I recently went back over
Supporting a Loved-one with Borderline Personality Disorder and had a couple of
moments. It's basically about our "relationship-tools" like validation, boundaries and time-outs, but the wording is different and so it reminded me of a thing or two, like:
- I have worked on not being a problem solver for my dBPDbf and it's good to be reminded of how to do that: "Your help may be appreciated or may be an unwanted intrusion. By asking if your help is wanted before you step in, your assistance is much less likely to be resented".
- We should be careful to give to much praise about progress! This feels backwards for me and I know I've gone against this rule, so this was a great read for me. I should avoid statements like “You’ve made great progress,” or, “I’m so impressed with the change in you.” It sets the bar too high and might cause fear of abandonment which again might cause relapse to old behaviours.
There is so much helpful information on this site, sometimes I forget things I've read before!
I would love to hear if any of you have stumbled upon some helpful reminders.