hey everyone! i’m here to talk to you a little about a symptom that is a huge problem for ppl with bpd, dpd, and hpd but that most ppl without cluster b personality disorders aren’t educated about. it’s called relationship object permanence.
object permanence is the developmental skill to realize that an object continues to exist even when you can’t see it. that’s why peekaboo is entertaining to babies – they haven’t developed object permanence yet, so they really believe you stop existing when your face disappears behind your hands. then you come back into existence, and they’re amazed!
a lot of borderline, dependent, and histrionic people don’t have this developmental skill, but specifically in a certain area: we lack relationship object permanence, the ability to understand that a relationship continues to exist when it is not actively being reaffirmed.
this is why many borderline, dependent, and histrionic people can fall into a depression, irrationally believe that someone hates them, or develop bitterness towards someone if they are not actively reaffirming their relationship to us. our lack of relationship object permanence can often be triggered by people not contacting us for an extended period of time, acknowledging or interacting with other friends without acknowledging or interacting with us, and especially actively ignoring us.
(seriously, don’t ever intentionally ignore a borderline, dependent, or histrionic person person. when you do that, you are intentionally triggering someone. please understand that nothing feels worse for a person with a cluster b personality disorder than being ignored. i understand sometimes these things can happen by accident, which is ok, but doing it on purpose is nothing short of cruel.)
please be aware of this developmental problem when you interact with us. just understand that if we seem needy or cagey, this is often the reason. most of us aren’t trying to manipulate you, we just literally can’t understand that you still like us unless you give us some active indication of that.
i understand that being friends with borderline, dependent, and histrionic people can take a lot of spoons and not everyone has the capacity to have such an intense relationship, and that’s ok. i just want to offer this post to help you understand and hopefully be sensitive to your borderline, dependent, and histrionic friends and family.
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