Identity disturbance/no sense of self in your BPD child

[Parents! Get help here!]

I would like to know what other parents' experiences are of their BPD child's sense of self/identity disturbance. Here is mine:

My son (25) is very clear that he has no sense of self. He says he has no idea who he is or what he wants. This is a matter-of-fact kind of statement. In conversation he tries very hard to settle on who he is/what he wants only to moments later say no, this is not who he is/what he wants. It's very frustrating to him and me. I noticed his identity difficulty starting when he was around two or three. He couldn't go to preschool without wearing a shirt that clearly indicated an identity—firefighter, farmer, Pokemon, Spiderman, the Nutcracker soldier. He would throw huge fits if a shirt that corresponded with who he wanted to be that day was in the laundry. It was so disruptive that I got rid of the shirts and replaced them with plain-colored shirts, to which he then assigned identities based on their colors. He would  immerse himself in imaginary play at any opportunity and would take on any identity that was part of the game. He would watch sections of certain movies over and over and seem to almost become one with the character on screen. But from a very early age I could tell he had almost no ability or interest in empathizing with regular humans in the world. He used them for his own purposes and eventually created a persona of a loving (almost to the point of being obsequious and insipid) person who cares deeply for others in order to get what he wanted, which apparently was, after puberty, sex with beautiful women. When he realized that that wasn't getting him what he wanted and that it was actually the "bad boys" who don't care about women who got the women, he tried to change his personality to become that instead. He basically wanted to be anybody but himself. He has complete self-loathing and envy of others, who he sees as having an easy time of it just being "normal."

My other experience of identity disturbance was with the other BPD person in my life, my sister. My sister hated me most of her life, I guess from jealousy, but then decided I was worthy of her attention at some point and courted me relentlessly. I wasn't particularly interested, having witnessed her machinations throughout childhood, but she could be very charming sometimes. So we became closer in our early twenties to the point that I moved with my boyfriend to the city in which she lived, and we even lived WITH her for a period of time before it all came crashing down in spectacular BPD fashion. Before the crash and almost from the get-go, I noticed that she was appropriating my identity, and it was weird/unsettling. I have always had a very strong identity/personality. I thought she had too. Only now I think that she had probably adopted an identity in high school that was also stolen. Then she adopted another one in college. Then she adopted mine when we lived together and kept it for a long time.

Anyway, that shared, now I'm looking for YOUR stories of your child's identity disturbance. I'm looking for you to go back and really think deeply about what age you think it started and what evidence there was of it then. If you don't have a child and just want to share your story about your BPD's identity disturbance, that's welcome too, but please keep in mind that my aim here is to develop a line of anecdotal evidence. So if you know anything of their *childhood* identity disturbance that would be very helpful.

[Leaf56]

I would like to know what other parents' experiences are of their BPD child's sense of self/identity disturbance. Here is mine:

My son (25) is very clear that he has no sense of self. He says he has no idea who he is or what he wants. This is a matter-of-fact kind of statement. In conversation he tries very hard to settle on who he is/what he wants only to moments later say no, this is not who he is/what he wants. It's very frustrating to him and me. I noticed his identity difficulty starting when he was around two or three. He couldn't go to preschool without wearing a shirt that clearly indicated an identity—firefighter, farmer, Pokemon, Spiderman, the Nutcracker soldier. He would throw huge fits if a shirt that corresponded with who he wanted to be that day was in the laundry. It was so disruptive that I got rid of the shirts and replaced them with plain-colored shirts, to which he then assigned identities based on their colors. He would  immerse himself in imaginary play at any opportunity and would take on any identity that was part of the game. He would watch sections of certain movies over and over and seem to almost become one with the character on screen. But from a very early age I could tell he had almost no ability or interest in empathizing with regular humans in the world. He used them for his own purposes and eventually created a persona of a loving (almost to the point of being obsequious and insipid) person who cares deeply for others in order to get what he wanted, which apparently was, after puberty, sex with beautiful women. When he realized that that wasn't getting him what he wanted and that it was actually the "bad boys" who don't care about women who got the women, he tried to change his personality to become that instead. He basically wanted to be anybody but himself. He has complete self-loathing and envy of others, who he sees as having an easy time of it just being "normal."

