Lets get a BPD family best of, all the good stuff in one thread.

[Ahoy]

Inspiration? I'm having a pretty shi**y afternoon, I was rummaging on here and found two posts that let me re-focus and get my butt out of my bed and doing something meaningful and productive with my day.

I've bookmarked some important threads, I'm sure we all have. How about we share these pearls of wisdom in one post, maybe a line for context and how it made us feel better.

This post today made me realise that I AM a hard working, future-driven person who WILL end up in a good place because of my dedication. My Ex chose to throw a very bright future away because I finally stood up for myself and created boundaries. She lost control. Thanks Jammo1989. Wherever you are I owe you a beer for this one mate.

I hope this thread ends up 6 pages of condensed wisdom. The perfect motivator.

Youll be pleased to know that, i have your answer, so sit back and try and understand exactly how this all works:

Right, you need to remember that cluster Bs have no inner self, they most likely grew up with parents that were extremely distant or emotionally abusive, this means that, they are extremely impulsive with their behavior, they lack the empathy that we saw in our parents during our childhood.  So in basic terms they were never taught the way in which our parents guided us.  For example, i know that cheating emotionally is wrong, but to a cluster B they have next to no guilty conscious, so in theory they will cheat or flirt, and their goal isnt to hurt us (unless NPD) its because they are craving that attention, remember attention makes them feel visible to the world, makes them feel like a real person.  Then leads me to the next part of your question, she said she upgraded.  Remember what i mentioned to you before about not being guided by parents? well... .in a healthy individual an upgrade would include the following:

Bigger, stronger, taller

more money

better job

better car

more educated

richer family

But to a Cluster B an upgrade is someone who will answer to her needs at that specific moment in time, the upgrade is the one that catches them before they fall flat on their face, she runs to the guy giving her the most attention at the time, and hes seen as the rescuer, this can be anyone, and a lot of the time the next guy is a downgrade, am i saying this just to make you feel better? no im actually not because, BPDs are all about control, they cant control their own emotions so they know that they MUST have control over a weaker individual in order to suppress their own abandonment fears.  Do you really think a BPD would go from us a celebrity? No because its not about the money or status its about having control over an individual to secure the risk of you not leaving.  Now we will talk about Mirroring.

Think of a Cluster B who always looks at herself in the mirror, and you are her mirror, she looks in you what she wants to see in her self, this is why they will act like they are into a hobby of yours, then when the next person comes along his hobbies are now seen as hers to, this is solely because of the no inner self I was talking about.  So when you called her out on her out and said i know what your doing, i know who you really are! the reflection in the mirror (us) smashes and the true ugly woman finally reflects back at them (The mask falls off) they cant stand and are absolutely disgusted with what they see, and just like all troubled children they run from the own monster they see, they then freak out and blame us for triggering their depression, anxiety and deep inner wounds, and sadly once triggered if NPD they wont ever return.  So what you need to understand here is, the next guy hasn't seen the monster behind the mask yet, and to make sure it stays that way the BPD will do everything in their power to idolize that person, until eventually the mask falls off again and the cycle repeats over and over again.

P.s the reason why they go back to old friends, smear campaign us and block us from he new bfs social media is because, they are petrified over being found out for who they really are, so a lot of their energy goes into making sure we are the crazy ones, and its sad because the guys with weak boundaries actually grow to believe these lies.             

[Stripey77]

