BPD - Non Borderline - Information and Insight

Friday, July 11, 2008

The Black Hole of Borderline Personality - Shame of Abandonment

The black hole of BPD affects both borderlines and non-borderlines. It is painful and real on both sides of Borderline Personality Disorder. The shame of abandonment is an enduring self-destructive schema for those with BPD. It is a pattern of toxic relating and relationship rupture.

The shame of abandonment in Borderline Personality Disorder creates a black hole where the arrested development of the previously burgeoning authentic self was. In those who go on to develop and be diagnosed with BPD the authentic self is lost, fragmented and repressed. In its place, at the centre of this black hole rises up a borderline false self that operates from a base of cognitively distorted thought, is primitive, emotionally immature, needy, demanding, lacking object Constancy, and self-destructive.

The black hole of BPD is that abyss in between love and hate - in between consistency and inconsistency - in between congruence and incongruence. It is that aching, seemingly endless space of borderline dark dingy determined self-destructive drudgery. It is the piercing gut-wrenching wind that puts out the flame of so much hope and so much love. It is the beginning of the end of so many relationship opportunities. It is the end of the beginning of all that is new as it begins to end yet again and again. It is the personification of abandonment. It is the darkness of distance and the loneliness of lacking love. It is disconnectedness of "I-hate-you-don't-leave-me" and the punishing push-pull of borderline "get away-closer".

The black hole of BPD, for those diagnosed with BPD, is the toll that the shame of all of their unresolved abandonment trauma recapitulates in their thoughts, feelings, and experience of life.

The black hole of BPD, for those who are family members, friends, relationship or ex-relationship partners of those with BPD - non borderlines, is the seemingly unending cycles of toxic relating that leave them in pain and feeling confused and having to grapple, more often than not, with loss.

The black hole of BPD is love, in its most toxic form, sought and lost no matter what the cost. Love begged for and loved chased all in the name of trying to repair the damage of yesterday. It is the essence of the aching allure of love and the nurture that it holds out, precious promise of a chance to heal, a chance to grow, a chance to be re-parented and a chance to learn what one with BPD missed learning in his or her past.

The black hole of BPD, for the borderline, is the absence of known and congruent self. It is the emptiness that echos endlessly in the cavernous corners of a wounded soul. It is pain. It is agony. It is stolen youth. It is youth robbed of innocence. It is promise thrown asunder through the accumulated shame of abandonment trauma that supports the arrested development that borderlines re-live in repeatedly rupturing relational patterns.

This black hole of BPD takes all-comers. It is not discriminating. Whether you have BPD or know someone who does (non borderlines) the black hole will gladly open up for you. It will swallow your sanity if you let it. Countless non borderlines have fallen into the black whole of a loved one's Borderline Personality Disorder only to have the borderline project and transfer his or her shame and abandonment trauma onto them in ways that foster toxic relating and rupture any and all attempts to relate in ways that even remotely resemble healthy relating.

What does this mean about the borderline and love? Is there a difference between the love they seek and the love they can or try to give?

Purchase all 3 of ebooks for NON BORDERLINES packaged together with or without audio.
Non Borderlines - You can purchase 6 ebooks packaged together with or without audio.

Those with BPD and/or Non Borderlines can purchase A.J. Mahari's 3 "Core Wound of Abandonment" series ebooks packaged together with or without audio.

Those with BPD, more often than not, without being consciously aware of it, end up blaming the person or people in their lives that actually do care the most. From the centre of the shame suffered as the result of the core wound of abandonment in Borderline Personality Disorder those with BPD experience the drama, chaos, pain, and even toxic relationship rupture as being caused by the non borderline. This can be crazy-making for the non borderline because the borderline living actively with and from the shame of the core wound of abandonment steeped in polarized cognitively-distorted ways of thinking experiences life in a fragmented way that compromises or obliterates his or her capacity to engage in shared reality.

Borderlines, lacking a known sense of self, often lack the kind of awareness and insight that can mean the difference between constructive relating and destructive relating. The fragmented, destructive, polarized, and narcissistic false self borderline reality that exists within the shame of abandonment creates patterns of toxic relating and is the foundation of the black hole of Borderline Personality Disorder that devours devastates and ruptures relationships.

