My darling borderline: Borderline women, Rashomon and Me.

Yes, I am upset. I am upset because:

Nobody told me about borderline personality disorder.
People focus a lot about physical health than mental health.
Even after all the development in psychiatry, india is still in the dark ages regarding this very important field.
An appointment with a psychiatrist is tantamount to 'going mental'.
Because I am upset about something which I am not supposed to be upset about.


Borderline Personality disorder: The hallmark of BPD is instability in relationships. Did you ever noticed a woman going through relationships, divorces and affairs as if she is in a Olympics running race? That woman most probably suffer from some of Cluster B personality disorders..namely histrionic personality disorder or Borderline personality disorder.
I want to talk about borderline personality disorder (especially high functioning borderlines), because I have lot of sympathy for people suffering from it.

The DSMV criteria for BPD are all over the internet. You can google them if you want and then come back here. I would like to give a more intimate, personal and different perspective here.

[ I believe sharon stones character in casino has some borderline qualities..so tried to make a clip, but was soo enamored by robert de niro and his voice, I put all his scenes in the clip..I am sure, this will be one of the worst clips ever made..so, will just give the link here..instead of spoiling this important blog post ]



Rashomon : Rashomon is an old japanese story which talks about truth. Basically, what it says is that, there may not be truth. An event can have different versions of the truth and you accept the truth which is most comfortable to you.This is also what I think. According to me, if human beings cease to exist..then it means the whole universe cease to exist. Because for something to exist, there need to be an observation or measurement. How can it be possible if the observer is absent or even if the observer is present, how reliable is the observer and how much can the observation itself can change the event.I want to use the story of Rashomon, giving different views about borderline woman and borderline personality disorder.




View from non-BPD:

When you first meet a borderline woman, the first thing you may notice is her smile. There is a certain quality in her smile which is designed to attract strangers. When you start talking to her, you will realize that she is in a severe life crisis, her tears will convince you how much she suffered in her previous relationships and you feel that it is your duty to rescue her. You begin to start taking care of her emotions, giving comfort to her and wiping her tears .You are like lullaby when she goes to sleep.You may also help her with her finances or solve some of her problems. Once you did that, you become to her the knight in shining armor." Knight in the shining armor" is the word that will be used again and again, when it comes to BPD.

Once you become her knight, she starts idealizing you.You will be the perfect person for her.Infact, you will become her god.she begins to start calling 20 times a day, telling you how much she likes you.Basically, she puts you on pedestral.For you, this is all something new. You have never met a woman who likes you that much.Never met a woman who just ignored all your defects and likes you for what you are.You choose to ignore all the red flags - her previous relationships,the instant connection, the speed of intimacy. You choose to ignore everything because, you are in denial of your own defects.She may sleep with you within a few days. Sometimes, she may even cry after sex, saying that nobody gave that kind of pleasure to her before.Imagine what it does to you. Its like a B12 shot to your ego.

If somehow, if you are not comfortable with the speed this relationship is developing and pullback, then you become her obsession. The more you pull back the more obsessed she becomes. If you forgot to call her even for a day, she cries uncontrollably and says that she thought of committing suicide. You are the hero of this movie..right? Have you ever heard a movie in which the hero leaves a poor suffering girl..left to die?


Bang! Starts the relationship. or god forbid, you marry her. Its like the starting of a rajnikanth movie. The perfect beginning..for both of you.Her mirroring of you started long before..even before the start of the relationship.Mirroring is nothing but reflecting your positives qualities or qualities you like. For example, if you like chicken biryani then she loooooves chicken biryani.If you like hitler then she too likes him.I mean hitler as in Hitler! You always dreamed of a woman like that and now, its your dream coming true. You actually go to her and say, "I cant believe this is happening". If any one says that during the starting of a relationship, even if the people involved are 'normal', then I think it must be taken as a huge red flag for the relationship.

she says something like, " I just need a man, any man,I want to keep at home and love him. I will do anything for him.I will work for him,feed him and just dedicate my life for him". Whenever a borderline says, I love you, it means 'please say I love you'. Basically what a borderline is saying is, " I just need a man to be kept in my golden cage. I will give him whatever he wants so that he can love me. I dont want him to leave me..so I will lock him in my golden cage".A borderline dream is something along the lines of you and her getting stranded in an island forever, just like tom hanks in castaway.

