The Song That Helps Me Cope With Borderline Personality Disorder

I appreciate how music can help me process, grieve, relate and understand my borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms. Music can help me feel I am not alone, even if the intent of the song is not specifically about my “problem.” I think that being able to connect and relate to lyrics, sound and the intensity of a particular song can aid in coping. It can be part of healing and transformation.

I came across a song recently from Frozen 2 called “Show Yourself.”

I have not seen the movie, and I likely won’t choose to see it now, as I heard one of the songs recently which led me to reflect on the words, intensity and how it relates to aspects of my experience with BPD. I want to keep this song and the thoughts and feelings it brings up, as carrying the meaning I am giving to it. It has been very helpful and healing for me.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5), “transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms” is one of the nine criteria, and it is not one that every person with BPD experiences.

I have experienced this. This symptom was actually a very common symptom I experienced at one time in my life. Even after much therapy I still occasionally have moments where I think this is happening, though it looks a bit different now, I think this is still happening in ways.

For me, I feel that my “self” is floating away, out there. I feel “unreal.” This will sometimes happen after a period of extreme distress and if I am trying to block my feelings.  It feels like a part of me gets lost and separated from myself and what I need to face. I think this happens if I cannot accept the feelings I am having, and if I am trying to hide my emotions and block what I am experiencing. This is understandable and makes sense. Feelings for me can seem intense and I can be triggered easily. Also, it’s not a pleasant experience and one I want to experience less, to change in some way.

The song in Frozen 2 “Show Yourself” speaks to this experience in a way that helps me express how this feels. It also expresses a way of coming home, healing and transforming the experience.

“Every inch of me is trembling. But not from the cold. Something is familiar
Like a dream, I can reach but not quite hold. I can sense you there. Like a friend I’ve always known.
I’m arriving. And it feels like I am home. I have always been a fortress. Cold secrets deep inside. You have secrets, too. But you don’t have to hide.”
– Frozen 2, “Show Yourself”

When under severe stress and unwilling to feel my emotions, it is for me like walking in a dream like state. But I know it is happening, and yet I am not in reality, and I cannot quite bring myself back so easily. I sense myself drifting away, and I am chasing her (my true self) that seems to be hiding.

However, when I get a glimpse of her, myself and feelings, as it is, I begin to come back into myself, my home, my true self.

For me “secrets” are like the emotions I am trying to block, not feel, hide from myself and the world. If I tell myself I don’t have to hide them, that it is OK to experience them, then I believe that I am stepping into the path of healing, which is where I want to stay on.

For me, Elsa’s words in this song can help me process and relate when I experience this symptom of blocking and shutting off a part of myself that needs to be seen, heard and accepted fully. The emotion and intensity of the song is very helpful too. To me it sounds raw, real and authentic.

The song helps me today to welcome my feelings, and speak to them with the compassion, care, curiosity and openness:

“Show yourself. I want to meet you. Show yourself.
It’s your turn. Are you the one I’ve been looking for. All of my life?
Show yourself. I’m ready to learn.”

When I approach my emotions with willingness, care and openness, I find myself better able to experience the fullness of this part of me that I seem to want to hide, block, cut off and invalidate.

Show yourself (willingness)
I want to meet you (care)
I am ready to learn (openness)

Many of us with BPD have questioned our purpose in life and have felt we don’t or didn’t “fit in.” I wonder if the purpose of my life is truly just to exist, as I am in the world to claim my right to take up space, here and now.

Perhaps my purpose is to feel all I feel and be able to breathe through those times of intensity, to lean into it, to face it —  rather than cutting that part of me off. Maybe the reason I am here, is to come to a place where I feel I “fit in,” within myself and claim my space in the world.

Existential malaise is not a DSM 5 symptom, but it is one I have heard many who share these traits express, as well as myself. Marsha Linehan is quoted saying that: “BPD is the ultimate ‘I don’t fit in’ disorder.” She says:

“Many of my clients are a tulip in a rose garden, I say, if you’re a tulip, don’t try to be a rose. Go find a tulip garden. All my clients are tulips, and they are trying to be roses. It doesn’t work. They drive themselves ‘crazy’ trying. I recognize not everyone has the skills to plant the garden they need. But everyone can learn how to garden.”
-Marsha Linehan, “Building a Life Worth Living”

I think that experiencing my emotions and feelings, as they are, is part of “gardening” for me. I think this “gardening” is part of my reason for living, being. Not trying to be someone else, means allowing my own feelings, even the scary, intense, painful ones.

“Show yourself. I’m no longer trembling. Here I am. I’ve come so far.
You are the answer I’ve waited for. All of my life.
Oh, show yourself.
Let me see who you are.”

Maybe it means welcoming all of me, as the song sings…

“Come, my darling, homeward bound
I am found. Show yourself.
Step into the power. Grow yourself Into something new.
You are the one you’ve been waiting for. All of my life.” 

Show yourself.
Feel what feels hard to feel.
All of us have a right to be, to exist, to feel what we feel.
And it’s not easy.

If it’s hard for you, I get it. It’s hard for me too.