Empathy requires tolerance.
Source: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Many people feel that their loved ones or relatives with symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) don’t care how they feel because it is often not present in their behavior. This is because one frequent feature of those who experience symptoms of BPD is very weak empathy. This post will look at why they have difficulty understanding what you feel and what you can do about it.
If one of your loved ones has symptoms of BPD you probably often think to yourself, “how can they act this way or speak this way towards me if they care about my feelings?” And you are right; they can’t care about your feelings if they don’t understand what you feel. Let’s see what happened when Skylar tried to get her mother to understand her feeling humiliated when her mother talks about her going through menopause in public.
Sky: Mom, I would appreciate if you didn’t bring up my medical issues in public.
Mom: I don’t bring up your medical issues in public.
Sky: You brought up my going through menopause while we were having lunch with your yoga group.
Mom: Menopause isn’t a medical issue.
Sky: I don’t like when you bring this stuff up in public.
Mom: Menopause is a natural thing for a woman. It is nothing to be embarrassed about.
Sky: I don’t like it discussed in public. Please don’t do it.
Mom: Sky, you are being silly. No one had a problem with it.
Sky: I had a problem with it.
Mom: They were all women.
Sky: Will you stop?
Mom: I don’t see any reason why I should.
In the above example, Skylar tries three times to get her mother to understand that she is uncomfortable discussing her menopause in public. Her mother stated that she did not think that discussing her body with her yoga friends was embarrassing and she seemed either unwilling or unable to see it from Skylar’s perspective. This would require that mom be empathic.
Empathy requires that you take another person’s perspective and understand how they feel. This requires that you acknowledge that other people feel differently about things than you do. For individuals with symptoms of BPD, this is painful. They interpret the idea that other people may feel differently as a personal flaw. For example, if you go to a movie with them and they like the movie and you don’t, they will feel pain as they interpret it as you think they are stupid, crazy or wrong, for not liking what they like. They take your different opinion as a criticism of their opinion if you don’t feel the same way. In this way, they actively resist empathy because it makes them feel defective.
Another challenge to sufferers of BPD symptoms with regard to empathy is that many experience emotional dysregulation. This means that they lack effective coping mechanisms for healthy processing of emotion, resulting in their emotions becoming dysregulated. This is associated with impulsive behavior and self-deprecation, as well as other effects. Their efforts to understand your emotions are also dysregulated, often resulting in them feeling injured by your feelings.
In the above example, if Skylar’s mother acknowledged that Skylar is hurt by her behavior, she would feel like she had done something wrong. This would likely lead to her feeling like she might be seen as a bad parent, and thus flawed in an important way. So she rejects empathy with her daughter.
Skylar cannot force her mother or anyone else to feel her feelings. What she can do is express them as clearly as possible and then, if there is not a healthy response, she will have to set a boundary. Here is what that might sound like in a conversation with her mother.
Sky: Mom it really hurts me that you won’t stop embarrassing me after I asked you not to.
Mom: I told you there is nothing embarrassing about your body.
Sky: Can’t you just accept that I don’t like it?
Mom: No. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Sky: If you don’t stop bringing up my health, I am going to withdraw from the yoga class so at least then I don’t have to hear it.
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This is the most that Skylar can do. She set a boundary that if her mother does not stop discussing her woman’s health issues in public, then she will not be in public with her mom. Hopefully, Skylar can still enjoy aspects of her relationship with her mother in private settings. If mom wants to be with Skylar in public settings, she will need to change her position. Otherwise, she has to live with this limitation in her relationship with her daughter.
Facebook image: Estrada Anton/Shutterstock