My other experience of identity disturbance was with the other BPD person in my life, my sister. My sister hated me most of her life, I guess from jealousy, but then decided I was worthy of her attention at some point and courted me relentlessly. I wasn't particularly interested, having witnessed her machinations throughout childhood, but she could be very charming sometimes. So we became closer in our early twenties to the point that I moved with my boyfriend to the city in which she lived, and we even lived WITH her for a period of time before it all came crashing down in spectacular BPD fashion. Before the crash and almost from the get-go, I noticed that she was appropriating my identity, and it was weird/unsettling. I have always had a very strong identity/personality. I thought she had too. Only now I think that she had probably adopted an identity in high school that was also stolen. Then she adopted another one in college. Then she adopted mine when we lived together and kept it for a long time.

Anyway, that shared, now I'm looking for YOUR stories of your child's identity disturbance. I'm looking for you to go back and really think deeply about what age you think it started and what evidence there was of it then. If you don't have a child and just want to share your story about your BPD's identity disturbance, that's welcome too, but please keep in mind that my aim here is to develop a line of anecdotal evidence. So if you know anything of their *childhood* identity disturbance that would be very helpful.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[guiltymom]

Hi Leaf, I have much to say about this but it's too much to type out right now. I'll send you a private message as soon as I can. For now, I'll just say that my 24-yr-old son has massive identity issues—it was the thing that confirmed for me that he has BPD. (I had first suspected BPD with his emotion dysregulation.) I hope you're having a good week.

[Leaf56]

Hi guiltymom! Thanks for replying. I’m looking forward to reading whatever you have to say! I was beginning to wonder whether anybody else had seen this in their kids, which would be strange if not since it’s supposedly one of the main things that distinguishes BPD from other disorders. I read that many clinicians won’t even diagnose BPD without this aspect being present and that it’s the primary symptom from which all others evolve.

[Flossy]

My 51 year old daughter's identity disturbance only seemed to become obvious when she reached the age where she became involved with males. She has taken on the lifestyle, interests, habits and belief system of whichever male she becomes involved with.

Her marriage has been the most influential with the change of her identity as it has lasted for 25 years. I believe it has only lasted this long as her husband and his family are wealthy and controlling.

His parents are white South Africans, the mother has strong Narcissistic traits and she trades in antiques and jewellery. She has always given my daughter extremely expensive gifts including diamonds and jewellery.

Within months of marrying into this family, my daughter actually began to adopt a South African lilt to her voice and began using the same catch phrases as her mother in law used in conversation. She also completely changed her style of dressing to a very conservative style and took on the same habit of drinking wine every evening at a certain time.

Yet, an earlier boyfriend she became engaged to was a drug dealer and she became heavily involved in drug taking while with him.

I believe one reason I am shunned is that I know all of this. I was witness to it. She fears that I know so much about her earlier life.

[Leaf56]

Hey, Flossy! That is so interesting. I would guess that it's probably very common for BPD females to take on the identities of the male romantic partners in their lives.

You said: "Within months of marrying into this family, my daughter actually began to adopt a South African lilt to her voice." Once again, I'm reminded of Madonna, who started speaking with a British accent when she married Guy Ritchie!

[Flossy]

You said: "Within months of marrying into this family, my daughter actually began to adopt a South African lilt to her voice." Once again, I'm reminded of Madonna, who started speaking with a British accent when she married Guy Ritchie!

Exactly, Madonna surely has unBPD. Even more severe on the spectrum of BPD is Angelina Jolie, I am sure. Though the trait of taking on her partner's identity appears less strong in her. Her dominant traits seem to be hyper sexuality and risky behaviours.

Though I do notice that a common dominant trait in all females is the need to be seen as a Super Mother. As this thread focuses on the identity issue I won't bang on about that.

[livednlearned]

The autobiographical book Buddha and the Borderline goes into identity disturbance in a fascinating way. It helped me understand what identity disturbance might feel like to someone experiencing it.

SD24 has gone through gender/sexuality phases. At age 16 she identified first as gay, then trans male, then non-binary, now she identifies as female who is bisexual. Those are the ones I know about. I'm sure it will change.

I didn't know her as a young child so my observations are limited.

She's socially quite awkward and in college she sought out international students almost exclusively. I think she looks for people who might feel like misfits.

I don't know if it's identity disturbance but SD24 seems to have a waif self that has toddler-like affects, and then she has an older child-like self that I find the toughest to interact with. Sometimes she'll take on a persona of being a wise adult who gives advice to people several decades older than her.

The family is on the intense side and I lean toward more levity. SD24 sees her dad and siblings relaxed around me. Probably the oddest thing is when she seems to be mimicking things I do.

