We are back with part two on borderline personality disorder. Last week we covered the 9 criteria for borderline personality disorder (here). This week we are talking about the comorbid borderline because the rarest personality disorder is one who only has one disorder. If you Google the different types – or comorbidities of borderlines, you would likely find that they only know of four: the quiet, the self-destructive, the petulant, and the impulsive. If you dig a little bit deeper, you might discover the malignant borderline – the fifth known type – or comorbidity. However the real number is actually seven, and that’s just of the known comorbidities.
So, where can we learn about the other two? Well, we would have to go back in time to a book that was published all the way back in 2001: Understanding the Borderline Mother by Christine Lawson. She broke down four types of borderline mothers in her book: the waif, the hermit, the queen, and the witch. The witch is the one that we know today as the malignant borderline and the hermit is also known as the petulant borderline. Because the book continually helps the children of borderlines in the support groups make sense out of the type of mother that made no sense, and to this very day they are able to name which type of borderline mother they had, that really tells you something.
Interlude For My Readers
Too busy to read the rest of the article? Listen to it on my podcast (here) available on all listening platforms. Or my YouTube channel if you want to see the woman behind this site (here) speaking on this topic. This series on the Cluster B disorders are written transcripts from my new podcast and YouTube channel. Having never written articles on these particular topics, it seems appropriate to maximize platforms in my quest to raise real awareness.
The following terms mentioned in this article are in Trauma Glossary 1 (here):
- Covert Abuse
- Parentified
- Splitting Episode
- Stonewalling
- Suicide Theater
Introducing the Comorbid Borderline and the 7 Known Types
So, if we take all seven types of borderlines and stack them on a scale from the most covert to the most obvious unstable we would get:
- Quiet
- Waif
- Self-Destructive
- Petulant (Hermit)
- Impulsive
- Queen
- Malignant (Witch)
We can create two subgroups – the first being the sad ones because two out of three are comorbid with a personality disorder from the cluster C group:
- Quiet
- Waif
- Self-Destructive
Then followed by the last four who are comorbid with another cluster B:
- Petulant (Hermit)
- Impulsive
- Queen
- Malignant (Witch)
Remember, no matter how covert or high-functioning the borderline is, they still must meet the minimal criteria – which is five or more for borderline personality disorder – which by the way, is in the cluster B group. Due to the sheer number of known comorbidities, the comorbid borderline will have to be explained in a Part 1 and Part 2 installment. So, in this article we will focus on the first group, the sad ones: quiet, waif, and self-destructive.
So, the comorbidities in order are: codependency, dependent personality disorder, and depressive personality disorder. If you’ve never heard of depressive personality disorder, hold on. I’ll explain that one later when we work our way to the self-destructive borderline.
Comorbid Borderline 1: BPD + Codependency = Quiet
The quiet borderline goes by two other names you may have heard of. It’s also known as the high-functioning borderline and also the discouraged borderline. If you do a Google search on the quiet borderline, you will likely find a bullet point list of single sentence statements or little phrases of symptoms of the quiet borderline. And you might wonder – especially if you have complex-PTSD – why do they sound suspiciously like us? It’s because among the phrases used to describe the quiet borderline are people pleasing, over-apologizing, having a vicious inner critic, and a tendency to self-attack as opposed to the acting out that we usually see with the other borderlines to some degree or another. This is due to another symptom that we tend to have with complex-PTSD until we do the healing work.
Codependency is also known as – shout out to Ross Rosenberg – self-love deficiency syndrome. It’s an induced condition from being raised by cluster B disorders or enduring a coercive control relationship with one. Codependency is not a personality disorder. But when we apply that to quiet borderline, it makes sense why we’re seeing similarities. It’s as though the quiet borderline has been programmed on an extreme level to “Bottle it up! Hold it in! Don’t act out!” So, the first thing we have to ask is, How are they meeting the criteria for borderline personality disorder and those with complex-PTSD are not? A single trip to the CODA website – which stands for CO-Dependents Anonymous – you will see that there are different types of codependents, some of whom are manipulative and a little controlling.
Quiet Borderline’s Extreme Need to be Liked and the Master of the Stonewall
So, once we put it all together, we can see some examples of how the quiet borderline is people pleasing. If they’re giving positive feedback to someone, they tend to lay it on uncomfortably thick. They’re rushing to be of assistance, even when it isn’t asked. They have this extreme need to be liked and they also tend to wear different masks for different sets of people. They will assume one role around you and then you’ll see them around another group of people and you think, “Wow, who are you today?”
