The Face of BPD (part 3 of 9)

Part 3 of my nine part series of what the diagnostic criteria (symptoms) of BPD look like in my own life.

Criteria #3:Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.


I think many people learning about BPD might have a hard time understanding exactly what it means to have identity distrubance or an unstable self-image. I can give you lists of definitions or my own interpretation, but the best evidence I have is what it looks like in my own case. This involves my own personal sense of self, my life choices

My sense of who I am often changes. Like my moods, my feelings about who I am range from being a good person to a bad influence, from a happy over-achiever to a worthless loser. I might view myself in terms of being a family-oriented individual, then soon my focus shifts on how I want to succeed in my chosen career. My interests change as well, and I go through phases of what I enjoy doing the most. For several months I might be addicted to jogging; the next, knitting. It is hard for me to fill out "about me" surveys because who I think I am changes so often.

A large part of who we are deals with what we do with our life. My own life goals and career choices change so often, and have changed so often over the course of my life, that I am left feeling lost, floating on a sea of possibliities. In college I changed my major, quit, took a variety of exploratory courses, reenrolled in college, and changed my major again. Since graduation I have worked at a new job at least every year (sometimes several at a time). My career goals over the years of my adult life have included doctor, journalist, public relations, advertising, publishing or editing, teacher, nurse, pharmasist, legal aide, and social worker. Even today I am between jobs and looking to make a career change, yet every time I think I am sure I want to do one thing, I end up interested in another and change my direction altogether.

Very often, I feel like the character of Esther in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar:

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

Long before I was diagnosed with BPD, I noticed another peculiar aspect of the condition. The way I acted and felt about myself often changed depending on who I was around. If I around a person who I felt comfortable with, I am self-confident, laid back and fun. If I'm sure if the person likes me or think they might be judging me, I am extremely nervous, anxious and feel like I'm worthless. Around outgoing people I tend to be vibrant and extroverted; around reserved individuals I become reserved myself.

As my sense of identity continues to shift, I am hoping that I can discover more about myself through therapy and eventually come to a more stable idea of who I am.

full list of BPD criteria here