Infact, that whats she does to you. I am not saying that all borderlines act in the same way...but the underlying subtext is all the same. That is control.They want to be in full control of relationship.

" They will work for you, sometimes 2 to 3 jobs a day, to feed you and keep you happy.You will think of her as 'super woman', because you havent seen any woman in your life who has the ability to work soo hard. You delude yourself into thinking that your love gave her such energy. You protest, asking her to stop working and ask her to let you go and find a job. She breakdowns, especially if your job demands travel.She sometimes come back from her work to check on you if you are still there or not. Whenever she comes back to check on you, you hug her with tears in your eyes and assure her that you will never leave her".

As the relationship progresses, you will start noticing her rage.When she throws away her laptop 10 feet away or when she scratches you till you bleed or when she hits you with anything she can get hold off, you will be surprised how such a weak women have soo much energy and rage.
This is the stage where they start devaluing you.Every idealization ends in devaluation. whats the reason? God knows!.But, according to them, the trigger is always you. Whenever you both fight, it will always be you who will apologize. You will soon find that a rational discussion is impossible with her. You feel as if you are talking to a kid..not even a kid..more like a baby. Your discussion always seems like a fight to her, because for her an ideal love transcends all the discussions. She breaks down and cries like a baby and you got to apologize. But the makeup sex will always be fantastic.


You are no saint either. You too did some stuff which hurt her. May be you said something that pierced her heart and made her cry. Shit happens in relationships. But when the issue is resolved, it important that it is resolved forever. But, a borderline when you hurt her (or when she thinks you hurt her), she keeps a black book of all the littlest of things you have done to her and she is gonna throw that black book at you whenever a new issue comes up.


You may feel as if all your dreams are crashing down.It depends on lot of factors. One of which is, whether she is a high-functioning borderline or a low functioning borderline. A high-functioning borderline, rages very few times, but internalizes her pain. So, you would still think that the relationship is goin perfect. All the hiccups of the new relationship have been smoothened out and you are now looking forward for the future.

Then, when you are thinking that everything is goin fine,she drops the bomb. That she met a new guy a week back and that he is talking care of her soo much...a lot better than you.In this confusion, you wont even notice how cruelly she is behaving.Anyway, she leaves you for a new guy, within a few days without giving one goddamn reason or closure.
I know,this story was brought to abrupt ending, because, thats how a borderline ends relationship. Very abruptly.

You want to call her 'slut', dont you?
But, knowledge is power and lets see whats happening on borderlines mind.




View from BPD :


Have you ever got lost in a market or in a big city as a kid?
What did you think when you realized you got lost? When I was a kid,
I once went to a cricket stadium and got lost among thousands of spectators. It was the scariest day of my life. My thought process was something like this..." what if my parents couldn’t find me? may be some criminal people will catch and me and sell away..and make me beg on roads..where can I stay where can I live..etc..etc..". Basically what I did was to take the situation to conclusion. I cried and got angry with my parents and all. What caused all this anxiety is the abandonment (real or IMAGINED) of me by my parents. Now multiply that abandonment anxiety by 100 times and you will be get the borderlines abandonment anxiety.
Now, the thing with borderlines abandonment is that, it can triggered by smallest of reasons. Like if you forgot to call her, or u are talking to your mother every day, or u have a very close friend you are spending time with...it could be anything.Borderlines are extremely jealous, and this can trigger their abandonment anxiety.

Borderlines lack a sense of who they are. If you read my blog post

Who am I?, you would know that I was asking the question," what makes you a living person". Its the consciousness "I" and sense of self, thats what make you a living person. If you dont have that consciouness, you are the same as any dead person.Borderlines have a very weak self.

Its like they are on the borderline of life and death..not physically, but conciously. When the abandonment anxiety hits them,its as if they are dying. Their impulsivity arises from that situation.Lets go back to the previous scenerio.Okay, I got lost in the stadium and my anxiety hit me..and I was on the verge of death. Now, What if I severe all my connections with my parents and go to the nearest couple I saw in the stadium and beg them to be my parents. I would do all the gimmicks to attract them. If they accept me, then all my abandonment anxiety would vanish and I would be safe again. This is what exactly happens with borderlines when they are in a relationship with a person.

