BPDFamily.com

Hi,

So my PBD spouse is having one of those periods  and I am going crazy. Well, almost.

Is there any article that I can send her that perhaps will be a wake up call?

Anything you did - or you realized - happened that caused your spouse to say "well, maybe I need help"?

This is the best I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iraGmA7-9FA

Though I'm in the same situation as you are and everytime I try to bring up the fact that she may have a problem, things don't go well, no matter how I do it, I gave up direct approach.

I tried showing her a BPD video in our language once, since she doesn't know English, otherwise, I would have shown her the one I linked to you, she had an episode right after and stated she doesn't have BPD and that she only does what she does because I don't do things right.

If you are wondering how I did it, I did a personality traits quiz myself a while ago and mentioned her, she became interested to me surprise, so I took advantage of it and we did it on her, I was amazed on how aware she was of her actions and feelings, things that I though she would deny, she agreed. After that I decided to mention BPD, without bringing BPD or anything related to personality disorders and mentioned that someone she likes supposedly had it (Marilyn Monroe), to soften it and give her the idea that she wouldn't be alone and someone who she always likes also had it, then I showed her a video, she stopped me 1 minute into the video and had an episode. It didn't work.

I'm very interested in this as well if you ever find out a way. I'm guessing in my case, she will take years of disappointment and suffering before she seeks help if at all.

"How did you help your BPD partner realize that they have BPD?"

You don't.

My wife's in treatment for a number of officially (very recently) diagnosed mental illnesses.  One day, with nothing left to lose, I said, hey, maybe the reason you weren't getting any better is that you've been underdiagnosed and you're BPD.  This was clearly the wrong thing to say.

"Where'd you get that? A bunch of people trying to diagnose me who've never met me?" 

"Well, you do meet all the criteria in the DSM.  In fact, you're an 'and' when the DSM is only looking for an 'or' condition."

"F*ck you I'm not a borderline."

Never mind that her official diagnoses overlap HEAVILY with the DSM 5 criteria, or that her psychiatrists and therapists have quoted the criteria to me almost verbatim.

She's lot of terrible, devastating illnesses that by themselves alone would be incredibly challenging and together form a sort of DSM Voltron of mental illness.  But she's not BPD.  Nope. 

Led to this one. Quite different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2RRaC-99r0

Oh man, that one made me break down, so grim :/, I just want to hug my gf real hard.