If you don't have BPD but care about someone who does have it will benefit you to be very clear about the difference between love and hate. Know the difference between love and abuse. Know the difference between those with boundaries and respect and those without both. Know that you deserve more than to be drawn deeply into the bottomless pit of someone else's needs and wants. Know that you do not have to be a willing hostage. Know that you can only be held captive as long as you participate in your own abduction. Don't confuse taking with giving.

Do not think that it is appropriate for an adult to be a child. Do not excuse the rage. Do not accept the anger. Do not allow the acting-out. Insist that there be peace, calm, reason and responsibility. Do not confuse love with need. Do not make excuses for the borderline's behaviour or for his or her lack of personal responsibility-taking.

The shame at the heart of the core wound of abandonment needs to be addressed in order for a person with BPD to be able to resolve his or her abandonment trauma and pave the way for the reclamation of the lost authentic self.

The black hole of BPD is wide and deep. It is weak and it is strong. It is depression personified. It is the pit within which combustion can fuel a fire of any size. It is the base of the flame, the match and the kindling. It is mutiny. It is a calm breeze that suddenly and without warning becomes a hurricane. It is a gentle rain that throws itself into a monsoon. It is a construction zone complete with holes in the road in the absence of caution signs. It is a universe onto itself. A life in parallel to the rest of the world. A world within a world. A painful place to be. A nightmare. Dark and destructive for both the borderline and the non borderline.

A.J. Mahari is a Life Coach who, among other things, specializes in working with those with BPD and family members, friends, relationship partners or ex-relationship partners of those with BPD (non borderlines).

The Borderline Dance of I Hate You, Don't Leave Me

"I-hate-you, don't-leave-me" is a borderline mantra. It is a theme driven by the lack of a known authentic self and primitive fear and anxiety generated by profound intrapsychic wounds in early developmental years by those later diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

This dance or dynamic of pathological regressed relating on the part of those with BPD is the root cause of so much pain for those with BPD and those who love and care about them in relationships. It is a central causative reality as to why so many relationships fail. Those who are non-borderline in relationships with those with BPD need to understand why they are hated one minute and loved and/or needed the next minute.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) profoundly inhibits those diagnosed with it from bonding in healthy ways that can then lead to productive relating in any and all forms/types of relationships.

It isn’t really possible to bond with others in healthy ways when one does not know who they are and is not bonded to one’s own true self.

Most with BPD struggle with intense and very unstable relationships. All-too-often relationships just don’t work for them or those who love and care about them. There is a tremendous amount of pain that those in these relationships experience on both sides of the Borderline Personality Disorder fence.

Why is it the case that more relationships than not with and for those with BPD do not work out or last?

Put simply, it’s that Borderline Dance of “I hate you, don’t leave me.” This dynamic dance is set in motion when the person diagnosed with BPD tries to be close to someone. It kicks in for most when they are in a relationship in which attempts at intimacy are made.

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In order to be able to be truly intimate and not threatened and/or triggered by it one has to be able to tolerate distance. Many with BPD are unable to tolerate average healthy distance that is necessary in healthy relationships. Rather they experience this distance as rejection and/or abandonment. The intense feelings that these feelings of rejection and/or abandonment fuel is the impetus that causes those with BPD to feel a desperate need to defend against the very one they love and partly want to be close to. This distances the borderline’s partner in often abusive ways and leave the borderline feeling rejected and/or abandoned again. It is a very self-defeating circle to be stuck in.

For most with BPD, until they find themselves and reclaim true self and personhood in therapy, intimacy and being close to anyone is far too threatening. While they may really want to be close they fear it with as much, if not more, intensity, and end up defending against it and pushing away what they really want in need with and from the other person. This sets up the borderline to continue to re-experience this upheaval as rejection and/or abandonment which in a cognitively-distorted way then supports the borderline belief that they are not safe in trying to be close and that they need to defend. Thus a virtually unending cycle of self-defeat is perpetuate by many with BPD. This borderline cycle leaves those close to the person with borderline in a double-bind “no win” situation.

Why do those with BPD fear closeness and intimacy?

