The Borderline and Child Abuse.

Severe abuse is a common trauma in our histories as borderlines.

When we are abused as a child,

we invariably blame ourselves because,

(consciously or subconsciously).

it is the best of the available alternatives.

If we blame the adult,

we will be terrified by our dependence on incompetents who are unable to take care of us.

If we blame no one,

pain becomes random and unpredictable and therefore even more frightening because we have no hope of controlling it.

Blaming ourselves makes the abuse easier to understand and therefore possible to control-

we can feel that somehow we somehow caused the abuse and therefore will be able to find a way to end it;

or we will give up and accept that we are ‘bad’.

We borderlines learn early that we are ‘bad’,

that we cause bad things to happen.

we begin to expect punishment and only be secure when being punished.

Later,

self mutilation may sometimes be our way of perpetuating this familiar,

secure feeling of being chastised.

We may see abuse as a kind of love and repeat the abuse with our own children.

As an adult we remain locked in a child’s confusing world,

in which love and hate co-mingle,

only good and bad exist with no in-between,

and only inconsistency is consistent.

Abuse can also take subtler forms than physical violence or deviant sexuality.

Emotional abuse-

expressed as verbal harassment,

sarcasm,

humiliation,

or frigid silence-

can be equally devastating.

#BPD