09-30-01 @ 1:43 am EDT

Anyway...I've been reading the book I Hate You--Don't Leave Me by Kreisman and Straus (about BPD) again (didn't get to finish it the first time, my attention span is shot) and I'm trying to make note of the parts that sound like me. I'll include those in here as I see fit.

The eight criteria may be summarized as follows...:

1. Unstable and intense interpersonal relationships. [yes]

2. Impulsiveness in potentially self-damaging behaviors, such as substance abuse, sex, shoplifting, reckless driving, binge eating. [no]

3. Severe mood shifts. [yes]

4. Frequent and inappropriate displays of anger. [yes]

5. Recurrent suicidal threats or gestures, or self-mutilating behaviors. [yes]

6. Lack of clear sense of identity. [yes]

7. Chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom. [yes]

8. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. [yes]

...

Mood changes come swiftly, explosively, carrying the borderline from the heights of joy to the depths of depression. Filled with anger one hour, calm the next, he often has little inkling about why he was driven to such wrath. Afterward, the inability to understand the origins of the episode brings on more self-hate and depression.

A borderline suffers a kind of emotional hemophilia; he lacks the clotting mechanism needed to moderate his spurts of feeling. Stimulate a passion, and the borderline emotionally bleeds to death.

...

When the idealized person finally disappoints (as we all do, sooner or later), the borderline must drastically restructure his one-dimensional conceptualization. Either the idol is banished to the dungeon, or the borderline banishes himself in order to preserve the "all-good" image of the other person.

This type of behavior, called "splitting," is the primary defense mechanism employed by the borderline. Technically defined, splitting is the rigid separation of positive and negative thoughts and feelings about oneself and others, that is, the inability to synthesize these feelings. Normal persons are ambivalent and can experience two contradictory feeling states at one time; borderlines characteristically shift back and forth, entirely unaware of one feeling state while in another.

Splitting creates an escape hatch from anxiety: The borderline typically experiences a close friend or relation (call him "Joe") as two separate people at different times. One day, she can admire "Good Joe" without reservation, perceiving him as completely good; his negative qualities do not exist; they have been purged and attributed to "Bad Joe." Other days, she can guiltlessly and totally despise "Bad Joe" and rage at his badness without self-reproach--for now his positive traits do not exist; he fully deserves the rage.

Intended to shield the borderline from a barrage of contradictory feelings and images--and from the anxiety of trying to reconcile those images--the splitting mechanism often achieves quite the opposite effect: The frays in the personality fabric become full-fledged rips; the sense of his own identity and the identities of others shifts even more dramatically and frequently.

...

Though feeling continually victimized by others, a borderline ironically and desperately seeks out new relationships, for solitude, even temporary aloneness, is more intolerable than mistreatment....

In the relentless search for a structured role in life, the borderline is typically attracted to--and attracts to her--others with complementary personality disorders. The domineering, narcissistic personality of Jennifer's husband [an example given earlier in the book], for example, cast her in a role with little effort. He was able to give her an identity even if the identity involved submissiveness and mistreatment.

Yet, for a borderline, relationships often disintegrate quickly. Maintaining closeness with a borderline requires an understanding of the syndrome and a willingness to endure a long walk on a perilous tightrope. Too much closeness threatens the borderline with suffocation. Keeping one's distance or leaving a borderline alone--even for brief periods--recalls the sense of abandonment he felt as a child. In either case, the borderline reacts intensely.

In a sense, the borderline carries only a sketchy map of interpersonal relations; he finds it extremely difficult to gauge the optimal psychic distance from others, particularly significant others. To compensate, he caroms back and forth from clinging dependency to angry manipulation, from outpourings of gratitude to irrational hate. He fears abandonment, so he clings; he fears engulfment, so he pushes away. He craves intimacy and is terrified of it at the same time. He winds up repelling those with whom he most wants to connect.

...

Borderlines are often very intelligent and display striking artistic abilities; fueled by easy access to powerful emotions, they can be creative and successful.

But a highly competitive or unstructured job, or a highly critical supervisor, can trigger the intense, uncontrolled anger and the hypersensitivity to rejection to which the borderline is susceptible....

There are a very few differences here--for example, while I'm upset, I CAN remember being happy, but I feel as if I will never be happy again--and while I'm happy, I CAN remember being upset, but I feel foolish that I was ever that unhappy. Even that sounds like the above.

This is just from the first chapter of the book. I'll have to mark off what other parts sound just like me...

The last person I write to on any sort of regular basis sent me an e-mail saying that he's actually been interested in writing to me more often, but was afraid I was too busy. Would I like for him to write more? While I like the sound of that, a lot, it also frightens me. I think the only reason I haven't driven him off yet is because I haven't gotten all indepth with him like I have with everyone else I've driven off. The closer I get to someone, the more they start to dislike me and the more the entire situation is compromised, until they end up disappointing me in whatever manner. I can't say completely whose fault it is, but I think that if I maintain some sort of distance, even if I don't WANT to, just MAYBE the relationship will last a bit longer. If you dump too much junk on somebody, eventually they WILL leave you hanging.

So I don't want to hurt his feelings--he's the only one I write to who hasn't gotten mad at me yet--but I'm afraid that if I said, "Yes, write all you want" we would get to know each other far too much and then it would be over. *sigh*

So I'm not sure what to do about that...I'm guessing I'll just write as I have been, and let him write as he has been. I don't want the last thing I have to end up gone so soon on the tails of two others. Ever since I opened my mouth about what happened in New York. It's been like fallout, like dominoes.

I think most of my problems with other people would have been prevented if I had just kept my mouth shut. Allow others to say their piece; I can have my say and be lonely, or I can keep it all to myself and have someone. Neither way I'm completely happy. But there are days when loneliness seems worse than anything else.