Editor’s note: This article was submitted by Steve Becker, LCSW, CH.T, who has a private psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and clinical consulting practice in New Jersey, USA. For more information, visit his website, powercommunicating.com.
It is not unusual in my clinical experience to see, sometimes, some quite chilling sociopathic activity from my “borderline personality-disordered” clients. When someone has a “borderline personality,” it’s quite likely, among other things, that he or she will present with a history of emotional instability; a pattern of chaotic interpersonal relationships; and poor coping skills under stress, reflected in self-destructive/ destructive acting-out and a tendency to suicidal behaving.
These unstable trends are not explained by a core psychotic orientation, although individuals with borderline personality can sometimes lapse into psychotic thinking when feeling hurt and rejected enough. Borderline personalities tend to see others in “black and white,” as either all-good or all-bad; they struggle to retain more flexible, ambivalent views of others. Others are either idealized, or devalued; these swings of perceptions can be sudden, volatile, and complete.
Perceptions and/or experiences of abandonment often elicit the borderline’s dysfunctional responses and psychological deterioration. In his or her more stable state, the borderline personality can sometimes function well and seem to be well-adjusted. But more intimate involvement with him or her, over time, will expose an underlying, poorly disturbed sense of self and incapacity for mature relating.
A question I’ve found myself considering is: When the borderline personality is acting, and looking, like a sociopath, is it the case that he or she, in these states, effectively is a sociopath?
It should be noted that behaviors per se are never sociopathic, only the individuals perpetrating them. Sociopathy is a mentality from which antisocial, exploitative behaviors gestate and emanate with a destructive, historical chronicity. But one can infer the presence of the sociopathic mentality from a telling pattern of behaviors.
Clearly there are fundamental differences between borderline personalities and sociopaths, differences which I appreciate. At the same time, when the borderline personality’s rage or desperation is evoked, one sees (and not rarely) responses that can closely correspond to the sociopath’s calculating, destructive mentality.
Once inside this mentality, I’m suggesting that borderline personality-disordered individuals can lapse into a kind of transient sociopathy. Commonly, victims of the “borderline’s” aberrant, vicious behaviors will sometimes react along the lines of, “What is wrong with you? Are you some freaking psychopath?” They will say this from the experience of someone who really has just been exploited as if by a psychopath.
Because this isn’t the borderline personality’s default mentality (it is the sociopath’s), several psychological phenomena must occur, I think, to enable his temporary descent into sociopathy. He or she must regress in some way; dissociate in some fashion; and experience a form of self-fragmentation, for instance in response to a perceived threat—say, of abandonment.
These preconditions, I suggest, seed the borderline personality’s collapse into the primitive, altered states of self that can explain, among other phenomena, his or her chilling (and necessary) suspension of empathy. This gross suspension of empathy supports his or her “evening the score” against the “victimizer” with the sociopath’s remorseless sense of entitlement.
Case example
I worked not long ago with a male, 24, who slit his ex-girlfriend’s tires in the parking lot of the restaurant in which she tended bar. He’d suspected her of cheating with her manager. Notably, they were still together at the time of his act. Although his girlfriend surmised his guilt, he wouldn’t admit it, suggesting foolishly that the perpetrator was probably the manager. While his suspicions of her infidelity had some basis, the important point is that they activated an inner-self crisis and desperation characteristic of borderline personality structures.
Specifically, he feared losing her—a prospect so traumatic that rage was summoned to help mobilize his fragmenting self. His rage was experienced as cold, not volatile. He regressed into paranoia, as one who had been betrayed and, cruelly, left helpless. His failure to soberly examine the circumstances and his inflammatory reactions represented a form of mild dissociation/detachment from reality that enabled the paranoid experience, and processing, of his fear; his detachment (and regression) enabled him to formulate and execute his revenge with his empathy (and guilt) conveniently iced. In other words, he could perpetrate his vengeance with the detached calm of someone who has experienced a trauma, as in a state of depersonalization.
Upon emerging from this state, it would be as if emerging from a sort of dream, or seizure. The rationalization would kick in: what I do in those states really isn’t me, so I don’t really have to take full responsibility for it later on. It’s as if the borderline individual surfaces from his dip into sociopathy once again a borderline (and no longer a sociopath).
Motives that drive patterns of problematic behaviors frequently illuminate and distinguish the personality disorders. In this case, what seems to have driven my client was his crumbling sense of self in the form of an inarticulate terror of being abandoned. For this reason (among others), I can confidently say that he wasn’t a sociopath. But when he was in that regressed, dissociated, fragmented state—for as long as it lasted—I suggest he was.
Oxy-I’m really scared though and I can’t read about it, cuz the more I read about it the more I think I have it. I had to study it a lot in my psycho section in nursing school and I ended up doing so horrible on the test because I was too busy freaking out about it. I just keep thinking about how my emotions are so crazed but then I forget that I am probably into premature menopause about 10 years too early. That could be part of it, as well as all the trauma from my childhood. I am scared to think about BPD.
