This is Why People With Borderline Personality Disorder Need Constant Reassurance

You shower them with love. You consistently show your commitment to your relationship with them. You maintain an endless supply of affirmations yet still can’t seem to break even with their bottomless need for validation. Does this sound familiar? It is a common experience when you have a loved one suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder and their need for continuous reassurance may often be at odds with your personal boundaries and ability to perform self-care. As difficult as it is to live with BPD, it is also challenging to remain healthy while being supportive of someone who has it. My goal in this piece is to help you understand where that incessant need for validation comes from and to go over some strategies and techniques to help you cope with it. Having been diagnosed with BPD myself, I can tell you that the thing we want most is to love and be loved in happy, healthy, and fulfilling relationships. BPD can make relationships difficult, but not impossible.

The foundation of a person with BPD’s relentless requirement for validation lies in a principle in the field of developmental psychology known as object permanence. To understand object permanence, one need not look further than a baby laughing in surprise and wonder at a game of “Peek-A-Boo”. The reason this form of play is so amusing to…