I Hate You--Don't Leave Me - Jerold J. Kreisman [22]
Cult groups that promise unconditional acceptance, a structured social framework, and a circumscribed identity are powerful attractions for the borderline personality. When the individual’s identity and value system merge with the accepting group’s, the faction’s leader assumes extraordinary power—to the point where he can induce followers to emulate his actions, even if fatal, as witnessed by the Jonestown Massacre in 1978, the fatal conflict with Branch Davidians in 1993, and the mass suicides of the Heaven’s Gate cult in 1997.
Aaron, after dropping out of college, attempted to assuage his feelings of aimlessness by joining the “Moonies.” He left the cult after two years, only to return after two more years of directionless wandering among different cities and jobs. Ten months later he left the group again, but this time, lacking a stable set of goals or a comfortable sense of who he was or what he wanted, he attempted suicide.
The phenomenon of “cluster suicides,” especially among teenagers, may reflect weaknesses in identity formation. The national suicide rate dramatically leaps upward after the suicide of a famous person, such as Marilyn Monroe or Kurt Cobain. The same dynamics may operate among adolescents with fragile identity structures: they are susceptible to the suicidal tendencies of the peer group leader or of another suicidal teenage group in the same region.
The Impulsive Character
Criterion 4. Impulsiveness in at least two areas that are potentially self-destructive, e.g., substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, gambling, reckless driving, shoplifting, excessive spending, or overeating.
The borderline’s behaviors may be sudden and contradictory, since they result from strong, momentary feelings—perceptions that represent isolated, unconnected snapshots of experience. The immediacy of the present exists in isolation, without the benefit of the experience of the past, or the hopefulness of the future. Because historical patterns, consistency, and predictability are unavailable to the borderline, similar mistakes are repeated again and again. The 2001 film Memento presents metaphorically what the borderline faces on a regular basis. Afflicted with short-term memory loss, insurance investigator Leonard Selby must hang Polaroids and Post-it notes all over his room—and even tattoo messages on his own body—to remind himself what has happened only hours or minutes before. (In one car-chase scene, trying to avenge his wife’s murder, he cannot remember if he is chasing someone—or being chased!) The film dramatically illustrates the loneliness of a man who constantly feels “like I just woke up.” The borderline’s limited patience and need for immediate gratification may be connected to behaviors that define other BPD criteria: Impulsive conflict and rage may emerge from the frustrations of a stormy relationship (criterion 2); precipitous mood changes (criterion 6) may result in impulsive outbursts; inappropriate outbursts of anger (criterion 8) may develop from a failure to control impulses; self-destructive or self-mutilating behaviors (criterion 5) may result from the borderline’s frustrations. Often, impulsive actions such as drug and alcohol abuse serve as defenses against feelings of loneliness and abandonment.
Joyce was a thirty-one-year-old divorced woman who increasingly turned to alcohol after her divorce and her husband’s subsequent remarriage. Though attractive and talented, she let her work deteriorate and spent more time at bars. “I made a career out of avoiding,” she later said. When the pain of being alone and feeling abandoned became too great, she would use alcohol as anesthesia. She would sometimes pick up men and take them home with her. Characteristically, after such alcohol or sexual binges, she would berate herself with guilt and feel deserving of her husband’s abandonment. Then the cycle would start again, as she required more punishment for her worthlessness. Thus, self-destructiveness became both