Helping the "Emotionally Intense Person"

[downheart]

A friend of mine sent me the following and I just about fell out of my seat. It read like it was speaking from my conscience. Being in the detaching stage, this felt really affirming.

Helping the "Emotionally Intense Person"

You might have found yourself in a relationship in which you are consistently the one who listens and tries to help in the face of another's emotional intensity, but found your support seemed to make no difference.  If so, there's a good chance that this person names emotional intensity as a part of their identity.

Once any aspect of behavior is named as a part of identity, change regarding that behavior becomes unlikely.

If you are in the helping role with this person, then you might be operating under the idea that you can help them achieve a state of calm or equilibrium.  You imagine that once you get them through this emotional crisis or problem, then they will be okay and have space to consider your needs or simply take more of an interest in you.

Unfortunately, when someone decides that emotional intensity is "who they are", there is typically very little time between one emotional issue and the next.  The drive to protect identity is stronger than the discomfort or pain the identity-protecting-behaviors create.

Not understanding this you try everything to help out or "calm them down" each time they come to you.  After a certain number of experiences attempting this, you will likely start to feel resentful of this person and your behavior may shift from attempts to help to attempts to manage or control.  Later, judgment slips in and either aloud or silently you find yourself applying labels, giving advice, and criticizing the decisions they make.  You are in compassion fatigue and have nothing left to give.

If this is a family member you seek out help at this point.  If this is not a family member, you leave the relationship.  If you are seeking help at this point, you likely don't really have the energy to try new skills or strategies.  You find yourself in the sad place of having to take space from that family member.

As you reflect on this person and your relationship to them, a few common themes will likely arise.  One, you regret not taking care of your own needs with regard to this relationship.  Two, you wish you would have caught the pattern sooner.  Three, you see that no one is to blame and you can find compassion for both of you.  This last one may be the most difficult to integrate.

Seeing no one is to blame and finding compassion requires acknowledgment of common patterns of human interaction that are bigger than any one person.  For example, your impulse to help another at a cost to your own needs, arises from both genuine care and generosity and likely also from your own reactive pattern of devaluing your needs, playing the role of harmonizer in your family, or taking on a rescuer role, etc; which at some point was an adaptive response, but is no longer helpful.

The other person's identity around "being a person of big feelings" or however they phrase it, is their tragic attempt to take care of themselves in some way.  Their needs and experience remain valid even while surrounded by reactivity.  Unfortunately, reactivity does affect decision making and they likely find themselves in the same emotionally difficult situations again and again.  In the same way, you might find yourself repeating non-mutual relationships in which someone "needs" your help.  Creating identities and then attempting to live them out is a universal tragic strategy.  In the end there is no static identity that can support you in living as the dynamic flow of aliveness that you are.

But if your identity is flexible and you can release whatever role you have taken with this person, you can free yourself from these relationship patterns and begin to set boundaries and discern what is really helpful in any given relationship.  If this person is a family member, grieving ideas of the familial relationship you long for might be the next step.  Then, you may need to find support so that you can accept what's true and set boundaries.

In the big picture, any time you invest your energy in attempting to help someone, it's essential to notice the impact of your offering.  Are you contributing?  How do you know?  This isn't always very obvious, but the question is important to ask.  At the same time, you are asking the equally important question:  "Am I doing this from the generosity of my autonomous heart with ease and joy?"  Or  "Have I begin to feel resentful as my own needs are at cost within this relationship?"  "Do I harbor some idea of saving or fixing this person so that we can finally have the relationship I want?"

The most reliable and fundamental contribution you can make to others is the gift of your loving presence and joyful heart.  Such a gift isn't bound up in long hours of listening and problem solving.  It can be given from a distance or in intimacy.  It is for you to discern how loving presence and joy is shared in each relationship and community.

[Educated_Guess]

Thanks for sharing this, downheart!  It’s a game of read. 

[Mustbeabetterway]

Hi downheart, interesting article.  What par,t or parts, speaks to you most?

Mustbe

[Nixie_3]

Wow, this really resonates for me. I think the part about compassion fatigue really stuck out to me, because I had started to question now if I really loved my BPDh in the same way and he told me he feels like I'm not "in love" with him any more. Really, I think it is more compassion fatigue, I felt like I had been trying so hard this whole time and just didn't have much left.

[downheart]

Hi downheart, interesting article.  What par,t or parts, speaks to you most?

So much of this resonates with me that I should answer that in the negative.
Probably the only part that doesn't speak to me in that piece is when it says "If this is a family member you seek out help at this point.  If this is not a family member, you leave the relationship." For many of us here it is obviously very hard to detach from a BPD relationship even if it is a SO. From that point on I just read "family member" as including SOs.

But probably the most important epiphany for me - much of it due to these forums - was:

You see that no one is to blame and you can find compassion for both of you... .Seeing no one is to blame and finding compassion requires acknowledgment of common patterns of human interaction that are bigger than any one person.