Ahoy - thanks for sharing. This is perfect. I am a woman who has an ex BF with (I suspect) BPD and this pretty much sums things up. Regarding the 'mask':  I have effectively been replaced by a new 'best friend' - I think she was supposed to be my romantic replacement but instead seems to have developed into a best friend/drinking buddy and I *think* (it is supposition) that this is why his already heavy drinking habit has now ramped up into a whole new level. Things didn't go quite according to plan and he has painted me so black, that even if he is missing me, he'd probably rather die than admit it. He is drinking a LOT. She thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread, (although she recognises that he drinks/parties a lot) and doesn't seem to have questioned at any point his motives for behaving like a knight in shining armour towards her, a woman he had just befriended. I believe that the mask will never fall off for her because he seems to save all his best behaviour for his friends and spends a lot of energy on cultivating those friendships. The true self is saved for the poor sods like us who are romantically involved with them.  And so, on to the control. I can now see, sadly, that he is VERY controlling, very. Of course, it was gradually and surreptitiously done. When you're in the grip of it, and it's being mixed in with the headiest love you've ever felt in your life... .it creeps up on you. However, I was beginning to get a growing sense of unease that all was not right. I still have a text conversation in which I said to him that I was happy to talk in person about my supposed latest transgression (which btw was to do with me saying how horrible he was to me when he'd had a drink - he didn't like that) but that I was beginning to feel as if I had to say that everything was always my fault. The control crept into the relationship, it was subtly done, and by that point I was totally and utterly in love. I hate confrontation and arguing with anyone, least of all with someone I've fallen in love with it. He seems to absolutely thrive on melodrama, creating problems when there weren't any, but then accusing me of being the source of our 'problems'. I eventually worked out that 'problems' were me standing up to him, disagreeing with him or daring to call him out on something he'd done that had upset me. I was matter of factly told after one such incident that if I didn't like it that was my issue not his, because he didn't see it like that. No meeting me half way, no remorse for hurting me, just total black and white 'take it or leave it'.  However, despite me being so soft hearted I am also an incredibly strong character and I will speak up for myself. If someone has upset me, it has to be brought out in the open and aired. I am not a doormat. Well, maybe I have been in the past but... .The end was inevitable, I suppose, because he realised he cannot control me, and hence he got rid of the Problem Maker. He told his new friend that he broke up with me because I shouted at him. I didn't of course, but that's a story for another day. It was only after the first brutally abrupt break up when I went back home to the UK and talked to friends, that one of my oldest male friends, on hearing everything said immediately that this was ALL about control. This was before I had even really heard of BPD or suspected something that serious was afoot. I was just terribly hurt and crushed at the time. My friend said to me, you can't see this at the moment because you're in it, but this is VERY controlling behaviour. He also made a bet with me that my ex would be back, and was lining himself up to make a return. I couldn't possibly see it having been told 'the decision is made' when I begged my ex to reconsider. Exactly 3 weeks later he was hugging and kissing me in the same bar, telling me that he realised he'd lost something important, didn't deserve me and how badly he'd treated me.  Welcome to the push pull of BPD! It was some months later after the 2nd break up/discard that my dad summed it up even more eloquently  "He's a controlling little tw*t".   The reason I have been discarded, devalued, slagged off and am now being ignored on sight, which is horrifically painful, purely boils down to the fact that he realised he can't control me. The irony is of course that I fell more deeply in love with him than I have with anything or anyone in my life, and felt as if I'd truly met my other half.  I had no intention of leaving him, and don't need controlling. I do however put ME first and that is a major step that we all need to remind ourselves of. Love shouldn't require that we lose sight of ourselves and bend to someone else's every whim to prove ourselves. I lost the greatest love affair of my life because I wasn't prepared to say "yes Sir, no Sir, 3 bags full Sir" all day every day. I adored him and I told him so and demonstrated it in every way possible. But how do you keep proving yourself to someone who puts you to the test and shifts the goalposts all the the time? It really is a losing game.

I want to leave you with something that same friend said to me... .and this is before the truly awful times started by the way. He said that the reason my ex was so lovely me to start with for those first months? "No one ever got food poisoning from food that tasted like cr*p."  i.e. he was wearing the mask. My ex is very intelligent, and high functioning. He told me on a couple of occasions when he was in free fall turmoil, that I should forget him and hate him. That it was 'complicated'. That he doesn't deserve me. I think he knows very well the monster lurking beneath, but he doesn't know what it is that 's wrong with him.  I think he was trying to give me an escape route before the inevitable discard. But of course, it was too late, I was already in love. This illness means that they show us the sweetest and very best side of themselves until we are in love. It's only after we've eaten the poisoned apple that we find out what they just gave us.  :'(

[SoMadSoSad]

So they don't fall in love with people? They only fall in love with love?

[MapleBob]

Amazing summation from WoundedBibi on the "Why Do They Break Up?" Thread:

Why they break up of course, once again, differs per pwBPD and per situation. But if it helps any these are the main reasons I've deduced from the pwBPD boards.

- they fall head over heels for you, completely in intense love. And then all of a sudden they're not anymore. It can be you had an opinion about something that wasn't theirs which means you're not an extension of them, could be something else that meant you fell off your pedestal and were no longer seen as perfect. Could be as simple as waking up next to you and feeling too warm and suddenly the hate was triggered. > push out

- they fall head over heels for you, completely in intense love. And then all of a sudden they're not anymore. They create drama by acting cold or pushing you away or raging or hitting or arguing or crying or breaking up or whatever. The end goal is for them to get the loving feeling back. They hope as you start to react to their drama by pleading, begging, showing your love etc, they will have the same feeling they had before. But the step in between, the drama, is > push out

- you're getting too close. Close is not scary, close is frightening to the level they think they will die. Too much fear too handle. > push out

- they get infatuated quickly and realize it, they know their temporary partner cannot in the end satisfy them but for the time being it's nice and the partner serves a purpose. Until they don't. > push out

- they fall head over heels for you, completely in intense love. And they are intensely, once again to the level they think they will die, afraid that you will leave and take away your love. This must be avoided. The best way to do this is for them to leave you. > push out

