Improving our Emotional Intelligence

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

I've really enjoyed Cat Familiar's thread about "Insights into the mind of a pwBPD husband"

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=297892.0;all

Towards the bottom of the thread she talks about "actively struggled to gain some emotional intelligence"... .

That got me to thinking about my experience and I'm sure that many others can talk about "where they were when their eyes were opened to the world of BPD" and how they have grown since then.

Hopefully they can talk about the benefits they have seen in their life as a result of the personal growth.

I would ask posters to focus on how they personally grew through a search for more emotional intelligence.  No effort to ban other types of talk about personal growth, please just make sure the focus of your post is EQ (yep... .there seems to be a shorthand for emotional intelligence out there)

I'll point people to some articles and I'll also ask for some moderator help.  Below is the reference to EQ that I found on bpdfamily.  Are there others I missed?

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=297892.0;all

Some other appropriate links to define what we are talking about.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/emotional-intelligence


And a good article about some essentials to improve EQ/EI.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/communication-success/201410/how-increase-your-emotional-intelligence-6-essentials

Hopefully this will set the stage for a good discussion.  I'll share the story of my search for more EQ next.

FF

[formflier]

I've really enjoyed Cat Familiar's thread about "Insights into the mind of a pwBPD husband"

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=297892.0;all

Towards the bottom of the thread she talks about "actively struggled to gain some emotional intelligence"... .

That got me to thinking about my experience and I'm sure that many others can talk about "where they were when their eyes were opened to the world of BPD" and how they have grown since then.

Hopefully they can talk about the benefits they have seen in their life as a result of the personal growth.

I would ask posters to focus on how they personally grew through a search for more emotional intelligence.  No effort to ban other types of talk about personal growth, please just make sure the focus of your post is EQ (yep... .there seems to be a shorthand for emotional intelligence out there)

I'll point people to some articles and I'll also ask for some moderator help.  Below is the reference to EQ that I found on bpdfamily.  Are there others I missed?

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=297892.0;all

Some other appropriate links to define what we are talking about.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/emotional-intelligence


And a good article about some essentials to improve EQ/EI.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/communication-success/201410/how-increase-your-emotional-intelligence-6-essentials

Hopefully this will set the stage for a good discussion.  I'll share the story of my search for more EQ next.

FF

[formflier]

Some background on FF.  I grew up in a good home.  My parents are still together (over 50 years married).  Mom is retired college professor and my Dad is retired banker and still actively manages a farm.  Multi-generational farm family.  I am 5th generation involved in farming and 4th generation on the piece of land we currently farm.

Education and achievement was a big deal in my family for several generations.  As I look back on my childhood I can't find any evidence (now that I know what to look for) of an "invalidating" environment.  I also wouldn't say that my parents were intentional about validating me or helping me identify my emotions.

Practically speaking:  If I was sad, luckily I never heard "you shouldn't be crying or shouldn't feel that way".  I don't have any memories of them asking me to talk much (or share) about my emotions either.  Likely I got a hug and was told that the emotions would pass... .or "you will get through it"... .something like that.

Grades, achievement in 4H and cub scouts, doing well in church and sunday school, doing chores well around the house and farm where really big deals.  I realized quite early that bringing in high grades and doing things well meant happy parents.  Happy parents meant I got to do other things I wanted to do. 

There were a few "interesting" (nice for dysfunctional) relationships on my Mom's side of the family.  Now that I know what to look for, my parents used boundaries to protect us from most of the bad influences there.  Boundaries being we lived 5-6 hours away, were deliberate in planning trips to see them, limited trips to short (day or two) times etc etc. 

There was definitely a difference in the way we "dealt with" my Dad's side of the family (farmers) and my Mom's side.  It was explained to me as "it's just best this way".  I didn't give it much more thought... .

They never used the word "boundary".

Likely I would have been "fine" my entire life with the EQ that I had except for a detour I am currently taking into this world of BPD traits showing up in my marriage.  For me, it started after 15 years of marriage and a natural disaster forced us from our home for about 6 months.  Sure, I can see "hints" of it before then but I came and went a lot due to Navy and my wife is very high functioning (and is the "pick of the litter" from her FOO, that all display the traits)

Where things went wrong.  I did not have the capacity (the EQ) to deal with the flood and PTSD (military and flood) and be present and listen to my wife's concerns/emotions that she was having a hard time processing.  As she tried to make sense emotionally of her world and the way I was acting, paranoia kicked in and she would share her "theories".  I must have been in love with someone. 

