The Enemy Within in Borderline Personality Disorder

The Enemy Within in Borderline Personality Disorder. Is the person with BPD his or her own worst enemy? “Something I’ve always wanted to know about Borderline Personality Disorder is why does it feel like I have an enemy inside of me? As someone who has BPD am I my own worst enemy and does that enemy really live inside me? If so, what does that actually mean? Who am I?” – Chris W., Ontario, Canada

The BPD Coach, A.J. Mahari responds:

Chris, let me first say, in this response, that I absolutely thought and therefore felt the same way that you do now, when I had BPD. Because I have recovered from BPD I know that recovery from BPD is possible. So, feeling this way right now does not mean you will always feel this way. There is a definite and very painful inner-struggle that goes on inside of anyone diagnosed with BPD.

Whether one is aware of this inner-struggle or not there definitely is one. You have used the word enemy. A strong and powerful word with an equally powerful negative connotation. This negativity can have the effect of further tearing at your already lost self in negative and painful ways that your thinking will contribute to your re-experiencing. It is very important to be as aware as you can be of just how you are thinking. Thoughts are energy and they do shape the way that we, as human beings, with or without BPD, will feel.

Enemy is a powerfully negative word and concept. Using the word enemy implies feelings of hatred.  An enemy is defined as an adversary or opponent. Your question about could you have an enemy inside of you because you have BPD does, however, make a lot of sense. How? Well in so far as you do not have a stable sense of self and you have in fact lost your authentic self. This means that you, like anyone else with BPD, are living through the borderline false self which can seem like an enemy in many ways but is best thought of as an adversary or opponent. An adversary or opponent that nevertheless is a pseudo self that has helped you to survive. The borderline false self serves an important purpose and functions for all intents and purposes in one’s childhood. It is when those who are diagnosed with BPD become adults that the borderline false self ceases to be effective and, in fact, becomes much more of an obstacle to healthy relating and over-all functioning. Even more than this, for those with BPD, the borderline false self in adulthood, stands between you and your lost authentic self effectively then standing between you and recovery.

My answer then to your question, do you have an enemy inside of you is no. Not really. What you have is a pseudo false self that has protected you and whose current protection is no longer functional or appropriate in your life and is holding you back from finding the Self that you lost to the core wound of abandonment that is so central in Borderline Personality Disorder.

Rather than an enemy or an adversary or even an opponent it can be most helpful to think of this false self as an old friend, albeit a friend with a lion-share of its own contempt and hostility born out of your woundedness, who has tried to help you out. A friend that you now need to work at saying good-bye to as you actively engage the journey of recovery – the journey From False Self To Authentic Self in Borderline Personality Disorder.

It is important to recognize that splitting the false self you have been living through from the lost authentic self as an all-bad enemy is the basis from which all other defensive splitting and polarized thinking in BPD can and will hold you back and keep you entrenched in the pain of BPD interfering with or keeping you unaware of all that you can do to improve the quality of your life and work toward recovery.

To hold a part of yourself and your life experience out as an enemy within is to tear away at the remaining fiber of your lost authentic self. You asked the question: “Who am I?” This is a question that you really have to answer in your own process of recovery. However, I would add that it will be beneficial for you to radically accept that you do not know who you are at the moment. This means that you actively choose to stop defining yourself through the borderline false self or the fact that you have BPD and that you instead begin to search for that lost authentic self that will, in time, be the answer to your question.

The enemy within in Borderline Personality Disorder, so to speak, is not who “you really are”. It is not even the false self. It isn’t the reality of the loss of your authentic self. It isn’t even the reality that you lack an known sense of self – of identity – of a stable self. The enemy within in Borderline Personality Disorder is actually the way that you allow yourself to continue to think in old cognitively distorted negative defensive ways that keep you bound to the schema of your woundedness, abandonment trauma, and that keep the very abandoned pain that you need to work through and resolve often outside of your here and now consciousness.

The first step toward letting go of this notion that you have an enemy within yourself, a self that you don’t even yet know, is to radically accept that you do not know who you are quite yet. Surrender to that reality and also its pain. Choose to feel that pain with the support of a therapist and/or a BPD coach like myself. Actively engage the search for your lost self – your true identity paying specific focused and positive attention to each and every here and now moment and the emotional triggers that seek to teach you in these here and now moments that are the gateways of and to recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder.

© The BPD Coach A.J. Mahari and Touchstone Life Coaching August 28, 2009 -  All rights reserved.

If you would like to ask the BPD Coach, A.J. Mahari, a question, please email her at bpdcoachaj@yahoo.ca with your question. Please also indicate if you would be okay with your name being used if A.J. responds to your question here. If not, please suggest a pseudonym that you would like your question attributed to.

All responses given by The BPD Coach, A.J. Mahari, are meant to convey general information and are not intended to be in anyway a specific recommendation or commentary on any personal life situation. Coaching is not therapy. It is also not a replacement for professional therapy. Coaching can be an effective adjunct to professional therapy for those with Borderline Personality Disorder and/or their loved ones.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.