How do you calm down someone with borderline personality disorder?

Listening to your loved one and acknowledging their feelings is one of the best ways to help someone with BPD calm down. When you appreciate how a borderline person hears you and adjust how you communicate with them, you can help diffuse the attacks and rages and build a stronger, closer relationship.

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What are some coping mechanisms for BPD?

Coping skills for BPD are often centered around learning to manage moments of emotional instability and/or control anger. Some techniques to help in these situations could include: Using stress-reduction techniques, like deep breathing or meditation. Engaging in light exercise, like walking or yoga.

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How do you calm an angry BPD?

Listen actively and be sympathetic and focus on emotions rather than the words. Ensure that you demonstrate that the person with BPD feels heard. When someone is upset or angry, it's easy and understandable to reciprocate, but it is not helpful.

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What is the best way to deal with someone who has borderline personality disorder?

Validate Their Feelings

It can be tempting to try to talk them out of what they are feeling or write them off as simply irrational. However, those feelings are very real to the person with the disorder. Therefore, dismissing their emotions is not only profoundly painful, it is counterproductive.

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What do you say to someone in a BPD episode?

Tell them that you really want to understand, and ask if they can say more about what they are feeling and why. Give the person hope for recovery by reassuring them that people with BPD can and do get better. Accept that the person is struggling and that life goals might need to be broken down into smaller steps.

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What a Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) Episode Looks Like

21 related questions found

What not to say to someone with borderline personality disorder?

  • “You're so emotionally unstable.” ...
  • “You don't need to get so angry all the time.” ...
  • “You're so stupid, you spend all of your money without thinking about the consequences.” ...
  • “What caused that disorder?” ...
  • “I can't cope with you and your mood swings!”

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How do you make someone with BPD feel loved?

In order to foster a strong bond, it's important to know how to love someone with borderline personality disorder in a way that nurtures both of you.
  1. Acknowledge the Realness of BPD. ...
  2. Make Room for Yourself. ...
  3. Stop Rescuing. ...
  4. Encourage High-Quality Treatment. ...
  5. Treatment at Bridges to Recovery.

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Are borderlines aware of their behavior?

People with borderline personality disorders are aware of their behaviors and the consequences of them and often act in increasingly erratic ways as a self-fulfilling prophecy to their abandonment fears.

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How do you stop BPD outbursts?

Here are some tips on healthy ways to manage your anger with BPD.
  1. Count to 10. Hero Images / Getty Images. ...
  2. Notice Your Anger Earlier. Hero Images / Getty Images. ...
  3. Take a Break. Betsie Van Der Meer / Getty Images. ...
  4. Distract Yourself. ...
  5. Take Deep Breaths. ...
  6. Ground Yourself. ...
  7. Listen to Calming Music. ...
  8. Practice Letting Go.

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How do you stop arguing with borderline personality disorder?

How to survive an argument with someone with BPD
  1. Genuinely try to listen. ...
  2. Validate their feelings, not their behaviours. ...
  3. See their inner child. ...
  4. Setting kind but firm boundaries. ...
  5. Honour yourself. ...
  6. Be specific. ...
  7. Be open. ...
  8. Suggest alternatives.

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What angers a borderline?

Rage in a person with BPD can occur suddenly and unpredictably, often triggered by an intense fear of being alone. Fear of rejection can be so intense that they begin to anxiously expect rejection. Subtle cues that they associate with rejection can set off unexpectedly intense reactions.

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How do borderlines deal with intense emotions?

You could:
  1. Wrap up in a blanket and watch your favourite TV show.
  2. Write all your negative feelings on a piece of paper and tear it up.
  3. Listen to music that you find uplifting or soothing.
  4. Write a comforting letter to the part of yourself that is feeling sad or alone.
  5. Let yourself cry or sleep.
  6. Cuddle a pet or a soft toy.

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Why do borderlines hurt the ones they love?

Often, the borderline person is unaware of how they feel when their feelings surface, so they displace their feelings onto others as causing them. They may not realise that their feelings belong within them, so they think that their partner is responsible for hurting them and causing them to feel this way.

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What is the best mood stabilizer for BPD?

Common anticonvulsants and mood stabilizers for BPD include:
  • Depakote (valproate)
  • Lamictal (lamotrigine)
  • Lithobid (lithium)
  • Tegretol or Carbatrol (carbamazepine)

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What can worsen BPD?

Romantic relationships are not the only ones that can trigger a person with BPD to experience an episode. Their relationships with friends, family, and colleagues can also spark symptoms if they experience any sort of rejection, criticism, or threat of abandonment.

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How long do BPD episodes last?

A person with BPD may experience intense episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last from only a few hours to days.”

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How do you talk to someone in a BPD rage?

How to Help
  1. Be patient.
  2. Be realistic.
  3. Try to separate facts from feelings.
  4. Validate feelings first.
  5. Listen actively and be sympathetic.
  6. Seek to distract when emotions rise.
  7. Do not allow yourself to be the product of the intense anger; attempt to diffuse it but sometimes you may have to walk away.

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Are borderlines jealous?

In close relationships, a person with BPD may appear jealous, possessive, or hyper-reactive. These individuals often fear being left alone and have deep feelings of worthlessness. In many cases, this disorder is the direct result of childhood trauma, abuse, violence, or neglect.

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Are borderlines always angry?

With over 70% of patients acting out aggressively against others within a year, aggression is frequent in BPD (5). Being predominantly reactive in BPD, aggression is triggered by frustration, provocation, or threat, closely related to feelings of anger, and causes severe interpersonal problems (3).

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Do borderlines sabotage?

Borderline personality disorder causes a broad range of reactions that can be considered self-destructive or self-sabotaging. It influences thoughts, emotions, behavior, and communication, adding a degree of volatility and unpredictability to daily living that can be unsettling for BPD sufferers and their loved ones.

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Do borderlines choose their favorite person?

MD. People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) often rotate between idolizing and devaluing others. In the case of the “favorite person,” the individual with BPD prefers one person and wants to spend all their time with them.

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Why do borderlines push you away?

If someone has a borderline personality, they will always push people away, in fear of getting hurt. This is extremely difficult and painful for the people around them, as the sufferer can seem cold and angry, attention seeking, or not wanting help.

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Do borderlines deserve love?

They are often criticized, marginalized and stigmatized, but the truth is that they deserve love and understanding like anyone else. BPD, or borderline personality disorder, is a psychological diagnosis that indicates a person has difficulty regulating their emotions.

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How does someone with BPD act in a relationship?

People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) tend to have major difficulties with relationships, especially with those closest to them. Their wild mood swings, angry outbursts, chronic abandonment fears, and impulsive and irrational behaviors can leave loved ones feeling helpless, abused, and off balance.

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How do you empathize someone with BPD?

Empathy goes deeper than sympathy in that it allows you to feel for what another person is going through.
...
Here are six tips on how to practice empathy so that you can better support your loved one with Borderline Personality Disorder:
  1. Take Your Time. ...
  2. Validate. ...
  3. Support. ...
  4. Listen. ...
  5. Body Language. ...
  6. Respect.

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