Instead of listening and validating... .I treated in like a courtroom and "proved beyond a reasonable doubt" that I was only in love with my wife.  I crushed her emotions because (IMO) they were "wrong".

This poured gas on the paranoia and BPDish stuff.  Ended up with her believing I was a polygamist and also had a secret love child that I "introduced" her to at McDonald's one day.  Of course there were lots of other theories sent up ... .I crushed most of them.  Patting myself on the back that I was "proving" my love to her.

After reading SWOE and finding this site, fairly quickly I began to understand the concept of "invalidation".  In my relationship, if I can remove invalidation the big paranoia stuff pretty much goes away.  Toss in some validation and boundaries and I can honestly say it's been a while since I have heard a "paranoid theory".  I have no idea if she still thinks them, but she no longer expresses them.  I suppose the last big whopper was that I attempted to kill her with a sex toy.  She "told on me" to the biblical counselor we were seeing at the time.  That was Feb/March time-frame.

From the article on "increasing your EQ"

A. Reducing Negative Personalization.   Was a huge concept to me.  I feel pretty sheepish now that I ever believe I should take that kind of stuff personally... .  But I did... .big-time.    It has been revolutionary for me to believe (and act on) the concept that other people do things because of things going on in their life, than because they feel a certain way about me... .or are trying to "send me a message".

Once I got the concept of "don't take it personally" straight in my head, that allowed me to become much more empathetic.  It creates an honest question and "questioning attitude" where you are like "if it's not about me... .then what is going on in your world?" 

pwBPD are very sensitive.  My wife can tell when I'm honestly interested... .and when I am trying to hurry her issue along to get on to what I want to do.

In summary, realizing it is not about me and deliberately getting better at empathy have dramatically changed my life.  Sure, lots of other tools have mattered, but I'm more talking about "attitudes" that I have, vice "tools" that I use.

Impressions? 

Looking forward to hearing about the journey's of others.

FF

[LilMe]

Although I was not able to continue my relationship with my uBPD due to the abuse of myself and our children, I have grown a lot in my EQ and that will benefit myself and all my children.  I still have a long way to go, but at least I am learning and growing and seem to be on the right path for the first time in my life.

Over the years I had read quite a bit about boundaries, codependency, books by Robert W Firestone, etc. , but I didn't truly 'get it' until I understood BPD.  After I started spending time on bpdfamily and read just about every book available about BPD, I started to put boundaries in place and validate and not JADE my uBPD and others in my life.  The impact on my children is great.  I was raised in an extremely invalidating environment and carried many of those behaviors into my parenting.  I wish I would have learned all this sooner, but I am very thankful to know it now!

I realize now that I did a lot wrong emotionally in raising my older children (thankfully, I did a lot right too , I have some pretty amazing children!), but I now have the opportunity to do better with my younger ones and help my grown children learn what I have so they can live better lives with better relationships and be better parents than I.

As painful as loving someone with BPD is, I am thankful for him coming into my life.  It has impacted my family in good and bad ways, but has also forced us to grow and learn and become more than we would have if we had not been through the experience.

Great thread, FF.  I look forward to hearing how others are progressing too!

[Cat Familiar]

Wow, FF, you had a pretty idyllic childhood, undoubtedly with some challenges, but it prepared you to be a healthy and strong person. However, it didn't prepare you to deal with a "difficult" person in your life.

I had a friend I met at my first job after college. She was beautiful, smart, accomplished. Her parents were beloved community members and all her brothers and sisters were lovely and gracious people. I marveled at the closeness of her family and the wonderful upbringing she had. What I didn't realize was that when adversity struck, she had no experience in dealing with it because in the past, her older brothers and sister had run interference for her and she didn't have the skills to deal with troubling circumstances herself.

What I then realized was that my crazy upbringing had given me the gift of resilience. I had dealt with so much nonsensical behavior that I was well-versed in feeling OK while others were coming unglued. The part that I was missing, and am now becoming aware of, is that I have spent a lifetime being dismissive of "feelings" because my BPD mother was so irrationally emotional and illogical at times.

I modeled my logical, quiet father and had contempt for people who were overly expressive of their feelings. I don't think my father felt that contempt, otherwise I doubt he could have lived with my mother for fifty-some years. But I did. I hated how she unleashed her feelings on him and me. So what do I do? I marry two men that are very emotional--and had a long-term boyfriend who also fell into this category.

