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About Bon Dobbs (www.bondobbs.com)

I am NOT a doctor or mental health professional. All advice provided and opinions expressed are based on my personal experiences and research about Borderline Personality Disorder. Please do not take any advice provided as professional or medical advice. If you have BPD or are in a relationship with someone with BPD, I encourage you to seek professional mental health help.

That being said, I do offer advice and support for Non-BP’s (people in a relationship with someone with Borderline Personality Disorder). You may ask: “What qualifies you, Bon Dobbs, to offer advice and support?” Good Question.

I am a person who lives with and loves someone with BPD. Both my wife and one of my daughters exhibit BPD traits. I have taken it upon myself to learn as much as I can about this disorder and how to live more peacefully alongside someone with it.

In my up-coming book, I tell my story in length. Here is an excerpt from my story and why I am qualified to offer Non-BP’s advice and support:

[When I discovered my wife had been cutting herself,] I began to research self-inflicted injury, self-harm and self-mutilation on the Internet. I found out the motivation for self-inflicted injury can be varied. One of those motivations, which I never considered on my own, was that the self-inflicted injury (whether it is “cutting” – like my wife did – or burning oneself or pulling out chunks of hair) serves to halt the pain that a person feels. It seemed strange to me, but inflicting pain releases endorphins and serves to ease other pain. While self-punishment can be a motivation as well, I found out that it is more likely for a person to hurt him or herself to relieve pain than to specifically cause pain.

I also found out that the habit is something of a nervous one – in order to relieve the itching feeling of uneasiness, self-injury can serve to release that nervous energy. In addition, it can be a “shameful secret” in which the person who harms him or herself does so in secret and habitually. Generally, it is not a call for attention or for help. If it is hidden from the people that would answer that call, how could it be?

I also discovered something else when researching self-injury. That was, of course, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). A person doesn’t have to have BPD in order to engage in self-harm. However, many people with BPD do engage in self-harming and parasuicidal (harming behaviors not meant to cause death) behaviors. When I started following the links about BPD and about the behaviors involved in BPD, I realized I was reading a report on the mental state of my wife. It was quite disturbing for me because I had a pretty dim view of what BPD meant. I never understood the disorder completely. The more I read, the more convinced I became that I was dealing with BPD in my wife. However, it wasn’t good enough for me, a lay person, to diagnose my wife. What I decided to do was email our old therapist to see if he had some insights into a proper diagnosis or he could tell me whether I was barking up the wrong tree. After waiting a week or so, I received an email back confirming the borderline diagnosis (along with Major Depressive Disorder) for my wife. At that point, I officially became a “Non-BP.”

My journey did not stop there. It has been over two years since I made the discovery that my wife has BPD. In the intervening months, I did several things to try to learn more about BPD. You see, I needed support. If you are anything like I was, you are confused, angry, frustrated, and sad. You are at your wit’s end with your loved one’s behavior.

The first thing I did was join an on-line email support list for Nons. The list is the largest community of Nons on the Internet. I also got a copy of a popular book for loved ones of people with the disorder and read it cover to cover. At first, I thought that both of these resources were excellent, and I began to put into action the techniques I learned and the advice I received on the Internet list. I soon found out that, at least with my wife, these techniques were not working consistently.

Desperate, I decided to attend a Dialectical Behavior Therapy Family Skills Workshop. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (or DBT) is a therapy designed by Dr. Marsha Linehan of the University of Washington to specifically help people with BPD. It was actually initially developed to help suicidal and parasuicidal women, but found to help BPD patients as well (although DBT therapists call the patients “clients”). The purpose of my family skills class was to expose “Nons” to some of the tools and techniques available within DBT and how to apply these skills to their day-to-day life.

After my attendance of the DBT-FST class, I started to believe that people with BPD had been given a very bad rap on the Internet. I understood much more about the disorder and realized that most “Nons” are not given the opportunity to learn the skills that can help manage their relationship with the person with BPD. I started a blog for the sole purpose of sharing the skills with other people.

Since that time, I have interacted with over 1,000 Non-BP’s, both in person and on-line. I discovered a set of skills and attitudes that can ease the suffering of the Non-BP. I have found that, by applying these skills and attitudes, you can learn to successfully navigate one of the most difficult relationships in your life. In my book, I explain these “tools” in detail. However, some people require personal attention and support. I have noticed that there is a hole in the support community – the hole in which the Non-BP is stuck standing. Non-BP’s need a lot of support, encouragement and advice. That is the hole that I am filling.