Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) in those who are acutely in its grips has its underpinnings firmly established in dysfunctional and polarized distorted thinking that more often than not results in power and control struggles with others. The core of these power and control struggles is "get away closer" type behaviour.
Often these power and control struggles do not take place on a conscious level. They are rather the by-product of the loss and dissociation from true self that leads those with BPD to feel helpless, powerless, and hopeless - essentially lost.
The reason that so many with BPD feel the need to struggle for power and control stems from what is essentially their trying to live for or through others. The lack of known self drives the kind of projection (the attribution of one's own attitudes, feelings, or suppositions to others) that blurs the boundaries between where a known self would end and others begin. Without personal boundaries those with BPD often end up feeling helpless when they relate to others because essentially they ascribe everything about how they feel and what they think as taking place in others. (And often what they feel and/or how they may judge others those with BPD then believe that others are judging them.
It is this very process of projection that leads to untold feelings of helplessness and varying degrees of experienced regression that leaves many with BPD feeling (on a conscious of sub-conscious level) as if everything in their environment is somehow connected to them. This is the futile defense of narcissism that raises its head when the Borderline without personal boundaries feels literally like they have no emotional skin separating them from others and the world.
To read much more about False Self and the Quest for Healing and Recovery From Borderline Personality Disorder and relationship to and with one's True Self you will soon be able to purchase my e-book:
False Self & True Self (coming soon)
What is meant by Power and Control Struggles?
Power, in a paradoxical and healthy environment and personality, is best described as the ability or capacity to perform, behave, or act effectively and appropriately.
The misuse of power that is often seen in those with BPD is usually the borderline over-compensating for feeling powerless or helpless and/or hopeless.
When one feels powerless one then feels that others have power over him or her. This is a distortion which often has its roots in unmet childhood needs generally and an invalidating environment specifically. (Or an environment in which one that is then later diagnosed with BPD experienced and/or perceived invalidation.)
