Hello family! I am learning more and more about the disorder. I am tracking do not validate the invalid. However, how do you get past a rage set off by my genuinely not being able to recall a word or name? How do I get through or around it? Another, is when your loved one sees an event differently than the participants? Is it more harmful to agree that it went that way, or to try to explain how you and the others saw it?
I am in the process of learning a different method (which seems to work well), as borderlines, when they are raging, they are in a mental health state not unlike a 'crisis' and they are dysregulated, and cannot think straight (rationally). They are irrational. Their reasoning is irrational, especially surrounding the 'facts'. So, I am using crisis communication techniques that focus only on feelings to bring them back down to a more regulated state instead of the 'do not JADE' method, otherwise known as 'grey rocking' that is the leading tool on this site.
The way to reach an irrational person is to speak to their feelings, as the facts generally will not match the feelings that they are having as you have mentioned 'your loved one sees an event different than the participants' where their perception of the fact is distorted by their feeling to the point of being a false narrative.
So when they are dysregulated, use extreme adjectives when describing their feelings, followed up by open ended questions to them so they can express their feelings so they can be heard:
Example: "I know you are very agitated and hurt about [blah blah]. You seem to be feeling really upset about [blah blah]. Going through [blah blah] can be really intense... Can you tell me more?" Notice I did 3 validations of their feelings, as borderlines require excessive amounts of validation, especially when they are distressed.
Let them vent their feelings to you. If it is coupled with distorted facts, ignore those facts, or deflect them, and focus only on the feelings that they are expressing. Validate their feelings, because feelings are valid; however, do not validate the facts if they are invalid. If the facts are valid, then by all means validate those too.
Once they are starting to cool down on their episode, you can continue to validate them by saying something along the lines and ask them for the solution on how to address their extreme feelings "You have great insight to realize that [blah blah] is making you feel that way. What do you think
we can do about [blah blah] so you don't feel so upset?" Use "we" and avoid "you" as you are in this together with them, it will further avoid triggering their fear of abandonment. You are also telling them "I am here for you" by doing this together as a team.
If you would notice I am totally avoiding JADE - there is no justification of factual behaviors, no arguing of the facts, no defending on the false narrative of facts, and there is no explaining of why the facts are what they are. You are exclusively focusing and validating their feelings (no matter how irrational they may be) by looking at the situation from their perspective and multiply it to a crisis level inside of your head, and imagine what kind of feelings they might be having and validate those feelings - so they feel heard.
Focus on soothing the run-away-train of their emotions, by cooling down the emotional temperature of the feelings to the point, where they can start to regulate their own feelings. It is kind of like calming a small toddler when they have hurt themselves by doing a faceplant and all they feel is the pain of the fall without realizing what caused this pain. Do not talk about how they should have been looking out for [blah blah] so they can avoid it in the future when they are so upset. The priority is to calm their pain, to the point once they can be reasoned with, distract them with something else until all of the upset is gone. When the upset is gone, while it is still fresh in their minds, then talk about what caused the pain (not looking, tripping over something, to cause them to do a faceplant and feel all of that pain).
Once they return to some semblance of being rational, stay focused on validating their feelings until they are fully rational and baseline, usually for my uBPDw it is overnight, and occasionally a couple of days. Wait until a day or two and then have a normal conversation to hold them accountable for their actions surrounding the [blah blah] incident using SET communication or DEARMAN while avoiding blame (making them defensive), avoid criticism, avoid making them contemptuous all the while avoiding stonewalling (grey rocking is a temporary form of stonewalling). I do this by asking open ended questions, that encourages them to think and brainstorm, so they can come up with the idea(s) to make it not happen again in the future. By making it their idea, it is theirs to own, and they have invested into their own solution.
Going back to the toddler example. After the toddler was soothed by the parent and has stopped being upset, and given a 'treat' (validation) for being so brave. Then gently ask them "why do you think you fell?" and they would respond with something like "I don't know why that happened. The rock made me do it, it is the rock's fault for making me fall" This is still irrational, but you can reason with it. Say something along the lines "That rock has always been there, how is it the rock's fault - help me understand this? Also, I don't think the rock can move, perhaps you can tell me what you might do in the future so the rock doesn't trip you". Let them come up with the answer which could be, "I will look for the rock and not trip over it again" or it can be more radical "I am going to move that rock, so when I play in that area it won't trip me again" or it can be some other rational answer. If the answer is irrational "It is the seesaw's (firmly planted in the ground) fault which caused me to trip over the rock next to it, we can move the seesaw?", continue to ask open ended questions, gently nudging them in a direction until they figure it out. By saying something like "The seesaw cannot be moved from that position, is there anything else you can do to avoid being tripped up?"
This requires a lot of effort; however, I have tried it a few times in the past week with very remarkable results with my uBPDw as she now feels heard and respected. I am starting the tweaking process specific to my wife's behavioral nuances.
This is something new I just discovered a couple weeks ago after I had an epiphany of piecing together two different existing communication tools together than may have not been tried before in this combination for borderlines, according to Google it has been researched before (I am obtaining the 5 research papers based on 4 studies on this premise which had inconclusive results) so it may not be a long term solution, but the short term results are really good for me, and I plan on studying those studies to see what can be done differently to make this more effective - or to see what I am doing differently from these studies - not there yet on my own research as an individual, but I might be on to something here. If anyone tries this (crisis communication techniques combined with borderline communication techniques), please provide feedback, positive or negative. It makes sense in my mind to do this, and the results have been good so far.
As always, take care with self-care. (another tool)
Moderators, what are your thoughts on this?
