How to Regulate Your Borderline: External Regulation, Regulatory Focus Theory (Higgins)

the other day I came across an amazing unprecedented phenomenon a comment on one of my YouTube videos that I failed to delete it's a pleasure you know I can't control it okay shim what did the comment say sam that's me how exactly does the intimate partner regulate the borderline emotions how does the regulation occur what does the partner do to affect emotional regulation in the borderline now I coined the phrase external regulation to describe a form of internal regulation and I did this in order to discombobulate you look it up external regulation is when the

process of internal regulation is Mis attributed to an external Source now in healthy normal people the control of moods emotions interaction with reality reality testing Etc all these come from the inside there is a a sensation there's a feeling there's an experience of innate control inherent something that is embedded somewhere in your in your chest or something something in external control the control of moods emotions reality testing cognitions you name it emotions are the main thing but many other things are being regulated on on a on a regular basis so in external regulation the internal

processes of Regulation continue a pace exactly like in normal or healthy people but the individual firmly believes that the regulation is coming from the outside there is this is a kind of misri attribution or if you wish kind of attribution error and this is the topic of today's video how does the borderline experience this regulation that is coming from the outside the hand the hand of God if you wish what is what is taking place in her mind or his mind half of all borderlines are men what is taking place in her mind when she

interacts with someone she believes is reaching inside reaching inside her brain inside her mind and rearranging the furniture how does it feel what does she feel how does she interpret it what kind of narrative or story is she telling herself that's the topic of today's video and who better qualif if to discuss it then M Mah Sam vak author of malignance of Love narcissism Revisited the first book ever on narcissistic abuse and a professor of Clinical Psychology in multiple universities lately okay let's delve right in we all have a regulatory system regulatory system are a

group a set of interacting mechanisms that act in order to maintain equilibrium homeostasis any other stable state so regulation or with within or mediated via the regulatory system is about stability the main purpose of Regulation is to maintain stability even even Financial regulation for example the FED um National Banks even Financial regulation is about maintaining stability now human beings regulate many things all the time physiologically but also psychologically and mentally processes that happen in the brain they regulate people for example regulate Consciousness there are many activities taking place within your mind that are aimed at

managing or changing the state and contents of Consciousness avoiding pain seeking pleasure uh seeking Thrills risks and variety etc etc self-destructive activities self harming chemical intoxication self-mutilation substance abuse they also forms of efforts attempts to regulate States Of Consciousness they're self-destructive self-defeating they're dysfunctional they're wrong but they are still about regulation it's everything many of the things we do have to do with this desperate need to keep this the environment internal environment stable fixed predictable what the borderline does she outsources her ego function functions that normally take place within the individual in what was known

in psychoanalytic literature is the ego these functions are relegated to the outside a typical borderline would Outsource these functions to an intimate partner or a special friend a special person someone with whom she can feel she feels safe to experience intimacy and to expose her vulnerabilities these kind of people are rare and when the borderline finds them she unburdens herself she stops to exist in a way she deactivates herself and she allows these people from the outside to interfere intervene in her internal landscape in her Inner Space and carry out the functions that should she

should have carried autonomously this is a symbiotic relationship and we'll discuss it a bit later the transfer of ego functions to the outside to an intimate partner to a special friend to a special person the transfer this by the way happens in autism to some extent this transfer of ego functions is utterly automatic it's not a decision it's not like the borderline sits alone alone at home eating a TV meal and debates with herself whether to kind of um convey her ego functions to someone or relegate them to someone this not the way it works

when she comes across someone who fulfills the criteria and I refer you to my video about U managing the borderline en chantress when she finds someone who meets the criteria she automatically dislodges her ego functions transfers them to that person and becomes a passive recipient receptacle container or of the other person's decisions activities choices personality predilections and so on she becomes a blank convas upon which the other person can paint himself or herself she is 100% responsive to cues and stimuli from the outside it's a very interesting transformation to behold and it involves the following

the regulation of emotions and moods the other person the special friend the special person the the intimate partner the other person is granted absolute power to alter the moods or and to control the emotions to evoke them to silence them to trigger them to deactivate them total control over the operating system of the borderline with a single word this specific individual can plunge the borderline into complete depression and despair or into narcissistic Elation of indescribable proportion itions power is infinite unlimited exorbitant if you wish the same effect on the borderlines moods applies to her emotions

that person from the outside the external regulat can trigger and provoke and elicit any emotion negative or positive love or hatred fear or a sense of safety anything Envy compassion it is as if the borderline mind has been transmitted remotely into someone else to do with as he or she pleas pleases and gradually with time protocols emerge keywords um triggers buttons to to be pushed the two parties settle into kind of ritual where one of them has all the power and the other one controls that person from the bottom via her helplessness in neediness in

