What BPD is, and what it isn't.

Borderline Personality Disorder is a developmental arrest issue. It is NOT a “mental illness,” as many laymen and psychotherapists alike, tend to believe.

Dissociation from painful emotions during our first few years of life, is what spawns personality disorder traits. When we get good at killing off ‘certain’ feelings, like anger, rage, sadness, depression, envy, jealousy, etc., because our parental units treated them as unfavorable or unacceptable, ALL feeling states within our emotional repertoire lose their vibrancy.

Anger and rage are enlivening, energizing, activating, passionate emotions. Suppress this normal, human intensely passionate response, and all passion (including sexual passion) is diffused in every other domain of our life.

The resultant, predictable outcome of emotional dissociation (which typically begins around the age of 2) is, one is left with a huge vacuum inside, which is sometimes referred to as the Core Void. One who lives with a core void, is typically attracted to and seeks out high-intensity, high-conflict relationship bonds, which are often referred to as “emotional roller-coaster relationships” with BPD partners.

Feelings of emptiness, deadness, flatness, boredom, etc., are often felt but strongly defended against, by those who’ve managed to kill off or suppress various difficult emotions since they were toddlers. Our CORE (which sits in the center of our torso) is where all manner of emotions and varying degrees of each emotion are supposed to be housed.

Example: We can love or trust someone a lot, or just a little. We can dislike someone either mildly or vehemently. Every emotion we were born with exists on a spectrum, ranging from intense/acute, to very mild or nuanced.

Emotional dissociation prevents our core Self from housing myriad emotions which are vital to a whole, cohesive and healthy personality structure. Think of it this way: If we mentally picture our personality as a wagon wheel, all the spokes which emanate from the center hub of that wheel, represent various personality dimensions/aspects and feeling states that attend them.

The HUB of our personality wheel is Us. It represents our sense of Self and worth~ but if we are missing even a couple of spokes in our wagon wheel, how long will it be before this structure decompensates or breaks, if it has to travel over rough or challenging terrain?

When we amputate fragility, vulnerability and self-compassion out of our personality structure, we are (contrary to a Narcissist’s belief) weakening our wagon wheel. It cannot remain intact, in the face of setbacks, serious life challenges or trauma. The most powerful people alive today, respect and honor their vulnerability~ ‘cause they know if they didn’t, they’d keep putting themselves in harm’s way.

In addition, if we’ve never been able to develop sympathy and compassion for the Self, we are literally incapable of experiencing genuine empathy for another’s pain or struggles. Simply put, when we are divorced from our own fragility (which is at times, a vital part of every single living, breathing organism’s experience) we cannot identify with nor relate to another’s emotional and physical struggles or inner-experiences.

Sympathy for others is marvelous~ but Empathy is a whole different inner-experience, which in my view, is sorely lacking among millions of people in today’s world.

Healing Borderlines is an emotional growth process, that entails re-associating these people with a litany of feeling states that had to be surrendered as young children, in order to survive in their home of origin. These are long-dreaded and feared emotions that are often distracted from and eased thru the use of a variety of addictive behaviors and compulsions.

Helping the BPD client actually experience emotional (and physical) sensations in the body, while keeping them out of their head (which has compulsively analyzed all their emotions since they were a toddler), is the only effective means of helping them outgrow personality disorder traits, and organically mature into their chronological age. One cannot gain moral development, without first having acquired emotional development.

A two year-old is confused by painful emotions he experiences in his body, and as soon as language skills are acquired, he starts asking himself WHY they exist. This is the very start of emotional dissociation.

When we get busy in our head, we effectively distract from painful emotional sensations in our body. Given this provided some modicum of relief when we very young, we kept gravitating to this practice, until it became habituated and automatic. Obsessive-Compulsive thinking is merely a byproduct of unresolved depression that’s resided in one’s Core since infancy and early childhood.

Standard psychotherapeutic treatment cannot address and resolve core trauma pain, because emotional anguish does not reside in one’s mind. It resides in one’s cellular body and heart.