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so, i'm teetering on the absolute brink of splitting up with my BPD partner. we're currently having four NC days, so that we can stop the constant fighting that has gone on for weeks and weeks. we're scheduled to talk again on monday. before i do talk to him, i'd like to (try and) clarify a question in my mind:. i'm confused as to what my partner's genuinely positive traits as a human being are and what are "fake-good" traits, that are just part of the BPD thing?. for example, when i look back on our (intensely beautiful) courtship phase, i used to think it was so beautiful because he is an amazing, smart, gentle, strong, caring person. now, looking back on that time, all i see is the BPD-idealization phase. now, i wonder if he ever truly loved me at all. or whether it was all just some intricate pattern of him clinging onto me needily. . how on earth can i separate what are his genuinely good traits as the individual human being he is and what are fake-good behaviours and traits that are just a weird BPD thing?. i'll give another example:. in the past, when we had minor or medium-sized disputes, i used to be amazed at how quickly and easily he "made up" after a fight. i thought he was the most gentle and forgiving and easygoing and good-natured person i'd ever met. now i think he's someone who can't stand conflict and needs to "make up" no matter what. so he doesn't "mind" how big or fundamental or important our disagreement is - he's willing to ignore any and all of that, just to have things "be okay" between us again. i'm really confused. are many/ all of his "good" traits actually just fake-good BPD traits?. if i'm in love with him for his wonderful traits, i want to be sure they are actually genuinely his traits and genuinely good ones. i don't want to be in love with him for weird BPD behaviour that's solely aimed at him getting his BPD needs met

Even though a lot of self-help books say to separate the person from the condition (It's not him, it's the BPD or the OCD), I don't think that this is really possible.  BPD is not something that a person catches and then goes away.  It is a fundamental part of them--that's why it is a Personality Disorder.

I don't think you can say that the idealization phase was not a "real" part of him or was "fake-good" traits.  The pattern of splitting is a major part of who he is.  It is REAL that he quickly moves between idolization and devaluation.  Both are "real" in the sense that they are part of the real him--a person with BPD.

The false accusations that a person with BPD makes against you are not real.  "You must be having an affair!  I know it.  Let me see your phone!"  But their behavior is real--the real insecure person they are. 

That's really a good question (and sounds like something that my x would write about me except replacing BPD with CPTSD).

Anyway, the only real way to gauge such things is consistency over time.

Typically, during the idealization phase, the pwBPD mirrors his/her partner. This is why we feel so much love for the pwBPD. We've found just what we have been looking for because we are being shown love in the exact same manner that we show it. It must be real right?  

It's nearly impossible for the pwBPD to maintain the mirror image though, and that's when the mask comes off. It's then that we tend to see who the pwBPD actually is.

So, you need to ask yourself if the actions are consistent, or do they change based on emotional state?

As BoP said, it's a fundamental part of who they are. I don't think that you should try to separate the person from the condition. You either RADICALLY ACCEPT (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=89910.0) the person including their disorder, or you don't.

: ). kay, well i'm still learning. i think i do need to work out what traits are BPD traits tho - at least to get it straight in my head. like i said, my partner is soo quick to make up after a fight. if he were emotionally mature and we had a fight and he was quick to make up after the fight from a sense of emotional maturity i would be really impressed by that. however, if my BPD partner wants to make up immediately after a fight because of extreme clingy-ness and fear of abandonment, then that's not a "positive trait" (ability to make up really well after fights) rather it's an inability to cope with disagreement and conflict . . so i don't think i'm trying to "separate the person from the condition". i realise that he is who he is. . what i want to do is analyse the behaviour that i had previously assumed were really great and mature traits, but that may actually be weird, loopy BPD stuff. . i'll give another example: i used to think he was a really devoted partner and i loved him for it. now, with terrible BPD behaviour these past months, it's become apparent he wants something he calls "total exclusivity" which to him means my entire life is to be solely about him. ideally, he would like me to have no friends (female or male), no work, no interests outside of him and our relationship. again, i'm suddenly seeing what i previously thought was a lovely trait (devotion) in a new light and it's not devotion-due-to-deep-love-and-closeness but devotion-due-to-clingyness-and-fear-of-abandonment. don't you think these are important differences? (again, i don't mean to separate him from his condition). i just want to realistically view his behaviours that i previously (naively) assumed were lovely and positive. i'm trying to not be addicted to the idealization, the "devotion", the "being quick to make up", etc. those seemingly(!) positive traits can be soo convincing and so powerful. they can seem like really great personality traits and like strength of character. until you realise that it all comes from a sense of neediness and insecurity. he's not sticking close to me cos he likes who i am - he's sticking close cos he's scared of being alone - he loves me like a security blanket. because i'm just starting on the "ohhhh it's BPD" journey, i need to get my head around these things. i'm scared of being addicted to the fake-good traits that come from deep insecurity and neediness. i don't want to mistake clingy-ness for true love

