Everything you've ever wanted to know about BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), but were afraid to ask.
www.ShariSchreiber.com
I’ve been writing about BPD on my website, for at least 20 years. I never did formal “research” into the topic, I simply paid close attention to identical behavior patterns and obstacles my clients typically struggled with, and this taught me everything I needed to understand about the disorder, from a core trauma perspective.
Most laymen don’t understand BPD. Extremely few clinicians do, either. What’s most mystifying about people with borderline traits, is the fact they’re usually exceptionally bright~ but emotionally moronic. This means, they LACK circumspection (or the ability to see the Big Picture and view a situation from a plethora of different vantage points), and impulse control. Of all the various features someone with BPD possesses, this above all else, makes them dangerous to the rest of us.
When one is self-serving and impulsive in their actions or behaviors without acute, circumspect regard for how their actions may negatively impact others (AND themselves), train wrecks inevitably occur. Even if one makes choices they THINK are well-meaning, they can easily create damaging outcomes for themselves, and those who matter to them.
We all make mistakes, and not one of us is perfect~ but the Borderline’s unbridled emotional impulsivity overrides careful, rational, logical (Big Picture) thinking and planning, and any semblance of ‘cause and effect’ thought “(if I do THIS, THAT might happen”) flies out the window~ particularly when another’s well-being is at stake.
Lack of genuine empathy in the Borderline Personality is at the heart of derailing well-considered, wiser and more productive choices. Like very young children, they leap before they LOOK to see the depth of water in a pool to assess the likelihood of breaking open their skull on the concrete bottom.
Add to this, there’s a streak of self-destructiveness in Borderlines, because they’re shortsighted and impatient. It’s not that they don’t hyper-analyze every infinitesimal detail of their life~ it that their perspectives are basically that of a very young, impulsive child who lacks the capacity to think through an important decision FIRST, before acting on it. In truth, a great deal of wisdom that only attends significant life experience, prepares one for making decisions that will likely serve them and their loved ones, best.
You’ll hear me say over and over again, that (contrary to popular belief) Borderlines are NOT Bad People. They’re just undercooked emotionally, and no amount of cerebral intelligence can compensate for this deficit, because people with BPD traits THINK their way thru life, as opposed to FEELING their way along. Thus, they are incapable of relying on solid instinct and intuition to guide them and their choices.
This is perhaps the Borderline’s most self-defeating feature. It’s why they paint themselves into corners, cannot maintain healthy, nourishing attachments, and routinely create drama, chaos and destruction for themselves, the lives of their attachments.