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March 6 - March 23, 2019
Therapists since Freud have observed that trauma, abandonment, or being poorly nurtured can result in the child’s personality development being impaired and stunted at the stage of development where the loss or trauma occurred.
personality is a constant building-up process of adding more and more awareness and skills to a base,
Narcissists and borderlines present themselves to the world in opposite ways, as the light and the dark, the charming and the hostile, or the positive and the negative of each other. They appear rather like a pair of opposites on the outside. The borderline acts emotionally more negative, less social, less predictable, and more dependent. The narcissist acts more friendly, outgoing, outrageously optimistic, fantastically competent, and in control. Despite the differences in these two external personality patterns, borderlines and narcissists share a similar internal sense of low self-esteem,
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Both need a Caretaker to provide extensive validation, to let them have control over the relationship, to give them an unending amount of attention, and to reassure them that they and the Caretaker have the same thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.
The BP/NP has much more intense reactions to all of their feelings than normal individuals. These negative feelings are so upsetting that they try to push them away by projecting them onto someone else, especially someone who is emotionally and intimately close, such as a child or a spouse. The BP/NP has a desperate need to have someone in his or her life to carry these overwhelming negative feelings, someone to accuse of causing the internal pain, someone to hate so as not to hate the self.
BP/NPs are deeply afraid of being alone, being abandoned, being needy, being invisible, and being unloved. They struggle with a fear of emotionally dying or ceasing to exist if they don’t get these fears soothed by someone else.
BP/NPs are also afraid of being close to anyone. They are afraid of being absorbed into someone else’s personality and emotionally annihilated, and they fear being used or humiliated by the person they depend on.
BP/NPs have a unique way of “seeing” the world to make it feel safer and less chaotic. It is called splitting. Splitting is a defense mechanism that divides the world—all events, people, and feelings—into either good or bad.
The BP/NP-dominated family is designed to protect the BP/NP. The needs of other family members are not considered in this design. Family members must learn to give into the BP/NP’s wants and needs or else pay the price of a temper tantrum, rejection, or emotional or even physical attack. Family members have to take up the slack because of the BP/NP’s lack of follow-through, impulsive behaviors, delusional thinking, and confusing, inconsistent, unpredictable, and demanding behaviors. All the rules and roles in the family are designed to make life and daily interactions comfortable for the BP/NP
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The persecutor and rescuer play out the agreement: “You can’t get along without me.” The victim and rescuer play out the agreement: “We have a special connection.” The persecutor and victim are playing out the agreement: “If you become what I want, I will love you.”
BP/NPs typically feel that it is just too much to ask of them to be responsible for anything they haven’t decided to do.
BP/NPs cannot stand to accept that they ever make mistakes, make bad judgments, have caused anyone to feel bad, or need to make changes in themselves—except, that is, when they are occasionally overwhelmed by feeling all these things a thousandfold. BP/NPs are never responsible, or they are totally responsible. These extreme reactions to everyday problems create an ongoing family chaos of blame and denial as well as a sense of confusion and distortion as to what is real. It also makes it difficult to do any sort of effective problem solving.
BP/NPs actually feel so totally anguished about any mistake that they cannot recognize or own their mistakes for fear that all their self-hatred will come to the forefront of their awareness.
BP/NPs use a lot of internally created, delusional explanations for how they came to feel so terrible. To them, their feelings are the actual truth of reality despite any facts to the contrary. If they feel a certain way, BP/NPs will assume that someone or something outside of themselves made them feel that way.
The BP/NP often uses the phrase, “You made me feel . . .”
The more confused you feel, the more vulnerable you are to discounting your own judgment, believing that you really are the cause, and going along with the BP/NP to keep the peace.
the more you believe the delusion that you are responsible for how the BP/NP feels, the worse you feel about yourself.
BP/NPs often hold an extremely perfectionist standard for the behavior of others while expecting very few or no consequences for their own behaviors.
The BP/NP may be irresponsible, abusive, sarcastic, self-centered, and mean, but you are required to make the BP/NP feel better, never disagree with him or her, and never tell people outside the family anything negative about the BP/NP.
Elderly BP/NPs often still expect their adult children to obey them the same way they did when they were 12 years old.
Taking the blame is not a way to gain power in the relationship with the BP/NP. It is only a road to futility.