I read this article plus many of of the posts. I have questioned (for a while now) if my mother (alive), grandmother (deceased), and possibly my aunt (alive) have and/or had BPD. My mother can be rude toward family members, friends, strangers, etc. She thinks in black-and-white terms, having been very rules oriented. She can say some very mean, nasty things to her family members (also friends, strangers, etc.), embarrassing them, and not even be sorry (or remorseful) over how she’s hurt someone’s feelings. This is how she’s been my whole life. I grew up hating holidays because invariably she would get upset about something, making the holiday (that was being celebrated) an unpleasant experience. To this day, I don’t get excited about any holidays, putting forth the effort (for my childrens sake) to make it a good time. Today, my family and some of her friends (I realize that with age (she has some senility), her personality traits could have worsened, being way more noticeable than in her younger years) dislike going out in public with her because she is unpredictable, not certain what her words and/or actions will be. She can be loving, empathetic toward family members (friends, strangers, etc.) at times (being able to sympathize with another person’s struggles), but then she can have rages, making family members’ (and others) into “the bad guy,” even though no one’s done anything to offend her. She fails to see why people do what they do, seeing it from the other person’s perspective. Her way is the right way, being rigid in her thinking. Am I right to suspect that she could have BPD, having the characteristics?
Bluejay,
Possibly—but there is a big overlap in most of the PDs, so where one starts and another stops is difficult to tell….I understand about the HOLIDAYS—and I’m like you, I could care less about them now as they were too painful…and the rigidity and the “black white” thinking, and HER WAY is the ONLY WAY….boy been there and done that..LOL Mine does keep her temper in check in PUBLIC though and masks quite well.
In any case, putting a “label” on your mom isn’t the important aspect of it all, but just knowing that she is TOXIC and avoiding being around her…I am NC with mine, but I know not everyone chooses to go totally NC with their parents or sibs for other reasons. I just reached a point that it was too painful to have ANY contact with her.
Oxy,
I could relate to the poster jaoconnor, triggering some memories. My mother could be vicious toward someone (eg. my father, my oldest sister (who is a very nice person), etc.), ripping into the person, then after she’d “blown her stack”, she seemed perfectly fine. Meanwhile, the person who has just been attacked is shaken up (literally), needing to somehow get over what he/she just experienced. I don’t blame my father for turning to alcohol to help calm his nerves. My mother would (and will) go on as if nothing happened. Her perception of people is skewed (at times), thinking and saying things about them that aren’t true. When you try and tell her how her words hurt someone else, she doesn’t seem to grasp it (or care), justifying herself, thinking (in her mind) that she had the right to behave as she did.
Dear Bluejay,
I worked with BPDs at an inpatient facility with mostly teenagers and it was HOT AND COLD, one minute literally they were trying to kill you and the next they were telling you how much they loved you.
I’ve seen it turn from hot to cold in a fraction of a second, it is awful to observe.
My egg donor wasn’t quite like that, but she was rigid in her religiosity and judgmental to the max, as well as held a great deal of rancor and rage directed mostly at me.
It does sound like your mom might have some BPD traits though, and/or psychopathic as well. In either case, she is obviously TOXIC…and that’s the thing, you dont have to have an EXACT diagnosis to know they are dysfunctional and TOXIC and you need to stay away from them in order to be safe.
Hi Oxy & Bluejay,
I agree, I don’t have the ability to tell who’s what and to what degree…toxic is a good term and I feel keeps me safe.
I think Hen’s said in a post that this current experience with spath’s open our eye’s to others (toxic, spath..)in our PAST. This is happening with me now…I’m thinking about a boyfriend a long while ago…hmmm, and a friend I had way back when, hmmmm, perhaps a sibling, definately a niece, hmmm.!
Ana, yep, because if you look back at people you have known or dealt with in the past you can see the toxic ones, and that’s all you need to know is TOXIC…..anything more than that is gravy, but if you can know a TOXIC person from a NON-TOXIC person then you are gonna be okay.
Learning what kind of person is toxic, ~ dishonest, unkind, manipulative, irresponsible, lacks compassion~ then you know what kind of person to stay away from. No matter what else is good about that person, if they are any of the above list, then staying away from them is the only viable option.
Ox Drover,
My gut tells me that she is BPD, yes, toxic. She does not lie, but she is opinionated, making statements that I would never make. For example, I remember as a child, she told me, “if you ever have a child out-of-wedlock, I will disown you.” I hadn’t even started dating when she made this remark! For me, I wouldn’t disown my daughter because she got pregnant before marriage. She was the law in our household. I keep my distance from her because I mentally can’t take her plus the P- ex-husband. I will visit with her, but I try to keep our time together short. I think that I could be a hermit and be content, see friends and family, but remain aloof. I’m tired of hurtful experiences, not wanting my children to be plagued with them.
Dear bluejay,
I hear you kiddo, I’m the same way, if the person is not someone who ADDS joy to my life instead of subtracts it, I don’t need them around.
Well gotta go on worm check on the tomatoes and water the duckies before it gets too dark to see.
Ana,
Yes, spath attacks cause us to review our past, drawing conclusions about people that we’ve known in our lifetimes (I think I’ve known more good than bad, being grateful for that).