What does it mean to be disagnosed with borderline personality disorder? I think the first thing is it is important to not let a “diagnosis” define who you are or even describe why you are the way you are. Many mental health diagnoses of what are called “personality disorders” are descriptions of patterns of behavior. Unlike a medical disease, are not related to the cause. Thus, a pattern is a guide to understanding but we are still dealing with the unique ways your unconscious and conscious and nervous system has adapted to the combination of your biology, early history and experiences.
Research in mental health has shown that borderline personality disorder is related to trauma in early childhood, sometimes called “complex trauma” or attachment trauma. When we grow up, we need a certain about of stability and support for our emotional experiences and reflection, of who we are from the our primary caregivers and the world around us. In fact, as infants we look to our parents to be there for us and love us and guide us not just in words or actions, but through support care and boundaries that allows us to form a sense of our self.
When our parents are inconsistent, abandoning neglectful, overly punitive, or absent, we may find we don’t have the consistent mirroring to develop a stable sense of self. Sometimes when there is pain from trauma we experience early in life, it can lead to a type of desparate feeling that continues early in life.
These are wounds of attachment, which is the security of the bond. Yet for second generation Asian Americans, it is important to consider that many times, these conflicts can even when love is there due to cultural misunderstanding and intergenerational trauma.
When an immigrant parent has different values, beliefs, language, or ability to understand the experience of what you are going through, they may misterpret or react in ways that seem cruel. You may look at your friends and have different norms.
A core of healing has to do with emotional regulation. Yet here, cultural differences in dealing with emotion combined with all the prior barriers, as well as trauma which often makes emotions more difficult, can further erode the bond.
What do I mean? For example, you experience racism and bullying and start to act out, lose friends and be sad, or withdrawn. Your parents do you not know what you went through.
In the way I work, we can start with the here and now and bit by bit through our relationship, support you in witnessing yourself and gaining the capacity to hold yourself together, without having feelings or triggers take you apart.
We can look at patterns of behavior not as a fixed thing, but as a way of coping that is uniquely you. You may have areas of great strength and stability. At the same time, it can feel like in other areas of life – for example only when you start to date and like someone – that these patterns emerge.
I have studied under Dr Allan Abbass at the Centers for Emotions and Health, who has developed a time limited, accelerated way of working with borderline personality disorder by processing attachment trauma. This comes from an approach integrating psychodynamic and somatic therapy and has evidence based research, including over 800 papers.
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