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What is your experience with mirroring?

Do pwBPD immediately start mirroring the person they attach themselves to?

Can they hold on to some characteristics, traits or behaviors from previous relationships?

Do they tend to mirror, to fill their own lack of identity, or to draw someone near them?

Sure. My ex still used phrases and words i use and some of the behaviors. Sometimes it's like i'm watching in a mirror. She does it less and less though.

My ex tried to turn my replacement into me.

I wish I was making that up

I found mirroring to be very unsettling, actually. My ex would do it with me AND his ex wife simultaneously. I'm an atheist. So he would spend all week with me and claim to be the same hippie, liberal, yuppy that I am then spend the weekends with her and turn back into a conservative, Christian person. It was so weird. At first I thought he was just lying about his beliefs but the more I stayed with him, the more I saw that he actually flipped into a different person and he fully believed he was BOTH people.

He would mimic her attitudes, her gestures, everything. It was like I was living with his ex wife for a long time. She said he would do the same with my personality when he was with her.

I literally feel like I "raised" my  ex NPD as well as my exbfBPD--makes me ill to say that: they now dress as I do; talk as I do; rant on about the same geopolitical views and go to the same places. I feel like I helped armor them for their next supply--one exgf of NPD recognized his choices of restaurants and even his decor as mine.

My ex has attempted this as well.  I posted months ago about how she was dressing my ex in clothing very similar to my style. 

My xBPDgf had her husband buy her a black mustang convertable just like mine as well as a jeep exactly like her new supplys. SO creepy.

Lack of stable sense of self tends to result in a coping mechanism called mirroring.  Mirroring begins in childhood, it is how we learn.  Also learned early on is that by mirroring someone, they tend to be happy or like us.

A pwBPD may indeed, keep traits learned and use in a new context, especially if it is a trait that is universal to most.  The difference in it being a "part" of who someone is versus mirroring is the reasoning why.

Tami Greene a recovered pwBPD (seen as high functioning (family and 6 figure income), but still had 9 of 9 criteria, talks about what it looked like discovering you have no sense of self.  It is as simple as "what color do you like" - having an actual opinion of your own, not figuring out what will make the other person "stay" or "like you".  Check her out on youtube, very worth it.

Shellbent - is there are particular part of this question that is keeping you attached in a way to your ex?

Only from my experience!

Lets say after a 30+ yrs. there was no mask left for exHFw towards me.

Towards others, colleagues, locals in the village, the mask of a strong confident and above all social engaed woman was put on. Even to a form of idealisation exw could speak of others.

Exw had no replacement lined up. Alone, so on the hunt with a “strong” confident appearance.

Messed up at work (but still holding her job).

Suddenly,  she drove around with huge stickers on the back and side screen of her car, on it an off broad club she apperantly “liked” (old friends invited her to come over and join).

No replacement yet, so the intense longing to belong became on the forefront. Just to belong to, anything whatsoever.

Anyway. During the years some home improvement ideas were rejected, even for years. Many ideas were never the less executed by me.

Recently exw moved to a permanent home, finally. She mirrors my ideas as told by my S! Colour combinations, curtains, ceiling, etc. Huh? Still attached in a way?

More profound is that exw has a bf since earlier this year. Facial expression (as I saw on a recent photo on a local site) was not hers! Must have been bf. The ways exw was standing, was not hers, must be bf.

So, somehow holding onto my ideas, but to establish a “bond” with bf mirroring him.

As so well and exactly described by seeking balance 

My ex still does it with music, she forever uses music that I love to get my attention, favoriting my songs I favorite. I suppose thats how we bonded in a way so therefore she does it now in NC.