clinging it's very reminiscent of codependent Dynamics the borderline signals her needs for example now she needs to be elated or now she wants to experience a modicum of depression and despair or now she wants to feel love or now she hates or needs to hate and then she expects the partner to respond in kind to push the right buttons to say the right words to behave in specific ways when she experiences engulfment anxiety the partner is supposed to walk away when she experiences abandonment anxiety the partner is supposed to be 100% of the time present

when she wants to when she loves the partner he is supposed to act in a lovable way when she hates the partner he is supposed to be obno become obnoxious the partner is molded by the expectations of the borderline while maintaining the power to gratify or satisfy or realize these expectations self-actualization of the borderline is a derivative of the decisions and choices made by the intimate partner or the special friend within a ritualized highly structured context and again Watch the video about the enchantress the link is in the description it is a cult-like situation it's

a paracosm it's a shared fantasy and he drifts away from reality the longer the partners are in mesed and embedded in this out of context decontextualized self-generated on the-fly Ambience and environment when the borderline is in this Arrangement when she has found someone she could trust to regulate her from the outside or someone she could attribute to the regulation that actually takes place inside her when she finds someone like that and they have established their shared fantasy the borderline experiences a sense of unitary comp completion as if she has been partial a partial person and

then she has found her compliment she has found someone to complete L and to become unitary a single unit a single organism it's a holistic perception is benign is not like the narcissist takeover which is essentially hostile and exploitative it's not like the codependent codependence strategies which are makavelian in many cases and involve control in the case of the borderline it's more about submission it is true submission kind of Islam if you wish it is true submission that the borderline emerges into the wholeness into the completed Perfection that is the symbiotic merger and fusion with

the intimate partner or the special person at that point the borderline experiences something very rare for her and again I say her half of all borderlines a me the borderline experience is something very rare balance equilibrium homeostasis a secure base a sense of safety stability predictability the glimmer the glimmerings of object constancy the borderline is incapable of experiencing introject constancy in other words she's incapable of creating stable representations of other people in her mind she is capable of object constancy but she is distrustful of people she's terrified of exposing her vulnerabilities of being hurt rejected

abandoned humiliated shamed she's she's terrorized by the potential of other people to harm her somehow she therefore avoids to the best of her ability intimacy unless it is with someone who she then designates the special person or the special friend or the intimate partner so very few get chosen a borderline May Fleet may like a butterfly you know a light on multiple people but she doesn't really become herself very often takes a special kind of partner and then when she feels this internal resettling internal uh settling actually not resettling internal settling internal cohesion internal correspondence

internal resonance that is all encompassing all pervasive ubiquitous and yet warm accepting embracing it is only then that she allows herself to experience object constancy with her loved one with her special one and that feels utterly Oceanic it's like going back to the womb and we will discuss in a minute the parental implications of this but it's like going back to the Matrix to the womb and it it is this exactly that triggers in the borderline her engulfment anxiety by going back to the womb she is being unborn she is annihilating herself analing analing herself

by merging and fusing symbiotically with her loved one the borderline vanishes she gradually transitions from full-fledged organism to a single ovom or sperm or whatever and then not even that there's a risk of Disappearing altogether and this creates engulfment anxiety and the famous approach avoidance repetition compulsion it's all about the avoidance and mitigation of pain the motivating force if you wish the motivating Dynamic the motivating emotional landscape in the borderlines life is hurt and pain agonizing excruciating debilitating fiery consuming pain and it is her entire life is dedicated to the designing and implementation of strategies

to skirt this pain to avoid it to mitigate it to amarate it to ignore it to deny it to refrain it to do something with it when she finds a person to love when she finds an intimate partner or a special person or a special friend or what have you she allows herself to feel the pain she allows herself to feel the pain she perceives love as pain she perceives love as a form of slavery addiction it's painful it's a painful experience and her solution is to infant self infantilized she be she regresses she becomes

an infant a toddler than an infant than a than a newborn then in the womb she infantilizes regresses almost to a previous Incarnation if you believe in this kind of nonsense and at that point she expects the intimate partner or the special friend to assume the parental role and the parental discourse she child defy herself she reduces herself into a childlike State fully expecting the other partner to respond in kind by becoming a parental figure and engaging in Parental speech and so this is the way she avoids the pain it is as if she says

