Coping with the Stress of Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder can lay “dormant” in a person until triggered by an outside event or stressor, which will set off the symptoms of the disorder. Therefore, it is very important to learn to control the stress in your life. Everyone deals with stress in their everyday lives, but coping with the stress of Borderline Personality Disorder along with everyday stress is a difficult thing to do. Below is a list of suggestions to help you cope with the stress of Borderline Personality Disorder:

• Take One Day at a Time.
“One Day at a Time” is a catch-phrase used in many 12-Step Programs. The reason is that it works! Those of us with Borderline Personality Disorder struggle with control of our emotions, and sometimes it’s even difficult to live “One Day at a Time.” In these cases, it may have to come down to living just “One Hour at a Time.” We need to do whatever it takes, just to stay in the moment. Sometimes we have additional stress because we cannot “turn off thoughts” about the past when they are triggered. By concentrating just on the moment, you will be able to cope better with this stress, and you will be able to “shut off” these distracting thoughts until you can deal with them in therapy.

• Don’t dwell on the past.
There’s a difference between remembering the past and dwelling on the past. In therapy, you will need to remember the past in order to change your current behaviors and reactions to it. However, dwelling on the past and staying in the negative frame of mind associated with it, will only stress you more. Eventually the pain of the past will lessen, but for now, that pain will just keep you stressed. You need to forgive yourself (and others) for the past, but if you’re not ready to do that yet, at least try to not dwell on it. Sometimes that’s the best we can do. Forget about the past—live only for today—the past, with all its mistakes, is over, and there’s nothing you can do about it; at least not until you work on it in therapy. If you don’t, the stress will just make your Borderline Personality Disorder and the depression from it worse.

• Control what you can, and let go of the rest. And do your homework!
Some things you have control over, but other things you don’t. The things over which you have no control (like other people), you must learn to let go of, or the stress will just make you worse. This is not the same thing as being a controlling person, which is something you should be trying to change in yourself. Concentrate on learning how to control your emotions – you should be learning this in therapy. And do your homework! Hopefully, you are taking Dialectical Behavior Therapy for your Borderline Personality Disorder, which includes homework; things you should be working on by yourself, ways to change your own behavior. As you do this, you will notice changes in you and your life that should bring down your stress level as well.

• Be a more positive person.
One of the worst problems that people with Borderline Personality Disorder have is a “learned helplessness,” or the idea of “Why should I even try? I won’t succeed anyway.” These are negative thoughts stemming from our past. We have problems, and much stress, in our relationships, because of negative emotions and impulses, which put us in “love-hate” relationships, or into the “push-pull” cycle, where we push away the very people that we love. Although this is a common feature of Borderline Personality Disorder, it doesn’t help our stress levels at all. We may not have control over the fact that we have Borderline Personality Disorder, but we can learn to have control over our thoughts, if we try. Each negative thought can be turned into a positive thought if you try, which will help lower your stress. Like the “glass half-empty vs. half-full” idea. It’s all in how you look at things. Try to be a more positive person.

• Accept the fact that you are not a perfect person (and neither is your loved one).
Nobody is perfect, and that’s ok – although that’s a difficult concept for someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder. It’s ok just to do the best you can, too, although that’s another difficult concept for us to accept, since we seem to always expect so much of ourselves and our loved ones. But that’s all that is really expected of you – just do the best that you can, one day at a time, and that may mean lowering your expectations of yourself and your loved ones. You may have Borderline Personality Disorder, but that doesn’t mean that you are any less “normal” than anybody else. Just be the best “you” you can be. If you can do that, then you will automatically lower your stress level, because you won’t be trying to be like anybody else. Nobody but you ever said you were supposed to be, anyway, and that’s another one of the things you should be working on in therapy. Just do the best that you can, and accept the fact that you are not a perfect person, and remember that nobody else is, either!

About the Author

David Oliver is the founder of BorderlineCentral.com a one stop source of information on how to cope and deal with borderline personality disorder.

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