One day I wish a BPD sufferer would post, rather than an ex. Not that ex’s don’t have their own interesting stories to tell, but ex’s also have a vested interest in portraying their former partners in the most batshit crazy ways. And I question the sanity of anyone who hangs onto an emotionally manipulative person for years on end. Diagnosis or not, you should care enough about your own well-being to get away from someone who is that fucked up. No kids, no marriage vows, no excuses.
I know there is someone lurking on this thread right now who has been diagnosed, fully accepts the label, and would be willing to talk about it. The internet is teeming with people like this. Unfortunately, the disorder has such horrible stigma attached to it that it keeps people quiet…perpetuating the myth that BPD sufferers are totally clueless. We only end up hearing one side–the “victim” side. But as hard as it may be to comprehend, the people with BPD are also victims. Getting a firsthand account would maybe help us to understand this.
I hope this doesn’t come across as threadshitting.
On the DSM-IVTR (e.g. the one that’s on it’s way out, at least officially. Now in DSM-V they changed PDs into some à la carte thing). BPD is a Personality Disorder. If you look in the index, you will note that it is not in the same section (Axis) with depression, anxiety, etc. It is in Axis-II, along with the other PDs and also mental retardation. This is because Axis-II disorders are considered to be a lifetime thing more than not. It is incredibly hard to treat, and echoing people above, many BPD people aren’t willing to get help. A diagnosis would be great, and I frown upon internet diagnoses, but in this case sometimes it’s all you can work with. You run the risk of misdiagnosis, but with a severe disorder like this, it’s not likely you are misinterpreting normal behavior.
Re: dumping - BPD people are suffering. In an ideal world, you would stick around and cure them. But you shouldn’t be in any obligation to do so, and indeed many SOs of BPD people have a serious martyr syndrome, and willingly put up with it, even though they are miserable. And often if they talk about the rough spots in the relationship, they will threaten suicide and similar to keep you. I am glad that my one BPD relationship was not romantic (on my part). In other words, don’t feel guilty about leaving, it’s not your job to “fix” someone. Be glad you don’t have kids.
Good luck to the OP. Make sure your rabbit hutch is locked up.
There really aren’t many BPD people who accept it. Maybe for brief intermittent times, maybe to use it as an excuse, but once they start feeling attacked and get defensive, which is almost always, it’s over.
I agree they’re victims in a way too though. I think most people who have cared about and known well someone like that would agree. I can’t imagine how exhausting it must be to be my ex. If I had to be around him all the time I’d accidentally shoot myself cleaning my gun. He copes by being high ALL THE TIME. I’m definitely not trying to make him sound any crazier than he is. If anything I do the opposite sometimes, because I want to believe he can change even though I really know better.
My friend’s mother lives with another long-suffering relative. The reason she doesn’t leave is akin to battered woman syndrome. The whole thing is terrifying and I fear for her life someday.
Wife 2.0 is the best support group I can imagine. For me, the best advice I got from the docs was, “Good job getting away from her. Stay away from her.” And, while pointing at wife 2.0, “Listen to her, you’re a good man and she’ll show you that.”
Just for monstro: My ex ain’t coming here but
Support groups for those who have BPD? I dunno, and I don’t much care. By that I mean I can’t let myself care. The BPD person is one of the kindest, sweetest, most insightful people you will ever meet. Until they want you to think of them some other way. I don’t know if I have a form of Stockholm syndrome after living with her for 25 years, but it is too easy for me to make excuses for her even now. I try to limit our conversations to the health and welfare of the kids and to maintain a civil relationship with her. But that contact needs to be very shallow–I don’t ask and I don’t tell about feelings about anything because those become her weapons. I’m far enough removed from her now that I’m more or less past the hate (but I do have my moments). I see her as a predator at a personal level, but she leverages those instincts to good effect in her work with severely autistic kids. As an emotional chameleon, she can gain the trust of their parents, which calms the atmosphere, and can manipulate the kids to get them to do what she needs them to do (calm down, and try to focus on schoolwork). Unlike an actual psychopath, I think she is capable of very strong positive and negative feelings. But unlike a “normal” person, it matters very little to her how those emotions and impulsivity affect other people unless she is actively manipulating someone. She has normal human emotions, but other people’s emotions only seem to matter to her to the extent they help her get what she wants.
