BPD and transference

A lot of the books I have read seem to suggest that Borderlines are extremely hypersensitive. The theory goes like this: Somewhere in the BPDs life they experienced extreme trauma. Whether that be sexual abuse or never learning to relate to parents/siblings/world or even there is evidence that head trauma can cause BPD. Whatever the case, there seems to be mounting evidence that BPDs are trauma survivors.

One of the theories is that they become over-emotional/hypersensitive. They are so "aware" of their trauma that they are constantly battling these emotions. Therefore, they constantly are "Acting Out", cutting, and sexual promiscuous, in a way to self medicate the pain. The focus is BPD = Extreme Childhood Pain issues.They like to compare this to having 3rd degree burns all over their bodies. Any touch or feeling hurts and they are constantly hurting. There behaviors are nothing more than trying to soothe the pain. We will call this the Sunburn Theory.

I disagree. From observing my ex and reading deeper books on core trauma and how a surviver copes, I have leaned away from the emotional pain to more of a "emotional absence" theory. Trauma survivors experienced extreme pain once upon a time, and they learned to cope. Unfortunately their coping required some dysfunctional mechanisms to move on.

One of these was emotional absence. Sexual abuse victims often learn to dissociate, or emotionally and mentally "leave" while they are being victimized. The pain from extreme abuse is too much for the human psyche to handle, therefor survival mode kicks in and the person learns how to "remove" themselves from the situation, never REALLY experiencing the trauma. Unfortunately, this mechanism seems to be ingrained from then on. As humans, we need to "feel". Survivors of abuse learn to construct walls such as projection, splitting, dissociation, etc to never experience and "feel" the emotion in the first place. That is why it is so hard to "connect" with the BPD. The only thing that will ever get through these walls and numbness is [b]extreme[/b] stimuli.

As i stated earlier, we as humans define our existence by our experiences and how we felt by them. A person who truly cannot experience emotions becomes lost and confused. They are unable to identify with a "self". That is why there is so much drama. They are trying to connect with the "self". The borderline acts out to try and feel emotion, ANY EMOTION. They are so numb from learning how to survive trauma that they are literally incapable of experiencing simple emotions. If you have ever been on novocaine you can relate to how this effects the physical realm. After awhile you crave that sense of touch back because the numbness drives you insane. Borderlines are emotionally numb. It takes a sharp emotional "dagger" to cut through this numbness. When they cut, it is to prove that they exist, not relieve pain! When they have wild, crazy sex, it is to feel alive! An orgasm becomes an emotional awakening! But these are always temporary, and they feel numb again.

Its an endless cycle of drama. The push/pull, manipulations, mind games, etc etc etc, are just an attempt by the borderline to emotional connect with themselves. Because they cannot do this themselves, the reach out to others for help to "feel." They become emotional parasites, feeding off of others emotions! This is one of the only ways they can experience true emotion, by proxy. But, they can only hold these proxy emotions for so long until inevitably the numbness returns and the borderline loses touch with the "false self" and becomes emotionally dead again. The only way for a borderline to become truly cured, is for somehow,to become connected with their "self" and begin to experience emotions internally, not externally.

This is why Validation is so important. Validation helps borderlines identify with there emotions. Borderlines are unable to do this themselves, so they look to someone who is capable of emotional sensitivity to help them reason out their stimuli. When you argue with a borderline, you reject their attempt to experience emotion, forcing them back to their survival mode.