Although I myself cannot take credit for writing the following article.. It fits me like a glove.. I have many troubles relating to others and being in a relationship is the thing that affects me the most with my disorder... Having to deal with another person"s emotions and feelings while never knowing my own is often unbearable... The following piece describes how I and many others feel with the Jungle of Relationships..I know that I myself go from one extreme to another in relationships and balance is difficult to maintain.. Always looking for something new to fill the constantly empty void...

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) profoundly inhibits those diagnosed with it from bonding in healthy ways that can then lead to productive relating in any and all forms/types of relationships.

It isn’t really possible to bond with others in healthy ways when one does not know who they are and is not bonded to one’s own true self.

Most with BPD struggle with intense and very unstable relationships. All-too-often relationships just don’t work for them or those who love and care about them. There is a tremendous amount of pain that those in these relationships experience on both sides of the Borderline Personality Disorder fence.

Why is it the case that more relationships than not with and for those with BPD do not work out or last?

Put simply, it’s that Borderline Dance of “I hate you, don’t leave me.” This dynamic dance is set in motion when the person diagnosed with BPD tries to be close to someone. It kicks in for most when they are in a relationship in which attempts at intimacy are made.

In order to be able to be truly intimate and not threatened and/or triggered by it one has to be able to tolerate distance. Many with BPD are unable to tolerate average healthy distance that is necessary in healthy relationships. Rather they experience this distance as rejection and/or abandonment. The intense feelings that these feelings of rejection and/or abandonment fuel is the impetus that causes those with BPD to feel a desperate need to defend against the very one they love and partly want to be close to. This distances the borderline’s partner in often abusive ways and leave the borderline feeling rejected and/or abandoned again. It is a very self-defeating circle to be stuck in.

For most with BPD, until they find themselves and reclaim true self and personhood in therapy, intimacy and being close to anyone is far too threatening. While they may really want to be close they fear it with as much, if not more, intensity, and end up defending against it and pushing away what they really want in need with and from the other person. This sets up the borderline to continue to re-experience this upheaval as rejection and/or abandonment which in a cognitively-distorted way then supports the borderline belief that they are not safe in trying to be close and that they need to defend. Thus a virtually unending cycle of self-defeat is perpetuate by many with BPD. This borderline cycle leaves those close to the person with borderline in a double-bind “no win” situation.

Why do those with BPD fear closeness and intimacy?

Closeness and intimacy are feared because lacking a stable sense of true identity those with BPD fear being engulfed which is tantamount for them to being annihilated and seeking to exist. What gets set up in relationships for those with BPD is the re-playing of their past relationships. Past relationships which often were riddled with emotional trauma, mixed messages, and insecurity. The feelings of being engulfed as a child feel annihilating because one is needy and dependant upon parents or caretakers.

This child-like neediness is re-enacted with those who have BPD in intimate relationships (and sometimes in friendships too) because it is all those with BPD know. They know a fear that is so deeply ingrained in a profound woundedness that is then played out over and over in a repetition compulsion the genesis of which has at its source a deep-seated need to resolve the primitive emotional and developmental conflicts generated in the borderline’s experience of being neglected, abandoned, rejected and invalidated (real, actual and/or perceived).

This Borderline Dance of “I hate you, don’t leave me” puts an enormous amount of pressure and responsibility upon the friend or non-borderline partner. Many with BPD transfer their personal responsibility onto a partner. More often than not the partner of someone who is in the active throes of BPD (usually untreated) is seen more often than not as the parent of the borderline in what are constant triggered, fragmented, dissociated ways that the borderline is experiencing his/her past in most here and now relational moments.

R.C.