the hermit

Last week, Lisa lent me a book called Understanding the Borderline Mother. I don't know that my mother is borderline so much, but it is a very interesting read nonetheless. The author uses four archetypes to illustrate different ways that BPD can manifest itself: the waif, the hermit, the queen, and the witch. I saw some interesting parallels to my own emotional state, specifically when the book talks about helplessness as a response to victimization. In my case, it was learned. When my mother would pull me from my bedroom to endure an hour-long, scathing critique, at first I reacted emotionally. I would cry and beg for her to leave me alone. She never did. After a while, I realized that she fed off my emotional reactions and escalated her criticism, calling me a baby or an idiot. So I shut down, as much as I could. I'd pick a focal point on the wall or the carpet, and focus only on remaining expressionless. If she asked a question in her pithy tirade, I would respond with only yes or no. If she demanded that I look at her while she was speaking I would make brief eye contact that momentarily betrayed the pure rage I felt. I wouldn't play with her, so it kept getting worse. If, in a seemingly normal afternoon (my mother's demons only ever came out at night), I mentioned my excitement at a new debate tournament or a new friend I'd made, she would retain that information only to deploy it against me in her next exercise in degradation.

As much as I craved emotional nurturing, these nighttime battles established that I wouldn't be getting that from a parent. My  mother seemed completely baffled as to why I shut her out. Maybe that's the hermit in me. I became accustomed to this persecution, to the idea that my every word and action would be remembered and used against me. When this sort of thing happened to my brothers (only after I'd moved out, as I was the favored sacrificial lamb), they reacted with explosive anger and violence. Their reaction proved to be more effective at preventing ongoing abuse.

So I became hypervigilant, constantly fearful of being controlled, taken advantage of, or mistreated. If I misspoke (as I did sometimes as a child, pronouncing words differently than others in my class), I felt such pervasive fear and shame for weeks afterward. Remembering times in my freshman English class, where my teacher's pet tendencies often earned me a snicker from the back of the class, I'm still horrified and ashamed. Once I even left the classroom in tears, only to be coaxed back inside by my wonderful teacher and soon-to-be debate coach. I think it was Mrs Cuevas who made debate such a nurturing and validating environment for me. People in debate didn't really care that I was weird (well, some did, but she put me at ease), and when I started winning immediately, at my first tournament, that was all the validation I needed to be an asset to the team. Maybe that's why I still feel such a profound sense of loss at not being involved anymore.

When the book talks about Hermit borderlines, it talks about how they expect conspiracy, betrayal, and disaster. That's how I feel, I expect things to go wrong and I expect anything I say to be used against me later. It often inhibits me from speaking my mind around untrustworthy people. When Kris and I first started talking, I was cautious and slow to open up, convinced that it was somehow a trap or an elaborate joke. I could not believe that AJ, whom I'd just met, would speak so glowingly about me and encourage her to pursue me. I didn't believe it for a few weeks. Then I was doubtful and suspicious for the first year or so of our relationship.

I guess now that I think about it, it's a pretty fucked up way to interact with life. Alas, that's why God made therapy.