Why Does Borderline Personality Hurt Me So Much – I can’t stand the pain what do I do?

I am a 54 year old woman with Borderline Personality Disorder. Why does it hurt so much having BPD? Why am I always in so much pain? I don’t understand where the pain is coming from, what it means, or what I am supposed to do with it or about it. Every time my therapist starts to talk about pain I just block out everything she says. I just can’t hear it. Help! What can I do to deal with all of this pain that I just can’t stand? - M.W.B. – Utah, U.S.A.

BPD Coach A.J. Mahari responds:

M.W.B., as you ask about and describe Borderline Personality Disorder is a very painful mental illness. There is an intense and heightened sensitivity in those diagnosed with BPD. Rejection sensitivity that goes hand in hand with a fear of abandonment and/or fear of perceived abandonment that is thought to be remotely possible in the near future or that one has come to expect. This fear of abandonment, for most with BPD, which has its roots in the past in what I’ve termed the legacy of abandonment in BPD becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for those with BPD  due to living through the borderline false self due to the absence of a known authentic self.

Having lost your authentic self to a very wounding and traumatic experience of abandonment is an extremely painful experience. It is the painful experience that people with BPD re-live out parts of over and over each and every time they are triggered into dysregulated emotions and this is at the center of why having Borderline Personality Disorder does hurt so much.

People diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder experience emotional triggers that re-play out very painful past experience in dissociative ways. When you have been diagnosed with BPD it also means that you experienced arrested emotional development at a very young age. Therefore much of how you emotionally experience your life is similar to still being an young child.

The pain that is universal to those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder is the pain of the experience of the shame of abandonment an experience that is not only at the heart of the lost self in BPD but that also results in cyclical fashion because the pain of the core wound of abandonment in Borderline Personality Disorder is then pain that is abandoned because in the loss of your Self at a young age you were not able to learn how to regulate your emotions in ways that would have meant you could have effectively dealt with your pain.

In order to recover from Borderline Personality Disorder and to address your pain and begin and stick with the process of healing that pain over time you really do need to start to face your pain with the help of a professional therapist. The pain is what is in the way of your recovery. It is what is in your way – your pain – that is the way.

So many of the defense mechanisms of BPD – splitting, all-or-nothing black-and-white thinking and the acting in and/or acting out manifestations of BPD such as self harm and rage are all ways that people with BPD seek to escape the very pain that you describe.

The pain of Borderline Personality Disorder is very real and very formidable. It is, however, pain that needs your attention and pain that you can resolve in therapy. It is also pain that I help many clients I coach learn to cope with in healthier ways.

You need to know that not only can you choose to “stand” your pain, in small doses, over time and with support, learning how to cope with it, but that also how you think about your pain will define how you experience it.

The pain of Borderline Personality Disorder is the soul-crushing pain of the loss of self and lack of identity that requires of you that you make a choice to get on the road that is the journey From False Self To Authentic Self in Borderline Personality Disorder

It is this journey that is the quest for the lost self and the reclamation of that authentic self that is the way to recover from BPD. Pain is a part of having BPD. Pain is also at the heart of recovery from BPD and more specifically learning how to tolerate the distress of that pain in the process of finding your Self and of building an emotional mastery that will enable you not only to cope with the pain of BPD but to heal it and truly overcome it.

The first step is learning how to radically accept your pain and how to mindfully begin to observe it in ways which will help you to begin to slowly experience it less intensely and that in turn will help you become less afraid of your own pain.

© 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.

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