Oh dear, I’m reading all this with a sinking feeling. I have a friend who’s in a relationship with such a woman. His life is rapidly caving in but he keeps swimming to the surface and going back for more. She dumped stinking rubbish on his doorstep when he didn’t answer the phone, and that’s been one of her nicer gestures. What the hell can I do? A few weeks ago she managed to get him locked up by texting another friend saying he was beating her up which was not true. The other friend called the police and he was detained over the weekend.
He called me when he got out and explained what had happened, but it was all okay because Nutty McNutster had come to the station to collect him - blaming the friend who called the cops. When I tried to explain that the other friend had done nothing wrong and I would hope she would do the same for me … just oh dear and oh fuck.
Should I start a new thread on suggestions as to how to get away from this situation, how to support a friend? What clicked for you to say enough?
Send him a link to this thread with some oblique comment like - “Whoa, check this out”.
Telling him directly that his GF is cracked in the head probably won’t work out. I assume you aren’t called Bamboo Gut in real life.
(and I assume he won’t recognize himself getting arrested… OK, time for plan B )
Here’s another problem: Most people (not everyone!) engage in dating relationships with an eye towards long term potential, probably including children. If the OP is such a person, even if he thinks he can handle the relationship, what about the kids? My MIL is undiagnosed but textbook for BPD, and she torments the whole family. My husband stood up to her about a year ago and got cut off for good, but I feel like he’s years away from healing the emotional damage inflicted upon him from growing up with her.
He’ll for sure notice the rubbish dumping incident, but so what? I say things like - people who like each other don’t do X or Y. How would you feel if I, your friend, did something like that? That doesn’t sound reasonable … etc. He does conceed that she’s sometimes “a crazy bitch” whereas I’m trying to go with unstable, not the right person for you etc.
I started a new thread - not very well worded, but to avoid further hijacking of this one:
olivesmarch4th is far more generous of spirit than I am. My mother has it too, and I would personally drag the wretched bitch to hell if I could.
Borderlines are the most loathsome, vile excuses for human beings in existence. Never mind that they have a “problem” or a “disorder” or Daddy didn’t buy them a pony when they were six. They are evil. They are constitutionally incapable of caring about anyone but themselves. Other people are merely players in their self-generated dramas.
No matter how nice or normal or functional this woman seems now - or some of the time, or most of the time - she WILL go batshit crazy and she WILL make your life a living hell.
To add to this suggestion: Tell her nothing about yourself that you wouldn’t want everybody else you come in contact with to know. I briefly dated a girl with BPD, and before I understood the disorder I made the mistake of sharing some private, personal stuff with her. I didn’t realize my mistake until the first time she blew up on me while we were with a group of my friends and acquaintances, and began loudly spewing this information to everybody within earshot, embellished, exaggerated, and extrapolated into something far worse than the actual truth. Nothing like living in fear that an offhand comment that, say, Miley Cyrus is a cute kid is going to turn into her walking into my church one Sunday morning and announcing to the congregation that I like to diddle little girls.
Other stuff:
If there was the slightest chance that something I said could be interpreted to mean something bad/mean, she would find that interpretation. Instantly. And become enraged over it.
Cheating on me, then tearfully confessing it to me, then becoming enraged because I forgave her instead of getting angry at her (or the other guy). Because, you see, my failure to become visibly angry was an obvious sign that I just didn’t care. The truth was that, after you see enough of this kind of thing, the behavior becomes completely transparent. You can see exactly what she’s doing, and what response she’s trying to provoke, and it’s impossible to get truly angry. You just feel … sadness and pity.
Constantly begging for sex. (No, I didn’t. I realized early on that sleeping with her would be a bad idea, if for no other reason than the spectre of sex with her turning into rape accusations later.)
My Grandfather once told me “If someone accuses you of something that is completely outside your character, they are telling you something about their own character.”