the reason i'm asking this stuff is cos the negative BPD traits are so easy to identify. but the "positive" traits can be hard to pick, cos they're so sweet/ flattering/ feel so much like true love. . the idealization phase was the most beautiful time of my life, haha. in retrospect, i'm embarrassed to admit that! but while it was going on (and i was blissfully unaware it was a BPD idealisation phase and blissfully unaware of all the negative BPD behaviour that would follow) i was tootally loving that phase. (and who wouldn't? haha - don't we all kinda love being idealised?)   : ). so while i find the negative BPD traits really easy to pick, i find it soo much harder with the "positive" ones. i mean, in some ways i find his clingy-ness adorable, sweet, charming, loving, tender, romantic, etc. and i don't want to do that! i want to help him grow, so i need to be able to identify that behaviour as "clingy" and "needy" and not go "ooh how sweet and romantic"   : P

Would you agree you are asking about motivations?

If so... .will you ever truly know if they "really" love you?

Focus on behavior.  That is usually what really affects you.

FF

PWBPD tend to feel emotions very deeply and do not recover from them as quickly as others. This makes me wonder about the "quick to make up" part and whether or not it's because of BPD.


Also, the clinging and neediness stems from insecurity. They can be minimized by helping him feel secure with you if that's the road you decide to follow.

hmm, i guess it's kinda bout motivations. what i'm trying to address for me, is why did i get into a relationship with him. and how much of the stuff that i love about him has recently turned out to be clingy BPD stuf. i think things like the intensity and the clingy-ness etc is stuff that makes BPD ppl quite "attractive". i don't want to be attracted to him for those reasons.

. Yes, that happens lots too. But what has recently become apparent is that he goes into total denial about some of the arguments we have. He completely glosses over them. Initially, I thought he was really great at "making up quickly". But I've come to find that when we fight, he either can't make up at all, or does those pretend-make-ups, to just make things be "okay" again, as quickly as possible.

i'm worried that when i talk to him on monday, he'll be BPD-charming and i'll fall for that stuff again (cos it does feel kinda nice). and then i'll think "ooh he's being nice (to me)" instead of thinking "it's BPD, he's clinging to me like i'm a security blanket"

lots and lots of thinking last night and this morning. lots and lots of working out how i feel. (it's hard to work out, because the "ooh it's BPD" thing has only just happened so recently and that was as i was walking away from the relationship that had been crappy BPD behaviour and constant fighting for the past few months). so, the result is:. i'm still in love with him. very much. but i am WORRIED that that is not healthy. i'm worried that i've fallen for someone with BPD. i'm worried i'm loving someone with really unhealthy relationship patterns. i'm worried i'm basically just his security blanket. i'm wondering whether i should walk away, despite being in love with him, just cos that would be the healthier thing to do. sigh

It can almost go without saying that these relationships are confusing at best!


Are you saying that you are worried that loving someone with BPD is not healthy? In my mind, that would depend on the reasons that you love him.

It seems like many people, when they come to this site, are trying to save, or decide whether or not to save, their relationship are doing it from a position of fear, obligation, guilt and/or co-dependency. You have not left me with the impression that is the position from which you are operating.

