Borderlines: No Win Relationships, BPD Enigmas Decoded

ah borderlines the only thing better than one borderline in your life is two border lines in your life drink to all the wonderful enchanted magical amazing unicorn creatures known as borderlines and to the havoc they cause the pain and the trauma today i'm going to discuss many unresolved issues in the understanding of borderline personality disorders and the interaction between borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder johan lajkar my good friend was the first to write a book about narcissistic borderline couples way back in 1982 if memory doesn't fail me and sure she's a pioneer today i'm going to elucidate the complex dynamics in the borderlines mind and how these dynamics manifest or rather explode and erupt when she is in an intimate relationship with a narcissist stay tuned because they're gonna hear things about borderline personality disorder and borderlines in general which you've never heard before you're hearing it here first my name is sam wagner i'm the author of malignant self-love narcissism revisited a professor of psychology and a long time admirer of borderline and borderlines and hostage to them okay borderline we are going to delve right into the black hole follow me if you dare in borderline personality disorders disorder i'm saying disorders because there have been various descriptions of borderline conditions throughout the throughout the years starting in the 1960s so it's far more accurate to use the plural than the singular at any rate in borderline personality disorder there are two anxieties in play not one a lot of the literature is mistaken on this a lot many scholars many self-styled experts and even real experts and many and let alone laymen make the mistake of believing that borderlines have abandonment anxiety now the clinical term for abundant anxiety is separation insecurity and borderlines do have abundant anxiety they react very badly to perceived rejection and abandonment real imaginary or looming they develop something called anticipatory anxiety they anticipate the abundant the rejection and they react to it but they have another type of anxiety and it is known as engulfment or enmeshment anxiety it's the anxiety of being subsumed in the in in the intimate partner of disappearing into the intimate partner or merging with an intimate partner fusing with the intimate partner never to be seen again and these two these two anxieties are constantly at play in the tortured psyche of the borderline on the one hand she is terrified of being rejected abandoned humiliated and ignored or neglected by her intimate partner and on the other hand whenever he tries to get closer to her whenever he tries to develop intimacy in the relationship whenever the relationship becomes more intense closer more loving she senses that she is disappearing she senses that her existence is a peril imperiled she has a an overriding sense of ominous menace it's atmospheric it's ambient and she feels like she's suffocating and dying so it's very difficult to find the golden point the golden the golden middle between abandonment and engulfment if you um get close to the borderline if you get intimate with the borderline she feels that you're about to take over she experiences it as a hostile takeover and if you try to stay on arm's length respectful over boundaries and to give her personal space and and personal time she would she would experience this as abandonment and rejection actually borderlines interpret or misinterpret almost everything and everything is abandonment as abandonment and rejection if you are busy if you are going on a treat if you are talking to someone for too long if you are not paying them constant attention 24 7 365. the problem is both anxieties the separation anxiety and the engulfment anxiety both of them put the borderline in touch with her empty schizoid core remember that at the core of many cluster v personality disorders there's an emptiness avoid a black hole the howling corridors of an abandoned mansion so when the borderline anticipates or experiences abandonment she negates herself it's like the borderline defines herself similar to the narcissist the borderline defines itself via the other's gaze the intimate partner carries out many important functions for the borderline the borderline is unable to regulate her internal environment she's unable to control her moods and her emotions and many of her cognitions she is not exactly in touch with reality she has impaired reality testing so what the body line does is she outsources these functions they are known as ego boundary functions she outsources these functions to the intimate partner she lets the intimate partner for example affect her moods regulate them she lets the intimate partner provoke in her emotions and then control the intensity of these emotions so that they don't overwhelm her and she lets the partner serve as a mediator between her and reality she mediates reality reality is mediated through the intimate body so all these are ego functions healthy people do all these things from the inside they don't need they don't need anyone outside to do to do these things to perform these functions borderlines analysis do so when the borderline anticipates abandonment she actually anticipates an amputation of part of her mind because internet partner is perceived by the borderline to be an extension of her tortured mind if he goes away he