How to Build Trust and Connection in Your Relationship

When couples lose trust and connection, they often stop being emotionally vulnerable with each other. Over months or years, minor disappointments and unexpressed resentments gradually build thick walls of emotional distance. Many individual adults and couples enter therapy to intentionally dismantle these walls and learn how to safely rebuild their bond.

Cultivating everyday moments of love and mutual support to deepen secure attachment. Adults and couples can schedule sessions at the Greenwich Village, NYC private practice of Josephine Ferraro, LCSW.

In some cases, a structural betrayal has occurred. Partners seek specialized help to determine if their relationship can be repaired after an extramarital affair, broken emotional boundaries, or financial infidelity. Rebuilding intimacy after a major breach of trust is challenging, but with the right clinical tools, true relational repair is entirely possible.

The Gottman Method: Building Trust in Small Moments

According to relationship expert Dr. John Gottman, trust and emotional connection are not built through grand, sweeping gestures. Instead, a secure attachment is forged over time through a series of micro-moments and small daily interactions. 

Through more than 40 years of empirical research on couple dynamics, the Gottman Institute has demonstrated that how you respond to your partner in routine, everyday moments dictates the long-term survival of your partnership.

Achieving Emotional Attunement

Deep relational healing requires a foundation of emotional attunement. Attunement is the capacity to exit your own defensive posture, emotionally enter your partner’s inner world, and validate their internal experience.

Dr. Gottman utilizes the acronym ATTUNE to outline the core components of secure communication:

• A – Awareness: Noticing your partner’s subtle emotional shifts, facial expressions, and somatic cues.
• T – Turning Toward: Making a conscious decision to engage with your partner's bids for connection rather than ignoring them.
• T – Tolerance: Accepting that you hold two different, valid points of view without needing to prove who is "right."
• U – Understanding: Practicing active listening to fully comprehend your partner's perspective before formulating a response.
• N – Non-defensive Responding: Pausing your internal critic so you can respond with calm clarity rather than counter-attacking.
• E – Empathy: Attuning to your partner’s vulnerability and sharing the emotional weight of their distress.

Two Divergent Paths: Turning Toward vs. Turning Away

Every day, your partner throws out subtle "bids" for attention, comfort, or conversation. In these exact moments, you face a critical behavioral choice that dictates the long-term survival of your partnership:

Path 1: Turning Toward Your Partner

• Core Actions: Prioritizing your partner’s vulnerability, putting down digital distractions, practicing active emotional listening, and offering immediate physical comfort or grounding touch.
• Communication Style: Leading with authentic "I" statements, validating your partner's internal state, and displaying a high tolerance for differing points of view.
• Long-Term Relational Impact: Builds a massive emotional bank account, strengthens your secure attachment blueprint, and fosters high resilience against external life stressors.
• Path 2: Turning Away From Your Partner
• Communication Style: Responding defensively, shifting blame, tuning out, or utilizing bitter sarcasm and passive-aggressive hinting.

• Long-Term Relational Impact: Sows deep seeds of mistrust, creates a profound sense of loneliness in a relationship, and triggers automated behavioral safety loops that lead to emotional detachment.

• Core Actions: Postponing difficult conversations indefinitely, ignoring somatic distress signals, hiding behind screens or work, and prioritizing personal hobbies over a partner's bids for connection.

Clinical Vignettes: The Power of Micro-Choices

The following clinical case studies are composites drawn from my private practice experience with all identifying details altered to protect client privacy. They illustrate how these small communication choices shape the trajectory of a relationship over time.

Vignette 1: The Erosion of Trust (Turning Away)

After 10 years of marriage, Alice asked Doug if they could sit down to talk about their relationship. Inwardly, Doug groaned because his favorite football game was starting. He told her the talk could wait until the game ended. Afterward, however, Doug claimed he was too tired, promising they would discuss it in the morning.

Over the following months, Alice made repeated bids to express that she felt lonely and taken for granted. Each time, Doug turned away by overworking, deflecting with humor, or launching into extreme defensiveness. When Alice requested they attend couples therapy, Doug flatly refused, stating he would not share their private life with a stranger.

Two years later, Alice calmly informed Doug that she wanted a separation. Despite her years of explicit warnings, Doug felt completely blindsided by the emotional distance. In a last-ditch effort to save the marriage, he promised to stop his avoidant habits and finally agreed to attend therapy. 

Because Alice felt she had invested a decade into the bond, she agreed to participate without expectation. In couples therapy, they finally began processing years of unaddressed resentment and learning the essential relationship skills required to rebuild their foundation.

Vignette 2: The Cultivation of Secure Attachment (Turning Toward)

Jane and Bill had been married for seven years. Early one morning, Bill noticed that Jane looked uncharacteristically quiet and sad as she sat at the breakfast table. Bill had already packed his clubs to leave for a long-awaited golf game with his close friends, but he chose not to ignore her somatic distress.

He set his clubs down, sat closely beside Jane, placed a supportive arm around her shoulders, and asked what was weighing on her mind. Jane, aware of his plans, told him the conversation could wait until he returned. Bill refused, reassuring her that her emotional well-being was far more important than any game.

Jane then opened up, sharing that she had just received distressing medical news regarding her best friend. Bill instantly called his group to cancel his slot. He spent the remainder of the day walking and talking with Jane in a quiet wooded area near their home, offering steady emotional validation. 

By prioritizing Jane during an unprompted moment of sadness, Bill reinforced a deep sense of safety and mutual trust that protected their bond for years to come.

Clinical Analysis: Breaking the Cycle of Detachment

As Vignette 1 demonstrates, a chronic pattern of turning away slowly destroys a couple's emotional life together. When a partner is repeatedly met with dismissal or stonewalling, their nervous system registers that it is unsafe to be vulnerable. This breeds a dynamic where one partner completely stops trying, leading to the "roommate syndrome" or an abrupt separation.

There are many reasons why individuals reflexively turn away. Often, it stems from childhood emotional neglect or growing up in a rigid family system where vulnerability was shamed or treated as a weakness. Without specialized intervention, individuals automatically bring these early attachment wounds into their adult partnerships.

Many couples wait until they are on the absolute brink of divorce before scheduling an appointment. While long-standing relational trauma can certainly be repaired if both partners are fully committed to the process, systemic intervention is infinitely more effective when initiated early—before defensive behaviors become biologically hardwired into your daily life.

Rebuild Your Bond with an NYC Couples Therapist

Learning to transition from defensive reacting to empathetic attunement is exceptionally difficult if you lack a secure blueprint for closeness. 

Utilizing evidence-based systems like Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT for couples) helps partners safely map their negative cycles, heal underlying attachment anxieties, and restore a deeply felt sense of relational security.

If you and your partner are trapped in repetitive conflict loops, struggling to recover from an affair, or coexisting life roommates, you don't have to navigate this transition on your own.

About Josephine Ferraro, LCSW

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, Couples Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist with over 25 years of clinical experience specializing in trauma recovery and relational health. 

I help individual adults and couples process developmental trauma, break high-functioning anxiety loops, and build sustainable emotional resilience.

My interactive approach moves past regular talk therapy to engage both the mind and body through specialized, experiential modalities, including:

• Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

• EFT for Couples

• Attachment-Focused EMDR

• Somatic Experiencing (SE)

• AEDP

• IFS Parts Work Therapy

• Clinical Hypnosis (Hypnotherapy)

Connect with Me in My Greenwich Village Psychotherapy Practice:

• 🌐 Website: Visit Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist to explore my clinical philosophies and read more relationship insights.
• 📞 Phone: Call (917) 742-2624 during standard business hours
• ✉️ Email: josephineferraro@iCloud.com
• 📍 Location: Conveniently located for in-person sessions at my private office in Greenwich Village, New York, NY 10011, and available for secure online teletherapy throughout NYS

Understanding Women With Healthy High Sexual Desire - Part 1

In prior articles, I discussed sexual pursuers and sexual withdrawers in relationships (see my articles about this topic: Part 1 and Part 2).  In this article, which is another sex positive* article in a series about sexuality, I'm focusing on high desire women who approach sex in a healthy way (also known as female sexual pursuers).  

Understanding Women With Healthy High Sexual Desire

Understanding Women With Healthy High Sexual Desire

When high sexual desire is discussed, the narrow stereotype is often about men who have strong sexual desire and women with lower sexual libido.  

