Follow A.J.

twitter facebook youtube


Phoenix Rising Life Coaching




Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life © A.J. Mahari March 2010

Change Your Life - Change Your Thoughts Ebook by A.J. Mahari

Punishment and Revenge in BPD Ebook by A.J. Mahari © A.J. Mahari 2010

Punishment and Revenge in BPD Ebook by A.J. Mahari

Full Circle - Lessons For Non Borderlines Ebook by A.J. Mahari © A.J. Mahari 2007

Full Circle - Lessons For Non Borderlines Ebook by A.J. Mahari

The Power of Gratitude - Healing - Recovery - Wellness and Getting Unstuck © A.J. Mahari December 2010

The Power of Gratitude Ebook by A.J. Mahari

Quest For Self - Building Conscious Self Awareness - Ebook/Coaching Guide/Workbook and Audio © A.J. Mahari January 2011

Quest For Self - Building Conscious Self Awareness Ebook and Audio by A.J. Mahari










The Trappings of Borderline Personality Disorder



Purchase all 3 of ebooks for NON BORDERLINES packaged together with or without audio.

Non Borderlines - You can purchase 6 ebooks packaged together with or without audio.

Those with BPD and/or Non Borderlines can purchase A.J. Mahari's 3 "Core Wound of Abandonment" series ebooks packaged together with or without audio.


Borderline Personality Disorder has many trappings that accompany it. There are the nine diagnostic criteria through which professionals make this diagnosis. The first major trap of this disorder lies in its very definition. The outlined nine Borderline Traits, as they are called, are all elements of personality found in the general population at large. I referred to this as a trap because what many people (including many professionals who treat BPD) often seem to fail to recognize is that it is not the traits themselves that throw an individual's personality into borderline disorder but the intensity of those traits. This fine line, while distinguishing BPD, also does the "healing" borderline client disservice. The trap here is found in the reality that the traits the borderline seeks to heal from are actually not pathological in and of themselves.

Learning to bring those traits into the grey "big picture" between the black and the white in a way that makes them much less intense would then seem to be the definition of what it is to heal from BPD. Yes and no. Yes because if you exhibit a trait only to the degree that is considered "normal" or "average" then you have acquired mental health in that area of your personality. No, because, essentially, no one has indeed outlined any "healing stages" for borderlines. So, you can end up like me. I no longer fit the number of traits necessary for the diagnosis. I do not exhibit more than two specific traits (and those even less so now) to any degree beyond relative average. Am I "healed"? No one knows for sure. Some would say yes, while others would say no.

The second trap has all to do with nature versus nurture in the causation of BPD. Why? Well, because if its more nurture than one would assume that can be changed, and healed. The argument with regard to what is "healed" strongly is steeped in the theories that BPD indeed has a biological base. If this is the case then how can one define healing? Can one? Or would the term "management" be more applicable. This line of thought implies that BPD is then not "curable."

The third trap within this disorder is the label itself. Upon hearing the diagnosis of BPD many people, and even many therapists, want to run the other way. BPD has not been adequately defined enough in order to allow for the kind of understanding that is necessary from those without the disorder to approach it without underlying prejudice and misinformation.

Borderline behavior in and of itself is the fourth I've identified. Much of the behavior exhibited by borderlines is triggered and dissociative in nature. Therefore, to outsiders it looks "crazy" or "bizarre" as it unfolds in your here and now reality. Truth is for the borderline often what they are experiencing from their past. The past can easily be triggered by present-day events. When this past plays out in a "here and now" context, the two do not jive. To the observer nothing makes sense. To the borderline the "big picture" or "larger reality" is lost to the past experience intermingled with fragmented experiencing of the "here and now." Your reality makes no more sense to the borderline than theirs does to you. Bridging this gap can take place with very specific oriented communication and hard work on the part of both people.