The BP/NP also mystifies (confuses) your picture of reality by inconsistent and crazy-making comments and behaviors
BP/NPs do not see things from an objective or reality perspective. They have a feeling, act on it for their own benefit, and then make up a plausible reason for why they did it. The reason doesn’t have to make sense in reality because the BP/NP doesn’t operate in reality. The BP/NP’s motives and conclusions make sense only to the BP/NP. When you try to make BP/NPs see that their thinking doesn’t make sense, they can talk in circles until you are totally confused about what is going on.
Children in BP/NP families learn to care for the parent in an attempt to get cared for themselves.
You are expected to think like the BP/NP, feel like him or her, and share the same opinions and behaviors as he or she has.
merging is exchanged for real intimacy.
True intimacy is really a mutual sharing of one person’s most personal and individual thoughts, feelings, and beliefs with another, the assumption being that the two people are unique and different and that the sharing is a test of love and acceptance of each for the other. Intimacy solidifies your sense of being seen and accepted for who you really are.
Primarily, it is the hope or fantasy of being seen, heard, and responded to that keeps Caretakers in the relationship.
Being a Caretaker can lead to a heady feeling of being a strong, wise, and needed person. Playing this role as a child can make you feel equal or even superior to the adults in the family. Unfortunately, being a Caretaker means learning to be overly vigilant of the needs of others and pretty much ignorant of your own feelings, needs, and reactions, but you may not even notice that since you are so focused on the BP/NP.
Whenever the borderline acts normally, you become immensely elated, believing time and time again that now “everything will be better,” only to be let down when he or she returns to dysfunctional thinking and behaving again.
People who are emotionally intense, more sensitive to stress, more easily confused by double messages, and overwhelmed by illogical interactions or passive-aggressive behaviors have greater tendencies to develop borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder.
There also appears to be a biological factor in borderline personality disorder—perhaps
Noncaretakers do not feel a need to protect, save, feel sorry for, or understand the borderline.
noncaretakers see the BP/NP as strange, odd, and annoying. The noncaretaker’s typical reaction is to move away from interacting with the BP/NP because the usual give-and-take and the normal boundaries of a healthy relationship are constantly being breached.
being a Caretaker is not the same as being a nice person. Caretaking doesn’t mean that you are more caring or more understanding or especially kind. Caretaking a BP/NP comes from a mix of dysfunctional and distorted emotions, thoughts, and behaviors that lead to self-destruction and eventual disability,
The BP/NP is often very intolerant of anyone else expressing emotion. So you have learned to ignore or repress your own feelings.
You tend to inwardly criticize the awfulness of your own emotional reactions, yet you significantly downplay the emotionality of the BP/NP. This results in your colluding with the BP/NP to maintain the relationship just as it is.
When you deny your wants and feelings over and over, try to smooth things over for the BP/NP too long, and force yourself to stay calm even when you feel furious, it is not surprising that you eventually blow up, start an argument, or feel like you just can’t stand a certain irritating situation one moment longer.
Feelings can’t go forever being shut down. Feelings that are invalidated, denied, and ignored can cause a physical tension that can explode with little or no warning.
BP/NPs latch on to this display of emotion in Caretakers to “prove” that you are just like them.
When you look inside, you will see that you have a secret and intense desire to be seen, heard, cherished, and nurtured just like everyone else.
This explosion of neediness and vulnerability is often interpreted by you and the BP/NP as evidence that both of you are alike. Keep in mind that your show of neediness happens once or twice a year and that the BP/NP’s neediness happens dozens of times a day.
Since the BP/NP’s most common response to the world is to blame others for his or her feelings, you are in for a lot of guilt feelings in these relationships.
Caretakers do not let go of any relationships easily; you will try everything possible, including giving up your own feelings and needs, to save the relationship with the BP/NP. You may feel that letting go of this relationship is a personal failure. You may have a mystical feeling that if you had been good enough, you could have made it work by your sheer determination. This is emotional reasoning rather than reality thinking.
You can’t consider options when things have to be all one way forever. With this thinking, any decision can be made only once and must last forever, which is what the BP/NP actually believes and wants.
you will still be blamed by the BP/NP for anything that makes him or her unhappy no matter what you do.
Saying “no” in any form to a BP/NP is rarely received well.
You think that if you don’t have thoughts or wants, then you will never be in disagreement with the BP/NP.
The BP/NP doesn’t change by the example of others. He or she is too self-absorbed to notice.
