BPDFamily.com

Has anyone found the source of their ex or SOs BPD? If so did they find it difficult to talk about?

For example my BPDx had her mother die when she was 9, 20 years ago and anytime her name was mentioned she would fly off the handle. I know it's not easy dealing with something like that, but her two sisters seemed fine talking about it and have even tried to talk to her and ask why it still upsets her so much.

This is only part of what makes her this way, but you get the point?

Im in the nature camp so even though her mums death affected her I believe she was already predisposed to BPD. Because of this her mums death would be seen as abandonment. Also why her sisters react differently.

Just my opinion though.

Quite possibly. Guess I'll never know! Just curious.

Her dad remarried and then she had to go and live with her gran, so another level of abandonment. Then an ex cheated on her and sent her photos on Valentine's Day.

All these could contribute, just think it may have started with her mum.

Her mum could have been the trigger that kicked it in for her. One thing I noticed with my exs isthat their version of events differs from others versions.  The traumas that my exs told me differ dramatically from others perceptions of events.  That said you cant really twist a death.

There is some evidence to show that ASPD and PTSD have an underlying predisposition and events can trigger it to go full blown. If this is the case then I can see BPD having this predispotion.

Then would another traumatic event kick it off again?

For instance they went through a calm period then something happened like a stressful event eg moving house and feeling unsettled which caused her to become nasty.

The problem is in my opinion once the genies out of the bottle then you cant put it back in. Without therapy the behaviour will always be there. Stress will just bring it to the surface.

Holidays, moving house and even weddings can trigger them because theyre stressful events.

Sounds about right, whenever she got stressed out eg at work (she has a stressful long hour job) she took it out on me.

I called her on that particular one and she realised she did the one time and apologised but didn't last long!

What happens when we aren't there to blame it on?

When I went into the house to move my stuff out I noticed she had been drinking and smoking lots and not eating well.

My BPDex claimed that her parents had adult parties when she was a baby and that some of the "adults" would come into her and her sister's room while they were sleeping and do "sexual" acts with them.  She also said her father had numerous sexual encounters with her as a child.

Finally, she confided in me that when she was only 3 years old her parents left her alone in the house for over a week.  She spent over 3 days all alone before her grandparents came to get her.

My ex also told me many other stories that i found out were not completely true about things that happened in her life.  So i can not be sure what is true and what is made up.  But one thing is sure, something very bad happened to her as a child that came from her parents.  She no longer sees or talks to her father (since many, many years).  

So the source for me is her early childhood and the abandonment and sexual abuse.  

Sometimes she would talk about it and sometimes she did not want to talk about it.

One thing was clear for me:  i could not help her out of her BPD.  She needs a full professional for that and the awareness that she has the problem.   Until that occurs she will live out all her life in this horrible state.

Common theme is that it stems from childhood then.

I realised too late what was going on, just thought she was moody and stressed. Well she was that too! I couldn't help her now even if I wanted to, she wants nothing to do with me.

The way my ex tells it her childhood was ok until around age 9-10 when she ran into conflict with teachers and as a consequence she fell out with her parents for not "backing her up" (she basically demanded to have teachers fired).

It did come with puberty/menstruation.

When my wife was pregnant, her conflict-seeking behavior disappeared. It started again two months after our daughter was born.

Around age 9 was when my exs mother died, her sisters were a bit older although it affected one instantly and she went off the rails, but she was a teenager and has since calmed down.

The genesis of BPD is not necessarily abuse.  It's a failure of someone to successfully detach from their mother on their way to becoming an autonomous individual and developing a 'self' of their own, and happens within the first years of life.  The behavior of the parents, the conditions after birth and the kid's predisposition are all factors, and it happens so early in development that it gets hardwired into the personality before cognitive thought is possible, so there is no conscious awareness of it for the borderline.  If abuse or neglect happens later that just makes things worse because the child had stopped developing when the disorder showed up, so they may not have tools available to process events in an empowering way.

Thanks fromheeltoheal

I'm trying to understand BPD better and that helps a lot.

