I thought I'd share this here since I just had this conversation with a friend. Please take it with a grain of salt, as I'm just expressing a PERSONAL experience, and I know all our experiences aren't 100% the same...but if this helps even one person, that will make me happy. 

I'm still just now beginning to have a burgeoning sense of self...so, I'm not all the way there yet, but this is something that happened to me over time in therapy, and something I stick to today, that I consider one of the building blocks of beginning to Feel Myself, and Feel My Existence:

You'll notice sometimes with people with BPD, if you talk to them in a crisis time, or if you listen to yourself talk during a crisis time, you hear a lot of phrases like:

"I don't understand why they would say xyz..."
"What is this person thinking of me right now?"
"So and so did this to me and I am so upset."
"He said..."
"She said..."
"They did..."

All of these are outward observations.

Someone with BPD doesn't really have a sense of self. Their whole existence is validated by others' actions, words, perceptions of them, etc. It's the only way we know how to be, or know how to trust that we're real, sometimes. We go by how others are treating us (or how we believe they're treating us) or how they speak to us...we judge ourselves based on how attached we perceive someone to be, or not to be...we judge our attachments to others based on the other person's behavior, etc...

In therapy, my therapist called me out one time saying that all she's heard has been me talking about other people, and we haven't spent much time talking about how I was feeling. I got upset at first because talking about other people felt SO IMPORTANT. It was all I knew.

Once she got me talking about how these interactions with people was making me feel, inside, apart from the person...it was REALLY hard. I got angry. "Why do you want me to feel bad? You just want me to feel bad!" I told her. 

What was happening was that as I turned inward, the conversations went from:

"He didn't say 'I love you' when he said goodnight. He knows how that makes me feel. He knows how that makes me worry. Why would he do that? Is he pulling away? Based on what I just told you, do you think he's pulling away?"

To:

"He didn't say, 'I love you' before going to bed last night."
"How do you feel about that?"
"I feel scared. I feel like he doesn't really love me. I remember when my dad wouldn't talk to me for days and I never knew why. I needed him and he wasn't there."
"What's happening right now?"
"I feel like a worthless, unloveable, piece of shit. I don't understand why my S.O. would even want me. I'm nothing."

Telling my therapist, "I feel like shit. I'm nothing," was a true, and painful, painful, horrible experience.

Deep inside, I felt like trash. But feeling like trash sucks. Sitting with yourself, experiencing yourself as TRASH is horrible, so our brains, to protect ourselves, move away from that feeling, and focus OUTWARD and start obsessing about what the OTHER PERSON is thinking. It's way easier that way (you'd think.)

But if you can sit with the I'M TRASH feeling...it's the first step to feeling yourself. Feeling your existence. Sure, it's awful to feel yourself be trash. But at least you're feeling yourself.

Once I started being able to validate my own existence (even if it was negatively) I began wanting to treat myself better JUST because I existed.

Most of us here are good friends, and good loving people who don't want the people we love—people we acknowledge as being real, existing people—to hurt. We try to make them feel good about themselves and take care of them the best we can.

Once we also begin to see that we are real, existing people, our brains start treating ourselves like real, existing people. Our brains stop diverting attention away toward OTHER real, existing people, and, now realizing completely that we're here, and valid, start rewiring to cope with that I'M TRASH feeling. By giving it the identifier I'M TRASH, at the very least, we give it something to work with.

It's awful to feel like trash, but then you feel real, and quite shortly after that, you begin to value yourself and learn to start loving yourself just by virtue of your existence. (At least, this has been my experience.)

The next time you're extremely upset by an interaction you had with someone, or trigger by an interaction you had with someone, consider trying to shift the focus inward, on yourself, rather than outward, on what the person said or did or must be thinking. Validate your existence: at that point, it doesn't matter if you're validating it in a good or bad way. You're validating that you exist, and that's a beautiful place to start.

I had to use this skill tonight. My S.O. didn't want to Facetime with me because he'd been up for hours writing, and just wanted to go to bed. My brain went:

"He doesn't want to FaceTime with me. It's because he's cheating on me. How can I figure out for sure whether or not he's cheating on me? I should snoop on ALL the social media. I need to see what he's doing."

But then I turned inward:

"What am I really experiencing right now? I'm remember how terrified I'd feel if he left me or was lying. I'm fearing abandonment. I'm afraid I can't take care of myself if he leaves or is lying...oh wait, I can totally take care of myself..."

I hope everyone is well tonight. So glad you're all here. &lt;3 Would love to hear about anything that's worked for any of you in terms of beginning to validate your own existence/identity.

ETA: I know not everyone here can afford therapy or has found a therapist they like. Please don't think you NEED a therapist to be able to do this. I think it's extremely helpful, and makes the experience a little more safe, but you can practice turning INWARD now, and you can always come here for support, or tell a close friend or family member about your practice and seek support there, too. Crisis hotlines are also always good, and I myself have used them a few times. Everything will be okay. &lt;3