To complicate matters, a lot of the research focuses on women who have problems with low sexual desire (e.g., hypoactive sexual desire) or, on the other end of the spectrum, unhealthy, impulsive/compulsive sexual desire (e.g., impulsive and compulsive sexuality is often associated with the emotional insecurities of borderline personality).

Aside from the problems with research, there are also sexist cultural stereotypes that complicate matters, including portraying women with healthy high sexual desire as being "whores" and "sluts."  

Even women with healthy high libido can be denigrated in this sexist way.  This is in sharp contrast to stereotypes of men with high libido who are admired for being "manly" or "viral."

More recent research challenges these sexist stereotypes and reveals that women can have healthy high sexual libido.  

Their high libido doesn't emerge from emotional insecurity, impulsiveness or compulsivity. Instead, these women are confident in themselves and they enjoy sex.  And, contrary to sexist views of women, there are more women with healthy high sexual desire than is commonly thought.

Women With Healthy High Sexual Desire and a Secure Attachment Style

Women who have a healthy high libido usually have a secure attachment style (see my article: How Your Attachment Style Affects Your Relationship).

As children, they developed a secure attachment with one or both parents.  They received love and emotional mirroring from at least one parent that allowed them to feel loved and emotionally secure.

Often, as young girls, they experienced at least one parent who delighted in them.  At the age of four or five, these girls' parents delighted in their healthy behavior.  For instance, if the young girl happily twirled around while she was feeling good about herself, her parents encouraged her rather than telling her to "stop showing off."

These girls grew up seeing the gleam in their parents eyes reflected on them so, not only did they feel secure in their attachment to their parents, they also felt loved and lovable.  So, when these girls mature into women, they feel their desirability.  

Rather than being shamed or made to feel guilty for masturbating, their parents reinforced self pleasure as being healthy.  They grew to be women with a solid erotic core.

As I've mentioned in prior articles, these women often experience spontaneous sexual arousal (see my article: Spontaneous Sexual Arousal).  

According to Dr. Emily Nagoski in her book,  Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life, women who experience spontaneous sexual desire (as opposed to context-dependent sexual desire) represent at least 16% of all women.

I'll be discussing this topic further in future articles.

Also, see my articles:

Who Says Older Women Don't Enjoy Sex?

What is the Difference Between Sex and Intimacy?

What is Good Sex?

*Sex positive refers to having or promoting an open, tolerant or progressive attitude towards sex and sexuality.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have unresolved problems that you have been unable to work through on your own, you could benefit from seeing a licensed mental health professional.

Rather than struggling on your own, contact a skilled psychotherapist who can help you to overcome the obstacles that are keeping you from leading a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Relationships: What is Good Sex? Part 4: What is Synchrony Sex?

I've been focusing lately on the topic "What is Good Sex?" based on the work of psychologist Sue Johnson, who developed Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT).  

What is Good Sex?

This article is the fourth in a series of articles on this topic, and the focus of this article is "Synchrony Sex".

What is Synchrony Sex?

With synchrony sex, each person is open and emotionally vulnerable to their partner. They are emotionally attuned to one another.  

Whereas solace sex and sealed off sex are based on insecure attachment (e.g., an anxious or avoidant attachment style), synchrony sex is based a secure attachment style between the two people in a relationship (see my article: How Your Attachment Style Affects Your Relationship).

Synchrony sex occurs between two people when the erotic and the emotional connection come together.  Generally, each person feels safe and secure so they can be open sexually and emotionally with one another.  

This openness allows the couple to bond with each other and opens up the possibility for sexual exploration and a tolerance for sexual differences that can often be negotiated (e.g., differences in terms of frequency of sex, sex acts, and so on).

Synchrony sex is associated with a healthy, committed relationship where emotional vulnerability between the two people increases the emotional intimacy in their relationship (see my article: Emotional Vulnerability as a Pathway to Emotional Intimacy and What is the Difference Between Sex and Intimacy?).

Even in a relationship with secure attachment, there can still be problems with sex. But these problems are generally more easily worked through, as compared to couples who experience an insecure attachment, because there is a healthy emotional foundation (see my article: How to Talk to Your Spouse About Sex).

