Feb
23
My Borderline Personality and Self Mutilation
Filed Under General
One critical symptom of BPD is self mutilation. Immediately, one tends to think of self mutilation of the most brutal kind: slashing at limbs, gouging oneself, etc. These acts are not uncommon to BPD, and usually signify an act on behalf of the Borderline Personality to try and feel pain, when attempts to feel emotional pain are muffled.
Put simply, for a BPD, physical pain can act as a stand-in for mental pain.
Self mutilation is particularly noted in female BPD patiens, in part because up to 75% of all diagnosed BPD patients are female. This does not mean that male BPDs are rarer, it may just mean that some male BPDs go undiagnosed and are cast off as individuals with substance abuse and/or anger management problems.
In my case, I did have some episodes of self mutilation, which were not disfiguring, but most certainly attempts to feel pain and act out. While I was in college and beginning therapy, I would engage in two different kinds of multilation: burning and cutting.
The burning was ritualistic and at times self competitive, in that I would demean myself for not being man enough to deal with the pain. Typically, I would use a match or lighter to heat a coin or sharp object. Then, once hot, I would press it to my stomach or chest. In some cases, especially with coins, this left a temporary impression which usually faded in a few days.
I also practiced cutting, but at a low end level. If I was sitting alone in a crowded dining hall during meal times, I would sometimes use the metal knives supplied in the cafeteria to grind away at my forearms or wrists. I would also do this in my dorm room periodically as well.
The most serious instance of self mutilation in my history was teamed with an angry BPD tantrum.
One night, in a terrible rage, I went to my parents’ bedroom and yelled at them, cursing wildly and acting physically confrontational. At one point I snapped even more, and used a sereated steak knife to firmly, but not seriously, hack at my arms and wrists.
To this day, I have a couple small scars on my left forearm/wrist area from this event. My parents called my Doctor when my rage settled and I was told to take some Klonopin immediately and report to her office the next day.
I haven’t engaged in such actions in a few years now, but I still practice a form of very tame, low end self mutilation that another female blogger on the web described: picking and pulling at acne, lesions, scabs, or one’s head, or blisters.
Generally speaking, a lot of people without BPD tend to do this as well, in attempts to get rid of any embarassing blemishes.
For the BPD sufferer, however, and in my own case, I would say these activities are routine and particularly more problematic during stressful times.
I constantly pick at acne and bug bites. One other habit I have is picking at my head, which I realized I have been doing for years now. In fact, I have done it so much that there is a rough scar on my head that is nothing more than dead skin and callous now. When I head pick, it also causes minor hair removal, and this has led to a slight bald spot where I concentrate my picking.
Every once in a while, a barber or hair stylist will ask about that spot on my head, and I usually explain it away as a wound from falling or some other minor accident.
For the Borderline Personality sufferer, self mutilation is most certainly a way of trying to feel raw painful emotions, while at the same time, a desperate attempt to alert others around them that they are crying out for help.
I can use myself as an example: while digging away at my wrists in the college dining hall, I secretly wished someone would notice and come to my aid…….though in the end, this pseudo-fantasy was not realized.
Damn man. I myself did the slashing thing with various knives on a few occasions on my upper arms and chest. A few when I was straight and a few when I was drunk. I did it cause on one hand I wanted to prove some dumbass form of masculinity to myself, and on the other I enjoined watching the blood flow out like tears or somethin. The pain, well when I was drunk I either didn’t feel it or it was greatly reduced (and naturally I went deepest). But when I was straight, I guess I was goin for that “trying to feel” somethin deal, and cause I felt I deserved it, and now that I think deeply about it, that someone would notice (even though when my ma asked if I was cutting myself I got pissed at her and told her I got in a bad fight). I don’t know whether or not I’ll do it again, it’s been a few months since my last, and I got some bad scars. Maybe I won’t. No one’s diagnosed me with bpd, an ex told me I was, and she was.