Closeness and intimacy are feared because lacking a stable sense of true identity those with BPD fear being engulfed which is tantamount for them to being annihilated and seeking to exist. What gets set up in relationships for those with BPD is the re-playing of their past relationships. Past relationships which often were riddled with emotional trauma, mixed messages, and insecurity. The feelings of being engulfed as a child feel annihilating because one is needy and dependant upon parents or caretakers.

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This child-like neediness is re-enacted with those who have BPD in intimate relationships (and sometimes in friendships too) because it is all those with BPD know. They know a fear that is so deeply ingrained in a profound woundedness that is then played out over and over in a repetition compulsion the genesis of which has at its source a deep-seated need to resolve the primitive emotional and developmental conflicts generated in the borderline’s experience of being neglected, abandoned, rejected and invalidated (real, actual and/or perceived).

This Borderline Dance of “I-hate-you, don’t-leave-me” puts an enormous amount of pressure and responsibility upon the friend or non-borderline partner. Many with BPD transfer their personal responsibility onto a partner. More often than not the partner of someone who is in the active throes of BPD (usually untreated) is seen more often than not as the parent of the borderline in what are constant triggered, fragmented, dissociated ways that the borderline is experiencing his/her past in most here and now relational moments.

The Borderline Dance of, “I-hate-you, don’t-leave-me” is a very painful dynamic for the borderline and the non-borderline partner to be in. It is important to gain awareness and understanding of this in order to seek help and to have an opportunity to change this dynamic before your relationship is lost to it. Professional intervention is necessary to take this unhealthy and painful dynamic and to help the evolution from this dance to healthier ways of relating.

If you have been diagnosed with BPD (and you haven't already) you need to get professional help to take responsibility for your own behaviour and for any and all pain that you are causing anyone else as well as yourself. If you continue to believe that it is your partner's fault or responsibility you will continue to remain stuck in a very painful dynamic within a relationship that likely isn't working and won't or can't survive as such.

If you are the non-borderline partner and you believe you are in this dynamic and dance of “I-hate-you, don’t-leave-me” with your borderline partner it is crucial that you understand you cannot change it or change your borderline partner, you must take care of yourself and hope that your borderline partner will seek professional help. Borderlines can be helped by competent therapists. They must be willing to get this help themselves. If they are not, than as the non-borderline partner in the relationship you really must assess your needs and perhaps get professional assistance yourself to determine what is best for you (and any children involved).

The Language of BPD - Can loved ones and family members learn to speak it?

Would a Non Borderline communicating his/her boundaries to a borderline (even he or she could) by attempting to speak the emotional language of the borderline be more successful?

Having had BPD, recovered, and subsequently had a relationship with someone with BPD/NPD in which I was in the non role, my answer is NO! Firstly, the language of BPD is not exactly the same for each and every person with BPD. Secondly, if one is trying to "speak BPD" if you will, one would more or less end up trying to play therapist. Or, one would end up essentially taking on the role of the parent that you are being experienced as by your borderline in his or her triggered repetition compulsions. I'd be concerned that trying to speak to a person with BPD in "BPD speak" would only increase enmeshment and strengthen the role of rescuer both of which really will not help out the borderline and both of which will increase the pain and suffering of the non borderline.

Purchase all 3 of ebooks for NON BORDERLINES packaged together with or without audio.

Non Borderlines - You can purchase 6 ebooks packaged together with or without audio.

Those with BPD and/or Non Borderlines can purchase A.J. Mahari's 3 "Core Wound of Abandonment" series ebooks packaged together with or without audio.

For most non borderlines trying to speak the emotional language of those with BPD would essentially twist your mind into a pretzel. It would take what you know to be average healthy relating and make it so complicated that you could easily lose your way in it alone - never mind trying to be both the communicator and the interpreter to the borderline. Non borderlines and those with BPD live in two separate emotional worlds and their communication styles and difficulties mirror that reality. It would likely be almost as difficult or impossible for the non borderline to truly speak the emotional language of the borderline as it would be for the borderline to suddenly clearly be able to speak the language of the non-personality-disordered.

A.J.'s Audio Program The Shame of Abandonment in BPD

Often non borderlines end up being enmeshed with those who have BPD. Many non borderlines have speculated that the enmeshment of being in the parent role may make what you say as opposed to how you say it more important. Many wonder if there is a way to put one's limits and boundaries in "bpd-speak" so to say in the hopes that it would then somehow, magically, be better understood by the person with BPD. Many nons think that if they can back up their boundaries this also will help make those boundaries clear to those with BPD. This is often not the case however as borderline are not only very skilled at challenging boundaries but also at manipulating nons right out of the very boundary setting and boundaries they know they need and that they often do try to communicate about. Is there more risk involved in communicating boundaries to the borderline in "non-borderline-speak" versus "bpd-speak"?

I am not so sure it would be any more of a risk but it would be the same level of risk, in most cases, in my opinion, as any type of communication of limits and boundaries. What you say about the non borderline's boundaries and backing them up and being clear mattering more than how they communicated makes sense to those who are thinking in logical ways (nons) but often will not make that same sense to those not thinking as logically or not experiencing the communication of limits and boundaries in the here and now.

The dilemma that exists for the non borderline trying to communicate his or her limits and boundaries to a borderline exists not because one is speaking "non-speak" or to the degree a non could try to "bpd-speak" but rather because the non and the borderline are trying to come to a meeting of the minds from what are parallel universes and uncommon experience. If even one can try to use "bpd-speak" it can backfire just as quickly because of the effect (triggers back to repetition compulsions of the borderline) of the "meat" of the communication itself.

Purchase all 3 of ebooks for NON BORDERLINES packaged together with or without audio.

Non Borderlines - You can purchase 6 ebooks packaged together with or without audio.

Those with BPD and/or Non Borderlines can purchase A.J. Mahari's 3 "Core Wound of Abandonment" series ebooks packaged together with or without audio.

The enmeshment or parent-role, in most cases, exists and unfolds in the experience of the borderline regardless of the message, delivery, or intent on the part of the non borderline. I think this is one aspect of BPD that still confuses a lot of nons. I offer this opinion based upon my experience in the years when I had BPD. Those entrenched in the active throes of BPD cannot and do not really know how to decipher the meaning of the message from its delivery anymore than they can receive its intent in age and situationally-appropriate ways that are common to the non borderline experience.

What a non says to a borderline can go awry as far and as fast as how that something is said. It is the nature of the communication gap between these two emotionally parallel universes.

Borderline Loss of Self Equals Rage

Those diagnosed with Borderline Personality (BPD) have experienced the loss of the authentic self. This loss of self creates a void, a vacuum that then is filled by a fragmented and wounded pseudo-false self. This loss of self is largely, if not entirely, the result of the core wound of abandonment and its legacy.

I know what this is like from the inside out. I had BPD. I lived for 33 years of my life without much, if any, sense of self. Did I know that then? No, not at all. What did it feel like though? It was confusing. It was crazy-making for me, even when I had BPD. I believe it is crazy-making for most with BPD. It was, for me, a source of constant angst. An angst I had no words for. An angst that terrified me and could send me into an anxiety-riddled panic in a heartbeat when I felt invalidated, abandoned, or when I was left alone.

Living without a self means that you can't know what you really want. You can't know who you are. You can't possibly really have emotional boundaries because there is no centre or container from which to have any understanding of the walls of an actual self. There is nothing between the borderline and others except this fuzzy frenzy of frantic efforts to not have to feel one's abandoned pain.

Dissociated from the pain when I was in the active throes of BPD was the cause of my borderline rage. I was in the active throes of a whirlwind of maelstrom proportions - the result of what was actually my rage addiction. Life pissed me off. Most everything made me angry. I experienced that being made angry as being everyone else's responsibility and/or fault and as having nothing to do with me.

Everything that I was feeling without understanding what I was feeling - so all the angst-filled rage that I was always feeling - felt like it was just happening to me. And what was happening to me, I thought, when I had BPD, it must then follow, must have been happening to me because other people were doing "it" to me.

A.J.'s Ebooks

A.J.'s Audio Programs

Consumed in rage the little fragmented piece of me that was hanging on for literal psychological dear life would stir me and trigger me in all aspects of my life - there was not time off - there was no peace - there was no happiness or time to feel okay or safe. When I wasn't feeling like other people were purposefully trying to hurt me and drive me nuts there was this part of me that just couldn't leave me alone either.

