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So I was thinking about how pwBPD tend to idealize people for a long time thinking they can do no evil and are perfect, than sharply devalue them by realizing their flaws, or other things. It seems to be a cycle of extreme idealization than disappointment/devaluation. Would this mean that their lives are full of disappointment?

It's cyclical.  The way I see it, BPDs live in and for the present.  As a result of this, they are extremely impulsive.  They jump head first into relationships and enjoy that rush of the idealization.  Are those phases of their lives disappointments?  In the moment it's certainly not.  They think it's an answer to all their problems.  Then when devaluation hits, disappointment appears.  But it's quickly onto the next and round and round we go.

I'd probably say that their lives are full of disappointment and euphoria.  They live from one extreme to the other.  Black and white.  Push and pull.  There is no middle ground, no stability, and everything is temporary.

Yes but inversely they are also full of great enjoyment.

I never understood why some things with my ex which I saw as just ok she saw as fantastic. On the other hand things that werent too bad became the end of the world. It is a life of extremes. Black and white thinking is one example of this. Things are either great or awful.

Looking from the outside in, a BPD life is a life spent running away from facing a deep emotional wound.  This is why they monkey branch from one "pacifier" to another (infatuation, drugs, gambling, sex, self-harm, binge eating, ect) never finding any lasting peace from anything.  These things bring them peace for a time but the old wound always comes back.  It is a life of persistent emptiness because they look for answers from the outside world, it is too painful to look within.  From what I have seen it is a snowball effect of despair, each cycle brings additional feelings of shame and emptiness.  When they do begin to feel disappointment or any negative emotion they are lightning quick to initialize a coping mechanism.  It is the most tragic state of existence I have ever witnessed in a human being.

There idealization and then disappointment once they find a flaw reminds me of when around the age of 3 to 7, I gradually fully realized and came to accept that my parents were not perfect.  Before, that, I had them in a child like idealized state where they knew everything, could do everything, and so forth.  Since BPD comes from delayed/stunted maturation in relation to parents, I'm guessing that perhaps they have the same realization I did with my parents at age to 3 to 7 but with each new partner they encounter as an adult.  I remember being confused when I saw my parents' imperfections and I didn't like it, but of course I got used to it.  I have a weird memory (I can remember back to age 3 easily), so I actually remember this process of discovery quite clearly.

I agree that they feel both disappointment and euphoria, and that they feel them - as they feel every emotion - very intensely.

As others here have said, a pwBPD lives moment to moment, without a consistent narrative.


ReluctantSurvivor, you describe it perfectly.

Thomas Fuchs has a great article, "Fragmented Selves: Temporality and Identity in Borderline Personality Disorder" (PDF of article here (https://www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de/fileadmin/zpm/psychatrie/fuchs/Fragmented-Selves.pdf)), that I feel captures the painful existence of BPD. Below are a couple of excerpts--

Borderlines often describe lasting feelings of emptiness and boredom, since their transitory presence has no depth. It lacks the fulfillment which only originates from the integration of past experience and anticipated future. To fill the void, momentary pleasures, thrills, and ecstasies are sought, turning life into an unconnected series of fleeting events instead of continuous history.

---

The temporal splitting of the self excludes past and future as dimensions of object constancy, bonding, commitment, responsibility, and guilt. Thus, it avoids the necessity to tolerate the threatening ambiguity and uncertainty of longer-term interpersonal relationships. [But] this fragmentation does not mean innocent happiness but even greater suffering, not from neurotic repression but from reality itself - above all from others who refuse to comply with these extremes and to remain available just whenever it suits. Suffering results from the inability to develop real attachments, from inner emptiness and loss of meaning, [and] from being overwhelmed by excessive feelings of guilty and shame.

What HappyN quoted reminds me of her impulsive drug and alcohol use and that she still craved "getting off" on MDMA after years of not doing it.   She thought about it regularly.  I think it filled that empty spot in her.

She also kept a lot of mementos from places, I think to create a sense of object constancy, and she got tattoos to memorialize or remember things, which is similar.  She would often wear jewelry that she would stroke, I think to remind her of a person or place.  I always wondered who gave her the necklace she would always wear and rub.  Probably some exBF she was talking to behind my back.

here's the thing about idealization that I feel many of us do not realize right away: while there is idealization of one person, there is a concurrent devaluation going on of another.

in other words, when she was euphorically happy with us at the beginning of the relationship, she was also experiencing the devaluation, dissociation, splitting, etc with the former bf

there never actually is a time of total happy euphoria with a BPD, b/c there are always several background and former relationships in their demise

so when you see them amazingly resplendent and happy with your replacement, they are also experiencing the disappointment of the failed relationship with us

^^^(to add to my above comment)  in fact, I would assume that the 'happier' they seem with the replacement (quickly falling in love or moving in, engaged, etc) the more horrible their shame level is in dealing with the failure of the previous relationship