Abandonment in relationships with adults with Borderline Personality Disorder - are borderlines abandoned or do they abandon others? Often times borderlines will abandon others before they can be abandoned. The only catch-22 in this is that the borderline, more often than not, perceives that he or she has been abandoned as they project out their abandonment of the non borderline and in effect then experience the non borderline they are abandoning as having abandoned them.
I answer the questions of a non-borderline who is left wondering why her partner just suddenly pushed away and has been isolating. A look at why borderlines abandon relationships and at how they re-abandon themselves through this abandonment of others. The fact is, to a non-borderline, it just won't make any sense. Nons need to take care of themselves and never mind trying to figure the borderline out.
Non Borderlines need to Break Free of the BPD Maze and find their own recovery
Note: With the title of this article I refer to borderlines in adulthood and I am not referring to the very real abandonment wounds that are often the very foundation and or cause of BPD.
A non-borderline asked me:
"I still haven't heard anything on the BPD and complete and total isolation. How does this play into abandonment, when they have pushed everyone away---kids, parents, all friends, how can a person do that who is afraid of abandonment. It doesn't make any sense.?"
Do you think that the childhood "core" abandonment issue or incident - or that which is later perceived as such - is time critical ? That is, do you think that there may be certain quite specific times or growth stages where any sort of abandonment will have more significant after effects than had it happened at some other point in childhood ? Do you think that there may be some very key/crucial times in childhood where any such incident or occurrence , even either only overtones of abandonment, may be particularly devastating.
I ask because abandonment situations may not be incredibly uncommon in childhood unfortunately, and of course there may well be many people who as children experienced some incident which they may have mis perceived as abandonment and yet - and I am not sure of the statistics on this - but not all of course go on to develop BPD or indeed any sort of Mental Health disorder or maladjustment.
I am sure that there are many factors that come into play, such as perhaps a genetic predisposition, individual temperament, variation in environment etc but perhaps also the sheer timing of the event may be a factor ?
I agree that any attempt to truly "understand" how the mind of someone with active BPD works is futile and possibly even a touch arrogant (who am I try to get into the workings of someone else's psyche?) but rather than wondering why some people go on to develop BPD or similar, I do wonder perhaps why more people DON'T.
Same or similar ingredients apparently but with markedly different results after its "out of the oven" so to speak.
Posted by: Gilda | July 21, 2008 at 12:34 AM