had taken he will have he will have taken with him a part of her mind with so it's like losing her mind abandonment is perceived as losing her mind and what is when you lose your mind you lose yourself so it is self-extinction self-annihilation abandonment is perceived by the borderline as the equivalent of mental death engulfment on the other hand is exactly the same because engulfment negates the separateness of the borderline engulfment means that the borderline vanishes and then reappears within the intimate partner they become one merger fusion they become a single organism with two heads and to do that the borderline needs to disappear in a typical relationship with borderline there's the intimate partner and an emptiness an emptiness where the borderline used to be now the borderline is inside the intimate partner it's a kind of haunting opposition or body snatching or mind snatching that's what the borderline does to her intimate to her mates and so both abandonment anxiety and engulfment anxiety forced the borderline to get in touch with her schizoid empty core they negate her existence in different ways and this is of course a terrifying experience being in touch with your own emptiness with your non-existence is a terrifying experience so this creates in the borderline a repetition compulsion in other words a behavior that repeats itself regardless of negative outcomes so the repetition repetition compulsion specific to the borderline is known as approach avoidance approach avoidance repetition compulsion the borderline approaches her intimate partner she wants she craves intimacy she wants to be desired she wants to be in a relationship she needs the companionship the intimacy for her signifies that she exists she is being seen the gaze of the partner defines her outlines her contours which are a poor substitute for boundaries in healthy people so the intimate partner is like a scanning scanning laser that sort of creates the demarcation and the outline of the borderline and separates her from the rest of the world brings her into life as an as an entity and so she approaches the intimate partner because she needs to be regulated via the intimate partner she needs her mate to mediate between her and herself and between her and her world she craves intimacy but then when she gets it when the intimate partner is responsive loving caring compassionate holding empathic and warm she gets terrified she becomes terrified because she feels that she is about to be subsumed in the intimate partner swallowed and digested assimilated she's about to vanish and so she begins to avoid the partner she develops avoidant behaviors approach avoidance approach avoidance hot and cold these behaviors are very disorienting the borderline's intimate partner becomes very confused and then irritated and then aggressive she provokes in the intimate partner abusive behaviors this process is known as projective identification but many many partners of borderlines describe the following situation the first six months or one year or two years of the relationship were wonderful there was no untoward behavior there was no problematic conduct everything was okay intimacy was growing love was flourishing smiles were all around the couple was getting more cohesive and more bonded attachment was was growing everything felt perfect let's say the first six months or the first year or first two years and then suddenly out of the blue seemingly without any provocation the borderline changes she becomes aggressive often violent she misbehaves in public she acts out she does crazy things she becomes defined and reckless she engages in very hurtful injurious and painful behaviors for example she cheats compulsively with strangers or she gets she develops alcoholism and substance abuse so and this happens suddenly after an initial phase of perfect harmony ideal couple couplehood what happened why this sudden transition if you use the twin construct of the two anxieties and the approach avoidant behaviors that they create you can interpret this sudden transition at the beginning of the relationship the borderline feels in control she feels in control because she is the focus of attention she there is limerence there is infatuation there is a laser-like focus on her she is the pivot around which her intimate partner's life revolves she is the core she i mean the intimate partner becomes obsessed with her and is all over and so she feels that she has leverage she feels that she can always um kind of modify the intimate partner's behavior and avoid abandonment and rejection in other words she has an internal locus of control she feels that she is in charge of everything that's happening in the relationship because she has a lot of power over her partner borderlines generally engage in power plays and tend to interpret everything in terms of power mattresses who is on top who is winning who is losing they're very competitive and very possessive and so at the beginning of a relationship and it can last a month six or two years at the beginning of a relationship the honeymoon phase the borderline doesn't experience abundant anxiety or engulfment anxiety she cannot be abandoned because the intimate partner is all over her clearly infatuated and will never let her go she's the best thing that had ever happened to him he is enchanted he is under a spell so no abundant anxiety but also knowing government anxiety because she is the one doing the engulfing