Do they hurt everyone, or just the people who care about them?

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

What I mean is, are they people who universally undermine and destroy those around them - even casual acquaintainces, or is it just those that love them that suffer. I almost left my wife for my BPD ex-mistress, but began to notice all her subtle manipulative tactics and pulled away. Honestly, for the most part, I never felt abused, just drained in that she took so much emotional energy to keep happy and content. I just thought she loved me that much. I neglected everything else in my life but her, and even though she knew this was the case, she never tried to stop me. My job was in jeopardy. Her answer - you can find a new one. All this was in the context of how badly she needed me, and didn't seem mean spirited at the time. But my self esteem gradually began to erode, so I felt that I needed her validation even more. Even now, after the break-up, she is playing the victim - I abandoned her - all she did was love me so much. She has a new boyfriend now, and it still breaks my heart.

I confided this to a friend of mine. He has been on a few dates with her a year or so ago. His answer: "Wow! Everybody knows she's crazy - how could you get sucked in?'"I ask myself that all the time. He is not typically a sensitive person. Many call him selfish, but I'm willing to bet that his intolerance of her bullsht is what saved him.

I'm rambling. Comments please.

Dr.BKR

[lost and hurting]

What I mean is, are they people who universally undermine and destroy those around them - even casual acquaintainces, or is it just those that love them that suffer. I almost left my wife for my BPD ex-mistress, but began to notice all her subtle manipulative tactics and pulled away. Honestly, for the most part, I never felt abused, just drained in that she took so much emotional energy to keep happy and content. I just thought she loved me that much. I neglected everything else in my life but her, and even though she knew this was the case, she never tried to stop me. My job was in jeopardy. Her answer - you can find a new one. All this was in the context of how badly she needed me, and didn't seem mean spirited at the time. But my self esteem gradually began to erode, so I felt that I needed her validation even more. Even now, after the break-up, she is playing the victim - I abandoned her - all she did was love me so much. She has a new boyfriend now, and it still breaks my heart.

I confided this to a friend of mine. He has been on a few dates with her a year or so ago. His answer: "Wow! Everybody knows she's crazy - how could you get sucked in?'"I ask myself that all the time. He is not typically a sensitive person. Many call him selfish, but I'm willing to bet that his intolerance of her bullsht is what saved him.

I'm rambling. Comments please.

Dr.BKR

[JPS]

I guess they can't hurt people that don't care about them... because those people don't care... Hurt is something you feel yourself, not something given to you...

If you don't care, you can't get hurt...

[Oy-vey!]

Her behavior does not justify your own behavior.

I'm going to step aside on her issues - just keep in mind that personality disorders are typically disorders of intimacy.

What I *am* going to address, however, is the fact that your behavior toward your own wife is eggregious.  I hope you are in therapy to address your own issues.  That is where your energy belongs.

[spouseofbp]

Bravo Oy-vey!   

lah,
How does your wife feel about all of this?

[GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Are you on the right board?]

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Are you on the right board? This board is for members with failed or failing relationships that want to detach from their relationship and relationship wounds. If you are still analyzing the decision to stay, please post on Undecided: Staying or Leaving All members living with a pwBPD should learn to use the Stop the Bleeding tools - boundaries, timeouts and other basic tools - to better manage the day to day interactions with your partner. If you have questions on any of the tools, feel free to go over to Staying: Improving a Relationship with a Borderline Partner and ask for help. :-)

[lost and hurting]

I am in therapy, and I am deeply sorry for my actions. My wife and I are working through our issues in counseling, and I have a newfound appreciation for many things that were not obvious to me before - most likely due to my BPD experience. But, with all due respect, stick to the thread. If your simple logic was enough to apply and provide resolution to the damage to one's self esteem and sense of self, then we really all wouldn't be here posting, would we? The fact is, most people on BPDFamily have erred in their judgement, whether it be via an affair, enabling destructive behavior, tolerating abuse for entirely too long, and not taking care of themselves or believing that they have a right to do so.

I appreciate the comments. I am working on my life, which I messed up. He whi is without sin, cast the first stone.

[Oy-vey!]

