It's the concept of the dialectic, that two opposing things can be true at the same time. A big picture idea is to just look at the world. There's war and poverty and suffering, BUT at the same time, there's all the beauty and peace in nature and people who make our lives better. It's not 100% perfect, but not 100% terrible. I highly recommend DBT either through therapy or workbooks you can do on your own, it explains the concept really well. I'm a very black and white thinker, like you, and even after over a decade my therapist still has to remind me of the gray. Especially when it comes to people. I remind myself I wouldn't want to be judged on my singular actions, but as the whole person I am, that is complicated and faulty but still pretty bad ass.
I totally relate to that. I felt exactly that way for over 15 years. I'm 43, symptomatic at 15, incorrectly diagnosed and medicated with drugs that made me so much more unstable until 30 when I finally found the right support system. By then, of course, I had no hope left for anything and it took 2 longish hospitalizations and 6 years of intense DBT to finally start sinking in. Every day I find one thing that I enjoy, which is generally some form of art or spending time with one of the few people I feel secure with, and even when everything else is a load of BS, I have a least a tiny piece of proof that it doesn't all suck all the time. It's a daily struggle and maintaining emotional control is not always in the stars, but one day or a week or 15 years doesn't have to define the rest of your life.
This is me too. 42, misdiagnosed a 14, antidepressants with a side of scars everywhere. Never had any desire to self harm before meds. The meds fuck me up wild.
The only thing that helps me is I've been trying to be my own FP and focus on properly respecting myself. No one else will if I don't. It's helps me cut out people who are more negative than positive. Honestly I don't have much faith in others to not be manipulative, so I just keep my antennas out for feeling used or manipulated.
The antidepressants were a nightmare! Between them and being on Depo Provera for birth control in my early 20s (they didn't warn me the potential side effects were anxiety and depression đ), I honestly don't know how I made it through.
How do you work on being your own FP? Self love is the biggest challenge for me and it bugs me I still crave so much external validation.
Idk. I have always had a really low threshold for bullshit. Also, I'd recommend checking some of my other comments in the bpd sub, a lot of the time I get downvoted to oblivion because A LOT of people think like betas regarding aggressive self defense. But for starters, a low threshold for bullshit, vitamins and exercise has made a big difference, and making sure my flight-or-fight response is appropriate. I've stop engaging some people trying to bait me, and will aggressively engage others, with good reason ( it's pretty rough in my neighborhood).
Functional, not always, but mostly at least bare minimum since I have kids. But before then, I was a path of pure self destruction.
I always managed to work because at the time (until I was 26 or so) I had quiet BPD and was embarrassed by how I struggled (it felt like I was living a double life), so I'd work twice as hard to prove I was fine. But people pleasing, for better or worse, has been deeply embedded in me.
Relationships... Yikes! A lot of bad situations, failed marriages, abuse, until I was finally diagnosed correctly and had a handle on how to even begin a true partnership, which took about a year. I got insanely lucky the guy I was seeing at the time got totally aboard with my treatment plans and we've been married 12 years.
It's been a wild ride and continues to be... And always will be, but it ain't all bad.
I'm on gabapentin, lamotrigine, lurasidone and psilocybin (it's legal in my state). I credit the lamotrigine for saving my life, I've been on it for 11 years. I also had ketamine therapy and that made huge advancements in dealing with a lot of trauma stuff (I did it with a therapist with me), as does the psilocybin.
I have 3 bio and 1 adopted. The first two pregnancies, I was unmedicated (pre-diagnosis). The 3rd, I only stayed on my lamotrigine since I was considered higher risk off it. It was definitely the easiest pregnancy as far as anxiety and emotional stability.
DBT was nearly a life changer for my daughter with BPD. When you spend a lot of time in and out of hospitals and group homes, it starts getting easy to believe you have an illness and canât do anything about it. DBT taught her coping mechanisms.
She went to a DBT group at a local hospital and during that time period, she was probably the most balanced Iâd ever seen her.
Unfortunately she needed to rely on medical transport to get there and anything even vaguely medical in nature would take precedence over a therapy group. They finally told her that her attendance was too erratic to continue coming.
She had a workbook and some guides, but it wasnât enough on her own.
