Just wondering if anyone knows the thought process of these people .
Short answer? There is no thought process. They just do what they feel compelled to do at that given moment in time without consideration to your feelings, or to any long-term consequences.
They know right from wrong. They may justify saying we had the bad behaviors . But what do they think about their cheating and sneaking around? The double life? The are human and know it's not the acceptable society norm to do that. What helps them to not feel their part in that? Do they not have s conscience like sociopaths. Or is it their own fears or too great and their too selfish to think about anyone else's feelings, and after cheating and lying for years to all the the people in their life that what ever conscience is left is so deaden that they do feel it ?
They
do feel their part in things, except for the moments they are able to compartmentalize their feelings, which only lasts for a while. They do everything they can to distract from these feelings, but periodically it catches up on them and they are forced to face themselves -- if only for a moment -- and the experience is
devastating.
Yes, they know right from wrong. Yes, they have a conscience, but I believe they manage their conscience using a completely different system than we do.
We nons use what I would consider a system of guilt. When we do wrong, this bothers us because our behavior is contrasted to our personal self-image. We see ourselves as naturally good people, so doing bad things is inconsistent with who we
are. We feel guilt for the bad
thing that we
did, but are able to still see ourselves as a good person in spite of the evidence that we have
done wrong. We see that we can reinforce our self-image as a good person by
doing something to counter-act the bad action, such as sincerely apologizing to the person we hurt, or acting to make amends.
We feel
better when we admit wrongdoing and say "I'm sorry" because that action releases our guilt and re-establishes our self-identity as a good person.
However, a pwBPD might manage their conscience with a system of
shame. They do not feel guilt for their
actions, but rather feel shame for who they
are. PwBPD are victims of black/white thinking, so they are totally unable to see themselves as a good person when confronted with evidence that they have done a bad thing. They lack a sense of self, so awareness of a pwBPD's own bad behavior is not contrasted with a "good person" self-identity, but only reinforces that person's view that he/she is a bad person.
A pwBPD does
not feel better when he/she admits any wrongdoing because they do not have any guilt to release, but would rather feel
worse because such an admission would trigger feelings of core shame and reinforce his/her own self-identity as a bad person. Would you, or anyone, find it easy to do something that actually made you feel
worse?
So how would a pwBPD maintain their conscience, and keep some sense of humanity in the face of repeated reminders of their own worthlessness? Well, that's where the self-hatred comes in. (Which is a difficult concept to understand if you've never experienced it yourself.) It's ok to hate
bad people, right? That's what good people do, right? (And deep down everyone -- including even the most depressed of pwBPD -- wants to think of himself/herself as a
good person.) If you yourself are a bad person, shouldn't you hate yourself as well?
So when a person trapped in this system of shame hates himself/herself, he/she actually feels
better, because even though that person is bad, at lease he/she was good enough to hate himself/herself for it.
