BPD Central

Help for Families

Step 3: How to Cope: Communicate to Be Heard

Step 3 (or Powertool 3) in the Beyond Blame System is about listening and feeling heard. It's tough to communicate with people who have personality disorders because the disorder garbles both incoming and outgoing messages, causing massive chaos and confusion. As an analogy, think of them as having "aural dyslexia," in which they hear words and sentences backward, inside out, sideways, and devoid of context. You may frequently feel hounded about small trifles, and all-out fights can erupt over nothing—at least, nothing you can see. Research has shown that when friends and family members learn the right techniques for communicating with their disordered loved ones, the relationship runs much more smoothly.

However, if you are being yelled at or emotionally/verbally abused, do not fight with the person. Leave the area—go to a room or outside; a safe place you can call your own. Don't disappear; say something like, "Right now things are feeling too hostile and we aren't getting anywhere. Let's pick this up later when we've both calmed down."

Overview

Some Examples

Try deep breathing

When things start to get tense, always remember to breathe! When you get anxious, your body releases chemicals that turn it into a “fight or flight” machine. Your breaths get short and shallow. When neither fighting nor flighting is a viable option, this biological stress response wreaks havoc on your body and mind. It becomes even more difficult to think straight. Deep breathing will calm you down, help you concentrate, and give you a few extra seconds to think.

Acknowledge What You Hear

Acknowledging, or more properly “empathic acknowledging,” is similar to the term validation used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

There are two steps to empathic acknowledging:

Step 1. Actively listen to your family member with 100 percent of your attention without interrupting, asking questions, offering solutions, or thinking about what you’re going to say next.

Step 2. Separate your BP’s distorted thinking from the intense, overwhelming feelings, and then empathically acknowledge those emotions to your family member without necessarily agreeing with the thoughts that link the two.

Use B.I.F.F.

When communicating with your family member in writing (especially emails) keep things Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm. First I'll explain what BIFF is, and then give you an example. Before I do, let me give some friendly advice: don't argue via text. You will not get anywhere.

INFORMATIVE

Focus on the accurate statements you want to make, not on the inaccuracies made by the other person. Avoid little digs and negative comments. Avoid sarcasm and threats. Personal attacks rarely lead to insight or positive change.

FRIENDLY

While you may be tempted to respond in anger, you are much more likely to reach your goal by being friendly but brief. A friendly (but not overly so) response will increase your chances of getting a friendly or neutral response in return.

Make it sound like you recognize their concerns. Show Empathy, Attention and Respect (E.A.R.). This will generally calm the other person down, even if only for a short time.

FIRM

In a non-threatening way, clearly spell out your information or position on an issue. (For example: "That's all I'm going to say about this.") Sound confident and don't ask for more information if you want to end the back-and-forth. A confident-sounding person is less likely to be challenged with further emails.

If you get more emails anyway, you can ignore them if you've already addressed the inaccurate information. If you need to respond again, keep it even briefer and do not emotionally engage.

Here is a BIFF example between two divorced people. This is from the creator of BIFF, Bill Eddy, and reprinted from his book BIFF: BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns. Here, Jane has made a simple request to change parenting time. Joe responds.

Joe's email: "Jane, I can't believe you are so stupid as to think that I'm going to let you take the children to your boss' birthday party during my parenting time. Have you no memory of the last six conflicts we've had about my parenting time? Or are you having an affair with him? I always knew you would do anything to get ahead! In fact, I remember coming to your office party witnessing you making a total fool of yourself – including flirting with everyone from the CEO down to the mailroom kid! Are you high on something? [And on and on and on for two full pages in an email.]

Jane: "Thank you for responding to my request to take the children to my office party. Just to clarify, the party will be from 3-5 on Friday at the office and there will be approximately 30 people there--including several other parents bringing school-age children. There will be no alcohol, as it is a family-oriented firm and there will be family-oriented activities. I think it will be a good experience for them to see me at my workplace. Since you do not agree, then of course I will respect that and withdraw my request, as I recognize it is your parenting time." [And that's the end of her email.]