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Parenting with BPD.

Writer's picture: Sam StoneSam Stone

In honour of Mother’s Day that has just gone by, and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) awareness month, I thought that it would be a good time to write a blog post for the parents who have BPD.

parenting bpd

To get to know some demographic of parents with BPD, according to research, parents with BPD are more likely to be single parents compared to people without a BPD diagnosis (Guillén et al, 2023). Drugs and alcohol use is common among parents with BPD (Parolin et al, 2016), but maybe not as common as use among those not diagnosed with a mental health problem (Wapp et al, 2015). Parents with BPD are also at a higher likelihood to feel overwhelmed and stressed (Guillén et al, 2023).


Parenting is stressful as well as very financially and emotionally expensive for anyone! It is hard to manage the everyday of taking care of littles, their schedules, meal times, emotions, sleep, and the family finances. But people with BPD also have very active, very strong inner critics and so they will have to manage that too. (And hopefully work towards building a relationship with it and healing it). Parents with BPD have high expectations of themselves which increases the risk of their inner critic to come out and attack them for when this standard is not met.


That said though, a lot of people with BPD tend to have vague or poorly defined expectations of what their most ideal selves are when it comes to parenting. So it is therefore harder for the brain to recognize when they are doing well, when they are.


Parents with BPD have been shown to have less emotional attunement with their baby, infant, child or teenager, or adult child, and so there is less emotional reciprocity (Fossati, 2012; Geerling et al, 2019). This could be because the parent is too stressed and activated themselves to be able to tune into and reciprocate what their child is doing or feeling, or it could be that they simply do not know how to engage or attune with their child, because it was never modeled to them. I suspect that it is probably both.


Getting more information on how to engage with a child can go a long way. You can actively seek this information out or see if you can think of a role model to observe.


Parents with BPD can misinterpret their child’s emotions and can have a negativity bias, which has also been seen in depression and anxiety (Bortolla et al, 2020). BPD, as well as depression and anxiety can interpret neutral facial expressions, as them being sad, angry or upset. We have also seen this play out in studies of social anxiety (Chen et al, 2019). Basically, the brain is hypervigilant of another person’s negative mood, (which is likely a relational trauma response) so even a neutral or blank face can be perceived as threatening in some way. It’s that idea of ‘walking on eggshells’ or ‘not knowing what mood the other person is going to be in’ or ‘waiting for the shoe to drop’.


It bears repeating that parents with BPD are highly critical of themselves. They perceive themselves as having low competence and therefore are stressed, place a lot of pressure on themselves and really fear getting things wrong when it comes to parenting. This would understandably lead to low satisfaction overall with parenting itself, as this whole process consumes so much mental, emotional and physiological energy every damn day.


The danger here is that the parent with BPD can take what their child says or does very personally. If a child is upset, angry or is acting out in some way, this can be taken as evidence that the child thinks that they are as bad a parent as they already perceive/fear themselves to be. And therefore, their biggest fears are being realized. This could potentially activate defensiveness or stonewalling from the parent. Or the parent could even spiral into more self loathing and lash out on themselves. Either way, it has the potential to create a complicated, confusing, and harmful dynamic.


The child will internalize the way they have been spoken to, or the way they have been treated, so it is important to be mindful about what message your words and actions are sending to you child.


Here is just a short list of tips to improve your relationship with your child and improve your own self perception and confidence.


Try to increase your positive interaction. Even eye contact increases the bonding hormone, oxytocin.


All brains have something in common, they all have a negativity bias (thanks evolution), not for happiness, but for survival. So you have to actually make it a practice to look for the positive and then name it out loud, because our brains are naturally just not wired that way. This bears repeating: Say Positive Things More Often.


Notice when you are doing well with your parenting and in your relationship with your child. Give yourself the credit where the credit is due and be your own best friend and cheerleader.


Timing is everything when it comes to engaging with or playing with our child. They are not on our schedule, we as parents need to be on theirs. And if they’re not ready, or it is not a good time, that could be triggering for you, and you may take this personally. So, try not to take this to mean anything about you, and you’re being rejected. Practice trying again when it is a good time, or if they are old enough to tell you, ask them when would be a better time for them.


Be expressive of your affection. Actions speak louder than words do, so see how you can show your child through touch, eye contact, and closeness.


Apologize when you make a mistake. Conflict and rupture are natural and normal parts of every relationship but a lot of people with BPD were not shown how to repair the rupture, regain trust and closure, and move on in a relationship. Acknowledging a mistake and apologizing for it goes a long way in respecting the child and maintaining trust and respect from the child. It also models to the child that no one is perfect and that it is okay, normal and inevitable to make a mistake, but it’s also okay to own up to it with healthy remorse.


