BPD: THE LONELIEST INNER CHILD?

By A.J. Mahari http://www.borderlinepersonality.ca/borderloneic.htm

"But sometimes I am like the tree that stands over a grave, a leafy tree full grown who has lived out that particular dream which the dead boy around whom its roots are pressing lost through his sad moods and poems." -- Rainer Maria Rilke

"The child wants simple things. It wants to be listened to. It wants to be loved .... It may not even know the words, but it wants its rights protected and its self-respect unviolated. It needs you to be there." -- Ron Kutrz

We all have an inner-child. In fact some people feel as if they have many inner-children (this is not to say that one has Multiple Personality Disorder at all by the way) Each of these inner children, according to Cathryn L. Taylor, M.A., M.F.C.C, in her book, "The Inner Child Workbook: What to do with your past when it just won't go away", we have many inner children, one child for each developmental stage. An inner child for infancy, one for toddlerhood, one for middle childhood, and so on.

Taylor writes in her book "Who are the children within? They are the voices inside you that carry the feelings you were unable to express as a child. They carry your fear, anger, shame, and despair. They also carry your excitement, joy, happiness, and love, but many of us have had to deny those feelings as well. Whether you were ignored, belittled, or abused, you learned very early that it was not SAFE to FEEL. You learned that to FEEL meant to be vulnerable and to be vulnerable meant that you might not survive. Because you wanted to survive, you learned not to FEEL."

The Inner Child Explained

Taylor writes in her book, "The Inner Child Workbook", "Change often begins with the child because a child embodies the process of change. In his anthology "Reclaiming the Inner Child", editor Jeremiah Abrams says that the 'inner child is the carrier of our personal stories, the vehicle for our memories of both the actual child and an idealized child from the past. It is the truly alive quality of being within us. It is the soul, our experiencer throughout the cycles of life. It is the sufferer. And it is the bearer of renewal through rebirth, appearing in our lives whenever we detach and open to change."

"It is no wonder that we return to the child to find the solution to the reduction of emotional pain. ... now, as you seek change in yourselves, you once again return to the child. But this time you return to the child within."

According to Charles Whitfield, author of "Healing the Child Within", the concept of the inner child has been around for over two thousand years. Carl Jung called it the divine child; Emmett Fox called it the wonder child. Psychotherapists Alice Miller and Donald Winnicott refer to the inner child as the true self.

In Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD) we see evidenced through common behaviour associated with this personality disorder much of the inner child coming through the adult. There is often a painful dissociation between the two. Those with BPD also have a very difficult time even contemplating being vulnerable and the result is that they end up denying their inner child over and over again to the point where they actually take on the role of their past abusers or a caretaker who could not meet their developmental needs and continually re-abuse themselves. Much of this self-abuse is aimed at avoidance of the actual pain that sits under (often subconsciously) their experienced symptomology or pathology, the BPD itself. Continuing to ignore this little aspect of you and all the pain and terror that sits inside of him/her will make change and healing virtually impossible.

I cannot remember a more threatening thing, in therapy, then when I was confronted by a therapist who decided that I'd better learn about the reality of this child within. It was in private therapy, one on one, this therapist would not even let me talk, at all! She would hush me every time I tried to talk, and that was often. She would insist instead that I draw pictures. I was not amused, to say the least. Try as I might to not go there, I ended up going there. The results were very powerful and looking back those extremely frustrating (at the time) therapy sessions were pivotal in my healing journey because it was in and through those pictures that my inner child finally began to feel safe enough to emerge, to make herself "known" to me.

It was also through inner child work that I was able, some 13 years ago to stop cutting and self-abusing myself in other ways as well. There is such power in welcoming in this little girl or boy that so needs you to parent and re-parent him/her now. Believe me, I know it can be scary, but the rewards far outweigh staying stuck with the terror of resistance.

Anyone who was not able, for whatever reason, to have their developmental needs met in each stage of personal development will benefit from inner child work. However, I believe that borderlines specifically can benefit even more than the average because there is so much about BPD that is so self-abusive, self-punishing, re-shaming and so forth. Finding your way to your inner child and acknowledging that vulnerability is the way to truly begin to heal. This very same feared vulnerability, by the way, does become a cherished strength down the road. It does not remain this terrifying place in which one just continues to berate oneself for daring to feel something.

