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Do BPD use logical thought.

hey help745, and *welcome*

its a good question. a person with BPD has a tendency to become emotionally dysregulated. that does include irrationality. i think more importantly, you will find (have found?) that they experience reality and logic very differently than we as partners do. in other words, there are often two competing sets of "logical thought". a person with BPD also has a tendency to see us as partners, and certain issues, in black and white, otherwise known as "black and white thinking".

frankly it depends. can you share a bit of your story that involves you and your ex not seeing eye to eye on logical thought?

I think it all depends on the frame of mind they are in at the time.

Its easy to see everything as the disorder. pwBPD are people like us and depending of the level of the disorder will depend on how much of their actions are disorder driven.

Some will be the disorder and reacting to their feelings.

Some will be normal logical thinking.

Some will be normal thinking with a bad choice.

The difficulty can be trying to decide which is which.

My ex SEEMED to be able to think logically when he wasn't heading into or in a rage.  He knew the right words to say to make it seem that way, anyway.  But there was never follow through.  The biggest example of this is telling me for the last year and a half of our marriage that he knew something wasn't right in his thought processes, didn't want to live that way anymore and was seeking help.  It took a further 7 months to request a referral to a psychiatrist, and another couple months to request assessment and treatment with our local mental health organization.  This was a full 8 months after his second mental health hospitalization since we were together. 

During that time, he also told me over and over again that I was correct in my assessment that my home hadn't felt safe for me due to the raging, that he would leave with the next rage rather than me (I carried around clothing and overnight stuff in my car for years so that I could flee and go to work the next day).  But when the next major rage hit, nope, he didn't leave and questioned my feelings of safety, saying he didn't understand what "safe" meant. 

When I called it quits and ended things for good, he quit all of his attempts at therapy, even leaving behind his various workbooks and books on CBT, DBT and BPD when he moved out of the home.

The hundreds of circular arguments that never ended in resolution to any problem (unless you count me having to change things to make him feel better after every one) are proof that logic just doesn't matter, at least with my ex. 

I think this is why we struggle so much as nons.  We EXPECT logic, because that makes sense.  When it doesn't happen, we are so confused and get stuck in the FOG.  I know I was for a very long time.

If you are experiencing a lack of cognitive ability you might want to look at complex post traumatic stress disorder, symptons are very similar to BPD, but it has some special features. If it's simply irrationality it's usually dissasociation to avoid ego injuries.

The core problem in BPD is very strong emotions and very poor coping mechanisms. People with BPD can use logic and reason just fine in general, but like anyone else have a hard time reasoning in the middle of a highly emotional situation. Because they get into a situation with high emotions easily, that will often override logic. Also, their maladaptive coping strategies include projection and 'feelings create facts', so even if they're past the emotion, they are probably not applying logic to the same set of 'facts' that you see.

My ex- was very good at giving other people relationship advice, but was unable to apply it to herself. She was very fond of sayings like 'what's the common factor in all of your relationships?', but never would apply it to herself to figure out that her push-pull behavior was causing problems.

Id say do use logical thinking, just not in any area that includes emotion. 

Hi Help745,

*welcome*


Do you have someone close to you that says and does things that's directed at you that doesn't make sense?

Whether their thinking is logical or not depends on how you define their goals. If you know what they are after, their behavior IS pretty logical. Their fears are irrational, and so even if their behavior in avoiding these fears is logical, they seem very irrational overall. Does this make sense to you?

Either way, I can understand your frustration. A non-disordered person will very likely have very much trouble relating to a pwBPD's train of thought.