Throwing out the victimhood and finding that grounded place where I recognized my own complicity in a complex, entangled relationship was really liberating for me. That's not to say that I don't still struggle with guilt, but I've just come to realize that I can't respond to the blame/shame/rage from my SO by throwing all that back at her - either literally in arguments with her or in my head - to try to help me feel righteous. And it's really helpful to now understand that I was part of a pattern that's well understood in disfunctional relationships. When I found this forum I was shocked to discover that I was not alone and my experience was similar to so many others.

Another part that speak to me is the encouragement to create new identities and set boundaries. Recognizing codependency is one thing, but committing to being different is key. I felt honest with myself for the first time in a long time when I finally could say to my SO that I'm not engaging in blame/shame/rage because that crosses an important personal boundary. Admittedly it was probably easier for me now because we've separated, but as we work through disentangling our marriage she continues to make her BPD character clear! (As an aside, the treatment of personal boundaries on this site is so much better than everything else I've come across reading.)

[Harri]

What an excellent article.  I like what it says about people having an identity they relate to and then acting according to that identity.  That is universal.

The woman who is invested in being passionate or the man who is emotionally tied to being a white knight, whatever it may be, if you listen to them and watch them, they will tell you who they are.

In the big picture, any time you invest your energy in attempting to help someone, it's essential to notice the impact of your offering.  Are you contributing?  How do you know?  This isn't always very obvious, but the question is important to ask.  At the same time, you are asking the equally important question:  "Am I doing this from the generosity of my autonomous heart with ease and joy?"  Or  "Have I begin to feel resentful as my own needs are at cost within this relationship?"  "Do I harbor some idea of saving or fixing this person so that we can finally have the relationship I want?"

  Excellent.

I wish there was a source for this article.

[Insom]

Hi, downheart!  Thanks for posting this.  Like Harri, I like what it says about identity because it got me thinking . . .

What traits have I accepted as part of my identity?  Is my identity flexible?  Can I release traits that don't seem helpful or are in the way of where I want to go?  Great topic to write about.  Thank you for posting. 

[Mustbeabetterway]

Right, downheart, I thought the same thing.  My uBPDh is my family - even though we are separated, we have been married so long and have a daughter and granddaughter so we are family.

I think my identity is as a helper.  I noticed that once I really felt detached as a caretaker from my husband, I started looking around and noticing other people who need “help” .  I’m glad I recognize that trait and put the brakes on.  I think that helping is a way to distract myself from my own stuff I need to take care of.

Do you have the source of the article?

Peace and blessings,

Mustbe

[once removed]

Throwing out the victimhood and finding that grounded place where I recognized my own complicity in a complex, entangled relationship was really liberating for me. That's not to say that I don't still struggle with guilt, but I've just come to realize that I can't respond to the blame/shame/rage from my SO by throwing all that back at her - either literally in arguments with her or in my head - to try to help me feel righteous. And it's really helpful to now understand that I was part of a pattern that's well understood in disfunctional relationships. When I found this forum I was shocked to discover that I was not alone and my experience was similar to so many others.

i really admire you for the steps youve taken to reach those conclusions, its no easy task, but i agree with you, its really liberating, freeing... .those lessons about relationships will be with you for life. blame toward ourselves or our partners is just pain. that pain is not only unpleasant, but obscures the lessons. it binds us.

Another part that speak to me is the encouragement to create new identities and set boundaries. Recognizing codependency is one thing, but committing to being different is key.

definitely. awareness/recognition are a catalyst for change, though not necessarily change. i recognized a lot about myself during my detachment process, but i didnt have the tools or skills to implement the changes, and for some time, continued to make poor and self defeating choices.

I felt honest with myself for the first time in a long time when I finally could say to my SO that I'm not engaging in blame/shame/rage because that crosses an important personal boundary.

great articulation of boundaries. what value do you tie this to?

[Educated_Guess]

Throwing out the victimhood and finding that grounded place where I recognized my own complicity in a complex, entangled relationship was really liberating for me. That's not to say that I don't still struggle with guilt, but I've just come to realize that I can't respond to the blame/shame/rage from my SO by throwing all that back at her - either literally in arguments with her or in my head - to try to help me feel righteous. And it's really helpful to now understand that I was part of a pattern that's well understood in disfunctional relationships. When I found this forum I was shocked to discover that I was not alone and my experience was similar to so many others.

Yes yes yes to all of this!  One of the hardest realizations for me was that my BPD ex did not feel any compassion for me and yet I still feel compassion for her.  It took me awhile to get my head wrapped around it. I had the epiphany that the compassion that I had for her equaled the compassion I could have for myself.  By forgiving and understanding her, I could forgive and understand myself.

The opposite is also true.  The fact that she could not have compassion for me showed how she could not have compassion for herself.  I realized that all the tings she was projecting onto me were things that she hated about herself and could not deal with.  That is why she had to pass it on to me.  When I understood how much of her behavior was rooted in self contempt, it made me feel deeply sad for her.  How terrible her day to day existence must be!

Compassion can set us free.  Compassion pushes us out of ourselves and our internal worlds that can be so toxic.

Thank you for sharing this!

[downheart]

Yeah, mustbe, I caught myself in that same savior role with others after my separation and I'm glad I had the wisdom to recognize it now.

The excerpt came from a mailing list at www.wiseheartpdx.org.