I felt victimized by everyone and everything. I would later, in the process of recovery, come to realize that I also felt victimized by this very fragmented and wounded part of me that just wouldn't lay off of me. This part of me would endlessly try to get me (whoever the hell that was then) to pay attention to the pain that I was way too afraid of and not very aware of. For three decades this part of me stayed her determined course and re-played out the past over and over again in attempts to get me to "get it".

When I was borderline I was consumed with rage because it is rage that is on the other side of loss. Not being able to tolerate that loss is what the protective borderline false self thrives on. It is what gives it its edge - its cruelty - its get-away-closer, I-hate-you, don't-leave-me, aloof closeness and its no-win emotionally-chaotic stone-cold intimate distance - its ability to hurt others as it hurts. It is what keeps it in the driver's seat, keeps it alive. It is the need of those with BPD to keep their abandonment trauma at bay at all costs, dissociated from in borderline reality - parallel to reality - though it be re-lived over and over and over again that "protects" them from feeling the very pain that must be felt in order to resolve the petulantly-persistent primal primitive rage.

A.J.'s Ebooks

A.J.'s Audio Programs

In my borderline experience it hurt to be close though close always felt very far away and very not good enough. It hurt to be far away because it had this pseudo-allure of a closeness most dysfunctional and severely strange - enmeshed - an angry, hostile, violent raging kind of closeness that knew no bounds and hated itself. A hatred for the lack of its self that was then projected out onto others without any awareness on my part.

On the other side of rage is loss. The only way out is in. What is in the way is the way.

The only way out is to fall into the pain. What is in the way is the pain and feeling and learning to tolerate the pain until it can be resolved is the way to recovery. There are no shortcuts or magic pills. There is no substitute for getting in touch with one's authentic pain - the pain that will lead to the finding of the lost authentic self.

I no longer rage.

I fell into the pain. I embraced what was in the way - it was the way that I recovered.

Is Borderline Behaviour Due To The "Illness" of Borderline Personality - The Brain Disorder?

Is borderline behaviour due to the "illness" of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)? Is it caused by the brain? Whose responsibility does this way of thinking make it? What happens to the concept of personal responsibility?

I wonder what I would have done, years ago, when I had Borderline Personality Disorder if I had been told and/or if I believed that it was a brain disorder? Would I have worked in therapy to come to not only know about and understand the concept of personal responsibility and then accept it and make a choice to take personal responsibility for my actions, my thoughts, my feelings - my (then) borderline behaviour or would I simply have chalked it up to something that I couldn't control, to something that my brain made me do?

Herein lies part of the largest part of the danger in the ways that some are now touting BPD as a "brain disorder". Is this a way of saying, well, borderlines just can't help it? They think what the think and they feel what they feel so unfortunately they do what they do that hurts themselves and others because, well, their brains make them do what they do?

I do not discount that there is as has always been thought and said by professionals a "biological component" to BPD. But this is much different than saying "it's a brain disorder". It is a thought disorder. So in my experience what I've come to realize seems to be the argument of late is whether or not the disordered thoughts are in the hard-wiring or whether they are caused by the experience and/or perception of abandonment and the devastating affect this has on a developing personality.

Of course, even if one wanted to say that the disordered thinking of those with BPD was a hard-wiring related thing, who is to say, moreover, who can prove, that what may have gone asunder in the brain hasn't been caused by the experience of emotional and psychological trauma?

Just as the experience of abandonment and all that it encompasses can have an affect on one to the level of the biology and/or chemistry of the brain, many types of psychotherapy, can over time, make it possible for those with BPD to repair some of what may go awry in the brain.

I think that while it may seem that what I am saying here could be taken as semantics - it isn't - there is quite a slippery slope to the detriment of those with BPD to be found in the language of "BPD is a brain disorder".

In my own recovery from BPD I have experienced a tremendous amount of change in the way that I think, consequently the way that I feel, and subsequently the way that I act or behave. It was something that I learned in therapy I had all the freedom in the world to choose to learn, to enact, to consistently and congruently live from and through. What the process of my recovery largely involved wasn't medication - I didn't take any psychiatric drugs whatsoever. There was no pharmaceutical remedy to why I, as someone who had BPD, used to think, feel, and act the way that I did. It was finding my lost authentic self and re-parenting that self (first in therapy and then on my own) to a healthy developed and functional self. It was the process of growing From False Self to Authentic Self and getting in touch with, integrating with and developing a healthy attachment to and relationship with my inner child. It's not rocket science. It's not easy. It is a very painful process but it doesn't involved brain surgery either.