LH,

You are the one who brought it up - quite blatantly.  The affair IS part of your issues.  THAT is the reason we are here - to deal with our own issues so we don't make the same mistake(s) again.  Identifying why we make the choices we make is crucial in moving forward.

ps. I'm not a Christian.

[garyw]

Just gonna bounce off the title.

Re: Do they hurt everyone, or just the people who care about them?

I think the ingredients it takes to spawn the BPD behaviour we see are that the caring needs to come from both direction, and even in some cases just one direction...theirs.

That it's just not enough for us to care about them but even more so that they care about us.

I believe that's what really sparks and triggers the fears that drive the behaviour.

In other words lets say the person with BPD in your situation learned that I cared so deeply for her.That would have no effect or should it cause any reaction on her part.?  But...if all of a sudden she stared to care about me...then we have the stew

 

[goochiegirl]

Hmm.. my BPDxbf had problems with everyone, not just me. Of course, it was ALWAYS the other person's fault.  He has lost every friend I've ever known him to have - but he refuses to look at why. Well, I could see why - he treated them like crap (usually when drunk). 

Even the trip that was the final straw for me, when we went to Rocky point with 3 other couples - coworkers - he annoyed and aggravated and was obnoxious to all of them.  I just sat and observed... they tolerated him, did what they could to humor him so he wouldn't fly off the handle, they even spoke amongst each other saying, "We gotta figure out a way to keep him off the sauce!"  I was so embarrassed.  He was even boasting about he how he had his boss so under control (and the boss's brother was right there). I'm surprised he didn't get fired.  But, it's somewhat true - he kind of does have the boss (female, 30 years older) wrapped around his finger  ;==

As an example, one of the things he did on that trip:  he kept punching (hard) his coworker in the arm as a 'joke' and laughing.  This coworker was like, 20 years his senior.  They kept telling him to stop but he wouldn't take the HINT.  Finally he stops.  About 20 minutes later, his coworker swats him (lightly) with a towel, and it goes across his face.  And xbf went ballistic, got angry, "you can't do that to me!" etc.  It was actually funny because earlier in the day, I had told the coworker's wife that xbf can sure dish it out but he can't take it.  So when this happened we just looked at each other... 

[garyw]

Hi goochiegirl   ( neat user name )

I think what you have described has to do with a term I almost forgot about that I use to use quite a bit...just something I made up one day.

The jerk factor.

Some people are just jerks and would be with or without a disorder on top of it

[LAnn]

Hi Dr. BKR,

In my observation re my ex DBPDbf  the treatment was fairly universal.  His behavior was often hurtful or harmful to most of his acquaintances.  Those who cared most felt hurt; those who didn't have a strong attachment felt angry and more easily cut ties with him.

It must be very stressful to be working in the same place, and thus harder or impossible to have NC.    And wanting to have answers about her behaviors... and your involvement with her... is something most of us, at least I, have gone through.   You express how much it still hurts, and unfortunately, or fortunately, that must be worked through...  adding complexity to your marriage counseling because of your extramarital relationship.

It sounds like you are in the midst of grieving in a complicated way... and grief is an important part of your journey back to yourself and in saving your marriage.   

I enter a lot of confusion and pain each time I try to rationalize or understand my exbf's behaviors... I always come back to one answer:  He is very ill and usually operates from a child or adolescent's mind.  I've had to also accept that what he thought or felt about me was within that context and it was easy for him to drop it and view me as insignificant.  Ultimately I had to face that his behaviors toward me were not those of love...  perhaps a childlike need, but not love.   Hurtful to accept, but reality.    And no one, or at least I, don't want to hurt a child or see them continue in those ways... but these individuals are in adult bodies, and have potential to impact our self-esteem negatively (as you have described) if we insist on viewing them as adult personalities. 

What is BPDFamily Mantra...   "I didn't cause it; I can't control it; I can't cure it."

I wish you the best in working on your personal insights and strengthening yourself and rebuilding your marriage.   I hope that you can arrange as little contact as possible at work.

Good luck.