You’ll see how this bleeds into the unstable self-image that is one of the criteria for borderline personality disorder manifesting in the different masks. Also the vicious inner-critic, how no amount of feedback is ever good enough. But where it’s coming from, again is this unstable self-image. When they over-apologize, it tends to be in a passive aggressive manner – the sort of apology that is meant to make you feel bad for making them feel guilty, then followed by the stonewall – or silent treatment.
The quiet borderline is the master of the silent treatment. They tend to plot quiet revenge – not in the overt way you see in the other borderlines, but in a spiteful way. For example, the next time you ask them to do whatever it was that they had to apologize for, you may hear something along the lines of, “No, I’m not going to do that anymore!” – followed by the stonewall.
Quiet Borderline as the So-called “Nice” Borderline
Each personality disorder in the cluster B continuum that we’ve covered so far in this series – the covert narcissist (here) and then the appeasing histrionic (here) and now the quiet borderline – they all have that one that seems to be the “nice” one. But they’re also masters of covert abuse – and covert abuse is sneaky. The primary tell in those who have survived interpersonal trauma from a covert abuser is how they don’t know how to explain what was done to them. All they know is that they were repeatedly hurt by the person but they don’t have the language for it. So, who is going to see the criteria for borderline the most in the quiet borderline? It’s those who are living with them behind closed doors.
Quiet Splitting, Quiet Rages
You’ve got to remember the quiet borderline still has an excessive need for validation. It’s like filling a cup but that cup has a hole in the bottom. It’s never going to be full and the way that the quiet borderline will rage – remember when we talked about the covert narcissist and their narcissistic rages are more like a snap than a roar? Well, the quiet borderline’s splitting episode is quiet raging. And what does that mean? Well, some of it is the stonewalling – the silent treatment.
More examples are, if you’ve ever seen someone tie their shoe while they’re angry or hang up clothes while they’re angry, there’s all those jerky movements. Also if you’ve heard anyone in the kitchen while they’re mad, they’re not breaking things but they’re setting things down hard, maybe even slamming them a little – whereas if they were in a calm mood, they wouldn’t be setting things down so hard. And so, you hear this knocking around, even though they’re not verbally raging or throwing and breaking anything, it’s an example of more quiet raging. Add to it how anger has the most energy. You can feel someone’s anger without them saying a word. That’s how much energy anger itself carries. So, when they’re angry, you’re going to feel it, even when they’re just sitting quietly while stonewalling you.
The “Empath”
Many quiet borderlines will also call themselves an empath. While arguably, they are the most empathetic of the borderlines, they are using that to take everything personal. They’re also absorbing other people’s moods and using it in a way of dysregulating themselves. If someone is in a bad mood for example, they have a tendency to make it all about them. Example, “Oh, they’re in a bad mood because they don’t like me!” That’s where their excessive need for co-regulation goes awry, all because someone else’s mood differs from theirs.
Comorbid Borderline 2: BPD+ Dependent PD = Waif
This is borderline personality disorder comorbid with dependent personality disorder. What’s interesting here is how we’ve been going through the cluster B continuum and we talked about the comorbid histrionic. There is a histrionic that is known to be comorbid with dependent personality disorder that’s called the appeasing histrionic. Because the histrionic has an excessive need to be the center of attention, when it blends with dependent personality disorder, the appeasing histrionic now has an excessive need for praise. They want to crowd-please and be seen as the rescuer.
But when we see dependent personality disorder blended with borderline personality disorder – which is an excessive need for co-regulation and validation, what happens here is an excessive need for sympathy and to be seen as the martyr. Because dependent personality disorder has an excessive need for others to take care of them and they can’t stand being alone, when this blends with the unstable self-image of borderline personality disorder, there’s this sense of helplessness and depriving themselves because it’s almost as though the borderline waif doesn’t know themselves unless they are suffering. So, there’s this repetition compulsion of chronic victimization and also the relationship martyr mentality.
The Waif as a Parent
The waif borderline is prone to hypochondria or excessive medical complaints. As parents, the borderline waif tends to alternate between indulgence and neglect with their children. The borderline waif tends to cry or have panic attacks and excessive worrying more often than rage. And that is not to say that they never rage – in fact when they do rage it’s explosive and unforgettable. But they tend to be stuck in helpless emotions and the child of the waif parent tends to become parentified. Swept up in taking over and taking care of the parent because the parent can’t manage being a parent.
Because they’re too weak, too helpless, too frail, etcetera, the child of the borderline waif has extreme difficulty validating their experiences because of the covert abuse element. Not understanding that emotional neglect is covert emotional abuse. And not to mention, all of the guilt and obligation of taking care of the parent while they were still a child and did not have a parent taking care of them.