- they fall head over heels for you, completely in intense love. And they are intensely, once again to the level they think they will die, afraid that you will leave and take away your love. This must be avoided. They start checking up on you, see cheating where there is none, and go into jealous rages over nothing. The result is a self fulfilling prophecy as this makes you leave. An involuntary > push out

- they fall head over heels for you, completely in intense love. And they are intensely, once again to the level they think they will die, afraid that you don't really love them as they are unloveable. This means your love needs to be put to the test. Not that you will ever pass because there will always be another test. So what follows is > push out

Push out of course can be

- simply walking out saying "never contact me again"

- crying

- arguing

- raging

- hitting

- growing cold

- cheating

- sending other men or women on to you to see how you react

- blocking you out of their lives

- disappearing

- setting up with a replacement

Once again, as they are different people with different characters and they are all on a different spectrum of the BPD scale, might have another PD or issue mixed in etc etc there is no one size fits all answer.

For some it ends after this push out. For most it doesn't. As soon as the fear subsides they regret pushing you away and want you/the relationship back. If they do, they will actively seek you out to recycle you.

[JerryRG]

Thanks Ahoy, great stuff

[khibomsis]

Ahoy, it would have to be this one: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=127914.0  Helped me get to grips with my anxiety to please - instead of wondering if the other person pleases me

[Stripey77]

SoMad... .no. I don't think that's it, that's far too much of an oversimplification. There are posts by people with BPD online on other sites, and articles on here, where the BPD sufferer have themselves tried to explain what it feels like to be them. From what I have understood, the love is totally genuine and the feelings very real... .at that time. And they can swing from one side of the pendulum to the other almost overnight and without warning... .and back again. They are no hopeless romantics 'in love with love', but are desperately trying to mitigate a very deepfelt pain that was in them before we even met them. For a while, we looked like the answer to their prayers. Sadly, PBD tend to have an utterly skewed grasp of what is realistic and possible for a partner to provide. The expectations are so very high, we were set up to fail almost before we had started.

[Stripey77]

Ahoy - sorry, in my earlier post I veered somewhat from your intended 'let's share some pearls of wisdom' idea. I don't think I can edit/remove this? However, I hope you could see that I was trying to concur with the 'pearl' you had shared that talked about wearing of masks and namely about control. I wanted to expand on that and illustrate it with examples from my own experience. I think the need to control is a very, very important factor within a BPD relationship. It certainly dominated mine.

Thanks for the thread.

[Ahoy]

So, I do think that a certain person will last a while with a pwBPD. I just think it's a matter of how much that certain person will put up with. Unfortuanatly, I was the co-dependant happy-go-lucky doormat that thought she really cared about me.

Agreed.  Like you, I was by far the longest relationship she had ever had (and her me, for that matter, which I think speaks to my co-dependency issues, or at least my co-dependency issues with her).  I think a good way to look at relationships with BPDs is like this.  Each BPD relationship has a finite amount of time.  The length of which is entirely defendant upon 1 of 2 things, whichever comes first:  1.) the Non eventually cracks and leaves or 2.) the Non cracks and the BPD leaves.  

A BPD relationship begins taking on water from the start.  It's up to the non as to how fast he/she can bail out the sinking ship.  But no matter how fast the non tries, the ship is always going to sink.

Another good one to remind us that these relationships are horribly finite. I was talking to a friend yesterday, I compared mine to a sparkler, bright and shiny but over so fast

[WoundedBibi]

So, I do think that a certain person will last a while with a pwBPD. I just think it's a matter of how much that certain person will put up with. Unfortuanatly, I was the co-dependant happy-go-lucky doormat that thought she really cared about me.

Agreed.  Like you, I was by far the longest relationship she had ever had (and her me, for that matter, which I think speaks to my co-dependency issues, or at least my co-dependency issues with her).  I think a good way to look at relationships with BPDs is like this.  Each BPD relationship has a finite amount of time.  The length of which is entirely defendant upon 1 of 2 things, whichever comes first:  1.) the Non eventually cracks and leaves or 2.) the Non cracks and the BPD leaves.  

A BPD relationship begins taking on water from the start.  It's up to the non as to how fast he/she can bail out the sinking ship.  But no matter how fast the non tries, the ship is always going to sink.

Another good one to remind us that these relationships are horribly finite. I was talking to a friend yesterday, I compared mine to a sparkler, bright and shiny but over so fast

I really like the analogy with the ship. I was below deck and saw the water coming in. I tried to pump it out on my own while the pump was built for two. I kept sticking my head up through the deck "sweety, the ship is filling up, you need to pump or we will drown" but he was either dancing merrily around the deck yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum, or stomping angrily about the deck in utter silence, or stomping angrily about the deck with his yo-ho-ho bottle of rum. I changed tactics for a little while, just pumping at my end, hoping he would take responsibility for his end, but he didn't. So I got on the life raft and abandoned ship. I'm thinking of renaming myself Polly. I want a cracker.