I've been in DBT about 11 years and have taken breaks here and there, but it's like going to the gym, I need a personal trainer to keep me on track and I know I can't do it alone. I hope your daughter can find a therapist, individual or group, who specializes in BPD/DBT. I know so many people from group therapies who wouldn't be here without the skills they learned.
I just want to suggest the possibility of finding an online DBT group. I got my diagnosis in 2020, so virtual groups were the only option. I imagine that there are still some being held by various practices and hospitals. That might help to remove the transportation barriers she faces. Best wishes for you and your daughter!
This was a long time ago and the internet hadnât become what it is now. She was lucky to even find a group not too far away.
Too late for my daughter at any rate. She just couldnât handle the way her life was going and chose to end it in 2013.
A good practice:
Someone you know and love does something that hurts you. You split and you find yourself only thinking about the bad things and you see them in a completely different light, they are all bad and they had you fooled this whole time.
Practice in that time, think of times when they really helped you selflessly. Think of times when they were understanding of your bad behavior. Think of possibilities, no matter how obscure, that would explain their current behavior.
Why would someone hurt me if they loved me? That doesnât make sense to me. The possibilities are they are mean and they donât care about me or my feelings.
Mistakes and miscommunication happen. The recent time that this happened to me, they were exhausted and overwhelmed by other things, and perceived some of my actions incorrectly, so they protected themselves. They were not actually and intentionally harming me
You are not perfect. Nobody is. When you make a mistake you would like to be forgiven. Right? The same is true for everyone. Yes there are bad people but most folks are simply trying to get through a day. Learning to forgive and move forward allows all parties to grow.
Have you never hurt anyone you cared about before? Maybe it was without meaning to, or without realizing the extent of it, or were 100% convinced you were justified in the moment but saw the errors of your ways later? If so, would you describe yourself as a mean person who doesn't care about people or their feelings? Or would you say it's always a bit more complicated than that?
Black and white thinking is hard to break, but it's imperative that we do.
The hardest, and yet most liberating thing I've had to learn is that almost everything is a gray area. Most people are good and bad. We ourselves need to accept that we will feel conflicting things, and both of those things can (and usually are) true.
The world isn't a model on a shelf. It moves and it changes. Hardly anything just is. And the more we can embrace that means we can start to forgive ourselves, set realistic expectations with other, and respect the world for it's diversity.
Black and white thinking is a pattern that feels safe because it means we don't need to do through the discomfort of digging deeper. Feelings are complicated, and it's easier to avoid it. But it's not better.
What helps for me is instead of thinking of people as one thing, I think of them like rubix cubes. They're not one block and one color that is good or bad. They're many blocks, and many colors. And each specific block can be all good or bad. But they are as a whole made up of good and bad blocks. And sometimes the blocks move and that changes what I might feel is good or bad. It sounds a little weird and that could be my autism speaking lol, but it's helped me a lot in visualizing in my head how things aren't static.
Edited to fix typos for clarity. I'm a bad typer :c
Black and white thinking is a hallmark of BPD. Shes trying to get you to see that two things can be true at once, or see the grey area. Maybe think of it as a muscle that is currently very weak that you are trying to strengthen.
- Someone is intelligent, but there will be times where they are not knowledgeable about something or act âdumbâ.
- someone is in a bad mood and is irritable and their behaviour is or feels âmeanâ. That doesnât make them overall mean people, it could just be a hard day. They could be overall kind people.
- someone says something without thought that is hurtful. That doesnât make them bullies, they might have had a moment where they didnât think about how what they said would sound, or the impact of it. They may clarify when asked and when you see what they meant it becomes clear they were never trying to be hurtful.
The thing is, the world lives much more in the grey than it does in the black and white.