The Waif’s Choice Partner
The type of partner that the borderline waif tends to be attracted to is the kind of partner that they can “fix” in some way. When no one else sees the partner’s potential, the borderline waif is seeing it and living in that partner’s potential. In the waif’s mind, their partner will someday be this great human being and completely amazing and then they will never leave the waif borderline. It’s because of that comorbidity with dependent personality disorder that’s in play with this type of borderline. So yes, they will have a tendency – either consciously or unconsciously – to choose highly toxic individuals that can also be dangerous. This simultaneously gives them the inner-narrative of looking like the relationship martyr. It’s almost like the borderline waif wants people to see them as such a good person for suffering through this relationship and for believing in this abusive individual.
The borderline waif can talk about their suffering in the relationship and all of the abusive things that the partner has done. But the moment you voice any negative opinions about their partner, you’re going to see that rage fly out of the borderline waif. The borderline waif is only sharing this information with you to garner sympathy. Nothing more, nothing less. So, if you’re telling the borderline waif, “Hey, get out of the relationship,” the borderline waif can’t handle it. Not only does it feel like an abandonment threat, but this is where they’re holding onto their identity through this relationship martyrdom. So, it’s a double-threat and you’re holding their partner accountable for something, which is kryptonite to all cluster B disorders.
A Real Life Example from My Past
I have a great example for you. Way back in the day, my very first roommate was the borderline waif. She went to a bar, met the man of her dreams, and instantly idealized him – just obsessively idealized him. He was stringing her along because well, for one thing he was a narcissist and another, he had a very serious addiction. So, he was a narcissist on crack, both literally and figuratively. So, as he would string her along and speak horribly to her, she would talk about it with us – me and her friends. If anyone offered any ounce of criticizing feedback on her boyfriend, she flew into a rage as quickly as flipping a switch. She would tell us “I don’t wanna hear it!” because there were people saying, “You need to just let that guy go and find someone else.” She didn’t want to hear it.
Nobody was allowed to say anything about her man, but she was allowed to talk about the things he was putting her through. All she wanted was to be seen as this relationship martyr who was willingly going through it because she loves him so much. According to her, his addiction was everyone else’s fault because everyone is out there bringing him down and she is the only one who believes in him. Then she would fly off to another room and come back moments later in a brand new mood, completely oblivious to all of us who were still silently baffled by her irrational rage.
Comorbid Borderline 3: BPD + Depressive PD = Self-Destructive
Last of the sad ones, the self-destructive borderline. And what is its comorbidity? A forgotten cluster C personality disorder. If you recall at the beginning of the series, the 10 traits that all cluster B disorders have (here), we talked about the fifth cluster B – passive-aggressive personality disorder, that was dropped at the publication of the DSM five. Well, that wasn’t the only one because there used to be four cluster C personality disorders, and the fourth one was depressive personality disorder.
What is (or what was) Depressive Personality Disorder?
The person’s mood is usually dejected, gloomy, and joyless with a tendency to be resigned to their fate. They excessively worry and fret with a low self-esteem and deep feelings of inadequacy. There’s a tendency to have a critical and judgmental attitude towards both the self and others, is pessimistic and complains a lot. So, when such traits blend with borderline personality disorder, it becomes self-destructive.
The Similarities and Differences Between the Waif and the Self-Destructive Borderline
You’ll see a lot of overlap between the self-destructive borderline and the waif borderline. After all, they both have comorbidities with a cluster C personality disorder. Both self-destructive and waif borderlines have chronic feelings of helplessness and a nothing they can do about it mentality. They both tend to be underemployed because they invalidate their competence. The self-destructive borderline however, is the one who has their finger stuck on the self-destruct button because the self-destructive borderline struggles immensely with self-respect.
There are frequent attempts at self-harm, self-mutilation, and suicidal gestures in the self-destructive borderline. The self-destructive borderline is also more high-strung than the waif. They are moody, easily angered by others, and are hypersensitive to any distorted perception of being abandoned. The perpetual worrying and fretting that you’ll typically see in the waif is amplified in the self-destructive because these are crisis generating emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. And so, there’s self-harm and suicide theater – or the big “so there” or attempts at keeping the person bound to them, since no one with a conscience wants something like that on their conscience.
Today, due to depressive personality disorder being removed from the DSM, the self-destructive borderline is often also diagnosed with major depressive disorder – or MDD for short.
Stay tuned for next week when we take on the last four on the comorbid borderline. Or better put, what kind of personality do you get when a cluster B merges with another cluster B?