Modern science is a wonderful thing in so many ways. Yet, here, when it comes to BPD, all the speculation, research, and "brain disorder" theorizing is not only unproven but it is also negating of the reality that not everything that impacts the brain has a biological cause and that not every brain impacted by the trauma of abandonment and the development of BPD - the personality disorder - must be medicated to produce positive change. In fact often much of the medication given to those with BPD is described by them as not being helpful and only really creating increasing problems over-all. The whole "brain disorder" speak is negating of the reality that human beings can and do change and heal the wounds that may well impact the brain in that it has some negative effect on how those with BPD tend to think in distorted and polarized ways that are self-defeating.

Forwarding the notion that Borderline Personality Disorder is a "brain disorder" short of a miracle pill that no one has (or in my opinion ever will invent) invented misleads everyone about the reality that BPD can be recovered from. It misleads those with BPD who may well come to not only feel hopeless in the face of this theory but who also may then not ever be able to clearly realize just how personally responsible they are for what they think, what they say, how they feel, what they perceive, and what they do with how they think, feel, and perceive.

I don't see what is progressive or helpful about that.

When I had Borderline Personality Disorder I, and I alone, was responsible for the choices that I made. I, and I alone was responsible for the way that I behaved. I, and I alone was responsible for the way that I treated others poorly and the way that the relationships I had often ruptured.

When I had Borderline Personality Disorder the greatest challenge to change wasn't any physical reality hard-wired into my brain it was the devastation that was all the emotional and psychological pain that I had experienced as a very young child as the result of being abandoned and the result of experiencing what Klein and Masterson and others describe as the loss of my self to the psychological trauma of this abandonment.

Psychological abandonment trauma that essentially psychologically kills the otherwise burgeoning self. It is this loss of self that is played out and re-played out when one has BPD that is the foundation of what Masterson calls "abandonment fear" that causes those with BPD to protect in many elaborate and unhealthy ways - protect that damaged, wounded, essentially lost authentic self - from anymore pain. This, in my experience, this trying to protect against this pain that I had experienced at such a young age and then dissociated from to survive at all and this avoidance of this pain is what perpetuates and often worsens the symptoms or traits of Borderline Personality Disorder.

I am not a professional. I am not a neurologist. I am not a researcher. I am just one person who had BPD, one person who has recovered. One person, who from my own experience knows that my brain didn't make me do anything. It wasn't my brain, it was my pain.

In my recovery I learned just how many choices I had made - subconscious choices, at a very young age, based upon the trauma of abandonment and abuse and a cornucopia of environmental factors, not the least of which was a tremendous lack of nurture - choices that can be un-learned. Choices that can be changed. Borderlines learn through psychological trauma of abandonment (actual or perceived) to abdicate personal responsibility - it sort of goes with the psychological death of the lost authentic self.

It is not lost to some "brain disorder". It is not at the mercy of medication to bring it back or to find it. What pill could they ever invent to bridge the gap between the lost authentic self, the borderline absence of self and the borderline false self? There won't ever be one.

If you have BPD please recognize the danger in attributing your thoughts, actions, feelings and/or behaviour to something that your brain is responsible for. Those with BPD are often dissociated from the way that they, in fact, make choices, but that doesn't negate the reality that choices are being made. If you have BPD you need to know that taking personal responsibility needs to be your number one priority if you want to improve the quality of your life and get on and stay on the road to recovery.

Learning about, understanding, and accepting personal responsibility for how one thinks, feels, and acts, when one has BPD is the way to the road to recovery. Radical acceptance and mindfulness are both very important in the borderline journey to the kind of awareness that is needed to become more aware of the choices that you have been making - choices that once you understand them and the legacy of them in your life - you can change.

It's not about the brain (hard-wiring) it's about the psychological pain. Granted the pain is stored in memory imprints in the brain. But memory imprints and stored memories in the brain - even stored body memories do not a brain disorder make.

If I sound passionate about this - you bet I am! I may be but one small dissenting voice in a sea of "it's a brain disorder" believing people - but I know what I know because I have lived it.

