Paradox and Recovery From Borderline Personality Disorder

Author, Life Coach, BPD and Mental Health Coach, A.J. Mahari talks about the central paradox at the heart of recovery from BPD. People with BPD have layered defenses against emotional pain that they do not know how to cope with. It is that very pain that must be felt, re-integrated and coped with that is at the heart of the process of recovery from BPD – that’s the paradox. For many with BPD it is a living-paradox experienced as hopelessness and helplessness. Yet, this living-paradox when it comes to BPD and specifically recovery from BPD is really a source of hope but one must first overcome his or her fear of the unknown and open up to learning to cope with their emotions.

Coaching and Understanding to Help BPD Loved Ones (Non Borderlines) Cope with Someone With BPD in Your Life

Loved ones, family members, partners or ex-partners of those with Borderline Personality Disorder are often confused, in pain, and struggling to cope with a loved one with BPD. Life Coach, BPD and Mental Health Coach A.J. Mahari was interviewed on the healthyplace.com Mental Health TV Show on the subject of BPD Loved ones and Coping with someone in your life with BPD. This interview has been broken up into three parts to fit on youtube. You can watch the there excerpts of this interview below or by going to my YouTube Channel

Borderline Personality Disorder In Men – The Myth of High/Low Functioning in BPD – BPD is not a Brain Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder may still be diagnosed more in women than men. What does this mean? It is unlikely that fewer men have Borderline Personality Disorder. It is likely that the numbers aren’t as skewed as many believe, or as stereotypes and stigma forward. There is a bias among most who diagnosed mental illness. Many men who may in fact have BPD can end up being diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) instead. I have many clients who are men with Borderline Personality Disorder. What is often over-looked is that young children have needs. Needs that must be addressed sufficiently in order for psychologically and spiritually healthy emotional development regardless of gender.

What’s Wrong with Psychiatry’s Biology/Medication Approach to Mental Illness?

Is Borderline Personality Disorder a “brain disease”? Are the many mental illnesses now being labeled by some psychatrists – not all – who are forwarding biopsychiatry – often referred to as “biobabble”? What reason other than the big Pharma drug push in the United States does psychiatry have for this (in the eyes of some psychiatrists and psychologists) pseudo-science? A.J. Mahari interviews Dr. Niall McLaren and Australian psychiatrist and author of “Humanizing Psychiatry” and “Humanizing Madness” on The Psyche Whisperer Radio Show Friday July 23, 2010 7pm EST.

From Psychobabble to Biobabble – Dr. Andrew Scull on “A Psychiatric Revolution”

The rise in the prescribing of medication by many in the psychiatric profession has turned psychobabble: “writing or talk using jargon from psychiatry or psychotherapy” (dictionary.com) into biobabble: “knee-jerk biological determinism” (Kathleen H. Dockett, G. Rita Dudley-Grant, and C. Peter Bankart – authors of the book, Psychology and Buddhism: From Individual to Global Community (International and Cultural Psychology) What do you think? How can you find your way to effective and safe treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder or other forms of mental illness if you don’t stop to consider the pharmaceutical agenda that drives biobabble?

Mental Illness and The Brain – What’s Wrong with Psychiatry?

Mental Illness and The Brain – What’s Wrong with Psychiatry? Mental illness – is it biological or isn’t? What do you think? I guess I’m a rebel at heart, someone who thinks outside of the box. I know in my own experience, having recovered 15 years from Borderline Personality Disorder, that along the way, on my journey, I had a psychiatrist tell me I wouldn’t get better until they developed some pill – I didn’t believe him. He wasn’t correct. I fired him on the spot after that comment. That was 1987. That was before this notion now forwarded that everything mental illness is a “brain disorder”. Professional in psychiatry are speaking out against the “status quo” of mental illness as a “brain disorder”.

