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Borderlines are often living their pasts in their "here and now's". There is a high cost to this. Life will pass you by. It is important to confront and work through your past to be fully alive in your present. That is the way to find yourself and to find some measure of happiness. One major issue for anyone with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is the reality of the presence of the past in the here and now. The past is often more a part of a borderline's present-day reality than the present itself. Why? The answer has all to do with triggers and unmet needs. When you have unmet needs stacked up from your past along with trauma and or unpleasant and negative experiences overwhelming you from your past your here and now suffers, as do you. What keeps the past so alive is not facing your feelings. This coupled with thinking as if you are "back there" adds to the cognitive distortions that you allow yourself to continue to live in. It is what you think that dictates what you do. Not the other way around. You are responsible for both what you think and for what you do. In order to move out of the past and into your here and now you must learn to change the way you think and the way you act and or re-act to life. No matter how much pain any one of us has suffered in the past we don't have to continue to live our lives back there with that pain and fear. Letting go can feel very scary too but it is so freeing. Letting go is a choice. In order to let go of your past you will need to go through the feelings that you have and work them through in therapy. It took years for you to build up the fears and feelings and ways of behaving that you know have. It will take some time to unlearn these and then to learn new ways of thinking, feeling and acting. Often borderlines will experience triggers. Things in the here and now that are just like situations and or experiences from the past that were very painful and or traumatic. It is here that the real work must be done. Each time one is triggered, it is crucial to work through the reality that what you are feeling from the past, while very real, is not necessary in the present. When you were a young child and you could not take care of yourself or protect yourself, you may well have been the victim of abuse and violence and or neglect. Now, however, in your present, you are an adult. This means that you can (or you can learn) to take care of yourself. You do not have to be re-victimized unless you allow that to happen. It is all a matter of not playing out and re-playing out past patterns. It is difficult and painful to make changes to these ingrained patterns but it is not only possible but necessary if you are to leave your past behind you. Living in the here and now is much more satisfying. It is also much more managable. Taking the time to distinguish between the past and the here and now can mean the difference between a successful and pleasurable experience with others or a conflictual and painful experience with others. Remember, only you can be the adult that you are and take care of yourself. Others really can't do this for you. Even if it seems they are willing to try, in time, your seeking to be taken care of by someone else will stress if not end friendships and relationships. The past can only live on if you let it. Your past can produce real pain and flashbacks for you in the here and now. The challenge that you face is not so much trying to control that but letting it happen and then taking care of yourself in response to it. The past truly only has the power (now) that you give to it. Refuse to continue to give your past more power than your here and now. The difference in giving the "now" power is that you will find yourself and know yourself and learn to believe in yourself. Do not let your life be defined by your past anymore or by those in your past who so let you down or hurt you and who defined you in abusive and unfair ways. Step into each day secure in the knowledge that each time you grapple with the past in your present you are taking a big step forward and a freeing step to changing your life for the better.
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