Everyone has an inner child. Do those diagnosed with BPD have the loneliest inner children? Often those with BPD abandon and re-abandon their aching and terrified inner child (or children - meaning the inner child in various phases of its life - infancy, toddler, adolescent etc) over and over again which in large part is the reason for so much of what is dubbed "borderline behaviour". I urge those who have BPD to make the choice to get to know and to free their inner child or inner children. It is a vital part of healing and recovery.

"But sometimes I am like the tree that stands over a grave, a leafy tree full grown who has lived out that particular dream which the dead boy around whom its roots are pressing lost through his sad moods and poems." -- Rainer Maria Rilke

"The child wants simple things. It wants to be listened to. It wants to be loved... It may not even know the words, but it wants its rights protected and its self-respect unviolated. It needs you to be there." -- Ron Kutrz

We all have an inner-child. In fact some people feel as if they have many inner-children (this is not to say that one has Multiple Personality Disorder at all by the way) Each of these inner children, according to Cathryn L. Taylor, M.A., M.F.C.C, in her book, "The Inner Child Workbook: "What to do with your past when it just won't go away", we have many inner children, one child for each developmental stage. An inner child for infancy, one for toddlerhood, one for middle childhood, and so on.

Taylor writes in her book; "Who are the children within? They are the voices inside you that carry the feelings you were unable to express as a child. They carry your fear, anger, shame, and despair. They also carry your excitement, joy, happiness, and love, but many of us have had to deny those feelings as well. Whether you were ignored, belittled, or abused, you learned very early that it was not SAFE to FEEL. You learned that to FEEL meant to be vulnerable and to be vulnerable meant that you might not survive. Because you wanted to survive, you learned not to FEEL."

The Inner Child Explained

Taylor writes in her book, "The Inner Child Workbook", "Change often begins with the child because a child embodies the process of change. In his anthology "Reclaiming the Inner Child", editor Jeremiah Abrams says that the 'inner child is the carrier of our personal stories, the vehicle for our memories of both the actual child and an idealized child from the past. It is the truly alive quality of being within us. It is the soul, the continuous core of our experience throughout the cycles of life. It is the sufferer. And it is the bearer of renewal through rebirth, appearing in our lives whenever we detach and open to change."

"It is no wonder that we return to the child to find the solution to the reduction of emotional pain. ... now, as you seek change in yourselves, you once again return to the child. But this time you return to the child within."

According to Charles Whitfield, author of "Healing the Child Within", the concept of the inner child has been around for over two thousand years. Carl Jung called it the divine child, Emmett Fox called it the wonder child. Psychotherapists Alice Miller and Donald Winnicott refer to the inner child as the true self

In Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD) we see evidenced through common behaviour associated with this personality disorder much of the inner child coming through the adult. There is often a painful dissociation between the two. Those with BPD also have a very difficult time even contemplating being vulnerable and the result is that they end up denying their inner child over and over again to the point where they actually take on the role of their past abusers or a caretaker who could not meet their developmental needs and continually re-abuse themselves. Much of this self-abuse is aimed at avoidance of the actual pain - pain that has been abandoned and that sits under (often subconsciously) their experienced symptomology or pathology, the disordered reality of BPD itself. Continuing to ignore this little aspect of you and all the pain and terror that sits inside of him/her will make change and healing virtually impossible.

I cannot remember a more threatening thing, in therapy, then when I was confronted by a therapist who decided that I'd better learn about the reality of this child within. It was in private therapy, one on one, this therapist would not even let me talk, at all! She would hush me every time I tried to talk, and that was often. She would insist instead that I draw pictures. I was not amused, to say the least. Try as I might to not go there, I ended up going there. The results were very powerful and looking back those extremely frustrating (at the time) therapy sessions were pivotal in my healing journey because it was in and through those pictures that my inner child finally began to feel safe enough to emerge, to make herself "known" to me.

It was also through inner child work that I was able, over 15 years ago to stop cutting and self-abusing myself in other ways as well. There is such power in welcoming in this little girl or boy that so needs you to parent and re-parent him/her now. Believe, me, I know it can be scary, but the rewards far outweigh staying stuck with the terror of resistance and what amounts to the protection of what really is the shame of abandonment. An abandonment that needs to be addressed, worked through and resolved. This process, in and of recovery, that is the re-connection to the dissociated from inner-child of the person with BPD is the journey From False Self to Authentic Self

Anyone who was not able, for whatever reason, to have their developmental needs met in each stage of personal development will benefit from inner child work. However, I believe that borderlines specifically can benefit even more than the average because there is so much about BPD that is so self-abusive, self-punishing, re-shaming and so forth. Finding your way to your inner child and acknowledging that vulnerability is the way to truly begin to heal. This very same feared vulnerability, by the way, does become a cherished strength down the road. It does not remain this terrifying place in which one just continues to berate oneself for daring to feel something.

If you have not yet tapped in to your inner child or inner children you may be aware on some level of very young screaming pain that there are no words for. This is your inner child trying to get your attention. Until I recognized and began to work with my inner child I was not able to feel safe at all anywhere, ever. Welcoming in your inner child will, over time, teach you ways through which you can learn to feel safe. You will come to better understand why you haven't felt safe for so many years. Just imagine a 3 year old, let loose on one side of an 8 lane highway, as he/she starts to cross you have to feel utter terror. You would know if you saw this that you would need to RUN to the aid of this lost little one. You would know that this 3 year old does not have the ability to keep him/herself safe around all of this traffic blowing by. The same can be said of your inner child, at any age, and if you have BPD, you are emotionally standing at the side of an 8 lane highway, which essentially represents your young and Dysregulated Emotions and your need to cross this highway is your need to emotionally mature, to establish your identity, to know who you are and to grow up. Run to your own aid here, just as you would to the 3 year old standing at the edge of the 8 lane highway and about to wonder out into traffic.