Inside The Borderline Mind: Beyond BPD Jargon – Deeper Understanding For Loved Ones

The many distorted and wounded aspects inside the borderline mind means that there is much for loved ones to learn about the inner-workings of BPD so that they can further understand how to best cope with someone in their lives with Borderline Personality Disorder. What, if anything, do the terms “high-functioning” or “low functioning” applied to Borderline Personality Disorder mean?

BPD Recovery and Lost Relationships

Does recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder mean recovering lost relationships, friendships, or even family connections? In my experience the answer is often – no. It is important to grieve, let go and move on and to learn from past failed interpersonal dynamics so that they are not repeated in the future. What was then, was then. This is now. There are new people to meet, new relationships to forge and a recovered borderline has him/herself to fall back on in the meantime. Trying to turn back time can mean risking your recovery. It can mean falling back into old unhealthy patterns of relating. This, along with the reality of too much damage often done when one has BPD, means that moving forward is not only best for those you have hurt in the past, but it is also best for you as you continue to build your new life in recovery from BPD.

The View’s Joy Behar Stigmatized Borderline Personality Disorder

The View Co-host Joy Behar stigmatized Borderline Personaity Disorder on their Wednesday October 21, 2009 show in an interview with Glenn Close and her sister who were guests to talk about the importance of combating the stigma against mental illness, namely Bioplar Disorder, which Close’s sister has. Joy Behar, for some reason, who knows why, first had to further stigmatize BPD with inaccurate, uneducated information.

Brain Scans Clarify Borderline Personality Disorder

Does the fact that researchers are continuing to make some kind of progress in neuro-biologically discovering aspects of Borderline Personality Disorder mean that there isn’t hope for recovery? As someone who has recovered from BPD years ago, I know personally that the answer is no. There is every reason to continue to believe, hope, and know, that if you have BPD, you can recover. There is no need for some magical-cure-all pill that may never be able to be developed.
“Using real-time brain imaging, a team of researchers have discovered that patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are physically unable to regulate emotion. The findings, by Harold W. Koenigsberg, MD, professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine suggest individuals with BPD are unable activate neurological networks that would help to control feelings. The research will be published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.”

Lost Self In Borderline Personality Disorder – Need and Search For Identity

People diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder do not have a sense of a known self or a stable sense of identity. In both audio and video, Author and Mental Health Coach and Life Coach, A.J. Mahari, talks about the lost self in BPD and the need and search for the lost self and for identity. Mahari talks about what it means, what it feels like to not know who you are and how that can effect your life and keep those with BPD stuck in the suffering and victimization of past abandonment trauma.

Triggers in Borderline Personality Disorder – Gateways To Recovery

Triggers in those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) cause intense emotional dysregulation. Author, BPD and Life Coach, A.J. Mahari sheds a very revealing light on the fact that borderline triggers when faced, instead of avoided, can be gateways to recovery. Borderline triggers are open wounds that seek to help in the healing and recovery process. They can only help you if you let them. They can only help you if you are ready, willing, and able to face the pain that remains unresolved from past abandonment and/or trauma. The very pain that drives the triggered experience of those with BPD.

Empowering Your Self When You have Borderline Personality Disorder

People diagnosed and living with Borderline Personality Disorder often think that they cannot empower themselves. The experience of having Borderline Personality Disorder is one that can often lend itself to feeling helpless or out of control. Emotional Dysregulation leaves many with BPD feeling as if they cannot help themselves, feeling as if they can’t stand how they feel. This can often be the result of the shame and abandonment people with BPD are bound to and experience in cyclical ways. So how is it possible for someone with Borderline Personality Disorder to empower him or herself you might wonder?

Borderline Diary – Mirror Without Reflection – Borderline Mother

A.J. Mahari’s Borderline Diary – My Borderline Years – Mirror Without Reflection – My borderline mother, my mirror without reflection. My borderline mother, blank face, blank stare – angry. Always so angry. How many more times will you reach out to her only to be abandoned again. Only to be rendered just a little more invisible? How many times? She hurts me. I hate her. She hates me. I love her. I hate her. I need her. I can’t stand this.