BPDFamily.com

I was reading a post this morning and there was discussion about DID. I've not really ever talked about it with anyone because I wasn't sure they would understand. My partner (16yrs) is BPD. I left about a month ago after a particularly helpful couples therapy session. I began to realise (as someone out in yet another post) that I was no longer the shiny new object and she was busy looking for a replacement. I left thinking the space would do me good and I could regroup and we could hopefully reconcile. However, as I'm sure you are nodding already, that isn't going to happen. So we are doing NC. Well, she sends emails if she wants, I try not to respond. I have always hated the games she plays, including the one where she is outraged I would accuse her of playing games.

Ok, back to topic. My partner has a list of diagnosed issues, among them is DID. Originally, I thought maybe the abuse she told me she suffered shattered her and that's where the disassociation came in. Then I began to believe it was a tool to manipulate me. Does anyone here have much knowledge about the subject? These pieces of my partner that cause the trouble or just another way to control and manipulate my feelings?

I never had any reason to doubt the horrific stories she told me about sexual abuse, physical abuse etc... .until she told her friend the exact stories except about me. If she could accuse me of such horrific things then surely the stories I was always told could have been made up? I blamed a fragment for the lies. But has she just sunk deeper into illness. The harsh reality of trying to appear normal in the real world just snapped her into this or was I that stupid all along?

Do you feel stupid as if it's all made up?

DID is a serious mental illness. That or BPD, it's hard to understand a compartmentalized personality. Her stories likely came from somewhere where there is truth. It must be hurtful, though, to have those stories, that pain, projected onto you.

Absolutely Turk.

I just always struggle because I want to understand. I'm not stupid about these illnesses. I've lived with in their boundaries for a long time. Studied about it etc. I just always thought my story would be different. Shoulda seen it coming.

But I am very interested if anyone wants to share more about DID experiences with their ex. I often wondered if this was real or made up in her. Part of her story. But then something would happen to make me believe it was real. I was afraid of parts, but I told myself love would conquer. Yes, I am aware I can be a romantic idiot. Lol

I thought I could detect subtle changes in her behaviours which then made me a believer.

I think many of us felt similarly. Before we started dating, my Ex drove me nuts with the push-oull bag,haviors, such that my gut told me, "drop her," but then I thought,."give love a chance, what is there to lose?" 7 years and two small children later, here I am.

Is that what you're most struggling with? If only you had understood her illness more,.it w would have been better?

No. I think I understood. I've been registered here since 2009 (I was curious so I checked) so at that point things must have caused me enough pain to seek out others. It is very helpful to hear others because I often feel it must be me, I'm the one with issues. My partner can turn things around so quickly my head can't keep up!

Like so many posts I read here, I think I'm struggling the ease at which I was replaceable. i saw the behaviours of her trying to replace me, I tried to express it, but she kept saying no that wasn't what she was doing. But then I'd find a letter she wrote to her friend (my non sexual replacement) begging for her love and undying affection.

It's been a month since I moved out. For the first two weeks I tried to stay in contact because I wanted to be sure she was ok. She didn't want to see me, fair enough. Then she didn't want to speak to me. Fair enough... .but now I see that she will survive and instead of wasting my energy worrying about her, I should have been working on me. I am now starting to finally let go a bit and feel better. I know I was the one who left, but it felt like she left me. (If that makes sense)

My ex did not have full blown D.I.D., but she was on the dissociative spectrum. For a quick overview of my story: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=279103.msg12640359#msg12640359 (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=279103.msg12640359#msg12640359)

If your ex has actually been diagnosed with D.I.D. along with other "diagnosed issues", you are trying to make sense of someone who is in an exceeding dysfunctional relationship with herself - and that can be very difficult to untangle and understand.

My ex had a little girl part of self that tried her best to please me; she was sweet, affectionate and kind. She also had a teenage part of self that lied constantly and cheated on me.

I no longer think of "my ex"; I think of the cast of characters who, in totality, were my ex. This makes it easier for my brain to comprehend the disparate behaviors. When I think about the excessive lying, for example, I think, "Oh, that's when teenage M was in the lead."

Your story help me feel a bit better today. Wow I can relate. I mean really relate. getting the blame for being controlling etc. Attention seeking teenager who angers easily and accuses me of controlling. Impetuous behaviour. Lies that my partner claimed she knew nothing about. It was so hard to see through the fog.

Yes, I got accused of being controlling quite a bit as things went south. Not that I can't be controlling from time to time, but I could list a thousand things she had the freedom to do, but none of the concrete examples I gave made a difference - her teenage self viewed me as controlling and oppressive - a very common lens for teenagers, don't you think?

"Lies that my partner claimed she knew nothing about" - she quite possibly could have been being honest there. A hallmark of D.I.D. is memory loss - she may literally not remember.

My therapist said something to me a few months ago that really, really resonated with me - perhaps it's something you can hold on to as well.

"She was in a dsyfunctional relationship with herself - how could she be in a functional relationship with anyone else?"

Thank you! I used to say how can you love me when you hate yourself so much.

How do you distinguish D.I.D features from BPD dissociation? Both disorders seem to partake in that process.

www.BPDed.com/content/1/1/13 (http://www.BPDed.com/content/1/1/13)

It took a long time for me to parse through it all - it was very, very confusing.  My therapist, while always acknowledging that she can't diagnose someone from afar, was very helpful in this process.

About a year before the breakup, I began thinking that she might have D.I.D.  I began to recognize a cast of characters - one different from another in terms of tone, inflection, ways of speaking, behaviors, decision making processes, values and morals, etc. I was confused, however, because it wasn't so totally off the charts so that other people would notice.  And although I noticed some memory loss, I couldn't categorize it as 'excessive.'

I then read "Surviving a Break-up when Your Partner has Borderline Personality" (https://bpdfamily.com/content/surviving-break-when-your-partner-has-borderline-personality) and it was like someone peered inside my relationship - it was shocking.

Months of conversation with my therapist helped me sort it all out. As she listened to me she offered the opinion that my ex was dissociative, but her teenage part of self was borderline. From everything I experienced, that explanation made the most sense.

I used to watch my ex dissociate - she even warned me about it in the very beginning stages of our r/s and described it as her tendency to "go away." This was more like a shutting down - very different than her cast of characters.

I do not have a Ph.D. in psychology but I was engaged to a pwBPD and have read a lot about the subject and have thought a lot about all of the various issues and questions one could think of.  I don't claim to have the answers, and I don't know much of anything with certainty.  With that in mind, here is my opinion.  I think the notion of child-abuse as a cause of these disorders is a notion that may eventually be completed rejected.  Was she lying to you about getting abused?  Well, on the one hand, people with these disorders seem acutely more susceptible to lying in general.  But, on the other hand, their brains are so warped that they actually somehow believe they've been getting abused by people all along -- so she might not be lying to anyone at all, even if no abuse ever occurred.  Furthermore, I suspect that some well-intentioned therapists might put it into their patients' heads that their patients were abused and this is what's causing their mental problems.  I think for many pwBPD and for many people related by blood to pwBPD, there is a wishful thinking that the psychological problems have been caused by child abuse and that the problems may be curable; while the notion of such disorders being immutable and genetic is not something that most with a genetic link to the pwBPD wish to believe.      

There is a wonderful Maya Angelou quote about this very thing:

“I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... .There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”