Clinical Vignette: Relationships: Synchrony Sex: Working Out Differences in Sexual Arousal

One common problem in many relationships is a difference in sexual arousal, as will be illustrated in the vignette below, which is a composite of many different cases:

Jane and Mark

After 10 years of marriage, Jane and Mark, in their early 40s, sought help in EFT Couples Therapy to work out issues in their sex life.  Generally, aside from the problems in their sexual relationship, they were happily married with three children. 

Both of them described happy childhoods where they each felt loved and secure in their family of origin.  As a result, they both developed a secure attachment style, which allowed them to develop a healthy relationship with each other.

They told their couples therapist that they were devoted to each other and their children.  Jane told the story of how passionate their sex life had been in the early days of their relationship.  

She recounted how they couldn't keep their hands off each other during the first few years of their relationship, and they spent their weekends making love. But, she said, right after their first child, even though she loved Mark more than ever, she no longer felt as sexual.  She still felt sexually attracted to Mark, but she didn't feel as sexual as she did in the past.

Mark told the therapist that in the early days of their relationship Jane was always ready to have sex, but now he felt she was only having sex to please him, and this was hurtful to him.  

As Jane listened to him, she nodded her head in agreement and she admitted that she often had sex with Mark to satisfy him.  She said sometimes she got into having sex once they started, but just as often she felt too tired for sex.

Throughout the couples therapy consultation, Jane and Mark held hands and frequently looked at each other with affection.  It was apparent to the couples therapist that they loved each other and they experienced a secure attachment style, but they needed to work out the differences in sexual arousal that had developed over time between them.

Mark also talked about not wanting to always be the one who initiated sex between them.  As Jane listened carefully, Mark looked at her affectionately and said he would like her to initiate sex sometimes.  

In response, Jane said she didn't feel as sexually attracted now, at age 42, as she once did when she was younger.  She told Mark that she was very aware that she had gained some weight and her body had changed so much after the birth of their three children, "I just don't feel so attractive and sexy anymore to initiate sex now."

"I never knew you felt this way.  I think you're more beautiful now than when we first met," Mark responded by squeezing Jane's hand.

Jane also said, somewhat shyly, that she sometimes experienced vaginal dryness, which made sexual intercourse uncomfortable at times, especially if she wasn't sexually aroused.  

Hearing this, Mark seemed surprised and said Jane had never told him how she felt about her body before.  He was also surprised that, until now, she felt too embarrassed to talk about it.  

In response, the couples therapist normalized Jane's experience of vaginal dryness. She  recommended that Jane speak with her gynecologist to rule out a medical problem.  She also recommended that the couple experiment with different types of lubrication.

After Jane saw her gynecologist and learned that her vaginal dryness is normal for her age, she and Mark began to use lubrication so that sex wasn't uncomfortable for Jane.  Over time, Jane also accepted that the changes in her body were normal.  

During their couples therapy sessions, Mark and Jane learned that many factors were contributing to the change in their sex life, including stress. Their couples therapist told them that it was normal for couples to experience a change in their sex life, especially after they have children, more responsibilities to contend with and more stress.

Over time, Mark and Jane took steps to improve their sex life.  They both worked on reducing their stress by exercising and meditating.  

They also did things to increase sexual anticipation and arousal--planning a romantic evening while their children stayed with Jane's parents, reading erotic passages to each other, talking about their sexual fantasies, and so on (see my article: Sex Tips For Men: How Men Can Be Better Sex Partners in Their Relationship).

Jane developed more of a curiosity about what turned her. Specifically, she learned to be more comfortable masturbating alone as well as with Mark to find out more about what she liked sexually.  

On the advice of her couples therapist and her medical doctor, Jane began working out.  She realized, once she started exercising regularly, that she felt more sexually aroused after doing aerobic exercise.  All that heart pumping exercise translated into more sexual passionate.  She and Mark also got curious about using sex toys and used them to spice things up and add variety to their sex life.

During their couples therapy sessions, Mark and Jane opened up more to talk about what each of them found pleasurable.  This new sense of openness was exciting for them.  Jane said she felt more sexually confident about initiating sex, especially after a good workout, and this pleased both of them.

Both of them said they were happier with their sex life than they had been since the early stage of their relationship.  Since they were happy in the other areas of their marriage, they successfully terminated couples therapy.