I'm a child don't hurt me or as if she says I'm a child I'm incapable of understanding the profundity and an extent of adult pain and so having having been consumed by her intimate partner By Her Lover by her special friend have been consumed subsumed assumed having merged and fused having become this Perfection which is holistic and which is a secure base safe stable determinant predictable this introduces structure in order into the borderline otherwise utterly chaotic personality organization world and life it reduces the chaos it's an anti-chaos um strategy and within this structure and order

she strikes a bargain she negotiates a deal it's a contract it's not transactional she's not a gold digger it's not transactional give and take I'll give you sex you give me money for example not this kind of thing but it is still contractual there are rights they're corresponding or commerate duties and there are rituals and protocols and they're all very rigid and embedded in any deviation any Divergence from this contractural landscape triggers the borderline renders her extremely anxious paralyzed with fear anticipation and injuries and mortifications she's a very borderline is a very very very fragile

fragile structure very fragile person and as distinct as opposed to The Narcissist she does not have well-developed narcissistic defenses and so she is um she's a kind of narcissist without the shell a turtle without the shell and this is why she keeps getting overwhelmed internally as well as externally she has no defenses to speak of except very primitive infantile defenses which are not up to the task for example splitting she needs nurturance she seeks satisfaction and gratification of her wishes and aspirations dreams and hopes and Fantasies accomplishments she needs a horizon she needs hope the

borderline relationship with her loved ones is a relationship of Eternal Hope Springs Hope Springs Eternal there it's not malignant optimism the borderline is pretty grounded in some ways because she is highly paranoid and suspicious she sees through she sees through people me most people are transparent to the borderline but she wants some hope because she is by nature depressive and even suicidal she needs some Counterpoint she requires some count of weight and it is the role of the intimate partner to provide her with hope it is the mere presence of the partner the partner doesn't

have to do much on ly it is the mere presence of the partner that is sufficient the mere constancy of the object the mere existence the mere the mere availability of the partner or the loved one or the special person they're enough they're enough to ignite in her a flame of Hope and it is not a consuming flame it is an energizing Flame it is the warmth in a cold winter day and this is how she perceives the relationship like some some kind of a flame a flame that is that keeps you keeps you warm

a flame that keeps away the wild animals a flame around which you can tell stories narratives that comfort that reduce anxiety that make the world habitable it's like a campfire the intimate partner has to intercede with reality reality is intermediated via the intimate partner or via the special person the borderline has no access to reality no contact with reality except through the intermediation and intercession of other people people she trusts I call it precarious reality testing we know a lot about regulation regulatory functions there is even a theory known as regulatory Focus Theory regulatory Focus

theory is a conceptual framework it discusses motivation and behavior the theory suggests that people are fundamentally either promotion oriented or prevention oriented when people make decisions and choices when they pursue certain courses of action when they anticipate consequences and outcomes when they position themselves when they um adopt goals and so on so forth they're either focused on prevention or focused on promotion and according to the theory promotion focus self-regulation is concerned with nurturance with accomplishment of needs and with a pursuit of wishes and aspirations this the borderline is incapable of except through the inter intermediation

of another person the promotion focused self-regulation results in sensitivity to positive outcomes into to relative pleasure from gains Freud would have called it the Pleasure Principle prevention focus self-regulation is concerned with Safety and Security needs and is focused on meeting duties ities and obligations it results in sensitivity to negative outcomes and to relative pain from losses and this is this is exactly the internal landscape of the borderline she is prevention focused has self-regulation is intended to prevent pain and other adverse consequences and so the theory says that your disposition towards either obtaining gains or avoiding

losses influences your dominant motivations and affects your behavioral choices and this is exactly what happens with the borderline her propensity her disposition towards preventative measures avoiding pain reducing stress uh walking away from UNT toward adverse dangerous circumstance uh not dangerous but unpleasant circumstances this attitude attitudinal motivational space of the borderline causes her to adopt strategies which relegate promotion promotional self-regulation to an intimate partner or a loved one or a special friend it's to see the borderline says I am half a person as I am am all alone I'm half a person I'm capable of only

of preventing I'm capable of preventing loss and pain but but I'm incapable of making myself happy I'm incapable of experiencing pleasure and so I need you my intimate partner I need you my special special person I need you my loved one I need you to bring pleasure and happiness into my life and it is via pleasure and happiness that I regular with my internal environment that I avoid for example suicidality and this is more or less the deal between the borderline and her her loved ones her nearest dearest and closest and when we apply regulatory

Focus Theory to borderline we understand the borderlines communication patterns her the way she Oran organizes her life the organizational principle to control her life the way she performs tasks many things I will not go into them right now I hope I've answered the question that this video started with it's not easy it's not easy to understand or accept a person who vacates herself empties herself on purpose she kind of accepts her emptiness her void the black hole which is her Essence and tries to fill it in tries to negate it somehow via other people but

she does it intentionally and deliberately strategically and so it's the equivalent of embracing The Emptiness as a tool of motivating people to negate it this is the paradoxical nature of the borderline existence she is an emptiness she seeks to destroy herself by destroying this emptiness and she deres pleasure satisfaction Comfort a sense of safety all the positive emotions Love by destroying the emptiness that she is it's a paradoxical strategy the only way for you to be happy is to not be anymore