(based on a lecture by Alfried Lenglet)

If your inner motivations and feelings are unstable when communicating with other people, you may be experiencing borderline disorder.

A person with this disorder may experience intense love and hate while trying to avoid being rejected. Moreover, it does not matter whether this rejection is imaginary or real. Loneliness is simply unbearable for him. Because of this, his relationships are unstable. Who is he? What about him? What is important to him? The life of a borderline client is filled with such painful questions. His whole life consists of impulses and impulsive actions - the desire to get drunk or commit some extreme act. The mood changes very suddenly and the feeling of emptiness inside haunts him. This emptiness pushes him to some actions that evoke strong feelings. He understands that he does not want to behave this way, but it is incredibly difficult for him to restrain himself.

The borderline client is constantly searching for himself and trying to understand how he really feels. He lives in a feeling of inner emptiness, the absence of himself, and it is this inner emptiness that pushes him to search for experiences and relationships that he hopes will save him from this gray life.

A relationship with another person creates in him a feeling of his own reality, when there is no relationship, there is no life. Even painful relationships are enjoyable. “Without emotions there is no me” - this is how he thinks about himself.  

This is different from what a depressed person feels, who has no interest in life as such. The borderline has a deep belief that living is good, but how to do it?

Of course, all people experience life and themselves more acutely in close relationships. But borderline people have no support within, no awareness of life in themselves at all. Therefore, they constantly either idealize their partner - because he allowed them to experience life, or devalue them - because they took this life away. There is simply no sense of self, so criticism takes away everything that was there, as if another person was simply destroying it.

A healthy person understands that criticism and praise are components of reality, but a person suffering from such a personality disorder does not understand this. There is only a feeling of contrast - either everything or nothing and acute pain. This is why love and adoration can turn to hatred when the slightest criticism arises.

This anger and hatred can be directed at others or at yourself.

Their sense of self depends entirely on their partner. Since the borderline does not understand what is happening inside him, in order to understand he always turns outside to search for what is reality.

Most often, this personality disorder is caused by trauma in childhood, when a loved one behaved in a contradictory way.

As if an adult were telling a child - you have no right to experience feelings, you are just a tool for solving my problems. The child is not allowed to experience feelings, to be himself. Therefore, he grows with incredible internal tension. This tension is the only way to experience being alive, it is a kind of protection from pain, which is why it is so important. It hurts without this tension.

He builds an ideal image of what a relationship should be, and if he is abandoned, he loses touch with himself.

He is constantly accompanied by internal anxiety. Or anxiety that the partner may not be ideal or that he may leave. This fork from which there is no way out, both situations cause pain.

When such a person is treated well, he is kind, he makes great sacrifices in order to maintain the relationship. A person with borderline personality disorder may even leave a relationship if he sees that he is being treated poorly. It's difficult to predict what he will do, but he will definitely do something extreme.

These people need confrontation. It is very important to show the real you, while not allowing them to impulsively behave like “let’s discuss this calmly.” While remaining in a relationship, do not allow them to behave with you the way their inner motives want. This way they can learn to hold on to these impulses and still maintain contact. Breaking up a therapy relationship can dramatically worsen a client's mental state.

Let's make it clear that you respect them, despite the strong emotions of "I see you're mad, let's talk about it calmly."

Borderline clients need to be taught to withstand their pain and accept themselves, to notice their aggression. It is important to teach them to see themselves, their behavior and at the same time respect themselves.

This type of work requires a lot of effort from both client and therapist and may require significant time in therapy to develop these skills of pain tolerance and self-acceptance.

If you recognize yourself in this article, I invite you to sign up for a consultation with me online or in person in Kyiv by clicking the “sign up” button below. The initial consultation is completely free.

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