Again... .try replacing disordered with f****d up. It sounds less clinical.
Disorders are someone's opinion. So is f****d up.
Ok, so if they know what they are doing , why is it called a disorder? Sounds to me like this is just crappy mean selfish and even dangerous behavior coming from an emotionally immature person.
Well, let’s start off with the crappy mean selfish and even dangerous behavior vs. disorder debate. Messed up behavior can be a mistake. (We can easily forgive people for mistakes.) If the messed up behavior is done again- we have every right to suspect that the behavior is no longer a mistake but a *choice.* (Healthy people usually make a choice to learn from and take care not to repeat their mistakes.)
If the messed up behavior is done to us again- we can safely say that there’s something afoot here, perhaps a patterning of behavior that is a good predictor of future behavior down the road. If the messed up behavior continues and we know that the person knows that its wrong- then we can safely say it’s a compulsion. Compulsive behavior is any distorted behavior that’s done, not because they *want* to behave that way- but because *they feel they have to* -in order to exist. Often the compulsive behavior is the reason for the diagnosis of the personality *dis*order.
A disorder means there’s a few behavioral wires crossed that are noteworthy in causing difficulties. The behavior becomes a part of the personality.
Which brings us to the age old riddle: if a tree falls down in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it- does it make a sound? Yes/No? Ok. What if the tree falls in front of a deaf person? :)o they hear a sound? The answers lie in our perception of the exact nature of sound. What it means to us might be different to someone else. That goes for abuse too. Surely it means something different to us all.
If we take that riddle further and ask: if a person does crappy, mean, selfish and even dangerous behavior and there’s no one there to witness it- does it still count as crappy, mean, and selfish behavior? The answers lie in our perception of our idea of abuse and how it applies to us. Surely abuse means something different to us all, but it does undermine the nature of trust.
What we perceive and what we choose to believe about ourselves (being the recipients of bad behavior) says allot about whether or not we feel we can control (trust) whether it happens again. Calling it compulsive behavior determines what we cannot do a thing about it. It is a part of a personality now. A compulsion is done to everyone.
Most people come to the site thinking they did something to cause this wonderful person to be so cruel. It is hard to let go of this idealized figure that mirrored and adored us. It is a great loss to suffer after finally finding them; finding meaning, companionship, compatibility. This person was a dream come true and now they're gone. They have been replaced with an unfit, sick impostor who cruelly and sadistically tortures us and sees our reaction but just doesn’t care that we are in pain. Why does this person who idealized us at one point now make us feel so badly? Did they ever care? It’s almost as though they are playing a game and they just don’t care who they hurt. Unknown to you, there is a reason for this behavior and there is a pattern that emerges from both sides.
That’s where Harry Stack Sullivan comes in. Harry Stack Sullivan was the very first psychoanalyst to mention the “significant other” and our roles in personality disorders. Sullivan said, well, thanks Freud for all that clinical psyche stuff and all, but a SELF really only matters when it comes into contact with others. So if we return to our riddle again and ask: if a person does crappy, mean, selfish and even dangerous behavior and there’s no one there to witness it- does it still count as crappy, mean, and selfish behavior? According to Sullivan,
the best measure of a Man is in how he treats us. Because of this, we can only know him in the terms of how we interact with him. In other words, we have to pay attention to his "actions," not the words he writes or what we project (think) is going on “inside” his head.
Sullivan also gave us an idea of the motivations of the SELF and the possibility that it could get lambasted and twisted up by early teachings by parents. He wrote about the woes of the infant finding out that he was not really the center of the Universe as he once thought: “Once upon a time everything was lovely, but that was before I had to deal with people.” He described the infant’s solution to dealing with these other personalities in life by creating a series of interlocking I-YOU behaviors for protection against anxiety, which Sullivan felt gave the infant “security.”
In I-YOU definition, if I act weak and helpless, then my Parents will protect me. If I smile when my parents want me to smile (mirroring) then my parents will smile and mirror me back, etc. Everybody’s happy! Pretty soon an I-YOU pattern emerges that can be counted on. The kid says, hey! This stuff works!
Sullivan noted that sometimes these I-YOU definitions got stuck in rigid, ritualistic ideals of the parent which dominated the child’s reactions. These ideals of themselves were sometimes anxious and consequently got stuck in I-YOU definitions of mistrust which were then carried into their adult lives, completely overlaying onto other people their incorrect perceptions, in turn stripping those same people of their very individuality and turning them into echoes and shadows of the escaped from- hypercritical, parental figures that existed in their head.
