Fears of abandonment in the borderline can even be measured in the brain. One study utilized PET scanning to demonstrate that women with BPD experienced alterations of blood flow in certain areas of the brain when exposed to memories of abandonment.23 Particularly when they are alone, borderlines may lose the sensation of existing, of feeling real. Rather than embracing Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” principle of existence, they live by a philosophy closer to “Others act upon me, therefore I am.”