Most people who are diagnosed with BPD are female. This does not mean males do not have BPD, it is just not as readily diagnosed in males. Most who are diagnosed with BPD have been sexually abused. Most sexual abuse survivors have a similar set of experienced symptoms. Often these are solely attributed to BPD. The trap here is the application of this vague and general label seemingly designed to catch those who do not fit other diagnostic criteria. How then can adequate treatment be developed when really adequate diagnostic criteria is lacking?

The trappings of BPD are far-reaching and carry with them long-lasting consequences. Some borderlines are lost to suicide. Some are lost to a litany of self-abuse that carries the person even further into mental illness. Many remain lost to their authentic core identity. The reality of the Borderline Personality puzzle is often blurred due to the patient and or the professional, getting caught-up in, or waylaid by, the complex symptoms of Borderline behavior itself and the search for cause rather than meaning.

To ensure you do not stay trapped within the pitfalls of BPD it is best to do everything you can to self-educate yourself. Therapy can be helpful. What was most helpful for me in unwinding much of the distorted and illogical thinking of BPD was cognitive therapy. The other single most effective (though not painless for sure) way of working out of this maze of madness is by living as much of your life as you can. Therapy is not life, but life can be good therapy. Being involved with people even it hurts or feels impossible is so vital because if you feel alienated or you isolate yourself, you will not have the opportunity to have mirrored back to you how you come across and who it is others see and experience when they know you. This is necessary in order to facilitate progress in your own congruence and overall affect management.

Though a maze of formidable traps, Borderline Personality Disorder can be unwound and the door to "the big picture" opened if you can sit with your feelings, your pain and your grief long enough to know that on the other side of that there is and will be joy.

Healing from Borderline Personality Disorder entails freeing yourself from the many traps that it lays at your feet. Know that it takes time. Be patient. Work hard and learn that you are not a monster, that your pain and or your emotions are not some monster outside of you that can annihilate you. The monster is the trap we fall into when we believe that we are "less than" or "no good" because...because we were abused and or neglected as children and that damage has profoundly wounded us. You need to know that this was not your fault. That you can learn to provide your own sense of self, safety and direction in life. You can unwind the damage and fill that ever empty hole in your soul with a healed and healthy love of self and of others.

The first step is to realize that YOU need YOU. The second step is to work at stopping the self-injurious behaviors which only perpetuate your abuse, self-hate and shame. The third step is to be there for yourself and to stop abandoning yourself. You do not need someone else to take care of you. You can learn how to take care of yourself.

Lift your feet up one at a time, taking a step at a time, in a journey the process of which is to free yourself from the trappings of the past which are within you now in the form of your personality disorder. HOPE.


© Ms. A.J. Mahari - April 4, 1999




Purchase all 3 of ebooks for NON BORDERLINES packaged together with or without audio.

Non Borderlines - You can purchase 6 ebooks packaged together with or without audio.

Those with BPD and/or Non Borderlines can purchase A.J. Mahari's 3 "Core Wound of Abandonment" series ebooks packaged together with or without audio.





BPD Coach A.J. Mahari



Phoenix Rising Life Coaching

BPD - Feeling Alone



The Legacy of Abandonment in Borderline Personality Disorder © A.J. Mahari 2006

The Legacy of Abandonment in Borderline Personality Disorder

The Abandoned Pain of Borderline Personality Disorder © A.J. Mahari 2006

The Abandoned Pain of Borderline Personality Disorder

Mindfulness and Radical Acceptance for Non Borderlines © A.J. Mahari 2006

The Lost Self in BPD



Break Free From the BPD Maze - Recovery For Non Borderlines Audio Program © A.J. Mahari 2006

The Lost Self in BPD

5 Bundle Set Ebooks - Core Wound In BPD © A.J. Mahari 2006

5 Bundle Set Ebooks - Core Wound In BPD

Adult Child of BPD Mother in Search For Closure Audio © A.J. Mahari 2006



A.J. Mahari’s Thought Changing Affirmations 5 Volume Set © A.J. Mahari 2006

The Lost Self in BPD