BPD & Christianity Part 3

 Continuation of Part 2 on Identity

What’s the ideal self? Why? And who defines it?

It seems to me that it is a mythological notion made into a standard that we can always be in perfect harmony or in line with a specific mindset and lifestyle presented as the BEST or ONLY mindset and lifestyle.

It sounds to me like a well-disguised cult. 

"Know thy self!" People have shouted since philosophy hit the scene. 

That’s what religion is for, right? To know our TRUE SELF?! The major religions teach something greater than ourselves is out there, can be known, and should be worshiped to gain something physical and/or metaphysical. In my seminary Spiritual Formation classes we discussed at quite some length about the I to Thou conception. We know ourselves in relation to others (ex: I am a child. She is a mother. They are my uncle. He is my cousin.) However, from the beginning, we are broken, sinful, deserving of hell, created in God’s image, and fallen perfection. "The Bible tells me so." We can not reflect holiness, goodness, or righteousness between each other because of this error in the story. We need to take on the image of Him who had no sin, yet “became sin” to save us. Jesus loves me. Jesus take the wheel. Jesus t-shirt. Jesus mask. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus!

Christianity teaches me to lay myself down…crucify myself so that I may actually live. (Gal. 2:20). 

“No pain! No gain!” Bonnie mocked as we brought up the topic of me joining Junior High Cross Country. She didn’t think I could do it. In fact, I hated running. I had tried to get fit many times before; making promises to myself and others that I would “change” the following week…month…or year. I needed to change. I was chubby. I wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t strong. I had thick hips, unruly hair, and “man hands” like my Mom. Why was I joining this physical sport? To prove her wrong. So she said this to warn me…motivate me…mock me? Who was I trying to impress? The guys at school who couldn’t remember my name but liked the outfit I was in? Or so that the guy I really fantasized about would HAVE TO take notice of me? 

I secretly loved this notion of HAVING TO do something. This set of rules, standards, and outlines that I could follow every second of every day would be perfect. Tell me what to do! 

Why? Because I don’t trust myself. In fact, I hate myself. I hate myself so much that I take sharp objects against it until my favorite color appears. I’m disconnected. Dysregulated. Longing to be disembodied. And as much as I had gained in becoming a “child of God,” I further lost that trust in myself. Churches shout this is good; my psychotherapy bill said otherwise.

My childhood already taught me to suppress my emotions; “giving it to Jesus” and “letting go letting God” was just another way of doing so. 

My childhood already showed me that withdrawing was a way to protect myself; “retreating to my Strongtower” to me now just seems like a fancier way of me talking to my imaginary sister Samanthe. Of course, that’s blasphemy. 

                                               {...cutting people off people

                                                          ….patterns of unstable relationships}

So what does all of this hot mess do when confronted with her desires that conflict with those of the sect she belongs to? Since I was not given a new coping mechanism (as established), I resorted to my old patterns. What do I mean? 

The “Living Water” flowing through me was more precious than my very blood. 

I cut off friendships…but oh how I prayed for them! I cut off from my family…because “whoever loves their father & mother greater than I is not worthy” (Matt. 10:37)! I cut off relationships…because they're simply not THE ONE. 

The problem with bringing in that which is “bigger/greater than ourselves” is that we little by little chip away at the fact that we had some power to begin with. We’re taught that certain things are bad; thus, those who do them are bad. And just like that segregation is born. My old friends gossiped, lied, cheated, stole. Whereas my Christian friends gossipped I mean prayed and cared about my walk with Christ. My family, no, my country, had Christianity alllll wrong. iT’s NoT a ReLiGiOn, iTs a ReLaTiOnShiP.

Let's speed up a few years-I’m in college, states away from my hometown, and have my first boyfriend. He’s so good to me. He cooks for me. He opens the door for me. He listens to me. He pushes me off of him when I want to have sex because he knows how important marriage is to me first. Only problem-he’s Hindu. He’s not the one. Next, we have a guy at work who is smooth with words and can always conjure up a phrase that cuts to you quick. He’s too business and doesn’t do conflict. He also thinks the Old Testament was mainly fictional. He has to go. The next is a guy I cheat with to get back at the last guy for being an asshole. This one years later after off and on again sex threatens to shoot up heroin if you don’t come visit. But he also was the one who said, “Please don’t cut yourself when you go home” after we left the hotel hours later. Before I’m physical with anyone I spend years camming and DMing strangers around the world. 

Christianity taught me to hate my body, but sexuality was trying to revive it…to help me really feel…to get what I rarely received-physical touch, appraisal, and admiration. 