She quit her job and maybe I'm not being fair, but it seems this happened right after her sister, SD27 quit her job. There was some family drama about SD27 changing careers and my BPD antennae (fair or not fair) tells me that SD24 wanted a piece of the action.

One time, H and SD27 had an argument outside my home office. It got heated and they both left to cool their jets. I was sitting at my desk and heard SD24 come out of her room and call her mom (BPD). She proceeded to tell BPD mom the story about H and SD27 fighting except she made it seem like it happened to her.

Not sure if that's identity disturbance or not.

[Leaf56]

livednlearned, thank you so much for posting here. I'm going to take a look at that Buddha book. I'm sure the sexual identities can be a sign, but these days it seems like they all go through that stuff so I don't know. My son also acts like a child. It's very hard for me to deal with that too.

[Leaf56]

I'm going to start typing a rambling post now. I don't have any clear idea where it's headed, but I just wanted to get some ideas out that started sprouting since I read something Flossy put in her post about identity disturbance a few days ago. She said:

"I believe one reason I am shunned is that I know all of this. I was witness to it. She fears that I know so much about her earlier life."

At first I have to say I kind of dismissed this comment. Not on the face of it, because *of course* that's part of the reason she is "shunned," but more like because I didn't see at first how it might fit into the genesis and overarching structure of the BPD state. Like many of Flossy's comments get me thinking, this one did too, over the course of a few days and then in tandem with something else she posted. And I'm sure this is obvious/has been covered here and in multiple psychological texts (I always think it's fun to discover things on one's own, though), and I would appreciate all of the learned folk on this board pointing me to the places here and elsewhere that this has been covered.

So first, I think we all accept this premise—that pwBPD CAN behave when they want to/it benefits them to do so and that they mostly have problems with the people they are closest to/have somehow been vulnerable with or opened up to. So if we theorize that the primary symptom of a child with BPD is identity disturbance with co-morbid extreme sensitivities, and if from an early age they suffer from rejection sensitivity, then they're going to start constructing various behaviors/identities at any early age in order to be accepted. As time goes on, isn't it possible that the whole problem they have with a parent or family member is rooted in the fact that they then know that the parent/family member knows everything about them, have seen the various attempts to rebrand, have seen them fail, and that they therefore go on to develop a sense of pre-emptive hurt pride/hiding the real self in order to protect the inner self from further shame that they have not yet been successful at creating an acceptable persona? That it's that specific dynamic and not that the parent has insufficiently validated since, after all, the parent should not validate bad behavior. That the child develops the feelings of "not being seen" or understood because what they were doing actually wasn't acceptable and through the extreme sensitivities and rewriting of their short history they come to blame the parent because, after all, what else could have caused this? (I see this so strongly in Marsha Linehan's autobiographical comments.) Anyone who is a parent knows this: We were there, and while they were there too, they were 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 years old and therefore are not reliable narrators. They can narrate how they felt, and I'm sure they felt awful (and again, I'm sure there are bad parents out there, not just the outlier abusive parents but parents who did not validate good behavior), but they did not feel awful due to something their parents did wrong, they felt awful because they couldn't figure out an acceptable way to behave and when they were admonished for it they felt shame, and then as they got older they felt defiance, the "no matter what I do I'll never be accepted so I might as well [fill in the blank] OR they try to comply by developing a false self that they think will satisfy the parent. This would explain that feeling that parents have of "but I never did anything invalidating!" because of course they never invalidated anything good or important. And that it's specifically the mixture of pride and the need to admit to oneself all of one's failed attempts to create an identity and the fact that the parent/family member/close person is there knowing all of this but not necessarily saying anything, but just the fact that they KNOW all of this that triggers the anger as well as the fabrications about the past in the pwBPD. After all, we know pwBPD selectively remember or fabricate memories, probably to shield themselves from acknowledging this failure to create an acceptable self and in order to cast blame elsewhere, and that this then solidifies the impossibility of ever having a real relationship with anyone who has ever seen them in any vulnerable/real self state. (I read Masterson about 30 years ago, so credit to him for some of these thoughts, I'm sure.) This would explain why they can be so amazing/seductive in the early part of a relationship or at the beginning of a job. But then as the chinks in the fake personality start to show, if they see that their boss, co-workers, friend, or lover notice them, they split in the psychological sense.

Then the real danger arrives in the form of therapists, internet articles on psychology, self-help books, etc. because then they have an EXPERT to validate their supposed invalidation and the poor parents who don't know any better are left mired in the ruins.

I hope that wasn't completely unintelligible, though I realize there are quite a few run-on sentences let alone thoughts in there ;-) As always, I welcome all discourse.

