These sufferers often have histories of being sexually abused, invaded and taken over. They have been used and not seen as a separate person. They have not had an experience of having people think about them. They have often literally been seen as an object – maybe a punch bag, an object of torment or a sexual object – to release someone else’s damaged emotional world. And this is often why personality disorders are so complex and so deeply buried within the personality structure. Deep down, often borderline personality disorder sufferers hold the belief that ‘I am bad’ and ‘it’s my fault’. Moreover, on top of these defences (where they have needed to keep the abuser as the good person and therefore themselves as bad) there is anger, sadness and rage – very difficult feelings to bear.
James F Masterson claims that the personality disorders are concerned with the issue of maternal availability. He acknowledges that they involve the conflict between the person’s two selves – the false self, which the very young child constructs to please mother, and the true self. If the false self has had to become dominant, the person will feel inadequate, incomplete and hollow inside. These personality disorders are seen by some as very difficult to work with therapeutically and yet, perhaps more hopefully, Masterson argues that we need to put people back in touch with their real self. That the artificial defences need to be broken down enabling completion of the borderline’s development which will hopefully lead to a sense of inner security. We can see now why it is so important to encourage a child’s emerging self and to not impose our own insecurities onto them. This is not to say that boundaries or rules are not encouraged, they are, but so is the emerging real self of the child because absence of it can be felt as a loss of self, leading to feelings of abandonment, depression and worse.
2 Responses to “Personality goes a long way”
Claire Calvey
Interesting article which covers some issues I’ve wondered about myself. You talk about very early experiences having effect on the adult but what about experiences later in childhood, for example, moving abroad? I wonder this because of my own experience in childhood (leaving a happy life at 10 for an equally happy life elsewhere but without the family network which had existed before) and my own ensuing bulimia. I also wonder about the effect of moving abroad on my own children and worry there will be problems further down the line for them. In short, is it only very early experiences which can cause these problems later in life, or is it reasonable to say disruption later on, after the personality has been established, can still cause life long problems? (And apologies if this will be covered in a later blog…)
Rebecca Eyre
Thanks Claire,
Sorry, I only seem to have seen your email now.
It is the very early experiences that have the most dramatic impact on us as we are highly vulnerable and our brain is developing so rapidly as is our personalty and expectations and way we view ourselves, others and the world. Our ability to process and manage our experiences when we are young is not sophisticated to say the least. Our early experiences are often encoded into the implicit memory system rather than the explicit memory system which is when we are able to remember experiences from say about 4 years old. As a result, these experiences drive decisions, thoughts, defences etc but aren’t easily remembered or understood. Of course, later events will have an impact too, particularly severe and highly damaging ones such as abuse. As regards your experience, it is interesting that you experienced moving at a young age and now your children are too. Often issues, such as eating disorders can be triggered by life events but often have their origins in early experiences too. I think being mindful of our own histories and also of the impact of decisions in the here and now is crucial. Being as open and aware as possible to feelings around these is a great step forward in preventing mental health issues springing up seemingly out of the blue. Good luck and keep well.