If that's truly the case, just loving someone is not, in and of itself, unhealthy.


Would you be just as worried if it was another psychological/emotional problem? What if he had some other emotional handicap?


That is a very genuine concern. Fortunately, you are in just as much control of the pattern of your relationship as he is. Now that you are recognizing the patterns, you have the power to change them where you are concerned. You've mentioned before that you have good, healthy relationship boundaries. Those will serve you well. What he chooses to do from there is entirely up to him.


Are you saying that you are worried that he doesn't actually love you and that you're just a security blanket for him?

If so, can you look at his actions when he's not emotionally aroused and compare them to when he has been triggered by the thought of losing you? How do they compare?


You are the only person who will know the answer to this one. You can ask 100 different people and you may get 100 different answers. There are people on these boards who will tell you to run away as fast as you can if you suspect BPD is in play here. There are others of us who will support you if you make the decision to stay.

I had to look at my relationship and decide at what point I would decide that it was unhealthy for me. Each of our thresholds are very different from the next person's. For some, their level of self-worth, self-vision, and self-respect are low (in fact that's why many of us run to these relationships to begin with), so these relationships can be extremely unhealthy and devastating. Others can separate who they are from the relationship and pwBPD and are therefore not greatly effected. Of course, the latter also depends greatly on where the pwBPD falls on the spectrum and how high functioning that person is.

The main core of BPD which causes a lot of their other problems are intense emotions. They do feel them just like anyone else, but more extreme. So if he does love, then it is just that. (I can't tell if he really does love you, because I simply don't know enough about you both or your relationship, but from what you've written I see no reason why he would not love you)
The idealization phase at first is something really common in any relationship, not just BPD. But yeah, of course thanks to BPD again it is more intense. (Just like the bad times are)
And yes you are right, pwBPD do mostly get very clingy and needy. That clingy- and neediness is not caused by love, but by their fear of abandonment. Now here's what I personally think: Fear of abandonment is something that everyone has, not just pwBPD. Obviously not in that extreme form, but isn't everyone a little afraid of just being left alone by their partner one day or a possible break up? Due to extreme emotions in BPD that become this fear of abandonment which makes them so needy and clingy. They're scared of losing their partner or friend. That fear plays into / or even conflicts with their love, which is just as much of a real emotion as that fear.

His traits, both positive and negative, are all and none just his BPD at the same time. They're normal traits taken to an extreme or traits caused to appear through extreme emotions. That doesn't make them any less real.

Considering what I said before, they're naturally real. Of course a pwBPD can fake emotions, just like a normal person. This might occur more often in pwBPD than others too. That faking is mostly subconscious though. They don't mean to actively manipulate you, but do it unknowingly out of their fear of abandonment. With BPD more so than others it can be extremly hard to actually say if an emotion, trait or action is fake or genuine. I'd put it on a level with someone who actively manipulates people and learned and trained this to perfection.
In the end it comes down to you again to decide if it's real or not, because you know him and your own emotions best.

Regarding the fast making up, that does actually sound kind of uncommon to me. Though they have mood swings, pwBPD can hold a grudge stemming from an arguement for really long. But explaining it logically to you and myself, this probably comes from the fear of abandonment again. Not considering if he actually means to make up or not, he does it, because he fears it might otherwise escalate further into you abandoning him.

It is good for you to recognize his BPD and bad traits caused by it, but also for you not to degrade him to that, because he's a human with real emotions too.


Now what I'll write here will go further than just answering your question:

All his traits and actions are and are not caused by his BPD like said earlier. And they all can be influenced.
If you decide to stay with him, you should try to "feed" his positive traits while not feeding into his negative ones.
Let's take fear of abandonment, which is a core issue for many other things like the neediness for example, as an example:

Right now, at least from what you've said so far, it seems like he has told you or at least you know that he'd prefer in his ideal world if you had no friends, other hobbies, etc. and basically only lived for him.
Now in a negative light, this is obviously a negative trait, which could very deeply influence your relationship in a bad way.
In a positive light, it seems like he does respect you and those things though. He doesn't demand from you to drop those things and doesn't actively force you to do what he wants, because he knows that you want and like those things.

