Last night Stargazer replied to one of my threads and mentioned compiling a list of MC Techniques.

What I have learned so far is:

1.?  Have a physical distance if you can.

2.?  Do not volunteer any personal information.

3.?  Keep the conversation to mundane topics.(weather, etc.)

4.?  Recognize the "Re-engagement/Trigger/Mind___" when it comes and maintain a flat, expressionless face.

5.?  Develop an internal attitude of being responsive but not reactive/a failure to plan on the BPD's part does not constitute an emergency on YOUR part.

Have I left anything out?  Anyone care to add to these "Cliff" notes on MC?

I am trying to be an A+ student!

Salveregina

Okay, here are a few more techniques that I learned that are related:

6.  If you have a BPD relative, have caller ID.  Use it.  Get into the habit of letting it go into voicemail.

7.  Do not return phone calls to a BPD who has troubles with phone boundaries for at least 3 hours (and better 6 or 24 hours).  Break the cycle of dependency of thinking that *you* are the person at the beck-and-call whenever the Borderline sufferer has a need to freak out and wants to share it (and then blame it on someone:  you).

8.  Understand the effects of "Intermittent Reinforcement".

Obviously, these three tie in to each other.  Interestingly enough, since I've started waiting at least 6 hours to return a call, I've noticed a couple of things:  (a) the calls have significantly decreased in frequency-- whereas I used to receive several calls a day from the momster (and be the long-distance target of her various waves of discontent), now, after an adjustment period on her part where she complained about my inaccessability, she often goes weeks without calling.  (Fine with me!)  Also (b)  EACH AND EVERY TIME I've violated this rule by picking up the phone when I see it's her and I think, "Oh, I'm in a good mood and I have the time, why not pick up" (3 times in the last 8 months), EACH AND EVERY TIME, I receive at least 2 more calls that same day PLUS another phone call the very next day. 

Even if you have physical distance it won't make any difference until you find emotional distance.?  If you have emotional distance you could live next door and maintain Medium Chill.

Emotional distance REQUIRES that you accept on a cellular level that your BP views you as useful or useless based on the "what have you done for me lately" criteria.?  If you expect unconditional love you will self destruct.?  Expect nothing and you won't be hurt.?  Hope for nothing and you won't be hurt.?  Give nothing (emotionally) and you won't be hurt.

One of the more experienced members of the community that I met here years ago had some interesting things to say about why PDs try to create drama - and hence, why its important for us to learn not to engage in it.

Basically, the PD doesn't have the skills or maturity to deal with their own out of control emotions.

One way that they deal with them is by 'dumping' them or 'projecting' them onto us.

In simple terms, if they feel bad, and they can dump it onto us, they feel better.

A bit like a dump truck unloading at the tip.

The idea with the Medium Chill is that the gates to the old Tip (you) are firmly shut so they have to go find another tip.

Hopefully on the other side of town or interstate... .

I hope this helps and if anyone has any strategies along this line, or resources you could recommend, perhaps you could share them here.

I have tired this technique, and it WORKS   

This technique doesn't work in my case, it only encourages her to keep trying harder.  I'm better off NC, for now at least.    Plus, I just really, really don't want her in my life.  Nothing good comes from it, I feel yucky inside just seeing her name pop up on my caller i.d.  Immediately I'm irratated!  Just like with their disorder, everything is black and white, all good or all bad, to protect myself I either have to be all in or all out.  And out feels much better

I've come across this responding rather than reacting thing in reading Living the Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn (Author)  PhD,  the book on mindfulness meditation, as Skip points out, and I think you can apply it to life in general and any particular challenge in, uh, particular, triggers, especially - they are the epitome of reacting, of blind reflex, and learning how to notice it, defuse and manage it and then think about what the stressor is and how to deal with it in a lucid way.

Also works with difficult clients  

I have an example of reactive versus responsive to share.

I was putting my DD to bed and we were cuddling after her story. So a nice, quiet, relaxed time. My DH was at that moment fixing a minor plumbing problem. I could hear him banging away with various tools and could sense the waves of frustration coming off of him from all the way across the house. I know that plumbing repairs aren't his favorite (and who could blame him!). He and DD had also had a conflict earlier in the day, which I had somewhat inadvertently made worse by triangulating. (Hadn't had a chance yet to discuss what had happened with DH, but I knew we were both feeling unsettled.)

For me, being in bed hearing sounds of banging and sensing someone's frustration and other negative emotions is highly triggering. This is a childhood scene that played out over and over, and it never went well. The scene would be of my parents fighting, or my mother having a meltdown of some sort; if I went to intervene I would get the brunt of someone's anger. If I didn't, I would be accused of being selfish and uncaring and I had feelings of guilt as well as strong fear.

Lying there, I felt... .guilt and fear. I also had an instinct to rush out and try to comfort DH. I knew that those feelings were reactive; they were based on past scripts and memories.

First thing I did was acknowledge what I was feeling and thinking. Fear, guilt, instinct to rescue.

Then I assessed how well those fit with the current situation. I decided not very well. DH is perfectly capable of completing a plumbing job with my "help" (which would not be any help, trust me  . He just needed to get it done and be allowed to be frustrated. I hadn't done anything to warrant feeling guilty. And I had no reason to be afraid. DH might be frustrated with the job and annoyed/upset about earlier in the day, but that wasn't anything to fear. We're good at working together to solve problems.

So I acknowledged my thoughts and feelings, assessed them, found them not to be fitting to the current circumstances, and then decided to try to change them.

I've been practicing an exercise described by Dan Siegel in Mindsight (see www.drdansiegel.com/). He has a number of metaphors for finding your neutral place of awareness and directing your awareness toward your own reactions without being overwhelmed by them. One metaphor really resonates with me. It's the image of being under the sea in a calm, quiet place looking up to the surface of the water. Thoughts and feelings play on the surface like a storm, creating waves, but you observe them from underneath, where it is calm.

