need public awareness initiatives to help people understand just how harmful psychological maltreatment is for children and adolescents.”

Nearly 3 million U.S. children experience some form of maltreatment annually, predominantly by a parent, family member or other adult caregiver, according to the U.S. Children’s Bureau. The American Academy of Pediatrics in 2012 identified psychological maltreatment as “the most challenging and prevalent form of child abuse and neglect.”

For the current study, the sample was 42 percent boys and was 38 percent white; 21 percent African-American; 30 percent Hispanic; 7 percent other; and 4 percent unknown. The data were collected between 2004 and 2010 with the average age of the children at the beginning of the collection between 10 and 12 years. Clinicians interviewed the children, who also answered questionnaires to determine behavioral health symptoms and the traumatic events they had experienced. In addition, caregivers responded to a questionnaire with 113 items pertaining to the child’s behavior. Various sources, including clinicians’ reports, provided each child’s trauma history involving psychological maltreatment, physical abuse or sexual abuse.

How a Schedule Can Help You Sleep Better

From Psych Central by Polly Campbell

The fancy digital, pedometer-bracelet thingy around my wrist tells me I slept six hours and 25 minutes with four interruptions. As I struggle to awake, my body can tell you, that isn’t nearly enough.

An estimated 70 million Americans are sleep-deprived, according to the National Sleep Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many nights, I am among them.

Aside from the health risks associated with inadequate sleep, such as depression, memory and attention issues, mood disorders, and the higher risk of physical illness, researchers at the University of Oxford now believe a lack of sleep or poor sleep quality may also contribute to brain shrinkage. That thought alone might keep you up at night.

Sleep is essential to repair and restore the brain, says lead researcher Claire Sexton. If the repair process is interrupted by a sleepless night, brain function also can be affected. In her study, participants who experienced poor sleep also showed brain shrinkage in the three lobes of the brain linked to decision-making, movement, emotions, thoughts, memory and learning, according to the study published in the journal Neurology.

It doesn’t take a study to remind us that sleep is essential, but for many getting a good night’s sleep begins long before bedtime.

Parents of young children talk often and even obsess about how to get their kids to sleep. When my daughter was a toddler, we put her on a sleep schedule.

Every night beginning an hour or so before bed, we followed the same routine, a ritual of sorts, to help her wind down and get primed for sleep. We turned off the television, dressed her in her pajamas, brushed her teeth, snuggled in the rocking chair, read books, and finally, after she was tucked in with lights out, we sang some little songs. By the time we left her room, she was, most nights, ready to rest.

A sleep schedule or consistent sleep-priming routine also can help adults get better sleep. Here are five things to include in your routine:

Turn off all devices. Starting two hours before bed, shut down the smartphones, computers, televisions sets and other electronics that emit blue light waves. This light throws off our natural rhythms, making it harder to sleep.

Eat early and wisely. If you are an evening snacker, nibble on a few crackers and a slice of cheese, or another small protein/carb combo at least two hours before bed. Also lay off caffeine and alcohol in the evening hours.

Turn down the lights. When darkness falls, turn off (or at least dim) the lights in the house. Our bodies are sensitive to the natural day and night light patterns called circadian rhythms. When the sun rises, the light helps us wake up and become alert and our bodies secrete cortisol. When darkness falls, our bodies are infused with sleep-inducing melatonin. But here’s the rub: artificial lighting throws off those biological rhythms, suppresses the release of melatonin, and makes it hard to sleep. Keeping things dark at night and exposing yourself to natural light during the day will help.

Release the niggling negative thoughts.   After you’ve created a sleep-promoting environment, choose a relaxing activity such as meditation, a hot bath, deep breathing exercises, journal writing or something else that allows you to release the day’s stress. Sometimes, I practice mindfulness while brushing my teeth and washing my face as a way to release bad feelings and promote calm.No matter which you choose, do use this time to quietly observe, without judgment, your thoughts and concerns and then release them. This will keep you from ruminating into the early hours

Go to bed. Finally, after you’ve gone through your sleep routine, head to bed, turn off the light and lie down. Even if you don’t feel like sleep, it’s important that you develop the habit by lying down in bed and getting up at the same time, every single day. It may take a few days, but soon your body will catch on that it’s time to sleep when you lie down in bed.