If you have not yet tapped in to your inner child or inner children you may be aware on some level of very young screaming pain that there are no words for. This is your inner child trying to get your attention. Until I recognized and began to work with my inner child (a process that goes on even today) I was not able to feel safe at all anywhere, ever. Welcoming in your inner child will, over time, teach you ways through which you can learn to feel safe. You will come to better understand why you haven't felt safe for so many years. Just imagine a 3 year old, let loose on one side of an 8 lane highway, as he/she starts to cross you have to feel utter terror. You would know if you saw this that you would need to RUN to the aid of this lost little one. You would know that this 3 year old does not have the ability to keep him/herself safe around all of this traffic blowing by. The same can be said of your inner child, at any age, and if you have BPD, you are emotionally standing at the side of an 8 lane highway, which essentially represents your emotions and your need to cross this highway is your need to emotionally mature, to establish your identity, to know who you are and to grow up. Run to your own aid here, just as you would to the 3 year old standing at the edge of the 8 lane highway and about to wonder out into traffic.

Taylor writes in her book, "The Inner Child Workbook", "The inner child embodies the characteristics of the innocent part of the self. But as you continue your internal work, you soon discover that there is more than one voice crying out for help. These voices represent different sets of needs that require unique and age- appropriate responses. Some emerge at a particular age, others appear carrying certain feelings. But distinct differences between them do become apparent. That is why I use the plural -- inner children ... What you do not master in childhood reappears in your lives as inappropriate responses to people, places, or things. It is these inappropriate responses that cause you discomfort. They are outgrowths of the pain and fear experienced in childhood when basic needs were not filled. Learning what you need to learn in each childhood stage [of development] is contingent upon your needs being met. You need to feel safe with your caretakers and receive the support necessary to accomplish the other tasks that accompany each stage of development ... life does not stop because you are unable to master these tasks. It continues, and you survive by developing faulty ways of responding to others and to the events that take place in your lives.

When you are a child the "faulty" or maladapative behaviours serve the purpose of keeping you safe (in some measure of what that means to each of us) and ensure that you continue to survive albeit without the needs being met that you need to have met to be healthy. When you get older, as an adult, you are locked into these behaviours (until you learn to make new choices and changes). These behaviours then express your fear of love, your inability to say no, your shame, your critical thinking in a patterned way that interferes with your ability to perform (at work or in your career) and drastically affects your ability to form and to keep any measure of stable, consistent and congruent relating.

So much of the behaviour that borderlines continue to cycle through, over and over again, is NOT age-appropriate or situationally-appropriate. This is one of the key things about borderline behaviour that often escapes both the borderline and those around him/her. Whether or not you yet realize or want to admit this, the behaviour that you continue to perpetuate that continues to hurt you and cause you to lose job after job and relationship after relationship (intimate or friendships) and keeps you effectively alienated from any sense of your true self, wants, likes, dislikes, beliefs etc, is a choice. You chose it years ago in the void that was a lack of what you needed in the first place. It will take an active decision on your part, now, in order to you to open up to the kind of change and new choices that WILL make healing from BPD possible.

Just as the title of John Bradshaw's book, "Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child" suggests it is primarily through this inner child work that you can indeed welcome yourself home to who you really are.

Bradshaw's book begins with the following quote:

"I know what I really want for Christmas. I want my childhood back. Nobody is going to give me that ... I know it doesn't make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense anyway? It is about a child of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of our hearts for something wonderful to happen." -- Robert Fulghum (In Bradshaw's book)

In his book, Bradshaw gives an example of a man who did some letter writing to and from his inner child, here is one such letter:

"Dear Big Richard

Please come and get me

I've been in a closet for forty years, I'm terrified, I need you.

Little Richard

Getting in touch with your inner child happens in many different ways for many different people. However, common ways to do this include journalling. You write to your inner child with your dominant hand and have your inner child write back to you with your non-dominate hand. Drawing pictures can also be a very powerful way to get in touch with your inner child. For anyone who wants to begin this journey I would highly recommend starting with John Bradshaw's book and later on ending up with Cathryn Taylor's book which has wonderful examples of ways to get closure with your inner child at each developmental stage/age when you have done the work and are ready to then let go.

