In Part Two of this exploration of compassionately understanding diagnoses we will explore the perspective of behavior and changes in needs and interests.

Behavior & Changes in Needs & Interests

Bipolar Disorder – when experiencing mania

• Decreased need for sleep

In my opinion this is the number one detector that a person is experiencing mania. When we are having difficulty sleeping we are vulnerable to mania. This is a call to action for self-care or medical support.

• More talkative than usual, rapid speech and a pressure to keep talking

This is such an uncomfortable feeling to not be able to stop talking. When I talk about this with people we laugh about the endless times we’ve stuck our foot in our mouths because we talk way before thinking. Our words get so jumbled and we wonder if we are making sense. Nevertheless, we don’t dare ask anyone if we make sense, we just keep talking to fill the silence and hope they don’t notice.

• Increase in goal directed activities, risk taking or pleasure-seeking behaviors. Ex. spending money, heightened sex drive and risky decisions

This is where we really pay for our actions. No one cares if you spend way more money then you have when you are manic, the banks want their money back. When we invest all of our savings into everything from building a business/investments to saving the world and we fail…its gone. Our partners probably won’t mind if we spend more time on https://www.sexmature.xxx/ than usual, but I highly doubt they will be okay if we go and have sex with as many people as humanly possible. If we jump off of a cliff because we truly believe we can fly…we pay with our life or our quality of life.

Then there are the consequences that often go not talked about…

The loss of respect people have for us.

The loss of trust and safety people hold for us.

The loss of trust, safety and respect we feel for ourselves.

We lose our dignity as a consequence to these behaviors and it is incredibly painful and so difficult to recover from.

Schizoaffective Disorder

Same as bipolar disorder or major depressive disorder or any other mood disorder, except that psychosis is experienced when not in a manic or depressive episode.

I like to think of psychosis is similar to the “Telephone” game. When the message starts in the brain each time it gets passed along the message is changed so that when the message gets to the end of the line its a completely new and different message.

When this “Telephone” game happens, the brain tells stories in the form of messages about things your eyes see, your ears hear, that you touch, smell and taste that you haven’t actually experienced. However, these experiences are very real to you because they are taking place in your brain.

In many circumstances the experience of these messages wouldn’t be problematic for a person. We all have experiences where we think we see something and then realize it wasn’t there. What makes it problematic is when:

• the message that we received is harmful in some way. It could cause us to be fearful, cause self-harm or harm to others, or be very painful.
• We don’t have the ability to realize the difference between what we think we saw, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted from what is taking place around us. It puts us out of touch with our environment and that could be dangerous for our safety and survival.

Borderline Personality Disorder

• Frantic effort to avoid real or imagined abandonment

I have so much compassion for this behavior when I am able to put in perspective everything a person would have to go through that could cause them to have this incredible fear. They are simply doing their best to be loved and there is no way to know how to do be loved when your primary caregivers didn’t provide consistent and predictable etc nurture.

• Extreme idealization or devaluation treatment of interpersonal relationships

I can only imagine this as a very painful and difficult behavior for all people affected by it to deal with. Based on observation, people affected by borderline personality disorder tend to idealize someone when they are experiencing forms of love such as kindness, acceptance, approval, affection etc and devalue a person when they make a mistake, disagree, aren’t fully available, don’t receive their needs when expected, aren’t 100% able to be supportive etc.

No one will ever be perfect = 100% consistent in saying and doing the right thing and meeting your wants and needs. People are often not even be able to do that most of the time. This is painful for everyone. But I can imagine how deeply it would hurt for someone living with borderline personality disorder. I have so much compassion for the need to be loved and to have the fear at any moment the love that they receive will be abandoned. Therefore, the slightest change in the act of love could trigger that frantic fear of abandonment.

• Impulsive actions that can be risky and cause self-harm

I can’t say that I have an answer for this behavior. My curiosity looks at it from the perspective of attention seeking behavior to get needs met OR maybe a way to release emotion based fear and pain by causing physical pain. Either way, I believe these behaviors could be self-soothing in some way in an attempt to get needs met by the primary caregiver.

Maybe it is a way to say, “Notice me! Love me! I need you! Take care of me! I’m so confused and scared and I don’t know what to do about it.” My heart goes out to people who weren’t able to receive the care that so many of us take for granted.

• Recurrent suicidal behavior: threats, gestures, attempts or self-mutilation

I wonder if this pattern is an attempt to get the attention, acceptance, approval, love and nurture that they deserve and need to receive…that we all need to receive. In many circumstances people do not want to die, but they may feel dead to the people they need to receive care from OR they may need to feel that their life is of worth to others. There is no right answer to explain this painful behavior.

It is important to understand that not all of the characteristics or symptoms of borderline personality disorder will be experienced and expressed. These are tendencies that have been observed over periods of time.

Part Three will explore these diagnoses from the perspective of Thought Processes and Sense of Self