You may not be surprised to know that some research suggests that individuals with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder may experience excessive shame.

Shame is a normal human emotion but with BPD it quickly and destructively spirals of negative self-perception. Shame, as with most negative emotions, is a response to a threat. In the case of shame its:

“am I going to be kicked out of my community/social group”

It helps us to identify values and beliefs of the group as it is a reaction to other’s response to our own behaviours. However, in BPD this behaviour has become excessive often destroying their lives or relationships.

The community or group some with BPD is brought up in often plays a role in the development of the condition but unhelpfully it can also perpetuate it. If the community is a family group or cultural social network they are often the ones that the person with BPD looks to first for emotional support in a crisis, the reaction of the community of humiliation or punishment, bring on more shame, making it very hard to break out of the cycle.

These early or established communities feel so important to the individual the often fail to recognise the fact that just because a group’s reacts to a behaviour in a certain way, doesn’t inherently mean the behaviour is wrong. Shame doesn’t tell you they are right, or you are wrong it’s a reflection of the group. However, this is feeling of ‘wrongness’ is often reflected inwards by someone with BPD, internalising it through negative self-commentary: I’m wrong, I’m the problem, I’m inherently bad. This pressure to conform can manifest through perfectionist tendencies.

This makes life very challenging as each “micro community” of which there are so many in life has its own expectations, values and response to certain behaviours. For someone with BPD they might act in a way that conflicts with the micro community’s expectations leading to response that trigger the shame response. However, the person with BPD is hypersensitive often meaning they perceive negative reaction were none exist also triggering the same cycle of shame. This means the person with BPD is constantly analysing and scanning for negative responses but often misidentifying them. This makes them feel simultaneously desperate to understand others but equally feeling incapable of doing so.

The inability to express emotions in response to the feeling of shame drives a cycle of intense emotions. Shame drives emotional turmoil, that in turn drives internal rage, self-ham or self-sabotage which brings on more shame.