Tool #4: The Victim (Empowerment) Tool

​Setting limits with individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and others, often causes them to experience frustration which may be expressed as rage. Refusing them or restricting them in any way causes them to feel slighted, or worse, rejected. These feelings leave them feeling victimized, which then justifies lashing out behavior. This may take the form of challenges to the boundary, or possibly abusive behavior towards you for setting the boundary. Individuals with BPD not only feel the sense of helplessness that others associate with feeling like a victim, they also experience the boundary as an accusation of unworthiness. To them your putting up a boundary indicates that you see them as worthless and that this is why you won’t yield to them. Use of this tool will allow you to empower the person you are setting boundaries with so that they do not feel like a victim. This will reduce the challenging or testing of boundaries, and reduce the reactive abusive behavior.
            The reason that individuals with BPD, as well as others, experience setting boundaries with them as being ‘mean’ or ‘unfair’ is that they do not understand that their behaviors are either intrusive or threaten to be intrusive. Behaviors that challenge personal space or emotional wellness cause others to express and reinforce boundaries to protect themselves, not to be rude. We rarely say “don’t touch me” to people who are not trying to touch us. Setting boundaries effectively can be done respectfully. This tool will show you how to set these boundaries respectfully without leaving others, particularly those with BPD, feeling victimized. The empowerment comes from holding the individuals responsible for their behavior by relating target behaviors to the need for boundary development and enforcement.
            Individuals with BPD are often seen as wielders of power who utilize their rage over others consistently in order to get their needs met. They are seen as powerful because of their willingness to engage in extreme behaviors in order to get others to yield to their wishes. Examples of these extreme behaviors include: hurtful comments, humiliation, self-mutilation and physically and emotionally abusive behaviors towards others. A natural response to these extreme behaviors is to try to limit them or restrict them by setting boundaries. These boundaries may include withdrawal from them, refusal to be with them in public, hiding the knives in the home, etc.
            Ironically, the experience of the individual with BPD is exactly the opposite. Individuals suffering BPD experience almost constant fear that others will leave them or abandon them and there is nothing they can do about it. This terrifies them. Almost all of their extreme behaviors are a reaction to feelings of impotence and undesirability. The intensity of their feelings of helplessness cause them to over-compensate for these feelings with maximal aggression in any situation where they feel challenged. Presenting boundaries as further restriction to those who are already feeling helpless and abandoned often makes them more aggressive. For this reason it is generally more effective, and particularly so with BPD sufferers, to set boundaries through empowerment, rather than disempowerment or restriction. Tell them what they can do to get at least some of what they want rather than telling them what not to do.
            Following is a hypothetical situation where a guest is being told not to smoke cigarettes in the home of the host. Most individuals who smoke generally either do not smoke in other people’s houses unless they know them to also be smokers, or they ask first if the host minds if they smoke. A situation where a guest is told not to smoke in the house only arises if the guest takes for granted that it is alright to smoke in the host’s home. Without the Victim-Empowerment Tool, setting boundaries, particularly with an individual with BPD, is likely to result in conflict either from the person challenging the boundary or having a rage response.
 
Without The Victim-Empowerment Tool:
 
Host:   “I do not allow smoking in my home. You will have to get out with that cigarette.”
Guest:  “I only have a few puffs left.”
Host:   “I told you no smoking. Get out of here with that cigarette.”
Guest:  “I don’t need to be here. I will go where I am wanted as I am.”
 
In this example, the boundary (no smoking in the house) is heard as a rejection/abandonment. The guest initially challenges the boundary. The host reinforces the boundary and the guest feels abandoned and respond aggressively. Using The Victim-Empowerment Tool allows for setting the same boundary respectfully and without conveying a sense of rejection/abandonment and hence victimization.
 
With The Victim-Empowerment Tool
 
Host:   “I am so happy to see you. Would you mind finishing that cigarette outside and then we can sit and catch up. I will pour you some coffee in the meantime.”
Guest:  “OK. I will be right back.”
 
Utilization of the Victim-Empowerment Tool focuses on what behaviors will result in them feeling welcomed and empowered, rather than focusing on restricting them from visiting. The same boundary, regarding smoking is effectively set without ensuing conflict.
The tendency to restrict a person with extreme behaviors is probably strongest when that person is your daughter. Your daughter is also probably most sensitive to such restrictions, particularly if she suffers from BPD. In the following hypothetical exchange the child behaves intrusively and the mother attempts to put up a boundary.
 
Without The Victim-Empowerment Tool
 
Child:  “My friends are coming over tonight so you and dad stay out of our way, or better yet why don’t you go out?”
Mom:   “We didn’t discuss this advance.”
Child:  “So what?”
Mom:   “So we are having some couples over tonight to play bridge so you cannot have your friends over tonight.”
Child:  “I can’t have my friends over because of a bunch of losers playing with each other?”
Mom:   “You should have asked in advance.”
Child:  “So now what – I tell my friends not to come and then I have no more friends. I’ll kill myself and then you can enjoy your card game while I bleed to death.”
 
In this example the mother responds to her daughter’s effort to intrude on her evening by setting a boundary and restricting her. This makes her feel more helpless and she increases her threats of extreme behavior. The effect is to escalate the conflict and compromise the relationship between mother and daughter.
 
With The Victim-Empowerment Tool
 
Child:  “My friends are coming over tonight so you and dad stay out of our way, or better yet why don’t you go out?”
Mom:   “We didn’t discuss this in advance.”
Child:  “So what?”
Mom:   “So we are having some couples over tonight to play bridge. We will be playing in the living room. Perhaps you and your friends can hang out downstairs.”
 
In this version, the mother is able to convey a cooperative attitude while still setting the same boundary: the bridge game was set up first and hence has priority. Below the child challenges/tests the boundary.
 
Child:  “Why don’t you and your friends play in the basement and we will occupy the living room?”
 
Whereas the child’s response is still far from ideal, the direction is one of cooperation/negotiation rather than threatening extreme behavior (suicide). This gives the mom the chance to also respond cooperatively, which does not damage the relationship between mother and daughter.
 
Mom:   “If it is important to you to entertain friends in the living room, then you can have them earlier, before our bridge game, or later, afterward. You may also have your friends over tomorrow.”
 
This response empowers the child by helping the child form viable compromises that she can choose from and still get much of what she wants. If the child continues to argue the mother can remind her that she can have her friends over if she is willing to compromise either the time or location. The mother can then emphasize that the child has a choice to make and she must take responsibility for her choices and actions, as all adults need to do. This encourages healthy behavior on the daughter’s part while engaging in healthy compromise with her and thus strengthening the bond between mother and daughter rather than weakening it.