You can make that something wonderful happen for yourself when you muster up the courage, and it does take courage, and the strength to face those inner children inside or yourself who so need your love, attention and patience. Do you really want to leave that child or those children in their isolated pain anymore? I don't think you do. I think you know that you deserve and want more out of life than that. Make a choice to help free your inner child and you will make a decision to free yourself.

"The 'child' is all that is abandoned and exposed and at the same time divinely powerful; the insignificantly dubious beginning, and the triumphal end. The 'eternal child' in [humankind] man is an indescribable experience, an incongruity, a handicap, and a divine prerogative; an imponderable that determines the ultimate worth or worthlessness of a personality."

-- C. G. Jung

SUFFER THE LITTLE (INNER) CHILDREN

By A.J. Mahari

Cowering in the dark recesses of your being - lost somewhere in the denial of your pain - lost to Borderline Personality Disorder - lost to your painful past experiences - is your authentic self which rests nestled in the centre of your inner-child who is the seat of your soul.

Is this the voice of your inner-child?

When I was young my needs weren't met. Now 'we' are older and still my needs are not met. I am your inner-child. I am young. I need you. Where are you? Why do you ignore me so? I hurt and I hurt and what do you do? -- You hurt me more and more, you ignore me, you neglect me, you abuse me, you cut me -- you hit me: YOU are doing everything to me that was done to you when you were me. Who have you become? Why don't you hear me? Why don't you love me? Who have you become?

You are not me anymore. You could not be and treat me this way. You could not be and be leaving me alone to be scared and to cry while you try to get what you think you need, immediately from whomever you think you can get it from -- no matter what. What about me? What about you and me?

Didn't it hurt when you were ignored? Didn't it hurt when you cries were not responded to? Didn't you feel worthless and shamed at the lack of love and nurture shown to you? I know I do.

Please stop hurting yourself. Every time you hurt yourself you are hurting me too. You are supposed to take care of both of us. Please hear me. Please let me live too. Please stop beating me up for what you didn't get when you were little.

You are the parent I need. Why won't you be that parent for yourself and for me? Why are you protecting yourself from my sweet, aching innocence? You need me. You need my vulnerability. I am an important part of you. Hear me, see me, feel me, love me? Be there for me. Be here for me. If you will be here for me you will be there for you.

If you have Borderline Personality Disorder chances are that you are dissociated (to one degree or another) from your inner-child. Just as parents often cannot parent (outside) children any better than they themselves were parented it is also true that borderlines often cannot connect and have a healthy, loving relationship with themselves. This essentially means that you have abandoned and or are neglecting your inner-child in the same ways that you feel that you were abandoned and or neglected.

This abandonment and dissociation from your inner- child is the central motivating force behind most of your projection. You are thrusting out toward others the agony of this small, helpless, and needy aspect of yourself.

The way that I was able to stop all self-harm and any and all impulses to self-harm was through getting to know my inner-child; that part of myself that is the most vulnerable and tender and that is the most in touch and in tune with what I feel and why. The part of me that houses my vulnerability and that most needs my care and love.

I wrote and honoured a contract with my inner-child in which I promised never to hurt her again. I promised to stop hurting her and to respect her pain and her rights to be nurtured, respected and cared for. I had to stop the self-harm before I could integrate my inner- child. It was this integration that stopped the self-harm. I realized in my therapy travels that I had learned to abuse myself just as others had abused me. One day I realized that I hurt enough already -- I needed to stop adding to my hurt if I wanted to get better. I welcomed home my inner-child.

Turning to my inner-child and learning to relate to her meant that I had to face all of the pain that she had carried herself for years. Of course she was always a part of me -- but a dissociated and very unvalued part of me for years, sadly.

A major part of the work required to heal from BPD involves learning to be a parent, protector, nurturer, and teacher for this most precious and vulnerable aspect of who you really are.

Healing requires that you turn inward. Look inside to the roots of your authentic identity, honour them, respect them and cherish them. The roots of your authentic identity can only be found through the part of you known as your inner-child.

Just as you have suffered so too has your inner-child. Don't choose to let this suffering go on any longer. Turn to this aspect of yourself with love, sorrow, understanding and a willingness to listen and learn for it is at this very seat of your soul that you can meet with the pain that when released in a healthy and integrated way will see you become the person that you have always been meant to be -- this is what it means to be whole.

Suffer The Little (Inner) Children: Why? For how long? In the name of what?

Hear the cries of your wounded inner-child today and begin a new relationship with yourself toward being your own very best friend. Stop abandoning yourself time and time again. You deserve more. You are capable of more. Your inner-child deserves more. Love - loving yourself, accepting yourself -- and all that you feel truly is the way to heal this rift between you and the seat of your soul -- your inner-child.

Your most vulnerable weaknesses are truly the way to strength, health and character. Our weaknesses are really our greatest strengths when we stop acting out our pasts and when we stop expecting ourselves or others to be perfect. Let go of yesterday. Let go of all of the negative and toxic things that "they" said to you and stop saying those things to your precious inner-child. If you did not receive adequate parenting that met your needs the task for you now is to accept and grieve that loss. Parent yourself. Parent your inner-child. Stop looking to others to parent you now. It is that looking for the parent in others that destroys any potential for there to be healthy and lasting relationships.

The baby that you hear crying - is your inner-child - a central part of who you are. The child that you hear screaming - is you. The pain that is piercing your soul -- is yours - yours to face, yours to bear and yours to heal. Every time you make a choice to neglect the reality of your inner-child and to not take care of yourself (meet your own needs) you once again repeat the toxic cycle of shame and abuse that you have so suffered from yourself. End the cycle, reach in to your inner-child. Meet, greet and learn to accept and love your inner-child - the very object that you must acquire constancy for and with first in order to heal.

INNER CHILD TO PARENT & ADULT

By A.J. Mahari http://www.soulselfhelp.on.ca/ictoparentinadult.html

So much pain. So much pain held for so long, so alone with it. Why? Why does everything have to hurt so much? I want to laugh, I really really do. I wish that I could know how to have fun. I really, really do. Kids were not nice to me. Mom and Dad did not take care of me. They failed to teach me so much. I can see you sitting there, as you try to grapple with your feelings, feeling so lost when you feel mine rising up too. I know my feelings are very strong. I am demanding. I NEED!!! I need what I need and I need it NOW!!!

So many times I reached out my arms and there was no one who would reach back. There I'd sit with the emptiness of nothing to grasp on to. Hollow, empty air, air I coudn't get a hold of. I would feel absolutely breathless as I'd scream to no avail. No one would come, no one would hold me, soothe me, take my arms, my poor lonely, aching, empty, outstretched arms.

I know that you get mad at me cause you want to act all grown up and when I feel things strongly I act out and leave you feeling like you failed again. Not true. Point is that you need to help me with this pain if you really want to grow up. I can't even begin to grow up "to" you if you don't reach back and help me learn what they failed to teach me. So, if you help me, you really help you too, see?

So many years have gone by and I just can't wait anymore for you to take my pain. That's why I'm giving it to you whether you are ready or not. I really think you are ready but I'm afraid that if I don't push it at you and keep you aware of it that you will try to walk away from me again.

Please don't ever walk away from me again. Please don't ever leave me alone again, ok? I need you. I really do. I can't hold all this pain anymore. Please, please soothe me. Please please nurture me. Be here for me, yes ME!!!

Don't be afraid to admit that you can be as scared as I often am, ok? Don't be afraid to be human. I'll understand, really I will. I am not Mom and Dad. I won't judge you. I NEED you. I love you. I want to not only be helped by you but I want to love you.

I know you know that I am strong. Just like I know that you are stronger than you think you are. Here I am, the kid, propping you up. Will you prop me up some please?

I want to play. I want to know how to play. I need to play. I need to laugh. Oh, and man, do I need to cry. There were so many years, as you know, where we just couldn't cry no matter how much it hurt, no matter how many times we lost people we thought cared about us. I want to be an important part of your world. Do you hear me?