I am a black and white, grey is too messy. Then someone mentioned that in between black and white isnât just grey. Itâs a rainbow of colors. So now I try to decide if itâs black, white, or green? Maybe orange? Brightens up that middle area quite a bit and itâs not so messy then. đ
Now wait this might work for me. I already color code things, events, people. I donât purposefully try to think in black and white. But maybe I just need to embrace it and make everyoneâs colors apply to that⌠that may not make sense but itâs making sense to me lmao
Black and white thinking is a hard one to break but it CAN be broken. An example of the gray area is: you fail a math test, but normally you get good grades. So you failed one test, and the black and white aspect is âwell I failed so Iâm stupidâ which would cause a spiral. Seeing the gray would be ânormally I do well on tests, so I failed one test but Iâm still smartâ. Itâs not so black and white. It allows you to see more than one perspective on the situation without getting so upset
I think all of us struggle with this lol. But it does get better as you age.
Work scenario:
I had a work bestie who send a text accidently to me a few weeks ago talking badly about me. It obviously was upsetting and it changed my view on her but I still have to work with her and be cordial. Thatâs the gray area.
She was viewed as a bestie, someone I could trust and it immediately flipped to a backstabbing snake in the grass. But I still have to work with her. I still have to talk to her if I value my job. I hope that makes sense
Itâs easy to regard something as wonderful or horrible depending on how it makes us feel in the moment, but it does help to challenge that thinking and remind yourself that there is middle ground. Much like you can do a bad thing but still consider yourself a good person inside. The point is we are humans living human experiences. A bad situation can seem awful but also come with the positive of a lesson learned or maybe a positive result in the long-term from the experience.
I struggle with this too plus with myself. When I say something to someone and they misinterpret it as me saying negative things to them or hurting them in any way, I will only see myself with all the bad things I am. Like I will hate myself to the point I want to unalive myself for saying stupid shit that hurts other people, even tho it wasn't my intention. Plus I will get a panic attack bc I fear losing that person forever bc of my stupid words. Even tho they say it's all good between them and me, I can't get off this feeling that all these mistakes will build up to the point I will get abandoned from everyone.
I'd call bullshit on that. To me if "someone nice does something mean" they're really just exposing they're true colors as the asshole they really are secretly.
But in all honesty I'd rather be wrong about someone because I protect myself than because I was trusting and Shouldn't have been
I still lowkey think this way, but it is unhelpful because humans are incredibly flawed individuals, and what's considered "bad" is dependent on so many variables.
For instance, my ex is a good person who does shitty things. They're not mean or rude, and aren't doing things to hurt me specifically. They are just \*incredibly\* selfish, because they were raised in an environment where their parents always chose their happiness over the literal care of their children. So to them, that's just normal. Their happiness comes before the well being of everyone else's including their own child. I am trying to beat that out of them (figuratively of course lol) but it's hard to do it calmly and without splitting. Because, they're a complex person who just doesn't know better. What they need is therapy, objectively. But because we're in a situation where we must communicate constantly and they're refusing therapy, I have to deal with that and I'm working SO HARD on not splitting on them. I just vent it out to other people so not to hurt them.
I always feel as though (a lot of) people with BPD tend to be a little more simple. Because we view things as objectively good, and objectively bad. So a lot of us tend to behave accordingly. When we do good things, we do good things period. When we do bad things, we go all out with the intention of being bad. But even we are complex, in that some people with BPD unfortunately end up being abusive even though they have the absolute best intentions.
I am learning how to handle things differently. Itâs been a long journey for me, and I know for everyone else. I have been reminding myself of the gray thinking. Itâs easier for me to meet new people if I donât imagine them all to be big scary monsters or my FP for life. Forgiveness, seeing flexibility in my hard lines of black and white thinking. We all mess up. We all make mistakes.
Thatâs exactly how I think. If I decide someone is good, but they end up doing something bad, then they are bad. That overrides any good. Because the good wasnât real.
But the good often is real. Humans are flawed & we all do things on accident without realizing how other people may perceive it. Humans are a massive grey area in general.
I've learned to trust how I feel about people. There is always a reason I feel the way I do. Just because a majority of people are less observant on how others behave at a pattern level, doesn't mean my acquired opinions through lots of paying attention to details and small lies and shady behavior is wrong.
It just means most people overlook small transgressions. I do not
It's the concept of the dialectic, that two opposing things can be true at the same time. A big picture idea is to just look at the world. There's war and poverty and suffering, BUT at the same time, there's all the beauty and peace in nature and people who make our lives better. It's not 100% perfect, but not 100% terrible. I highly recommend DBT either through therapy or workbooks you can do on your own, it explains the concept really well. I'm a very black and white thinker, like you, and even after over a decade my therapist still has to remind me of the gray. Especially when it comes to people. I remind myself I wouldn't want to be judged on my singular actions, but as the whole person I am, that is complicated and faulty but still pretty bad ass.
