BPDFamily.com

Hello Everyone,

It's great to find this site after years of struggling with an ex-fiancee who "accidentally" got pregnant with me and has followed textbook BPD behavior from day 1 of our relationship. Her private behavior is purely manipulative and destructive while she keeps up an impressive, elegant facade for the outside world. Unfortunately, with the financial backing of equally sick but rich parents, the bias of the legal system towards the mother, the motivation of the court to "be on the safe side" in protecting the child, she has had many leverage points for her unwell psychological defense mechanisms to play out in a way the confuses the system and projects her abusive behavior onto me, the cliche "controlling and abusive" man.

I supported her throughout her pregnancy and for the first year of our son's life, up until the point when her abuse was so extreme I brought her to my therapist (who had been helping me cope with her for a year) and concurred with the Dr.'s recommendation that we separate due to to her abusive behaviors escalating into violence. As I had been working long hours from home she was incessantly starting arguments that forced me to stop work, try to stabilize her, and then work late into the night trying to keep up. When I finally got a chance to get in bed (in another room to avoid her) she would come wake me up to deprive me of sleep and try to argue more. When I was at my whit's end and she knew it, I confronted her torture and her violence went from shoving and scratching to full-force fists to the face, kicking, and biting. In the process she was attempting to call 911 and I actually tried to stop her to protect her from being arrested. I knew she was trying to frame me but I couldn't imagine her being successful. My therapist later wrote a very damning letter to the court urging them to look into Mother's BPD and apparent competence, where she said the following about my ex:

   * extensive history of trauma and abuse within her family

   * resultant inability to take care of herself

   * suffered with disregulated moods and episodic emotional breaks (sometimes lasting for months)

   * has relationships characterized by externalizing blame and high drama

   * has been unable to maintain employment

   * assessed as anxious, having emotional disregulation, trouble sleeping, repetition compulsions from early childhood trauma, catastrophic thinking, problems with boundaries, and cognitive distortions

   * presented as intelligent introspective, very fragile and having apparent competence

   * the well documented consequences in the literature of the detrimental developmental effects on his son

   * would question the wisdom of ... .not having Father around to step in as needed when she has her "meltdowns" as well as not having consistent contact with Father

Well, over the past 1 1/2 years that we have been in family court, you name it she has accused me of it. At one point she actually managed to go to the state family court where she "temporarily" took my son, and got them to impose an emergency order to block visitation because of "suspicious rashes" she "knew" indicated I was molesting our son. She made up a disgusting story that I had "chronic jock-itch" and that skin to skin contact was the only way our son could have contracted the "suspicious rashes." As it turns out, her own pediatric dermatologist indicated he had yeast infection, aka "diaper rash" which is totally unrelated to "Jock-itch" which I didn't have. Regardless, this argument was never necessary because when the NJ court found out that we had ongoing litigation in NM they threw it out. Back in NM the judge said she found my ex's arguments non-credible. 

A similar pattern played out with a court-appointed priority consultant in New Mexico. After the mother made false allegations (without my knowledge) that she supposedly caught me watching child pornography, Mother was granted full temporary custody and it was recommended that visitation be supervised by Mother's parents. However, at an exchange immediately after family court her parents assaulted me in video which I later showed the consultant. After understanding more, the consultant recommended that her parents be restricted from visitation and indicated that parental alienation appears to be happening.

Now we are in the process of an extensive custody evaluation performed by a psychiatrist. We are expecting the final report any time. But here she comes again. This time she took who knows what to a professional in "forensic assessments," put on her act and got this to submit to the court in an emergency motion:

   * Perceiving that expert testimony may be useful to the Court in determining the risk posed by Father, Mother submitted to a battery assessment with [ "Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in trauma assessment and counseling, forensic assessments, domestic violence-coercive control researcher, victim advocate, systems change agent"] Ph.D., L.P.C., D.V.S. Dr. performed approximately twenty six (26) hours of in person assessment of Mother, psychological testing of Mother, review of voluminous written discovery, and interviews of collateral sources.

   * Mother experienced an extreme level of danger in her relationship with Father. When the Assessment identifies an extreme level of danger, it is recommended that the Court and safety professionals establish the highest level of supervision.

   * "... .account of her history has a high degree of internal and external credibility,” and remarked that, “Given the typical paucity of documentation in these cases, the degree of confirmation, in this case, is impressive.”

   * specifically addressed and examines, “the questions of whether or not Mother may have been fabricating her story of being abused and coercively controlled by Father in a way to gain advantage over him,” and affirms that she is “convinced that [Mother] is not malingering or dissimulating her history of abuse.”

   * “Coercive control involves a pattern of conflict suppression as part of the batterer’s pattern of abusive behaviors which continues over time in an attempt to control, dominate, humiliate, and/or terrorize their victims rather than resulting from their poor or lacking skill set (i.e., communication, problem-solving, conflict resolution, etc.)”

   * “Father's pattern of coercion and abuse continues into the shared custodial arrangement as Mother simply tries to comply with by sending Father a weekly summary of Child’s development, unfortunately, Father's responses to a simple communication are disturbing, convoluted and verbally assaultive which leave Mother and child re-victimized by the same haranguing process experienced when the couple resided together.”

   * The fact that Mother and Father have separated does not provide protection for Mother and the minor child. In fact, “

• nce the victim escapes from their abusive relationship, the batterer loses their proximate power and control over her in the immediate proximity; the danger for the victim increases since the batterer now increases their manipulative and coercive efforts (e.g. wheedling, cajoling, promising, threatening, intimidating, violently acting out) to regain their lost dominance over the victim. Separation is the most dangerous time for the adult and child victim.”
  
