That’s a beautiful way of describing it!
It’s my understanding–and please correct me if I am wrong–but it is my understanding that they are also pathological liars of the worst type–they tend to convince themselves that their lies are true, and so 1) appear to be telling the truth and 2) get outraged when called on their lies–they can be truly destroyed by your lack of trust even though they are lying. It’s exhausting to deal with someone where you have to doubt everything they say, and you end up getting fooled again and again.
There are few “pure” cases of personality disorders, which can be conceptualized as being individual constellations of traits that we all have, only taken to an extreme. So yeah, you can be a little BPD. And you can have a little of BPD and a little of something else (like, schizoid PD)–resulting in a someone who’s more weird than scary.
Wow. This is the perfect description of my ex-wife.
Blatant lies in the face of “just did it in front of you”, then you’re “being mean” by not believing her excuses and denials. Even though you watched her do it.
Or like when she kneed me in the groin, full force 360 degree wind-up - then “apologized” - then I was “being mean” because I was still “pretending to be in pain” after she had apologized. :rolleyes:
Love to Hate and back again in the blink of an eye.
Everything was someone else. Never her. Even when it was blatantly obvious it was her. (Like overdrafting her bank account, then crying how the bank was stealing her money.)
Wild assed flights into screaming “you hate me” over nothing. Like when we were watching a movie and she suddenly flipped out, shrieking and crying because of some random look on my face while I was watching the movie “proved” that I hated her.
I wonder how she maintained the same therapist for 10 years or more.
My mother has not been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (AFAIK), which I find somewhat frustrating because she obviously has it, she just keeps a tight control over what her therapists see.
She was an absolute nightmare to live with. She can’t be without a man. We were always shacking up with some new guy and his kids. Usually the guys were abusive, or alcoholic, or just treated us like shit. She married four times and is currently planning a fifth marriage. By the time I was a teenager every single person in our family was terrified of her. If she got into a fight with my stepdad she might throw open the door while speeding down the highway and threaten to jump out. She strangled him, threw his clothes on the lawn, scratched and hit me, attempted suicide in the most dramatic fashion she could imagine (calling my Aunt at work, announcing she was going to kill herself and then forcing her to bust out our front window with a baseball bat in order to ‘‘rescue’’ her.) Several times she would threaten suicide and then jump in the car and drive away, only to come back hours later and pretend nothing happened. God save your soul if she was driving and got pissed off–once she floored it into my stepdad’s office building, then hit reverse and floored it again. She destroyed so many things in our house–windows, dishes, telephones, my bedroom walls–it became very commonplace. Like when the sofa came up missing I wasn’t altogether surprised to learn she’d taken a butcher knife to it. She threatened to kill me twice, and I believe she seriously would have if I hadn’t kept my mouth shut (she claims that’s bullshit and she was just trying to frighten me into behaving.)
Nobody was permitted to suggest that she might have some problems. When my grandmother confronted her about her treatment of me, she changed our telephone number and forbid my grandmother to speak to me for over a year. I was/am extremely close to Grandma and I will forgive my Mom for everything but that. Once I accidentally knocked a stapler off her desk, and the resulting argument led her to conclude that I should be removed from marching band for an entire year. And I was removed, though my band directors pleaded with her to reconsider (I was a nerd; band mattered to me.) Once my Aunt (who was in her late twenties then) dropped me off five minutes late. Oh, did the shit hit the fan that night. I was almost forbidden from seeing my Aunt ever again because my Aunt clearly did not respect their rules. My Aunt had to literally beg my mother to forgive her. She swallowed so much shit for me when I was a kid. It sounds like a made up fucking joke, but she was seriously that outraged by 5 minutes late.
Forget eggshells–living with that woman was like walking on fucking razor blades. Anything could set her off, and usually did.
And when these episodes happened, we weren’t allowed to talk about them or else she would just get pissed off again. Sometimes we’d go through an entire week like that, raging violence followed by her completely shutting me out and then getting pissed off again when I tried to reason with her. When she gets mad, you are the worst person in the world. You disgust her, you literally make her sick to her stomach, she can’t believe she has to live with so much disrespect and her tolerating you is making her physically ill. She will call you on the phone 10 times and leave screaming voice mails to this effect, which is why very few people in my family are willing to deal with her.
