I'm A Blockhead

Entry 1

Six months or so into our relationship, I was in bed with Jenny in the fourth floor of old Lander Hall, where she was a resident assistant ("RA"). It was late June or early July (Jenny always worked summers as an RA). Jenny was laying on her side facing me, and had her right hand under her pillow.  It's been 30 years, but my recollection is Jenny got up to go to the bathroom, and when she did I noticed there was something under her pillow, where her hand had been. I lifted the pillow up and discovered a child's pajama bottoms. They were faded, old. When Jenny returned from the bathroom, I asked her about them. She blushed and stammered, and couldn't make eye contact. After a few moments, she sheepishly explained that this was her blankey. She had been sleeping with them since she was 6 or 7, a replacement from another that had worn out. She was embarrassed. She was distraught. Then, I told her I thought it was adorable. She never parted with her blankey, while alive. It was with her every night. She could not sleep without it. If we went somewhere she brought it with her. If she forgot it when we traveled, she was a mess, and would rush to our room when we got home, to hold and stroke it. I thought it odd, but simply a quirk, this attachment. I'm a blockhead.

When she fell ill with cancer, the attachment, which had never waned, increased manifold. No longer was it reserved for bedtime and sleep. She started taking it to chemo. The sicker she got, the more she needed it. By the time she died, she had it with her at all times. She didn't let it go.

As I was researching and studying borderline personality disorder, I wondered if this illness, which has components of an attachment disorder, could explain the blanket.

It crossed my mind, but I never could find any medical journal writings on it, that is, until today. I only can access the abstract, but it confirms my suspicion that the reliance on objects of transition can be a tell with BPD. 


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(The research on the linkage between a transitional object and BPD is much greater than I realized at the time I wrote this down. Enter this search into the search engine of your choice and find out more--transitional objects AND BPD. March 1, 2024.)

Adult attachment to transitional objects and borderline personality disorder 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22486448/

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by tumultuous, unstable personal relationships, difficulty being alone, and an inability to self-soothe. This may explain why patients with BPD tend to develop strong attachments to transitional objects such as stuffed animals. Research in hospital settings has linked the use of transitional objects to the presence of BPD. Using a nonclinical community sample (N = 80) we explored the link between attachments to transitional objects and various aspects of personality pathology, as well as to childhood trauma, and parental rearing styles. People who reported intense current attachments to transitional objects were significantly more likely to meet criteria for a BPD diagnosis than those who did not; they also reported more childhood trauma, rated their early caregivers as less supportive, and had more attachment problems as adults. Heavy emotional reliance on transitional objects in adulthood may be an indicator of underlying pathology, particularly BPD.




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