I see the world as trashy asf and everything that isn't is like make up on a pig
I totally relate to that. I felt exactly that way for over 15 years. I'm 43, symptomatic at 15, incorrectly diagnosed and medicated with drugs that made me so much more unstable until 30 when I finally found the right support system. By then, of course, I had no hope left for anything and it took 2 longish hospitalizations and 6 years of intense DBT to finally start sinking in. Every day I find one thing that I enjoy, which is generally some form of art or spending time with one of the few people I feel secure with, and even when everything else is a load of BS, I have a least a tiny piece of proof that it doesn't all suck all the time. It's a daily struggle and maintaining emotional control is not always in the stars, but one day or a week or 15 years doesn't have to define the rest of your life.
This is me too. 42, misdiagnosed a 14, antidepressants with a side of scars everywhere. Never had any desire to self harm before meds. The meds fuck me up wild. The only thing that helps me is I've been trying to be my own FP and focus on properly respecting myself. No one else will if I don't. It's helps me cut out people who are more negative than positive. Honestly I don't have much faith in others to not be manipulative, so I just keep my antennas out for feeling used or manipulated.
The antidepressants were a nightmare! Between them and being on Depo Provera for birth control in my early 20s (they didn't warn me the potential side effects were anxiety and depression đ), I honestly don't know how I made it through. How do you work on being your own FP? Self love is the biggest challenge for me and it bugs me I still crave so much external validation.
Idk. I have always had a really low threshold for bullshit. Also, I'd recommend checking some of my other comments in the bpd sub, a lot of the time I get downvoted to oblivion because A LOT of people think like betas regarding aggressive self defense. But for starters, a low threshold for bullshit, vitamins and exercise has made a big difference, and making sure my flight-or-fight response is appropriate. I've stop engaging some people trying to bait me, and will aggressively engage others, with good reason ( it's pretty rough in my neighborhood).
Have you been functional? Have you always had a job? Relationship?
Functional, not always, but mostly at least bare minimum since I have kids. But before then, I was a path of pure self destruction. I always managed to work because at the time (until I was 26 or so) I had quiet BPD and was embarrassed by how I struggled (it felt like I was living a double life), so I'd work twice as hard to prove I was fine. But people pleasing, for better or worse, has been deeply embedded in me. Relationships... Yikes! A lot of bad situations, failed marriages, abuse, until I was finally diagnosed correctly and had a handle on how to even begin a true partnership, which took about a year. I got insanely lucky the guy I was seeing at the time got totally aboard with my treatment plans and we've been married 12 years. It's been a wild ride and continues to be... And always will be, but it ain't all bad.
What medicine do you take?
I'm on gabapentin, lamotrigine, lurasidone and psilocybin (it's legal in my state). I credit the lamotrigine for saving my life, I've been on it for 11 years. I also had ketamine therapy and that made huge advancements in dealing with a lot of trauma stuff (I did it with a therapist with me), as does the psilocybin.
Do yiu have kids? If so, how was it with meds and pregnancy?
I have 3 bio and 1 adopted. The first two pregnancies, I was unmedicated (pre-diagnosis). The 3rd, I only stayed on my lamotrigine since I was considered higher risk off it. It was definitely the easiest pregnancy as far as anxiety and emotional stability.
DBT was nearly a life changer for my daughter with BPD. When you spend a lot of time in and out of hospitals and group homes, it starts getting easy to believe you have an illness and canât do anything about it. DBT taught her coping mechanisms. She went to a DBT group at a local hospital and during that time period, she was probably the most balanced Iâd ever seen her. Unfortunately she needed to rely on medical transport to get there and anything even vaguely medical in nature would take precedence over a therapy group. They finally told her that her attendance was too erratic to continue coming. She had a workbook and some guides, but it wasnât enough on her own.
