Sometimes people who have BPD engage in a process where they use secondary gain as a way to perpetuate their illness. This is almost always an unconscious act. Secondary gain is something that motivates a person. externally engage in specific types of behavior. In general, it is used when a person wants to avoid something, for example, having to go out to work or having to do housework. So, for example, the person may say that they cannot walk and therefore cannot get up and get out to go and catch the bus to work, or they have a severe stomach ache and therefore cannot do their assigned tasks. For people with BPD, this can also be called a secondary disability, and this can lead to something called learned helplessness.
People who have BPD are made unborn. No one is born with Borderline Personality Disorder. They learn the characteristics and assume the characteristics of the disease through learned behavior. My opinion is that BPD starts to seep in very early, sometimes at the age of two when a child has a tantrum, which her parents don’t adequately address. The boy learn essentially that kicking their legs and yelling will make their parents give up. His parents reward this bad behavior and stage a lifetime of tantrums that only get worse with time. Of course, borderline personality disorder isn’t that simple, but I think its roots lie in childhood tantrums.
Although parents can scapegoat their child with borderline personality disorder, borderline personality disorder is very much a family issue and a family issue. Although BPD affects the person deeply, it must also be addressed as a family issue with family therapy.
Dysfunctional families operate by very complex rules. Each person in the family has a role or function. One person can be designated as the “problem” person or the “sick” person, the mother can take the role of “caregiver”, the father can have the role of “disciplinarian”. If you think of this family unit as a mobile, like you might see on top of a baby’s crib, you’ll see them go round and round each other, but never directly interact with each other.
A mother acting in the role of “caretaker” might be making what is called a tertiary gain because she wins the sympathy of friends and other family members for having to care for that poor sick child. My husband enjoyed the warmth of tertiary gain for years because he “took care of me, poor and sick.” People in my community considered him a Saint George because of the way he took care of me. I had invested heavily in that role and so it was in his best interest in making sure I stayed sick.
Going back to the cell phone analogy, when the person with BPD begins to improve with therapy and other intervention efforts, it is as if a hand has reached out and tapped the cell phone. All other parts begin to shake and spin as you desperately try to regain your balance. This settles over time as long as adjustment is stopped. This shaking and turning in families is what can sometimes lead a person with BPD to abandon their therapy. They have invested too much in keeping their family unit the same because even a negative is worth keeping if it’s family.
