Fear of Abandonment | Moody Melon Magazine 3/3

From Chaos to Calm: How Dialectical Behavior Therapy Transforms Life with Borderline Personality Disorder

Julie Barris | Crisis Counselor | Therapist-in-Training
Dec 5, 2024

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) transforms life by teaching individuals how to manage overwhelming emotions, reduce impulsive behaviors, and build healthier relationships. Through its structured approach, DBT empowers those with Borderline Personality Disorder to find stability and emotional resilience, leading to a more balanced and fulfilling life.

From Chaos to Calm: How Dialectical Behavior Therapy Transforms Life with Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is often viewed through the lens of chaos—emotional instability, intense mood swings, impulsive behavior, and the constant fear of abandonment. These overwhelming feelings can make life feel unpredictable and unmanageable. But what if there was a way to break free from this cycle of emotional turmoil and learn how to regulate emotions, build healthier relationships, and regain a sense of control over your life? Enter Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a groundbreaking treatment that has been transforming the lives of people living with BPD for over three decades.

Understanding BPD: A Life of Emotional Extremes

Borderline Personality Disorder is one of the most challenging mental health conditions to manage, both for the person living with it and for their loved ones. People with BPD experience profound emotional instability, often reacting with extreme intensity to minor triggers. Relationships feel like a rollercoaster, with feelings of idealization followed by rapid devaluation. The fear of abandonment can lead to desperate attempts to prevent it, sometimes causing behaviors that seem irrational or self-destructive.

At its core, BPD is about an inability to regulate emotions effectively. The intense and overwhelming feelings that come with BPD often lead to impulsive actions, self-harm, and an unstable sense of self. But what if these emotions could be understood, managed, and regulated? This is where Dialectical Behavior Therapy comes in.

What Is DBT? A Therapy Built for BPD

Developed by psychologist Marsha Linehan in the late 1980s, Dialectical Behavior Therapy was specifically designed to address the unique challenges of individuals with BPD. DBT is based on the idea that individuals with BPD experience chronic emotional dysregulation—where emotions feel out of control, and reactions are often extreme and destructive. The therapy combines cognitive-behavioral techniques with mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness skills.

One of the unique features of DBT is its focus on dialectics—the idea of accepting reality as it is, while simultaneously working toward change. In the context of BPD, this means learning to accept one's emotions and experiences without judgment, while also developing healthier coping mechanisms to change destructive behaviors.

How DBT Helps: A Transformational Approach

Mindfulness: At the heart of DBT is mindfulness, a skill that helps individuals become more aware of their thoughts, emotions, and reactions in the present moment. For those with BPD, mindfulness is especially powerful because it encourages them to pause, observe their emotions, and resist the urge to act impulsively. Through mindfulness exercises, people with BPD can create space between their emotional reactions and their behaviors, leading to more thoughtful and intentional actions.
Emotion Regulation: One of the hallmark challenges of BPD is emotional instability. Individuals with BPD may feel like their emotions are unpredictable or uncontrollable, but DBT teaches them how to understand and manage these emotions in healthier ways. Clients learn to identify and label their emotions, understand their triggers, and use coping strategies to manage overwhelming feelings without resorting to self-destructive behaviors like self-harm or substance abuse.
Distress Tolerance: People with BPD often struggle with distress—feeling like they cannot cope with difficult emotions. DBT helps individuals develop distress tolerance skills, which teach them how to endure emotional pain without making it worse. Skills like self-soothing, distraction techniques, and radical acceptance (accepting the present moment without judgment) allow individuals to navigate difficult situations more effectively, without resorting to impulsive or harmful actions.
Interpersonal Effectiveness: Relationships are often the most difficult aspect of BPD. The intense fear of abandonment and fluctuating emotions can lead to unstable or unhealthy relationships. DBT teaches people with BPD how to communicate more effectively, set boundaries, and assert their needs without falling into extremes of aggression or withdrawal. This skill set helps improve both personal and professional relationships and creates a sense of trust and mutual respect.

The DBT Process: From Chaos to Calm

DBT is structured and multifaceted. It typically involves individual therapy, group skills training, and phone coaching to help individuals apply their new skills in real-life situations. The therapy is collaborative, meaning that the therapist and client work together as a team to address the client’s specific challenges. DBT emphasizes the importance of validating the client’s experiences while also encouraging change. This approach is crucial for individuals with BPD, who often struggle with feeling misunderstood or invalidated.