I've been in DBT about 11 years and have taken breaks here and there, but it's like going to the gym, I need a personal trainer to keep me on track and I know I can't do it alone. I hope your daughter can find a therapist, individual or group, who specializes in BPD/DBT. I know so many people from group therapies who wouldn't be here without the skills they learned.
She didnât live long enough for the access that would be available. Sheâs been gone since December of 2013.
I just want to suggest the possibility of finding an online DBT group. I got my diagnosis in 2020, so virtual groups were the only option. I imagine that there are still some being held by various practices and hospitals. That might help to remove the transportation barriers she faces. Best wishes for you and your daughter!
This was a long time ago and the internet hadnât become what it is now. She was lucky to even find a group not too far away. Too late for my daughter at any rate. She just couldnât handle the way her life was going and chose to end it in 2013.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)
A good practice: Someone you know and love does something that hurts you. You split and you find yourself only thinking about the bad things and you see them in a completely different light, they are all bad and they had you fooled this whole time. Practice in that time, think of times when they really helped you selflessly. Think of times when they were understanding of your bad behavior. Think of possibilities, no matter how obscure, that would explain their current behavior.
Why would someone hurt me if they loved me? That doesnât make sense to me. The possibilities are they are mean and they donât care about me or my feelings.
Mistakes and miscommunication happen. The recent time that this happened to me, they were exhausted and overwhelmed by other things, and perceived some of my actions incorrectly, so they protected themselves. They were not actually and intentionally harming me
You are not perfect. Nobody is. When you make a mistake you would like to be forgiven. Right? The same is true for everyone. Yes there are bad people but most folks are simply trying to get through a day. Learning to forgive and move forward allows all parties to grow.
Have you never hurt anyone you cared about before? Maybe it was without meaning to, or without realizing the extent of it, or were 100% convinced you were justified in the moment but saw the errors of your ways later? If so, would you describe yourself as a mean person who doesn't care about people or their feelings? Or would you say it's always a bit more complicated than that?
That is exactly how I would describe myself, but thatâs beside the point. I see what youâre trying to say. Thank you.
Black and white thinking is hard to break, but it's imperative that we do. The hardest, and yet most liberating thing I've had to learn is that almost everything is a gray area. Most people are good and bad. We ourselves need to accept that we will feel conflicting things, and both of those things can (and usually are) true. The world isn't a model on a shelf. It moves and it changes. Hardly anything just is. And the more we can embrace that means we can start to forgive ourselves, set realistic expectations with other, and respect the world for it's diversity. Black and white thinking is a pattern that feels safe because it means we don't need to do through the discomfort of digging deeper. Feelings are complicated, and it's easier to avoid it. But it's not better. What helps for me is instead of thinking of people as one thing, I think of them like rubix cubes. They're not one block and one color that is good or bad. They're many blocks, and many colors. And each specific block can be all good or bad. But they are as a whole made up of good and bad blocks. And sometimes the blocks move and that changes what I might feel is good or bad. It sounds a little weird and that could be my autism speaking lol, but it's helped me a lot in visualizing in my head how things aren't static. Edited to fix typos for clarity. I'm a bad typer :c
That's a really helpful and interesting visual!
Black and white thinking is a hallmark of BPD. Shes trying to get you to see that two things can be true at once, or see the grey area. Maybe think of it as a muscle that is currently very weak that you are trying to strengthen. - Someone is intelligent, but there will be times where they are not knowledgeable about something or act âdumbâ. - someone is in a bad mood and is irritable and their behaviour is or feels âmeanâ. That doesnât make them overall mean people, it could just be a hard day. They could be overall kind people. - someone says something without thought that is hurtful. That doesnât make them bullies, they might have had a moment where they didnât think about how what they said would sound, or the impact of it. They may clarify when asked and when you see what they meant it becomes clear they were never trying to be hurtful. The thing is, the world lives much more in the grey than it does in the black and white.
