Do BPD survivors feel emotions more strongly?

[Our abuse recovery guide]

I have always been able to feel what others are feeling whether I want to or not.  I am wondering if my empathy is a side effect of having a BPD mom?

[ijustwantpeace]

I have always been able to feel what others are feeling whether I want to or not.  I am wondering if my empathy is a side effect of having a BPD mom?

[Sunfl0wer]

I believe that having a mom with BPD has caused me to develop an astuteness for others emotions.  As a child I needed to be hypervigilant to her moods for my own safety, I imagine the way a newly blind person can learn to use the other sense more acutely, so did I learn to quite acutely take an emotional temperature of my surroundings.

Interestingly enough, I recently had some DNA testing done and in all three markers came up very empathetic, so empathy apparently has some genetic markers too.  (My testing was for medical stuff, the company just gives a ton of info and that happened to be one area)

[ijustwantpeace]

Really?  Never heard of a DNA test for empathy. 

Strange question do you think there is there any practical use for this extra empathy?  Do you know of any occupations where this extra level of empathy could be an asset? 

[Notwendy]

I think it is a skill we develop for our own survival.

One issue with this would be a tendency to personalize it. Growing up, we could sense the emotions, make meaning of it, and mostly be correct ( mom is in a bad mood, we'd better watch out).

As an adult though, outside the FOO, I think we can be both correct in our sensitivity to other people's emotions and also prone to misreading them. Someone might be angry or having a bad say, due to something that has nothing to do with us, yet we might personalize this.

Both my H and I have this tendency. A typical conversation might go like this:

H asks a question.
I answer, he doesn't hear me. I have a soft voice and so sometimes it isn't easy to hear.
He asks again
I reply in a loud voice because he didn't hear me.
H: thinking I am angry: " don't yell at me!"

I am not angry and not yelling at him. But it feels like that to him.

I do similar things.

[ijustwantpeace]

I think it is a skill we develop for our own survival.

One issue with this would be a tendency to personalize it. Growing up, we could sense the emotions, make meaning of it, and mostly be correct ( mom is in a bad mood, we'd better watch out).

As an adult though, outside the FOO, I think we can be both correct in our sensitivity to other people's emotions and also prone to misreading them. Someone might be angry or having a bad say, due to something that has nothing to do with us, yet we might personalize this.

Both my H and I have this tendency. A typical conversation might go like this:

H asks a question.
I answer, he doesn't hear me. I have a soft voice and so sometimes it isn't easy to hear.
He asks again
I reply in a loud voice because he didn't hear me.
H: thinking I am angry: " don't yell at me!"

I am not angry and not yelling at him. But it feels like that to him.

I do similar things.

That is really interesting. 

[isilme]

I can be hypersensitive to other's emotions.  I know I am co-dependent thanks to my formative years and with H having BPD as well (very "mild" compared to what I grew up with), it's taken me a while to learn to separate my emotions from his.

You learn to "feel" the emotions of others around you as a safety mechanism for your survival.  Reading people's voices, body language, these were all ways to know if you could talk to Mom and Dad, or if it was a good time to go hide in another room.  I still freak out about loud noises, especially if anyone is asleep, because I was often punished for making too much noise (I am now a ninja).  I knew if Dad was sitting alone in the dark, stay out of that room, and if Mom had a certain set to her mouth, stop talking, be quiet, and try to get away as I could.

I can still get anxiety if I sense someone around me is angry or unhappy, because I feel it is MY job to FIX it for them.  H gets upset, and I realized I'd get upset with him for being upset, because it meant I had to be upset, too.  But I don't.  It's okay for him to be upset as long as he's not expressing it in an abusive way.  And it's okay for me to NOT get upset just because he is.  I have to tell myself "it's okay, he's allowed to be angry, he's not mad at you, just let him get it out."  Many of my mistakes in dealing with his emotions were very invalidating because I didn't want to be upset, too, and just wanted to make it stop, so I'd pretty much tell him the most invalidating things just for my own peace of mind. 

It is taking a lot of conscious effort to move away from feeling I need to "fix" everything when someone is upset, and not just let them know I am here to listen or help if I can, and leaving it at that. 

[Fie]

Hello Ijustwantpeace  

I think I can echo what you and the others said - I also have a BPD mum, and I was taught to read her emotions. Unfortunately I'm still doing that to some extend with the people around me.

Strange question do you think there is there any practical use for this extra empathy?

Yes, like with everything I think even an upbringing with BPD can have its silver lining ;-).
For a psychologist I think it can come in pretty handy if you are genuinely empathic. More generally I think in any profession where you deal with people. And I think children of BPD can make pretty good friends.
As a mum I like my empathy for dealing with my child.

[Sunfl0wer]

Really?  Never heard of a DNA test for empathy.   

Well the DNA test was not done "for" empathy.
To correct myself, there were not "3" markers.

I am looking at my son's test and the name of the gene we had tested that is attributed to empathy is: OTXR rs53576

This first link is what my test pretty much quotes regarding the gene.  However, I disagree as it states:
www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs53576
rs53576 is a silent G to A change in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene. Studies have demonstrated that individuals with the G allele are more empathetic, feel less lonely, employ more sensitive parenting techniques, and have lower rates of autism.

[I find the fact that they associate low empathy with autism a quite incorrect assumption by many "professionals." Rather, persons with autism tend to have excessive empathy.  The issue with autism is NOT the ability to feel empathy any more than a blind person is less empathetic, they both just need access to the info on which to be empathetic, then can experience.  (But that is another topic I won't diverge off to too much, so will stop my rant on that now.) Oh, by the way, my son is autistic and also tested HIGH for this empathy gene.]

Here was another link I grabbed on the info too:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22357335

[Sunfl0wer]

Sorry, I lost my editing opportunity and am seeing that my words are not as cohesive as they could be.  My post looks confusing in a couple of places.

I was trying to show the quote to correlate the gene to empathy as is done. 

Also, simply say I disagree with just the bit regarding correlation of low empathy and autism.

Reason is that they test the empathy based on showing a person facial pictures and such.  Not really a fair way to test empathy on that population any more than such test would be fair on a blind person.  (As it is not lack of empathy those with ASD are deficient, but reading the facial and body cues at times)

Other than that, I have no reason to doubt other aspects stated, seems plausible.

[HappyChappy]

Just to add to this study, I have often read children of BPD will be hypersensitive to others emotional states, for all the reason given. I am. But if you have Developmental PTSD (as I do) you will also get hypervigelance. This is where you're overly concerned with danger, when there is little around. But with both types of hyper, you need to be aware of your triggers, so you can quickly rationalise it away when it happens. I've managed to improve big time, using CBT. Hope that helps. 

[my_memories]

I have always been able to feel what others are feeling whether I want to or not.  I am wondering if my empathy is a side effect of having a BPD mom?

I am also hypersensitive to other peoples emotional well-beings. I think I read about it in "Children of the Self-Absorbed" - basically, it was explained to me that BPD and NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) have similar foundations. Individuals with these conditions have an overdeveloped sense of self-narcissism, based on an incredibly low self esteem. One of the primary differences is that individuals with BPD may have some self awareness and cohesive moments where they know they aren't the same as the majority (and are therefore treatable), whereas an individual with NPD thinks that the problem rests with the world (and are therefore not treatable).

All of that to say, I understand that children raised by adults with these conditions often tend to either overdevelop their self-narcissism (and are therefore at risk for developing BPD or NPD) or they have severely underdeveloped self-narcissism. The ones with over-developed, learn to respond to a parent going "me, me!" with "NO! me! me!" vs underdeveloped, which learn to respond to the parent with "OK, you! you!" even at the expense of their own self. People with underdeveloped typically develop a hypersensitivity to the emotions of others so that they can better manage their parents. They've been situated to be their parents emotional care-taker, and are therefore raised to be hyper vigilante for emotional expression in others.

Not sure if this helps at all - I know that for me, it helped me understand that I didn't have good emotional boundaries with others and needed to learn how to develop them.

[sad but wiser]

Empathy is helpful if you know you are an empath.  It is great as a teacher.  You can feel when your students are confused and when they "get" a concept.  It can help you determine how to approach or demonstrate.  You can tell when a child is sick, tired or just unfocused very quickly.

[heartofglass]

I definitely found it true in my case. I've always been hypersensitive to other people's moods and they can affect me on a physical level. It makes sense to seeing connection.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Ijustwantpeace, 

You've made a great observation as well as understanding of yourself, that you are attune to the feelings of others. I am too, and as you can see from the other responses, you are not alone.

I believe there are pluses and minuses to being able to 'sense' or 'pick up on' the feelings of others. Sometimes it can elicit fear, other times empathy. One thing for sure is that as a survivor of a parent with BPD, we are very much attuned to what is going on around us in our environment. It doesn't matter if it is the feelings of others or the safety or lack of it surrounding us... .we are aware! It is like we are able to test the emotional temperature of the room before we enter.

Do you have thoughts as to why you feel this way? Certainly it is a very normal response to indicate how often us kids had to be aware of all that was going on around us in order to survive. What types of experiences do you notice that bring this back to your mind? Was there a recent event that increased your awareness?

 
Wools