Sometimes people who have BPD engage in a process in which they use secondary gain as a way to perpetuate their illness. This is almost always an unconscious act. Secondary gain is something that motivates a person externally to engage in specific types of behaviour. It is usually resorted to when a person wants to avoid something, i.e. having to go out to a job, or having to do chores around the house. So, for example the person might say they can't walk and therefore can not get up and out to go and take the bus to get to work, or they have a severe stomach ache and therefore can not do their assigned chores. For people with BPD this can also be referred to as something called a secondary handicap and this can lead to something called learned helplessness.
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