[leopard]

Hi leaf, I hope I understood your request for more stories. My story is this. Had a child with a compulsive liar. Our volatile relationship didn’t make it past the birth. DD went to visit dad every weekend until she started school when it moved to fortnightly. Dad and his family were VERY indulgent and spoiling of her, none of these belongings were allowed to my small flat as “I might sell them”. I was a single mum on benefits for a while but made the best with the resources I had to hand and small budget once I started working after my son was born 5 years later.

They would love bomb her every opportunity, not bat an eye if she broke or ruined anything, she would choose what they ate, where they went and what they did in their time, she was spoiled beyond reason and it was all funny to them and she was never viewed as naughty. I would spend the most of the next week following trying to reteach, bedtime, manners, treatment of belongings & pets and my behavioural expectations which came with normal consequences like time out, loss of privileges, grounding, etc. I’m not gonna lie-she got the odd smacked bum too when it was called for. On top of constantly correcting the fact that I did love her, I would have to explain that even if I could afford some toy or whatever, I believe she had to earn it.

As an older child going into teens and more children coming along on his side this began to wane for obvious financial and time allowances reasons. Although the love bombs still occurred in the form of  rewards both mental & physical, like any complaint she had about me/her teachers/police was never challenged just accepted and she was told by them that she didn’t have to comply. Until she went to live with him. Within a month he was begging me to take her back. She went back/forth until 18. He moved away and has had very little input since. She’s 25 now. He tells her she doesn’t need therapy and just laughs if she ever kicks off-he’s got his boundaries mastered to a tea.

The point being she had two extremely contradictory upbringings, with different lifestyles and morals and experiences of parental love. Which is probably what caused the BPD. She always says she doesn’t know who to believe regarding her history, events or upbringing. Therefore she struggles to know who is right or wrong and who is she meant to be because of it? Her dad has narcissistic/personality disorder traits as well so it may be genetic-who knows?

With regard to self/identity disturbance She has always been a bit of a chameleon and can charm the birds from the trees, master manipulator like her dad with a superiority complex. In new situations or meeting new people it never phased her, as a child she was a dream to take out and visit places-I was thrilled of this trait in her as I was a painfully reserved child. The school reports I got through the primary stages were not the child I experienced at home but again I was glad she kept the naughty indoors. I couldn’t plan for her as I never knew what she liked she was always fickle. As a teenager she rebelled school although she scrapped through with passes. She wouldn’t adhere to authority and gravitated to those she could bully. She couldn’t stand anyone being or having the same as her but follows every fashion/media trend going. She struggled to maintain females friends-they are always copying her or not giving her enough attention. Bunny boilered her boyfriends, idolised/obsessed over her ex boyfriends  exgirlfriends. Plus now cannot cope if her brother has any success in his life and has to diminish it or make it about her and being equal(they have dif fathers therefore also dif house rules but he didn’t struggle with self). YET after she left school She seemed to thrive when she was in sales/office/business employment with other successful adults/colleagues until her relationship drama got in the way of course. But is now an unemployed single mum & thrives on the dramatic lifestyle of other single mums and their baby daddies but also curses and complains that she has kids and states she was destined for more. Now her identity seems to have become her ailments, how many disorder badges she can collect and what a poor unfortunate soul she is.

I don’t know if you stripped away all the bull and solved every potential problem so that they could not struggle in life and settle on a self they like/enjoy that their heads might explode with the shear pressure of not having to react or enact the person they think they need/want to be at that time.

Sorry if I’ve barked up the wrong tree

[Leaf56]

Leopard, you crack me up! I've never heard the term "bunny-boilered" so had to look it up! Love it! Anyway, OF COURSE I want more stories! This was very interesting:

"The point being she had two extremely contradictory upbringings, with different lifestyles and morals and experiences of parental love. Which is probably what caused the BPD. She always says she doesn’t know who to believe regarding her history, events or upbringing. Therefore she struggles to know who is right or wrong and who is she meant to be because of it?"

It doesn't necessarily fit with my idea that the lack of identity is inborn and is the essence of BPD, but then the whole point of these discussions is to take ideas for a spin and kick the tires, see what works and what doesn't. So here the identity disturbance would've arrived later, as a result of her lived experience as a child. Can you think of anything from birth to say age 3 that might indicate she didn't not have a strong identity? Because just from your description, it sounds like she did have a clear identity, a strong one in fact. I also wonder if the course of this whole things depends on whether the child is wired from the get-go to be introverted or extroverted. My son and sister were both painfully introverted.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[leopard]

Leaf- I'm glad I gave you a chuckle. If you dont laugh… right? I’ve had a lot of those since coming here-not that I’m amused at others misery though. Oh, you know what I mean.

