Buddhist and Borderline.

[anodyne777]

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

I felt some kinship to what Chet has described, except I usually bottle up my potential outbursts. That doesn't mean it goes away... it just manifests differently, sometimes in worse ways than if I would have just gotten it over with and exploded in the first place.

I'd have loved to read more/written more on this thread, but it's time to go home (I'm @ work).

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

Everything in my life is constantly in jeopardy because of this.

Chet, thank you for speaking the most insightful truth! I think everything in our lives is constantly in jeopardy - that is the way of the universe - this is another way of expressing impermanence.... Things are impermament for all of us and we each have our reasons.. Thank you for your posts and presence here... I am not trying to belittle or make light of your feelings and observations but wish to point out that in the midst of your life there is incredible truth.... it sounds to me that the tranquility you experience in sitting is beginning to find its way into your life... I know for me that the manner and timing in which it does so for me is imperceptible, but I notice random changes in behavior, reactivity, and demeanor. I used to be a yeller - my wife is now asking me to repeat myself or speak louder all the time - I have begun to speak much more softly...

Gassho,
Alex

[Marina S]

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

I was just reading some of the responses and found them both interesting and informative. I, too, have a number of things that I don't like about myself. As difficult as it is, I do try to remind myself to see this as an opportunity to look deeper. In instances such as these, I ask myself "What is looking to be accepted?" Please note: acceptance doesn't mean resignation or unwillingness to change. Unfortunately, there is so much pathologizing that goes on in our society today, that many people live according to labels placed on them by the helping profession. Therapists, too, forget to look deeply when making diagnoses. This is not to say that mental illness doesn't exist, but I am hesitant to offer suggestions re: the topic of mental illness for a number of reasons, mainly that I'm not a therapist, and also, for me, this is not the venue to do so.

[Dosho]

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

Hi All,

Great thread which I would have contributed to had not my old computer died while this discussion was going on. It was what it was.

I have ADD and although I can't relate to the severity of some of the other conditions here, I can honestly say I've had a taste of just about all of them. A well known writer on ADD wrote a book some time ago called "Shadow Syndromes" that indicated many of us who have a condition like ADD or OCD likely have a touch of some others.

I can echo many of the comments here that thanked Chet for his openess. I too have struggled with rejection and I worry about it so much so that I probably make people feel like I'm begging them to leave me alone. In actuality, I want to have many friends but it can be difficult at times when I feel misunderstood...even by myself!

Anyway, it's just nice to know that there are people out there who share these kinds of experiences and I find it interesting that many of us end up interested in Zen. I'm not looking for therapy when I come here, but it's nice to have some mended "split ends" as a result.

Gassho,
Scott

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

Arg...

I overreacted (shocker). My bad.

Chet

[Jundo]

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

I was just making a joke. Sorry for my being an asshole. I forgot the emoticon. :roll: Gassho, Jundo

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

Gee, I wish I had an excuse for being an asshole sometimes. Gassho, J

Yeah, Jundo - that's right, this is just an excuse. It's not a real problem and if I just worked harder, I'm sure it would fix everything. /sarcasm

Running into this attitude sucks, because it truly invalidates my actual struggle. It's like saying, 'You don't really have a problem, you're just lazy.'

Except I really do have a problem and no one would consciously live their lives with my problems on purpose. I'd much rather NOT be an asshole than have an excuse for being an asshole, thank you very much.

[Jundo]

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

Gee, I wish I had an excuse for being an asshole sometimes. Gassho, J

[ScottyDoo]

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

To everyone who congratulated me for being so open about this:

Keep in mind, I do this because you WILL discover something is wrong with me and I don't want you to immediately assume that I'm just an asshole. I want you to understand my condition more completely so that it softens your stance with me. It is not a selfless motivation by any means. If I thought I could hide it from you all, I would.

Chet

No worries. Due to living with my wife and her illness, I can completely understand your reasoning behind this. My wife does the same thing. She too, as you mentioned in another thread, will often make a terrible first,second and third impression on people.

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

To everyone who congratulated me for being so open about this:

Keep in mind, I do this because you WILL discover something is wrong with me and I don't want you to immediately assume that I'm just an asshole. I want you to understand my condition more completely so that it softens your stance with me. It is not a selfless motivation by any means. If I thought I could hide it from you all, I would.

Chet

[will]

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

Genjo Koan
To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.

To study the Buddha way is to study the self.

Exactly what we look into and question every time we are on the Zafu. What is this? What is anger? What is laziness? What is excitement? And so on. How do they manifest? How does this happen?

To study the self is to forget the self.

When one is busy looking at this. Where is the self? Is this our anger or is this just anger that we are experiencing?

To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.

This includes direct experience:

Dogen: When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you grasp things directly.

When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.

It is not a specific feeling, experience or concept, it is being drowned by the myriad things. It is experiencing beyond conceptualization. Beyond good and bad. Beyond judgment, wrong, and right.

Does a Buddha know he's a Buddha?

And so the twelve fold chain begins again, and we study, forget, and drown. What this does for this life can only be understood through this process. What is learned, and what wisdom is gained, can only be actualized through this process.