Good on you OP. 14 year sentence myself. One kid. Got out 11 years ago. She’s trashed almost every relationship she’s ever had. Parents, siblings, extended family, childhood friends, adult friends, a spouse, employers, co-workers. Burned everyone of them to the ground. If you haven’t experienced it, it’s hard to understand.
Yo - my college roommate was actually formally diagnosed with this disorder. We shared an apartment for 2+ years.
Which, admittedly, is different than being in a romantic relationship with such a person. I still count her as one of my friends HOWEVER she was one of the very rare people with BPD who actually wanted to change and had already been in therapy for several years before we started rooming together.
If she had been the way she was before therapy, as related to me by her family, there is no way in hell I would have roomed with her, I would have run away.
It’s “treatable” in the sense that if the patient so desires and is willing to work really hard it can be managed. There is no cure.
^ This.
As I said, my college roommate was formally diagnosed and had been in therapy for several years before I met her. She was in her mid-30’s before she had a stunning revelation: the world didn’t work the way she though it did. She also has a fearsome intellect and used reason and logic not so much to change herself as to change her behavior so as to make herself more comfortable and, by extension everyone around her more comfortable.
She was (and is) full of exasperating quirks. She was not prone to acting out (though she had her angry outburst moments) but would self-harm, manipulate people, and basically, well, be a pain in the ass. Remember - this is someone in essentially a best-case scenario. What made the whole thing bearable was that both of us had an over-developed sense of personal space and territory and kept out of each other’s space unless invited in. In other words, LOTS of boundaries and observing them. As I said, my preference is for strongly defined personal space so this worked out for both of us.
I’d venture to say she is not capable of an intimate relationship with anyone, even if she’s more attracted to other women than men. As she finds immense fulfillment in her professional life, a profession where an abrasive, opinionated personality is not a liability, she doesn’t especially feels the lack, or so she tells me. Whatever frustration comes from a lack of intimacy is made up for by not being stressed by that level of relationship.
So, really, I roomed with a person with BPD under the best of circumstances - someone who was ready, able, and willing to get help and working actively to fix what was wrong with her life. Even so, after two years we were more than ready to go our separate ways and I wouldn’t particularly care to share living space with her again. Mind you, I’d be happy to have her as a guest (and have) and if either of us were desperate I could tolerate the situation but … really, two years was enough. I’d rather have either the intimacy of a spouse or to be alone at this point in my life.
Could be the same woman. They loves them some novelty & drama.
It’s not threadshitting, it’s an excellent point. BPDs have emotions just like regular folks–they just can’t control 'em and they get impulsive. And regular folks have different levels & rates of emotional investment in mates. If you’re someone who’s had a few dates & long-term girl/boyfriends you’re more likely to notice something about the BPD is a little “off” or just downright more than you’re willing to deal with. You slip the net and off you go. For me (in addition to having questionable sanity ), she was my first kiss. I never knew anything was wrong and I didn’t have much self-esteem to begin with. Since I was 15, how she treated me was bad at times, but normal I thought. Sure, I left her a couple times, but when she got lonely I got pulled back in and was made to feel good about myself for a while. Between ages 15 & 41 she was basically the only woman I ever got to know really well and there was comfort and familiarity in her presence. Ironically, it was my own mental illness that rescued me. She fucked with me in May when I was entering my manic cycle. My symptoms told me I was a god, worthy of any woman I should choose and that she should suffer immeasurably for causing me pain. Divorce papers really shocked her and I reveled in her pitiful sobs. At last the “Kick 'em when they’re down” roles were reversed and I really rubbed her nose in it with a viciousness I’d rather not think I was incapable of. Then I got the hell out of the house. As my mania began to wane in early August, I stole a kiss (at work!) from a coworker who became Wife 2.0. So, that year, mania was MY bitch for a change. Funny old world ain’t it?