Now a good way to feed the positive trait, that he respects you and allows those things, you could "reward" him for it. If you go out with friends, you could tell him that you'll do something with him afterwards, just tell him something like for example "Let's do X once I'm back / tomorrow." or if that's not possible for whatever reasons just something like "Can't wait to get back home to you.". This lessen his fear of abandonment and clinginess, because he knows that you'll be back and won't enjoy those things more than spending time with him (even if you do) or leave him.


Sorry for the long post  :)

@ meili. uh huh  : ). thanks for your thoughts! yup, i'd say getting romantically involved with someone who has BPD is about the equivalent of getting romantically involved with an alcoholic. i think it's definitely a cause for concern. and i would think loong and hard as to whether i think it's a workable/ sane idea. just as i'd be worried that becoming romantically involved with an alcoholic could mean i may end up in (or even subconsciously be seeking?) a co-dependent role... i am worried what becoming romantically involved with someone with BPD "says" about my psychological make-up and my motivations etc. does it mean i'm weird? hahahaha : ). (who cares. i know)  : ). i guess i'm just freaked out that if i fall in love with someone with BPD, that may mean i'm a BPD-co-dependent or a BPD-enabler or someone who "needs" to "rescue" ppl, or yada yada yada. if i was knowingly becoming romantically involved with someone who was an alcoholic, i'd question my sanity for sure... sigh. : ).

. hey canna, THANK YOU for the long post  : ). yeah, i agree that idealization is normal during the falling-head-over-heels phase  : ). which is why i didn't pick up on it as a BPD thing at all, at the time. (will keep reading your post and reply more in a bit)

@ canna. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh : ). wow, thank you soo much! you totally intuited what my question was, despite my asking it so clumsily. and THANK YOU for your answer. what you wrote makes a lot of sense and is very reassuring. as i've said, we had 18 stunningly gorgeous months of a long-distance relationship (honestly the most beautiful 18 months of my life ever) and then 4 months of attrocious BPD behaviour that came totally out of the blue for me and where i had NO idea what was going on. it really twisted my mind and i had finally decided on wednesday to truly walk away from that painful mess that kept getting WORSE (not better) despite all attempts to sort it out, and had decided tobreak up with him. the space and clarity afforded by finally walking away gave me the opportunity of calmly looking back at the last 22 months and thinking "what on EARTH was all that about?" and thinking through it calmly (an unemotionally) it was suddenly so apparent that it was BPD). the reason i'm mentioning is that my mind has been through a roller coaster of extremes with all the shifts in behaviour and the crazy-making BPD stuff and the break up and suddenly realising it's BPD. so at the moment i'm really confused and don't trust my gut instincts and am questioning myself and my (ex?) partner and trying to get my head around the BPD stuff. as you've kindly recognised, i'm totally confused as to some aspects of it : ). thank you for pointing out the basics (which are blindingly obvious, unless you're confused as heck) haha : ). you're right. it's about emotions being more extreme and therefore more conflicted. it's not so much about emotions or traits being "fake". i need to start feeling a bit more grounded and regain my footing and my confidence after all of these roller-coaster experiences. i need to remember he's a great person (with issues). not an issue with a bit of nice person thrown in. : ). heartfelt thanks for your words of wisdom and compassion. x

"PWBPD tend to feel emotions very deeply and do not recover from them as quickly as others. This makes me wonder about the "quick to make up" part and whether or not it's because of BPD."

Splitting can be a source of the quick makeup.  You are painted black during the fight--100% evil.  But BPDs often split the target right back to white and start showing affection.  It can be very disconcerting, and it is also invalidating for the non.  They treat the non as if there is something wrong that they they are still hurt or angry--a hours or even a few minutes after horribly abusing the non!