Im not sure I am grasping the concept right. Will look more into it after this. But is the fact that she was so clearly adaptable to people and situations without a strong desire for anything in particular by way of likes (fav colour, food, toys, routine, etc. I called her Mary contrary )  an indication that she didn’t have/couldn’t form her own identity?

I have done the MBTI test at various times. I got DD to do it and she came out exactly the same as me. My initial thought was “F**k off, I’m nothing like her”. Check that attitude misses! So I changed this thinking to “great maybe we will understand each other a bit better and then we wont fall out so much”. LOL.  I’m introverted and she soo isn’t. But then I’m not even sure she was honest in the test because her BPD was showing at the time.

I need to do more reading as I feel so out of the loop. I shall look up the essence of BPD, sounds like a bad perfume.

[Leaf56]

Leopard, I think you grasp the concept of identity disturbance just fine and how it might manifest itself in people with BPD later in life. I'm mostly wondering about how it might manifest in a very young child, say under 3 years. 

I can't imagine someone with an identity disturbance getting a clean MBTI outcome. I don't think it would be possible. I don't put much stock in them anyway because I feel like most people don't answer honestly or don't realize they're answering dishonestly.

"essence of BPD, sounds like a bad perfume"—lol

[livednlearned]

Leaf56, I wonder if you might like James Masterson's book Search for the Real Self. I don't know exactly how his work on personality disorders fits into the way that Gunderson eventually moved everything (pushing towards empirical research and categorization in order to better identity treatment solutions, as I understand it, which gave us the symptom-centric DSM way of defining BPD), but I am guessing it gets less play because it's more like an explanation of a phenomena than "here's how we treat this."

Masterson describes the rollercoaster touch-and-go of developing a real self as babies become toddlers and onto children (0-6yrs), emphasizing in particular the psychological milestones all of us must go through in order to develop a real self, which, if not successful, is substituted by what he calls a false self. I'm paraphrasing here and would probably make a psychologist cringe in how I'm describing it, but as I understand it, these developmental milestones to achieve a state of real self can be missed for both environmental and biological reasons as well as a combination of both.

He writes that, "the false self is derived mostly from infantile fantasies, and its motives are not to deal with reality tasks but to implement defensive fantasies: for example, avoiding self-activation to promote the fantasy of being take care of which then becomes a way of 'feeling good'."

"The purpose of the false self is not adaptive but defensive; it protects against painful feelings. In other words, the false self does not set out to master reality but to avoid painful feelings, a goal it achieves at the cost of mastering reality."

He talks about what he describes as "abandonment depression," which is when a child fails to successfully experience separation, because of "a set of catastrophic feelings" that ultimately prevents full individuation and an ability to master reality.

"When the child experiences the abandonment depression during the first three years of life, the real self shuts own to avoid further aggravating the feelings of abandonment."

He goes on to describe normal development and the need to tolerate increasingly difficult levels of frustration. When that doesn't happen, and when there isn't a normal ego development, "fluid ego boundaries" make it hard to tell whether feelings and mental states are external or internal.

pwBWD choose to avoid growing in exchange for feeling safe, most notably feeling safe from their own catastrophic feelings of abandonment.

I remember reading here that the fear of abandonment pwBPD experience is more like an abandonment of self, which is perhaps a concept that comes from Masterson's view of PDs and others who align with his thinking. Meaning, when presented with the hard work of mastering reality and developing a real self, the pwBPD instead abandons that work because the false self feels safe. The closer you are to someone who has BPD, the more threatening it becomes because we bear witness to the abandonment of the "self" that has become, to BPD loved ones, what they experience as "personality."

It's Masterson's work that helped me understand why my stepdaughter will sabotage herself when things go well. Her therapist recently suggested they could meet less and that was followed by SD24's talk of self-harm and SI. When the therapist came back with the suggestion to enter an outpatient day program, SD24 ran to H with, "T says I must quit my job." To which H responded, not knowing about the SI, "T might be overreacting."

He never knows about the whole story because the point isn't to help her become accountable and "master reality," which is what it's made to look like on the outside, the point is to get rescued. "If I succeed, I will be alone." Therefore, "I must fail and feel safe."

