This. Or Q.N. Jones’s more eloquent post. Either way, proceed with extreme caustion. Lock up the parts of your heart you don’t want destroyed and share the rest with her. She needs your love more than you can possibly imagine. Don’t look for her to return any though.
Someone I divorced has borderline personality disorder. Remember, the borderline we’re talking about here isn’t the border between normal & disorderly person. It’s the border between neurotic and full on psychotic. In other words, “Teh Crazy.” And you know what not to stick in Teh Crazy.
You know I love you, Big T, but being extremely wary of BPD is about as biggoted as being extremely wary of an adult male tiger. The person with BPD is miserable because of the disorder and worthy of pity. But to give the benefit of the doubt invites heartbreak in the same way hugging a wild polar bear invites a mauling. Polar bears gotta eat, BPD folks gotta do what they do.
I won’t argue with this: go ahead with BigT’s advice if it reaches you more than anyone else’s. (one thing my experience with BPD has taught me: people are going to do whatever the fuck they want to do) But I will insist on ammending it. Set definite boundaries, not just condoms but in the general sense of how far you’ll be pushed in, and how far you’ll be sent out.
Love with your head, not just with your heart. This is a good method for anyone.
If I recall correctly from other threads, you haven’t had a whole lot of experience in the dating world, in general, and specifically not much experience sexually.
Please, please be very careful if you choose to get involved with her, emotionally or physically. It’s very common for folks with little experience to feel the wonderful rush of emotions and endorphins and bonding that come with sex, and mistake it for Love with a capital L. It really isn’t. And a person without as much dating experience who has been tricked by their bodies and the newness of finding out about all the fun things into thinking that It’s Love is going to have trouble setting proper boundaries.
I, too, recommend running, not walking. A Borderline is not a good person to be in a relationship with - some would say ever, but I will say at the minimum not for you, not right now.
Oh boy. I did not know this about the OP. Borderline personalities absolutely prey upon the inexperienced and the well-meaning. I don’t think that they intend to, but naive people who want to give the benefit of the doubt are the ones most likely to tolerate the antics of people with BPD.
The man I’m dating knew his then-future wife had a BPD diagnosis. She seemed to be trying, seemed to be in therapy, and seemed to be a nice person. They got married, had a kid, and all hell broke loose. The trouble is, people with BPD go through periods where they behave better. How she acts for one month is not a real indication that she will be stable, nice, and reserved forever.
Michael, you seem to have decided to go ahead and pursue a sexual relationship with her. I would recommend that if you aren’t going to dump her entirely, at least be “just friends” with her for awhile to see if she is stable over time. Once you are sexually involved with her, she will become very emotionally attached to you, and you to her. If you regret your decision to be with her, it will be harder to make the decision to leave–and it will be harder for her to accept.
I am not unsympathetic to the mentally ill. I have an Axis I mental illness myself. But I think it’s a bad idea to become romantically involved with any person with a mental illness or a personality disorder until you know whether that person has good insight into their condition, and whether they are willing to comply with treatment over the long-term. I expect to have to prove these things to the people that I date, and if she is reasonable, she should see why it is rational to “take it slow.” If she gets upset by that…well, it’s a bad sign.
Actually, the fact that you’re INTJ probably makes you more suited to deal with her than less. I’m also INTJ and one of my parents has Paranoid Personality Disorder, and I’m able to take the weird accusations far more easily than my more emotional sibling can. Broadly speaking, it’s somewhat harder to hurt our feelings since we tend to attach emotions to fewer situations than a lot of other personality types do.
But really, personality disorders are not easy to deal with. I’d suggest real caution with going forward with the relationship, with reminders to yourself that you are not a bad person if you decide you can’t handle it. I have to cope with my parent because I love them. You’re under no such obligations to someone you’ve had four dates with.
Dude, you’re making this sound like you’d be having unprotected sex with women who don’t have BPD - use a condom, every time, with every girl. Seriously. You don’t leave it up to the woman to decide if you’re going to pay for a child for the next 18 years of your life, and STD tests aren’t 100% accurate. If nothing else, it will help protect you from the genital warts that 85% of the population have.
I’m a little confused on the “mild version of BDP” diagnosis - her behaviour is far enough out there that she has a BDP diagnosis, so it’s beyond “normal” behaviour, I’d guess.
I had a really horrible, abusive friendship when I was younger with a girl (“Jill”) who probably had this disorder. And by probably I mean almost definitely, though the only diagnosis she ever told me about was bipolar disorder. We would be having a great time together, joking and having a normal conversation, and I was her best friend and her favorite person; one moment later she was subjecting me to all kinds of abuse. I stopped her from attempting suicide at least twice, and once she self-harmed after we had an argument and showed me a picture of her injuries. There was also some other, really messed-up stuff which I’m not sure how much of was true vs her trolling for attention and I won’t go into it here. Thankfully I was able to detach myself and not let it fuck me up too bad but I still had nightmares about having to interact with her for YEARS after I broke off contact with her.
