Randi Kreger > Quotes

“Consider a lighthouse. It stands on the shore with its beckoning light, guiding ships safely into the harbor. The lighthouse can't uproot itself, wade out into the water, grab the ship by the stern and say, "Listen, you fool! If you stay on this path you may break up on the rocks!" No. The ship has some responsibility for its own destiny. It can choose to be guided by the lighthouse. Or, it can go its own way. The lighthouse is not responsible for the ship's decisions. All it can do is be the best lighthouse it knows how to be.”
― Randi Kreger, Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care about Has Borderline Personality Disorder

“It's important that you don't continue to ignore or accept rages. Realize that extreme rage directed at you or your children is verbal and emotional abuse. Even if you think you can handle it, over time it can erode your self-esteem and poison the relationship. Seek support immediately.”
― Randi Kreger, Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care about Has Borderline Personality Disorder

“Children who experience abuse also learn to deny pain and chaos or accept them as normal and proper. They learn that their feelings were wrong or didn't matter. They learn to focus on immediate survival - on not getting abused, and miss out on important developmental stages. As a result, they have problems developing their own identities.”
― Randi Kreger, Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care about Has Borderline Personality Disorder

“Most people reflect on their own thoughts: Is this true? Am I overreacting? I should check this out. But people with PDs don’t seem to have the ability to reflect on their own thoughts or behavior. Like someone who is drunk, their thinking is continually “under the influence” of their cognitive distortions. They can send, but not receive, new information. Because they are unaware of their cognitive distortions, these distortions can underlie serious misbehavior, including physical abuse, emotional abuse, and even legal abuse (using the legal system to attack a target and to promote false or unnecessary litigation). Information that does not fit the distortion is rigidly unconsciously blocked as too threatening and confusing. Instead, people with PDs defend their distortions in an effort to protect themselves. Blamers repeatedly react to “false alarms” caused by all-or-nothing thinking, jumping to conclusions, and so forth. They truly believe that they are in danger, and they feel powerless and out of control inside.”
― Randi Kreger, Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

“You must understand that you do have the power to change your relationships and your life, but it is likely going to be frightening at first. The alternative is to live a fairly unhappy and unsatisfying life in which fear dictates your choices and their relationships.”
― Randi Kreger, Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care about Has Borderline Personality Disorder

“The person’s cognitive distortions get triggered, and all kinds of extreme thoughts may get generated, including allegations of abuse by you. People with BP tendencies seem to desire the elimination of the other parent as much as possible, stating that you’re a “threat” to the child for some reason, and you need supervised visitation or no contact. Since these types of orders are used only when there are serious abuse allegations, people with BP or NP traits often make very serious abuse allegations. This entire process may be totally unconscious, although some blamers are willing to make knowingly false statements to accomplish their desperate goals.”
― Randi Kreger, Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

“When a divorce is initiated, regardless of who files with the court, blamers particularly feel threatened. Many cannot handle seeming in any way responsible for the divorce, which triggers their lifelong fears of abandonment and inferiority. Therefore, they split their partner into all bad. It feels like a war between good and evil to blamers, so they create one. Their extreme feelings create their own problems.”
― Randi Kreger, Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

“part”
― Randi Kreger, Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

“the behavior of parents, other parties, or both. Also, old videos or photos may be helpful in showing how comfortable and happy the children are with you as a parent, to counteract allegations that the children were always afraid of you. Submitting the Evidence to the Court”
― Randi Kreger, Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

“when fifty-two professionals from a mental health agency in California assessed patient vignettes, they were unable to accurately diagnose the presence of BPD in males—even though the symptoms were identical to those in vignettes of females”
― Randi Kreger, The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder: New Tools and Techniques to Stop Walking on Eggshells

“Therapist education is a problem. Most psychologists are trained as generalists. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has more than 900 pages, and only a few of them are about BPD. Even during doctoral training or master’s training, there is no specific section on BPD”
― Randi Kreger, The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder: New Tools and Techniques to Stop Walking on Eggshells

“A glitch in the way the brain operates in people with BPD may explain why they get so angry so quickly, why their memories can be unreliable, and why simple events and innocuous statements can trigger extreme rage. The amygdala, a part of our brain that plays an important role in regulating emotions like fear, aggression, and anxiety, seems to have unusually high levels of activity when someone with BPD is under stress, overwhelming the prefrontal cortex, which allows us to temper those feelings with logic.”
― Randi Kreger, Stop Walking on Eggshells for Parents: How to Help Your Child (of Any Age) with Borderline Personality Disorder without Losing Yourself

“The vast majority of clinicians haven’t been trained to treat people with BPD, resulting in misdiagnosis and improper treatment.”
― Randi Kreger, The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder: New Tools and Techniques to Stop Walking on Eggshells

“The important thing to know is that, no matter what you do—including giving your child unconditional love and everything they ask for—you cannot make this trait go away. That black hole of emptiness cannot be filled by you or anyone else; only treatment works.”
― Randi Kreger, Stop Walking on Eggshells for Parents: How to Help Your Child (of Any Age) with Borderline Personality Disorder without Losing Yourself

“Thomas and Tammy have been married for five years and have a daughter, Brianna, aged four. Tammy blames Thomas when things go poorly for her, and she even yells and occasionally throws things at him. Once she threw a can of soup that hit him in the back of the head. Thomas works full-time, and though Tammy works part-time, she often expects him to take the primary role in caring for their daughter. Tammy finds Brianna irritating and has little patience for the messes she makes. Patient and tolerant, Thomas often gets up in the middle of the night and helps Brianna, especially when Tammy is in one of her bad moods.”
― Randi Kreger, Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

“Validation is not about whether she should have gone, the degree to which she responded, or whether she should have locked herself in her room. It is only about the emotions she is having right now and your response to them.”
― Randi Kreger, Stop Walking on Eggshells for Parents: How to Help Your Child (of Any Age) with Borderline Personality Disorder without Losing Yourself

“Blamers are notorious for not accepting court orders. Acceptance is part of the grieving process, and people with PDs have a difficult time grieving.”
― Randi Kreger, Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder