tips you would give to someone with BPD traits,on how to make relationships work

[Ciaran82]

Hello everyone,

This is my first and to be honest maybe my last post here.

I am a 32 year old, gay male who has just experienced the end of a 3 year relationship.

We had been trying to salvage it for the last 12 months.

3 months ago I went to my GP concerning negative behavioural traits I recognised that appeared in each of my 5 long term relationships.

Long story short, the counsellor I was sent too thinks I may be exhibiting BPD traits and wants me to see a psychologist for a diagnosis.

At this point I would like to say, I know I am overstepping by posting here, where so many people have been hurt and damaged by people with BPD. I gave read these forums with utter horror at the pain inflicted on so many people and I do not wish to invade a safe place for so many people, who are mending themselves. So if anyone feels it is inappropriate for this post to be here, please delete it and I won't post again.

However it is the insight and advice of the people here, who have had to deals with partners with this disorder, that I am seeking and thus why I've posted here. I will go to BPD sites as well, but I find them all to be somewhat self affirming, with lots of people talking about their private pain and how their partners don't understand etc... .Which for me, irks as ultimately I'm not a victim, the people I've loved have been and that horrifies me. If I'm hurting the people I love, I need to not be doing so which brings me to the main question of this post:

If someone with BPD traits genuinely wishes to seek help and learn how to be in a relationship without hurting the person they are with, what advice and insight would you give these people on how they can adapt their behaviour to not hurt the person they love?

What as a partner would you have appreciated, from a BPD partner, that would have made it easier for you to manage and cope?

This is all sonewhat new to me and the thought that all these years my reasoning has been utterly flawed and broken, pains me greatly. The idea of hurting these kind and gentle people that I've loved, makes me feel awful. All these years I've thought I was right, that the world was black and white and that these people just eventually became selfish and now finally my eyes are opening to a world of grey and it undermines everything I've thought about myself and my past.

Once again if it is improper of me to have posted here, please delete this post and accept my sincerest of apologies.

Warm regards,

Ciaran

[JohnLove]

 


Hi Ciarian. Become even more self aware. Look closely at your family of origin. Realise they may have passed on or even inflicted their disorderd behaviours on you which are now yours. People don't just inherit money.    Take the ACE test.

Contact a therapist. See if a diagnosis fits. If you are BPD you will not be likely seeking this route. If you have traits, when you realise this, you are going to live with them, and then seek to be free of them. One answer will not work for everyone. You've come to the right place for support if you only have traits. We all do. No one gets out of childhood unscathed. Find what works for you.

You have been ambiguous with your post and the nature of the problems you're enduring so I cannot give specific advice. Everybody hurts the people they love. Without the intention. It is what you do about it immediately you become aware of their pain that makes all the difference. When in love, you should seek to remove or heal that pain. Love is not a ___fight.

What works for me?. To be completely REAL about everything. To live in truth. To know myself. Only then am I of any real use to anyone. To maintain a sense of humour when life goes pear shaped at times.

Keep reading. Keep posting. This entire site and all the tools listed on here are directed at people trying to improve their relationship with a pwBPD.

You are among friends.

[Ciaran82]

Thank you for your response John. It truly is appreciated.

As for me, I have no direct diagnosis at the moment. I only have the inkling of a counselor and my own recent realization that I seem to sabotage every relationship I'm in, without understanding why. I am however actively looking for a psychologist who can take this further forward, as if i do suffer from traits of BPD; i really need to know, so I can take positive steps to not hurt the people around me and understand that my own reasoning and responses are in some way broken or faulty.

I seem to often experience a 4-6 month period where my relationship is amazing and everything is going really well and suddenly it disintegrates. I become sure the person doesn't really love me and everything becomes a battle for the person to love me more or to display it more; by the end every minor thing sets me off; as im so sure by that point the person doesn't really love me or value me, im just waiting for them to prove it and leave. When they do, im crushed and go through a period of self hatred and regret; until afew months later I find someone again and it all repeats again.

I tend to be hyper sacrificing, generous, romantic and attentive in that initial period and it's amazing; but slowly the perceived lack of reciprocation turns into me being convinced that person doesn't really love me, as who could love me? Then I get scared and hurt and start to argue with the person in terms of absolutes, right and wrong; no gray. I try and pin them down to agreements and tit for tat-isms until all I remember is that we're arguing and I can't seem to get out of it. It becomes a battle of wills for me to feel respected and loved and I increasingly feel its a fight i unfairly stack against my other half, so no matter what they can never win.

I thought this is what everyone was like, until recently. When i finally started to accept that many people can just be content in a relationship and not wracked with self doubt and terror and anger.

As for the direct nature of my issues it really does stem from just continual arguments, seeking for validation that im loved and appreciated and hyper sensitivty.