she is in control she dictates the tempo she she she is the one who delineates the parameters of the relationship intensifies reduces she's totally in charge and so no abundance no anxiety but then the relationship evolves daily life has its own its own rhythm and its own calculus this friction their debates their disagreements their negotiations their compromises to be made they're common goals to be set there is the tedium and boredom of routine and all this interferes with the borderline's self-perception as god-like that's her grandiosities gradiosity speaking and so daily life in this sense is a narcissistic injury it's a challenge to the borderline's grandiosity it undermines it the borderline borderline begins to realize the limitations of her power within the dynamic of the relationship and so the twin anxieties suddenly are evoked they are provoked and the locus of control shifts from internal to external now the borderline becomes more and more dependent on her intimate partner more and more demanding more and more clinging more and more needy because her abandonment anxiety had kicked in but whenever he tries to accommodate her to provide her with more intimacy and love and compassion and affection and warmth and acceptance and empathy and what have you in sympathy she reacts by pushing him away and she pushes him away because her engulfment anxiety kicks in now she can't admit to any of this so she tends to project and she would say that she is not the one pushing her partner away she is the one being pushed away it is the intimate partner who is doing the pushing away he is the one who is destroying the intimacy he is the one who is introducing conflict and aversion and aggression into what hitherto had been a paradise an ideal liaison a diet to die for she's very angry at him she becomes aggressive because she feels that is undermining and destroying everything they had built together although in reality she is the one she is the one doing it she is the one pushing him away she is the one who renders herself insufferable and her behaviors become more and more unacceptable until they escalate to the point of acting out acting out usually happens when the borderline perceives imminent or actual abundance and rejection at that point a psychopathic self-state takes over the borderline becomes a secondary factor two psychopath not a classic psychopath but a factor two psychopath actually a dysregulated psychopath she decompensates all her defenses crumbled the narrative that she had constructed where she was on top and her intimate partner was actually her extension a kind of external external regulator of her ego functions that narrative crumbles in a way the borderline is creates the equivalent of the narcissist shared fantasy it's a narrative but it is a solipsistic narrative the borderline doesn't bother to involve her intimate partner in her shirt fantasy the shared fantasy is exclusively hers she lives inside a piece of fiction a script that she had created and in this fiction of fictional in this fictional account she is a goddess worshiped and admired and adulated and catered to and attended to by her intimate partner daily life and what daily life brings which is usually conflict and friction undermine this storyline this storyboard and everything falls apart at that point she decompensates the compensation means all her defenses and her personal shared fantasy they fall apart they fall they fall to dust and she acts out she becomes a psychopath it's a protective measure she can't tolerate the pain and the hurt they overwhelm her they disregulate her they threaten to drown her borderline use many borderlines metaphors of water she's about to drown and so she becomes a psychopath she says who cares i'm defined in your face my way or the highway i'm going whatever i want to do i'm going to do whatever i want to do and then she she actually this regulates behaviorally and she becomes defined and reckless and dangerous to herself and to others all this process involves dual mothering now we already we already established that the borderline has her own variant of concern her own variant of shared fantasy the narcissist shared fantasy involves two people a narcissist fantasy is a theater play for two actors one is the narcissist and the other is the intimate partner the third fantasy of the narcissist was first described by sander in 1989 not by wagner the borderline has her own version of shirt fantasy but the borderline shirt fantasy is a theater playing for one it's a monodrama it's a single actor or actress and that would be the borderline the borderline creates a shirt fantasy where only she exists the intimate partner's role is to allow the play to go on the intimate partner in the borderlines world is a prop he is a is a stagehand his job is to make sure that the curtain goes up on time all this for all the furniture and props are on stage this and the stage is set for the borderline's performance his job in other words is to provide the borderline with the internal harmony and stability homeostasis and equilibrium that will allow her to carry on with her life and this is his her shared fantasy in her shirt fantasy the intimate partner is a part of her and she is a part of him they're one they're single organism it's a merger in fusion fantasy very similar to the co-dependence shared fantasy but the codependent shared fantasy actually is closer to the narcissist because in the codependency