One of the best ways to spot a borderline, is they way in which they completely twist and misconstrue the motives of others. They will find a way to see an evil and malicious motive behind every action or even tone of communication. When you find yourself begging her to believe that you not only didn’t mean it that way, but could never imagine saying what she heard - remember my Grandfather’s words. She is showing you how she really thinks.
I suspect olives knows a thing or two about the path to wholeness. When one detaches from a relationship with a BPD person they will be carrying unpleasant baggage with them. They can see the flaws inherent in the disordered other but they often can’t see what their reaction to the madness has done to them.
A beginning, perhaps, would be realizing that no one can make your life “a lving hell” without your cooperation.
Focussing on the “sick” one and not recognizing how we have engaged in the illness is one reason why some people find themselves in a situation of "accidently’ hooking up with the same type of person repeatedly.
If they don’t want to carry that for a lifetime then there’s some work to do to get to that spot. It sounds like olives has been working on it to me. So I’m thinking that what looks like “generosity of spirit” is a gift of healing. It looks like detachment, I think.
I strongly disagree with this. He is talking about his Mother, which means an innocent child was subjected to this abuse. Healing from that, when your understanding of the world was twisted by this sick person from day one, is a very different journey, and the extreme pain associated with that should not be blithely invalidated.
I can see the appeal of law school for someone with BPD, actually, assuming that the disorder is as described in this thread. Law school tells you what to do, and gives very clear feedback. You will be taught how to write, how to analyze a case, how to talk about the law. Particularly in your first year, the focus is on fundamentally changing the way you think, and on giving you some awareness of how you’re thinking about a problem.
Come to think of it - I can see how, if you’re not equipped with the normal dose of empathy/self-awareness by nature, legal training could be a very helpful thing. You can’t be a good lawyer if you can’t set your own feelings about a case aside, methodically work your way through the law and facts, and formulate a genuinely decent argument for the other side as well as your own. If you don’t get it beforehand, law school will teach you that reasonable people disagree, that losing your cool will never win an argument for you, and that deadlines and job requirements have serious consequences.
I wonder if anyone actually recommends BPD sufferers go to law school?
Yes, this. I am married to a man whose ex-wife seems to have this disorder, although of course, she won’t get diagnosed. They have two children. She has dedicated her life towards ruining my husband, ruining me because I dared marry “her” man (never mind that she married the guy she was cheating on him with) and thinks absolutely nothing of using the children as pawns to accomplish this goal. I don’t know if I have a lifetime of dealing with this in me.
So if you do hook up with this person, be prepared for it not only to affect you for the rest of your life, not only for any children to be irreparably harmed by it, but to also destroy any other relationships you may find, if you’re so lucky as to come out of that one alive.
OH yeah. There is a world of difference between a romantic relationship and a parent/child relationship.
I strongly believe that my mother has BPD, although she’s never been diagnosed as such. Looking at the diagnostic criteria, it’s one checkmark after another. Whatever, she’s batshit insane and as unstable as hell. When I finally set out and stood by my boundaries, she went nuts(er). The final straw was her threatening to go to K-Mart and buy ammunition for her gun and when I read in the newspaper that she had killed herself, I should try not to smile, because she knew that’s what I would want to do.
I broke off all contact with her 10 and a half years ago, for my sake but also for the sake of my husband and kids. I don’t anticipate ever inviting her back into my life – why would I?
Knowing the age of the poster is important, I suppose. Someone under the age of emancipation definitely has a difficult path to travel. But what I say is a message of hope.
Childhood with a BPD relative is life in the extreme. Anyone old enough to verbalize that could be seeking help and I’d encourage that.
It’s just so important to know that, short of the most severe abuse, people do heal when they begin to take responsibility for themselves. I know. I know. It totally sucks that someone hurts us and then we have to be the responsible one. But it’s fact.
A first step in the healing journey is space from the abuser and recognition that one has been a victim. No one discounts that if they want to be useful to the sufferer. At some point, though, the focus needs to move away from the “my life is hell” affirmation.
All said in the spirit of wellness and not at all discounting. Nor blithe in tone. Sorry if it read that way. Sometimes I don’t say enough to make myself clear.
