No sense of self?

Lack of self in asian religions is a pride thing, not identity.

At the same time, though, I don't believe anybody has a true self. Personalities are maleable.You adapt, you learn, or you forget. I think the BPD lack of self is something different from traumatized people lack of self, or merely lack of an identity.

I think it's more like a void, with a hunger to fill it, like the other "voids" BPD has. Like trying to glue back the hair that fell from your head... BPDs "lack of self" is neurological/psychiatric, and our glances and opinions at it are probably just a small part of a wider issue. BPD or people who relate to BPD tend to be void inside and extremely detached to life... in a satisfying way, at least.

But then again, I don't know why that has to be an issue. Make plans, keep lists, keep track of what you do, and live one thing at a time... Will make no difference. Most nons have issues with that, too, they're just not so "OMG I NEED AN IDENTITY I CANT RELATE TO ANYTHING WHO AM I NOTHING I DO IS GOOD THIS IS NOT TH EBEST THING I CAN BE FOR THIS SITUATION IT WILL NEVER GET ME WHAT I WANT GGNNNNNRRRR". Keep it rational and well paced, you'll see a lot of people have issues with this, too, they just take it more graciously and rationally.

My borderline mother projected A LOT of self conscious issues stemming from her lack of identity and problems seeing herself as something "good and whole" on a lot of people. Something I picked up and dismissed as being obviously "unreal". I still think part of the syndrome is not only lacking stability of identity, but fueling with lack of acceptance of self. It's like BPDs try on different masks and one of them fit right. Well, guess what? Most things and people are crappy.
It's just cerebral whackiness, slowdown and do a countermeasure based on reality.

Reminds me of gay men and some women how have a lot of body image issues and unstable presentations and mannerisms. The need to be seen and liked is so big, it takes away realistic expectations from them.

i agree no sense of self is impossible. that would mean one does not exist.

i think what is meant is lack of ego self - self as separate from the world and others.

like someone with a 'strong' sense of self actually just has a more limited self which includes everything within and including the body but nothing else.

where someone with a 'weak' sense of self (really, ego) just has a broader more expansive sense of self which includes other people and the world beyond the confines of the body.

so it all comes down to how the self is represented in the mind of the person, specifically, the boundaries of the self.

i can imagine how if one lives in a Western individualistic society how a 'weak' sense of self could be pathological.

because we are taught to see ourselves as separate from the world around us.

in this way our self is constructed in society by our society.

I hated this growing up, because I saw my self as inseparable from the world around me.

and even as I got older my sense of self expanded further to me becoming a part of the universe. I had no boundaries. i belonged to everyone and everything and everyone and everything belonged to me making me feel responsible for everyone and vice-versa.

yet my society is telling me to separate myself from the world, but i feel like a prisoner. I want to merge with the world around me, not isolate myself.

So the BPD instability in sense of self is due to it including more of the world outside as it is represented in the mind of the person.

and because that world is so unstable and uncontrollable in modern Western societies, the BPD self changes as that world changes giving rise to the appearance of no sense of self, or the BPD's tendency to reflect/mirror their environment wholesale and because their environment changes so often in said societies their sense of self will change too, along with it and at the same pace.

that is at least how i experience it.

the next level is to completely detach from that world, and then the instability in sense of self becomes due to the changing imaginations of the person which provide a world or context in which they live and their self develops according.

i think that is pretty deadon isn't it? is that other people's experience?

okkk nvm

I think I see it similarly. One aspect of the prevalence of BPD in western cultures, in my opinion, has to do with the cognitive dissonance an individual must be able to handle in order to interact with the conflicting demands of society. Maybe this disturbs our sense of self. I think that society itself is infected, and BPD is merely a symptom of societal dysfunction. "Mentally Healthy" people, from my perspective, have delusions and defense mechanisms to protect themselves from this cognitive dissonance, while those with BPD bare the full force and are unable to cope.

This, at least, is how I experience it.

Rednal wrote:I think I see it similarly. One aspect of the prevalence of BPD in western cultures, in my opinion, has to do with the cognitive dissonance an individual must be able to handle in order to interact with the conflicting demands of society. Maybe this disturbs our sense of self. I think that society itself is infected, and BPD is merely a symptom of societal dysfunction. "Mentally Healthy" people, from my perspective, have delusions and defense mechanisms to protect themselves from this cognitive dissonance, while those with BPD bare the full force and are unable to cope.

This, at least, is how I experience it.

I don't think they have delusions... Most people have irrational beliefs, and of course emotions/feelings/instincts are a driving force that makes no sense in the outside world most of the times. But people do find a niche where they can be comfortable.

You reminded me of one example of people unable to cope with this sort of thing: depressed people.
many of them eventually lose their filter and track in life. They just start to freeze in time both in their attitudes, actions and mind (memories stop forming, flashbacks of the past are constant) and experience demands as agressions to their fragile emotions and mind who seem to be dissolving themselves at the same time they are almost imutable (depressed people will complain they have only the same emotions over and over again, with varying degrees of unhealthy intensity). Depressed people will often be very, very contrary to their peers.

I don't think BPD is a societal symptom. I think the BPD invidiual would have trouble adapting to any kind of society, since basically his emotional and social development isn't happening much. Much like depression, BPD makes the brain go too much in a single direction. That's the problem with most mental illnesses, the person really can't keep up emotionally and mentally with most human beings. To say who has the problem is pretty easy, if you dig to find out who has more cognitive and emotional issues, and who has more quality of life overall.

Rednal wrote:I think I see it similarly. One aspect of the prevalence of BPD in western cultures, in my opinion, has to do with the cognitive dissonance an individual must be able to handle in order to interact with the conflicting demands of society. Maybe this disturbs our sense of self. I think that society itself is infected, and BPD is merely a symptom of societal dysfunction. "Mentally Healthy" people, from my perspective, have delusions and defense mechanisms to protect themselves from this cognitive dissonance, while those with BPD bare the full force and are unable to cope.

This, at least, is how I experience it.

yes!

exactly...


but...twisted raises some good points too...a true PD would probably be irrespective of environment.

As I said, it is just one aspect. There are quite a few other factors involved which all together form mental illness. Durkheim offered an example of the kind of effect society can have in his observations of various kinds of suicide. Western societies have a higher prevalence of egoistic societies.... and id say more but im at work and have to run. But my point is, and it is the perspective of a sociology major, is that society has a drastic effect on the individual psyche. I think psychology has largely ignores this fact, and by ignoring it, is missing out on solutions.

I completely agree.

the mind itself, in fact, is socially formed.

in fact, i think the primacy or privileging of psychology in our society is basically political - it's a way to deflect blame and solutions away from society, so we can ineffectively focus on individuals, thus allowing society - and all the vested interests - to remain basically intact.