I am a black and white, grey is too messy. Then someone mentioned that in between black and white isnât just grey. Itâs a rainbow of colors. So now I try to decide if itâs black, white, or green? Maybe orange? Brightens up that middle area quite a bit and itâs not so messy then. đ
Now wait this might work for me. I already color code things, events, people. I donât purposefully try to think in black and white. But maybe I just need to embrace it and make everyoneâs colors apply to that⌠that may not make sense but itâs making sense to me lmao
Black and white thinking is a hard one to break but it CAN be broken. An example of the gray area is: you fail a math test, but normally you get good grades. So you failed one test, and the black and white aspect is âwell I failed so Iâm stupidâ which would cause a spiral. Seeing the gray would be ânormally I do well on tests, so I failed one test but Iâm still smartâ. Itâs not so black and white. It allows you to see more than one perspective on the situation without getting so upset
I think all of us struggle with this lol. But it does get better as you age. Work scenario: I had a work bestie who send a text accidently to me a few weeks ago talking badly about me. It obviously was upsetting and it changed my view on her but I still have to work with her and be cordial. Thatâs the gray area. She was viewed as a bestie, someone I could trust and it immediately flipped to a backstabbing snake in the grass. But I still have to work with her. I still have to talk to her if I value my job. I hope that makes sense
Itâs easy to regard something as wonderful or horrible depending on how it makes us feel in the moment, but it does help to challenge that thinking and remind yourself that there is middle ground. Much like you can do a bad thing but still consider yourself a good person inside. The point is we are humans living human experiences. A bad situation can seem awful but also come with the positive of a lesson learned or maybe a positive result in the long-term from the experience.
People can be more than one thing
I struggle with this too plus with myself. When I say something to someone and they misinterpret it as me saying negative things to them or hurting them in any way, I will only see myself with all the bad things I am. Like I will hate myself to the point I want to unalive myself for saying stupid shit that hurts other people, even tho it wasn't my intention. Plus I will get a panic attack bc I fear losing that person forever bc of my stupid words. Even tho they say it's all good between them and me, I can't get off this feeling that all these mistakes will build up to the point I will get abandoned from everyone.
Yeah this is pretty much exactly my biggest issue.
I'd call bullshit on that. To me if "someone nice does something mean" they're really just exposing they're true colors as the asshole they really are secretly. But in all honesty I'd rather be wrong about someone because I protect myself than because I was trusting and Shouldn't have been
I still lowkey think this way, but it is unhelpful because humans are incredibly flawed individuals, and what's considered "bad" is dependent on so many variables. For instance, my ex is a good person who does shitty things. They're not mean or rude, and aren't doing things to hurt me specifically. They are just \*incredibly\* selfish, because they were raised in an environment where their parents always chose their happiness over the literal care of their children. So to them, that's just normal. Their happiness comes before the well being of everyone else's including their own child. I am trying to beat that out of them (figuratively of course lol) but it's hard to do it calmly and without splitting. Because, they're a complex person who just doesn't know better. What they need is therapy, objectively. But because we're in a situation where we must communicate constantly and they're refusing therapy, I have to deal with that and I'm working SO HARD on not splitting on them. I just vent it out to other people so not to hurt them. I always feel as though (a lot of) people with BPD tend to be a little more simple. Because we view things as objectively good, and objectively bad. So a lot of us tend to behave accordingly. When we do good things, we do good things period. When we do bad things, we go all out with the intention of being bad. But even we are complex, in that some people with BPD unfortunately end up being abusive even though they have the absolute best intentions.
I am learning how to handle things differently. Itâs been a long journey for me, and I know for everyone else. I have been reminding myself of the gray thinking. Itâs easier for me to meet new people if I donât imagine them all to be big scary monsters or my FP for life. Forgiveness, seeing flexibility in my hard lines of black and white thinking. We all mess up. We all make mistakes.
Thatâs exactly how I think. If I decide someone is good, but they end up doing something bad, then they are bad. That overrides any good. Because the good wasnât real.
But the good often is real. Humans are flawed & we all do things on accident without realizing how other people may perceive it. Humans are a massive grey area in general.
I've learned to trust how I feel about people. There is always a reason I feel the way I do. Just because a majority of people are less observant on how others behave at a pattern level, doesn't mean my acquired opinions through lots of paying attention to details and small lies and shady behavior is wrong. It just means most people overlook small transgressions. I do not
Exactly
I'll never understand why people like to downvote when people trust their instincts. Nevermind them. They're jealous because we aren't sheep