fantasy there are two figures in the borderlines there's only one the borderline is not able to recognize the separateness of her intimate partner because it would such separateness would threaten her too much if he's separate he can walk away and if he can walk away he will walk away he will abandon her so her abandonment anxiety precludes her from recognizing the individuality and separateness of her over mate and her engulfment anxiety precludes her also from recognizing his separate existence because she is one with him and she is terrified of this of the fact that she is all alone the borderline's universe is totally solipsistic into this mess into this mix come trotting the charming narcissists when the borderline comes across a narcissist a magical alchemy takes place indeed many borderlines tend to team up with narcissists in intimate relationships the borderline narcissistic couple is a very well established clinical fact why do borderlines gravitate to narcissists why do they seek them out there are many answers to this and john lachkar had tackled this issue in my view most profoundly when she said that the borderline and the narcissists trigger each other's wounds what she calls the v-spot the vulnerability spot and so by triggering each other's wounds they're actually catering to each other's needs emotional needs that's one answer and i'm sure it's completely valid but there's another and the other answer is dual mothering now you remember from my conversations from the conversations i had with richard brennan that i suggested that the narcissist becomes a maternal figure when the narcissist comes across a potential intimate partner the narcissist strikes the deal with the intimate part the narcissist says i'm going to be your mother i'm going to love you unconditionally i'm going to idealize you in the love bombing bombing phase and i'm going to love you unconditionally and in return you're going to love me unconditionally i'm going to mother you you're going to mother me we're going to bother each other we're going we both are going to regress to infancy and childhood and re-enact our childhood with much better outcomes that's the faustian deal that the intimate partners of narcissists strike with the narcissist the same happens with the borderline in relationships with non-borderlines the narcissist and his intimate partners are good enough maternal figures in a shared fantasy they are kind of fake family it's a fake family concert the narcissist comes to the intimate partner idealizes her and then lets her lets her have access to her idealized image he grants her access to this idealized image of her that he had created and she falls in love with her own idealized image through his gaze through his eyes the narcissist becomes a conduit of self-love a vessel a container of self-love so when the narcissist idealizes his partner he is acting as any mother does mothers tend to idealize their children and they tend to offer the child unconditional love love that is not conditioned on performance love that is not conditioned or behavior mother's love is not dependent or conditioned upon any external parameter it's just there it's a fact of life it's a force of nature the narcissist imitates this emulates this very convincingly because in the love bombing and grooming phases the narcissist appears to be maternal in the sense that he accepts his intimate partner in her totality flaws and warts and shortcomings and frailties and weaknesses everything he he glorifies her he glamorizes her he renders her perfect in his eyes and he broadcasts this message to her he says to her i love you the way your mother should have loved you and never loved you i love you the way a good enough mother loves and all i'm asking is that you love me back the same way and i'm gonna test you i'm going to abuse you i'm going to abuse you egregiously and i'm going to see if you will still love me and if you still love me after i had abused you that means your love is unconditional so this is the sick dynamic between narcissist and non-borderline intimate partners in relationships with borderlines the narcissist offers the same unconditional love the same unconditional love narcissism says to the borderline i'm going to love you the narcissist says to the borderline going to love you i'm going to love you as you are i'm going to accept you as you are i'm going to assimilate you i'm going to merge with you i'm going to fuse with you because i find you perfect and i find even your weaknesses perfect even your frailties even your shortcomings even your mistakes everything in you is perfect my love is unconditional it's not it has nothing to do with your performance and nothing to do with your even with your qualities i just love you because because you are that's analysis message to the borderline but there's a huge difference between relationships with non-borderlines and relationships with borderlines when the narcissist teams up with a borderline the borderline message is not i'm going to do the same i'm going to love you unconditionally you remember when the narcissist has an intimate partner who is a non-borderline they both mother each other they both provide each other with unconditional love when the narcissist teams up with a borderline he provides her with unconditional love she provides him with the ability to be a parent with the ability to be a mother no this is very interesting and very interesting twist the borderline