I have read numerous posts on different sites saying how pregnancy and menopause had an affect of putting BPD into remission. It doesnt happen in every case but does for me point to an actual physical problem as opposed to psycological. I was reading about brain plasticity so whether it is something from birth or if events have causef it I dont know as the brain can rewire itself. My personal opinion is from birth but thats just an opinion and not fact.

Or take a look here:

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Borderline-personality-disorder/Pages/Causes.aspx

There is a variety of cobtributing factors involved.

Thanks that explains a few things!

Judging by a whole lot of stuff I have read on personality disorders, it is about 50% nature (genetic) and 50% nurture (effed up parenting). My ex seems to fit that theory. I met her mother from everything I know about her and everything I've seen from her is a narc herself. My ex's brother was diagnosed being bipolar. Many many resources you read start with this - "Personality disorder is NOT bipolar mental illness". This clearly implies that two are often confused for each other. When I found out about her brother being bipolar, my heart sunk a little bit because (a) I was worried that it might show up in her and (b) I was worried what would happen if we had kids, what would happen. Bipolar IS genetic. Anyway, this is my personal experience with all this.

According to the professionals, the base of BPD is in place before the age of 3. As FHTH pointed out, it stems from an unhealthy attachment or detachment in the case of BPD. Emotionally, a pwBPD doesn't mature beyond this point. Again, according to the professionals, the trama occurs way before even recoverable memories are formed.

Then my idea about her mothers death causing it is wrong, maybe I'm wrong about the BPD?

Would you please look at the OP in this and see if I'm right on the BPD?

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=279545.0

22 posts in one day chill, you're on a roll!

As mentioned, the disorder started before she was her own 'person' with a 'self'.  So the self that is there is unstable, easily swayed by emotions that are so strong they can't be regulated, and a lot of the behaviors come out of just trying to feel better in the moment.  And none of that has anything to do with you and does not include rational thought, it's mental illness.

So this is recent for you and I understand the need to understand the disorder.  What else is up for you?  How's the rest of your day going?

Well when you're in the zone ha!

Yeah thanks to you guys I'm starting to get my head around it and feel better about everything.

Before I found this place I was so confused how she could love me one second and hate me the next, but it's all starting to fall into place.

I really want her back and know I shouldn't. She hates me and ruined my life yet I bare no negative feelings towards her.

It's only been 2.5 months. But I don't like the fact she hates me. I'm a nice guy and was nice to her, I don't deserve this as I'm sure most people on here don't.

Realize that 'hating' you is her best option.  An alternative would be to accept responsibility for her emotions and level with you as to what's really going on with her, and she believes that if she did that you'd see the real her and leave, abandonment, the worst thing that could happen.  And we know that you might not leave, in fact you'd appreciate the candor and the conversation would make you closer, but she doesn't see it that way, from inside a personality disorder.

So they fear the abandonment so much they push you away before they think you'll leave? Like a defence mechanism?

Yes, that's one possibility.  In her head you might have already left too; any change in her perception, as simple as you relaxing into the relationship for example, a change from previous intensity, may indicate to a hypersensitive borderline that you'd already checked out, and getting abandoned hurts, so take control and leave first.  Another reason to push you away is fear of engulfment, fear of losing herself in you, and the closer you get the more intense that fear.  These are emotions that she can't handle and neither can you, sad because what a borderline wants most she can't have, and there's nothing anyone can do about that, time to take care of you.

Cheers FHTH,

Botha those things happened to my ex and I. I moved in with her and then a couple of months later we had to move house.

I'm concentrating on me now, keeping busy. Currently aching from playing golf!

My therapist thinks my exBPDgf's behaviors were triggered or at least made worse from when she had a child at 16 and gave him up for adoption. My ex also comes from a very narcissistic family so I assume it was triggered in her childhood too.

That's interesting coldmist.

Lends weight to the fact that it could have been exacerbated by traumatic events, like previously mentioned.

