Are We There Yet? (Part One)
A dip into Buddhism takes me back to 2013, just in time for Mental Health Awareness Week.
Way back in 2013, I wrote a post titled, ‘Borderline Personality Disorder and The Chameleon Effect’. It had an odd rawness about it because I smashed it out during an early breakthrough in my recovery. I’d had a mental health crisis the year before, resulting in a diagnosis of BPD, followed by complex, high-intensity interventions from a team of mental health professionals. At the time, I started writing about my experience and what I was learning, to help process what was happening and to chronicle my path toward feeling better. The point was that everything I had read after being diagnosed made BPD sound like a bleak, hopeless situation. But I was coming to understand that sustainable recovery was possible, and I wanted to share.
That 2013 post has become something of a beacon, out there in the wilds of the internet. It continually draws people in who want nothing more than to share their own stories. Every month, for the past eleven years, I’ve received emails from people who felt that ‘Borderline Personality Disorder and the Chameleon Effect’ resonated with them – about themselves or someone they care about – and were compelled to let me know their experience. One such email has landed in my inbox as I write this, right now. In a way, the ongoing response to that piece has become more profound to me than the breakthrough that inspired it. That’s why I’ve never taken it down. And it’s a good job, too, because I just had cause to revisit it myself.
I’m studying for an English Literature degree - part-time - and I’m just at the tail-end of my first year. It’s been a very enjoyable whistle-stop tour of disciplines that contribute to the study of the Arts and Humanities – History, Philosophy, Music, Art History, Classical Studies, English Literature, and Religious Studies. This week, I’ve been studying Buddhism in the context of ‘crossing boundaries’ – geographical and cultural – and this brought me back to my 2013 piece about The Chameleon Effect.
I’m not religious. To be brutally honest, I find the idea of organised religion kind of baffling. I understand that it works for billions of people around the world and that’s good for them, but it’s just not for me. I hold my own beliefs, but I don’t believe in middle-men. My spirituality is between me and the universe. I am a big fan of community, so I understand that aspect of religious practice, but my version of community isn’t defined by religion. All this is to say that, until now, my understanding of Buddhism was limited to state school education, some movies and television, and a smattering of reading over the years.
In-depth reading about Buddhism now, though, is deeply intriguing. It resonates with me in very specific ways – with the BPD and The Chameleon - and I am compelled to write about it. Not least because it also happens to be Mental Health Awareness Week.
These days, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) also goes by the more descriptive (but arguably more frightening) name, Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD). That’s because it is an illness that causes problems with the way you process and express emotions, the way you perceive yourself, and the way you manage relationships. A defining characteristic of the illness is a fluctuating (or lack of) sense of self. This can contribute to the feelings of ‘chronic emptiness’ that are common in those with BPD, as well as ‘mirroring’ behaviour - the unconscious change in displayed behaviours by people struggling to fit in with their environment or social situation, due to the instability in ‘self’ caused by BPD. Unsurprisingly, this is one of the things that makes BPD treatment so challenging – but that’s a whole other post.
So, Buddhism. I was certainly aware of some links between mental health treatments and Buddhist practice – specifically the use of mindfulness. However, studying Buddhism in the context of lived BPD experience is quite fascinating. Buddhism is an internally diverse religion with many variations in tradition and emphasis - but its unifying features include the drive to relieve suffering, to become free of the cycles of rebirth, and to achieve enlightenment. This is the work of Buddhism – self-development through the dharma, embracing the Four Noble Truths, following the Noble Eightfold Path, and going for refuge in the Three Jewels (the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha). The alleviation of suffering is the purpose.
I can relate. Dr Marsha Linehan - American psychologist, pioneer of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, and noted person with Borderline Personality Disorder herself – explains the type of suffering involved in BPD. She describes those with the illness as being “like people with third-degree burns over 90% of their bodies. Lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement.” And she’s quite right. The inability to regulate emotions within BPD can be excruciating. It can mean feeling rage instead of mild irritation, or hitting existential crisis instead of feeling a bit “meh.” At its worst, it can cause dissociation and suicide. These extreme responses all have personal and social repercussions. When we experience emotional dysregulation, we are suffering (in relative terms).
Left unchecked, BPD can feel like we are the ball in a pinball machine – propelled at random, bouncing off a labyrinth of solid walls with no control over anything. In recovery, it can feel like we are walking a tightrope - constantly watching out for the next thing that will come flying at us, knocking us to the ground where we then have to climb back up and regain our balance once more. Because that’s what it’s all about – balance. Emotional regulation. Taking back control.
This is achieved through self-development - identifying triggers, understanding them on a fundamental level, and learning how to manage them to the point where they no longer knock us off balance, and no longer cause suffering. It’s all about breaking the cycle. If we liken the fall, the climb, and the regaining of balance to cycles of ‘rebirth,’ then sustained balance or sustained recovery can be likened to ‘enlightenment,’ or the potential for liberation from that ‘cycle of suffering.’
When we do the work of identifying triggers in BPD, it is common for us to find that many of them are based in attachment. Arguably, the instability of self makes it more difficult for people with Borderline Personality Disorder to deal with rejection. This is because, when there is nobody around to mirror – when The Chameleon has nobody to play with – we are faced with the terror of our own unstable sense of self.
We have unconsciously created a vast array of psychological safety measures to ensure that we never have to look at that core feature or the reason for its existence but, when faced with the possibility of rejection, the integrity of that hall of mirrors is threatened. We panic. Sometimes we cling to that attachment out of desperation. It’s self-preservation but it can cause even more problems. Even more suffering. That’s because, as Buddhism notes, all things are interconnected – and this is especially true in BPD. But that’s for digging into in part two…
When I wrote ‘Borderline Personality Disorder and The Chameleon Effect’ back in 2013, I suggested that my next step in recovery would be to work toward “a stable sense of self,” whatever that meant at the time. Certainly, this idea gave me purpose and the motivation to continue to strive for balance. Eleven years later, I guess you could say it worked to some extent. I have, for the most part, maintained my recovery thus far. But in all those medical references to ‘instability,’ what is the actual threshold for reaching this mythical idea of ‘stability’?
In other words, are we there yet?
The truth, as I have come to know it, is that a “stable sense of self” does not mean the creation of a single, static psychological entity. It means dismantling that hall of mirrors and taking a good look at what it has been shielding. It is about confronting the reality of it, radically accepting it, and establishing new, clear boundaries around it.
Buddhism teaches that there is no ‘self’ – at least, not a permanent, unchanging self. It embraces the idea of impermanence in all things, noting that everything in existence changes and transforms – including the ‘self’ - and efforts in attachment to some unchanging ideal therefore lead to inevitable suffering. In that case, for someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, sustained balance requires the development of tolerance. Not just tolerance of emotions, but also of growth, change, and transformation. Tolerance of ourselves.
At the age of 45 years, I have already embraced the demonstrable fact of impermanence. My children have grown, my mother has died, my hair is greying. I am not the woman I was. No better, no worse. Just different. Everything does indeed change.
(Except my dislike of avocados. I’m pretty sure I’ll detest those things until the end of time.)
