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Hosted by Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. and Megan Hunter, MBA, It’s All Your Fault! High Conflict People explores the five types of people who can ruin your life—people with high conflict personalities and how they weave themselves into our lives in romance, at work, next door, at school, places of worship, and just about everywhere, causing chaos, exhaustion, and dread for everyone else.
They are the most difficult of difficult people — some would say they’re toxic. Without them, tv shows, movies, and the news would be boring, but who wants to live that way in your own life!
Have you ever wanted to know what drives them to act this way?
In the It’s All Your Fault podcast, we’ll take you behind the scenes to understand what’s happening in the brain and illuminates why we pick HCPs as life partners, why we hire them, and how we can handle interactions and relationships with them. We break down everything you ever wanted to know about people with the 5 high conflict personality types: narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, antisocial/sociopath, and paranoid.
And we’ll give you tips on how to spot them and how to deal with them.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those involving someone with a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hi everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California where we focus on training, consulting, coaching classes, and educational programs and methods, all to do with high conflict. Today is the third episode of our new series five Types of People who Can Ruin Your Life. Today's focus is the love you hate, you types, the high conflict, borderline types. But before we start, send your questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or on our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast where you'll also find all the show notes and links and we'd love it if you give us a review wherever you listen to us.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
All right, bill. The first week in the series we talked about the basics of the high conflict personality and the four defining characteristics, which roughly perhaps 10% of the population. Today we're talking about the love you hate you types. Last week we talked about the antisocial cruel con artists types, and so this week it's the high conflict borderline personality. Now, if you're someone who's never heard of that, it's probably seems like a lot of, wow, that's really big, huge scary. I don't know what that is. So we're going to break it down. Today, we're basing this kind of off of Bill's book, five types of people who can ruin your Life, the chapter for the Love You Hate. You Types starts this way in Bill's words, maybe you know someone who's extremely charming, friendly, and reasonable, one minute. Then the next, they're screaming and blaming and attacking you verbally, financially, publicly, physically, or all of these and more the speed with which they turn from seeming to love you. To hating you is breathtaking. What did I do? You may ask yourself, how can I get out of here? Well, you may be dealing with a borderline high conflict person. So yeah, it seems not very pleasant, right? Reasonable, charming, friendly, and then screaming and blaming and attacking.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, people notice that it stands out. It's shocking. Even can be that, whoa, where did that come from? And one thing I want to mention is people with this personality type can be very charming, very friendly, very sincere, very loving, very appealing, very attractive. And yet as you get to know them, these emotions come out. And these emotions are something they don't have as much control over as most adults. In a sense, their emotions take over. They would say for a young child who just the emotions come first and the thoughts come second. And so generally people with this personality type have grown up with what the therapists call emotion dysregulation, that they can't manage their emotions. And so the emotions take over and often are extreme. So they have extreme views of people. They see people in all or nothing terms, this people are all good, and these people are all bad.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
They're evil, and they may switch back and forth. So say someone has a boyfriend, person has borderline personality disorder and they have a boyfriend, and one day they're just loving. They see the person is wonderful, and then they're sitting on the couch watching a TV show and they're very comfortable and warm and kind of calm. Well, for someone with this personality type, the emotions don't like calmness. The emotions are like, we need intensity. And so you might be sitting on the couch feeling warm and calm, and suddenly say, A man with this personality says, wait a minute, are you having an affair? Why are you so quiet tonight? And then they start an argument, and then they feel more connected because connection is the big issue. It's connection, it's emotions that take over and basically seeing things in all or nothing terms. So that's just a brief kind of view.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, and it's just very big emotions that are hard to control. And it often causes extreme behaviors, right? Because we do things that are very extreme when we're trapped in that reactive brain.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yes, and we will talk next week about domestic violence and borderline personality and antisocial personality. But for borderline men especially, a lot of men that have engaged in domestic violence may have this personality type because they're sincere. They just don't want their honey, their partner, their loved one to leave, and they're always worried about that. Now, women occasionally may be violent too, but often it's more verbal. And majority of people with borderline diagnosis are not violent. So I want to say that, but it's that the moods come over and they're pure, they're all good, all bad, all friendly, all angry. They talk about borderline rage that the person's just consumed. You look in their eyes and you go, this is a different person for a few minutes. And then they may switch back to being loving and friendly. It's like something happens, they're reassured or something brings them back.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
