breadcrumbs

taking what I need and leaving the rest, have found Metafilter to be an extremely useful resource for a variety of well-informed opinions and interesting ideas (and sometimes there are some completely asinine or jerk-y comments, but not too many).

A commenter on a thread about a popular, catch-all 'disorder' (the diagnostic use of which I find to be extremely dismissive and cruel) had some useful/interesting ideas about this 'disorder' (which shall remain nameless because I find the whole idea of it utterly demeaning and destructive, and will choose to use my own language and terminology about it).

The way I see it is that people (especially women) can get really far out on a limb emotionally and not be able to get back, not only because of their so-called 'personality' issues, but because the society at large has very little interest in womens' emotional needs (women only exist to take care of others, right? We're not supposed to have needs of our own - that goes against the rules of a patriarchy.) Hence the popularity of the term 'drama' any time a woman is upset or angry about something.

Some quotes from this commenter that I'd like to keep around for future reference:

BPD is a lousy term. It's inaccurate. It shouldn't be used in the DSM or anywhere. It's a backward, ignorant and unscientific use of language. The border between neurosis and psychosis? Say wha? That could be said of all the personality disorders. BPD as a diagnosis is used to cover too wide a range of issues.
[...]
People with chronic or complex PTSD often behave in the same way as BPDs: Emotional volatility, depression, mood swings, bouts of rageaholism, high anxiety, intrusive memories, compulsive rumination among them.

A soldier returning from war, a battered wife, an incest survivor all can have PTSD to one degree or another, treatable with very different types of talk therapy, behavior modification and different meds. A PTSDed soldier, for example might not, in general, be benefited by blaming as part of the talk therapy. However, the battered wife and the incest survivor would, as a way of establishing a sense of safety and boundaries. A PTSDed soldier might cope in an ill way by compulsively rehashing the fear of the past. The battered wife might cope in an ill way by denying the fear of the past. So the recovery journey, although all suffering with PTSD, would be quite different.

The following is the bit that really resonated for me, echoing many of the issues I've felt, thought, written about and/or attempted to communicate to others (bolds mine):

So there is the PTSD that is part of the core of BPD, which is what created the inner architecture of the illness. This is the PTSD arising out of the trauma the person survived in their childhood that was not abated by loving kindness from any other source.
[...]
For an infant and toddler, the process of learning connecting and individuating is an essential one. If it is done badly, incompetently, it leaves terrible scars. For life.
[...]
Another core issue with BPDs is lack of sustainable object constancy. Object constancy is a major perceptual event in an infant and toddler's life.

Having felt cared for by a loving primary caretaker, usually a parent,
the infant is able to internalize that external love.

What is external is now held inside,
a perceptual object of memory
and inner emotional architecture.

My opinion? This lack of a constant 'object', or 'selfobject' as some call it, is the root, the center, the core of what's troubling the person who ends up with this kind of diagnosis. The person goes through the rest of her life looking for that 'mother' that she never had. And the truth? She needs that mother, as a plant needs water. The problem is that, in our culture and many others, it's damn near impossible for women to get these needs met, as witness the whole trend toward calling women who express emotional needs 'drama queens' or 'high maintenance'.

While so-called 'grown' men are allowed to behave like 'little boys' and get at least some of their unmet nurturing needs met in adulthood, women are pretty much up shit creek. Even a guy who's relatively open-minded and sympathetic rarely has either the capacity or training for providing the kind of support that women are automatically expected to give men. There's a kind of caretaking at which most men totally suck. As far as I'm concerned, it's at the root of many of the problems of this society - men's inability/unwillingness to nurture - and until that changes? Ain't nothin' else goin' ta change neither.

To finish my breadcrumb collection for the moment, a few more thoughts from the previously-quoted Metafilter commenter:

My silly name for this is "love battery". Children who are healthily loved have a well charged love battery, which goes with them into the world and which they can depend on in times of stress. It's constant.

A child who was repeatedly neglected, traumatized or abused may have a badly charged battery and come to chronically, pathologically depend on others to feel charged enough to function. Because the person may not find others who offer that sense of constant charge (mothering), an addiction may be used as a substitute, which worsens the situation badly. Or there is tremendous fear that, even if a person is found, that they might be abandoning.

This object constancy issue is, imo, the hardest one for therapists to handle because it is one of the most draining and leads most to empathy burnout. This is where the gifted therapists come into play. Some are able to teach deep object constancy with great patience. But this is an uncommon gift and hard to find. This why, imo, online support communities for people with BPD may be one of the most healing resources for people with this core issue. The web is always there, 24/7/365.

Object constancy issues for BPDs on the low end of the continuum can be treated with many varieties of talk therapy, which may heal some badly charged "batteries" and teach the wounded person to charge their own battery, to reparent themselves, to soothe their wounds without substances or serotonin binges, to find a way to achieve some workable amount of healthy autonomy.

Note to self: Ignore the above poster's further comments on that thread - the temporary compassion seems to have dissipated like mist. S/he goes on in some fairly unsympathetic (I would even venture to say cruel) language. People who do this are lashing out at someone for something in their own past, would be my guess. Which is fine, but only if one does it consciously, or at least attempts to take responsibility for the unkindness and unempathic nature of one's language.

I realize no one's perfect here - but like the non-violent communication folks (who I'm far from agreeing with, but they have some interesting ideas), I believe that the effort to eradicate bullying, shaming, judgmental language from one's vocabulary as far as possible is a good thing to do.

Meantime I will unashamedly continue to bash the people I'm still angry with, because I'm still angry with them. I will NOT let them off the hook until I'm damn good and ready. And not a minute sooner. Because otherwise this damn pus just stays inside me, festering and making me sick in mind, body and spirit. Not gonna happen, no way no how.

And if you've got a problem with anything I'm saying? Please speak up and say so. Though I fancy myself a 'psychic' to some degree with people I know well and care about, it's more the kind of intuitive 'knowing' that I expect anyone who's paying attention to be able to do. It has absolutely nothing to do with actually reading minds. So please, if you've got an issue, say something. I can't read your mind, and won't attempt to. If you remain silent, I'll have to assume you've got nothing to say.