Remember: Every bad thing which happens to us is in our past. If we continue to bring it into the future with us after we get the wellness messages we need, it’s our choice.
Takes a long time, hard work and YMMV.
More clear?
My input, from the perspective of someone with a BPD mother… I am 27 now, I did legally emancipate at 17, and yes, you’re right, I am anything but detached. It took me many years even after emancipation to realize - well, what is it that saying by Eleanor Roosevelt? ‘‘No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’’ In a sense it is a life’s work, really dealing with the aftermath of being raised by someone so mentally ill, and it definitely requires you to recognize your role in the relationship. Whether I was forced into that role in the first place or not is irrelevant. At some point I had to recognize that I am now an adult and that role is a choice I make.
In many ways I have found healing, but even better (for me) I have learned to recognize and accept that this is really my cross to bear, my thing to deal with, and that’s okay. I don’t have great self-esteem, and maybe I never will considering the first 17 years of life I was living in this alternate reality where I was ultimate and total badness. But I can work on it, and really I don’t have a choice if I want to be happy.
My life was hell, and part of moving past it was acknowledging that fully. I recently did prolonged exposure therapy, which required revisiting some of the most painful memories with my mother repeatedly - particularly the ones where I thought I was going to die. Even I was surprised, as I fully faced those memories, how much it hurt and how helpless I felt, but through exposure you make the most miraculous discoveries. You re-experience everything, but with a little guardian angel on your shoulder–your adult self – and you see things you didn’t see before. You see, for instance, how it really wasn’t your fault, and how inexcusable the abuser’s behavior really was. And most importantly for me, you learn that pain won’t kill you. It doesn’t have to affect the rest of your life. It just sucks and you move on.
Sometimes I’ll watch a TV show or hear a noise and everything will be triggered and come rushing back – and if I’m in a safe space, I might break down and sob for 30 seconds, and feel all that pain, but what matters to me is that when that 30 seconds is over it’s really over. That is what PTSD is, essentially - a habit of avoiding those moments of pure, raw, terrible pain. But if we can learn to face those moments, they lose their power over our lives.
I’ve never been the sort of person to hold grudges, so I’m not sure where my lack of hatred toward my mother comes in. I have just always really loved her. I’ve had therapists imply that something is wrong with my thinking because I’m not constantly angry with her, but I don’t think so. I think it’s pretty clear from many of my threads and posts that I’m capable of feeling justified anger toward Mom. I just don’t feel the need to hold onto it. I was pissed as hell at her a couple of weeks ago and even posted a thread about it. But once I was home and back in my routine it just seemed to matter less.
I don’t know how old Licentious Ectomorph is or where he’s at in life, but I will say that I think about my childhood a hell of a lot less at 27 than I did at 17. The longer I live, the less relevant it feels to what else I’ve got going on now. It happened, it sucked, it can’t be undone, but I’m mostly interested in what I’m working with now.
I understand what you meant.
I honestly have been avoiding this thread for a while because I am uncomfortable with the generalizations being made about people with Borderline Personality Disorder. The reality is I have been a person with serious mental illness, and came damn close to being diagnosed with BPD myself. I was never at any time a vengeful bitch or an abusive person, but I was severely depressed, emotionally labile and believed that because I had been abused as a child I shouldn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do ever again. I acted very immaturely and at times irrationally. I had poor boundaries with others, often revealing very personal things on first meeting with someone and generally seeking validation wherever I could get it. After I damn near lost my job and several of my friends, and my grades started dropping, I realized there was really only one person who could help me, and it kinda sunk in that I wasn’t excused from the rules just because I had a rough start. Not an easy lesson to learn, and requires quite a bit of courage to realize you’re that fucked in the head. Especially because all of that, that immature, entitled, self-destructive crap, is not intentional, it’s just what happens when you’re going through hell and are trying to figure out a way to survive.