But then when things are calm, like I was saying on the couch, then they may escalate and make it a conflict. So we see this kind of mood swing, sudden intense anger. Now, these folks have a lot of empathy. And so what happens is in relationships, they're very appealing. These are some of the most engaging people. You just want to love them. And yet there's this other side. And so we always encourage people to wait a year, as you and I wrote Megan in the dating radar book is Wait a year before you commit to getting married, having a child, buying a house, because on the surface, they can be very warm, friendly, charming, lovable, sincere. But there's a flip side, and that's where the rage, the anger, the just bitterness, almost vindictiveness can come out. So mood swings. I want to add something. People say the term borderline.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
What does that mean? I think of it as on the border between love and hate, as you said earlier. But the term came from about a hundred years ago when they first started diagnosing mental disorders. And there was two categories. There was neurotic for the worried, well, that was anxious, depressed, but in touch with reality. Then there was psychotic, which was people say, was schizophrenia, other psychosis that were out of touch with reality. And they found these people that seemed to be on the edge, that sometimes they're in one, sometimes they're in the other. So they could lump that together as borderline between psychotic and neurotic. But anyway, so that's where that term came from. And then in 1980, they defined it more specifically with nine characteristics as a personality disorder. But keep in mind, as we've always said, we're not diagnosing personalities here. We're giving you background information to understand people that may be in your life who may or may not have these disorders.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And that flip side can sometimes just be really challenging. And so I see it as this is a person whose brain is just going through life trying to connect and trying to attach to someone who they think can make them feel better. And it's not a conscious thing, just I don't feel good, and my brain's telling me I need to be connected with at least one person closely so that they can help me feel less anxious, I guess less fear, and I may not even know this, obviously it's not a conscious thought. But then when they get that relationship that eventually, like you said, I miss those intense emotions. I feel okay right now, but eventually I'm going to miss that. So I'm going to create something that gets the intensity going and the effect on the person closest to them that they're with, whether it's an intimate romantic relationship, a family relationship, or even a friendship, it can be quite confusing and shocking because you've become quite close to this person perhaps, and everything seems to be going fine.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And then it can flip so quickly and it's very shocking and you kind of walk away going, wow, I feel like I've been feigned. And so it's interesting. It's not bad people, as we've always said, these are folks with just a fear driven personality. And it's quite miserable actually. It's reported throughout the literature that this is not a pleasant way to live. And a lot of people don't understand what's going on until they read a book or they see an article online, and a lot of times they get help. So we're going to talk about that later, but let's talk statistics. First. Bill and the NIH study, national Institutes of Health study from about 2008, the borderline personality rate was about 6% of the US population, which would've been around 20 million people. Does that still hold?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Well, that's still listed in the diagnostic manual of mental disorders. The fifth edition came out in 2022. So it's still mentioned as one of the numbers. There's various studies on this and some say lower numbers, but I think this is realistic. And some of the experts that are known for dealing with working with borderline personality disorder, like Marshall Lanahan, who's one of the leaders in treatment for borderline personality disorder, and she says she thinks these numbers are realistic. So that's a significant part of the population. Everybody knows somebody with this pattern of behavior, whether it's a disorder or just traits, 6% of people is a large number. Some research says 7% have alcoholism or an alcoholic or addict. So it's a significant percent of people. And as you said, they're not happy. Having this disorder makes relationships very rocky and unpredictable, but there's a range of how difficult the disorder is. And also there is treatment, which we'll get to later. But yeah, so 6% is pretty prevalent.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
And of those 6%, how many also have a high conflict personality?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Well, my estimate, we don't have research on this, but my estimate from basically 40, actually 44 years ago, I worked my first case that had someone diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in it in the case. So I'd say slightly more than half because I've worked in psychiatric hospitals with people with borderline personality disorder who did not have high conflict personalities. They were not preoccupied with blaming others. They really were mostly angry with themselves or just felt helpless in the world because the high conflict personalities preoccupied with blaming others. But there's a significant percent, I would say more than half of people with this disorder are preoccupied with blaming others. Where that rage comes in, it's like, who are you going to aim it at? And it's most commonly people close to the person. So family members, dating partners, parents, children, siblings, that's where you're most likely to see this. But you get close to somebody at work, they may be turn into this pattern of behavior in the workplace with people they're really close to. A close neighbor might suddenly find themselves getting verbally attacked. But close relationships is where this comes out. Generally personality disorders or interpersonal disorders. And this one's particularly associated with close relationships
