BPDFamily.com

Hi

I have been in a relationship with someone who has BPD type behaviours all her life: difficult relationship with mother, emotionally immature, can't handle stress, abusive relationships (and vilified exs), trust and abandonment issues, massive control issues and dramatic mood changes. However, they have had a history of seizure /absences and autoimmune type symptoms as well.

Has anyone come across this before?

We are currently on a break (which I have asked for and she's finding difficult to respect) as the running away, verbal abuse, emotional exile and occasional anger/physical abuse has become a bit too much for me to handle. I don't think I'm cut out to switch from partner to carer within a blink of an eye and she's convinced she has neurological issues not mental health issues, so getting support/help is not an easy subject to discuss. Every time she runs away she ends the relationship and tells me to find someone who is capable of a healthy relationship. Then she returns and is sorry and lovely to me again for a couple of weeks. She conveniently can't remember a lot of her bad behaviour after the event. She's unemployed and has been living with me on and off, although she has her own apartment.

After reading this forum I can understand she  may not be in control of a lot of her behaviour, but she is able to control it with her family/others. There seems to be a lot of learnt behaviour and manipulation which I have pointed out to her when I felt it was safe to do so. I have drawn boundaries around things like her running away late at night if she doesn't like the tone of my voice, pushing me, shouting at me, ordering me to be quiet and go away, but she can't keep to them and I'm often accused of having too many expectations. When I try to reinforce them I'm told I can't expect to speak normally to an ill person, it's seen as a threat and the situation just escalates. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this person, but I can't continue in this vain. My gf says I'm the love of her life and I feel the same, but I also feel so drained with it all.

Has anyone out there managed to get their relationship into a healthy place and what kind of therapy/professional help was most helpful and how long did it take?

Thanks

L

I will say that I do believe PDs are more neurological as a cause which then develop into psychological as the persons grows.

The fact that a pwBPD can behave normally with others is due to the time they spend in their company. It must be exhausting for them to keep the mask in place and this is why we get to a certain point into the relationship and the cracks start to show.

 *welcome*

First off you need to look up the difference between boundaries and demands, there is a distinct difference.

Does she take any meds for the seizures, or could they be potentially causing them?

The control of her behaviors with others is probably a facade and quite draining for her. Bottling up this facade increases the fall out when in it drops most likely.

If she has been like this most of her life you are not going to change her in the near future, only they way you can manage and interact with it.

Treatment is long and difficult and they need to be in the "right mind space' to make it work. You cant push that. It is best not to put your eggs in that basket at the moment.

Have a think about specific boundaries that mean the most to you and what you can do to enforce them, and let us know

Thanks waverider. She has taken meds in the past but not anymore. My brother mentioned recently he thought I had become quite passive. I'm not sure I can live my life on full alert waiting for the negative moods to come. I can clan things down by listening most of the time, but there's always the 5% of the time that I can't react so passively/calmly as I have feelings too.  I have tried to remove myself from the situation when it escalates so like go for a walk, but when I'm gone she's runs away and leaves me a note. She wants to buy a condo together and live happily every after but I can't see that happening if she keeps running away every other week.

Interesting connection with seizures that I haven heard before.  I have heard of BPD behaviors connected to head trauma, after a car accident, concussion, etc. 

My scientific mind recognizes that BPD is a name for a collection of symptoms, and may have many different causes.  But my experience with a pwBPD leads me to believe that a certain part of the brain is not functioning normally.  It often just doesn't seem like learned behavior to me - many of my fiance's behaviors remind me of my grandmothers' as they were developing Alzheimers - no sense of who they were or where they were - much like my fiance describes.  So, anything that damages that part of the brain could cause similar symptoms, including seizures, strokes, trauma, or simple genetics.  Just my hypothesis, though  :light: