BPD and keeping a job

[empower-me]

What are your thoughts on why it is so difficult for some BDP folks to keep a job.

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[Notwendy]

Having ability is important for job qualification but it isn't the only requirement. It's confusing when someone has ability but can't stay on the job. There could be several reasons.

BPD affects all relationships. The work environment includes working relationships with co-workers and employers. Someone with relaitionship difficulties may have difficulties with work relationships too.

Victim perspective and inability to take accountability. Jobs have challenges and one needs to be able to be accountable and receptive to feedback. It can't be "everyone else's fault".

Anxiety and emotional dysregulation affect "executive function" which involved the ability to think logically and stick to a plan.

Less tolerance for discomfort. All jobs have their hassles sometimes, even if they are mostly enjoyable.

These are some ideas, perhaps others have more.

[empower-me]

All of the above. If I had a dollar for every time it was someone else’s fault I’d be a millionaire. Thank you for your response.

Maybe self employment is the answer.

[Notwendy]

I don't think so. In some ways it might be worse. Self employment still requires self regulating skills, executive function, and accountability. In the workplace- accountability and structure is built into the system. A person might work on a project independently but if there aren't results, coworkers and employers would notice. The employer sets the expectations.

IMHO, the aspect of BPD that impairs relationships also impairs keeping a job. Changing the type of job, or relationship, doesn't change that the person has BPD.

There can be income inequalities between spouses and some spouses don't work outside the home and still provide tasks that are beneficial to the family- child care, taking care of the house.

For some pwBPD, the aspects of BPD that make it difficult to work outside the home also impact the ability to work in the home as well.

Necessity is a motivator. We all need to have an income source in order to have our basic needs met. We all have tasks at home to keep up with. Somehow, as arranged between spouses, these tasks need to be done.

It's difficult to know if a person can manage a job or what kind of job if they aren't experiencing this necessity- that is, if someone else is providing the financial support, they may not have the motivation to work at a job.

It could be a challenge to discern the difference between support and enabling.

[ForeverDad]

My ex came home from work so proud that she'd made a complaint to HR that her manager had imitated her accent.  (BTW, I liked her slight accent.)  I presume technically it was against HR rules.  But she felt she had to teach an otherwise decent worker a lesson.  Over the years she had been increasingly negative and triggered by others.

A hallmark trait hindering working with others is the overly sensitive negativity.

[CC43]

I think there could be all sorts of challenges with BPD behaviors in the workplace.

A main issue is drama.  A pwBPD feels easily slighted, ignored or treated badly by others.  Some coaching from a supervisor might be interpreted as an insult, disrespecting her, singling her out or criticizing her unfairly.  Feeling slighted or inferior (for real or imagined reasons) could provoke a meltdown.  She could easily have a shouting match with a co-worker or customer.  Most workplaces don't tolerate that sort of behavior.  Maybe she gets one warning, and then she's out.  She's just too emotionally reactive and impulsive.

A principal challenge for her is her inability to tolerate distress.  She doesn't have the emotional strength, or grit, to see through temporary challenges.  Her inner resources are very limited by BPD.  She doesn't have the long-term passions or goals to see her through the tough workdays.

Another issue is her generally negative attitude.  A pwBPD often feels aggrieved.  Any drama at home (with a parent, romantic partner or roommate) could easily spill over into her work environment.  She comes to work in a bad mood, and her aura is generally negative.  The chip on her shoulder means that her supervisor and/or coworkers don't really like her to begin with.  She generally feels inferior, and she's scared about messing up, which probably means she's avoiding some job responsibilities.  Her fear/anxiety is interpreted as her being lazy/incompetent, or as an outright refusal to perform on the job.  Then, when she makes a mistake, she's not given the benefit of the doubt.  Ergo, she gets fired quickly and easily.

Another issue is her unrealistic expectations.  She expects too much from other people, and she expects too much from her job as well.  In fact, she probably doesn't really want to work in the first place.  Maybe she works only because someone "forced" her into getting a job.  At the same time, she expects high pay and low inconvenience, such as a job with no commute, or a job where she doesn't have to stand all day.  She seems genuinely surprised that work is so HARD.  She doesn't feel tired, she's EXHAUSTED.  She doesn't feel challenged, she feels WRECKED.  Even though she only works 10 to 15 hours per week, that seems IMPOSSIBLE for her.  She hates everything about it--the location, the people, the work itself.  She'll internalize it and think that her job will be miserable for the rest of her life, that she's an utter failure, and that she just can't do it.  Then she'll quit.

I suspect there's a competence issue as well.  She's easily confused by the workplace, because her intense emotional life has distracted her from picking up some basic adulting skills.  She hasn't figured out some administrative tasks on her own, like how to take public transportation, or asking whether there's free or subsidized parking at the workplace.  She misjudges commuting times and arrives late.  She's confused by FICA and taxes withheld from her paycheck.  She panics if she hears numbers like 401(k), instead of being curious and asking about it or researching it on her own.  She still has a student mentality, which means she expects to be taught how to do everything, rather than have a mentality of figuring out what needs to be done and finding a way to do it herself.  She's not "autonomous," and this means she would be a terrible candidate for working from home, even though she THINKS she wants to work from home.  In addition, she's not very organized, let alone able to prioritize her tasks very well.  I suspect she's become used to other adults over-functioning for her, but in the workplace, she's exposed for her general lack of competence, which can be humiliating.  But rather than accept, she's new at this, but she'll figure things out, she self-destructs.

[Notwendy]

This is just my own opinion, but I hope someday that BPD is recognized more like an emotional disability than a mental illness.  I think we accept the importance of inclusiveness and support for people with different abilities into the workforce according to their needs and abilities. There isn't anything like this for pwBPD as they appear to be able, but they have significant unmet emotional needs.

I think some of their behaviors- the "persona" they have in public, the inner feeling of shame and inadequacy are also due to their having to "appear normal" and wanting to be like other people, but not being able to. While we don't want to enable them to not be productive, or cause more stigma and shame, if their emotional needs were recognized and they got the support to be more productive, it might help their self esteem.

[Under The Bridge]

I too often wondered how my ex-BPD g/f was able to keep her job, as she showed the same traits to her workmates as she did to me - one minute they were great friends then the next minute she hated them.

But as I've said often here, I really believe that BPD's have more control than they let us see and can tone it down if, for example, they were angry with a manager where their outburst could get them dismissed.

Her very first outburst to me was actually because she'd had 'a bad day at work' and I still recall her walking into the bar where we met after work and just walking right past me, ignoring me totally. Quite a shock after the great couple of months we'd had since meeting, which we all know now was the idealisation phase.

It gave me an insight as to how her mind worked too.. her reasoning for breaking up with me was ;

I've had a bad day at work
My b/f will see this and won't be happy
He'll break up with me
So I'll break up with him first

In actuality, I'd have put my arm round her, told her I loved her and that we'd have a great night to cheer her up. That option never occurred to her though.

So the cycle began. Cue 4 years of this same stuff.  After I went no-contact for good I saw some years later that her place of work had closed down and I always wondered if she was able to get another job.

[Notwendy]

I think for my BPD mother, not doing things was due to anxiety related to her BPD.

People are motivated to work out of necessity. There are other reasons too- pride in a job, accomplishment but I think for BPD mother, her anxiety was greater than these motivations. In her era, when she married, most women didn't work outside the home, but there were tasks to do at home. BPD mother didn't do those either. Since they needed to be done, someone else would do them.

This then became a vicious cycle. By not doing tasks, she wasn't skilled at them, so this added to her anxiety and the more anxious, the more she'd avoid tasks. I recall her deciding to cook something. With each step of the recipe, she'd ask "is there too much salt, is there not enough salt, did it cook too long, did it need to be cooked longer". She was so anxious through the process, I could see why she'd rather not do it.

I think because pwBPD can pull it together at times, and can be intelligent and capable, it's puzzling if they can't hold a job that they are qualified for. What we can't see is the amount of emotional stress they may be feeling when being held to expectations.

Another possible version of the break up with Under The Bridge-

Had a bad day at work
Her own feelings: "I have uncomfortable feelings about myself, I'm a failure, I don't like myself, I don't deserve to have anyone like me, anything I do will be messed up"
Feelings resolved through Victim perspective and projection.
"It's not my fault, people at work are mean to me"
Projection on to partner "he thinks I'm a failure" "I won't stay with someone who thinks this about me" and then breaks up.

I believe that the amount of stress my BPD mother felt when doing tasks did affect her capacity to accomplish a task, and that this would have affected her ability to handle a job in the workforce.

[zachira]

My mother had BPD and did not work outside the home. My father was puzzled by the fact that mom had to hire outside help for everything imaginable. He could not understand why she was always complaining about how tired she was, when she really did very little besides cook dinner every night, and she complained about that. She was so completely emotionally dysregulated most of the time and falsely accused people of all kinds of things. It would not have been possible for her to keep a job.

[waverider]

pwBPD expect to be perfect at everything they do, or at least appear perfect. As a result they choose to do things that impress and avoid those things they fear they may publicly fail at. This creates huge avoidancy issues. This avoidance means they do not evolve into being competent at those things, which leads to dysfunction. This in turn validates their fear of being a failure at them, again fuelling the avoidance. It is a vicious circle.

In a work environment you can't cherry pick the tasks you want to do, and those you want to avoid. If you work with others it causes conflict, if you work self employed, your business fails