Delving into my own psyche, I recognize now that it's likely that I'm high functioning Aspergers. So many girls are not diagnosed because their behavior presents in a different way than boys. Many women are diagnosed later in life when their children present as autistic. (Another reason I'm glad I never had children--in addition to how inadequate I felt as a would-be parent when I was younger.) Reading more on this topic, it suddenly became really clear to me--MY DAD WAS ASPERGERS! Holy sh!t--this totally explains my odd childhood--BPD mom/Aspergers dad. Wow!

I'd always known there was something tremendously weird about my family, but even though I was a psych major in college, briefly worked in a mental hospital, attended a bit of grad school--I could never figure out our family dynamics until now. My never ending quest to understand has caused me to greatly improve my emotional intelligence along the way, reading a variety of books on relationships, human behavior, self improvement. I realized that I hadn't the maturity to be a therapist so thankfully I didn't continue to pursue that direction. My goal was to try and understand what the hell was going on in my family and now, many decades later, I feel a sense of peace, finally getting an overview of the personality structures of my parents and realizing that I did the best I could in that environment.

[FallBack!Monster]

My grandfather was not a good influence in our lives. He was a fighter and it trickled down to all. He was also a lady's man, and that all contributed to what happened next. Insensitivity. Invalidation, insecurities, neglect, pretentiousness, and that's nothing but a spicy recipe for the ideal people  pleaser.  A pack of self conscious,  pretentious, egotistical,  know it all.

But then I had a brush with a pwBPD.  Never knew it was a THING to validate or invalidate. All I knew was if I like you i treat you special. If I dont, I don't acknowledge your existence. Heck didn't care to memorize your name.

I love to joke. I could take a good joke even about me but if you dared to joke on me while I was on one of my ego trippy moods, I took it personal.

My upbringing was lonely and boring. So im always looking for excitement. I want to be loved but not to be made feel as if I'm somebody's possession. and I only interacted with people I truly enjoyed being with. Not abnormal but I hope you see the point here.
I can share more but why.

 bpdfamily and other similar sources, thought me that I needed to learn more about r/s and how to deal with people in general. Especially people that are different than me. BPD or not. Romantic or platonic, and others who I'm forced to interact with on a daily basis.

I learned about not taking certain things personal. Dealing with a pwBPD it's probably one of the worst experiences and biggest challenges I've EVER had to face in my life. If I can learn not to take her actions personally, which was directed at me, therefore I couldn't see how I could not see that way. if I was able to get over that, then I can overcome lesser challenges.
I won't label myself an ex-people pleaser, but today  I'm conscious about not being one. 

What all the stories (here) tools, and advise on  bpdfamily taught me?

 It wasn't her behavior that was draining me. It was that I was dissatisfied with my weak boundaries. Which in turn drained my energy. She never used or (in reality) abused me. She was being herself and I took it personally, in an effort to deflect my true feelings.,. Why was I letting her? Instead, I was secretly hating her ways. Maybe, bc she showed me a weakness in my personality and I've always thought of myself as strong and fairly assertive.

I've grown lots since my first visit here,... .and my rhyme ain't done.

Thanks

[Panda39]

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. It is generally said to include three skills:

1. Emotional awareness, including the ability to identify your own emotions and those of others;

2. The ability to harness emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problems solving;

3. The ability to manage emotions, including the ability to regulate your own emotions, and the ability to cheer up or calm down another person.

I would describe myself as pretty emotionally intelligent... .have 2 and 3 down and can identify emotions in others.  The hard one for me can actually be identifying my own emotions. 

I was raised by a critical and controlling mother that wasn't good at validating me.  The message I internalized was that my feelings were less important than the feelings of others.  Only in the last few years with a wonderful SO have I begun working on being better at identifying my feelings and feeling comfortable expressing some that are tough for me.  I have only in the last few years learned to express my needs and ask for what I need.  Sometimes I actually need to talk through something to get to the actual feeling I'm having.

I was lucky to be part of a thread sometime back where someone mentioned a "feeling wheel" I've found it to be a helpful tool below is a sample... .This tool can sometimes get me to the heart of the matter... .to the real emotion.



Panda39

[thisagain]

Thanks for sharing, FF! I've followed your threads for a long time and can see the progress you've been making in this area 

I'm naturally very sensitive to other people's emotions. I would come home from elementary school crying because the teacher yelled at someone else (not me). But I was never really taught to handle my own emotions, put them into words, keep other people from affecting me, etc. So I would pretty much soak up all the negativity around me and then just shut down because I didn't know how to handle it. My mom was sometimes validating depending on the topic, but with the big emotional issues of my teenage years, either both parents were invalidating or I didn't feel safe to even bring it up. So I mostly just tried to ignore it all.

