Screaming in Silence, the Quiet Borderline
“Although these individuals may seem to cope fine with the demands of daily life, they are in fact living a private experience that is anything but functional”
Turning all emotions inwardly is a quick way to sum up the ‘quiet borderline’. Where the typical BPD person displays their intense emotions outwardly by lashing out and such, the quiet BPD person keeps all of these emotions to themselves. The quiet borderline has become an expert at keeping the appearance of maintenance while at the same time they are scratching and clawing, gasping for a deep and clean breath on the inside.
Personally, due to having all these emotions turned inward it prevented me from developing an intimate relationship with myself. I held all these feelings and emotions inside for so long, never sharing them with anybody, only to be disgusted with myself.
It is typical for a BPD to throw their constant mood swings, distrust, fears of abandonment and rejection, aggression and anger-instead of showing this outwardly for all to see and and know exactly what the BPD is feeling in the moment, nobody will have a way due to the quiet BPD keeping these feelings to themselves.
One of the struggles with being a quiet BPD is the constant feeling of being separated from everyone. It’s like although we are amazing at supporting someones vulnerability as they sit in front of us, we have so much going on inside of us that we only know how to display the feeling of “being okay” because if someone were to ask us how we are and we were to answer honestly….it would be verbal vomit of several words not making sense.
So, what is the point of trying to explain our feelings to others when we can’t even make sense of them ourselves? It’s much easier to paint that smile on, dress in nice clothes, and show up performing extraordinary in work than to release the reality that we hide within ourselves. This is why it can be easy for the BPD to seem overdramatic at times, maybe we accidentally, for that brief moment, let our guard down and showed just a fraction of what is going on inside of our minds (logical or not).
It takes patience and understanding of quiet BPD to experience the beautiful mess that lies within. It takes a special friend, partner, family member to be able and WILLING to get out of the quiet BPD what we so desperately want to share with you. None of us want to live in this feeling of separation and being unable to share what is going on inside. It just feels near impossible to “just tell you what’s wrong and what we need”, it’s not that simple. If it were simple to do then we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. Keep in mind, when you are able to sit and see the quiet BPD (or typical BPD), they are the most loving and beautiful persons you can come to count on.
We just need a little help getting there.
How to support someone with quiet BPD?
The person with quiet BPD isn’t likely to open up about their emotions, so they need you to ask the right questions and be a good listener.
Ask questions and try to listen and understand the emotions that they are experiencing rather than getting bogged down in the stories about what happened. Again, you need to be a detective and get at the underlying emotions.
Validate their feelings and let them know that they are being heard. A person with quiet BPD is more likely to stuff down their emotions, so it’s even more important to show them that it’s okay to feel what they are feeling.
This article is written from a series titled “Inside the Epic Mind of a Borderline.”