The process of DBT is not quick—learning new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving takes time and commitment. But the results can be life-changing. Individuals who engage in DBT often report a significant reduction in self-harm behaviors, suicidality, and emotional volatility. They also experience greater stability in relationships and a more consistent sense of self-worth.

Real-Life Impact: Stories of Transformation

While BPD can feel like an inescapable cycle of pain, DBT offers hope. Many individuals who have struggled with the overwhelming symptoms of BPD have found that DBT helps them develop the tools to create more stability and peace in their lives. They learn to manage their emotions, communicate more effectively, and navigate their relationships in healthier ways.

One person may share how DBT helped them understand their emotional triggers and, as a result, they no longer engage in impulsive behaviors like cutting or binge drinking when they feel overwhelmed. Another individual might reflect on how DBT empowered them to confront their fear of abandonment and build a supportive, healthy relationship with their partner.

The results may not be instant, but over time, the skills learned in DBT can transform the way a person with BPD views themselves and their relationships, leading to greater emotional stability and a more fulfilling life.

Conclusion: A Path to Healing

Dialectical Behavior Therapy isn’t just a treatment—it’s a lifeline for those living with Borderline Personality Disorder. By helping individuals build emotional resilience, regulate their reactions, and form healthier relationships, DBT offers a new way of living for those whose lives have been ruled by chaos. While BPD can be a debilitating condition, DBT provides the tools for people to regain control over their emotions, rewrite their relationship stories, and ultimately, live a more fulfilling life.

If you or someone you love is struggling with BPD, remember: Healing is possible. With DBT, the path from chaos to calm is not just a dream—it can be a reality.

Caught in the Storm: Understanding and Managing Abandonment Fears and Anger in Borderline Personality Disorder

Julie Barris | Crisis Counselor | Therapist-in-Training
Nov 20, 2024

Managing abandonment fears requires building emotional resilience and trust, allowing individuals to feel secure in their relationships. At the same time, managing anger involves acknowledging underlying emotions and learning healthy coping strategies to prevent destructive outbursts.

Caught in the Storm: Understanding and Managing Abandonment Fears and Anger in Borderline Personality Disorder

For individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), emotional experiences often feel overwhelming, unpredictable, and intense. One of the most significant emotional struggles associated with BPD is the fear of abandonment, which can trigger explosive feelings of anger and result in challenging interactions with others—especially in close relationships. The experience of perceived rejection or distance can feel like an emotional storm, pulling someone with BPD into a whirlwind of anxiety, anger, and impulsive behavior.

The Roots of Abandonment Issues in BPD

Abandonment in the context of Borderline Personality Disorder is more than just a fear of being physically left alone—it’s a deep-seated emotional experience that often arises from a person’s past experiences of inconsistency, neglect, or trauma. Many people with BPD have experienced early childhood instability, where caregivers may have been emotionally unavailable, unpredictable, or even abusive. This leaves individuals with BPD with a fragile sense of self and a distorted view of relationships, often fearing that they are unworthy of love or that everyone they care about will eventually leave them.

Click to Learn About Navigating Life as a Child of a Borderline Parent

This fear of abandonment can surface in many ways—whether through clinginess, emotional outbursts, or testing boundaries. It can even be triggered by small, everyday occurrences. For example, if a partner is late coming home from work or doesn’t respond to a text right away, someone with BPD may feel as though their partner is pulling away or preparing to leave them, even if there is no real reason for concern.

Anger: The Defense Mechanism

Anger in BPD is often linked to the deep fear of abandonment and feelings of helplessness. The experience of perceived rejection or distance can feel like a direct attack on the person’s worth, prompting an outburst of anger as a defense mechanism. For someone with BPD, anger can feel like the only way to protect themselves from the emotional pain of abandonment.

This anger is often disproportionate to the situation and can manifest in ways that can feel hurtful or confusing to those on the receiving end. Mood swings, impulsive behavior, and verbal outbursts are common reactions when someone feels abandoned. In fact, the anger may not always be directed outward—it can also turn inward, creating cycles of self-loathing, guilt, and regret.

Click to Learn About Splitting in an Argument and How to Turn It Around

Examples of Relationship Arguments

To better understand how abandonment issues and anger manifest in everyday situations, let’s take a look at a couple of examples.