Treat your child with respect, don’t expect it automatically. We have to model the respect. Demonstrate patience and understanding.


Sayings like “Because I said so”, “I am much older than you, so I know best”, are signs of disrespect and just serve to shut down a conversation. Explain your decision so that the child has more of an understanding of where you stand.


Please do not engage in name calling. The child will internalise that. You may recall times in your own childhood where you are referred to in a derogatory way or called an offensive name, how that felt at the time and how it may have impacted you.


Try to understand where they are coming from. Making an attempt to be curious about your child’s experience is a powerful way of conveying how important they are to you and how much their feelings matter to you. We all want to feel like we matter and to internalize the message that we did not matter to our parents has the potential to create a deep wound. Even if you don’t agree with their perception, you might still be able to tell them that you can see why they might think the way they think.


In the same vein as saying positive things, give your child lots of praise where its needed and in their expressions of the things that they are interested in, or are good at. Another great perk of this is that positive reinforcement is the best kind of behaviour modification. It is way more effective than criticism and punishment.


Be clear about expectations, and ask for what you need. Positive expectations lead to positive results and negative expectations lead to negative results.


Example:

1.       Thank you for washing the dishes so thoroughly. This has really saved my time and energy, and now I get to relax and enjoy the rest of the evening with you all.

2.       Oh, you washed the dishes. Are you feeling alright? You usually seem allergic to dishsoap. I wish you would have at least dried them properly before you put them away, now they all have to be taken out again before the watermarks set in.


Which response would inspire more helpful behaviour in the child in the future?


Self care is so important. It is so important that I agonized as to whether to put this as the number one tip or the last tip so that its fresher in your mind.


You have to put yourself first.


Being selfless, isn’t selfless because you’re not another person, so how would you absolutely know exactly what they need? Being selfless takes away from being your best self, because you are trying to make everyone else happy (which you simply can’t do sustainably) before yourself. Actually, what your children needs the most is for you to show up in their lives as your most fully authentic you that there is. Chronically putting others first drains your energy, and makes you resentful and not nice to be around. Your inner critic then has a field day at you for not living up to your high standard of parenting.


You have to parent and re-parent yourself, nurture yourself how you would ideally nurture your own child. For the rest of your life. The most important relationship you will even have is the one with yourself and your children will be absolutely here for that.


Please reach out if you need support in this area of your life, whether you have BPD or love someone who does.


References


Bortolla, R., Galli, M., Ramella, P., Sirtori, F., Visintini, R., and Maffei, C. (2020). Negative bias and reduced visual information processing of socio-emotional context in borderline personality disorder: a support for the hypersensitivity hypothesis. J. Behav. Ther. Exp. Psychiatry 69:101589. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2020.101589


Chen, J., Short, M., Kemps, E. (2019). Interpretation bias in social anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 276 pp. 1119-1130, 10.1016/j.jad.2020.07.121


Fossati, A. (2012). Adult Attachment in the Clinical Management of Borderline Personality Disorder. Journal of Psychiatric Practice, 18(3):p 159-171, DOI: 10.1097/01.pra.0000415073.36121.64


Geerling I, Roberts RM, Sved Williams A. Impact of infant crying on mothers with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder: A qualitative study. Infant Ment Health J. 2019; 40: 405–421. https://doi.org/10.1002/imhj.21776

 

Guillén V, Bolo S, Fonseca-Baeza S, Pérez S, García-Alandete J, Botella C and Marco JH (2023) Psychological assessment of parents of people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and comparison with parents of people without psychological disorders. Front. Psychol. 13:1097959. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1097959


Parolin M, Simonelli A, Mapelli D, Sacco M and Cristofalo P (2016) Parental Substance Abuse As an Early Traumatic Event. Preliminary Findings on Neuropsychological and Personality Functioning in Young Drug Addicts Exposed to Drugs Early. Front. Psychol. 7:887. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00887


Wapp, M., can de Glind, G. van Oortmerssen, K. V. E., Dom, G., Verspreet, S., Carperntier, P. J. , Ramos-Quiroga, J. A., Skutle, A., Bu, E. T., Franck, J. Konstenius, M. Kaye, S., Demetrovics, Z., Barta, C., Fatseas, M., Auriacombe, M., Johnson, B., Faraone, S. V., Levin, F. R., Allsop, S., Carruthers, S., Schoevers, R. A., Koeter, M. W. J., van den Brink, W., and Moggie, F. (2015). Risk Factors for Borderline Personality Disorder in Treatment Seeking Patients with a Substance Use Disorder: An International Multicenter Study. European Addiction Research. 21(4): 199-194. https://doi.org/10.1159/000371724 

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