Speaker 1 (14:03):
And a high sensitivity, would you say in all cases or
Speaker 2 (14:08):
I think high sensitivity in close relationships, because that attachment you talked about wanting to feel a connection in. Let's say they have a job. Let's say they work a job in an office. They're not necessarily going to be feeling that defensive in daily life, but if they get close to somebody, they're going to be very sensitive to little signals like that. I'm being rejected. Something like that. Take a workplace example like this. Someone, let's say it's a woman and this is slightly more women than men, but it's close to 50 50, but let's say it's a woman. Let's say you're a woman and you start a new job and there's this person that reaches out to you, oh, they're really nice. They're helping me out. And they say, let's get together for lunch on Thursday during the workday. And you go, oh, okay, great. And then they say, let's go to the movies on the weekend.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
You're fun. You're a happy person. You go, oh, okay, great. And you do that, and then the next week they say, let's go to dinner, and then to the movies. Well, you're starting to feel like, Hey, this is a little bit too intense for me, but let's say you go along with that and you have a good time, but there's an intensity there. And the next weekend they want to get together too. And you say, well, wait a minute. You're going to have to back off. You're getting a little too intense for me. I need to do other stuff next weekend. Well, that's a rejection, that's an abandonment. And now the person with this personality may start sending nasty emails. You're not the kind person that you said you were. Or maybe start spreading rumors, say, so-and-so's not a very nice person. She's new here and I don't think she fits in. So you get that kind of shift when it gets close. So in many ways, that's one of the cautions is you can have a comfortable, positive relationship with someone with this personality if you're not too close. And so having good boundaries, being able to say, I'd like to get together, but I'm busy next weekend is better than saying, you're a too intense. I'm busy next weekend.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Good. Very good. So let's go back a minute ago when you said something about they will bring other people into their feelings about you when they perceived to have been rejected by you. So is that what you refer to as splitting?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yes. So often what happens is people with this personality see people as all good or all bad. And so now that you were all good and you've turned all bad because of minor rejection, but they flip their perceptions flip to the other side. So you're all evil now. They look to other people to be the all good people, and one of the ways they form relationships with people close relationships is to get them to join with them against somebody else. So you start seeing this split, you're one of the good people, and that's one of the bad people. What's interesting and sad is people with this personality, with their kids, it's not unusual that they have a child, they see as all good and a child they see as all bad. And so they split, we call it splitting the children, but in the workplace, they call it staff splitting where someone might see half the staff of a business as friendly and charming and happy, and the other half is evil and terrible, and they'll pit people together like that. I've seen that especially in healthcare organizations and higher education in administration and college and universities and such, where you might have a student with this personality and they tell half the staff, you're wonderful and half the staff are terrible, and they get them fighting with each other.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
So let's move on to a few of the things you talked about in your book, apologizing and Lying and Seeking Revenge. So let's start with lying. We are going to ask us about each of the five types as we go through this series. I think there's some that have a higher propensity to lie perhaps, but when this fear is driving one's brain, this fear-based operating system, and this type is trying to connect a fear of abandonment, will that cause them to lie? And if so, what does that look like?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
It can, and all of the high conflict personalities lie more than the average person, but some lie more than others. And so this is kind of in the middle. The antisocial personality lies the most. They totally make stuff up, but people with borderline personality may lie to preserve a relationship. And so it's possible, for example, that they may be having an affair, but they accuse you of having an affair. Say you're in a couple relationship, and so they're lying about that they're having an affair, but because of what we call projection, that's a mental health term that they say you're doing what they're actually doing. They may accuse you of having an affair and look for signs you're having an affair and blame you for having an affair when you're not. So they can get stuck in that kind of lying to preserve the relationship.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I think of the example, I may have given this in another podcast, but I read about this one. There was a guy who just felt his girlfriend was too intense, and so he was going to split up with her. So he says, I've decided you're too intense. I need to split up with you. And she was devastated and said, oh my goodness, honey, because I just found out this morning that I'm pregnant. Well, the guy felt like, oh my goodness, I've got to do the responsible thing. And so he marries her and nine months later, there's no child. You can imagine he is pretty irritated about having been lied to into getting married. That's the kind of thing, it often has an attachment purpose, and so you kind of can see a logic to it, but that's not a justification for it. And that's the kind of thing when people are in recovery from borderline personality disorder, they're learning more self-management skills, is to really try to be in relationships where being honest will be the way to go and trying to be more honest themselves. So lying certainly can be an issue,