I don't like how callous I come across. It's actually the underlying failure to master reality that is so frustrating, not that S24 expresses self-harm and SI, or even whether she quits her job, which is genuinely one of the hardest jobs. Time after time there is this pattern where things seem to be going well, someone says so, and then SD24 dismantles that success, usually by playing people off each other. I never know how much awareness she has that she's doing it, only that she sure is careful about who gets to know what and when. Half seems to be genuine distortion (feelings = facts) and half seems to be steely-eyed manipulation to get her emotional needs met.

SD24 is, in my view, working 10 times harder than most people to figure out how to "master reality," and while she seems to want to get there, she's not willing to give up her false self for one that's real because it's too terrifying to experience the feelings of giving up all she's got in exchange for something unknown that no one can explain.

Meanwhile, she is manufacturing reasons (some real, some perceived) for people to rescue her in spite of being able to hold things together for a stretch of time.

Which, to connect it to one the quotes above: "the false self is derived mostly from infantile fantasies, and its motives are not to deal with reality tasks but to implement defensive fantasies: for example, avoiding self-activation to promote the fantasy of being take care of which then becomes a way of 'feeling good'."

SD24 is perpetually promoting these fantasies of being take care of as a way to feel good.

She's not an externalizer, so we don't have the raging that some have with BPD. Externalizing rage didn't work with her BPD mom, so it's all internalized. But that just means near chronic covert aggression and people like H caught in a rescue loop.

[Leaf56]

livednlearned, as I said in a post above, yes, I've read Masterson, indeed I've read Search for the Real Self, albeit 30 years ago, and it's sitting upstairs right now. Thank you so much for reminding me how pertinent it is. I read it before I became pregnant with S25. I was very influenced by it at the time, and I'm quite certain it informed my parenting, especially with this particular child. I was highly intentional and conscious as a mother, applying all the multitude of real parenting theory and books I'd read up to that point and developing my own theories in response to this child. My career put me in contact with many of the top child development experts of the world, and I had occasion to run his case by them throughout his childhood while conducting interviews. Anyway, I'm going to read the book again and get back to you on this. Obviously it was already in my thoughts since I mentioned it in the post above, but again, thank you so much for reminding me of its worth.

[Leaf56]

Okay, so I've gone back and re-read all the pertinent parts of Search for the Real Self, and the only part that I can really use from the whole book is this conclusion: "This lifelong inability to separate [on the part of certain patients] and become autonomous was probably due to an innate genetic deficiency. The possibility that it might have been due to severely damaging developmental experiences was unlikely since their early histories were no worse than the early histories of other adolescent patients who did better in the study. Currently there is little research evidence regarding the exact nature of this type of genetic deficiency, but we have seen that some severely impaired individuals, whose conditions cannot be directly attributed to failures in nurturance or to acts of fate, do not respond to therapy of any kind; we assume that the root of the problem in these cases lies in a genetic or biologic deficiency. For example, studies have shown that the infantile psychotic will not respond to even the best mothering. In these cases, it appears that some innate deficiency, not inadequate mothering, is responsible. So nature has seen to it that we will not go through the first three years of life with the same ease or difficulty. Some of us will separate from our mothers and express our own uniqueness more easily, some of us will have a harder struggle to do so. Nature has not endowed each of us with the same psychological seeds for developing a real self, and as adults each person has her own unique range of strengths and weaknesses in the real self's capacities. What is present at birth will grown and develop, just as in a tree, the fruit, flower, leaves, bark, and structure are contained in the smallest of seeds."

I have to say also that re-reading the book, I now see so much simplemindedness and stuff that strikes me as just plain wrong about it too, and I'm left with the distinct feeling that it's mostly a pile of c**p. But perhaps I'll leave that for another time. It's always sad when you realize your former heroes have feet of clay.

[PearlsBefore]

^{I noticed his identity difficulty starting when he was around two or three. He couldn't go to preschool without wearing a shirt that clearly indicated an identity—firefighter, farmer, Pokemon, Spiderman, the Nutcracker soldier. He would throw huge fits if a shirt that corresponded with who he wanted to be that day was in the laundry. It was so disruptive that I got rid of the shirts and replaced them with plain-colored shirts, to which he then assigned identities based on their colors.}

Wow, that's really interesting - and I've never noticed it myself or seen it mentioned...and you obviously tried what was my instant thought "well yeah, my children never had shirts like that". A few thoughts, no-judgement, just laying out the possibility.

a) You could be wrong, it's a pareidolon now in hindsight assigning symptom-status to something that might just be normal for every child or have another root.