I didn’t truly understand how fucked up my mother was until I invited her to come into a therapy session with me and my psychiatrist damn near got into a shouting match with her. She had to call in my psychologist to get her to calm down, because my Mom was convinced I was schizophrenic and that nothing I had experienced in my life constituted abuse. She was trying to convince my doctors to give her Power of Attorney over me (I was 22.) My psychiatrist turned to me afterward and was all flustered, just red in the face. She said, ‘‘I don’t even know how you do it. You were amazing with her. She made me so angry.’’
BPDs might get better as they age, and my Mom’s temper has certainly calmed, but she’s still insane. She has convinced her therapist that she is a domestic violence survivor, when in fact she is the one who dished it out. She used to be a book-keeper and operate a business-this is a very intelligent woman with an engineering degree. The other day she called my Grandmother for help putting together a budget for her bankruptcy form, and then demanded my Grandma speak to Mom’s fiance during a lover’s tiff to set him straight. It really scares me because this is a whole new level of incompetent. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her. She was married to her fourth husband for so long I was convinced it was all his fault. But now that she’s divorced I remember how fucked up she was even before she married him–all the boyfriends, the sleeping around, the tendency to get drunk. I’m really worried about her.
I wish someone would properly diagnose her already so I could get some fucking validation.
I’m considering becoming a clinical therapist, and I’ve given some thought to how I would handle a case like this in my office, whether it would freak me out or be like second nature. Maybe it will turn out I have a gift, having had to live with one for so long. Without a doubt nobody understands my mother the way I do. No matter what happens, my love for my Mom doesn’t end. I know she’s sick and in a way I always have. So maybe some day something good will come out her sickness.
:eek:
You don’t need that, you already have it. She’s batshit insane. You lived through it, you survived the worst of it.
The best part now is that you DON’T have to live it now.
Hoping for some good to come from it? Sorry, but don’t hold your breath. She’s a destructive force in the lives of your entire family. The only good that can come from it is if you and other members of your family realize that IT ISN’T YOU and that you do not have to tolerate her shit.
You can’t thrive in a relationship with someone with BPD, you can only survive.
I was specifically referencing my future work as a therapist. Like if I can use my experience with her to understand people with Borderline Personality better and find a way to be more effective in treating said people, then something good would come out of it. I realized a long time ago I don’t have to tolerate her shit. I still have some guilt and worry but for the most part I’ve cut the umbilical cord. For certain I will not longer tolerate abuse. I was just thinking of a way to use the experience in a positive way, and that came to mind. If most therapists run screaming at the sight of a BPD, maybe it would be a good thing if I didn’t.
Actually, I said “I don’t mind in an agency setting, but prefer not to in private practice because it takes too much focus on boundaries in that setting.” People with BPD do best with very clear boundaries, the setting and keeping of which takes a lot of energy. As others have said above, there is a lot of boundary testing, some of it outside the bounds of what’s acceptable. When the worker keeps the boundary, or there are consequences to the boundary violation, a person with BPD is likely to interpret the limit-setting as a withdrawal of love or approval, and can become self-injurious or angry at the worker. This also takes a lot of worker time and energy, and the likelihood is that no matter how good the worker is at it, at some point the person with BPD may well accuse him/her of malpractice or malfeasance. That’s why it can be helpful to work with the person in an agency setting, where there are other staff also seeing the interactions over time and documenting their quality. This should also serve as a double-check on the worker’s behavior in situations where he/she is getting too wrapped up in all the emotion.
I wasn’t meaning to mischaracterize your response here. I’ve found your comments and the comments of other mental health practitioners to be extremely valuable and informative.
This M.D. (psychiatrist) yaks some interesting yak wrt Borderline Personality Disorder, i.e. “borderline is a heuristic of countertransference: if the psychiatrist feels frustrated, or exasperated, then the patient is borderline.” [paging down several times in the link below will get you to this quote].
The Doc then lists the 4 typical types (of patients) that get funneled into the borderline diagnosis.