. good point : ). and as i've said, he does both - loong grudge holding (these days) but especially during the idealization phase (but also still now, some of the time) incredibly quick (and fake-seeming) make-ups, as if the fight suddenly made him remember his fears of abandonment

Hey fellow villager!  (referencing "it takes a village in other post)

You can help your pwBPD have less severe swings from painting you black and white.  It's not an exact science, but you do play a role.  This also can apply to "push/pull".

Imagine paddle ball.

https://youtu.be/YSreLt-qR1k


Now... imagine that your pwBPD desperately wants to be close and intimate with you.  (that's when they "smack" the paddle).  Once they realize they are close... .they run.

So... .when they are coming towards you, what happens if you race towards them?  (Yep... watch that ball stretch!)

What happens if when they come racing at you... .if you decide to be still.  Or perhaps pull back... just a bit.  The "energy" is taken out of the "smack".

Another way of looking at it and turning your mind towards validating.

If they go "white" and go level 8 (on 1-10 scale)... .give them a white #2.  Same direction... but much less.

If they go black on level 6... .same thing... .give them back some black but tone it down.  As they head towards the middle... .you go there too.

So... ."You blah blah blah... .my life is over... .our r/s is over... .this is worst then ever"

You:  "Bad days are hard to handle.  I would like to listen to what you are feeling"

Make sense? 

FF

makes perfect sense : ). thank you. this is a cool village  : )

Personal testimony:  I was in really bad shape when I found this place.  I had only recently had my "light bulb moment" and read SWOE.

People here gave good advice and pointed me in the right direction. 

My life and my relationship with my wife is immensely better.

FF

: ). thanks. it's much appreciated

. yeah, i certainly don't feel i need to/ should continue this relationship out of fear/ obligation/ guilt. we have no joint children/ house etc. i have no religious reasons for continuing the relationship. i would be sad and would miss him if the relationship ends, but i know i would survive a break-up emotionally. i've supported him 100% and then some and love him dearly, so i have no reason to feel guilt. the co-dependency thing i'm less sure about, cos obviously that's harder to spot in yourself! : ). i guess as i become less confused and learn to trust my gut instincts again, i'll get an honest impression, deep down, as to whether i'm loving him for co-dependent reasons or not. thanks for helping me untangle all this jumbled stuff, bit by bit : ).

Chiming in late here, and hopefully my skimming will mean I am contributing something different, maybe.

Rather than trying to determine what traits are BPD,
Or determine what is a good vs bad thing... .

Why not focus on YOUR needs and
What works for you?

... .

For example,
Some folks have some primitive coping mechanisms
Like blame, projection, etc

Some behaviors, roll off me like oil and water.
I am left somewhat unaffected
Yet others seem to cause a feeling of being stabbed to my core
And others, something in between

... .

Yet, rather than label things
Bad
Vs
Good

Why not just decide what works for you?

Cause for me, some stuff one considers "bad" really can be ok with me.
Also some things some consider "good" really don't work for me.
Idk

I think the way you approach it is more important than anything else.

hi sunflower. yes absolutely : ). beautiful advice. i guess i'm just taking   b.a.b.y.    s.t.e.p.s.   at the moment : ). i'm only on Day 4 of my "ohhh it's BPD" journey. so i'm still getting my jumbled head around the basics which are blindingly obvious to anyone who's been on this journey for more than four days, haha. so yes, over time, i think i'll be doing exactly what you suggest. and you're completely right with your reminder how subjective and individual it all is. . cos i've just come out of the tail end of 6 crazy-making BPD months, my mind wants some "basic rules" right now (as part of the baby steps). as i become more confident and regain faith in my gut instincts again, i'm sure i'll be more flexible and focus more on what works for me (and for my partner, if he's not become my ex-partner by then). thank you heaps for your thoughts! : )