b) The exact opposite, perhaps this is common in BPD children and you're just more observant than most and had a closer connection to him and noticed this pattern...perhaps someone I know had this issue and it was just never noticed.

c) Cart before horse, or horse before cart? Correlation may not equal causation, but BPD rates have been steadily increasing as society puts more and more shirts with Iron Man, Pretty Pretty Princess and an anthromorphic pile of poo out there...what if this societal shift can contribute to BPD developing from projected self-schemas?

d) As a child I had mild synesthesia (more attributed to almost-autism, been thoroughly tested to exclude PDs) with numbers (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_linguistic_personification) which still amusingly crops up sometimes automatically in my mind when doing arithmetic - the issue might be that while he assigns "red is angry, blue is happy, green is generous" he's at least drawing archetypes out of his own psyche and experience so there's validity to those "versions" of himself...whereas when he draws archetypes of "today I'm The Incredible Hulk" and "today I'm Wall-E", they are manufactured and have far more than just one or two adjectives to describe them so they "take over" his own organic personality variations.

e) As an adult, somebody showed me an animated movie called "Inside Out" that aims to be healthful teaching of how to handle facets of yourself and emotions and such...but struck me as rather harmful in the sense it externalized what should be internal, and internalized what should be external. That said, my bias is approaching this from the view of somebody who caretakes Borderline Personalities and therefore doesn't always look at it from the "average" perspective.

[Leaf56]

Hey Pearls,
I posted this thread in the hopes of getting others to post their anecdotal evidence of their children's early identity disturbance, but I always appreciate all thought spent on my own circumstances so I'll address your post:

You said: "a) You could be wrong"

Of course.

You said: "[It could just be] a pareidolon now in hindsight assigning symptom-status to something that might just be normal for every child or have another root."

I recognized it as a symptom at the time. You have to understand that I recognized this child as being exceedingly unique from his second week of life and basically studied him from the moment he was born while simultaneously parenting him as any normal completely devoted parent would.

You said: "b) The exact opposite, perhaps this is common in BPD children and you're just more observant than most and had a closer connection to him and noticed this pattern...perhaps someone I know had this issue and it was just never noticed."

I am well aware that I am much more observant than practically everyone, that I had a very close connection with him, and that I noticed all patterns. And I asked the question to see if anyone else had any similar stories. Again, we need to think of the child prior to three years of age, which is when this identity problem occurs according to the child development experts.

You said: "c) Cart before horse, or horse before cart? Correlation may not equal causation, but BPD rates have been steadily increasing as society puts more and more shirts with Iron Man, Pretty Pretty Princess and an anthromorphic pile of poo out there...what if this societal shift can contribute to BPD developing from projected self-schemas?"

It's an interesting thought, but as far as I'm concerned, BPD rates are "increasing" due to misdiagnosis, just as bipolar diagnoses "increased" in the early 2000s. The shirts did not cause the inability to create a sense of self, the way they played out in his life was merely an indication of that inability.

d) "the issue might be that while he assigns "red is angry, blue is happy, green is generous" he's at least drawing archetypes out of his own psyche and experience so there's validity to those "versions" of himself...whereas when he draws archetypes of "today I'm The Incredible Hulk" and "today I'm Wall-E", they are manufactured and have far more than just one or two adjectives to describe them so they "take over" his own organic personality variations."

I'm not sure, but I think this one shows that you're not understanding what was actually occurring. I'm sure that's my bad for not explaining better. Happy to try again, but I'm not really sure how to respond to this because I don't understand what you're trying to say.

You said: "e) As an adult, somebody showed me an animated movie called "Inside Out" that aims to be healthful teaching of how to handle facets of yourself and emotions and such...but struck me as rather harmful in the sense it externalized what should be internal, and internalized what should be external."

I've never seen it, so I don't understand what you're talking about here.

You said: "That said, my bias is approaching this from the view of somebody who caretakes Borderline Personalities and therefore doesn't always look at it from the "average" perspective."

On the contrary, that IS the average perspective.

