El contexto de la Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural Selvas

The relationships that people with BPD have with others who are close to them are characteristically unstable. In a study that compared the relationship quality of people with BPD to that of people without BPD, researchers found that people with BPD experienced more neg-ative moods and greater changes in mood in the relationships than did those without BPD (Russell et al. 2007). In the same study, people with BPD reported feeling less dominant, more submissive, and quar-relsome in social interactions, as well as using more extreme behav-iors than did people without BPD. Those in relationships with people with BPD often also experience the relationship as unstable. It is common to hear people talk about a relationship with a loved one with BPD as chaotic, confusing, filled with extremes (in both positive and negative ways), and chronically unpredictable.

When we were sitting with a couple who were dealing with their relationship problem, John turned to his wife, Jacqui, who struggles with BPD, and told her, “You blow hot and cold.

I never know where I stand with you.” Jacqui recognized that this was true about herself, and she was also terrified that John would leave her.

Caroline, a twenty- three- year- old with BPD, came to the clinic feeling hopeless and suicidal due to chronic interpersonal conflict.

Two years into her mindfulness practice, she shared with us her thoughts about her struggles with relationships:

A close friend of nearly six years decided not to talk to me anymore, citing my “clingy and suicidal behavior” as the reason.

Interpersonal Dysregulation

113 The more distance she put between us, the harder I pushed to be close to her again. I called her numerous times a day, even when it was clear that she was intentionally sending my calls to voice mail. I followed her around school obsessively, trying to talk to her about fixing the relationship. At that point, I was no longer in fear of her rejecting me and deciding to never talk to me again;

I was actually watching it happen right in front of me. What was once a worried thought lurking in the back of my mind was now another loss, and a painful and unavoidable reality. The friend-ship was never resolved, and I graduated from high school having lost my other friends in similar ways.

The shame and anger from this experience were no longer just momentary emotions but had become a permanent state of mind with which I began college. I endured my entire freshman year still feeling an incredible amount of frustration and regret while trying to make new and lasting friendships. The pattern of

“clingy behaviors” that were basically negative decisions contin-ued, and I was asked to leave college. I could not seem to change my ineffective behaviors. To me, this reflected a personal short-coming. I started acting on my insecurities about abandonment.

In treatment I exhibited similar aggressive and obsessive behaviors toward a hospital staff member. I would become furious when I felt she paid more attention to other patients, and this emotion manifested itself in verbal assaults. I would then obsessively and desperately try to fix the situation and relation-ship. I was making no progress. Again, as the person on the receiving end of my ineffective behavior set limits and took space, the cognitive distortions started firing: There must be some-thing inherently awful and unfixable about me. I became more angry and full of shame. I began having suicidal thoughts again, believing I was fated to fail at relationships for the rest of my life.

With my reality so severely distorted, it was nearly impos-sible to see what my parents and my therapists had been telling me since the beginning. I couldn’t see that my close friend of six years could have just been a seventeen- year- old girl who was too scared to serve as a confidant to a suicidal friend. Furthermore,

by the time I sought treatment at age eighteen, my outlook on life was biased by the abandonment I had experienced. In hindsight and with mindfulness, I am able to see the causes of my suicidal-ity and behaviors, and how I overcame them. The situations as they existed in reality were not unbearable, but the thoughts that shaped my view and the subsequent feelings certainly were.

Being able to realize that my thoughts can infringe on reality has become an important component in combating my unstable relationships and fears of abandonment. Mindfulness helps me to remember that these thoughts are just random neurons firing.

Thoughts do not always equate to reality. I believe this inaccu-rate fusion of my subjective thoughts and objective reality has been the basis of most of my ineffective behaviors. Focusing on the present moment and not allowing my past experiences to bias my thoughts has produced effective results in my attempts to challenge my distortions and thus change some of my behaviors that end relationships.

Coming to terms with the more objective reasoning behind my friend’s actions doesn’t take away the excruciating pain of this lost relationship. I still find myself thinking about the fun and healthy relationships I used to have with my friends in high school, and how it feels like they were so unfairly cut short. I still hold in my mind the trauma of the rejection and the years of suffering I endured. However, I am no longer living in a constant state of unbearable emotions. Sometimes reality, as it exists, is still difficult and painful, but I find coping and acceptance much easier to achieve when I am free of distorted thoughts.

So how can you use mindfulness to target your interpersonal struggles? What can Caroline’s observation and practice teach you?

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Applying Mindfulness Skills in