A Borderline won’t maintain contact with you, unless it fuels their narcissism. BPD men and women are attention whores, and they thrive on every morsel of it you give ‘em~ whether the interactions you share are negative or positive.
Borderlines often romanticize their friendships. If the contact between you and another is platonic on your end, don’t count on these feelings being mutual, for a Borderline. A sense of boundaries and impulse control, are not strong suits for someone with BPD traits.
Even in a therapeutic dynamic, a client with BPD traits may develop feelings of infatuation or “love” for their clinician. Acquired feelings of closeness are part of a corrective emotional experience with one’s therapist, but Borderlines often eroticize these pleasurable sensations. The Borderline has no template for what a secure, safe, healthy attachment feels like (due to childhood deficits), so genuine emotional connection is automatically converted into intense feelings of infatuation. With therapeutic skill and dexterity, client crushes can readily be resolved.
It should be noted, that closure means Ego Death to a Borderline Personality Disordered individual. Show me one you’ve had successful and lasting closure with, and I’ll show ya someone who lacks BPD traits. These men and women will do literally anything to remain on the forefront of your consciousness, even after they’ve located and bonded with another, and are (supposedly) happily involved~ at least, according to their jubilant social media posts!
If you’re a decent human being, you’ll want a peaceful, caring, even friendly parting with someone who has mattered to you and has BPD traits, yet “closure” to them means, “I’m unlovable, not good enough, and you never really loved me in the first place!” This holds true, even if you’ve been straight with ‘em about how you see this relationship unfolding, from the start of your dance.
A Borderline’s strong reaction to your need to depart, emanates from deep inside their core. A shame zone about the size of Texas, exists since their post-natal experiences with dear old Mom. Have you ever noticed, that a Borderline will never admit to an error or mistake? Being “wrong” is ego-dystonic to Borderlines. They need to see themselves as perfect, above reproach and completely without flaw. A somewhat distorted self-view with zero shortcomings, is really all that keeps ‘em going.
Sadly and largely because of this, when you feel the need to break off a relationship with one of these people, it bumps up against their enormous yet denied shame zone, and all hell breaks loose! They either verbally vilify you in the most heinous (often false, unsubstantiated) ways, or go immediately into Martyr Mode: “How could you have led me on this way and taken advantage of me?” or, “I’ve trusted and depended on you, and now you’re throwing me away like a used handkerchief!” All this is of course, carefully orchestrated to make you feel guilty and ashamed, so you’ll stick around rather than doing what’s healthy and right for You, and taking your exit.
Ask yourself this: What reasonably normal, well-adjusted person would want you to remain with ‘em, after learning you don’t wanna be there?! A Borderline is not concerned for Your inner experiences, happiness or contentment. They may say they are, and make all sorts of verbal pronouncements that ‘sound’ like they have your best interests at heart (talk is cheap) but they don’t. These are survivors, which has made them remarkably resilient, and they’re great at it! Problem is, they have no real capacity for empathy, so your feelings and needs never even enter the picture for ‘em.
Imagine a completely dependent infant for a moment. They are only concerned with getting their primal needs met for warmth, closeness, nourishment, sleep, etc. An infant never once considers, what are my Mommy’s needs? Has she been up all night taking care of MY needs, and is she tired? Never. It’s surely not a baby’s job to worry about anyone else’s feelings and needs beyond their own survival instincts, and it’s precisely the same for Borderlines!
In this regard, all Borderlines are narcissistic. They often see their therapist as an ‘object’ whose function is to furnish them with nurturant supplies of attention and care, but never as another human being who has feelings and needs of their own.
Ever have a Borderline spontaneously go off on you in an unbridled, abusive, vitriolic rage? Even though it may be a normal part of transference within a healthy therapeutic dyad, the degree of unleashed bile can be worth reminding yourself, you’re just the easier, more convenient target for their unhealed shit than their personality disordered parent, who failed them miserably.
With one deep breath, the artist masterfully secures the proper brush and exhales slowly observing the horizon of primary colors and selects the appropriate subject, dip, and stroke the canvass with strikingly profound juxtaposition.
The first word stains the page illustrating with eloquence the poignant roots of truth without sugar how the apple came to be and that such apple never falls far from the tree.
You are an amazing human being Shari. Thank you 🙏 for all of your contributions to the subject matter of the Cluster B $hit $how Circus. YOU...have a safe, fun, and productive day.