BPDFamily.com

I'm seeing a lot of information/references to female borderline waifs. I'm pretty sure my ex-friend would qualify as a waif. What are the characteristics of male waifs?

Hypochondriacs- always in pain, or ill, but especially if it can get them out of a "situation" or bring the attention back to themselves. My late BPD/NPDfil was a waif. Basically, they are the same as female waifs; not really any difference at all.

My ex is undiagnosed, but he is 24/25 out of these characteristics of BPD waifs:

www.borderlinewaif.com/2010/12/25-BPD-symptoms-borderline-waif/

My ex is a male waif and he fits ALL 25 of those points.  Describes him perfectly.

My xBPD male waif has 23 of the 25 but I didn't meet him until he was 55... .maybe there had been some improvement.

M

My ex-friend gets a 24 out of 24. I had to omit one of the criteria because we weren't romantically involved (thank goodness!).

 I kind of feel like a jerk for saying this, but recently my ex-friend was diagnosed with a chronic illness. It's not life threatening and won't last forever, but it is sporadically disruptive. My friend seems to be completely enamored with his new illness. It's like his new superpower. Is this a waif thing?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes... .the best form of attention to a waif is sympathy... .

Yes, Belka.  I agree with momtario. They latch on to anything that garners sympathy.  My ex would tell any sob story that he could to put himself in a position to gain sympathy and get people to do things for him.  He also was very careless and kind of clumsy so he hurt himself a lot.  He would sort of exploit those injuries to get attention or to get something out of somebody.  To be fair, he really did have a rocky upbringing and is in a financial, professional, emotional position that nobody would envy... . But at some point we are all responsible for our own decisions and can either choose to make our situations better or worse.

Maybe I am being naieve, but I don't think he sat down and calculated how he could bleed people dry through sympathy--but I do think he learned a long time ago that sympathy brings attention so it's more engrained learned subconscious action/reaction.  Kind of how when we feel hungry, we eat, but we don't really think about it.  Luckily, eating doesn't typically involve (even subconscious) manipulation of a significant other!

On another note, that list of 25 points really hit home with me.  Will post more later about how I saw each of those points in my male waif.

I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but when things were really going sour between me and my friend and his girlfriend, I totally used the pity card to try to get them to ease up on the painting black a bit. I didn't do it on purpose, I was just so confused and wounded that it was what I grasped for. It was what he used, so I thought it'd work for me. It didn't. A day or two later I realized how pathetic I looked and was embarrassed. Using the pity card is totally not me.  

I guess I really need to try to remember exactly what triggered that response from me so it doesn't happen again.

Human nature being so, Male Waifs and Female Waifs are no different. Just change the gender she to he and her to him when reading the material. The easiest way to spot a BPD male is if there is some sort of submissive behavior that's valued (or thought to be valued) by the partner. This allows for the persecution to re-work itself into action.

My ex is a male waif. There was a good thread about this a month or so ago. If I can locate it, I will. I learned a lot and found there were more of us on this board who experienced a r/s with a male waif. Mine fits 23 out of the 25.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=167044.

I hope I did this link correctly... .This is the one from a month or so ago, about the Male Waif.

Sad to say, my ex is 25 out of 25 as well.  Undiagnosed but definitely a waif.  A highly sexualized person with no boundaries to his appetite for both genders, as I was to find out in the course of the relationship.  (Sex was the only thing that authenticated him, gave him peace.)

I had forgotten this, but my exBPDbf (we were 15) was a male waif, as well. I can remember getting told on several occasions by other friends, that when I showed up, he would go from feeling perfectly fine to holding his head in his hands, sore everywhere and just "too sick"

 

The visit before our breakup mine did the same thing. He pretended to be too sick to go home and stayed four days longer. My daughter told me he was fine until I would go in the room. Then he'd talk with a "sick voice."

M

Yay! Thanks for the links. Interesting information.