And yet, despite my numerous borderline traits, my husband (then-boyfriend) remained supportive, and became quite put-out whenever I suggested I wasn’t worth the trouble. He is a student of clinical psychology and admittedly more informed and naturally disposed toward working with severe mental illnesses than the average person, but the point is, my illness didn’t make me unloveable, at least to the one who mattered most in my life.
A while back, he came home from a class session rather pissed off – he said that someone had commented they couldn’t imagine why anyone could stay in a relationship with someone with a severe mental illness. He said he wanted to scream at them, tell them how ignorant they were for assuming that a mentally ill person can’t contribute anything to a relationship. ‘‘I didn’t stay in this relationship as some kind of noble sacrifice,’’ he said, rather emphatically, ‘‘I did it because it was what I needed, what was best for me, because knowing you and being loved by you has been one of the most transformative experiences of my life.’’ It was the first time I really realized that he needed me and all the goodness I had in me just as much as I needed him and his goodness.
I can just imagine him posting ‘‘my girlfriend has mild BPD’’ several years ago and people telling him to RUN away without even knowing me or being able to evaluate the situation. It would have been the worst advice ever. Because we’re so good for one another it’s ridiculous.
It is my personal opinion, that I believe is borne out by the data, that having a relationship with someone with BPD is all about firm boundaries. Since I really put my foot down with my mother, refusing to speak to her for an entire year no matter how much drama she stirred up, I have never had a problem with her behavior. She learned that the old tactics would no longer work, and now she doesn’t even try them with me. She said she didn’t really understand that what she did was wrong until I refused to put up with it, and the reality is I am the only person in my family who had the courage to tell her to her face that she was wrong and needed help. I started telling her that at 11 years old, even though I had hell to pay. I find that interesting, because I’m the one who had the least power and the most to lose. She didn’t, of course listen until I had adult power and freedom to walk away.
There is evidence that BPD is a highly contextual disorder – when the environment changes, the Borderline Personality changes. One of the most interesting facts I learned in my research is that most people diagnosed BPD no longer qualify for the diagnosis 10 years later. Why? Because change is inevitable. If you change the way you interact with such a person, that person has no choice but to change also.
That story coming from the inside to those on the outside is an inspiration, olives.
Considering how much aberration we all deal with sometimes the only difference between illness and wellness is learning to cope. And how surprising to find that the pain neither needs to kill us or disable us but can also be a transformative gift.
I disagree that change is inevitable. I think that some people are more accountable than others, or that they are able to recognize their own illness and are willing to put forth the effort to overcome it. Perhaps those who overcome BPD are blessed with a firmer grip on reality than those (like my ex) who are doomed to repeat the exercise of building and destroying relationships. To be sure, my own brain salad made me the perfect punching bag for a BPD so she was allowed to live with it pretty much unchecked for the 25 years we spent together, never having to grow out of it because I unknowingly enabled her. But even now I’m not sure she will ever, or would ever, have mastered it. In that case I have to question whether she was ever worthy of anyone’s love. I can’t say I’m a better man for having been involved with her.
I presume that people with BPD aren’t abusive and nuts when you first meet them. What first signs should I be looking for?
My date says that in her case, BDP mainly manisfests itself in increased anxiety.
As for my ability to walk away from people causing me harm, I think I’m able to do that. I stopped seeing my father because it was unpleasant to be around him. He didn’t do anything that would require child services to be involved. He was just quite ungenerous in his interpretation of what I said and did, I felt like I was walking on eggs and that I got on his nerves for no particular reason. So I asked myself “What if I assess the good and the bad that I expect to come out of a relationship with him in the future” came to the conclusion that it was a net negative and stopped seeing him. I’ve talked to him once in the last seven years when my grandmother was hospitalized.
So, perhaps I’m mistaken and after having sex with her I’ll become irrational and blind to her destructiveness, but as of now, I’m able to walk away from people dragging me down. It would be helpful to learn to spot signs early though and people who have had experience with BPD likely know about that.
Olives, perhaps you saw how your mother interacted with her partners? I presume she didn’t present too much of the crazy in the early part of the relationship. What should have been the early warnings signs in the way she interacted with them?