Photographs

[Think About It...]

Just curious...my pwBPD is sooooo weird about anything photography-related.  He has lived in several different countries...not a single photo of his time there.  He is seperated from his wife and before they were seperated and I was at their house...photos of his wife with various people everywhere, only one of him. 

Also, he hates getting his picture taken.  I know, this is not a BPD trait - I also hate getting my pic taken.  But in every photo of him, he is never looking at the camera and is always making some sort of weird face.  The only ones he hasn't done that in are ones with me, but not always.

Also, for his birthday a few years ago, I made him a photo album with pics of things our group of friends had done together.  Those two albums are his most cherished objects and he looks through them several times a week.  Why would they be so important to him?

Anyway, this probably has nothing to do with BPD but I was just curious.  He has done so many interesting things and been places and was/is married...and no pictures of any of it.   ?

[sheepdog]

Just curious...my pwBPD is sooooo weird about anything photography-related.  He has lived in several different countries...not a single photo of his time there.  He is seperated from his wife and before they were seperated and I was at their house...photos of his wife with various people everywhere, only one of him. 

Also, he hates getting his picture taken.  I know, this is not a BPD trait - I also hate getting my pic taken.  But in every photo of him, he is never looking at the camera and is always making some sort of weird face.  The only ones he hasn't done that in are ones with me, but not always.

Also, for his birthday a few years ago, I made him a photo album with pics of things our group of friends had done together.  Those two albums are his most cherished objects and he looks through them several times a week.  Why would they be so important to him?

Anyway, this probably has nothing to do with BPD but I was just curious.  He has done so many interesting things and been places and was/is married...and no pictures of any of it.   ?

[isilme]

I'm going to take a stab at a few ideas here - one being that the pwBPD I know don't like things that can prove the past, or remind them of events in the past that may have happened differently than they WANT to believe.  Follow me?

My BF both admits he has a horrible memory, and then fights me about events and things that happened in the past (I have sometimes near perfect recall in some situations, with the right trigger), claiming his memory is perfect.  What I think he is usually saying is that he can't be wrong, therefore anything I remember must be wrong if it's not how he remembers it, OR if he feels it makes him look bad.

A lot of posts on the Relatives boards talk about weird things with photos, like BPD parents refusing to let their kids have family photos, childhood photos and so on.  And in my case, I hadn't realized it but most of my childhood photos did not really show a very happy Isilme.  A friend was looking through my album once, and he said, "Jeez, didn't you ever smile as a kid?"  And looking back, I never noticed but after the ge of 5, when I was no longer the real-live-doll my parents wanted, my smile faded more and more in photos, till it's the slightly pained one I still give much of the time today.  I'd never seen it that way, instead remembering various events around the times of the photos.  The photos told my story better than I realized, making it clear to me the my homelife must have shown more than I thought. 

Also, pwBPD like to be able to reinvent themselves as needed.  So photos showing a person they didn't really like remembering being would interfere with that.

Just a few guesses on my part.

Also, maybe he liked taking photos better than being in them?  It's one good way to avoid being in front of the camera if you are shy - always be the one behind it

[addicted2pizza]

My BF both admits he has a horrible memory, and then fights me about events and things that happened in the past (I have sometimes near perfect recall in some situations, with the right trigger), claiming his memory is perfect.  What I think he is usually saying is that he can't be wrong, therefore anything I remember must be wrong if it's not how he remembers it, OR if he feels it makes him look bad.

This is an excellent point... There's a photograph in our living room. A photo of me, my wife (UBPD), our son, my friend, her husband and their son. It was a nice day, we all had fun, and we're all smiling in the picture.

And it's one of the few pictures that we have of us together as a family. Usually either one of us is behind the camera, so rarely do we all get in the same frame.

Yet, my wife covers that photo often.

I thought that maybe it was simply due to her jealousy.

Maybe it's not that simple. Maybe in her mind she has painted my friend all black. But the photograph reminds her that this is not true. We have had good times together, and my friend wasn't always black to her. So, this is unsettling to her because again, due to the black-and-white thinking, if she's wrong about that, it means that she is always wrong.

Does that make any sense?

[isilme]

I think it makes sense.

If a pwBPD's feelings = facts, and they can go from seeing a person ideally to painting them black, and go from seeing them as ALL good to ALL bad, then any sort of evidence to the contrary must be confusing to that world view. 

It's like for me, I can remember NEW things from certain situations as I am working on sorting through and attempting to heal from what my BPD parents were like when I was a child.  But it's more like I go from remembering being yelled at and hit, to now as an adult realizing more, like I was hit, I was yelled at, and it correlated with the car being broken, or Dad being mad at work.  And then as I get older, I can see even more and more in my own interactions with the children I know just how wrong it was how I was treated.  But the overall story is the same story, each time I remember it, each time I think about it.

For a pwBPD, it seems that the past is in flux, nothing is solid, and what was remembered fondly yesterday was a horrible memory today.  Ive heard my mom tell the same stories about 3 different ways depending on if she wanted to prove she was right, if she was proving she was a victim, or if she was intending to make me feel guilty.  And BF will rearrange things, too.

So yeah, having a photo showing a happy day might seem oddly invalidating, and your W might need to hide it, but if asked I bet she'd just claim she sees it as proof the about how two-faced the people she has now painted black, are, or have 'remembered' bad things about that day.   

[sheepdog]

the pwBPD I know don't like things that can prove the past, or remind them of events in the past that may have happened differently than they WANT to believe.  Follow me?

WOW!  Yes, I definitely follow you!  I think what you said is VERY true!  And also what you said a few paragraphs lower - about reinventing themselves.  Brilliant!

A lot of posts on the Relatives boards talk about weird things with photos, like BPD parents refusing to let their kids have family photos, childhood photos and so on. 

Interesting...I think one, if not both of his parents is BPD.  He has a small handful of childhood photographs.

-addicted2pizza - very interesting!  Did something happen with your wife and the friend - a blowup or something?

isilme - loved everything you said in reply to addicted2pizzas post - you certainly have a good handle on how pwBPD think.