Hello, I am Dog80 and a month ago I broke free from a 3 year relationship with a girl suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. She’s not actually diagnosed by a professional, the diagnosis is mine, after reading some online material. But I am quite confident that my diagnosis is correct, especially after cross-checking with the stories of other BPD survivors. The sad thing is that I realized that she suffers from BPD just a week ago. Had I known it a couple of years ago I would leave her on the spot, or at least I would be better prepared to deal with her tantrums. Living with a BPD sufferer
BPD sufferers have basically two modes. One is when they go silent and dark at you (eg. the dreaded silent treatment). The other mode is a nuclear explosion of rage right in your face. Both modes can be triggered by something trivial you said, did or didn’t do. And sometimes it can be something that the BPD partner just imagined that you did.
Soon enough the non-BPD partner will start to question their sanity: “Was my silly joke so insensitive to trigger that rage explosion?” or “Why did she suddenly go dark and won’t talk to me? I didn’t do or say anything bad. Or did I?”.
You start feeling like you walk on a minefield. A wrong step and boom!
Then you start being extra nice with them, (like bringing gifts, doing more stuff around the house, not bothering them etc) thinking that if you are nice enough they will eventually be happy.
WRONG! BPD sufferers will keep asking for more and more and they never get happy or content. This is because they have the perpetual victim mentality and they believe that the whole world owes them. I ended up emotionally and financially drained and yet she kept asking for more.
This was actually my breaking point, when I realized that no matter what I do there is nothing that will make her happy and I will always be miserable with her.
Yeah, right. If only they go to the doctor! My mother was like this too, and years later I thought she had all the classic signs. But she would NEVER go to the doctor. In her mind you were either sane or locked in the attic batshit crazy, nothing in-between. Mental health was just a big old scam.
I know a few people that have been diagnosed with BPD, and it’s not an easy thing for professionals to do. I am extremely suspect of a non-professional diagnosing someone with whom there were in a relationship with. I’m sure you two had serious problems and she may very well have been Borderline, but I have my doubts.
So after an online search, when you found out that, rather than just being a bitch, your emotionally- and financially-draining girlfriend had a treatable disorder, you dumped her.
No. We separated a month ago and I just realized about the BPD a week ago.
And BPD is not really treatable. If the sufferer is willing to go to counseling (slim chance), it will take years of therapy and they will only learn how to manage it to bearable levels, they never get over it.
Sorry, but after all I’ve been through I am not willing to go down that road.
Diagnosis StoryThrough several years of taking my bipolar boy to a pychologist(Dr. C) and a psychiatrist(Dr. Y), both doctors got to know my ex and me pretty well and were authorized to share information about kid as well as family dynamics. Over time, stuff came out about ex & me that gave them a pretty good idea of the big picture–personal histories, courtship, difficulties, marital issues, parenting styles, personal philosphies, etc. It’s all relevant because we’re influencing the kid and the docs want to know who the parents are. After about 12 months Dr. C had watched me struggle through some mood cycling and recommended I have a chat with Dr. Y about meds for me and bipolar disorder. I declined and pursued other avenues under his indirect supervision and am doing ok now (with meds–I gave up). Ex initiated the same conversation with Dr. C, and he kind of hemmed and hawed, suggested maybe some group therapy or other somesuch. Ex took that as a personal insult and went straight to Dr. Y. Dr. Y talked with her for an hour (keep in mind he’d been able to observe her directly during kid’s appointments and he’d chatted with Dr. C about our whole family) and finally said something along the lines of he could treat her for anxiety and depression, but not for the impulsive behavior that had made such a wreck of her life. Dr. Y and Dr. C had both suspected BPD, but evidently the 1 hour 1 on 1 pretty much convinced Dr. Y he was dealing with a BPD.I heard the diagnosis from the ex (who wears it like a badge) and Dr. Y has openly expressed a combination of pity and awe in me for having put up with “someone with her condition” for so long. When I asked him how people normally handle BPDs he gave me a number of responses ranging from dead serious to jocular, and never once suggested my conflation of BPD and ex was at all incongruous–sort of an oblique affirmation to an oblique query, so not really a breach of Dr/patient confidentiality. After all, 25 years with her was no small part of why I was in his office.
That, and having read up a fair amount on the subject (I have a friend whose mother was diagnosed with BPD), is one of the few mental illnesses that a lot of therapists won’t treat because it isn’t something that many seek to actually change. And her mother is an absolute freaking nightmare who abuses everyone around her with abandon.
The guy’s (most probably reluctantly) just got out of a 3 year relationship with a woman who (most probably, if he thinks she suffers from BPD) criticised his every thought, word and deed.
Lighten up Francis.
Dog80 thanks for the link, I think I’m going through something similar.
Ooh me too. 10 goddamn years off and on. If someone hasn’t dealt with it, it would be hard to explain to them how it really is. Craziest most frustrating thing in the fucking world.