i would like to add another point to the question of what positive traits are actually due to the BPD tho... because i do think that BPD has some very specific issues - we are able to recognise the negative ones very easily, but i think the "positive" ones are harder to spot accurately. . using the analogy that BPD people are often a bit like a 3 year old kid... i think one of the traits that actually makes BPD people so attractive is that they have all the fantastic qualities that 3 year old kids do too. they can be incredibly genuine. they can love intensely. they can have a great sense of fun. they can be incredibly spontaneous. they can be really warm and sweet. they can be incredibly charming and adorable. they can have genuine curiosity and love learning and trying new things. they give you their full attention. they can have a contageous sense of optimisim and faith and naivety. they believe really strongly in their values. they can be incredibly creative and artistic. they can be incredibly enthusiastic. like 3 year olds - who are in the developmental stage/ the process of forming deep, meaningful bonds to the people close to them -  BPD people seek strong, deep, genuine, valuable bonds with us. in comparison to BPD people, non-BPD people can seem:. boring, reserved, bland, serious, jaded, cynical, lame, and all the other things we used to dislike about "grown-ups" when we were still kids ourselves. . so i think it's also kinda important to realise that the attributes we find soo charming and gorgeous and sweet and disarming and lovable in our BPD partners, are in part also actually just plain BPD traits. these beautiful, touching, infinitely sweet characteristics are actually kinda just the flip-side of allllllll them difficult, challenging, negative BPD traits that we all know so well and can identify at the drop of a hat. . i do think it's important to be aware of that. because many of us know how addictive those "positive" BPD traits can be. they make the BPD person seem so special, charming, amazing, sweet, vibrant, etc. those traits and their wish to form incredibly strong, deep bonds can have an incredibly addictive effect on us

I don't at all want to dampen your enthusiasm to figure out  this thing called BPD.

I would suggest that you lessen the amount of time you seems to be spending trying to separate BPD from the person.

This is part of their "personality"... .it's who they are.  It's how they perceive the world. 

Can it change... .yes.  Will it change if you use tools consistently and effectively.  Yes again.

However... .understand the "entire package" will change.  I'm not aware of an option where BPD goes away and a person remains unchanged "underneath it".


Hope this helps... .and makes sense.

FF

Hmmmm--I think you're onto something quite important. Why I think it matters: we naturally associate all those wonderful qualities with other qualities. If someone is deeply excited about something and says it's very important, it follows (we make this unconscious association of assumption) that they will value, cherish and take care of that thing. There's a sense of safety and confidence that starts to grow because they are conveying their sincere unbridled enthusiasm ... .

But then they end up not taking care of the thing. They damage it or act in ways incompatible with actually caring.

So it's not just that we love those qualities you list, it's that we read those as clues to what is the deeper, true state of affairs, and those clues are wildly misleading. They don't mean what they seem to mean--they mean enthusiasm for the moment, they are not an indicator of a deeper truth. They have only a surface significance.

It is indeed really hard to know what to do with that. The person wBPD in my life can (still) say and do things toward me that are remarkably beautiful. But the next day he acts as if that never happened and none of the implications of those actions and words are true. So those actions and words don't have the same significance as they would coming from someone else.

I think your observation is actually an important one for orienting oneself in these r/ships.

@ patientandclear. thanks. yeah, i think it's a subtle thing. and we're usually so focussed on the negative aspects of BPD. we totally "oversee" the fact that the positive aspects of BPD are exactly that  - they're part of the condition too!

. hi formflier. thank you for your thoughts. i do know what you mean re over-thinking things. and i take that on board : ). i kinda disagreee on this point tho:. i think that for conditions like PTSD or depression or anxiety, there is a separation between the person's underlying, individual personality and the traits that are primarly due to the condition. i agree that BPD runs much deeper than those conditions, so you could say it'll "never go away" and hence the person will always have those traits, so you may as well treat it like it's part of their personality anyway. or that it can go away, but then their personality has changed too. . i guess it's an individual thing, whether i / you find it important to understand these distinctions. i agree that for many ppl, stuff like this is irrelevant. but i'm a thinky nerd (always have been, always will be) so to me it matters to get the subtle stuff sorted out in my head : ).

