If I understand you correctly, you have some kind of hyperactive “abandonment detector” system which, if triggered, throws you into an escalating loop of alarm signals. Does that sound about right?
A therapist should have a long look at this to make sure you’re not overlooking something. For actually changing that, you might have to be in a stable relationship that lets your System 1 learn an alternate response pattern, which can supplant the other although the one you have might need years to atrophy.
Lots of people with worse issues than yours are in working relationships. It’s just a matter of being with someone who can handle you when it’s bad and is willing to discuss the matter as much as you need. Someone who can get way closer to you than we can.
Correct. My impression is that this might be an area where psychodynamic therapy might actually be better than CBT, but I don’t have research to back that up.
Not quite what I was getting at. That may be true, I’m scared of psychodynamic therapy. I suspect chaos magick might be useful in therapy, may I add, being inspired by your name. But I haven’t seen any evidence for that and you don’t experiment too much with people who want help, I say, when you can avoid it.
I’m referring more to the fact that the best evidence base for BPD is to use Dialectical behavioural therapy, which is arguably a form of CBT but you won’t get it from most CBT therapists (you won’t get good CBT therapy from most CBT therapists either probably...).
Moreover, BPD is one of the hardest things to diagnose.
That does sound approximately accurate, yes. To be honest, from what I’ve read, it’s close to a panic attack, though not quite as debilitating. I’m still able to put up some facade when in mixed company.
I don’t think that I’ll be able to afford a therapist. The closest I’ll be able to get is sites like Blahtherapy and 7 Cups of Tea, which are mostly in-training psychologists and therapists doing pro bono work for experience from what I’ve read. Not the best option, but it’s what I’ve got.
Yeah, I understand that. Under the assumption that you’re talking strictly platonic relationships, I’ve got people to help out with that, but there are few patient enough to help me out with this as much as I’d need, and those that do are concerned—rightfully so—at the dependency that would develop.
I don’t mean strictly platonic relationships, I mean an intense, deeply loving relationship where both people involved make themselves deeply vulnerable to one another. Where some degree of dependency is okay because it isn’t unilateral. These relationships can sometimes heal the people in them more deeply than therapy can.
If I understand you correctly, you have some kind of hyperactive “abandonment detector” system which, if triggered, throws you into an escalating loop of alarm signals. Does that sound about right?
A therapist should have a long look at this to make sure you’re not overlooking something. For actually changing that, you might have to be in a stable relationship that lets your System 1 learn an alternate response pattern, which can supplant the other although the one you have might need years to atrophy.
Lots of people with worse issues than yours are in working relationships. It’s just a matter of being with someone who can handle you when it’s bad and is willing to discuss the matter as much as you need. Someone who can get way closer to you than we can.
Sorry, this was an useless post so now it’s gone
Correct. My impression is that this might be an area where psychodynamic therapy might actually be better than CBT, but I don’t have research to back that up.
Not quite what I was getting at. That may be true, I’m scared of psychodynamic therapy. I suspect chaos magick might be useful in therapy, may I add, being inspired by your name. But I haven’t seen any evidence for that and you don’t experiment too much with people who want help, I say, when you can avoid it.
I’m referring more to the fact that the best evidence base for BPD is to use Dialectical behavioural therapy, which is arguably a form of CBT but you won’t get it from most CBT therapists (you won’t get good CBT therapy from most CBT therapists either probably...).
Moreover, BPD is one of the hardest things to diagnose.
That does sound approximately accurate, yes. To be honest, from what I’ve read, it’s close to a panic attack, though not quite as debilitating. I’m still able to put up some facade when in mixed company.
I don’t think that I’ll be able to afford a therapist. The closest I’ll be able to get is sites like Blahtherapy and 7 Cups of Tea, which are mostly in-training psychologists and therapists doing pro bono work for experience from what I’ve read. Not the best option, but it’s what I’ve got.
Yeah, I understand that. Under the assumption that you’re talking strictly platonic relationships, I’ve got people to help out with that, but there are few patient enough to help me out with this as much as I’d need, and those that do are concerned—rightfully so—at the dependency that would develop.
You’re fairly new here, so maybe you haven’t read through the material at http://slatestarcodex.com yet. Do that: You get tons of good insights, and some of the information there (including the discussion sections) might apply to your situation, such as http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/13/getting-a-therapist/ , http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/ssris-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ and http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/16/things-that-sometimes-help-if-youre-depressed/ .
I don’t mean strictly platonic relationships, I mean an intense, deeply loving relationship where both people involved make themselves deeply vulnerable to one another. Where some degree of dependency is okay because it isn’t unilateral. These relationships can sometimes heal the people in them more deeply than therapy can.