I'm also actually a lawyer, speaking of "beyond a reasonable doubt"   and I definitely tend to approach problems in a logical way. I like that about myself, but have been working on validating other people's feelings more and only getting into logical problem-solving if they specifically ask for that.

Pre-BPD relationship I got along with friends okay, though there were definitely moments when someone would tell me I'd hurt their feelings and I'd basically be like "but what I said was true, right? So how can it hurt your feelings if it's true?"... .Also had a couple of friends with low distress tolerance who were always complaining about "my pinky toe hurts!" type of thing. I would just get really annoyed and uncomfortable with the extreme negative emotion when I didn't understand where it was coming from. I soaked up all the negativity and in ten minutes or so they'd have moved on, while I still had this discomfort and now I'm mad because it clearly wasn't actually a big deal.

In law school I ended up pretty depressed, mostly because of the weight of all the things I'd been trying to push aside. Started therapy and learned the basics of identifying and expressing my own emotions. The therapist had to give me one of those charts with different faces illustrating each emotion because otherwise I'd say that everything felt either "good" or "bad".

But the BPD relationship (second and third year of law school) and finding bpdfamily was really the turning point for learning that other people's feelings feel real to them and it's not helpful for me to try to cross-examine them out of it.

":)on't validate the invalid" is a difficult concept for those of us whose first instinct is to think that most extreme displays of emotion are invalid. I leaned way in the other direction with my pwBPD and validated most everything during the last several months of the relationship... .and when she hit something that I just couldn't validate, the relationship blew up. But I've grown SO much with boundaries to keep me from being an emotional sponge, and learning to look for the validation target. I think I would still struggle with the balance if I were in a BPD relationship, but since I'm not, I'm happy with where I'm at 

[Cat Familiar]

I grew up with a very emotionally expressive BPD mom, though mostly expressive of "bad" emotions, and I felt that it was my job to make her happy. Of course I carried this job duty into both marriages and it's been a recent change in me to "observe and not absorb." (I don't take credit for that phrase, but I don't remember who to credit.)

So I liken it to watching a movie play out before me when I see my husband react in an over-emotional (IMO) way to something insignificant. What's changed for me, much like with thisagain, is that I'm no longer attempting to "cross-examine" him out of it, which he, as a lawyer, certainly didn't appreciate, especially those times when I could out-argue him, which isn't too difficult when he's upset and not able to use his logical faculties.

I no longer have to prove my point, demonstrate how "right" my argument is, show logical frailties in his story, whatever. This sort of thing engaged my competitive side, but engendered needless hostilities and ultimately was emotionally draining.

Now, I just go do something else if I'm tempted to get into an endless spiral of argument. I don't need to show him up and demonstrate how inconsistent he is. It's still irritating, but at worst, I just flip him off with my hand in the pocket of my jeans and a smile on my face and let go of it.

[formflier]

I"m not a lawyer.  But worked with a bunch of them in the Navy.  Got good at leading "investigative teams" to sort out accidents and potentially assign blame.

If you wrecked an airplane... .I was the guy that would talk to you and would tell you that if you told me things that incriminated you... .I would have to use that against you.

Trust me... .my popularity skyrocketed... .

So... .very familiar with "logically" piecing together things.

Writing up reports where I could say "beyond a reasonable doubt" or... ."more likely than not... ."... .or... .

All this to say... .I used to be able to cross examine my wife and "investigate" why she felt things.

It was disastrous... .

FF

[Cat Familiar]

I think I'm finally understanding the meaning of "discretion is the better part of valor."

I was reprimanded as a child for voicing any opinion that might be in any way critical of my BPD mother. Because of that, I went through sort of a mute phase as far as sharing personal opinions. I could argue endlessly about politics or speak up in class, but I was afraid to actually tell people what I thought if it was of a personal nature.

As a result of getting over this, and due to the prevailing trends at the time in self-help literature, I went through a phase where I was overly expressive of my opinions and confrontational about things. Obviously this was not a good strategy with pwBPD. And when it didn't work out well, I just kept trying harder, thinking if I was more open and honest that my husband would understand. (This is the nice second husband, not the scary husband, for those of you who know my story.)

He picked up on my intensity and instead of seeing it as a deep desire to be understood, saw it as me "beating him over the head" about something.

This leads me to another phrase that I'm starting to get, years after hearing it: "Seek to understand, rather than be understood."

It's like planting seeds, some of these phrases have taken years to germinate in my understanding--but they're growing... .