I often cry on my own, here in the dark. But it doesn't change anything until you let the light in and my sound out. You need to let the water flow down your cheeks so that I know that you care and that you have felt my pain. Then I can feel better. Do you care about me feeling better? Are you so used to being beside yourself that you'd rather live in all that denial while I'm in here dying? You can't live when I feel like I'm dying, trust me.

Hug me? Hold me? Protect me? Are we safe, yet? Are we safe? Answer me soon, ok?

PARENT RESPONSE TO INNER CHILD IN THE ADULT

By A.J. Mahari http://www.soulselfhelp.on.ca/parentresponsetoic.html

I hear you baby. Yes I have known for some time now how much pain you have held. I am so sorry that you had to hold all of that pain by yourself for so long, for us. I want to be there for you now, baby. I am doing my best. Sometimes, though, the pain is overwhelming. I think you can well understand that right?

I want you to know how much I love you and how much I appreciate and am SO grateful for your strength and determination. You are the reason that we have made it this far. You are my essence and the core of my strength. I know that baby. I value you very much. I believe you when you tell me what happened to you too baby. Know that.

Since there is so much that you didn't learn, remember, that I too, didn't learn a lot of what it is that we need right now. I am working to learn tons of this right now. I am doing the best that I can. Even things I know at times, are so difficult to actually deal with and feel. I am easily overwhelmed by the incredible amount of pain and loss that you truly have. Be patient with me. I am here for you and working to get better at that every day.

Sometimes, as an adult, it feels futile and childish, to me and on my part, to continue to cry for such seemingly old hurts. Hurts that are as immediate now as they were for you all those years ago, though, I know that. I am letting the tears flow down my cheeks more and more baby and I am learning to give sound to your agony. I hope that you are feeling freed by that when I'm able to do that. Oh, so much grief little one, I am so sorry again that you have had to hold all of this for all of these years. I will never leave you alone again, I promise.

You will never be alone again, sweethearts. I am here. If no one else, we have each other and that is such a big step forward for us and such a wonderful place to start. I know how much you need baby. (I know how much each and every one of you needs me.) Yes I do. Things take time though, even after they are acknowledged and we have integrated them with one another, still it will take some more time for us to heal many of these "original wounds." We can ache and cry together now. We can be here together with the pain instead of carrying it separately.

I am so aware of you now. I can feel your tugs. I understand when you are triggered. I can now feel the regression as it happens. I am okay with that too, don't worry. I will not ever again turn the anger of the pain against you. I will not re-abandon you. I will not continue to act like the parents did. I know that we need to grow up together. I welcome that. I love you, I really do. You are such a strong, smart, wonderfully-likeable little child. I love your laugh and your spirit.

I will not ever walk away from you again. NOT EVER! No way. After all the work and heartache it took to come to know you, understand you, treasure you and appreciate you I could never do that now. No matter how much pain there is or how much I hurt at times with the taking of your pain. I am here for you. I will continue to work to soothe and nurture you. Please be patient with my trial and error okay

I won't judge you either, baby. I love you and I need you too. I am much more complete when I include you and your feelings into the "real" me that I continue to unwind and get to know better. I am working to prop you up too baby. Thank you for helping us survive so much. Thank you for being such a strong kid. Thank you for finding all the very creative ways that you found for us to continue to make it. Even the ones that most trouble me today as we work to change those behaviours still inspire me. I am in awe of your courage and your strength.

Baby, little one of my heart, know that I am crying with you now. I may not always get the tears out and I may not always be able to stop right when you most feel the pain but I feel you there, I hear the screams, I feel the pain and I understand. I validate all of your pain and your experience. Please don't ever be afraid to share any memories with me. I trust all that you tell me, without question. You are the authentic self. You are trustworthy and deserving of my faith.

I am here to hug you now little one. Here's a big hug! I am holding you little one, always. Yes, baby, we are safe. We are okay. You are safe, you are okay. I have you firmly in my arms, my thoughts, my feelings, my heart and my reality. You are real and I accept you. See, little one, I answered you. I will always answer you. Thank you for all your patience and understanding. I am learning and doing the best that I can. Thank you so much for accepting me as I continue to struggle to take care of you and of me.