THE ABANDONMENT ISSUE

The majority of BP’s are not capable of maintaining healthy relationship for many and varying reason. One such reason is abandonment or imagined abandonment. But who actually abandons who?

This depends on the people involved in the marriage/relationship, the circumstances of this relationship unit and the degree of Borderline Personality Disorder that is being experienced. It may be that the partner can not take any more of their BP’s actions and decides that to maintain themselves they must leave. But it can also be the BP who does the abandoning. To some BP’s they reach a point in their relationship where their partner is getting too close as far as they are concerned and to balance this they “push away” or “act out/act in” to a point where they force their partner to leave. Other people have experienced where their partner has just up and left, some never to be seen again, others returning in a week, a month, a year. There are so many reasons behind their line of thinking but the main thought is that they believe that they are going to be abandoned anyway – so get in first and the pain will be less.

They may pick up on their partner not being as happy as they were (possibly due to the way they are acting) but the BP sees this as their partner not loving them any more. Some have thought that their partner was the best thing that could ever happen to them but because of their illness they believe that they will eventually destroy the relationship so they should get out now. BPD based on childhood issues could leave the BP thinking that everyone who has ever loved me abandoned me therefore my special partner will too. Others just get angry over what they believe may or may not happen and run away until they are hidden again amongst those don’t know them. To abandon someone won’t hurt me therefore it must be good. BP’s often walk away from friends, relationships, even family without saying a word or explaining their actions.

Now the issue of making them believe that you love them and that you won’t leave them. First (and this is hard sometimes) you have to always keep in the front of your mind that the person you refer to has a mental illness, which alone explains why they may not respond to things in the way someone without that illness would. It isn’t so much that they don’t believe that you love them, but maybe what the word ‘LOVE’ has always meant and done to them in their past. What is the history of people that told them they loved them? Maybe a dad or uncle or mum that crawled into bed with them when they were a child and did more than go to sleep before uttering the words “I will always love you”.

But why the running away, the pushing you away, the turning you from truly loved to hated. In the world they live in, and in their mind every one leaves them. Why would you saying you’ll always be there for them mean anything to them when the people who were expected to stand by them never did it? Like Dad, Mum, the family friend or the first jerk boy/girlfriend. They have the strong mental history to back this up. That’s so real to them, too real maybe, as issues haven’t been dealt with. You start out like any relationship – liking being with, liking them, loving them and finally your are ‘in love’. But as you are approaching the stage of ‘love’ you may be driven away first just so they won’t have to go through it again and experience that pain ever again. It’s a different language, sometimes a different world. (Now don’t forget something I said earlier – It’s the disorder not them). To you, love means love yet to them love may mean shame, fear, hurt, disgust, pain and lots of it. Some actually fear feeling those painful feelings again so they ‘close up shop’ and move on before it gets to that stage. Others don’t see what they are doing to the relationship/family unit and just move on, some never turning back.

I would like to quote a passage from a woman (A.J. Mahari) who has recovered from BPD and runs what I consider to be the most successful and helpful site in America for BP’s (with many Non’s reading her articles with interest, gaining a lot of understanding to their missing why’s). AJ wrote –

My experience with abandonment taught me that it was better to abandon others before they could abandon me. I lived like that for quite some time. It is a painful place to be. It is a place of illusion. The illusion being that one thinks if they abandon the other first it won’t hurt like being abandon. The truth is that when any relationship or friendship ends or is abandoned or withdrawn from it hurts, whether you are the one ending it or not. Borderlines often don’t understand this. They look at everything as black and white, right and wrong. What hurts is black and wrong and what feels better is right and white. If it hurts at all to relate to you right now, then a borderline will thrust or project that hurt out on the nearest person they are relating to/with and push away, withdraw and or both thinking that this gives them “control”. The belief that to operate this way is “control” is the biggest illusion of all. Often the borderline withdraws, stops relating, ends friendships etc quickly and without explaining anything — often they don’t understand this behaviour themselves and then isolates. Once in this place of isolation they rarely if ever go back because they simply don’t know that they have that option (in the cases where the option might apply — ie a friendship– not yet dead, or a relationship with a relative). Once you get put in the black-bad category you are then split — gone, cease to exist or you are gone and become the running focus of the isolating Borderline’s anger pretty much unceasingly.

Borderlines, having been damaged in a way that stunts their emotional growth, until they repair the damage, are often very emotionally immature. They cannot relate age-appropriately. They will not likely be “adult” in terms of taking responsibility and so forth. Therefore, it is only natural to assume — realize that borderlines do not know how to love. They are unaware of who they are. Therefore they cannot love themselves. Anyone who does not know, love and respect “themself” cannot respect and love any “other”. If you are a non-borderline be careful that you are not locked into some pattern of unrealistic expectations of a borderline. Unless they are actively involved in therapy and recovery you are more likely to get hurt severely than you are to be loved.

Who abandons who? I think it would be easier for me to answer “how long is a piece of string?” because it depends on so many, many, many pieces to both sides of the puzzle

Helpful link http://www.soulselfhelp.on.ca/AJ.html

Helpful Book: I Hate You – Don’t Leave Me! By Jerold J. Kreisman, M.D., Hal Straus, Jerold J. Kriesman