On the other hand - one of my acquaintances (“Alice”) from an online community (we keep in touch through a blogging network) has a confirmed diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. And some of the stuff she talks about on her blog is really scary and really serious, but she is also a brilliant, creative, kind, funny person. Recently she wrote about reading an online discussion that went basically like this one. OP says, significant other has just been diagnosed with BPD, what should I do? Every reply: RUN FAR AWAY. And Alice read that and cried. It’s a fair point. She is a human being. She wants to be able to have meaningful relationships with people like other human beings.
I know I couldn’t deal with having a relationship with someone like Alice, based on just what she talked about having done on her blog; I don’t have the energy or compassion or altruism or thick skin that you need to be there in these hard situations. My friendship with Jill is still one of the worst things that ever happened to me, and it threatened to push me over the edge into depression more than once. But part of me wonders whether it’s really all right for us to say that either Alice or Jill should unquestionably have to be sort of quarantined for the rest of her life like that.
I don’t know too much about BPD, but if the stories in this thread are representative of someone who is Borderline, is it highly unusual that this woman could have almost completed law school??? (something that obviously requires a lot of follow thru and analitical ability)
Is there any doubt that she is actually telling you the truth?
Of all the disorders I have heard about, someone with BPD would seem to be the least likely to be able to successfully complete an advanced degree…
I think it’s entirely possible. A lot of the time, people with BPD are ‘normal’ and functioning, and at least the two people I talked about are intelligent and capable and are currently working on degrees in higher education.
Its not impossible. If anything intense feelings of low self worth may drive people to try and overcompensate by developing advanced careers and getting advanced educations (MDs, PhDs, JDs, etc) as counterdefenses against those feelings.
I’ve known some pretty unstable people earning their PhDs. Don’t know how many if any had BPD though.
I get that, too. I would never advise someone to continue a destructive relationship, though, just because the other person needs to have some human contact. It’s a tough thing - yes, people with problems are people, too, but how much damage do you allow them to do to you in their pursuit of personal relationships?
Two of the three women I know personally with BPD are Type A high achievers (architect and tenured science professor). Professionally, they have figured out how to to succeed in spite of their inability to get along with colleagues. Their personal lives are a shambles.
Or, actually? Break it off nicely (“I’m sorry, I’m just not equipped to…”) and never, ever take another call or return another email from her again. Be diligent, be firm, because if you give her an inch, she’ll take a MF-ing light year.
If you continue it, she’ll be like your own personal terrorist, declaring a jihad on YOU. And eventually, you’ll develop Stockholm Syndrome…and then you’re really lost.
Man, this thread is just further reinforces what I already think. If I were ever diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, I would kill myself. No question. I would go right home and do whatever would most effectively end my life.
I would damage my kids, make my husband miserable, and never have a meaningful friendship. Everyone would run from me. Life would not be worth living.
Yeah, of course, I agree! I think the only thing that worries me is this nearly-unequivocal response of “get out of this relationship now” without even knowing that this woman is going to do anything. Or maybe even beyond that, it’s the fact that the one person who had an objection to the “run away and don’t look back” posts got the response “people with BPD are like dangerous wild animals”…
If she’s actually had a diagnosis of BPD, she has problems and there will be problems - I don’t think that’s really going out on a limb to say that. You don’t get a fairly serious diagnosis just by being a little bitchy once in a while - there have to be pathologies for that.
The mother of my kids is brilliant. She works with severely autistic kids and does so with tremendous compassion. She can motivate others simply by catching them up in the wake of her own energy. She’s gifted. And can become mean as a snake in a heartbeat and inflict horrible damage to your psyche when you are most vulnerable. Simple as that. It’s not a question of my having a bad experience with a brunette and projecting her actions on all brunettes. It’s a simple matter of my experience with someone who has met the diagnostic criteria for a specific mental illness, and expressing as plainly as I can what my experience has been as someone who spent 25 years living with someone with it. Bears and tigers will mess you up, except for when they completely ignore you for reasons known only to them. If someone has a BPD diagnosis, it is because they WILL mess you up when the whim strikes. If they won’t, then they don’t get the label. Are there exceptions to this? I dunno, I’ve never heard of one. But I’m sure some can manage their compulsion to self-destruct by sheer force of will–overpowering emotion and obsession with super-human logic and discipline. That’s not a safe bet, though.
Maybe her dedication to special needs kids is somehow her self-imposed pennance for what she’s done to our kids and to me and to her lovers. Or maybe she just finds peace in working with others who expect nothing of her emotionally. I can allow she’s a fantastic care-giver and a wretched failure of a human being. And with that thought, consider the BPD as needing emotional support in the same way an alcoholic needs a drink.
I do think that you need to proceed with caution even if it’s just “emotional stunting”
I’ve seen borderline where she acted like a good little Christian girl, and then claimed that her ex boyfriend was stalking her.
(!?!?!) Very strange. Then again, I have a friend who is basicly emotionally stunted (kind of mild borderline) Like she’s 30, and thinks that the only important thing is “acting mature” but is basicly stunted at the age of 14. But then again, in that case she never had a chance to develop healthy social relationships. I wouldn’t reccomend anyone get involved with her.
Borderline is BAD. Think Alex Forrest from that boiled bunny movie.