My friend might be a textbook case: her father walked out on her mom and her when she was young. She really hates him, but absolutely adores her stepfather. I've grown to suspect this is one of the reasons , if not the reason, why her husband is 20 years older than she is - she's looking for a safe father figure, someone who isn't going to leave her (for one thing, because he wouldn't probably have a second chance at a woman 20 years younger).

Good question.  I am in the nature camp.  I think my ex's BPD is 100% genetic.  Her upbringing wasn't perfect, but those imperfections, as far as I could tell, were caused solely by her mother's BPD (that is, my ex's source of BPD was genetic inheritance from her mother, whom also has BPD).  Based on stories I heard about my ex's mother's grandfather, it sounds like he also might have had BPD.   

100% genetic can't be ruled out here.

In some cases, yes it could be genetic, but I don't think that's the case with everyone. I have no idea what my exes mother was like, but from what I gather her sister is exactly like her and she is the nicest person in the world!

Do you know the cause of your ex's mother's death? 

Cancer, I think.

I wonder if her cause of death was something more dramatic.  Who knows. 

More generally, another thing I wonder, assuming BPD is 100% genetic (which I believe it is) is the extent to which BPD skips generations and how it's in some offspring but not all.  I suppose it could be like anything else (e.g., hair color, eye color, etc.).  A confounding variable in this is that in some cases the true biological father might not be known.   

10 years ago when no one had any scientific data, it was common to have nature vs nuture discussions in support communities.  We are past that now.  Studies have show that roughly half of the people developing the disorder did not grow up in an environment so traumatic as to induce the disorder.

So what does this really mean the medical community?  A lot. It helps direct future research.  There is movement toward labeling trauma induced BPD as complex-PTSD.

What does this mean for a mother of a BPD child?  A lot.  It means they didn't necessarily destroy their child. Before these studies, all parents we suspect in the eyes of clinicians and social service providers.

What does it mean to Leaving romantic partners?  Probably very little. We can't tell which bucket a specific person was born into. Our partner could have trauma and genetic predisposition. Or just trauma. Or just genetic predisposition.  

The majority of our ex's have only traits or disorders with some BPD symptoms (ADHD, OCD, BiPolor, Addiction, ACOA, etc.).

Maybe the most important thing to know is that these are all developments from childhood that are real.  Many of our partners receive stimuli differently or more intensely , more hyperfocused than we do - we loved that about them when it was going our way - and have developed a different way to cope with life stresses. They are not crazy or insane - they are different - challenged.

And while I read here often (on Leaving) that we can't help them and it takes many years of treatment - this may fit our narrative more than it fits theirs.  Its not length of treatment, its commitment to it and progress.  Someone young people or with people traits will often see more progress earlier - so its motivating.  Someone who has hit bottom is going to be more motivated. Someone in a supportive environment will do better than someone isolated or in a hostile environment. Granted, its not a two month recovery for anyone - but we have seen partners/children here make significant progress in 6 - 12 weeks.  Not cured, but seeing the light at the end of the tunnel... .

Thanks very much Skip for clearing that up!

When it comes to problems I often research heavily, finding their causes and fixing them (although I admit that probably won't happen in this case). I'm not perfect either so perhaps should focus on my own!

My job is problem solving so it crossed over into personal.

Theres a thread here about jobs we do. A lot of us are engineers or military or in the medical profession. Fixers, carers and protectors.

Is that a type for a BPD?

Mechanical design engineer, I design military equipment. Considering going back to uni to do a medical degree.

My BPD also had exes before me that were military and police.

I'll look for the thread.

Thanks!

More to do with the type pwBPD are attracted to and what types try to help pwBPD. A bit of an introspective look at ourselves and why we do things.

Was it on leaving?

That's an interesting find, I'm in the medical field and always had a 'fixer' mentality... this r/s definitely has me looking into my co-dependency issues


My uBPDex's father supposedly is also BPD, but at his advanced age 'grew' out of it. He was her caregiver and persecutor during childhood, was physically abusive

Makes sense re our professions. Just wished I had realised all this sooner!