In this hectic, heavily-booked culture we live in, a sleep schedule may seem like a cumbersome way to get rest. But anything that will help you sleep better will also improve your physical health, daytime productivity, mental resilience and even your relationships. Sleep could just be the simplest way to boost overall health and happiness.

Polly Campbell is a sought-after motivational speaker and the author of two books, Imperfect Spirituality: Extraordinary Enlightenment for Ordinary People and How to Reach Enlightenment.

Get a Hold of Yourself: 3 Kinds of Deep Breathing

3 Kinds of Deep Breathing everydayhealth.com» by Therese Borchard on June 9, 2013

Deep breathing has become increasingly important in my recovery from depression and anxiety because I recognize that shallow breath contributes to my panic. In fact, at my worst hours, I would use a paper bag to keep from hyperventilating.

The practice of deep breathing stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), responsible for activities that occur when our body is at rest. It functions in opposite to the sympathetic nervous system, which stimulates activities associated with the flight-or-fight response. I like to the think of the PNS as the calm sister and the sympathetic nervous system as the non-sympathetic crazy sister on the verge of a nervous breakdown. You know that woman in the movie “Airplane” that’s wigging out (watch this clip), and there is a line behind her of people with weapons saying “Get a hold of yourself.” The woman represents the sympathetic nervous system, and the long line of folks with bats, ropes, purses, etc. are members of the parasympathetic nervous system trying to calm the panicked passenger.

Of all the automatic functions of the body—cardiovascular, digestive, hormonal, glandular, immune–only the breath can be easily controlled voluntarily, explain Richard P. Brown, M.D. and Patricia L. Gerbarg, M.D. in their book, “The Healing Power of the Breath.” They write:

By voluntarily changing the rate, depth, and pattern of breathing, we can change the messages being sent from the body’s respiratory system to the brain. In this way, breathing techniques provide a portal to the autonomic communication network through which we can, by changing our breathing patterns, send specific messages to the brain using the language of the body, a language the brain understands and to which it responds. Messages from the respiratory system have rapid, powerful effects on major brain centers involved in thought, emotion, and behavior.

In their eight substantive chapters, the authors discuss several techniques of deep breathing to reduce stress and anxiety. They start off with three basic approaches which provide the building blocks for the others:

Coherent Breathing

Coherent breathing is basically breathing at a rate of five breaths per minute, which is the middle of the resonant breathing rate range. I achieve this if I count to five inhaling and count to five exhaling. The five-minute rate maximizes the heart rate variability (HRV), a measurement of how well the parasympathetic nervous system is working. Brown and Bergarg explain that changing our rate and pattern of breath alters the HRV, which causes shifts in our nervous system. The higher the HRV the better because a higher HRV is associated with a healthier cardiovascular system and a stronger stress-response system. Breathing at a rate that is close to one’s ideal resonant rate (around five breaths per minute) can induce up to a tenfold improvement in HRV.

Resistance Breathing

Resistance breathing is exactly what its name suggests: breathing that creates resistance to the flow of air. Per the authors:

Resistance can be created by pursing the lips, placing the tip of the tongue against the inside of the upper teeth, hissing through the clenched teeth, tightening the throat muscles, partly closing the glottis, narrowing the space between the vocal cords, or using an external object such as breathing through a straw.

All that sounds a bit complicated to me. Breathing should be easy, right? So I simply breathe out of my nose, which, according to Brown and Bergarg, creates more resistance than breathing through the mouth. I do think it’s interesting when they explain that singing and chanting – all musical sounds created by contracting vocal cords—are forms of resistance breathing, and that is why they provide that relaxed sensation you can get meditating (if you CAN meditate).

Breath Moving

Breath Moving is when, well, the breath moves. Courtesy of your imagination. Brown compares this exercise to an internal massage. I’m not sure I’d go that far. I like the real deal. However, I do think sending your breath on a little journey around your body – as long as it doesn’t get too lost — does help you keep your concentration on the exercise and not on your to-do list because counting to five can get a little old. For example, here’s part of a circuit the authors offer in their book:

As you breathe in, imagine you are moving your breath to the top of your head.

As you breathe out, imagine you are moving your breath to the base of your spine, your perineum, your sit bones.

Each time you breathe in, move the breath to the top of the head.

Each time you breathe out, move the breath to the base of the spine.

Breathe in this circuit for ten cycles.