I tried that exercise for a while. I sank down and tried to center myself under the water. I visualized it and also focused on my breathing and the direct sensations around me, the softness of the bed, the calm breathing of my DD, who was already asleep. Then I directed my awareness to the sounds of the banging and my own feelings, and imagined them like a storm. I could see it, but I was calm.

This exercise really helped a lot. I was able to detach a lot from the reactive feelings (guilt, fear, urge to rescue). Later, after DH finished his repair and had a chance to relax a bit, he and I talked about the situation with DD. We probably need to talk more, but the dialogue is open and we were both calm and receptive.

Hope that's not too much, just thought it was a good example as the process helped me a lot.  

B&W

BMama, can we think about something for a few minutes?   I dont know you very well, but lets just pretend "as if" I did, and the following were true.

Lets say you were a fashion designer by trade, and you liked to go to bed early. You enjoyed drinking coffee in the mornings, and reading your paper. For dinner, you prefered to eat healthy, and didn't tolerate junk food. You also, dont like to drink.

Now, lets say I came to visit you, and we are old friends. I am thanking you in advance for allowing me to stay with you, saving me the cost of a hotel room. Thanks old friend.  

I get there the first night, and want to keep you up talking. We stay up 4 hours past your bedtime. The next morning, we get up, and you grab your paper, and start the coffee pot. I start telling you how coffee is so bad for you, and that the paper is run by the government, and what lies are printed in there. I completely down everything about coffee and the paper.

You tell me that you need to get ready for work, and I start telling you how you should quit the fashion design business, because it is worthless, and you should do what I do. I completely dis your job, and your work.

You go to work, and then, come home.

I meet you at the door with a pitcher of margaritas, and tell you that we are having pizza and hot wings for dinner, and that I made them. I say that we are gonna drink till we pass out, and that we are going to stay up late doing it.

How do you feel after the first day, and then, how do you feel after a week of this?

I was kinda hoping for a little bit more to work with. 

You do?  

Ill spell it out anyway.

My lifestyle is OK for me, as it is the way I have chosen to live it. Your lifestyle is OK for you because it is the way you have chosen to live it. Neither is right, neither is wrong. You will find tons of people that dont agree with either of our lifestyles.

The problem occurs when I try to force my lifestyle on you, or you try to force your lifestyle on me. If we are truly friends, we will accept each other for what we each are, and put up boundaries. (Notice I thanked you in advance for letting me stay with you, because if you stuck to your boundaries, there would be no way in hell you would have let me stay with you. You know how I am.   )

What happens with our parents is exactly the same dynamic. We have to accept them for who they are, rather than trying to change them. We have to understand who they are, and what they do, so as to establish boundaries to protect the relationship. Then, we have to enforce those boundaries to maintain the relationship. If those boundaries aren't respected, the relationship dissolves.

Once I saw my role in my parents and my relationship, I could stop "reacting" and start responding, like you have said. I wanted them to change, but I didnt like someone trying to change me. I had to give the same consideration to them that I expected. I wanted them to not change me, but, I was trying to change them. Reacting at its finest.

PDQuick get out of my head ... .

BMama   Good luck.

I do use some of that techniques and it really does work. There are some that I haven't heard of and will try when I can. Thanks for posting this 

Yeah, Medium Chill is hard to learn, but I saw this post over 3 years ago during the worst of the divorce. I had to APPLY myself to this technique consciously, and I've used it every since. It works. It drives BPXW crazy, but it works FOR ME. Still... .it's hard to appear calm when seething inside. No doubt.

As a childen of a BPD sufferer, you've developed the Medium Chill in a different way from me, but SIMILAR to the way "our" (BPXW and I) sons have. My elder son (S23) has always seemed to have better boundaries and reactions than me, and my youngest (S22) has NO boundaries at all. But he is learning how to cope/deal with BPXW. Elder son always made himself scarce when ugly situations developed, and the only time he is even remotedly interested in discussing his OWN difficulties with (his) mom (my BPXW), he has become so frustrated that he can't make a whole sentence. S21 yet harbors some hope that his mom actually loves and cares about him, and he infrequently "tests" that hope, but ALWAYS to his disappointment. I've been silently observing them for sereral years now. They handle things (outwardly) much better than I ever did, and are able to "keep quiet" much more consistently than I am.

Skip put this on this site awhile ago... .

WiseMind

When they lash out – show no anger.

When they are nice – do not reciprocate.

Be distant and flat in both cases. When they sense they cannot manipulate your reaction, they tend to leave you alone.

Tell them nothing, ask for nothing, and offer vacuous pleasantries. WiseMind gives no appearance of withdrawal, so they can’t accuse you of giving them the cold shoulder. You are there, you’re just not present to them in an emotional way.

WiseMind is effective because they no longer feel safe in their ability to generate chaos. Now you’re back in control. It takes a bit of practice as you learn o disconnect from them emotionally. It’s about more than just boundaries. To put it another way, it’s a two-part process with a specific attitude:

1)   Never share personal information about yourself

2)   Never get involved in their problems/drama

Attitude: pleasant, modest, implacably calm – never showing anger or compassionate involvement; paying attention, but not too much attention, while never violating items one or two above.

Remember, a person can only use information they know about you to find your hot buttons and use them against you if they are highly manipulative. So don’t let them know your hot buttons.

Does your personality-disordered loved one pick fights with you when something is wrong with him/her? When you practice WiseMind, you, in essence, become a dull listener. They get bored and move on to someone they have a greater effect on. I swear, it really does work. They will rather quickly see who is the most active listener and turn their energies there.