A Personality Disorder(PD) is a distortion of the self.Picture a fun house mirror. It makes you tall and thin or short and fat.It may give you a tall torso and short legs. It make give you stilt- like legs and a short torso. The possibilities are myriad. This distortion is what happens to your self. It goes from normal sized to some form of a monstrosity. The worse part about a PD is that when you exit the fun house, you are stuck. You are some grotesque malformation. You can’t take it off as an uncomfortable layer of clothing.It is stuck. When you realize this, you may want to scream. However, no amount of screaming will bring you back to your previously normal state i.e. the undistorted self. This is the situation in which one finds oneself when one has a PD.
It is all well and good to define the PD, but how do you heal it? That is the million dollar question. Before I even attempt to scratch the surface of this question, I want to pose some things.One must suspend one’s logic that socially acceptable things are always the right ones, or the best ones. One must look back at science and see that it is evolving.It always has been and will continue to be. Also, for a sacred cow to die, there was much blood shed in the establishment. There have been many instances of literal blood shed as old ideas passed away. More so, there was figurative blood shed as reputations were tarnished or ruined for daring to ask if the old ways were in error. I say that as a prelude to discussing current sacred cows, as all time periods and societies have them.
You may ask “Who do I think I am going after a sacred cow?” I am just someone for whom sacred cows did not work. After banging my head against the wall enough times, I tried to look at how and why they failed. It is with that spirit that I will attempt to answer the question posed in the title.
The US Constitution gives us the rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Everyone wants happiness. Everyone pursues happiness. However, few find it.Again, one must look at the sacred cows and see if they hold up to scrutiny. Does wealth, beauty and prestige translate to happiness? Does fame added to these translate to happiness? Most people would say no, based on personal observations of those who have such things. If the aforementioned things do not work, what does? I think the answer is found in the construct of the “self”. I think our happiness or lack of it will be found in this simple but complex concept. As such, we would be wise to explore it in as much detail and with as much care as we could. That is what I will endeavor to do.
Most children are born with access to their emotions. There are rare instances when a child is born with a PD. I am not addressing this rare situation, now. This situation is not hopeless, either. However, it would have a different answer, in my opinion. I am concentrating on people who lost their inherent sense of self based on environmental trauma. God puts defense mechanisms into place when trauma hits us.If you have ever lost a loved one to death, you know that shock sets in. Shock uses up a lot of your body’s vital energy in the attempts to make you numb. This happens so you will not die of a broken heart.It happens automatically. One has no control over its ascent or its length of stay. In childhood trauma, the shock may start early and stay forever. Forever would be until the person manages to wrestle it off. How one would wrestle it off is the subject of this article.
One becomes numb when trauma overwhelms one’s normal coping mechanisms and one freezes. One freezes into a distorted shape akin to the fun house mirror.One was not bad or unworthy because one froze, in such a way. One was saved from death or insanity by the freezing process. The freezing process is what we call “defense mechanisms”
Now, the fun part. How to unfreeze? Everything up to now has been relatively easy. Defining a problem is a heck of a lot easier than healing it. As such, I give a silent prayer to God and endeavor to go on. Picture a person stuck in the shape of a fun house mirror image. He may look fine on the outside and usually does. However,inside he is misshapen and he knows it. I am sure he tries many ways to change. However, if he is like most people, they fail. Hence, he accepts his condition. He is like a man missing a limb. He may run a marathon, even. He may climb mountains with the help of external supports such as a prosthetic leg or a cane. However, he is missing an essential part of himself. He retains a sorrow as he knows it.
To unfreeze, one must set on a course of action.One must be very determined, first of all.One must be undaunted as the journey will be fraught with land mines. The land mines may be one’s own discouragement. The first step is to know that you can find your buried self, as you do have one. Each person has a nascent self. It may have been covered over due to trauma.It may be likened to a leaf at the bottom of a pile of leaves . It may not be in the most pleasant of conditions, yet it is there and it is distinct. One must simply get it washed off, brushed off and defined. How one does that will be the topic of the rest of this article.