The history of Breath Moving is fascinating. According to the authors, the technique was created in large part by the Russian Christian Orthodox Hesychast monks around the eleventh century. The monks would teach the technique of moving the breath to the holy Russian warriors to help protect them from harm and to empower them as they defended their territory against invaders.

Are near-death experiences real?

Are near-death experiences real?
New study investigates
medicalnewstoday.com» by Honor Whiteman on October 5, 2014

Near-death experiences. The terminology conjures thoughts of out-of-body episodes and bright light. Although such experiences may be repudiated as illusory, researchers of the world’s largest study to assess mental awareness during resuscitation say they have found evidence that near-death experiences may be real.

Common reports of near-death experiences include encountering a bright light, meeting deceased loved ones, and seeing and hearing “real” events from another perspective – often known as an out-of-body experience.

The researchers – led by Dr. Sam Parnia, who was an honorary research fellow at the University of Southampton in the UK when he began this study – publish their findings in the journal Resuscitation.

According to Dr. Parnia, death is a potentially reversible process that happens after a severe injury or illness causes the heart, lung or brain to stop functioning. “If attempts are made to reverse this process, it is referred to as ‘cardiac arrest.’ However, if these attempts do not succeed it is called ‘death,'” he explains.

Patients who experience cardiac arrest and are resuscitated often report a near-death experience (NDE) – described as a lucid experience of perceived consciousness that occurs during impending death.

Although NDEs differ from person to person, common reports of these experiences include encountering a bright light, meeting deceased loved ones, and seeing and hearing “real” events from another perspective – often known as an out-of-body experience.

The researchers note that NDEs are often perceived to be hallucinatory, but that such experiences have not been studied systemically.

“In this study we wanted to go beyond the emotionally charged yet poorly defined term of NDEs to explore objectively what happens when we die, ” says Dr. Parnia, now an assistant professor of critical care medicine and director of resuscitation research at the State University of New York, NY.

Mental experiences linked to death may reach further than previously thought

In 2008, Dr. Parnia and his team began the AWAreness during REsuscitation (AWARE) study. The researchers identified 2,060 cardiac arrest survivors from 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Australia.

Of the survivors who underwent an interview about any mental experiences related to death and reported some sense of awareness during resuscitation, 39% were unable to recall any specific details.

“This suggests more people may have mental activity initially but then lose their memories after recovery, either due to the effects of brain injury or sedative drugs on memory recall,” says Dr. Parnia.

Some of the survivors who reported a sense of awareness during resuscitation completed another interview.

The team notes that only 9% of survivors reported mental experiences compatible with NDEs, while 46% reported experiencing an array of death-related mental recollections that were not consistent with the traditional definition of NDE. Some survivors reported fearful and violent experiences, for example, while others reported remembering events prior to cardiac arrest or family members.

Dr. Parnia and his team note that this finding suggests the mental experiences associated with death may reach further than those traditionally linked to NDEs.

3-minute out-of-body experience validated in one patient

Complete awareness consistent with out-of-body experiences, such as “seeing” and “hearing” events linked to resuscitation, was reported in 2% of patients.

One survivor’s experience of this was monitored and timed via auditory stimuli during cardiac arrest.

“This is significant,” Dr. Parnia notes, “since it has often been assumed that experiences in relation to death are likely hallucinations or illusions, occurring either before the heart stops or after the heart has been successfully restarted, but not an experience corresponding with ‘real’ events when the heart isn’t beating.”

It is believed that the brain stops functioning within 20-30 seconds of the heart stopping. But the monitored patient appeared to see and hear surrounding events for up to 3 minutes after their heart had stopped beating. When the patient awoke, the events and sounds they described in this 3-minute window were consistent with what actually occurred.

Commenting on their findings, Dr. Parnia says:

“While it was not possible to absolutely prove the reality or meaning of patients’ experiences and claims of awareness (due to the very low incidence of explicit recall of visual awareness or so-called out-of-body experiences), it was impossible to disclaim them either and more work is needed in this area. Clearly, the recalled experience surrounding death now merits further genuine investigation without prejudice.”

The researchers add that further research is warranted to determine if awareness during cardiac arrest could lead to long-term psychological issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Last year, Medical News Today reported on a study by researchers from the University of Michigan claiming NDEs are electrical surges in the brain.