OCD and BPD Together?

[mssalty]

My pwBPD has had a long history of anxiety issues that I believe could best be classified as OCD, requiring the constant need for rituals and reassurance. 

In trying to get help for it, though, anyone who isn't helping 100% isn't helping at all, which leads them to me for answers that I don't have.   When I try to help, I'm told all the reasons my help is wrong, then I'm the bad person for getting frustrated for not having answers.   

This loop would be frustrating for anyone, but when you add BPD into the mix, the black and white thinking, the tendency to misunderstand the emotions of others (while knowing with 100% certainty that you DO understand them) and the constant push/pull of being needed and then rejected within the same 30 minutes day after day after day is exhausting.   

Anyone else experiencing this?  How do you reassure someone who is certain that everyone who isn't 100% helpful is 100% against them? 

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[Notwendy]

Rather than to see these "OCD" like behaviors as a different diagnosis, I see them as related to the BPD and anxiety. OCD behaviors are driven by anxiety. They are seen with other conditions that are connected to anxiety, or they stand alone.

My BPD mother had very high anxiety and also black and white thinking. I could do several helpful things for her and she'd find something I did or didn't do that she decided was "wrong", and focus on that. She perceived people as being "on her side" or "not her side".

I don't think there's a way to change how someone thinks, however, if we look to them to decide if we are helpful or not, it can be discouraging. I had to base my own decision on what was true for myself. If I did helpful things, even if it wasn't 100% perfect, then it was still helpful. Trying to convince someone that we are good enough, when they have this kind of thinking, is demoralizing.  One doesn't need to be perfect in their eyes to be "good enough".

What did help the "OCD-like" behavior was medicine that helped decrease the anxiety. It isn't a treatment specifically for BPD, but since these behaviors are driven by anxiety- treating that may bring some emotional relief for your wife. If your wife is willing to consider this, her medical providers can work with her to find one that works best for her. They didn't eliminate all the behaviors or all the anxiety but decreasing BPD mother's anxiety did help her.

[CC43]

I agree 100% with Notwendy that anxiety is a huge component of both BPD and OCD.  In addition, I see some "obsessive compulsive" thinking patterns with BPD, such as endless rumination about past grievances, worrying way too much about what other people do or say, and fretting way too much about stuff that didn't even happen.  I've posted before how I felt that the pwBPD in my life had ruminated so obsessively about past grievances that she literally carved a rut into her brain.  Any time she felt the slightest bit anxious about something completely unrelated, the negative thinking pattern would be "activated," and she'd spiral.  It seemed to me like "ritualized" thinking--that she had to rehash the past, over and over again, and let it out.

Like Notwendy wrote, the good news is that there are some medications that can help with anxiety.  This sort of medication helped the pwBPD in my life get more stabilized.  Once stabilized, the cognitive therapy helped her out more than the medication in my opinion.