by Kelly Mastanduno

Created on: August 14, 2008

Borderline Personality Disorder is too often a misunderstood and under diagnosed mental illness. Like most mental illnesses, there is questionable debate over how it works and why it develops. While there is some research that supports the possibility that it may be genetic, most research so far has pointed to Borderline Personality Disorder stemming from traumatic childhood events that had never been properly handled by parents and/or caregivers. This is not to point blame, but hopefully to raise awareness.

Borderlines are most typically women and most frequently occur in people who have experienced a traumatic event as a child. Most Borderlines present with similar histories; some kind of abuse, mistreatment, neglect, and/or abandonment as a child AND no help or therapy to address said issues.

What is so often overlooked is that a child's mind is pliable, easily influenced, lacking experience, and without the learned ability to rationalize and to heal. As adults we can differentiate between right and wrong, healthy and unhealthy, and when to seek help. Children simply accept their surroundings and environment as reality. When a child is made to feel that they are unworthy or is mistreated in some way, they will incorporate that into their way of thinking for many years to come, if not forever. When a child is sexually abused and that issue is not properly addressed, that child perceives the abuse as normal, expected and an acceptable part of their life. Most abused children grow to become abused, or abusing, adults. This is because unfortunately their reality as children was never corrected.

The most important aspect of a child's life is bonding with a parent or caregiver. Bonding is so important because it gives the child security. The parent that bonds with their child is aware of their child's feelings, moods and behaviors. If abuse takes place in that child's world, the bonded parent will pick up on the mood change, personality shift or odd behavior of their child and will act accordingly. The bonded parent will ask one of the most important questions a parent can ever ask, "What's wrong?" and then find solutions to help their child, in cases where abuse took place this would mean therapy of some sort. But when the child has no bond with a parent, their feelings, emotions, moods and behavior go unnoticed or carelessly overlooked. This child is then left to develop her own coping skills to deal with the abuse. In a child, the only coping skills the brain

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