The Abandonment Trauma Queen is back on the pod, and today we're heading into uncharted territory: borderline vs. abandonment trauma. What truly separates the two, and why the BPD label gets handed out way too easily.
Susan Anderson is a psychotherapist and a pioneer in the field of abandonment trauma, and she's spent the last three decades helping people heal. She's the author of The Abandonment Recovery Workbook (a book that truly changed my life) and Taming Your Outer Child. Having worked with thousands of people over the course of her career, she joins me to share what she's learned about telling the difference between BPD and CPTSD.
✨ What this episode explores
▪️What Actually Separates BPD From CPTSD — Why the dividing line isn't emotional intensity, but whether the pain distorts reality into a false narrative.
▪️Why Untreated Abandonment Escalates — How emotional reactivity compounds from one relationship to the next when the wound underneath is never addressed.
▪️Overthinking as an Abandonment Response — Why compulsive rumination is your brain searching for a lost attachment object, not actually solving anything.
▪️Why the Outer Child Fights Change — How the self-sabotaging part is persistent by design and actively wants to stay in charge.
▪️Self-Love as Behavior, Not Affirmation — Why the relationship with yourself is built through concrete action and written dialogue, not by deciding to love yourself.
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🎧 If this episode resonated, you might also love:
▪️ Ep 47 — Abandonment Trauma w/ Susan Anderson
▪️ Ep 97 — The Outer Child & Abandonment Trauma w/ Susan Anderson
▪️ Ep 161 — Abandonment Trauma Expert Susan Anderson on Rejection and Equating Love with Insecurity
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