Give Me Back to Me: A Fight for Your Own Identity

Article:
Renee L Richardson
Give Me Back to Me: A Fight for Your Own Identity

Whenever someone makes the mistake of stepping on your foot, most times, you will hear “I’m sorry”. In such cases, sorry goes a long way. However, there are the situations of which you may seem to feel that the person of which keeps saying I am sorry is simply saying it out of habit? When does I’m sorry become null? Well, if the phrase I’m sorry is rolling off of the tongue of a borderline personality, such is Null.

How did I fall for it?

Well, there are several reasons why someone could fall for a borderline personality. Someone who has borderline personality will often study the characters of people and with extreme observation; they are able to exhibit our most favorable behaviors/characteristics. We then become ecstatic by the mere thought that we have finally found the one person of which we are truly compatible.

Another reason that we can fall so hard for a borderline is that of meeting someone who is overly concerned with our whereabouts. When first meeting someone, we are blown away by how they call us several times per day, how they cannot seem to get enough of breathing our air. However, here is the issue, the under developed child in us, the one who suffered some discomfort during our childhood latches onto how the borderline pays sole attention to us in the beginning. I mean, let’s face it, who doesn’t enjoy being the center of attention at times?

What is the borderline really doing?

While we are busy being fixated on how the borderline is so engulfed in us, the borderline is observing how much we are truly enjoying being spoiled. Now what happens is that the borderline is now thinking of ways to reclaim. Now, the property is not you at all. What belongs to the borderline is actually being used by you. You are using too much of the spotlight, too much of the attention, and you are by far wasting too much energy of which should be given to the borderline. You were allowed the spotlight by default.
See, to capture you, the borderline became you- the all giving human being of whom places others before yourself. That is what attracted the borderline to you in the first place. So it is safe to say that a quick role reversal occurred.

Allow me to be clear, I am not implying that because we seek attention that we are borderline personalities. I am clearly pointing out to you that when we possess a need for something (which all things do); we are open, susceptible/vulnerable. We would like our needs to be met; “finally, someone like me who is loving has showed up to take great care of me now” And the reason that you were vulnerable to the borderline was because you were actually falling for yourself because the behaviors/characteristics of which you observed did not belong to the borderline. What occurred was that the borderline provided you with an opportunity to look in the mirror.

Why can’t we get along, why can’t I just Leave?
What begins to happen is that the borderline ping pongs back and forth between exempted borderline characteristics (fears of rejection, abandonment, unstable careers, feeling as if they are somewhere other than their bodies- dissociative)to mimicking the character of the person of which involved.

Through observation, I have found that when someone is close to and/or intimate with the borderline personality, transference of behaviors can occur. For example, you are now spending all of your time trying to recapture what you viewed as genuine love of which the borderline showed you in the beginning and when such does not happen, you bcome angry, fearful of rejection/ abandonment, your career suffers because of your fears and due to stress, you become depressed (dissociative).

So now, the borderline and you become mirror images of one another. However, there are periods when you are fighting to recapture yourself and during these times, you are feeling as if you are losing your grip and such can be true. See, when we are in stable relationship with people who are not personality disordered, we can level one another. During tough times, both people in the relationship are able to give and take. Well, you are losing your grip within the relationship with the borderline because you have not the partner who you can trust, who can have your back and who can take responsibility for his/her own actions. Clearly, you are on your own as you fight to regain your identity.

For more articles written by Renee L Richardson and other Mental Health Experts: www.selfgrowth.com