Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder
The term ‘borderline’ describes a person on the ‘border’ of psychosis; between control and chaos, capable of falling head-first into panic, fury or depression at any time.
The Root Cause Of Borderline Personality Disorder
The trauma which causes borderline personality disorder is as complex as its name: Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or C-PTSD for short. A person with borderline personality is often a child of divorce, with the tension between the parents creating an environment full of hostility, chaos, uncertainty and terror. In many cases, one or both parents have their own personality disorder. Mothers who are narcissistic or borderline themselves often create borderline children.
Such environments are unpredictable, and the child is always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The chaotic parents offer little container within which to feel safe. If the parents are divorced or separated, the child is usually forced between homes. The parents’ moods are often unstable and terrifying to the child, especially when the parent is a borderline or a narcissist. As a result, the child is flooded by negative emotions, unable to regulate how they feel. Their sense of Self shatters, and the child loses continuity in their identity.
The Borderline Mindset
Plagued by Complex-PTSD and lacking a stable role model, the borderline suffers greatly. Their solution is to seek out the perfect love, aiming to regulate their inner turmoil through an ‘ideal’ partner. By establishing love with the perfect person, the borderline can calm their fear and alleviate their suffering through a bright future with a beloved who will never leave them.
The borderline is prone to seeing people as all-good or all-bad, having not matured beyond black-and-white thinking. When they polarise in the positive, they will attach to that person at warp speed. At first, the borderline idealises their partner. The relationship is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to them. Their partner is a dream come true. This love will manifest into a bright future filled with abundance and prosperity.
However, no fantasy can withstand the test of reality for long. Within the first few weeks or months, the partner’s flaws come into focus, and cracks appear in the illusion. The trauma resurfaces and challenges the fantasy. To fend off the resulting discomfort, the borderline externalises their feelings and blames their partner. ‘All-good’ flips into ‘all-bad’, and the ‘devalue’ phase begins. The borderline criticises, judges, shames, punishes and ‘points out’ the partner’s flaws. Nothing the partner does is ever good enough.
Symptoms Of Borderline Personality Disorder
The main traits of borderline personality disorder are:
Abandonment anxiety: The borderline clings to others, demanding their constant time and attention to feel secure in the relationship.
Fusion: The borderline only feels secure when completely enmeshed, hoping to have the other person co-opt responsibility for their emotions, thoughts and decisions. It is only a matter of time, however, before they lose their sense of Self and feel engulfed by the other person.
Approach/Avoidance: The borderline seeks fusion with others andsimultaneously has abandonment terror. Any perceived break in their fantasy of perfect love triggers their abandonment anxiety, and with it, threatens their mental stability. Therefore, if the other person disappoints the borderline, acts independently, or creates emotional distance, then the borderline pulls away abruptly as a defence. They go through phases of being deeply connected and in love, before suddenly growing cold and critical without warning. While this may produce a short-term feeling of control, the borderline’s fear of being alone compels them to re-engage, and they cling to the other person again. Before long, they feel engulfed and again pull away. The resulting push/pull dynamic naturally results in constant blow-ups and fights with the confused loved one. The relationship then becomes plagued by arguments that lead nowhere, emotional outbursts, bitterness, mood swings and chaos.
Fluctuating Self-Esteem: The borderline alternates between supreme confidence and crippling self-doubt and self-loathing.
Identity Diffusion: The borderline has a weak sense of Self and constant self-doubt. They have an unclear, shifting self-image, changing their values and behaviours as necessary to be accepted.
Chronic Emptiness: A hollow feeling of emptiness is a C-PTSD symptom against which the borderline has little internal defence.
Object Inconstancy: The borderline has difficulty keeping a consistent, internal image of the other person. When their loved one goes away, it feels as though they no longer exist. This makes it easier for the borderline to cheat, and also makes them desperate to keep that person around as their abandonment terror threatens to take them over.
Emotional Lability: The borderline often drowns in their emotions, unsure of their feelings. They experience extreme shifts in mood, and can bounce between intense euphoria and terrible depression. They are often unsure how they feel about others, and are prone to suddenly and abruptly ending relationships. They have weak impulse control and demonstrate risky, reckless behaviour. They tend to hold in their chaotic emotions, desperate to stay ‘normal’ and not hurt others, until they erupt suddenly in a violent rage, throwing temper tantrums and acting out in ways they later regret.
Self-Harm: Borderlines are known to self-harm through cutting, abusing drugs, binge eating and promiscuous sex.
Suicidal Ideation: The borderline skirts the edge of the death instinct, sometimes playing with the idea of suicide as a way to end the torment.
Dissociation: The borderline experiences gaps in their memory. They sometimes derealise and lose touch with reality, feeling like overwhelming events are happening to someone else, especially when they are shame or guilt-inducing, such as when they cheat or betray someone. They might create a fiction to compensate for their amnesia, hoping to keep a ‘sane’ storyline to avoid abandonment or going over the edge.
The Chaos Inherent In Borderline Personality Disorder
The borderline struggles with arrested development. Therefore, playing the helpless child or victim comes easily to them. The borderline makes themselves submissive in the presence of others, hoping that person will take up the saviour or parent role and magically rescue them or solve their problems. They struggle to form horizontal adult-to-adult relationships. Their innocence and playfulness are endearing to others. If someone has a latent saviour complex or harbours covert narcissism, they will gravitate to the borderline and pick up the slack. Such people are more than happy to play the role of the ‘perfect’ partner.
The borderline’s black-and-white and magical thinking aim to shield them from their trauma. The borderline is constantly vigilant, perceiving abandonment at every corner, and because of this, acts out in ways that ensure abandonment. They are forever testing their loved ones, pushing their sore points to check if that person will stick around.
Together with their approach/avoidance cycles, the borderline puts loved ones on constant edge. The other person has no idea when the borderline’s mood will switch, or when and how the borderline will accuse them, judge them, criticise them or simply erupt and act out. The person usually has no idea they are being put through a washing machine of black-and-white thinking, paranoia and repressed anger.