user 188522
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I found this article to hit the nail on the head. I wanted to share it!
" I believe the most important but quietly most relevant criteria for BPD is the “identity disturbance” as it seems as though the BPD behaviors are one of the extreme results of never forming a sense of self or identity.
Identity formation is a crucial stage in psychological development. It’s important for all of us. It’s a battle and it’s a struggle and can be a real painful process, not all of us make it out in one piece. There are lots of reasons why someone wouldn’t develop a core personality of their own but I find the primary reason is often because a child grows up never being lovingly validated by a parent. Kids grow up in environments where nothing they do is good enough, their mistakes are never tolerated, learning and growing are seen as failures and must be both discouraged and punished. Everything the child tries to grasp onto is diminished and minimized.
When the child experiences trauma, which all of us inevitably do to some degree, the child is shamed, shunned and rejected. Vulnerability becomes painful and the child develops a morbid fear of it. In time, everything they do or try to be is stepped on when children desperately need us to validate even the smallest attempts to walk on their own. There’s no sense of self because there needs to be some kind of self-respect or self-love that is provided largely by the parents at first before the child can develop it on their own. Without it, the child will hate themselves and they seem to subconsciously develop a searingly painful relationship with trying to be someone or anyone.
As for the second question, I haven’t necessarily found them to be total social chameleons, so to speak, they don’t necessarily try to be someone else, it just doesn’t seem to work, they honestly aren’t very good at keeping up pretenses, at least not for very long. There seem to be a couple of other things that seem to happen instead.
" I believe the most important but quietly most relevant criteria for BPD is the “identity disturbance” as it seems as though the BPD behaviors are one of the extreme results of never forming a sense of self or identity.
Identity formation is a crucial stage in psychological development. It’s important for all of us. It’s a battle and it’s a struggle and can be a real painful process, not all of us make it out in one piece. There are lots of reasons why someone wouldn’t develop a core personality of their own but I find the primary reason is often because a child grows up never being lovingly validated by a parent. Kids grow up in environments where nothing they do is good enough, their mistakes are never tolerated, learning and growing are seen as failures and must be both discouraged and punished. Everything the child tries to grasp onto is diminished and minimized.
When the child experiences trauma, which all of us inevitably do to some degree, the child is shamed, shunned and rejected. Vulnerability becomes painful and the child develops a morbid fear of it. In time, everything they do or try to be is stepped on when children desperately need us to validate even the smallest attempts to walk on their own. There’s no sense of self because there needs to be some kind of self-respect or self-love that is provided largely by the parents at first before the child can develop it on their own. Without it, the child will hate themselves and they seem to subconsciously develop a searingly painful relationship with trying to be someone or anyone.
As for the second question, I haven’t necessarily found them to be total social chameleons, so to speak, they don’t necessarily try to be someone else, it just doesn’t seem to work, they honestly aren’t very good at keeping up pretenses, at least not for very long. There seem to be a couple of other things that seem to happen instead.
- They bounce from thing to thing hoping it will solve the core issue of having an identity disturbance. They try different things but it just doesn’t seem to stick or take hold. So one week they may decide to be a photography and spend a small fortune on camera gear and two weeks later the camera is in the closet, gathering dust. It just happens over and over again, they feel like they want to be a dog trainer and it doesn’t stick, a personal trainer but it doesn’t stick. Basically, they look to external things to solve the internal dilemma and it just doesn’t work.
- They seem to have this way of stripping identity from others. It’s really honestly kind of strange, I can’t explain it but I’ve seen it over and over again. Those around them often end up feeling like they’ve lost their sense of self from being in a relationship with them. I know they don’t do this to people on purpose, I know it’s not their intention but that just seems to be the result of it."