allows the narcissist to act simultaneously as a mother figure to her and as a parentified child so the borderline becomes a child and a mother the narcissist mothers the borderline as a child he loves the borderline unconditionally is a good enough mother should do and the borderline lapse it off she loves it up she loves it that's one side of the equation the other side of the equation the borderline becomes a mother to the narcissist it's dual mothering the narcissist mothers the borderline the borderline mothers the narcissist but the borderline becomes the narcissist dead mother she i repeat this is very important the borderline becomes the narcissist's dead mother and by becoming his dead mother the dead mother he actually had in reality in life the dead mother who had made him into a narcissist by becoming this dead mother she allows him to parentify himself she allows him to mother his mother and to have a chance at healing her and fixing her and saving her this is a super crucial insight there is a narcissist bond trauma bond with borderlines is because the borderline recreates the narcissist's real mother his original mother the borderline is not a good mother the borderline is a dead mother a bad mother an unavailable mother a withholding mother an absent mother a depressed mother a narcissistic selfish mother in other words the borderline becomes the mother the narcissist actually head and so she gives him a second chance to mother that mother to parentify himself and become a parent a mother to his real mother through the agency of the borderline and to have a second chance with his real mother and the narcissist develops this rescuer savior healer fixer obsession here is face to face again with his real mother it's unbelievable it's a it's a time travel experience he's back to childhood and now he can make it right he can parentify himself he can become his mother's mother his mother's parent and with his love dedication and energy vital energy he can revive his mother he can heal her he can fix her he can cure her and the borderline gives him this this illusion this delusion because she is in need of saving she is in need of being protected she's a drama queen she's constantly on the verge of suicide or on the verge of a crisis so i don't know what she's constantly overwhelmed constantly dysregulated and the narcissist feels here's my chance here's my chance to fix my mother and if i only fix my mother by being a good mother to her by parentifying my soul all will be well all will be well and life will have been restored and justice and everything it's an irresistible fantasy and only the borderline can provide the narcissist with this hence the intensity and strength of the bond between narcissists and borderline when the narcissist teams up with just anyone any any intimate partner who is healthy has boundaries and so on yeah there is dual mothering the narcissist mother's the intimate partner the intimate partner mothers the narcissist nazis they're both good enough mothers initially and so that's it but it does it doesn't work it falls apart it falls apart because the narcissist never had a good enough mother he doesn't know how to deal with good enough mothers so he begins to abuse his intimate partner but with the borderline that's his comfort zone the borderline is a bad dead mother he knows how to deal with bad dead mothers he is the world's leading expert on bad dead mothers and here's one right in his backyard waiting for him waiting for him to change her to transform her to cure her to heal her to fix her and by doing so to fix himself to cure himself to save himself to rescue himself it is redemption vicarious redemption by proxy and the borderline gives the narcissist this illusionary chance second illusionary chance and he takes it and he runs with it and the deeper he is immersed in this shared fantasy the more it's difficult for him to extricate himself and the borderline knowingly sometimes plays this role by using intermittent reinforcement approach avoidance and other psychopathic ploys when she is in the psychopathics of state because she feels that this binds the narcissist to her this reduces her abundant anxiety she knows if the more the the more dead is a mother she is the less likely the narcissist is to abandon abandon and reject her she acts the dead mother with conviction and flair because this guarantees that he will never leave her and also it guarantees that there will be non-government because the narcissist will never merge with his dead mother the narcissist wants to fix and cure and heal and rescue and save his dead mother rendering her a good enough mother so that he can merge with her but as long as the borderline resists this process as long as she insists on remaining a dead mother she will never be engulfed and she will never be abandoned hence the perpetual dynamic the perpetual mobility of narcissist borderline dynamics in a couple in a relationship

Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin

Views: 89,256

Keywords: narcissist, borderline, mortification, shock, shame, guilt, fear, personality, splitting, needs, cheating, intimate partner, relationships, terror, anxiety, empathy, healing, trauma, self awareness, false self, true self, grandiosity, morals, parentify, shared fantasy, dead mother, rescuer, second chance, savior, fixer

Id: mtyoEbtmEeA

Length: 36min 17sec (2177 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 16 2022