Conclusion

Compared to solace sex and sealed off sex, synchrony sex involves both an emotional attachment and an erotic dynamic.  The vignette about Jane and Mark illustrate how a couple can develop a dynamic of synchrony sex.

Even when a couple experiences a secure attachment in an otherwise healthy relationship, there can still be problems that develop along the way.

Since a relationship based on a secure attachment style has a healthy foundation, these sexual differences, whether it's differences in how each person experiences sexual arousal or other differences, can be worked out in couples therapy.  

Getting Help in Therapy

If you and your partner need help to improve your sexual relationship, you could benefit from working with an experienced psychotherapist.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional.  A skilled couples therapist can help you to develop a more satisfying sex life and a happier relationship.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, IFS Couples Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist 

I have helped many work individual adults and couples over the years.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

I offer a free 15 minute phone call before setting up an appointment.

I see clients in person in my Greenwich Village, New York City office and online.

Call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also See My Articles:

What is Good Sex? Part 1

Part 2: Solace Sex

Part 3: Sealed Off Sex

 

The Effect of Growing Up With a Parent Who Had Borderline Personality Disorder

This is the third article in a series of articles that looks at the effect of growing up with a parent who had borderline personality disorder.

The Effect of Growing Up With a Parent Who Had Borderline Personality Disorder

In my first article I gave an overview of borderline personality disorder, and in my second article I provided a fictionalized scenario of a young woman, Karen, from the time she was an infant until college, who grew up with mother who suffered with borderline personality.

In this article, I'll discuss how this fictionalized character, Karen, was affected by her mother's problems and how she was able to get psychological help in therapy to overcome these problems.

Karen
As I mentioned in the prior article, Karen grew up in a chaotic home environment with a mother who exhibited many of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder.

Karen often felt anxious because of her mother's anger, depression and unpredictable moods.  She wished that she could help her mother, especially after many of her mother's frequent breakups with men and a suicide attempt.  But Karen was too young, and she often felt helpless.

Fortunately, she had a schoolteacher who took Karen under her wing.  This teacher liked Karen, and she motivated and inspired her to look forward to a future that included college.  This was a new perspective for Karen.

Karen had a lot of inherent strengths and, with the help of this teacher, who helped to mitigate the chaos that was going on in Karen's home, Karen worked hard in school and she eventually got a scholarship to attend an out of state college.

Karen was happy to be away from home.

Initially, Karen's time at college went well.  But in her third year, after a relationship with a young man that she had been dating got serious, she became anxious and ambivalent about the relationship.

The Effect of Growing Up With a Parent Who Had Borderline Personality Disorder

Karen knew that her relationship with Dan was a loving relationship.  Even though they were both young, deep down she knew that they could be happy together--if only she didn't feel like running away when she felt emotionally vulnerable and scared.

She knew she needed to get psychological help before she ruined things between her and Dan so, although she felt hesitant, she went to the student counseling center.

After hearing about Karen's family background, the school counselor, who was an empathetic therapist,  knew that Karen needed more than the short term therapy that the counseling center provided.  So, she provided Karen with psychoeducation about trauma and why it was important to get psychological help (see my article:  Untreated Emotional Trauma is a Serious Issue).  Then, she referred her to a trauma therapist who had an office nearby.

Karen's only experience with therapy was in family therapy when she was a child, after her mother made a suicide attempt.  She remembered liking the family therapist, so she had a favorable memory of family therapy.  But she had never been in individual therapy.

Karen explained to her therapist that she couldn't understand why she was feeling so afraid of being in a relationship with Dan.  After all, Dan treated her well and she knew they loved each other.  She explained that whenever she felt so frightened that she wanted to run away from him, she felt like she was going crazy.

Her individual therapist helped Karen to understand that her current reaction to Dan was being triggered by her early childhood experiences.  She told Karen that she would help her to separate "now" from "then"(see my article:  Working Through Emotional Trauma: Learn to Separate "Then" From "Now" in Therapy).

Her therapist began by helping Karen to develop internal resources to deal with her fears and to cope with working through her early trauma.  These resources included mindfulness meditation, breathing exercises and safe place meditation.

Once Karen developed and used these resources to cope with her fears, her therapist spoke to her about EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, which is a trauma therapy that has helped many clients who are suffering with trauma.

