NOTE: I want to clearly state that BPD is real and
so it the pain and suffering of those diagnosed with
it. When I talk about lies and deceit in this article
I am not discounting the reality of the pain, angst
and turmoil of BPD. I am referring to the struggle for
self and the challenge of letting go of the lies that
we learn to tell to protect ourselves in order to find
identity.
When one has just been disagnosed with Borderline
Personality Disorder (BPD) and or when one has
not yet achieved a certain amount of recovery --
the truth about who you really are is often
dissociated or fragmented from your authentic
self. Your authentic self is buried under the
pain, the fear, and has been left behind at
the developmental stage at which you were last
able to be, for the most part, yourself.
For many borderlines that separation from self
occurs at a relatively young age when, emotionally
there is too much pain, abandonment, abuse experienced
to hold onto to one's real self without losing those
upon which one is dependant for their safety, security,
and other basic needs. Here's where the borderline
puts on the first mask of false self.
Whatever danger to one's psyche exists or has been
perceived by the borderline causes them to put on
a mask of defense mechanisms in order to survive
the turmoil. Mask number two.
To further survive the annihilation of self the
borderline than puts on mask number three - denial
and or dissociation.
Mask number four is borderline behaviour designed
to protect at all costs and ususally motivated
by triggered dissociative fragments of past-reality
that are played out again and again through each
new situation that unfolds in the life of the borderline.
Unable to distinguish their familiar feelings from
different experiences borderlines react in extremely
patterned ways to all eventualities. They react either
in extremes and vacillate between push and pull, close
ness and distance in an effort to undo what has been
done to them.
The masks of the borderline are walls that block him/her
from him/herself as much as they block others from
him/herself. These walls are built with pain and dispair.
They are added to with depression and unmet needs.
Those very walls block the borderline from his/her truth.
Being blocked from one's personal truth -- and authentic
self without knowing this consciously leads many
borderlines to add to the other masks the mask of
deceit.
The mask of deceit is worn for protection. The truth
was too painful to deal with in the past. The truth
caused the loss of authenitic self to false self.
The false self perpetuates this within one's psyche
with illogical thoughts and beliefs. These thoughts
and beliefs are very child-like. They don't have to
make sense to the borderline for him/her to adhere
to them anyway.
What starts out as deceit for protection often
leads to outright lying to live. Lacking one's true
self one then lacks the truth of who they are.
This lack of truth can be seen in many borderlines
actions. While there is truth to their plight and
to their pain it is often expressed through untruths
so as to protect it.
It is this very untruthful expression of dissociated
and or fragmented reality that can make helping a
borderline so difficult. They come to believe their
own lies. They lie to protect. They lie to be heard.
They lie to build the kind of drama that they think
cannot be ignored in the same way as they perceive
their "real" pain and issues have long-since been
ignored.
The lies and untruths of the borderline mask their
real pain and their real torment. The difference
between what is untruth or truth gets lost in the
borderline struggle for validation.
Sadly, it is easier for many to hear, see and
believe the pretend, or the faked -- because for
whatever reason they go on dismissing the reality
behind BPD in the first place.
In my experience the world was so eager to accept
the predominant mask of my fake face. It was just as
eager to reject my true face, masked though it was.
Behind each mask lived a legacy of pain.
Behind each mask lived the loss of my self.
Behind each mask lived a facade that led to another
and another. It was a maze of untruth that housed
my authenticity within it. No one wanted to look
there. Or, if they did, I would quickly dawn yet
another mask to ensure that they fell short of
their targeted goal -- whatever that might truly
have been because for years I was terrified at the
mere notion of "looking there", looking within...
behind all of the masks that harboured, at their very
core, the unprotected face of my true-identity.
It took years to unravel what was real and what
wasn't real for me. It was my need to deny and
to dissociate from a very painful childhood in order
to continue to hold mommy and daddy out as all
good -- lest they be all bad -- that led me to
invert reality. I suppose this was a choice. I
don't remember consciously making it, however.
Looking back I realize that it was at the age
of nine that a part of me knew that my
reality needed to be surpressed in order for
me to go on. Thus, the birth of this ruling
false self that would be BPD in me. It would
take me 35 years to conquer that false self
and to find my authentic self.
How did I do that? Well, the short answer is
by getting HONEST. There is no room in the
recovery from BPD for the lies, the pretending
the faking, exaggerating forms of defense
mechanisms. I had spent a lifetime behind so
many masks. Peeling them away one at a time
for years, only changed my "game". It didn't
succeed in revealing the "real me" to anyone
until I found the courage and the strength
to seek out this "real me" from the inside
out first.
I think some therapists I had saw this
redeemable true "me" long before I did. I had
no idea that I was living in such a dissociated
fragmented falseness. My pain was real. My
abuse was real. My childhood nightmare was real.
I had pushed all of that down inside so deep that
my reality became what I made it. I made it be
about sprained knees, sprained wrists, cuts,
bruises, seizures, anger - rage, physical
intimidation, fighting, smashing glass --- anything,
anything physical, so that I wouldn't have to dig
deep down inside of my psyche and my soul and experience
the terror of that little girl (inside of me) ever again.
But, that's what it took to heal. It took me
getting real - looking at the real issues and
not covering them up with misrepresentations of my
pain anymore. I had to face that all of my physical
symptoms, pain and injuries (real and faked) were
masks for the real pain that lay deep within me -
the emotional pain that a very traumatic childhood
had left me with and scarred by.
I believe that one's authentic self is there
under all of the masks, the denial and the
defence mechanisms and the games, waiting to be found.
Until a borderline can find this sense of authentic
self the false-self (which only perpetuates
BPD) rules. Your false-self will only serve to
increase your pain and terror at every turn. The
agony, the angst, the depression, the mood swings,
the illogical thoughts and feelings that predicate
the world of "borderline behaviour" will persist
if you insist on trying to hide behind the masks
of untruth.
To recover from BPD you must get real and very honest
with yourself and with those who are trying to help
you. This means trying new things and believing that
you can be okay -- survive new a very painful experiences,
like learning to be alone and learning to stop abandoning
and re-abandoning yourself -- or like taking care of
yourself as opposed to collapsing to be rescued by
others.
The borderline must re-build his/her ego from the inside
out. Borderlines must be willing to deal with the truth
and nothing but the truth in order to get well. They
must step out from behind some of the most creative and
intelligent masks of deceit, self-protection, drama,
chaos, anger and the like in order to re-experience the
pain that they have been hiding from.
It is the re-experiencing of this pain in a new way,
as an adult, and not as a child, that enables healing to
take place. Each borderline must reclaim both his/her
truth and pain in order to learn that the "monster" that
they are running from is not out there but is
inside of them. The "monster" of BPD lies within the
psyche of each and every borderline. The "monster" is
the repressed pain and trauma of the borderline and it
is NOT the person with Borderline Personality
Disorder.
The truth is that getting honest and staying honestly
authentic can and will tame that "monster" inside.
You need to safely let your pain out. It is your pain
that is fuelling your anger, your rage, your depression,
your acting in and or your acting out. Your pain is
keeping you away from the most precious person in the
world -- your REAL self.
Just as I, and others have, you can walk through your
pain with the help of a competent therapist and reclaim
your truth, your "authentic self" and your real face.
Peel off the masks. The world awaits the expression of
your true face. Face yourself in the mirror and let the
truth of that expression set you free.
© Ms. A.J. Mahari - September 3, 2000
as of January 5, 2002