To start the process of bringing the single leaf up from under the pile of leaves, one must know that it IS there. The cases where someone is born with a PD are very,very rare. Most are from trauma. In these cases, one self is not extinct, just obscured. Hence, one must arm oneself with the belief that one’s self is just dormant as a bear hibernating for the winter. Have hope in this as it is true! Succor and nurture that hope! Now, one must unearth that leaf. I cannot have this discussion without mentioning the Bible. Some may be perturbed by this. I apologize to those who think I am taking a cheap way out. I am not. In fact, I am offering gold to those who are impoverished. I am offering water to the thirsty.If you an atheist or an agnostic, don’t dismiss me, yet. Just consider that the most loved Book on earth really might have something to offer you.
The Bible is the Owners Manual for man. How would you manage to keep up your pristine BMW er without an owners manual. Perish the though. You would hold the manual dear as it shows you the workings of the car and the way to maintain it in tip-top condition. The Bible is the same for humans, even though many people shirk at this thought and dismiss the Bible as for ignorant folk. For now, I just ask you to keep an open mind to the possibility that the Bible may hold answers for your own growth and more importantly, your own freedom.
If one has had trauma, one’s mirror to one’s own self is distorted. Picture the fun house mirror. To this person, the Bible becomes even more precious as it will mirror you back and it will be with God’s Eye. To those of you who have not been abused, you still need the mirror, but not as desperately or not as blatantly, perhaps. However, every man needs it for his direction on this earth and to the world beyond. However, to those of us who have been abused, the Bible becomes manna for this lifetime in a way that those of you who have not been abused may not appreciate. Hence, one finds the outline of one’s true self within the pages of the Bible. This is one step in the way to the answer posed by the opening question.
Once one accepts the Bible as God’s Word, or God’s Love Letter to us, the search for the true self becomes a little easier, as one has a map. A map is a guide to terrain. In this case, the terrain is one’s self. One’s self is very precious. It is priceless, actually, second only to Eternal life. So, if one accepts the Bible as the Owners Manual for the self, one has a concrete place to go with one’s questions and concerns.One has a concrete place to go with one’s pain and troubles. This is the first step to resurrecting the self i.e. excavating the leaf at the bottom of the pile.
The Bible puts forth wonderful promises. It promises abundant life in mind and body. This promise is what we hold on to, as we strive to get back our lost self. God demands one thing of us, though. He demands faith as without faith, it is impossible to please God. Faith is our part of the equation. God’s gifts are not given freely, in a sense. Our currency is faith. Faith is needed in any interaction with God from simple salvation to bringing forth one’s buried self to any miracle, in body or mind. Miracles may seem outlandish to us. They are commonplace with God. However, the hardest part, for us, is our faith. That is why God prizes it so, I suspect. All we can offer God in return for all He does for us is our faith.
Hence, we have made some headway to answering the question posed. One must find God.One must hold dear to the Bible.One must have faith for the promise of mental and emotional health. After one has done this, what does one do? One studies the Bible with diligence as in it are the promises for an abundant life. Find a Bible study, either on line or in a church. It doesn’t matter. My favorite on line Bible teachers are Andrew Wommack and Les Feldick. Les is more advanced than Andrew. Andrew could take a beginner to a good working knowledge of the Bible.I would start with Andrew.Andrew gives away all his products free of charge. You can make a donation, if you choose. However, you do not need to, to avail yourself of him.
After you have started to change your self concept with the Bible, there are still things you need to do to unearth your precious self from where it has been buried. You need at least one person who will allow you to emote pain. This person is very,very hard to find. However, God can bring him or her to you.It will have to be a supernatural thing as most people will not allow you to emote without trying to fix you.If they try to fix you, the benefits will be gone, as no one CAN fix you. You need someone to walk beside you, in your sorrow and pain, not try to fix it, as this is arrogance even though the person is not aware of it.
At any rate, several factors have been mentioned that can set one on his way to healing a PD. The hardest part will be sheer persistence, as getting a PD, in the first place, took time. Getting rid of one take time, as well. Under the PD is one’s free emotional expression and access to one’s emotions. The last step in healing a PD is to force one’s TRUE emotional expression. This is the hardest part of all, as one’s true voice has been squelched by the very nature of taking on the mantle of the PD. One has little access to one’s true emotions, but there is some small access. This is what one must mine, and express. In that way,one’s voice will become like a muscle and will grow with use. This part is, without doubt, the hardest part. One will be very afraid to express one’s emotions as one was chastised for them, as a child. However,one must force oneself, over and over and over, until one gets a small semblance of comfort with oneself. Most especially, one will see that one does not need to hide in order to be acceptable to oneself or others.