So I just got off the phone with my son a couple hours ago, and we had a long discussion about his identity disturbance. The most notable thing about that conversation is that he can't understand the difference between an internal abiding sense of self that one has had one's whole life and his identity as his chosen profession, which, for privacy's sake, I'll say is an NFL quarterback prospect (an analogous but fake job). Using that analogy, most of my son's life was dedicated to being a great football player, and it was apparent from middle school on that he could "be a contender." He won many high school championships and was recruited by the University of Alabama, where he did not quite live up to the promise he'd shown in high school, but still would've gone early in the draft. Then in his senior year of college, just when he was about to enter the draft, he lost his mind, dropped out, and claimed he had always hated football and only played it to have sex with women. There's a much longer version of all this and this happened two years ago, and he and I have discussed it ad infinitum, and if you want more details I can give them, but the point of my story is this: Today, when I was discussing his identity disturbance with him, he said that his identity is a football player, and he just has to go back to being a football player. I asked him, "Do you think that an identity is defined by what you do?" and he couldn't even process the question. He couldn't understand that an identity is who you are despite what you do. He said, "No, mom, you don't understand that who I am IS a football player." If how I'm explaining this isn't working, please let me know, but please, please also don't make assumptions, just ask for clarification. The point is that after two years of dropping out from being a football player, he feels he has to go back to that now because otherwise he has no idea who he is and says so. He has basically sat in a room for two years doing nothing all this time. If he had never been a football player, he probably would never have done anything at all. The fact that he had this talent that allowed him to develop this professional identity hid the fact that he had no real identity. It started before he was three, and the shirts just foreshadowed it.

[beatricex]

hi all,
Super interesting thread, and I was just this week thinking that if the sense of self is strong, than a person cannot have BPD!  So, this is timely, I think.

My step daughter's (26) identity has been tied up in her husband's religion for quite awhile now, since before I met her when she was 19.  She met her husband in highschool.  She went so far as to get her Dad (my husband) baptized in her church.  She feels Very strongly about this religion.  It is of course her husband's family's church, she was not raised in the religion.  Since I came into the picture, several times she has expressed that I will "take her Dad away from the religion and her."  I am a threat.

BTW, my husband and I are christians, we are just not into her particular brand of Christianity, it is a very strict religion she has joined (no non-biblical music, no drinking, etc).

Since I didn't know her prior to her joining the super strict religion, I'm not sure if she was testing out different "senses of self" like others here describe, or not.  I know she was bullied in middle school, and that really affected her.  Her dad (and bio mom) at that time moved her to a better school for this reason.

She is also a mom to two toddlers now, and I do see the "super mom" persona coming through.  She is very aware of and articulates how her daughters will be raised (they won't cuss or be around kids who are a "bad influence," for example).  My husband and I both expect they will just be home schooled, but aren't really sure since she has so many problems with other people, and she cannot home school them herself (in the state we live in, you have to have a college degree to home school your own children, and she does not - so she would have to connect with another parent to homeschool her children).    Nonetheless, we are very interested in what will happen when the grandkids reach school age.  If any school with be "good enough," what kind of drama to expect, if the girl's older cousines (both are boys) will even be allowed to be around them because they're a "bad influence", etc.  It is an almost monthly topic between my husband and I, we are so sure there will be elaborate rules to her child rearing. 


b

[PearlsBefore]

My husband and I both expect they will just be home schooled, but aren't really sure since she has so many problems with other people, and she cannot home school them herself (in the state we live in, you have to have a college degree to home school your own children, and she does not - so she would have to connect with another parent to homeschool her children)

Not offering an opinion on schooling/homeschooling as it's going to depend on each child, and definitely on her own mental state - I've seen it written that BPD is one of the huge red flags against homeschooling and I can't disagree. That said, just an FYI from my understanding (and a quick double-check on Google) none of the US States require a college degree for a parent to homeschool their child and few of them require a GED/highschool. Just something to keep in mind while you're weighing the odds.

[beatricex]

thanks Pearls before.

I guess that is something that has changed since I was an education major in college.  not surprising.  I have a neighbor that was home schooling her child (he's 12 now).  She complained a lot about having to learn math, to then teach him math.  I do wonder how difficult (or easy?) this will be if my step daughter goes this route.  My neighber already gave up and now takes her son to another woman to "home school" him at the other parent's house with a few other kids.

Another thing I thought of, my step daughter started calling her dad her "best friend" about the time me and my husband met and started dating.  This also coincided with my husband and his first wife (my sBPD daughter's mom) getting divorced.

My husband has said he has no idea where she came up with this, that they are "best friends".  He said, "I never gave her that idea, she's my kid!"
Hope this helps others searching for answers about their child's BPD or sBPD.

b

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Leaf56]

Beatrice, yes, I think pwBPD are prone to taking on easy identities that involve magical thinking like those provided by intense religious experiences (like cults and hard-core christianity) and conspiracy theories—anything to escape reality if reality isn't going their way.