How can those forwarding Borderline Personality Disorder as a "brain disorder" expect them to believe in their own personal responsibility? What happens to the concept and need to accept personal responsibility in this theory of the origin of BPD?

The danger of this forwarding of BPD as a briain disorder is that it can leave those with BPD with an even greater sense of hopelessness. Those with BPD, as well as nons need to understand that it isn't that the brain of the borderline makes them do what they do or think what they think and that means that they can't help it - it is the borderline's abandoned pain - not the hard-wiring of the brain.

A.J. Mahari is a Life Coach who, among other things, specializes in working with those with BPD and non borderlines. A.J. has 5 years experience as a life coach and has worked with hundreds of clients from all over the world. A.J. works with those with BPD as an adjunct to their therapy (most often) through a methodology that supports the reality of the possibility for recovery if one makes the choice to recover and holds to it and takes personal responsibility for it.

BPD Family

Some people have BPD in the family whereas I came from a family of BPD. Children do learn what they live. The effects of Borderline Personality Disorder on family members is far-reaching and profound.

Both of my parents had Borderline Personality Disorder. It is also believed that my maternal grandmother also had BPD. I was also diagnosed with BPD at the age of 19. I recovered at the age of 38. I am sure that if someone were to go through my whole family history, sadly, what has been defined in the last 20+ years as BPD would likely be found throughout many generations of my family.

In my unfortunately rich experience with Borderline Personality Disorder - on both sides of it - I'd have to say that despite any genetics involved the perpetual abandonment, lack of nurture, lack of mirroring, lack of validation, constant criticism, anger and rage, abuse, and so forth really lays the foundation for each generation to be as afflicted as the one that attempts to raise them.

Borderline Personality Disorder can definitely be accurately described as a relational disorder. It manifests in and through relationships in chaotic, crazy-making, intense and very unstable ways. In the sea of family BPD there is really no such thing as being or feeling connected. The experience is one of broken mutuality (Bradshaw), enmeshed family dysfunction, and a love-hate that the word toxic barely begins to describe.

The unresolved abandonment trauma and its legacy sets up an on-going intergenerational dynamic of an astounding lack of affect synchrony (Viviane Green in her book "Emotional Development in Psychoanalysis, Attachment Theory and Neuroscience") that is so needed by a young developing infant if one is to have a chance at developing a relatively healthy personality.

When one lives in a BPD family one learns that love is war and that connection represents a primal threat to one's actual or perceived survival. Nothing is real. Nothing is. Everything goes. Everyone takes turns taking hostages. Punishment is as common as the air that one needs to breathe. Oddly enough it becomes equally as sustaining.

Purchase all 3 of ebooks for NON BORDERLINES packaged together with or without audio.

Non Borderlines - You can purchase 6 ebooks packaged together with or without audio.

Those with BPD and/or Non Borderlines can purchase A.J. Mahari's 3 "Core Wound of Abandonment" series ebooks packaged together with or without audio.

Life in a BPD family is a nightmare. There are no boundaries. Boundaries are not understood. Boundaries are not allowed. The BPD family relies on the enmeshed and toxic bonds of perpetual betrayal. Betrayal teaches the young developing borderlines how to manage the split reality of "I-hate you, don't-leave-me" and "get-away-closer". It helps one navigate the crazy-making duality of aloof-closeness and/or intimate-distance.

Life in a BPD family teaches one that emotional availability is a powerful tool with which to manipulate, punish and control. It teaches that helping others really means controlling them to be the way that you need them to be for you. It teaches one that they only exist in and through the existence of the other and that when the other is disapproving, distant, or maybe just not paying enough attention, one is invisible, non-existent and absolutely not ever safe.

There is nothing to trust in a BPD family. Really the only thing that there was to hold onto, aside from false hope against all hope that one's needs might someday be met, was the full-on raging chaos. The raging chaos of utter despair disguised as want, dangled as the rarity of recognized need, was the salve that soothed the absence of a self that was so dissociated from yet so palpable as to be the pain filled numbness of a living death.

Lack of Object Constancy In BPD

Lack of object constancy in Borderline Personality Disorder is at the heart of borderline abandonment trauma and repeated relationship rupture.