Karen processed her traumatic memories and fears in EMDR therapy over time.  Gradually, using the EMDR float back technique, they were able to get back to Karen's earliest traumatic memories.

At the end of each EMDR therapy session, her therapist used the last part of the session to help Karen to debrief and to do a meditation to help her to feel calm and safe.

During this time, Karen continued to see Dan and she was feeling much less anxious about the relationship.  Knowing that Karen was getting help, Dan was also patient and understanding.

EMDR isn't a "magic bullet," especially when a person has had the kind of underlying trauma that Karen experienced.  But, over time, Karen was able to work through her trauma and her fears.  She was also able to have a stable and happy relationship with Dan.

Getting Help in Therapy
Growing up with a parent who had borderline personality disorder can be traumatizing and have a negative effect on your adult relationships, especially romantic relationships where core issues tend to surface.

EMDR is one form of therapy that is used by EMDR therapists to help clients to overcome trauma.  Other forms of trauma therapy include Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis, also known as hypnotherapy.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have underlying trauma that is getting in the way of your having a more fulfilling life, you could benefit from getting help from a licensed mental health professional who is an experienced trauma therapist.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who has helped many individual adults and couples.

One of my specialties is helping clients to overcome emotional trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

The Effect of Growing Up With a Parent Who Had Borderline Personality Disorder - Part 2

In my Part 1 of this topic, I began a discussion about the effect of growing up with a parent who had borderline personality disorder.  In this article, I'm continuing the discussion with a fictionalized scenario as an example of this dynamic.

The Effect of Growing Up With a Parent Who Had Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline personality disorder, which I defined in the prior article, is a disorder that is a catchall for many similar traits, including chaotic relationships, unpredictable emotional reactions, a fear of abandonment, and a strong ambivalence about close relationships, including a longing for closeness at the same time as the person with this disorder experiences a fear of being rejected, hurt or abandoned.

As I mentioned in the prior article, there are some people who don't necessarily meet the full criteria for borderline personality disorder diagnosis, but they have certain borderline traits.

As I also mentioned in Part 1 of this topic, even though a primary caregiver (usually the mother) might have borderline personality disorder and this usually has a detrimental effect on a child, if a child is lucky, there can be mitigating factors, like other close relationships (another loving parent, a loving sibling, a nurturing grandparent, caring teacher or mentor, concerned coach or so on) that can help to temper the detrimental effect.

We also know now that, due to the neuroplasticity of the brain (the ability of the brain to change), even when there's no one in the child's life to help mitigate the effect or the child doesn't have a particularly resilient nature, as an an adult, s/he is often helped later on in life by having a loving, secure relationship or by getting help in therapy.

The following fictionalized scenario, which is composed of many different cases with all identifying information changed, illustrates how someone who had a parent with borderline personality disorder can be affected as a child and later on as an adult.

Keep in mind that this scenario is only one possible result of this dynamic and there can be many other results.

Karen
Karen's mother, Alice, gave birth to Karen when Alice was only 16.

Alice lived with her single mother, Betty, and Alice's six siblings.  When Betty found out that Alice was pregnant, she became enraged.  She hit her, cursed at her and called her "a whore."

Alice dropped out of high school after her pregnancy became more obvious, and she hoped, eventually, to get her GED.

Alice was confused and had mixed feelings about her pregnancy.  She had some resentful towards her unborn child because she knew her life would be changed forever.  Instead of going to parties with her friends, she knew she would be home taking care of the baby.

At the same time, she didn't want to have an abortion because it was against her and her family's religious beliefs.  So, she grudgingly accepted that she made a mistake and baby was her responsibility.

The baby's father, who was also only 16, was sent away by his parents to live out of state, so Alice was completely dependent upon her mother during her pregnancy and after Karen was born.

The Effect of Growing Up With a Parent Who Had Borderline Personality Disorder

In the meantime, she and her mother were both reliant on public assistance to get by, and life was tough.

When her friends went out, Alice felt left out and lonely because she had to stay home and take care of Karen.  On the one hand, Alice loved Karen.  But, on the other hand, she also resented her because she wanted to be a normal 17 year old by going out and having fun.

Alice also had a lot of resentment towards her mother, Betty, for her verbal abuse and they would often argue.

