My first bit of advice is to stop referring to yourself as a BPD. You don’t understand how destructive this one thing is to your recovery.
As human-beings, we unconsciously, or subconsciously, understand that we can never be anything other than what we just are. Whatever you are, that’s what you are.
A bird is never going to not be a bird. Even if you pluck all of its feathers and dress it up like Charlie Chaplain, it’s still a bird. It’s just now a cold bird dressed like Charlie Chaplain.
Do you see what I’m getting at here? When you refer to yourself as “a BPD”, or as “a pwbpd”, or as “a Borderline”, what you are doing is reinforcing a false perception that you have already lived with for your entire life: That Borderline Personality Disorder involves inherent aspects of yourself. It does not.
Borderline Personality Disorder is an emotional disorder that originates from false perceptions people have about the inherent nature of their feelings, the inherent nature of themselves as people, and the inherent nature of various aspects of life. Perceptions are something we learn. They are not a natural, inherent part of what make us, us.
Therefore, in real life, there is no distinct classification of people who are ‘Borderlines’. No, there are simply regular people, operating with misperceptions about the inherent nature of feelings, self, and life.
Yes, Borderline Personality Disorder really is that simple.
So you are a person, and you have a disorder called Borderline Personality. You yourself are not ‘a Borderline’, as if psychologists have discovered some new race of human-being.
Now, it should dawn on you that you are not trying to change who you are. Rather, your job is to identify and correct false perceptions you are living with. That sounds infinitely easier than a bird trying to not be a bird, doesn’t it.
Maybe you think I'm splitting hairs here, but I’m not. I myself had Borderline Personality Disorder, unaware, until I was 35. After roughly seven years, I managed to rid myself of the disorder authentically and permanently. Except for some of its symptoms, the entire disorder is built upon extreme subtleties: The underlying cause is subtle, the way our parents communicate the messages that cause us to develop Borderline Personality Disorder in the first place is extremely subtle. The misperceptions we carry around with us that create so much chaos in life are extremely subtle. If none of these aspects of the disorder were subtle, everybody would be walking around cured, but that’s not the case. The disorder originates, thrives, and is difficult to escape, because it involves things of an extremely subtle nature.
So I’m not splitting hairs. Instead, I’m trying to help you make an extremely important adjustment here to your perceptions of what it is you are dealing with so that you can get started building a proper foundation for authentic recovery.
Think about the following truth, which is related to the truth I’ve already shared with you:
As human beings, we are incapable of generating any sort of true motivation for any effort that we secretly perceive is ultimately a total waste of time.
Notice that I’m not saying that we’re simply unable to generate true motivation in this situation. I’m saying as people, we are incapable of generating true motivation towards any effort that we secretly perceive is pointless. Incapable means you couldn’t do it even if you wanted.
True motivation means that you are motivated from an authentic sense of personal desire which you are generating from within yourself - and this sort of motivation has accomplished things that many would have thought was impossible.
Now imagine a coach who is trying to motivate his team to go out onto the field and give it their all - to play to win! But all the members of this team secretly believe they are playing an unwinnable game.
No matter what the coach says or does, it’s all for nothing as long as the team believes they are being asked to do something that they secretly believe is impossible. No matter what, as long as this is their secret belief, the team is incapable of tapping into genuine motivation needed to go out there and truly put their whole heart into the effort.
The coach has to first convince his players that the game is in fact winnable! They still might not win the game, but they at least know that the possibility of winning exists! Now, once the members of the team no longer believe they are engaged in a pointless effort, the obstruction to experiencing genuine motivation is lifted, and they can tap into their full personal desires to give it their all.
Why am I telling you this? Let’s go back to the wording, “I am a Borderline” or “I am a BPD.”
Do you remember that there is nothing a bird can do to not be a bird?
As long as you falsely perceive, even a little bit, that Borderline Personality Disorder is what you are, rather than a disorder you have, you are that bird.
You are incapable of generating any true, genuine motivation to ‘fix’ what you perceive is unfixable. You may give it a good try, but you will eventually burn out, give up, lose interest. You are always going to be you, and nothing will ever change what and who you just are.
But you can change what you have, or things you have learned incorrectly.
When you understand that Borderline Personality Disorder is not an inherent part of you (it’s not like the eye color you were born with, or your race, or your height, or the sound of your voice), that it is instead separate from you, you remove the obstacle that subtly prevents you from tapping into genuine motivation to work to fix the problem for real, which is merely your misperceptions about feelings, self, and life.
Reject any source of information that refers to people with Borderline Personality Disorder as ‘Borderlines’, and related terms, that equate the disorder people are living with to who they inherently are as people. If those sources of information can’t even get this part right, they are going to lead you astray in much more dramatic ways in other areas of recovery.