BPD Criterion # 1- Frantic efforts to avoid Abandonment. - Living on the Border !!!- JournalHome.com

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3/20/2008 - BPD Criterion # 1- Frantic efforts to avoid Abandonment.

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Awhile back I made a posting here on my blog about the BPD criterion and how each one of the Criteria for the disorder affected me and related to my life, Now I want to do something similar and each day for the next ten days or so talk about a specific Criteria and in more detail how it affects me. I feel that it is important both for my own development and for anyone else who may read this blog who has trouble understanding their illness. So, here is my first entry in relation to the nine criteria of BPD , this is how it affects me and my life and can be different for each and every person. 1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. I have a definite fear of being left or abandoned by those that are in my life. I suppose that it goes back to when I was a child and my father left me but of course it does not stop there as I have lost many people in my life due to one reason or another, it could be girlfriends breaking up with me, people dying on me, or friends not wanting to hang out with me any longer because I was not cool enough. Many of my BPD thinking patterns and behaviors are both learned and Inherited and this is no exception. Because of the things that have happened to me in the past , my chemical makeup and how I saw my mother react to the world in general I formed my fears, doubts, and character flaws. My abandonment issues are very complicated and they are like the criteria states “real and/or Imagined ” , I do imagine many things that are not true and sometimes I do fear that someone will leave me or I will lose a job, apartment, or be kicked out of a club or sports team so I remove myself from that relationship, job, or situation before I can be hurt or they have the chance to reject or abandon me. Of course many times it is my imagination but I do feel that I never can measure up and am not good enough so I am doing others a favor by running away. Some of the ways I make “frantic efforts ” to avoid this painful abandonment are the following. 1. Start fights with others, breach their trust, or act out in inappropriate ways , then plead them to stay. 2. Do whatever they want so they do not leave, become someone I am not to avoid being left. 3. Threaten to kill or hurt myself and sometimes cut myself so they will know I am serious. 4. Threaten to tell their secrets in order to hold something over them to stay. 5. Lay down the guilt trip that if they leave they will be responsible for whatever happens to me. 6. Call them over and over when they do leave and plead with them to return. These are some of the ways I have acted when confronted with a situation where I was being left or feared I would be left and abandoned. I usually get real angry when the possibility arises and plead and plead, cry and cry for them not to leave me, fire me, or whatever. When that does not work I usually go into raging and suicidal explosions and act out or act in , hoping that this works. I feel that they are going to hurt me so I must do whatever I can as a last ditch effort to save myself from the impending pain. I fear being abandoned and I fear abandoning others as I do what I know, I have learned that people always leave and I have acted out that learned behavior as well. Pain is what I know and we do what we know. When people reject me or leave me or I fear that I will lose what I have I feel that I am bad and have done something to deserve this and that re enforces my negative image of who I am. This is something that has been a part of my life since I can remember.

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