Where this came into play for me: when I realized that the incredible specialness I felt with my ex wBPD (it seemed like we had a rare mindmeld, we shared things I don't share with hardly anyone, we saved up big and little things to share ... .You all know the dynamic) was rare on my side but on his side, something he gives out like candy. One time he asked to meet a good friend of mine who was popping up in my accounts of my daily life ... .We had dinner together. They didn't have a ton in common and there seemed to be no particular sparks btwn them. But a few days later, he ran into her on the street, and she described it as feeling like she was the most important person in the world. She said if she did not know me and what I'd gone through with him, she'd have assumed they were on a road to soul mate-hood.

Point being, the feelings they kindle in us seem to flow from our assumption that the good stuff means more than what's on the surface. But other than a deep longing for it to be so, it seems that it doesn't necessarily connote anything deeper or more enduring.

Hard to put words on this but I think you're right. Some people may not mind. For me, it takes some of the meaning of out what meant so much to me.

@ patientandclear. my theory on what BPD is, is this:. you know how we all need to form one or two intial, really really deep bonds as infants/ toddlers to know we are connected? (it's what those poor orphans in Romanian orphanages never got, for example). another example is when baby ducks hatch out of the egg - whatever living being they first see over a period of time becomes "mum" - regardless of whether that's a duck, a human, a dog, a cat, etc. it's that initial, deep bond that needs to be hardwired into us, so that we deeply know we exist and we are seen/ heard. well, i think that's what BPD ppl don't have - they don't get an intial bond, maybe because their parents have a personality disorder themselves, or whatever. so they go round in life, trying to find that deep initial bond that we all need. it's their unfinished business and they need to finish it (and rightly so). so they are walking around, trying to make soul-mate connections. it's what makes them so open and charming and intense. and i think it is possible for them to make such a bond - with a lot of help, love and therapy. but until they've been able to do it, that searching-for-a-soul-mate intensity will shine from them with incredible brightness. . i think many actors/ celebrities have this type of BPD. it's what makes them such an intense presence. they interact with their audiences in that intense, emotional, seeking-soul-mate type way. and their fans drool over them, lapping that specialness up. (i think you can actually make heaps of money from a BPD condition that way)  . : ).

@ patientandclear. my BPD partner has that soul-mate effect on everyone too btw. but he HATES it. he calls it "flirting". (which it's not, but it's what he's convinced himself it is). and he HATES that women will respond flirtingly/ sexually to his soul-searching BPD intensity. so he forces himself not to do it, cos the flirting/ sexual responses scare him. . i don't think it's something BPD people "hand out like candy". it's a desperate search - one they can't help and that they can't stop being on

This subject--separating the good from the bad--weighs so heavily on me. It is impossible to deny her goodness, yet the chaos-making piece goes like this: how can someone so good treat the person she called her beloved as something to be discarded for what in truth is simply a delusion. She "split" (black and white) and triangulated and fabricated and we're done. The memory of the goodness, though, simply won't go away.

I keep thinking this situation for me is no different than that of anyone who has been jilted, but somehow it feels particularly painful because of the intensity between us and the way it ended. If the intensity had been unalloyed with the disorder and all the values of the intense love had also been unalloyed then we would have lived through everything together. Or, so I think. Love to be love endures.

Losing her is devastating emotionally, but there's also such a devastating ethics and values crisis in this for me: altruism and my convictions about love and the goodness of human affection have been undermined. I brought with me to the relationship all that I am and all my values (and I don't mind saying that I brought all my intensity and soul to it) so now what? I poured all my love and all my convictions into the relationship and heard them echoed back. There was such an incredible reciprocating energy between us, yet how can that end with such delusions as the rationale? (I say delusions because she was so deeply not herself when she ended things--so paranoid and persecuted and unmoored.)

I don't know how to end this post: part of me says in self-mockery "boo-hoo!" "get over it" and part of me says who the hell am I now if all my best (and, sure, some of my crap too, because I'm not perfect) counts as nothing in the end.