As a person who had BPD and who has recovered from BPD, I am a great believer in what Masterson describes object constancy to be or the lack of it to be and its central role in being a major causative factor in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

I believe it is a direct result (as Masterson outlines) of insecure attachment and failure to bond which contribute heavily or are major causative factors to what Masterson calls "abandonment trauma" and what I call, from my own experience with it, the "core wound of abandonment".

Those with BPD, until and unless they get a lot of therapy, therapy that is somewhat successful at the very least, emotionally/psychologically experienced an emotional arrest in development usually between or around the ages of 2 or 3. If you think about it this way, the borderline is emotionally 2 or 3 years old and lack of object constancy is a stage of development in those early developmental years that are not mastered by those who go on to be diagnosed with BPD. So just as a young child cries or screams for mom or dad when they leave, not yet having the ability to understand they will come back, a child in this stage of development experiences much of his or her world as "out of sight, out of mind." This is, what I came to understand about my experience when I had BPD. If someone wasn't directly relating to me or in the environment they were more or less out of sight and therefore out of mind.

When those with BPD experience this out of sight, out of mind, stuff, protective defense mechanisms kick in that result in them splitting and devaluing the "lost" or experienced-as-lost "object" - person. For many with BPD they require the constant attention of "other" to feel connected to "other". Remember, also that for most with BPD, in the active throes of BPD, "other" = "self" - the "self" that borderlines don't otherwise have.

In terms of the answer to the question "what is object constancy as relates to BPD?" Borderlines do not have object constancy. They lack object constancy. They do not relate in any consistent way. That's why you see the swing between all-good to all-bad, then back to all-good until they shift back to all-bad etc. Borderlines do not have the inter-personal skills to relate to "self" or "other" in any consistent or lasting way.

Lack of object constancy in BPD is a direct result of the relationship rupture that results from the core wound of abandonment.

Lack of object constancy, in my opinion, isn't so much about emotional amnesia or a forgetting as it is about dissociation and splitting in which there are dual realities in operation at the same time or that shift back and forth, if you will. "Out of sight, out of mind, isn't so much an inability to remember certain things about a person as it is more about abandonment fear that drives borderline defense mechanisms like splitting and devaluation to kick in because the state of being left alone isn't tolerable when a borderline doesn't know how to soothe him/herself. Just as the young child in the playpen starts to cry when mother goes to work, for example, and experiences a discomfort with separation, borderlines experience a triggering back to abandonment fear, abandonment trauma (Masterson) which they do not have the inter-personal skills to cope with - thus the maladaptive pathological defenses kick in.

Often also those with BPD will punish "other" for leaving or being busy because when "other" isn't immediately available to provide the soothing and reassurance the borderline needs, the borderline experiences feelings (related to original core wound of abandonment trauma which is often repressed - dissociated from) which is more about intra-psychic trauma and unresolved abandonment trauma from the borderline's past than it is about actual "memory issues". Borderlines cannot hold the experience of "other" or any connection to "other" when "other" isn't right there.

Masterson describes borderlines being "unable to hold the memory of significant others in mind" - not to say this isn't correct, but as I experienced this in my borderline years more than what I couldn't keep in my mind what was most central was my borderline fear of abandonment coupled with the reality that I was unable to form bonds or attachments in a way that could survive or be held through times of separation.

Separation, even brief separation threatens the borderline and essentially triggers him or her back to what is actually (until and unless enough therapy is undergone successfully) their original experience of "the core wound of abandonment". It produces terror, fear, very primal emotional reactions on some level in those with BPD. The key thing about his, however, is that many borderlines have no conscious awareness of this. They are dissociated from this repressed pain - what I refer to as the abandoned pain of bpd (which I have an ebook all about by the way).

The Shame of Abandonment in BPD perpetuates this deep-seated and complicated lack of object constancy in those with BPD.

Borderlines do not experience the kind of bonding or secure attachment that would provide a foundation for being able to shift between closeness and distance. It is this lack of object constancy that is the heart of the toxic relational style of the borderline false self. It is this lack of object constancy that leads borderlines to search for their missing "self" through others and leaves those others feeling invisible in what is a toxic relationship feuled by the broken mutuality the borderline experienced at the time of their original abandonment trauma and that their lack of object constancy continues to trigger the re-playing out of within relationships.

© A.J. Mahari June 24, 2008 - All rights reserved.