"All alone in the universe Sometimes that's how it seems I get lost in the sadness and the screams Then I look in the center Suddenly everything's clear I find myself in the sunshine and my dreams."(1)
When I was borderline I was not aware of the untold damage I did, not only to myself but to others. As I look back upon it all now I can clearly see that when I was borderline I was treating others as I had been treated in the primary relationships of my youth -- abusively.
When I was borderline I was looking for space -- for my space, for that place inside where "I" really lived. When I was borderline I had to be absorbed in my own world until I could find my way through the sadness and the screams. Each one of us has to find our own way through our sadness and our screams --this cannot be achieved by trying to live and feel through others. No one else can do this for you. When I was borderline I just couldn't see anyone else because I was so blinded by the absence of seeing my "self".
I was unable to relate in any other way. Relating in an abusive and self-absorbed way was all I knew how to do. My relational style, when I was borderline, was very much motivated by pain and fear. It was also very much the product of everyone I came into contact with and tried to relate to being the primary care-givers of my past -- the ones who had abused me and not been there for me. I saw the past in everyone and in every situation. I did not have a strong sense or awareness of this. It felt like an automatic response/reaction to the pressures of relating, and at times, existing.
When I was borderline I lived between worlds and realities. I straddled the here and now and the past constantly. Often I had little to no awareness of this as these two "realities" would blend together leaving me further lost to the day and further lost to myself and often having had successfully further alienated people from me.
I was perpetuating my own obsessive fear of being rejected, abandoned and left alone. In fact, for years I was the author of these events. It had become a self-fulfilling prophecy long before I came to understand that I had a very active and responsible part in what kept happening to the relationships in my life. It was my lack of ability to relate to myself, and consequently others, that fueled the pattern of my seemingly endless rejection, abandonment and resulting isolated loneliness.
When I was borderline I believed that everything I felt and had to endure was life's fault -- that it was the fault of everyone else. I did not take any responsibility for this. After all, it was clearly how I continued to CHOOSE to remain a helpless victim of happenstance and circumstance -- or so I thought.
Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. When I was borderline I wouldn't let anyone in. I was inpenetrable. I was well hidden (lost in fact) behind layers and layers of protective walls. Walls that I had built. Walls that I did not want to take ownership of or responsibility for building. Walls that I blamed on others. Walls of abuse that learned how to abuse.
When I was borderline I was in a constant state of anger and often rage. That too, I concluded was everyone else's fault. I was just a victim of that too. I couldn't help what I felt -- after all, I was borderline and "they" had done it all to me.
Here was the one single-most all-encompassing cognitive distortion of them all -- that what I felt or what I couldn't do was all "their" fault. This distorted (borderline) thought process enabled me to remain stuck for years. Stuck in feelings of helplessness and victimization that, regardless of what was done to me, was MY FAULT -- WAS MY RESPONSIBILITY-- WAS MY CHOICE--
If you are borderline and you want to heal you have to, at some point, come to this awareness. It hurts very much to admit it, to take it in, to own it and assume personal responsibility. BUT -- it is the only way to walk the bridge from borderline reality to mental health.
When I was borderline, though much has been done to me by others and my needs were not met as a young developing child -- clearly I had made many many choices -- maladaptive choices as to how to cope and it was my choices (NOT WHAT HAD BEEN DONE TO ME) that kept me "stuck" -- trapped within the throes of Borderline Personality Disorder largely as the direct result of the cognitive distortions that I chose to cling to as being "real". Looking back I now know that was my choice
In order to heal from BPD it is necessary to let go of all the cognitive distortions and accompanying illogical beliefs. This tandem of cognitively distorted thoughts and illogical beliefs usually leads a borderline to develop a rigid and black and white (all-or-nothing) pattern of thought that contibutes to the development of magical thinking, ideas of reference and often religiosity. All of these things play a significant role in borderline projection and transference -- in how borderlines desperately seek to live and self-validate through others. It is this desperate neediness that serves to further trap you within the grips of the core of what BPD is.
In my experience the core of BPD is the distorted child-like thought patterns that are developed - adhered to - acted upon, and then clung to no matter what the results are. The results, for most borderlines, are a myriad of failed relationships, friendships and most devastingly of all the lack of a developed adult "true" self from which to discearn what is and isn't what one is actually experiencing in the here and now of life as it unfolds.
Being borderline will forever tie you to your past in ways that will just continue to play out your past pain. (If you chose to let it) That pain (through it's dissociated "reality") will forever feel like it has merit in your here and now -- effectively ruining your ability to relate and to succeed emotionally in life as an adult until you work through the cognitive distortions associated with that painful past and separate it out from your here and now -- integrating your pain, loss and grief through the healthy expression of it and enabling yourself to then mature emotionally past the age or stage of emotional development in which you have been stuck, as a borderline. When you hang on so tightly you will continue to lose and or to be lost. Letting go is not losing, it is gaining. Let go of borderline reality and gain mental health. Let GO!
This requires that you begin to challenge what you have always believed about yourself and about others. It is very painful. It will feel very overwhelming at times. It will be the source of much pain and grief. It will be worth it. You can set yourself free -- you can find your space, your sunshine and your dreams. Mental Health is only choices away.
Looking back now, I can honestly say, "I wouldn't give nothing for my journey now". (Maya Angelou) I am who and what I am today because I was borderline -- because I did what I had to do to survive and because through it all my sensitivity and compassion have prevailed.
If you are borderline think long and hard about what you are holding on to and what it is costing you. And know, that the pain of holding on, will one special day for you, become GREATER than the pain of letting go. When that is what you feel - trust that feeling -- LET GO -- begin the walk across that bridge from borderline personality disorder to mental health.
It has been the most incredible journey for me. To come into my own in the "big picture" of life. It is not at all what I had imagined it might be. Life, never offers us perfection. Life never offers us a "pain-free" contract or any guarantee that we will not experience rejection, abandonment and times be all alone -- NO! But by working hard to heal from BPD you can give yourself the most precious gift of knowing how to tolerate, accept, live with, nurture and soothe yourself through these most "normal" experiences in and of life.
I am no longer borderline. Sometimes I am happy. Sometimes I am sad -- the miracle though is sometimes I am both at the same time.
Life in the total of its existence as each of us meets with it in the experiencing of who each one of us is -- is a wonderous smorgasboard of contradictions. I have learned that these contradictions presented to me so much opportunity to learn and to grow. I always knew that I was meant to know this simply-complicated splendor. Being borderline gave me this unique opportunity to feel so much and to come back to centre stronger, smarter, and with such insight and compassion that I do not regret one day of the agony of being borderline or of recovering. For in recovering from BPD I have been gifted with getting to know me. I am not unique. If I can do this -- SO CAN YOU! Refuse to believe any professional that does not believe BPD can be healed -- I'm here to say simply say -- Borderline Personality Disorder -- is not a life sentence.
I am no longer borderline -- I have found my place, my space, and I know who I am and I understand ... there is a rainbow of colour in the grey -- that exists between the rigidly-limited confines of borderline black and white -- healing is learning to swim in this sea of colour and in the mix of contradiction and unpredictability. Health requires risk. "Only those who risk can be set free" (anon)
"When I was borderline" ... is such a thing of the past.
(1) John Denver - Song - "Looking For Space" CD John Denver's Greatest Hits Vol 2
© Ms. A.J. Mahari - March 11, 2000
Originally published at Suite101.com
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