The above is possible with borderlines because they have shallow emotions.Shallow emotions lack depth but they are very intense. Remember, when you were a kid and when your parents bought you a new toy.You would take care of the toy, 'love it', felt jealous of your siblings who were playing with it and all. You hide it at a secret place and take care of it a lot. In effect, the toy became your best friend and you lived in your own private world where you were the queen.You were having a relationship with that toy. But, how many days would that 'love' for the toy remain? Then after a few days you got a new toy and new love affair with the new toy started.You lost interest in your old toy and would even give it away to one of your friends. Your emotional attachment with that old today is nil.Nothing. Thats how borderlines behave with their partners. Because, borderlines are EMOTIONALLY 2 YEAR OLDS.Their emotional growth was stunted at that age. They are emotionally handicapped.The resons? Mostly it is genetic. I strongly believe if a woman is bordeline..you might notice that her mother has borderline qualities too.Imagine meeting a 55 year old woman who behaves like a 15 yr old.SCARY!


If I make a movie called "Normal Human Being" (I am pretty sure there is nothing as normal human being), the tag line would be like 'in the pursuit of happiness' and if I make a movie called "Borderline", the tag would be 'in the pursuit of survival'. Because, whatever borderlines do is for their survival. When you are on fire, what would your thinking be? You would do anything to put out that fire. You wouldnt be thinking about hungry kids in africa. Your empathy would be zero at that moment. The same with borderlines. They are soo invovlved in their own pain, that they have no time or energy to think about anyone else. Thats why people think that they have no empathy.Infact, you can safely assume that they dont have empathy.But, at times you would see some great empathetic feelings in her, which makes you wonder that perhaps she might have mutilple personalities in her.


As I told you, borderlines lack sense of self.They even question themselves if they actually exist or not. They cut themselves, burn themselves to feel the physical pain..so that can numb the emptiness and the emotional pain they are feeling. The blood gives the feeling that they are infact alive.To numb their feelings of emptiness, they use alcohol,pills,sex...and they abuse them to an extent that they will be hosipitalised many times during their life. Most of the times, the culture dictates how borderlines solve the problem of emptiness. In india, a woman drinking and taking pills is frowned upon and so they invent new ways to do it. Like hurting themselves,affairs etc. Thats why borderlines in india love to immigrate to western countries..subconsciously..Thats why, you would notice a drastic change in the attitude of some Indian women after they reach the western countries.The dresses they wear, their makeup, their seductiveness, club hopping everything changes..a change beyond the normal influence of new cluture.Dont blame them.Dont even be jealous of them. Their life is literally a living hell. Let them do whatever they want.

Borderlines are rebels with a cause and the cause is their survival. They always say, " I dont follow rules.I wont care a damn what people think of me". They won’t say that with pride or arrogance or with a smile, they say that trying to stop those two tear drops falling. Borderlines who are ignorant of their disroder will always say, “I never got what I wanted in my life. May be you are the one I wanted.You are soo perfect for me". Borderlines always are on lookout for a perfect love..an ideal love.They will be on look out for that ideal love all their lives. Because, they believe that only ideal love can cure their pain. Thats why they want to think of you as perfect person.But a small mistake from you, and they will unseat you from that god position. After that, whatever you do doesn’t matter. They are like a bottomless well. No matter how much love you give, it will not be sufficient.

Borderlines have PHD's in seduction. No woman, I repeat, no woman can compete with them in the game of seduction. They are soo good in it because, they have practiced it all their life. It is their survival mechanism. Without it, how can they attract men,from whom they can suck
Identity? Borderlines like married men, as these men have the semblance of stability in their lives. If you let a borderline in your house, you better keep an eye on your husband. Lot of families were destroyed because of the seductive nature of the borderlines. I am really sorry to say this.Borderlines are also called as emotional vampires, as they suck your emotions by constant drama.Its as if they are only comfortable with pain. Just when you think that things are cooling down..there you go..one more controversy..one more situation..where you need to solve and rescue her.