Speaker 1 (21:20):
And I've seen some that will be very frustrated with the relationship they're in and go out kind of seeking a new relationship, not even consciously just trying to make those connections and attachments elsewhere because they're so miserable where they're at. And so I kind of see it as a spider web that, okay, I'm going to try to attach my spider web here and then attach it as many places as I can so that I can leave this situation I'm in. I can't leave. I can't tolerate or bear to leave this until I'm attached somewhere else. So if lying is involved there, it seems probably very natural. So let's move on to the apology situation. Will the borderline high conflict person apologize?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Well, I would say that it's rare because they mostly feel that they're justified in their reactions. However, they may apologize because they know they need to do that to hold onto a relationship. So you may get, for example, let's say a man with borderline personality who engages in domestic violence may have a buildup of rage and explosion of rage, and then an apologetic period. I'm so sorry, here's a dozen roses, I'll take you out to dinner. It will never happen again, except that it will, because it's an emotional buildup inside of them that they haven't yet learned how to manage. They can learn to manage that in domestic violence treatment, possibly other counseling, but it may just fit into part of the cycle and the cycle of violence that's associated with borderline and it's sign of a cycle of anger, even without violence, is a peaceful period, but a buildup of tension, then an explosion of rage, and then a period of remorse. And so those three steps, often one or another place in those three steps, but the remorse period is when you get apologies. Okay,
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Let me add something. They're going to demand apologies from the people that they're close to for things that shouldn't be apologized for the people they're close to set limits on them. It's like, you have to apologize for not going to the movies with me this weekend. And you don't want to apologize because you didn't want to and you never promised that. So don't apologize to someone like this if it's not true. If you've made a mistake, certainly apologize for that if you want, but realize they may blow it way out of proportion. So apologies can be tricky from both ends,
Speaker 1 (24:11):
And we're typically apologizing out of an attempt to fix it or out of our own stress in that moment because these can be very stressful moments and we're emotionally hooked, or we're trying to defend ourselves or figure out how to get out of this, or maybe we're just playing confused. So you just have to take that step back and think about it, think before you do these things.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
So let's take a short break and then we're going to come back and talk about revenge and vindictiveness. So let's talk Bill about why does that borderline brain seek revenge and why are they vindictive? Because we hear a lot of stories over the years of really high level extreme behavior, which revenge and vindictiveness is something that 90% of people would never do. So why does this brain do this?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
It seems to be what makes the most sense to me is that a lot of mental health research, psychiatrists, psychologists have said that in many ways the borderline brain or personality hasn't developed past early childhood. So picture, if you're a child and you're two or three years old and your parents says, I've decided to leave, I'm going to leave you forever. Goodbye, good luck. And that's like your only parent, and they leave, they go out the door. You're going to do everything in your power to hold onto them because you can't survive without them. And so in many ways, people with borderline personality feel like they can't survive without their attachment person, which when you're a child, your mother, your father, just picture, if they were to leave you, this is how you would feel if you were two years old. So those feelings just take over and make them really desperate to clinging.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
But if they really believe they've been abandoned, they're really being rejected, then they switch over into this rage and the rage may actually destroy. That's when people get killed sometimes is it may be a borderline rage and an abusive person can't stop themselves and goes all the way to strangle someone to death or something like that. So it seems to be part survival mechanism of early childhood. Like if you're an infant and you're not getting the attention you need, you go into a rage, you scream and scream, and then someone comes and helps you. So it's really kind of that two, 3-year-old psychology that the brain hasn't moved past,
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Which means parenting is so important. We see why it's so important, and being there and prioritizing parenting and attachment, having building a secure attachment in your children, it's just so important. So it's interesting. We'll talk in the next episode about borderline and antisocial in relation to domestic violence. And I want to ask you, bill, in that episode about the terms an abusive person versus a surviving person. I'm sure a fine line in most people's minds, but it's kind of an interesting concept. So let's switch now into more of the hopeful piece. And let's start with, we aren't going to go deeply into all the different treatments, but we do know that this is the one of the five types that has the most hope for success for eventually maybe no longer qualifying for the diagnosis and really getting ahold of their, being able to manage their emotions and decrease those extreme behaviors down to moderate behaviors and things through dialectical behavior therapy and some others. Are people able to heal on their own without that type of either trauma treatment or dialectical behavior therapy or other treatments,