Calls herself a shrink, but she’s not a psychiatrist or MD. Seems a bit strident. More explainer than therapist, IMHO. Makes some good points. Makes some less good ones. That’s based on looking at what she wrote for about 3 minutes, and reviewing her credentials. YMMV.
My psycho ex genuinely believes there’s no such person. He’s wrong, obviously (not as wrong as he should be though, because it really is amazing what people including me tolerate from him) but somehow he doesn’t notice or convinces himself otherwise or something? I guess those people just distance themselves before they become close enough for him to pay much attention.
And if it’s not someone he’s close with then it doesn’t trigger his fear of abandonment so he doesn’t really care. He just calls me to rant indignantly about how people don’t behave appropriately, and then moves on (eventually…the rants can be really long and wind-y and often turn into him being mad about my reaction).
ETA: Also, he ends up screaming at/lecturing strangers on a not infrequent basis.
In my unprofessional understanding, BPD is an actual attachment disorder that always has a very clear root cause going back to the sufferer’s childhood. There’s a big difference between someone who occasionally acts like an asshole and someone who’s an asshole because they were never taught how to demonstrate affection for/receive affection from the people they love. People with BPD both crave and fear attachment and intimacy at the same time, generally because they had criminally unstable childhoods with horrible parental role models. That’s not to say that anyone should stay with a partner they suspect of having BPD (that’d be crazy!), but I think blaming them for it is wrong. *Nobody *would make the conscious choice to wreck every relationship they’ve ever had.
For anyone who really cares what it’s like to have BPD, there are plenty of stories just a google search away.
For my mom, the suicide threat is the immediate go-to in the face of resistance. Sadly just an act, though she’s landed herself in the loony bin more than once because of it.
Eh, “shrink” normally can mean either psychiatrist or psychologist, nowadays. And most people don’t know the difference, sadly.
Yep. Some may have had stable childhoods, but abuse, whether sexual, physical, and/or emotional, is a very big correlate.
Doing more reading on DSM-5 (they don’t like Roman numerals anymore?). Some wanted to move it to Axis-I (no!). Some wanted to rename it, because it’s confusing/meaningless (true, but schizoid and schizotypal PDs aren’t confusing? Or OCPD, which is only superficially like OCD?).
Everyone would blame them for it sometimes though. Nobody can be completely objective in their personal relationships, especially not with someone who is constantly attacking you and crazymaking. And all assholes have something going on psychologically (all people do, assholes or not). It may or may not be reasonable to ever blame anyone for anything (the whole free will debate) and personality disorders are just one more part of that whole confusing picture.
While I completely agree that it’s an attachment disorder, they don’t all wreck all their relationships. My ex is one of the most popular people you’d ever meet.
I would have no problem moving it into Axis-I (or actually abolishing the differentiation all together). There is strong evidence suggesting that BPD has a neurochemical basis, just as Axis I disorders do. The mood swings typical in BPD are similar to rapid-cycling affective states of bipolar disorder, and are effectively treated with similar meds. There is also a genetic aspect to the disorder.
Many people stay depressed and anxious their whole lives. The same for those with chronic schizophrenia. I really don’t see a major difference between these folks and those with BPD when it comes to the issue of “hopelessness”. All mental illness involves a lack of insight, to a certain degree. This is what happens when a brain is screwed up. No one wakes up one morning and decides they’re going to disregulate their emotions.
We probably hear from them all the time…we just think they are the victims of neglectful SO’s who do not appreciate them for all the wonderful things they do. Skimming any FB feed or message board there are probably 3-4 working the crowd.
They loves them some novelty & drama.