There are countless circles that surround the epicentre of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). These circles are, in large part, dangerous distractions for those who have been diagnosed with BPD.
Borderline Self-Harm/Self-Mutilation Serves as a Defense To Unresolved Abandonment Trauma
For many who are diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) self harm and/or self mutilation are maladaptive or pathological attempts to ward off the repressed pain of unresolved abandonment trauma that lies at the heart of BPD.
The Traps and Hooks of Unwinding the Mystery that is the Process of Letting Go – Non Borderlines
For those who are the family member, relationship partner or (ex-partner) of someone with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) – non borderlines – there are countless traps and hooks in the need and even the want of letting go of a relationship (chosen or unchosen) with someone with BPD. A.J. Mahari explains in her audio program series Inside the Borderline Mind many of the puzzle pieces of the enigma that so many non borderlines find make letting go of a relationship with a borderline much more difficult than other relationship break-ups.
Inside The Borderline Mind – Insight For Non Borderlines
Inside the borderline mind there is a very profound split, fragmentation, and in some cases a shattering of the ego due to the narcissistic intrapsychic injury sustained at a very young age as the result of abandonment (actual and/or perceived) that arrests emotional development.
What does every family member, friend, relationship partner, or ex-relationship partner (non borderline) need to know about what goes on inside the borderline mind? Why does understanding the workings of the borderline mind matter to those who are non borderline?
Non Borderlines Trying to Understand Borderline Magical Thinking
What is Magical Thinking In BPD?
Magical thinking is essentially adhering to the (distorted) belief that thoughts can cause events. When someone with BPD is magically thinking and thoughts seem to cause events what is also often a part of this experience for the borderline is that what they feel becomes a fact to him or her in what is a distorted sense of “reality”.
May is BPD Awareness Month in the United States
May has been declared as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) Awareness Month in the United States. I think this is very important. I hope that my country, Canada, and others will follow in supporting raising awareness of and about Borderline Personality
The Mystery of Understanding
Do you need change? Do you know you need something to change but you are not sure what exactly needs to change. Have you identified and area in your life that this need for change is challenging you in and
The Borderline Dance & The Non Borderline Quagmire
There is a central truth about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). It is a truth that is all-too real and painful for both those diagnosed with BPD and those who are family members, relationship partners (ex – relationship partners) children or parents or friends of those with BPD (non borderlines).
Borderline Personality Disorder creates layered situations from which extrication is very difficult. This is true for the borderline or the non borderline.
There is a dance that takes place between those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder(borderlines) and those who try to relate to them (non borderlines). It is painful. The reality of Borderline Personality Disorder in a loved one, partner, family member, or friend, sets up a toxic and painful quagmire for the non borderline.
Borderline Personality Disorder and Relationships
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) puts a tremendous strain on even the best or closest relationships. Whether you have a partner – husband or wife, a girlfriend/boyfriend, friends or even a family member with BPD – any or all relationships can be very strained, if not lost, if those who have BPD do not work to heal much of the aspects of how the BPD traits affect them and the ways that they relate to others.
In my experience, when I had BPD, the most profound area of life that was affected by BPD was that of relationships. In my experience with BPD, that was the case right from my relationship to and with myself, to the relationships within my family of origin, friendships and romantic relationships. All were drastically affected by the way in which BPD had manifested itself in me.
What Is On Your Mind Justifies Your Experience
What is on your mind, that is to say, what you focus on, is what will shape and justify your experience of yourself, of others, and of life. More people are becoming increasingly aware that how and what they think
A.J.’s Memoir About Her Life with BPD and Recovery From BPD
My Up-coming Memoir about My Life with Borderline Personality Disorder and my Recovery From It I am currently writing a memoir about my recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder. In this memoir I will be sharing relevant experiences from my life,
Awareness of The Core Wound of Abandonment Will Change Your Life
It is the core wound of abandonment in those who have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) that is the source of insecure or non-existent attachment that leads to the toxic and unhealthy ruptured relationships that have at their centre emotional enmeshment and an insatiable need for love. These broken relationships, often rupture under the weight of the child-like behaviour and needs of the borderline still searching for the much-needed unconditional acceptance, validation and love of a parent as the result of unmet early childhood developmental needs.
One More Abandonment Will Lead to Recovery
For those with Borderline Personality Disorder the reality is that One More Abandonment In Borderline Personality Will Lead to the Road to Recovery. That abandonment is the borderline’s active choice to abandon his or her previously abandoned pain, to face and welcome in that pain, to tolerate its distress, to regulate the emotions connected to the pain, to grieve the pain, and to eventually let the pain go.
Is Borderline Self Harm Just Attention-Seeking? – Nons
Many family members, loved ones, or relationship partners of those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) (non borderlines) often think and believe that the borderline in their lives is just seeking attention when they engage in self harm or self-harming behaviour.
Why Do Borderlines Often Discuss Their Troubled Pasts Repeatedly?
Those with Borderline Personality Disorder – especially if they aren’t getting treatment – not only often discuss their troubled pasts but they are re-living them more often than not. Troubled aspects of the borderline’s past are triggered in many ways but most commonly and most often through attempts to relate to others. This is the primary basis of so much of the behaviour (and often abuse) that family members or relationships partners of those with BPD (non borderlines) see and often have imposed upon them.
Borderline Personality Disorder – An Intractable Brain Disorder?
There is considerable stigma and a prevalant attitude among many professionals, let alone people diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), that BPD is intractable and cannot be recovered from.
There are many theories as to the cause of BPD that are being forwarded by professionals. There is even an on-going debate about what BPD should really be called. There is this energy invested in all of the theories, all of the ideas about what this mental illness challenge is called or should be called to the point that the related distractions for those with BPD may in fact be blocking their chances for recovery.
From False Self To Authentic Self in BPD – Getting In Touch With Your Inner Child
Those who are diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder get separated from the essence and conscious awareness of this precious part of “self” – the inner child – just as they are separated psychologically and emotionally from the lost authentic self.
The journey from the active throes of Borderline Personality Disorder to getting on and staying on the road to recovery is one that must include integrating one’s inner child and his or her feelings into your conscious awareness in the here and now.
Borderline Personality Disorder – The Inner Child
Each person diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder has the lonelist inner child. Until and unless the inner child is embraced through therapy the borderline continues to live a life split-off from him or her – dissociated from this lonely, needy, inner child that is in tremendous pain. Borderlines need to meet, greet, and learn how to soothe that lonely inner child in order to get on the road to recovery.
Everyone has an inner child. Do those diagnosed with BPD have the loneliest inner children? Often those with BPD abandon and re-abandon their aching and terrified inner children over and over again which in large part is the reason for so much of what is dubbed “borderline behaviour”. I urge borderlines to make the choice to get to know and to free their inner children. It is a vital part of healing.
A.J. Mahari’s Review of the Movie “Girl Interrupted”
The movie “Girl Interrupted”, is an adaptation of Susanna Kaysen’s autobiographical book of the same name (set in the late 1960s) and is essentially about a woman with Borderline Personality Disorder who is voluntarily institutionalized (signs herself in at the age of 18) after trying to committ suicide. The movie attempts to chronicle Susanna’s (Winona Ryder) experiences in therapy as an in-patient in Claymoore women’s ward.
Radical Acceptance – The Pathway to Freedom
Whether you have a mental illness, personality disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, love and care about someone who does, or whether you are stressed out, often anxious, or if you have been sexually abused or had a traumatic or even a merely difficult up-bringing (most have some wounds from childhood) or consider yourself to be healthy and just fine Radical Acceptance can and will enhance your overall quality of life and your spiritual experience in and of everyday life.
