I Hate You--Don't Leave Me - Jerold J. Kreisman [51]
One of the goals for the borderline’s therapists and other close relations is to crack through these successive layers to locate the original feeling and help the borderline accept it as part of himself. The borderline must learn to allow himself the luxury of “bad” feelings without rebuke, guilt, or denial.
CASE 2: NEIL AND FRIENDS. Neil, a fifty-three-year-old bank officer, has had episodes of depression for more than half his life. Neil’s parents died when he was young, and he was reared mostly by his much older, unmarried sister, who was cold and hypercritical. She was a religious zealot who insisted he attend church services daily, and frequently accused him of sinful transgressions.
Neil grew up to become a passive man, dominated by his wife. He was reared to believe that anger was unacceptable and denied ever feeling angry at others. He was hardworking and respected at his job, but received little affection from his wife. She rejected his sexual advances, which frustrated and depressed him. Neil would initially get angry at his wife for her rejections, then feel guilty and get angry at himself for being angry, and then lapse into depression. This process permeated other areas of Neil’s life. Whenever he experienced negative feelings, he would pressure himself to end them. Since he could not control his inner feelings, he became increasingly disappointed and frustrated with himself. His depression worsened.
Neil’s friends tried to comfort him. They told him they were behind him and were available whenever he wanted to talk. They empathized with his discomfort at work and his problems in dealing with his wife. They pointed out that “he was feeling bad over feeling bad,” and that he should straighten up. This advice, however, didn’t help; in fact, Neil felt worse because he now felt he was letting his friends down on top of everything else. The harder he tried to stop his negative feelings, the more he felt like a failure, and the more depressed he became.
SET-UP statements could help Neil confront this dilemma. Neil received much Support and Empathy from his friends, but their Truth messages were not helpful. Rather than trying to erase his unpleasant emotions (an all-or-none proposition), Neil must understand the necessity of accepting them as real and appropriate, within a nonjudgmental context. Instead of adding layers of more self-condemnation, which allows him to continue to wallow in the muck of “woe is me,” he must instead confront the criticism and work to change.
Further Truth statements would acknowledge the reasons for Neil’s passive behavior and the behaviors of his wife and others in his life. He must recognize that, to some degree, he places himself in a position of being abused by others. Although he can work to change this situation in the future, he must now deal with the way things are currently. This means recognizing his anger, that he has reasons to be angry, and that he has no choice but to accept his anger, for he cannot make it disappear, at least not right away. Though he may regret the presence of unacceptable feelings, he is powerless to change them (a dictum similar to those used in Alcoholics Anonymous). Accepting these uncomfortable feelings means accepting himself as an imperfect human being and relinquishing the illusion that he can control uncontrollable factors. If Neil can accept his anger, or his sadness, or any unpleasant feeling, the “feeling bad about feeling bad” phenomenon will be shortcircuited. He can move on to change other aspects of his life.
Much of the success in Neil’s life has resulted from trying harder: Studying harder usually results in