The comments following the blog entry are also interesting.
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2007/10/the_diagnosis_of_borderline_pe.html#more
No worries–I just want to be clear that I’m not in the “hate” camp, but in the “want to be sure to do it right” one.
I have no idea whether my “difficult people” are BPD or not, but another factor in those who have the lights on may be a change in the rewards system. Let’s see if I can put this into words…
Let’s say Danny is a PITA and rewarded for it. Danny may be a little kid whose mother fawns over him and kisses him when he cries his lungs out (and some lungs those kids have), or he may be an adult whose friends and family twist themselves backwards trying to please them because they make the most horrid scenes (and if they think it won’t have negative consequences for them, they do it in public).
At some point, the people around Danny manage to cut the rewards for negative behaviour out. Danny makes a scene? Mommy/daughter/wife/coworker says “oh, ok, let me know when you calm down,” takes out the knitting and calmly goes on with it. Danny behaves well, like he does know how? Mommy/daughter/wife/coworker is happy to be with Danny and invite him to a drink.
The Gramps from Hell, whose social circle has been greatly diminished since he had to leave the Referees’ College and who has been less bad to us than he used to, gets instantly back to his old tricks if he runs into a referee on the street. Why? Because they reward his bad behaviour: talking about women (including his own) like cuts of meat is rewarded, being verbally violent is rewarded. He still displays it with Grandma, less with his daughters, very little with his granddaughters. Why? I’ll give you a guess about who takes it how.
It certainly does make sense and feels horrible enough. I wish you the best.
OK. I don’t get it. I read your link. I also read this page from the same blog, still about borderline personalities.
His description of a borderline personality doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what I read in this thread. Could someone explain?
This sounds incredibly difficult, and I imagine it would add an entire new level of difficulty to the situation given that she is your child, someone you are supposed to love unconditionally. What do you do when someone you love doesn’t possess very many likable qualities?
Either way I hope you contribute more in the future.
Also, Chimera, you’ve talked about her before, and your ex-wife sounds a lot like my Mom. I don’t doubt this is a special kind of hell you can relate to well.
Cannot agree more
apparently in my case symptoms of depression + PTSD + cutting = BPD:rolleyes: Though I suspect that most any psych symptoms + cutting = BPD
And to be very clear 10 years ago BPD = you will be treated like shit almost sight unseen (if you were treated at all). I hope things have improved. People with BPD are hell on wheels for sure but they deserve appropriate treatment nonetheless. I can understand professionals not wanting to deal with or just outright hating BPD - I just wish they would stay in private practice and stay the fuck out the public system (sorry, it is sad when the health-care system just adds to your fucked uppedness).
10 years ago I found a doctor who was willing to spend more than 10 minutes a month with me. I too have history of trauma (and MAJOR trust issues) I never spent enough time with a doc to develop a rapport and trust to tell them about my trauma until 10 years ago - my “label” disappeared shortly after. With appropriate treatment I have been slowly improving. If I had stayed in my former situation I am sure I would be dead.
“It” poked its head up again recently though.
My self harming behaviour is quite often self directed anger - so after professional advice I went to see an anger management expert. Soon as she saw the scars on my arms all she could talk about was BPD. I am now seeing someone different who did not immediately judge me on my physical appearance.
Sorry for rambling this whole thing is a bit of a sore spot.
I wonder how often this happens, confusing PTSD with Borderline? I have Complex PTSD and while that was an immediate, consistent diagnosis, my therapist often tried to help me through the framework of BPD treatment. I had, she said, some symptoms of BPD, in particular emotional lability (sudden, intense mood swings brought on my minor events), problems establishing boundaries, and instability in relationships. She even recommended Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which is a treatment developed for sufferers of Borderline. Complex PTSD in particular deals with the lack of a cohesive sense of self and I imagine could very easily be confused with Borderline, particularly if the client is not up front about their traumatic experiences. At any rate, I fit almost none of the criteria for BPD now. I’m guessing in the early stages of trauma recovery it’s an easy mistake to make.
Slight hijack – is BPD something that could be reliably diagnosed in a small child (say, 6 or younger)?