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Title: please share experiences or info on fear of abandonment/attachment disorder Post by: suzikaye73 on April 22, 2015, 09:35:57 PM Im new here and have much to learn. Id like to narrow down a specific issue and see if you have experienced the same. I posted on an earlier thread but to recap. Ive recently moved away from my newly found brother, back to my home town area. I lived nearby him for 6 months and he was quite obsessive and controlling of my every move. We connected quickly and we are very close, he has so much fear of losing my love.
He says he has never loved someone as much as he loves me and he doesnt know how to stop obsessing and trying to control. He feels extreme pressure to protect me and is easily offended if I dont give him all of my attention. He has gotten mean and nasty with me when I oppose what he thinks is healthy boundaries etc. He almost always apologizes and when he is calm, I do believe that he sincerely wants to lighten up on me up doesnt know how. His rages can last up to 2 hours or more of back and forth arguing over my needing to run errands etc. Most of this is via text. Ive just now began to ignore him for chunks of time, because discussing slowing it down, just resulted in conflict. he would say, I dont love him as much, he gives more than me, etc. Im truly lost because I fear this will lead to a destroyed relationship and Im not sure if it will be because I have to cut him out or him deciding that my needing space and ignoring him means he will cut me out of his life. I never want to end our relationship. He is very dear to me but the intensity and his fears of abandonment are unbearable. I want to help him and he even asks me how to stop and i dont know if there is a good book or article etc. Please any information and/or experiences are welcome. Title: Re: please share experiences or info on fear of abandonment/attachment disorder Post by: Kwamina on April 26, 2015, 03:37:58 PM Hi suzikaye73
Welcome to our online community Dealing with a BPD sibling can be quite challenging indeed. Has your brother been officially diagnosed with BPD? Has he ever gotten any kind of treatment or therapy for his issues? We have several resources here about communication skills that I think might help you talk to your brother. We for instance have some articles here about validation and things you can do yourself to end the cycle of conflict. Here's an excerpt from the article about validation: Excerpt When it comes to emotional intelligence, one of the most advanced skills is knowing how to better validate others. Validation opens people up and contributes to the feeling of comfort and safety when communicating with you. Conversely, if you are experiencing a communication breakdown, if there is a wall between you and someone else, it most likely has been built with the bricks of invalidation. If you are effective at validation, and learn not to be invalidating, you will have better relationships with people. This is a powerful tool. Mastering it will elevate your emotional intelligence and your "people skills". ... . Nowhere is the communication skill of validation more important than in interfacing with highly sensitive individuals, individuals with low self esteem or individuals who are easily intimidated. This is a very valuable tool for dealing with people with Borderline Personality Disorder. To validate someone's feelings is first to accept someone's feelings - and then to understand them - and finally to nurture them. To validate is to acknowledge and accept a person. Invalidation, on the other hand, is to reject, ignore, or judge. Validation of feelings is vital to connecting with others. The mutual validation of feelings is important in all phases of relationships including building, maintaining, repairing, and improving them. Here are the links to the articles I mentioned: Communication Skills - Validation (https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-validation) A 3 Minute Lesson on Ending Conflict (https://bpdfamily.com/content/ending-conflict) There are also techniques specifically developed for communications with a person with BPD that could possibly help you communicate with your brother. One of them is called S.E.T. which stands for Support Empathy and Truth: The S.E.T. communication pattern was developed by Jerold J. Kreisman, MD and Hal Straus for communication with a person with BPD (pwBPD). It consists of a 3 step sequence where first Support is signaled, then Empathy is demonstrated and in a third step Truth is offered. Few tools are easier to learn as S.E.T. and are as effective in getting across to a pwBPD. Few tools are as universal in everyday life with anyone. It is sort of an walking-on-eggshell antidote. S.E.T. minimizes the chance of further escalation while maximizing the chance of getting through to the other person. We have a workshop about S.E.T. that you can find here: S.E.T. - Support, Empathy and Truth (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=143695.0) I hope that these tools will help you in your relationship with your brother. Take care |