Bendowa

It is a
practice that balances the active and the passive, and it sets the
body-and-mind right. The authentic form of this practice, which is
known as Zazen, is sitting in an upright posture. Although we each
have the natural state, if we do not return to it in this practice, it does
not show itself, and if we do not experience it, we do not realize what
it is. It comes to us and fills us as soon as we give up our intentions,
and is not a discriminative state. When we speak, this state expresses
itself through our mouth in complete freedom. Buddhas live in and
maintain themselves in this natural state in which they do not separate
reality into two parts: mental and physical. People who do not separate
reality into two parts are buddhas. The way I am teaching now to follow
the Buddha’s truth is a way that allows us to really experience everything
clearly as it is, and gives us a state of wholeness that brings
true freedom. When you get rid of everything that hinders you and
find this freedom, these words that you are reading now will have no
relevance.

Gassho

[Kent]

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

Keishin, what a beautifully written post, thank you for sharing these personal and inspirational insights. Gassho Kent

[Keishin]

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

Hello to Chet and all other's posting here!

Quite a wonderful thread, really. I don't think it is uncommon, this painful state you summed up so well "I don't know how to continue as a person with these problems, Everything in my life is constantly in jeopardy because of it."
As Seung Sahn Soen Sunim is quoted to often say: 'Only don't know.'

To tell you the truth, I'm beginning to think that this 'borderline' business is a normal response to entering the 'adult' world, the work world, society. That is: there is nothing wrong with you. To me it is the process of transition (and similar in magnitude to the transitions of womb to world, crawling to walking)it finds it's expression in a more adult form of 'tantrum.' Those areas of our psyche, our being which have not been tempered (our tempers might fall into this category) now get 'hammered out'--so that even our tempers get tempered!
I therefore don't see it as 'you with a problem' but as you working out these strange hidden unspoken equations in the workbook of daily curriculum called LIFE.
One way to work with these things is to categorize them: BPD, PTSD, etc., and maybe it helps: having a name and a description, surely it helps by taking away a sense that it is only you, or unique to you.
I look back on my own years of irrational raging (at parking places , at red lights, at soured milk, at being late for work). I see now that there was rage inside me looking for a place to be expressed--like lightning looking for the closest place to 'ground.'
Lucky for me I had my son later during this process (I was 39) and so much had played itself out already. I still had moments of raging, and while these were not expressed at him (I specialized in inanimate objects), he did witness them. By that time these things weren't frequent. I had found causes to champion--I was shop steward for my union--and got to harness this energy against injustices.
As I look at it now, I believe most of it (the raging, the energy expressing itself as rage--which oddly enough was a form of depression) was due to stress or constraints I bound myself to: I was encountering a clash of worlds: the one of my own making and reality itself, throw in the world's of other's making into the mix...3 ring circus!
But while I believe the stress was between my ears, I still had something to 'express,' something to 'get out of me' -- this mental/emotional/physical place ending up in tantrum is no different to my way of thinking than using two hands, two fingers to 'squeeze' a boil or a pimple.
As I've gotten older, sometimes irrational rage from mostly younger (but not always) people gets expressed toward me!! And I can recognize it for what it is--not personal--no more than a fart is 'personal.'

I greatly benefitted from structure even though at times I would rail against it. I greatly benefitted from the coolness and warmth I experienced in zen and through my encounters with various zen teachers in whom I met friendliness which denies dependency (I'm talking co-dependency stuff here, not inter-dependency). I got to experience what I guess I would call inert intimacy or noble intimacy (like inert, noble gases of the periodic chart of elements).
All of this is metaphor and metaphor only works up to a point.
The simplest way to explain it is that I am a late, late, bloomer: I'm finally growing up.
Pema Chodron in a talk I heard on the radio late one night (KPFK archives has some good stuff--Something's Happening Show). She said something to the effect "There really only is one mantra "OM, GROW UP, Svaha!"
Chet, It is happening, and you are. You aren't saying "it's them it's them", already a plus, you are saying 'it's me, it's me,' but that isn't quite it, either, it is closer to 'it's my condition,' which is a good perspective with which to work with it. Condition is not a solid, rigid thing. You are not a solid, rigid thing.
As far as relationships go, all I can say is when I was young I experienced much wonderful, loving relationships and much misunderstanding and turmoil and many break-ups. Why oh why could I not have just had lovely friendships and shared sexual delights with others without this false burden for them to bear of being 'permanent life long partner.' That search for the 'ultimate' partner was what ultimately killed off beautiful relationships from enjoying themselves on their own terms--
I am now not sexually active, at least not with others. I enjoy a closeness and an intimacy in my friendships which surpasses (hard to believe but true) the sexual intimacy with others I had when younger.
I've come to understand, at least for me, that I was not cut out to be in a co-habiting relationship with another, at least not yet. Maybe when I 'grow up' some more? Yet, oddly, I've never been happier (and this is the past 5 - 8 years or so), and things just are better and better.
What happened to that suicidal high school girl I was, what happened to the young woman whose emotional pain was so great, she thought she would die from it? What happened to that search for another to love, to understand, the longing to be understood and loved? I have no idea.
I can't say zazen practice made the difference--because I can't go back and clone myself and see what would have happened if I had been Catholic instead, or if I had stayed in my marriage or if I had majored in a biological science instead--
All I know is that I continued to practice zazen and I continue to practice zazen..
However, Zazen isn't for everyone, and I would never recommend it. I don't know what I would have done without it: zazen and the passage of time to let 'growing up' happen. All I know is everything is so wonderful now, now that my body is starting to decline! I enjoy even what I don't enjoy! Now there's gratitude!