Don't get me wrong, my now ex partner and all my partners in the past, have all had their own issues and for some reason I have thrived when I could support these, but then somewhere it becomes that I deserve to be loved and appreciated for the things i do and when that doesn't get displayed or expressed in a way i recognize I spiral into arguments and feelings of self doubt and fear.

I'm not physically aggressive, nor do i self harm. I don't seem to suffer from any of the deeper parts of BPD such as time loss or a lack of understanding of who i am.

I do however seem to have an ability to analyse peoples emotional state and see where their weak points lie. In the main when things are going well, this is great as I spend my time supporting this and trying to boost these bits in my partner, to make them feel better, but then when I am in the midst of an argument; i go straight for these points and it can be crushing.

I've always just thought of myself as fiery and short tempered, but the more I've read the more I see myself in many of the stories here and the traits described else where.

I'm finding this all very unnerving, as my academic background has been initially rooted in being a counselor myself and then later a lawyer and now I work in Ethical finance. All of these things were aimed at helping people in need and I have a strong belief in social justice and fairness; so the idea that all these years, when Ive thought Ive been completely fair and even handed in my dealings with my partners, could actually all be based on faulty reasoning; makes me question who I am down to my very core.

I actively am seeking to have whatever flaw is in my psyche, diagnosed and work to correct it; as the thought that through simply loving someone, i could be hurting them with my behavior; breaks me.

As for my background; i always believed I got out of my childhood somewhat unscathed. My childhood wasn't easy. I had an abusive father and a negligent mother. (i had several broken bones before the age of two, due to the actions of my father) However I was adopted by my incredibly loving grandparents when i was about 4 and since then my childhood was relatively fine, except my youngest aunt who felt somewhat pushed out by this child being adopted and told me quite regularly I had been adopted because no one else wanted me. I was always told that i was a sensitive child, very soft hearted and wore my feelings on my sleeve, but as I moved into adulthood I felt this emotional openness made me stronger and easier to know.

However I thought i had shrugged all the negativity, of my childhood, off and never let it get to me, however it seems now it could have had a serious effect on how I function in relationships and the very emotional openness I prized as strength, was actually just another symptom of my own emotional dysfunction.

In every other facet of my life, I'm reasonably successful. I have a good enough job and I make friends easily. I'm sociable and reliable, but for some reason in relationships I am told I can be an utter nightmare, as i badger people constantly about how they have failed me, while raising all the good i do for them.

I genuinely do not mean to hurt people and i honestly just thought my partners were being selfish and i was taken for granted, but now it seems all this is wrong and they were just normal, while I was broken and responding oddly to normal relationship stimuli.

I really really don't want to do that to anyone and thus why I came here.

I have went to BPD rooms and they go on at length about what is hard for them and how its hard for others to understand, and I understand and accept that; but for me, I sit and think "I know its hard for me, but then how much harder must it be for the person I'm with?". So therefore im not seeking to be a victim or claim my actions aren't my own fault, as they are. I just want to be able to build a relationship without hurting anyone.

So i thought that I only get half a story in BPD rooms, that echo their own pains and fears, but without the insight of those who have been affected by people with BPD, then how do I hope to adapt my behavior enough for someone more "normal" to be able to cope with me?

Once again my sincerest thanks for your response.

[patientandclear]

Ciaran: thanks so much for this post. You may have read about Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) or schema therapy, two approaches that seem to be effective in assisting people with BPD to manage relationships differently and less destructively.

If it were just a matter of will, it would be easier! Specific strategies and techniques taught in those approaches seem to help when feelings arise that normally cause someone with BPD to form and act on negative feelings about an intimate partner.

From my perspective I wish my ex partner had realized that his negative feelings would subside, and that, as you note here, they were often based on a distorted perception or assumption about how I felt.

Is there someone in your past whom you now see as a particularly good partner, someone you miss, whom you think you may have sabotaged things with and would like to fix that? Or is this a going-forward effort only?

Good luck and thanks again for caring about our perspective.

[patientandclear]

Ciaran, one more thought.  Everything I've read and experienced leads me to think that the fundamental problem in relationships where one partner has BPD or traits is that when the person with BPD begins to fear that their partner will hurt them in some way, the person with BPD often acts in ways that in turn cause fear and defensiveness in the partner.  So the partner then reacts in a way that confirms to the person with BPD that the partner is shaky or uncertain about the relationship ... .which the partner wasn't, until the person with BPD acted in a way to make them afraid.

All the defensive reactions are fear-based and interactive.  I think what makes BPD a disorder, rather than just a set of perceptions, is that someone with BPD or traits has distorted perceptions.  Sees lack of interest, when the other person is just busy.  Sees lack of commitment, when (as in my case) the partner is trying to give the person with BPD space to be an autonomous person.

