My Life

Someone on http://www.bpdfamily.com/ posted this article and it made my heart stop.

Below is what I believe to be one of the best explanations of BPD behavior and


it's cause: by Richard Skerritt



Abandonment/Vulnerability



The flip-flop of emotions in a BP relationship can be devastating. This is

usually called abandonment/ engulfment. It's described well in Stop Walking on

Eggshells by Mason and Kreger.



I've been split into oblivion by two women I've gotten close to, and I

struggled to understand the dynamic. Both women ended their relationship with me

by simply acting as if I didn't exist, presumably because they had connected

me with some prior, very painful experience. It's a coping mechanism that

protects them from anything or anyone that reminds them of memories that are too

painful to deal with.



In trying to understand these experiences, I took a little different view.

I've been influenced by an interesting book: Struggle for... Intimacy by

Woititz (p 163).



Abandonment: BPs, ACOAs, and other unlucky souls were abandoned as children. Not

that they were left on the steps of an orphanage - that would have been much

preferable. These people were abandoned up close and personal. When they needed

love and support from their parents, their parents were right there to NOT give

it to them. Moreover, they were told, over and over, implicitly and explicitly,

that they were despicable people and that the terrible problems in their

families were all their fault. They emerge from childhood feeling that they are

terribly faulty people and that no one will ever be there for them. To protect

themselves from the pain of this belief, they put up a mask of very proper and

attractive behavior so that others won't see how awful they are.



So into their adult lives you come, attracted (so they think) by this false

facade. They don't realize that you actually see their flaws. They are

terrified that you will see through the facade and discover what an awful person

they are. Once you see this, CERTAINLY you will abandon them just like their

parents did. They struggle to make the mask perfect, but it can't be done. At

some point, some error, some tiny flaw (trigger) becomes evident.



Well, the games up; you now know how faulty they are. All you have to do is

not fall over yourself reassuring them, and that's proof positive that

you're outta there. They're going to freak out and all kinds of strange

behavior will emerge.



One way they might react is projection: There seems to be a problem here. It

can't possibly be me. Therefore it must be you. And since you have a

problem bad enough that you would abandon her over it, it looks pretty bad as

your problem, too. You're gonna catch it for that.



Or, you may be hoovered (sucked back in, á la the vacuum cleaner) with all

their might, trying to put that facade back in place and make things right. Or

they may go to great lengths to get you to reaffirm your devotion to them, to

the point of threatening suicide.



Vulnerability: Well, here I take a little different spin on things form the

standard engulfment idea. I find it makes more sense to think of this in

terms of vulnerability. Let's explore the childhood experience again. Here you

have a child who needed emotional support. She opened herself up emotionally to

her parents to receive this support. Instead she received emotional or physical

attacks. She has learned that to stay safe, she must not expose her

vulnerability to anyone else.



Of course, everyone wants intimate emotional support. And as an adult, she may

eventually give in to this desire and start to open herself to you. She wants

loving intimacy. But her childhood experiences force her to be on high alert for

attack. After all, this is all she's ever known.



Unknowingly, you rub you nose the wrong way, or do something else that triggers

her connection to painful memories. Well, her parents always did that. To her,

this feels like a sure sign that you are secretly planning to attack.



Your ruse is up. Just as you thought you were getting close to her, you had to

go and rub your nose the wrong way and spoil everything. She sees through you

now. You are just like her parents, and emotions take over. Her fear is

overwhelming, and causes her to attack back, or run. Maybe both. She may be so

frightened by being vulnerable to you that she may turn you into the evil

torturers that she had to live with as a child. It's not that she thinks

you're like them. She's not thinking at all. The emotions are in control. As

I like to say:emotion overwhelms cognition.



Your tiny action (trigger) was enough to make you fit the pattern. Her fears

were unleashed from inside, and you are now a terrifying attacker. You might

even be split right out of existence - simply become a non-entity. After all,

that will at least make her safe.



So I like to think of it as abandonment/ vulnerability. Her self-loathing leads

her to be sure you'll want to abandon her as soon as you see through her. Her

experience of being attacked as a child means she will sense an impending attack

when she makes herself vulnerable to you, and she will push you away to stay

safe.



Don't leave me; you're terrible - the two edges of the BP sword.





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Tracy Brothers