Borderline Personality disorder is one of the most difficult disorders to work with and live with, either as the sufferer of BPD or the partner of a Borderline.
Borderline Personality Disorder is similar to Narcissistic Personality Disorder and some psychologists, such as the late Alexander Lowen, believe borderline is a type of Narcissism, similar to covert narcissism or vulnerable narcissism. It can be very difficult to tell the difference between what is called vulnerable or covert narcissism and BPD.
Some refer to the Borderline as a failed narcissist, because they didn’t fully develop a narcissistic ego as the overt narcissist did. The shell that forms around a narcissist, protecting him or her from shame and unbearable emotional pain, is thick and impenetrable with a narcissist, where with a borderline it is thin and sometimes missing altogether.
Many describe a borderline as an emotional burn victim because they are very thin skinned and raw on an emotional level. They don’t have the tough protection of an overt narcissist. Although an overt narcissist can be hypersensitive to criticism and not being seen in the light they want to be seen in, they have a much stronger defense than a borderline.
What makes the borderline disorder particularly challenging is the splitting from all good to all bad. This is why the borderline loves you one minute and hates you the next. It can be very confusing to see a borderline split, because it makes no logical sense. “We were getting along beautifully and then bam! One might describe a split as “his eyes went dark and he became very hateful towards me.”
How and why does this happen?
With a borderline the splitting can be a result of a borderline Mother. A Mother who is loving and nurturing one minute and then angry, abusive and punishing the next, can be so confusing for a child, the only way they can cope is to split the Mother into either all good, or all bad. So there is the good Mother, who loves her child and there is the bad Mother who is cruel and abusive to her child.
I learned some interesting information about BPD from Childhoodtraumarecovery.com.
The child forms two mental representations of the mother (one reflecting her ‘all bad’ side and one representing her ‘all good’ side) and stores these representations, it has been hypothesized, in two different parts of the brain, as follows:
• the mental representation of the ‘all good’ mother is stored in the right hemisphere of the brain.
• the mental representation of the ‘all bad’ mother is stored in the left hemisphere of the brain.
This process is often referred to by psychologists as ‘splitting‘, a psychological defense mechanism which can lead to not only two opposing, unintegrated mental representations of the mother (‘good’ and ‘bad’) but, similarly, two such contrasting, unintegrated views of the world in general. Because of the mother’s extremes of behavior, the two hemispheres in the brain are theorized not to develop in the normal, integrated way, but to develop in such a way that makes each hemisphere relatively autonomous.
This lack of integration between the two hemispheres, and because of the different ways in which each hemisphere operates, may also mean that the individual whose brain development has been harmed in such a way may also develop a marked tendency to dramatically fluctuate between viewing people, events and circumstances in a logical or over-valuing way (when in what we might call ‘left-hemisphere mode’) and viewing these same people, events and circumstances in a severely hostile, negative and critical way when in the ‘right-brain mode’, seeing everything in terms of ‘black and white’ rather than in more subtle, nuanced and sophisticated shades of grey.
When we fall in love with a borderline, we don’t meet the devaluing, hostile side of the individual at first. We meet the over-valuing, loving, caring, sensitive, part and this part can be really amazing, which is why we fall for this person.
We are not aware at the time we are falling in love that there is another side until we experience the right hemisphere switch. Our first thought is “who are you and what did you do with my guy or girl?” This is what is called splitting.
We are never prepared. Our own minds have difficulty comprehending what is happening. There is literally a split personality. One side is kind and loving and the other side is dark and abusive.
Those of us who have loved a borderline, keep waiting for our love to return. We don’t want to believe the cruel side is real. We chalk it up to some kind of stress or mental break and want to believe it is temporary. Unfortunately it isn’t. We may get the kind, loving side back but it won’t last.
Often times the splitting may involve several partners or love objects. The borderline may love the “new person,” they just met or who is a secondary source of narcissistic supply, and hate the “current partner,” who the borderline has built a life with. If the borderline leaves his or her current partner and goes to the secondary source of supply, it is only a matter of time before the splitting happens there and the roles may reverse to where the old partner is idealized and the new partner devalued.
It is a very complex web that psychologists have identified as a personality disorder. But borderline personality disorder is known to be a dance between neurosis and psychosis. There is a psychotic element to it, which puts borderline personality disorder in the realm of a mental illness. This may be the only thing that really makes sense. We not only witness the splitting into all good and all bad, but we witness a delusional aspect of the personality where it is very clear that the borderline, when splitting, is not living in the same reality as the observing partner.
