Cognitive Dissonance and the Borderline

By: Completely Mental Coaching: Rebecca Taylor 2023

Cognitive Dissonance is a psychology term that describes internal conflicts between two or more ideas. Dissonance leads to a variety of maladaptive behaviors.

Borderline Personality Disorder is a personality disorder classified as an inability to regulate and manage emotions leading to maladaptive behaviors causing great distress in one’s life. The etiology, (causation) of BPD is due to abnormal brain development in childhood from chronic trauma and or abuse. BPD has certain genetic markers as well.  

BPD is complex, you need at least 5/9 traits to be considered for BPD.

9 Traits of Borderline Personality Disorder Are: These traits are persistent for multiple years and will start to show in adolescence or young adulthood.

1.       Fear of abandonment: You have a core belief that the people close to you will abandon you; or not be dependable for emotional support causing perceived emotional deprivation.

2.       Identity Disturbance: You have a lack of self, to your core you do not know who you are. It is painful to not know who you are.

3.       Self-harm and Suicide attempts: There is so much pain inside that you SH to "release" that pain. You may also use this as a way to keep someone from leaving you.

4.       Chronic Emptiness: There is no structure to your core, where most have a skeleton, you feel you are a shell of a person. EMPTY

5.       Transient Stress Induced Ideation/Dissociation: Under extreme stress you may experience paranoid symptoms. Think people are out to hurt you. Dissociate into another person or another age. This is an EXTREME RARE response.

6.       Unstable & Intense Interpersonal Relationships: Fast & passionate start that will fade into loud & intense arguments caused by perceived danger. Intense waves of passion & Arguments

7.       Impulsivity NOT Mania: You make impulsive decisions to create a "Solutions". This can come out as dangerous or problematic behaviors, overspending, etc.

8.       Affective Instability - Lack of emotional stability: Hyper reactivity - Core trait

Black & white thinking. You see no grey in situations, there is good or bad and both are felt with extreme intensity.

9.       Inappropriate and Intense Shows of Anger: You are overwhelmed with painful emotion you turn this feeling outward. This can be emotionally & physically abusive towards others.

Cognitive Dissonance with BPD

Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder grew up in environments that were invalidating, traumatic, and or abusive. Many individuals with BPD experienced situations that caused cognitive dissonance very early on.

An example of this is: They believe that Mother knows best and wants to only help her children, they will experience dissonance if they see their caretaker become abusive towards them or their siblings. To avoid this separation from the current action and the belief they hold the will choose a variety of ways to align back to their original belief, “Mother knows best”.  This could cause the child to adapt to the belief that they deserved the abuse, because mother knows best and wouldn’t hurt them if it wasn’t in their best interest. This can later be translated to abusive romantic relationships; my partner knows best and so I deserve this abuse in some way. Our brains develop maladaptive patterns early on that carry into adulthood in many direct ways.

Identity Disturbance

Those with Borderline Personality Disorder have a lack of self, that leads to masking and chronic emptiness. This emptiness and inability to connect to ourselves or the world leads to great dissonance. Our values and beliefs in ourselves and the world depend on the environments we are in. One maladaptive pattern with BPD is to mask in situations, this is a skill we learn early on to survive the environment of chronic trauma. We will mimic the environment to not cause conflict, this can cause dissonance if it does not align with the core beliefs we have developed.

Fear of Abandonment

Fear of abandonment is the belief that we will inevitably be abandoned in this world. This belief causes dissonance in the relationships we develop. It leads to Object constancy and emotional permeance, an inability to believe relationships are secure in times of conflict, or without consistent reassurance. When a relationship is healthy and stable is causes dissonance because it does not align with the core belief we have developed. Many believe they deserve to be abandoned, they are less than the rest of the world, their partners deserve better, etc. These beliefs affirm the core value of abandonment. We go to desperate measures to avoid dissonance this can come out in self-sabotaging ways such as cheating, ending relationships, and self-harm/suicide attempts. This can be mistaken for manipulative or attention seeking behaviors. It’s the body’s natural response, everyone will try to alleviate dissonance in themselves with healing and remission many are able to learn tools, and skills to resolve dissonance in healthy and effective ways.

Inability to regulate/ Black and White Thinking

Dissonance with BPD also develops from our black and white thinking. That split thinking, the intense and sudden shift in thought or feeling. In a moment we are flooded with an intense wave of thought and emotion that feels very logical and real in the moment. Our body is always perceiving our environment as a threat, it has learned from a young age that it needs to be on high alert. This causes the stress response to take over and we become consumed with the threats we see. There is a great deal of dissonance between the black and white moments, this can lead to shame and guilt from the reactions and feelings that come out in these situations.

How to Heal Dissonance

With BPD we must start to build core beliefs and values to than become mindful of our thoughts and actions. Does this align with what I want and who I want to be? Healing dissonance comes with learning how to sit in uncomfortable situations and welcome ideas that challenge yours to not become tunneled in one belief.