Sullivan called these behaviors
parataxic integrations, and he noted that such action-reaction combinations became rigid and dominated the thinking pattern, compulsively responding in actions and reactions toward the world as the adult now sees it but not as the World really exists. The resulting inaccuracies in judgment Sullivan termed
parataxic distortion, when other people are evaluated and perceived to be familiar based on the child’s patterns of previous experience.
So, Borderline follows a series of rewarding and withdrawing behaviors. In female Borderlines’ the rewarding behaviors are interlocking I-YOU’s with Waif/rescuer and Queen/King combating each other for dominance and submission. The Witch makes an appearance between acts for a cleansing rage when the rescuer doesn't rescue or the King laughs/controls/mocks the Queen. The Hermit comes into existence later on when the pain that’s felt is too much to handle. (At that point the Borderline sort of retreats into obscurity.) In male Borderlines’ the rewarding behaviors are interlocking I-YOU’s with Orphan/rescuer and King/Queen combating each other for dominance and submission. The Warlock makes an appearance between acts for a cleansing rage when the rescuer doesn't rescue or the Queen laughs/controls/mocks the King. The Hermit comes into existence later on when the pain that’s felt is too much to handle. (At that point the Borderline sort of retreats into obscurity.)
That is, in I-YOU definition, if I act weak and helpless, then you, like my Parents, must be solicitous and care taking (female Waif, male Orphan). If I am gorgeous, then you must be admiring of my beauty (Queen, King) and so on. Pretty soon an I-YOU pattern emerges that can be counted on by the Borderline. If I do this, you’ll do that- like clockwork. If it doesn’t work, the provoking anxiety turns to rage (the Witch/Warlock are either passive aggressive or they act-out to keep control- if that doesn't work then *poof* withdrawing behavior- and time to search for a new rewarding "interlocker" that is, if one hasn't been found and lined up already.)
It is a pattern. Borderlines fail at living productive lives and instead repeat the same unsatisfying actions over and over again in repetitious compulsion to re-live their childhood thoughts of persecution and slavery. Borderlines live in a revolving door process. There is an opening and there is an exit on this spinning chamber- but once they get you inside they hope to stay still- but other people in their head (that you are unaware of) keep pushing them around and they keep distorting who those persecuting people actually are. Quick guess: it’s now you.
Rather than telling you exactly how they feel-(controlled and persecuted by childhood demons) they are intrapsychically re-working masochism and sadism through their relationship with you. They are doing to you exactly what they feel was done to them by their childhood caretakers and they are watching you carefully spin around as you die by a thousand sadistic paper-cuts. You are a stand-in for Mom and Dad. Meanwhile, they re out the revolving door.
This isn't just mean spirited behavior. It's compulsive. This behavior was in place long before you came into the picture. If you take it personally you will not heal. :)o not seek revenge or worse, try to spend your life arguing with them. You have to learn that a compulsion is behavior that’s done to *everyone*- it is painful and self-serving for them- but pointless and stupid at the same time. It never accomplishes what it sets out to do- to overcome the initial battle with people that exist and persecute and live inside their heads. That's not your job to get in there and figure it out for them- they'll only see you as their hypercritical parent. This is all about distortion and it's what got you here.
Either way we must admit to ourselves that it is a pattern, and it is a pattern that repeats itself in inter *actions* with others. (I think that’s the light bulb that goes off when people first google and come to this site.) Eureka, I didn’t cause this. It’s not because of me. There is a pattern, it is behavioral, and it is a compulsion.
The fused, idealistic coupling that you shared with this person must go away. You'll begin to mend when you get some distance from the addictive intensity of the I-YOU interlock that suffers from such great distortions and mistrust. You should be angry over the betrayal but just enough to reasonably understand that this isn't a shameful experience that you caused- It was actually a great gift of seeing yourself mirrored and adored- but not realistic. This thought will eventually give way to sadness and that will work it's way out of your heart with pangs of wanting and hopes for a reconciliation to prove to yourself that I'm wrong. These doubts will lessen when you review the behavior. You'll begin to see it for what it was, a scripted, one sided arrangement that facilitated their distortions of you and gave them errors in judgment over who you were. The only way to prove them wrong is to stop engaging and giving them what they want (a persecutor) and walk away.
it’s* not*your* fault* this happened