BPD & Christianity Part 2

 Continuation of BPD & Christianity 

I try to think about the first time I perceived my individuality. It was ALWAYS there before I understood the words I, me, and mine. Before I choose to contort my fingers into a paw shape and mimic my cat crawling on all fours, there’s a video of me (how I can only best describe as) “trying to dig” myself out of Mom’s stomach.

My Grandma always took me to her Lutheran church every Sunday since I popped out. I was baptized while in the arms of my Mom, who stopped going to church after she was Confirmed (a ceremony of owning one’s faith by confirming your knowledge about the religion and church), and my Dad* (*not my biological father), who probably had never been inside an all white church. This was my Grandma’s decision no doubt, but Mom was/is more than willing to make her happy. Mom believes in God, but not like Grandma, and certainly wouldn’t want to ever talk about it like Dad. Then there’s me, the silent biracial baby intersecting all of their paths.

When I think about who I am, this collision of a unique nature with this unique nurture, it’s hard to say it without telling a story of them.

{Rapid Changes in Self-Identity

…feeling emptiness

….self hate}

A lot of people describe children as sponges-soaking in everything and anything. And yet, many still don’t understand what’s happening when that now adult-child is squeezed.

I was squeezed and hardpressed way before “adulting” became a thing. Am I black or am I white? Am I her’s or his* (or his, his, his, his?) Am I to speak up or be silent? Am I a cat or…

we’re not taught what “human” means well enough. 

Mom pulls my thick hair into a ponytail in the middle of my head where the hair now only grows to an inch. Dad paid for my hair relaxers, where my hair was “finally manageable.” I asked him to layer it when I was nine. It’s never been the same since. Mom made me promise never to tell Grandma what went on at home, yet all of my nightmares take place at that two-story white house off that gravel road “in the middle of nowhere” where my grandparents reside. There’s no one like me in my family, on either sides-and I only know one side. I still get the “What are you?”’s and “Where you from?”’s. I moved it seemed like every year, adjusting right and left dragging along PTSD like my worn-out teddy bear. 

I’m lonely. 

I’m fearful.

I’m angry. 

I repeat because god forbid someone see me cry!

I used my imagination to bring me comfort, but just like playing with my dolls, it echoed what I’ve heard, what I’ve experienced, what people say I am, and who I long to be. 

As a Christian, we are taught that God was/is always there. He (using not gender specifically) is the Alpha=the beginning and the Omega=the end. There was nothing before. There is nothing greater than this God, YHWH/Jesus/Spirit (three in one God). God was “the missing piece” taught my junior high youth group. He knew me before I was born. He had plans for me before I took my first step. Thus, just like moving into a different place comes with its own set of rules, I am under new management. I freely accept this Jesus that’s presented in a grandiose way because “no one loves me the way God does.” I didn’t know what I was doing with my life-what twelve year old does? My obvious need for Him turned into a want. Why? Because “He wanted me first.” 

You want me? Me. Me? Me!

I break from addressing myself and comforting myself to now being on all fours worshipping an invisible, all-mighty Spirit. I will trade in this depressed outlook on life for one that has a “peace and joy no one can take away.” I see the error of the world, the corrupt nature, the fallen mankind. 

And then those arms open wide showed me a mirror. 

I am the broken one, not just from other’s stones but from my internal bricks it says. I can’t change others and I don’t know what’s best for me they say, so I eat everything that’s on my plate because “there’s kids in Africa starving.” Jesus must be consumed DAILY to defeat the evil. My fear of Mom not returning is replaced with this fear that I have abandoned the King of Kings.

Christianity isn’t about going to church, helping people, or just being nice; no, in fact, according to Romans 6:23 outreach tool we were taught in Ministry team, those things lead you to Hell if you’re without Jesus. Your faith is meant to be active, passionate, alive, on fire, electric, and always willing to testify! The powerhouse of the New Testament writes: “Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” (1 Cor. 9: 26-27). My body must be stricken into submission for my Lord.

Now we have a conundrum, the person who hated life finds True Life only to feel guilty. 

Good things given to me? Why, again who am I that you would die for me? 

I hated that my Mom didn’t give me the love I needed and wanted. I hated that I wasn’t enough like the alcohol and drugs. I hated that Jesus had to suffer so much because of my sins, but here I was singing “Amazing Grace” and cutting myself because I would always fail Him. 

This spring, now a couple years of being an ex-Christian, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Like my once god, you couldn’t see it unless you “looked a little harder.” It was the reflection staring back at me this whole time.  With therapy, I’m relearning what it means to reconnect with my body…to be whole and not ashamed of anything I am. There was no “God-shaped hole.” The “brokenness” I was taught we had was just another name for the maladaptive coping mechanisms. 

My only responsibility is to love me. May I love me well. Whomever that is.