     * She asks that Father’s visitation with the minor child be professionally supervised
  
     * Or alternatively, requiring that exchanges of the minor child be professionally supervised
  
  Well, you folks here don't know me but you know BPD and I'm sure you can imagine that all of the above is pure BS. It was me that "escaped" the abusive relationship and she continues to terrorize me through the legal system.
  
  My lawyer has bees soft-pedaling the mental illness issue, basically saying it's up to the evaluator to figure that out. But in light of this last motion, I think I should get an expert witness or at least argue that the evaluator looks deeply into the allegations with these directives:
  
  •   Custody Evaluator subpoena records, submittal, tests for my review & Custody Evaluator.
  
  Also billing, who paid, and any personal or professional history between forensic assessor and Mother or her family
  
  If Custody Evaluator has any concerns that Mother's allegations have basis in reality she shall:
  
  •   review all phone recordings from that time
  
  •   review all video-taped exchanges to determine if it was she or I that was inciting arguments in front of Child
  
  •   review all video from my visitation with Child to determine if he was ever in danger or mistreated in any way
  
  •   review FULL email conversations IN context along with text messages and exchange video to determine if Mother is being cooperative and refraining from harassing me or not
  
  •   interview all hosts I stayed with in NJ, which include an elementary school teacher, a licensed nanny, and two social workers from the NJ family court system who work with children in Child's situation
  
  Custody Evaluator to specifically look into facets of BPD including those my therapist warned of, specifically:
  
  •   BPD issues with making of false allegations as expression of externalization of blame and internal psychological issues
  
  •   difficulty of diagnosing BPD, especially with short-term testing
  
  •   tendency of people with BPD to torment their partners and accuse them of being the abuser
  
  •   science of brain function of people BPD and how the mental illness has been identified as a physical change in brain development that happens to children in unhealthy environments growing up.
  
  •   tendency of parents with BPD to pass on the mental illness to their children 
  
  •   stabilizing factor of having close contact between non-BPD and child
  
  I would also say that other than it being used legally against me, or to humiliate or demean me further in front of our son, and the inconvenience and expense, I would be open to supervised exchanges since she has consistently refused to stop arguing and demeaning me in front of our son, or to work with our lawyers to establish clear guidelines.
  
  I have found this list of potential expert witnesses but I don't know if they would be right to cover the BPD aspect www.crimevictimsinstitute.org/about/faculty.html
  
  ... .I have not yet talked with my lawyer about all this but have to be ready to tomorrow. Can I please get any thoughts or resources you have on this matter?
  
  Thanks in advance,
  
  Edo
  
  

If you go over to our Book Reviews and Article Reviews boards you'll find many threads there listing experts, books, etc.  Here's just a sampling... .

William Eddy has www.HighConflictInstitute.com with books recorded lectures, etc.  He's a social worker, lawyer, mediator, writer, lecturer to other professionals (social workers, lawyers, judges, etc).  While his writings and lectures are understandable to us, they're primarily written and presented for the professionals, the decision makers.  That's so crucial since many sites and authors are viewed with less than respect by "the professionals".  He's also co-author with Randi Kreger (www.BPDCentral.com) of Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, just about our most essential handbook.

Richard Warshak has lectured and been interviewed extensively on high conflict divorces.  His book Divorce Poison also has had extensive distribution and his website describes his program "Family Bridges" to reintegrate alienated parents.

Craig Childress has a new approach to alienation, that it is an aspect of attachment issues and a form of child abuse.

One concept hard for us to accept is that most courts set a very low bar for a parent to be viewed as 'acceptable'.  (Evidently the kids don't have to have optimal childhoods, things have to be demonstrably bad to have court change things.)  Things have to get really bad for them to sit up and take notice.  And generally they move glacially slow making incremental modifications.  What that means for us is that our legal struggles are more like marathons than sprints.  Yet one important strategy is to be proactive and get the best orders we can get from the very start.  I recall my lawyer whispering to me during my divorce's temp order hearing, "Shh.  Don't worry, we'll fix it later."  Our divorces tend to take longer than normal.  My lawyer estimated 7-9 months, it was nearly two years from filing to final decree.  And not one word of the temp order was changed until the final decree.  The court's social worker recommended I move up from alternate weekends to equal parenting time, the court just moved on to the next step.  The custody evaluator recommended my then-stbEx immediately lose her temporary custody, the court just moved on to the next step.  When I later sought legal custody and majority time, it took a year and a half but equal time wasn't changed.  Things didn't improve and I sought majority time, it took a year and a half but I only got majority time during the school year.

We need to be seen as problem solvers, not the problem.  That's why you need an experienced proactive problem solver for an attorney.

Hi edo,

Have you considered having an objective MMPI-2 done on both parents? We have a member here (Matt) who doesn't post as much, but he and FD are about as knowledgeable as you can get with high conflict divorces, especially where the BPD moms manipulate the legal system. Matt had a motion to order the MMPI-2 as part of his custody evaluation. I think (if I remember correctly) the MMPI discovered that his ex had BPD.

The supporting stuff may not be strong enough in court. My ex was ordered to have a forensic psychiatric evaluation (subjective) and while it produced 20 or so pages of largely unflattering observations, it came short of diagnosing. I believe the phrase was "a personality disorder cannot be ruled out and the tending psychiatrist recommends further diagnostic testing." Something lame like that.

You need to level the playing field with her "26 hours" of assessment with someone she selected.

Thanks so much, I'm looking into this. For my situation Craig Childress hits the nail on the head, very helpful. His academic lecture on youtube is great. His multi-part series is so repetitive it comes off really strange to me, though. And that cheesy backdrop. Why?