Even if the borderline comes to know about her disorder..she may not change much. she will say, " I know what I am doing is not right. But I JUST CANT HELP IT".I believe that is a good thing, that they can see their actions in a different perspective, instead of hiding under the feminist philosophy. Knowledge is power, and it applies to borderlines as well. Change will come, but it will be slow.


My view :

No. I was not involved with a bordeline in a romantic relationship (My darling borderline is a copy of the movie title My darling Clementine).But, I was a borderline magnet.Borderlines look at me and then think of mutton curry. The perfect bakra.May be because I am dominant as well as irresponsibly compassionate and loyal..a rare combination..;). Or May be they like my intensity. No idea.I review movies in my own stupid but intense way. This post is a review of a life in the genre of psychology, in my own stupid but intense way.So, it will always be subjective. So, please do your own independent research regarding this disorder if you want to know more.

What? You never saw a woman who behaves like this? Borderlines dont come with a tag. They are just like every other woman. The thing with borderlines is that, their life is a BIG SECRET, a secret only known to her lovers and herself. Yes, borderlines 'tell all' to their boyfriends.Infact, that is one of their attractions. If you are a friend to a woman, and if you think like, " How can such a beautiful and charming girl has soo many crises in her life?"...Dude..you are looking at a borderline.


Yes. Labeling any person a borderline is wrong.Because it is not something you see on shelves in super market with labels like 'cottage cheese' and '2% milk'....human mind cannot be labeled in that way.It is not even a spectrum if you ask me..like you cannot say...the blue starts here..and the red stars here. I think human mind is more like a spectrum which is linked onto itself in mutiple dimensions.So, labelling is wrong thing to do..but could be life saving for some men.

Every person has borderline qualities..EVERY ONE OF US. The only difference is the intensity and longevity. If a woman is needy and clingy on that day,it does not mean that she has this disorder. She must have symptoms of disorder all have adult life. One of the biggest symptoms is her mutiple relationships with men and also number of never ending crises in her life. Anyway, thats what I think.I could be wrong.

Borderlines are very creative women. Trust me on this one.Some women could reach some really great heights of fame and adulation. But, it doesn’t mean shit. Their personal life will always be in a perpetual mess. They create jealousy among their previous lovers and somehow revel in that. Now, I am doing the biggest sin of labeling a person as borderline. I could be completely wrong on this..so please don’t quote me on this. I think…actresses aiswarya rai and nayanatara suffers from this disorder.Only time will tell.jeez..i cant keep secrets ;).

Why am I taking soo much interest on this topic? Because, in the end, lot (10%.Most of them low functioning BPD's) of borderlines commit suicide. They dread old age, where they lose their beauty and attraction and they become more depressed and more dependent. The most scary part is -- A borderline makes another borderline.

So, Whats the truth? Borderlines are real human beings with real pain. They spend their whole lives not knowing whats wrong with them. The ignorant society wont help them or even understand them. They live with shame and guilt (sometimes) ..thinking themselves as bad people. But, they cant help it. damn it! There is no point in blaming borderlines for their behavior. If you want to go into relationship with a borderline, you better be ready for a circus ride. If you want to help a borderline, you better not involve emotionally with her. One day, we may all die, from cancer, from heart attack and from accidents and die a horrible death, but that death comes fast. But, borderlines die slow, living in hell and heaven in the same day. I just touched the tip of the iceberg here. There are lot of other borderline mechanisms such as black and white thinking, projection,disassociation etc. Shari schreiber wrote some great articles on this topic, but they are not at all sympathetic. Get your information from lot of other sources. I guess finally, the only truth is that -- Every problem has a solution and every pot has a cover. Thats it.

This song explains the beautiful smile of a borderline :

How to fight loneliness
Smile all the time
Shine you teeth til meaningless
Sharpen them with lies

And whatevers going down
Will follow you around
Thats how you fight loneliness
You laugh at every joke
Drag your blanket blindly
Fill your heart with smoke
And the first thing that you want
Will be the last thing you ever need
Thats how you fight it

Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time