Please forgive me for this lengthy and very wordy post. May it be of help to someone somewhere!
I'm off to do errands.
Everyone have a good weekend!


PS I just wanted to add that I really appreciated what others wrote, all of the comments quite excellent and thoughtful.
I also wanted to say that in retrospect the part of myself I hate is the part of myself that hated parts of myself!!!!!

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

I really don't think I can make someone understand what it's like. It's a bit like PTSD - you overreact to minor slights with massive retaliations...there's an unrelenting sense of emptiness, and a feeling of being monstrous beyond what any rational review of one's actions would indicate.

I don't know anyone who'd want to sign on for that, is the thing. The negatives so greatly overwhelm the positives. Maybe metta practice will help.

Chet

A person who used to be one of my best friends self-diagnosed as borderline, and I wouldn't argue with her self-diagnosis. After a long and difficult struggle, I fell out with her and haven't spoken to her in over a year. I have no idea what's going on with her, and wonder. I loved her like crazy. But by about the tenth time she stuck a knife in my back, I'd had it.

I think the one thing that could have salvaged our friendship is if she had stopped playing games with me and had been willing to be honest. But she got some sort of thrill out of cutting me down. She also had a lot of the dynamics you describe, but it was that manipulative sadistic streak that destroyed our relationship, because it got to the point where I was starting to go downhill psychologically from spending time with her. I believe there were a lot of things she didn't have much control over, in terms of her inner emotional experience and how she sometimes reacted to that, but I don't believe for a minute she couldn't have chosen to stop playing games with me.

All the drama, all the suicidal freakouts, the drugs--as taxing as all that could be, none of it drove me away. It was the lies, the hurtful things she did just because she could (which I think was largely driven by the influence of the drugs over time, honestly; she'd always been somewhat that way but it got worse as her addictions deepened). The game playing. I understand the temptation to play mind games and I don't blame her--she was really disempowered in almost every other way. But I couldn't be the sacrificial lamb forever...

I'm not getting the impression that you're into the game playing and sticking the knife in to someone just because you can. You seem really honest and like you have a powerful sense of responsibility for your actions. Please don't fixate solely on what you see as your negative qualities... I'm telling you, all your good qualities are what are going to make the difference with a lot of people. If my friend had the same qualities you have, even with everything else, I would still be talking to her today.

I miss her a lot, and still love her. A lot of what I miss about what I shared with her I attribute to some of the positive qualities I associate with bpd... the passion, the intensity, the brilliance, the deeply intuitive perception. And even though she could be remarkably dishonest, there was a sort of honesty to her condition. She called it as she saw it (the other side of her ability to cut with words was an ability to cut to the heart of a situation). There was an intimacy that came out of her fluid sense of personal boundaries. A lot of things I will never experience with my "non-bpd" friends.

I think there's a good and a bad aspect of just about any condition, and I actually think there is a lot to love when it comes with the qualities associated with bpd, though no one could say it makes for easy relationships. But some people don't want easy relationships... you know, you could spend your whole life fighting to become something other than what you are, or embrace it, and find a way to enhance the positive impact and reduce the negative impact.

I'm sort of at this place with myself right now, actually, where I'm realizing that I can let a lot of the discoveries I've made about myself in the past year leave me so disillusioned and disheartened that I just give up on a lot of my hopes and dreams, or I can work with what I've got and be creative about how to use that to benefit others. I realize that if I can ever get my shit halfway together, this tendency I have to fall into periods of real darkness is something I could use to connect to others in dark places. That's really powerful...

[will]

Re: Buddhist and Borderline.

Hi Chet. I have had pretty much the same thing that you described. I can't offer anything really practical. I can only say hang in there, with time and practice it gets better. One thing that definitely helps is to try and just be nice and good sometimes, and don't get down on yourself. I know. It seems there's nothing you can do about it.

Perhaps if you just sort of stopped doing what you usually do. Change routine for a while it might help. For example, I used to listen to music and you know, all these emotions or thoughts about myself and whatever would come up, so just put that down for a while. Learn not to take your feeling and thoughts so seriously. Just keep coming back to what is really happening. Listen, look, feel. Keep practicing that and little by little the thoughts and emotions won't play such a big part anymore. Notice your habits, but most important remember that you are fine just the way you are. Your Chet. That's special. Aight G.

I found I was constantly judging myself, and reacting towards others because I was so into my own little world. I thought that I was so different and something was just wrong with me. Well, that's not the case. Keep practicing.

And Yes Metta would probably be good if you don't have torpor during your sittings.

Hands Palm to Palm

Will