ESSAYS ON BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

April 25, 2008

In my most recent blog post, “Choosing Intimate Partners: To Repeat or Not to Repeat?” I explained and examined my longstanding pattern of developing relationships with women who have turned out to exhibit Borderline tendencies, if not full blown Borderline Personality Disorder. In that post, I also explained that, for the past several months, I have been involved in just such a challenging relationship and discussed my uncertainty, in light of contrasting views of the purpose and role of such relationships, about whether to stay in or leave the relationship.

For a variety of reasons, I had hoped that this may have been the relationship in which the cycle was broken, since this particular person at times seemed more aware of her patterns and open to using potentially healing tools together, such as the tools of Imago Relationship Therapy, among others. However, despite my hopes, it came to my attention the other day in rather painful fashion that the situation was far more unhealthy and illusory than I had imagined. This hurt deeply and threw me into a familiar state of painful withdrawal as I began yet another recovery from such a relationship. While this type of withdrawal is utterly miserable and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, being in the midst of such a vulnerable period does have two silver linings to it.

• I am given a window to be in touch with some of the deepest parts of myself in a way that is not as possible at other times.
  
  
• I am most acutely aware of the many mindbending aspects of the Borderline dynamic and structure.

So, given that I am hurting too much to focus on other writings at the moment anyway, I decided I’d use this time to write out more of my thoughts on Borderline Personality Disorder. Because the Borderline dynamic and structure is so central to our culture, there are an almost infinite variety of angles from which to address it. One angle may hit home for one reader, another angle for another reader. For some readers, it will be some combination of angles that begins to round out the picture. In this series, I will touch on some aspects that I haven’t written about before, while going into greater depth regarding other aspects that I may have written about before.

I hope that this writing may be cathartic for me, as I am able to release some of my thoughts and feelings. I also hope that it may help solidify the reality of the situation, since such relationships can greatly twist one’s perceptions. And of course, I hope that these writings may help others - both Borderlines and Nons (those without BPD themselves, but in a relationship with a Borderline in some form) - to make better sense of their situation.

I tend to be very perfectionistic about my writing and not write until I feel strong enough to put all of my energy into it to make it just right. For example, I’ve been working on my next blog post for 3 weeks and am still not close to ready to post it. Nor do I feel up to finishing it now since my focus is elsewhere. But I decided that I would try to let go of the perfectionism regarding the quality of the writing and simply write about whatever topics related to Borderline come up for me without too much judgment. After all, that’s why I have a variety of areas on this website for different kinds of writing. And, of course, I can always write higher quality pieces later to add to these if I am so inclined. So there is nothing to lose in simply writing as it comes out and letting it be.

So, while these articles may not represent my highest quality writing, I hope that they will prove valuable to some readers nonetheless. I will be adding them to this section as I write them so check back often.

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