Pastor Ray Johnson and his wife, Helen, were overjoyed when Sally, their new parishioner, stated she never had found a fellowship as loving and supportive as First Christian. “In fact,” Sally added, “never have I met a pastoral couple as caring and sensitive as you two.” Sally, age 32, recounted how over the past ten years, other Christians had misunderstood and mistreated her repeatedly. Her intelligence, insight, and willingness to take on any task assured Ray and Helen that Sally was a fortunate addition to their small fellowship.
All went well for the first two months. Although Sally indicated her husband tried to prevent her from coming to church, she attended every service, often bringing her four children, ages 5 to 15. The Johnsons spent hours encouraging and counseling her. Sally would call at night after having seen the Johnsons for an hour or two during the day; she complained of her selfish and sadistic husband and praised the Johnsons for their understanding.
Three months after Sally came to the church, a single, 17-year-old girl who was pregnant began attending. The Johnsons also befriended this newcomer, becoming less available to Sally. Sally angrily increased her requests for time and said she thought the newcomer was “manipulative and demanding.”
Ray and Helen explained to Sally that they couldn’t talk repeatedly and at length by phone any more. They did, after all, have other commitments. Sally got angry. “Why are you so selfishly rejecting me?” she demanded. She escalated her accusations against them, sharing her grievances with anyone who cared to listen.
Some members were moved by her complaints. Others confronted Sally with inconsistencies in her story. To everyone’s astonishment she responded to even mild admonitions with intense rage accompanied by swearing.
One Sunday morning the Sunday school superintendent said, “Sally, I feel you’re harboring an unforgiving spirit.”
“How dare you question my Christianity!” she screamed. Grabbing a nearby chair and raising it above her head, she chased the bewildered superintendent until several male parishioners subdued Sally. After a congregational meeting to discuss the incident, the church leaders asked her to not come to church services until she could control her behavior.
Sally took this as a rejection and a challenge. She continued attending every service. She would interrupt the worship service at times, angrily denouncing the pastor and the congregation. “How can God bless hypocrites who don’t know how to forgive and love?” she questioned bitterly.
The majority felt Sally was wrong. Some suggested getting a court order restraining her from the church. Some concluded she had a demon. Others thought Sally was deeply troubled and that the church had failed. The Johnsons, especially, wondered what more they should have done.
This account, based on a true story, is similar to what has happened to many unsuspecting pastors and congregations. Why the pattern? What’s behind such inexplicable behavior?
Borderline Personality Disorder
Pastors spend much time helping people deal with common problems of living: loss, discouragement, doubt, and temptation. Among the most demanding problems are those dealing with psychologically troubled people who create interpersonal conflicts. Pastors, unlike other counselors, cannot easily avoid these difficult persons. It frequently drains them of energy to minister.
Sally, and others like her, are described in the psychiatric literature under the category of “borderline personality disorder” (BPD). While BPD apparently is common, no accurate figures on its incidence exist. Cases appear to be increasing, however, brought about by social change and family instability, abuse, or other disruptions in childhood. Associated conditions include drug or alcohol abuse, depression, and suicide threats or behavior. The disorder appears to be more common in women.
Most pastors, upon hearing BPD described, immediately relate it to someone in their congregation. A small church may have one person who fits the description; larger churches are likely to have several. Even one person with BPD is sufficient to consume the energies of a pastoral team. Here are the symptoms associated with the disorder:
Emotional instability. From an apparently stable emotional level, the person with BPD suddenly can become intensely angry, deeply depressed, or markedly anxious, questioning her identity, goals, and values. The emotions can be so intense they distort the person’s perception of reality. Impulsive, unpredictable, and intense verbal outbursts and threats, physical displays of temper, or even physically self-damaging acts, such as suicide attempts or self-mutilations, may occur. These emotional swings usually are short, and then the person returns to his or her usual state, often behaving as if nothing unusual had occurred.
Relational extremes. Such individuals are unpredictable in relationships. They sometimes over-idealize someone, seeing that person as incapable of any wrong. When frustrated, they devalue the same person, seeing him or her as incapable of any right. Often, they intensely fear being alone and frantically avoid it, because when alone, they feel empty and worthless.
Although these intense swings of mood and impulsivity can affect any relationship, intimate relationships incur the greatest damage. The person with BPD becomes clinging, dependent, and demanding, as though this relationship should meet all previously unmet needs. When the other person is unable or unwilling to meet these impossible expectations, the individual with BPD becomes enraged.
Despite these symptoms, people with BPD often are creative, intelligent, and emotionally perceptive. They can function at high levels when expectations are clear and structured.
The Course of a Crisis
Christian communities, with their emphasis on love and acceptance, attract people who struggle with feelings of emptiness and isolation. Initially, the person with BPD may be guarded in his interactions to protect against being rejected. However, as the congregation persists in love and acceptance, the individual with BPD forms intense attachments.
At first, all is well; the person praises the special graces of the congregation. The pastor and congregation bask in the affirmation of their love and fellowship, and they give even more of themselves.
As the demands of the BPD person increase, however, the congregation feels controlled and manipulated and begins to withdraw. The BPD person begins to cling to those who have been especially giving, those who seem to offer the greatest hope of meeting the person’s insatiable needs. Subtly at first, and then more overtly, the BPD person seeks more intense and exclusive relationships.
General comments the pastor makes may be over-personalized. For example, in a Bible study, Pastor Ray commented, “When we become Christians, we receive a new family.”
Sally later told him, “I appreciated that part about being family; you know, my family doesn’t even seem like family. I’d much rather spend the holidays with you than with them.” If the pastor and congregation respond without limits to such initial approaches, they soon become an emotional life jacket for the BPD person.
But if church people react with even a little restraint, the BPD person may regard the perceived distance as threatening, which may lead to intense anxiety and then rage. For example, just as Pastor Ray was ready to board an airplane to fly to a conference, he was paged to the telephone. It was Sally, meekly asking to clarify the time of her next appointment with him since she had misplaced her appointment calendar.
Sally, whose antennae were out for rejection, read the anger in his clipped response. “I thought so,” she cried. “You really don’t care about me, do you! I might as well just end it all.” With that she hung up abruptly.
Pastor Ray tried unsuccessfully to call her back. His only solution, given the circumstances, was to have his secretary try to reach her and to call the crisis-intervention hotline. He eventually left for the conference feeling both angry and guilty.
Lines of Defense
To preserve a threatened relationship, the BPD person uses a variety of defenses. One of these is “splitting.” Because the troubled individual has difficulty tolerating both negative and positive feelings simultaneously toward the same person, he or she sees others as “all good” or “all bad.” For example, Sally found it difficult to direct her anger toward Pastor Ray. When he limited her access to him, she became angry at others in the congregation for “draining him of the energy needed to do his pastoral duties.”
Of course, the persons labeled by the individual with BPD as “all bad” respond differently from those labeled “all good.” For example, some members viewed Sally with less tolerance than did others not so intimately involved. In a congregational meeting following “the chair incident,” the congregation split between those who saw Sally as a nuisance-or even demon possessed-and those who felt she was a good person deserving of understanding, albeit deeply troubled.
Some people with BPD exhibit overwhelming personal charm as another defense. They may be too generous, always available, overly complimentary, or lavish with gifts, time, and praise. (Females may use flattery or seductiveness to obtain the attention of a male pastor. They may insist the pastor express his concern physically: “Your words don’t touch me. I need to be held to know that I am truly loved.”)
When the objects of these intense demands do not respond as desired, persons with BPD feel abandoned and overwhelmed with feelings of worthlessness: My best, most charming self is unacceptable! Their ensuing anger further distances them from those they want to accept them.
Understanding BPD
Mental-health professionals and others have theorized about the causes of BPD. A biological basis has been suggested, along with demon possession. However, exorcism or deliverance approaches often result in the sufferer feeling resentful: “Now people think I have the Devil.”
Although both physical and spiritual factors need to be considered, psychological factors appear to predominate in both the cause and expression of BPD. Most current evidence points to early childhood environmental disturbances.
A person with BPD often has a history of traumatic childhood experiences in which the mother is absent, emotionally unavailable, neglectful, or unpredictable (being overindulgent at one time and rejecting and even abusive at another). As a result, the child cannot develop a secure sense of the mother as a good and caring figure. Good and bad feelings are unintegrated. When the mother pleases the child, the child loves her; when she displeases the child, the child hates her. Rage remains unmitigated by love.
Normal people don’t get so angry about another’s faults, because the good qualities are remembered along with the bad. But this mixture of feelings is difficult, if not impossible, for persons with BPD. For them, in their emotional turmoil, persons are either all good or all bad.
Spiritual Dimensions
Not surprisingly, persons with BPD also have difficulty maintaining constancy in their spiritual lives. Often they see God as all good and themselves as all bad. They cannot handle the mixture of feelings they have toward God.
For example, a young coed prayed that God would restore her relationship with her estranged boyfriend. After a month of unanswered prayer, she concluded that she was worthless: “That’s why God didn’t answer my prayer.” Shortly thereafter, she confided to a friend that she was not sure if there is a God. It was as though she were saying, “God, if you don’t give me what I want, I’ll be angry and break off our relationship.”
Persons with BPD frequently use spiritual disciplines self-centeredly. Prayer becomes a tool for getting someone’s attention: “Oh, God, please make him love me as much as I love him.”
The BPD person’s spiritual perception is dependent on social experience. When there is human rejection, he or she finds it difficult to feel a relationship with the heavenly Father. Thus the congregation must demonstrate human love consistently yet with clear limits, so that the person with BPD has a framework for experiencing divine love.
Ministering to the Person with BPD
It is easy to view people with BPD as hopeless cases. Yet there is hope. Churches and their leaders can help these persons function at a higher level, manage their emotional turmoil, and disrupt the congregation less. Here are several principles to use:
First, set firm limits on tolerable behavior. Giving into demands for excessive time-and allowing temper tantrums or threats of suicide if demands are not met-proves unhelpful.
More helpful is setting limits that are clear, realistic, consistent, enforced promptly, and logistically sound. For example, if a person threatens to break a window in my office, I can say, “I see you are angry, but if you break the window, the police will be notified immediately, and you will pay for the window. I’ll take your action as a signal that we can no longer work together productively and will find someone else to counsel you.” I have to be prepared to carry out my plan if the window is, indeed, broken.
Or say a woman with BPD insists on being held too intimately. I should clarify that although I care, to meet this request is not only inappropriate but also unhelpful. I may be accused of rejecting her. If so, I can say, “My actions may feel like rejection, but the reality is that I do care for you and I in no way am rejecting you.” Under the influence of powerful emotions, the woman’s perception of reality may well be distorted. So I need all the more to be an agent of reality and state clearly what actually is happening.
Second, try not to encourage an overly personalized relationship by asking questions such as “How are you feeling toward me?” or “What do you think about our relationship?” Such questions blur the boundaries of the encounter and stimulate the person’s irrational expectations and emotional clinging. We can, instead, focus the person’s attention on immediate practical issues.
We realize this principle runs counter to typical encouragement of counselees to express their feelings. But the person with BPD is easily overwhelmed by intense, irrational feelings and needs help to put the lid on emotion.
Third, try not to withdraw and terminate the pastoral relationship when frustrated or fatigued. Counselors feel the urge to retreat, especially when they have not set appropriate limits on their involvement and consequently feel used and angry. But by choosing and defining interaction, a counselor can remain free to love the person with BPD. At times when we’ve sent an unsolicited note or made an unexpected phone call, we’ve surprised the counselee and reinforced the concept that Christian love is constant and spontaneous and not something easily manipulated.
Guidelines benefit both the person with BPD and us. They enable us to stay involved; we can avoid either responding to every request or refusing to have any involvement. And consistent involvement tells the person that rage will not destroy the relationship, as it has others in the past. When we demonstrate measured consistency, we provide a healing emotional experience.
Erma, a 25-year-old single, came to the Hillside Congregation ten years ago after failing at her first job as new-program developer for an inner-city mission. Fresh out of an Ivy League college, Erma was intelligent, full of potential, but she was not functioning well in any area of life. Her few relationships were marked by intense, clinging dependency, which quickly became intolerable to the recipients. Moody, impulsive, and unpredictable, Erma would become distraught at the slightest criticism or perceived rejection. The mission staff members, many of whom had worked well together for years, became edgy and divided over the new worker, so they consulted with Pastor Fruhling, a visiting workshop leader.
Fruhling offered to provide a structured living situation for Erma with support from Hillside Congregation, an offer that was quickly accepted. A member of the congregation provided a structured work setting, and Pastor Fruhling found a place for Erma to live with several stable roommates. A Christian therapist began seeing Erma weekly. With Erma’s permission, the therapist kept in close contact with her roommates, work supervisor, and Pastor Fruhling. Many in the congregation warmly accepted Erma and encouraged her. When misunderstandings developed, Pastor Fruhling worked with Erma and the church’s leadership team to clarify and resolve the differences.
After a year, Erma’s functioning had improved to the extent that her therapist discontinued the regular counseling sessions. Her work supervisor was impressed with her growth in efficiency and dependability.
Erma involved herself in church activities-at first tentatively but later enthusiastically. She developed several close relationships with married women in the congregation. Along the way, she learned to tolerate negative feelings toward her close friends without yielding to the urge to make her friends all bad or all good. She remained highly sensitive to rejection but learned to identify the unhealthy and irrational thoughts that invariably preceded her intense emotional responses.
Pastor Fruhling, in commenting on Erma’s growth and stability, noted the congregation also had grown through participating in the process of Erma’s emotional growth. “Our congregation has become known in the community as a people who are learning how to love,” he observed.
Making Appropriate Referral
Most pastors consider it advisable to refer a BPD person if he or she is suicidal, homicidal, or in some other serious crisis. This works best when the person has been prepared with a statement such as, “I need to let you know that if you threaten suicide, I’ll have to contact a mental health professional for further help.” Then if the person does become suicidal, the pastor follows up on his or her word and secures an appointment.
More than that, the counselor needs to inform the person that the appointment must be kept; he or she cannot continue the relationship unless the evaluation is obtained. In order to lessen any sense of abandonment, however, it’s wise to emphasize that the pastoral relationship will continue even though others are involved.
Support for the Helper
Any relationship with a person who has borderline personality disorder is intense and turbulent. We recommend forming a supportive relationship with another person or team to help maintain objectivity. Such a team can protect the helper from caving in to irrational demands or inadvertently supporting immature or regressive behavior.
At one point, Erma wanted to move in with Pastor Fruhling’s family. He realized this could destroy his family’s privacy, yet he considered making a sacrifice for the sake of a needy person who never had enjoyed the security of a home. Fortunately, Pastor Fruhling’s elder board insisted Erma’s needs would be better met in a home with single adults. There she wouldn’t be as tempted to try to relive her childhood and be frustrated and bitter that she never could get enough attention and love. Although Erma resisted this advice, when the team remained firm, she eventually moved into the group setting.
In addition to being consultants, the team also can relate directly to the person with BPD. This helps prevent the parishioner from developing a destructively intense relationship with one helper. The person with BPD may resist relating to a team, but all can be firm that one helper alone cannot meet all the parishioner’s needs.
To avoid being manipulated or split as a team, internal communication is a must. This means telling the person with BPD that care will be given as a team, and that there will be open communication within the team (although no further).
For example, Joy led her pastor to believe she wasn’t living with her boyfriend. But she confided to an elder’s wife that she was in fact doing so, insisting that the information be kept confidential. The pastor felt the elder’s wife was being unduly negative when she resisted Joy’s appointment as a Sunday school teacher. When he asked her about it, she reluctantly told him of Joy’s living arrangements.
The team then agreed to inform Joy that henceforth the team would share all information within the team to minister to her more effectively. “You have no right!” she informed them, but when she saw the board was persistent in their stance as well as in their love, she eventually dropped her resistance and cooperated.
Prayer, we’ve found, must undergird the pastor and pastoral team as they work with the person with BPD. Satan tries to use the intense and turbulent relationships that develop between the pastor and parishioner to cause loss of faith, chronic resentment, and hopelessness. Some pastors have left the ministry after struggling for long periods with such problem relationships. A vital personal devotional life as well as the prayer support of fellow team members can help to keep this from happening.
A Measure of Our Love
The behavior of persons with BPD is maddening. Such people can drain and anger pastors. They can split congregations noted for their love.
Yet working with people with BPD offers the opportunity to carry out the scriptural injunction to love those who are difficult to love. A pastor and congregation can give the person new resources to heal psychological and spiritual wounds. The person, though discouraged from acting like a child in this “second family,” does experience love and acceptance and can learn to accept the limits of reality. He or she begins to understand God’s love as sufficient and constant.
And, in God’s economy, not only is the person with BPD helped, the congregation also grows spiritually. In dealing with the intense feelings triggered by the person with BPD, they learn more about their own anger and childish qualities. They master new openness in communication.
Every time God places people with BPD in our midst, he also gives us these opportunities.
– E. A. Vastyan is chairman of the Department of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University’s Hershey Medical Center and vicar at Church of St. Michael and All Angels (Episcopal), Middletown, Pennsylvania.
– Enos Martin is associate professor of Psychiatry at Pennsylvania State University’s Hershey Medical Center and bishop in the Elizabethtown District of Lancaster Mennonite Conference, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Copyright © 1989 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