Example 1: The Silent Treatment

Sophie has BPD and feels an overwhelming fear when her boyfriend Mike doesn’t text her back right away. She texts him multiple times, asking if everything’s okay. Mike, who has been busy at work, doesn’t immediately reply.

Sophie begins to feel rejected and anxious. Her mind races with thoughts like: “He’s ignoring me. He doesn’t care about me anymore. Maybe he’s already planning to leave me.” As the fear grows, Sophie sends another text, this time more urgent: “Why aren’t you answering me? Are you seeing someone else?”

Mike finally replies and says, “I was just at a meeting, Sophie. I’m sorry I didn’t text back sooner.” But by the time Mike responds, Sophie has already worked herself up into a rage, accusing him of not caring and throwing hurtful comments his way.

In this situation, Sophie’s fear of abandonment triggered her anger, even though Mike’s lack of response wasn’t intentional. Her reaction pushed Mike away, leading to a cycle of hurt and confusion in the relationship.

Example 2: The Fear of Distance

James and his partner Lily are in a committed relationship, but James has a history of BPD tendencies. One evening, Lily casually mentions that she wants some time to herself to unwind after a stressful day. For most people, this would be a normal request, but for James, it feels like rejection. He interprets Lily’s need for space as her pulling away, as if she’s preparing to abandon him.

In response, James becomes angry and demands to know why she doesn’t want to spend time with him. He accuses her of not loving him enough and lashing out with hurtful comments, even though Lily’s request for space was completely unrelated to him.

Lily, feeling blindsided by the intensity of James’s reaction, becomes defensive and withdraws, which only fuels James’s anger and fear of abandonment. He believes her withdrawal means she’s about to leave him, further spiraling his emotions.

In both of these examples, the emotional intensity and reactions are rooted in a deep fear of abandonment, compounded by a lack of emotional regulation. These patterns are not intentional but stem from a complex mix of fear, insecurity, and emotional dysregulation inherent in BPD.

Click to Learn More About The Many Hidden Faces of Abandonment: How Unseen Fears Shape Behavior in Borderline Personality

How to Manage Abandonment Fears and Anger in BPD

Managing abandonment issues and anger when you have BPD or borderline tendencies requires self-awareness, emotional regulation, and communication skills. Here are some practical strategies:

1. Recognize the Fear and Pause Before Reacting

When you feel a wave of anger or fear of abandonment coming on, the first step is to pause and reflect. Ask yourself: “Am I reacting to the present moment, or is my fear rooted in past experiences?” Often, these intense emotional reactions are tied to past wounds, and taking a step back can help you assess whether the situation is truly a threat or if it’s a distortion of reality.

2. Communicate Your Needs Clearly

It’s important to express your feelings and needs to your partner calmly and clearly. Instead of resorting to accusations or anger, try saying, “I feel anxious when I don’t hear from you, and I’m worried I might be abandoned.” This lets your partner know that your emotions are driven by fear, not malice, and invites them into the conversation to reassure you.

3. Practice Self-Regulation Techniques

Learning to manage your emotions is key to breaking the cycle of anger and fear. Mindfulness, deep breathing, and grounding techniques can help you manage overwhelming emotions in the moment. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a highly effective approach for individuals with BPD, teaching skills like emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.

4. Challenge Negative Thoughts

When you begin to feel abandoned, take a moment to challenge the negative thoughts running through your mind. Ask yourself, “Is there concrete evidence that this person is abandoning me, or is this just my fear talking?” Reframing your thoughts can help reduce the intensity of your emotional reaction.

5. Seek Professional Help

If you struggle with BPD, therapy can be incredibly beneficial. DBT is specifically designed to help individuals manage emotional dysregulation, and it provides tools to navigate relationships more effectively. A therapist can also help you address past trauma that may be fueling abandonment fears.

Conclusion: Embracing Healing and Self-Compassion

Living with Borderline Personality Disorder is challenging, especially when it comes to managing abandonment fears and anger. However, with the right strategies, self-awareness, and therapy, it’s possible to break free from the emotional storm and build healthier, more stable relationships.

Remember, it’s okay to experience fear and anger—it’s how you handle those emotions that determines your emotional health and relationship success. By learning to regulate emotions, communicate effectively, and seek support, you can navigate abandonment fears and anger in a way that leads to growth, healing, and a more fulfilling life.

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