Even though Alice told herself that she would never treat her daughter, Karen, the way that her mother treated her, she had no awareness of how she (like most children) internalized this dynamic on an unconscious level.  And, as Karen got older, without realizing it, Alice was just as verbally abusive with Karen just as her mother was with her.

Karen grew up to be an anxious child.  As a four year old, she never knew when Alice would fly off the handle and scream at her or slap her.  There were times when Alice would be sweet to Karen and then, for a minor issue (like Karen dropping an ice cream cone) Alice would explode and startle Karen.

Alice had several boyfriends during Karen's childhood.  She had very chaotic on-again/off-again relationships with men.  Karen would start to get close to whomever Alice was seeing at the time, and then he was gone.  This was significant losses for Karen.

Whenever Alice went through a breakup, she became depressed and angry and she would drink a lot.  Without realizing how damaging it was, while, drunk and upset, Alice would tell Karen that men were "no good."

Alice Became Depressed and Angry Whenever She Went Through a Breakup

Karen was very anxious and she wished that she could do something to help her mother.

During one particularly bad breakup, Alice made a suicide attempt by taking a handful of sleeping pills.  Betty called 911 and Alice was rushed to the ER.  Alice was kept in the hospital for observation for 72 hours and, after she assured the psychiatrist that she wasn't going to hurt herself or anyone else, she was released.

While Alice was in the hospital, Betty refused to talk about it with Karen.  She tried to distract her with books and TV, but Karen knew that something was wrong and not knowing made her feel scared.

Alice, Betty and Karen had to attend family counseling after the hospital contacted the bureau of child  welfare.

Things improved for a while during this time.  After they completed family therapy, the counselor recommended that Alice attend individual therapy, but Alice refused and her case was closed.  Then, things went downhill again.

When Karen's elementary school teachers told Alice that Karen was an anxious child, despite their assurances that they were not criticizing her, Alice took their comments personally and felt they were saying that she was a bad mother.  Alice got very angry and moved her to another school.

When Karen was 11, Alice got her GED and got a job where she could support them, so she moved out of Betty's household.  At first, things seemed to be going well.  Alice and the landlady became friends.

But several months later, when the landlady made a comment about Alice not recycling properly, Alice became enraged and moved back in with her Betty until she found another apartment.

The Effect of Growing Up With a Parent Who Had Borderline Personality Disorder

Throughout Karen's childhood, she and her mother moved numerous times because of the arguments that Alice would have with the landlords.  Each time that this happened Alice would uproot Karen from  the neighborhood, her school and the few friends that Karen made.

When Karen went to junior high school, one of her teachers saw something special in Karen and took Karen under her wing.  She spent time with Karen as part of the after school program, helped her with her homework, and took an interest in her.  She encouraged and motivated Karen.  She also gave Karen a sense of hope about the future--something that Karen never had before.

Gradually, Karen came out of her emotional shell and began to enjoy her talks with her teacher.  She never told her mother about this relationship because she was afraid that her mother would get angry and try to come between her and the teacher.

By the time Karen was in high school, she dreamed of going away to college and being on her own.  She worked hard, got good grades and, despite the chaos at home, she was able to go to the college of her choice out of state with a scholarship.

Karen did well in college.  She made friends and dated casually.  She felt happier than she had ever felt.

Growing Up With a Parent With Borderline Personality Disorder

Then, in her last year of college, her relationship with a young man, Dan, at college began getting serious and she felt anxious and scared.

Even though she knew she cared about him and he cared about her, the anxiety and emotional vulnerability that she experienced was so overwhelming that, at times, she wanted to end the relationship just to avoid feeling these emotions.

Karen knew that she needed to get psychological help or she would ruin her relationship with Dan.

In my next article, I'll continue discussing this scenario and how Karen was helped in therapy.

Getting Help in Therapy 
Growing up with a parent who has borderline personality disorder can be traumatic, but working with a licensed mental health professional can help you to free yourself from emotional trauma so you can go on to live a meaningful and fulfilling life.

If you're struggling as an adult with the impact of childhood trauma, you're not alone.  Rather than continuing to struggle alone, take steps to contact a licensed therapist who can help you to overcome unresolved trauma.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

See my article:  The Effect of Growing Up With a Parent Who Had Borderline Personality Disorder - Part 3