So when you experience fear and doubt, it's important not to react in a way that causes your partner to feel that YOU are about to bail.  Or, if you do act that way, understand that the partner's self-protective reactions to that are not proof that s/he doesn't love you and isn't committed to you.  They're normal self-protection impulses when the emotional rug is pulled out from under someone for what appears to be no reason.

[Ciaran82]

Thank you patientandclear for your kind response.

At the moment I am mostly self diagnosed, all I know is that I have some behavioral traits which are incredibly damaging to my relationships. My new counselor mentioned something called "high functioning sub-clinical trait BPD" and said that he thinks I should seek a therapist for a diagnosis as apparently, this is a very complicated field and similar traits can mean a world of different things. So I'm currently looking for someone in scotland who is experienced in this area.

In essence I seem to lack many of the more extreme symptoms (no self harm, no identity issues, no violence, no losses of time, no visual or audio hallucinations). My counselor said in essence I'm a normal person who exhibits some of the more run of the mill symptoms of BPD, which unfortunately have a massive negative impact upon my ability to function in a relationship. All apparently revolving around my hyper sensitivity, super vigilance and conviction that I'm repulsive and unlovable. However saying that I apparently lack many of the more base traits too, in that he told me its uncharacteristic for BPD people to accept their perceptions could be wrong so readily and to eagerly seek counselling/therapy, which I have done. (apparently BPD people tend to be resistant to therapy out of a belief that everyone else is wrong). 

So we'll have to see where on the scale I land or if I land on this scale at all; I can however say I watched the video here about validation and so much of it rang true to arguments I had had, with my now ex-significant other. I can remember him saying "I'm sorry you feel that way" and me going mental that he had "apologised for my feelings", or that we had been in the kitchen and I was telling him something about how worried i was and because he was cleaning the dishes at the time and didnt stop, I had a massive go at him for not being supportive. These are just some of the anecdotal stories but really the last 2 years of our relationship has been pock marked with arguments about me feeling like I gave much more than I got back, feeling taken for granted and being convinced that he didn't love me and would therefore leave me. All of which I felt completely valid and justified in, until a few months ago, when I realised this exact same thing happens in every relationship I'm in, where I'm convinced the person will leave me and I'm just always living on my nerves that I'll get told they don't want me anymore. Eventually you just have to accept that the problem can't always be other people and thus I went to seek help.

I didn't tell my other half about my concerns as he has issues of his own (he's in his 40's and very new to the gay world, I'm his first boyfriend, after 20 years of him being married to a woman, he was separated 3 years by the time we met.) He also has issues with anything concerning mental health (it makes him massively uncomfortable, as someone he dated before had massive anxiety problems and he broke up with her due to it) and the concept of having to be emotionally open and supportive to another man, he found personally very difficult. (these are not my words here, as i doubt my own interpretations of his actions now due to recent revelations about my own flawed perceptions, but rather these are direct quotes from the horses mouth, so to speak).

With his personal hangups and my apparent hyper validation needs, things just spiraled out of control and I could feel myself nagging him constantly to love me more and appreciate me more; all the time pushing him further away.

You're completely right though, every time he did something that I perceived devalued me or invalidated me, it would send me into a place of utter terror and defensiveness. I would lash out verbally about how little he cared, he would then pull back and in doing so, I would take that as a sign that I was right and it would just get worse.

For me counseling and therapy are purely for my own ends. My other half is gone and although I would love to get him back, I can't trust that I won't make him miserable again and I don't want to do that. I wish I had the realisation about myself sooner and I could have adapted myself for him but alas it's too late for that. If he wanted me back I would do everything I could to be better, but ultimately i think treatment can only work when you're doing it out of a genuine need to get healthy and not hurt others, rather than do it so someone doesn't leave; as that would surely just feed into my fears of abandonment all over again.

So in short, I need to get well for me. I honestly think of myself as a kind and giving person and the fact that I could be hurting people, genuinely causes me great distress. So I need to fix that part of myself. If my other half wants me back, that's his call. I've made a promise to myself that I wont pester him and text him and try to coax him back. I will respect his choice and I have left the door open for him to contact me. I have told him I love him still and if he wants to try again, I will work my arse off to make it work; but I also want to respect what he feels is the best for him and if being away from me, makes him happier and his life better, then i can accept that and genuinely wish him every happiness. (even though i miss and love him deeply)

Additionally we would have to assess if we could even work together. With his reservations about offering support/validation to another man, (his exact words) would that reticence always trigger me and make our relationship unmanageable or could I grow to be understanding enough to accommodate this? Those are questions to be asked, if the opportunity arises; but until then I just need to get myself sorted, so I can open myself to someone without fearing hurting them in the long run.