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Explaining Borderline Personality Disorder to Your Family

If you have Borderline Personality Disorder, you may be wondering how to explain the disorder to your family. This may be very frustrating for you, as you may even be having trouble understanding the disorder for yourself.

Borderline Personality Disorder, like other mental illnesses, is a “hidden” disorder. It’s not like a physical disability, like a neurological disorder for which you need to be in a wheelchair, or like Diabetes – that would be so much easier for you to explain. In the case of a neurological disorders that affected your legs, for example, you could point to the physical symptoms and explain how it is affecting your ability to function. In the case of Diabetes, you could show your family the Insulin, and explain how the medication helps you to function better.

However, how do you explain Borderline Personality Disorder to your family? This is very difficult to do, since the disorder is "unseen." In an article written by Dr. Paul Markovitz, a leading expert in Borderline Personality Disorder, he said, “We cannot show someone a physical open wound to show how much pain we are in. They would take one look at that, tell you to sit right down, get you a pillow, offer you something to eat or drink and have that concerned and understanding look on their faces.” 1

Trying to compare Borderline Personality Disorder with a physical wound, however, doesn’t even come close to explaining the emotional pain that you go through on a daily basis. I know, because I, too, have the disorder. There are some days when it takes every ounce of energy I have – emotional and physical – just to cope with the disorder. I know Borderline Personality Disorder is a psychiatric disorder, but at times it feels just as if I were recovering from a major operation.

Some people, when trying to explaining Borderline Personality Disorder to their families, try to compare it to a physical condition like Diabetes, like I referred to above; however, Diabetes doesn’t make you want to kill yourself. Borderline Personality Disorder does, and too often. That is one of the hardest things to explain to your family – how your suicidal thoughts have nothing to do with the fact that you love them very much; how sometimes these thoughts seem to come out of nowhere; how you don’t know why you feel this way.

Borderline Personality Disorder is a problem with emotional regulation. We have basic problems with our emotions. Because of that, we have problems with our relationships. Our emotions seem to bounce all over the place, sometimes completely out of our control – especially feelings of anger, and sometimes even rage. We love our family, but sometimes we push the very people we love away from us. The worst part is, we don’t even know why we do what we do, so explaining our behavior to them is difficult at best. Then we feel guilt and shame on top of our other emotions, for the way we treat our family.

Before you can explain Borderline Personality Disorder to your family, you must understand it better to yourself. Find out as much as you can about the disorder – read about it, either from your local library, or from the Internet. Get help for yourself, if you haven’t already. You need medication and therapy, preferably from a therapist trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, the special type of therapy used for people who have Borderline Personality Disorder. Your therapist can help you to explain Borderline Personality Disorder to your family. And don’t give up! You can recover from Borderline Personality Disorder, if you are willing to change, and put in the time and effort necessary to do so.

1. http://www.borderlinepersonalitytoday.com/main/famarticle2.html

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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