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Bill? Well, there's some stories and some small studies that have indicated that this does get better with time, that as the person ages, that the intensity of borderline traits may diminish. But I want to say that's not what I've seen from most people in this situation. If they're not actively involved in a treatment program, that generally this pattern of behavior continues and is relatively stable throughout a lifetime, and not that it's stable there, it's an instability that's consistent over a lifetime. So I think therapy really does make a difference. I hear some stories of someone getting into a stable marriage with a partner who happens to be really well-centered and can kind of tolerate the mood swings of someone with borderline without abandoning or triggering a lot of abandonment. So it may be possible, but I want to really emphasize that there is treatment people can get that people are succeeding with that.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
The most effective treatment seem to cognitive behavioral therapy skills. So cognitive is thinking, learning to tell yourself positives, phrases, changing your thinking when something feels hopeless is to say, no, I don't know what the future is. This may be a hopeful situation, so I'm not going to jump to conclusions. Things like that. That's the cognitive part. The behavioral part is practicing new behaviors, for example, saying, I am angry with you, rather than demonstrating it by throwing things or storming out of a room. So cognitive behavioral skills, the most popular method with that approach is called dialectical Behavior therapy or DBT, and that's been quite successful with a lot of people, including as you said, Megan, that people outgrow the diagnosis in some cases. So that's encouraging. But I said there's two parts to the treatment. The other part is a secure attachment relationship with a therapist, with good dialectical behavior therapy.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
There's a group therapy that people learn skills in, but there's also an individual therapy where the person can work with the counselor on using the skills and getting through the week and talking things through. I also want to say that there's people who are good therapists who have a different approach than DBT, but because they have a good strong therapy relationship, they're able to do a really good job. So the strong attachment with a therapist, and maybe I shouldn't use the word attachment because that really is a childhood period that people go through, but a secure relationship with a therapist can really help people in learning the skills and becoming more self-aware and more balanced in how they handle relationships.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
So one last question and then we'll wrap this up. Bill, this has been so very helpful in a brief statement. Why should professionals who might have someone with this in their caseload, their customer base, why is it important to have this information? And what's one tip you could give them
Speaker 2 (32:10):
To therapists?
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Oh, well, to any professionals, any lawyers or mediators or HR professionals.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
To me, I would emphasize empathy that if you can muster empathy for someone with this personality, they're going to feel your empathy and calm down. They're not going to be as anxious if you can show them you're really willing to listen that you care to the extent that a professional can appropriately care for someone that you convey this, I can work with you. I want to work with you. I can help you. Let's go through this roller coaster together and that sense of, I can work with you. I'm willing to work with you and I'd like to help you. I think that's the kind of biggest message that any professional can give within the context of whatever the details of their work is. So lawyers, therapists, accountants, sometimes accountants want to learn about high conflict stuff and they're able to be more effective in their relationships. So I think that's the key, is have some empathy and show some empathy.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
And would you say the same for someone who's in a personal relationship?
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yes, but don't overdo the empathy in a personal relationship. You also need to be able to set boundaries and have healthy boundaries, but you can enforce your boundaries with empathy. So you can say, it's not okay for you to talk to me this way. I'm going to have to stop the conversation if you keep talking to me this way, but I'd like to have a nice conversation with you, a civil conversation. So let me know when you're ready to have that. So that shows some empathy while also setting limits. So you got to have both of those if you're in a close relationship.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Alright, well, we've just barely hit the tip of it of all of this, but we have a lot of resources and materials, and we'll put those links in the show notes to you listeners out there. Thank you for listening today and next week we'll continue our Five Types of People series. And it's going to, as I said, take a little bit different turn. We're going to take these two types that we've talked about so far, BPD, and A SPD, antisocial and their relationship, if any to domestic violence. October is Domestic Violence Awareness month, and we're going to talk about it. So in the meantime, please send your questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast. Until next time, keep learning and practicing these skills. Be kind to yourself to others while we all try to keep the conflict small and find the missing piece. Peace. It's All Your Fault, is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. Find the show notes and transcripts@truestory.fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.