[Janthina]

BKR,

One of the ways that BPDSO's hurt us is by having outside relationships. That could be why you hit a nerve with people here. Folks can empathize with your wife's pain.

I'm thinking that, if you got sucked in, there was something, some issues you need to address. Me, I was raised by an NPD dad who played me like a tired little trout on a line my whole childhood. I thought I was tough and a fighter, but my XGF was good at what she did. I only escaped the final creel because she had another fish on the line (a carp!) and I was so drained and battered from the long fight, that I hadn't enough meat to be worth feeding off of any more and I wasn't looking like much of a trophy. Thank heavens!

I am not so angry about the fact that my XGF was attracted to someone else, even that she got involved with someone else. That was NOT about me, it was about her. It hurt and thumped my ego and however it played out, even it had been done with fairness, would have turned my life upside down. But because she and he conspired together and then abused me and then she became overtly horribly cruel, I have a different perspective.

Cheating is a passive wrong against a spouse or committed partner. Rape and violence is an active wrong. Experience them both and you can even start to see the former as a blessing of sorts, albeit a painful one. Thank heavens Perfidia had Trogboy! It will keep her busy. It will  mean she has less time on her hands to make her kids and other people miserable. Mind you, she has a few family members that I hope she gets really cozy with, a sister in particular.

I think that BPD's aren't great to anybody, really, not when you get beyond the surface charm. But the people they hurt tend to be the people to whom they are close to because first, those are the people who are vulnerable, the ones they can "get" something on. The vampire metaphor is used a lot. Some folks are insulted by it, but I got so stomped that vampire is on the kind end of the spectrum of descriptions I use.

The thing about vampires in legend is that you have to invite them in or they can't cross the threshold. I let my BPDXGF into my life. I let her into my heart and trusted her with EVERYTHING. And ultimately she took advantage of that to hurt me in every way she could imagine. And she was a creative bloodsucker, believe you me.

I don't know if Bram Stoker had a BPD in his life. Odds are he did. He sure wrote like he did. And no doubt many of the historical monsters of legend were spawned by the perpetual presence of disordered people. The name for the disorders is new, but they've no doubt been around as long as there have been people. In any event, I'm sure that the emotional veracity of many a werewolf film has been the result of screenwriters, actors and directors who have observed BPD family member or SO in the throes of a rage.

The other reason that BPD's do most of their damage to the folks close to them, is that they are so self-involved that things and people outside their circle don't mean much to them. They don't have object constancy. It's out of sight, out of mind.

I suspect that the folks who spin elaborate webs of misery in work situations are also NPD. I could be wrong.

My XGF, while she initially appeared to me and my friends to be gregarious and charming, was, at heart, a hermit. She took the classic abuser route of isolating us. As a non, if you are sucked in, you participate. You start staying away from other people. Conflicts develop where there had never been any. Sometimes you don't even notice it is happening, you just find you are uncomfortable with other people around.

Like an NPD, a BPD gets supply from other people. It could be white supply because you are so swell and there is the buzz of the new relationship. But sadly, there is the dark supply of your pain and diminishment. There is the supply of control. With a borderline, this is focused on intimates. In a severe situation, they will meticulously go about vivasecting you for the buzz they get from it.

A frighteningly high propertion of batterers and stalkers and domestic abusers are BPDs. That is one of the reasons the diagnosis has such stigma. For the most part, the stigma concerns me only in that it might inhibit research funding. I will always be more concerned about the nons than the PDs themselves.

The compassionate and logical part of me, and the fledgling Buddhist in me says that we have to be concerned about the PDed, in order to care about the people they effect and, really, about ourselves.

The battlescarred weary and cantankerous Janthina who is the vet of a seven year relationship with a BPDSO and the child of an NPD father, would like to see them all with NPD and BPD tattooed across their foreheads, right out of Snowcrash, to the very BONE!

So how's that for rambling?

[brucey]

My ex is very kind to and tolerant of members of her family.  I have never seen or heard her be mean or cruel to them.  However, they give her an endless stream of supply, so I don't know what she would do if they stopped.  She also has had co-workers who she befriended and was never mean ot.  So, in answer to the question, in this one case, no.