. yes. a BPD person will seek to reach your very, very, very core, hoping to find the bond they need there. if for whatever circumstances, they aren't quite able to make that bond and they move away, that's devastating for the person they tried - but failed - to bond with. i think it's a very particular trauma. and i think you should treat it as a trauma. it's not just "boo-hoo, get over it". please have compassionate with yourself for that intense experience. can you try writing some more, to help get some more clarity for yourself?

Dear hmmmmm, thanks for the invitation to say more. It's worth saying that the relationship was four years long. We were everything to one another. I could on and on about how we fit in every way. We were children together, were intellectual, were silly, were intense, were partners, we were one another's beloved, and on and on. I feel a bit self-absorbed to say it and, but in truth there are no words for the profundity of what I felt for her. We went to the most intimate places I know. I do think she felt something very similar back, but that's dangerous territory now--that is, to guess at what she felt. So perhaps there's something to what you say about trauma. I used the words glory and darkness to describe the relationship in a different post on this forum: those words still fit. The darkness during the four years was more like a bit of twilight in which we always lit candles together. The real darkness landed out of the blue--the phone call at  two in morning and the subsequent and instant unravelling. The real darkness is where I find myself now: it feels existential, ethical, moral, sexual, intellectual, emotional, . . . . I don't mean to land too many pompous words, but that is how I think and how we lived and loved, even while it was so deliciously simple to sit silently together or simply to hold one another in what I thought was utter peace.

@renard. wow . yeah. i get it. i think many of us do. i've been in my relationship for 2 years. 18 months of the deepest joy - as you describe it. the happiest 18 months of my life EVER. the last 6 months have been BPD dysregulation, with me wondering what was going on. for four days now, i've realised it's BPD. i can relate to what you've written. i spent the past 6 months saying "stop" tho, so for me the trauma hasn't been as deep. i could tell straight away "something" was wrong . i am a little bit traumatised, but not as badly as you are. i think you will need time to recover from it. it will start to hurt less, over time. you will gain some understanding of what happened and that will - over time - help heal the pain too. and eventually you will feel enough trust to have another relationship, without worrying that the same thing could happen again. BPD is a very powerful condition - both with the positive and the negative stuff. please keep writing if you feel it is helpful to you

Hmmmm--yes, I agree with you about where it comes from.  By "handing out like candy," I didn't mean to trivializing the quest, only to point out that when everyone is special, no one is that special.  What I thought was about me wasn't really about me -- it was about his need and hope and how poorly he took care of all the special people who cared about him previously.  Seeing that, as part of bpdfamily.com, has meant that the sparkly stuff doesn't mean what it used to to me.

What is left is what we actually did and shared together.  That WAS real and it was unusual and it was good.  That said, he still doesn't know how to take care of that, is scared of that, sabotages, doesn't keep any promises, and has no meaningful insight about what happens.  When he feels bad about the r/ship he seems to conclude that that is because he has yet to meet the right person with whom he won't have those bad feelings.  It's a recipe for so much hurt.

Thanks, Hmmmmm. I don't mind saying I am a bit of a mess. I just can't quite believe the way things ended and that is over. I expect that's denial, but that's where I am now.

@ patientandclear. @renard. yes, i think we need to be aware that the BPD's quest for that vital first deep bond looks a lot like a romantic relationship, looks like "true love". maybe a BPD's quest for a deep first bond can turn into a romantic relationship/ true love? i'm not sure. i would guess tho, that it's only possible if the partner knows it's BPD, has help in dealing with that, and the BPD person is able to find ways of growing. the chances of all that happening are pretty slim, imo. it takes an incredible amount of luck, to get all of those factors to work. so chances are that the BPD's quest for that deep bond they need for their survival as a human being, will fail and they will need to move on and try again with someone else. i don't think it necessarily fails because we, the partner are not the right person. so many unlucky coincidences can disrupt the process of forming that deep bond. . i think we need to be aware tho, that that bonding process is more about therapy than it is about romantic love. BPD's choose us because they hope/ think/ trust we will be loving, caring therapists for them and help heal them. we choose the BPD because we are in love with them and think they are offering us a deeply beautiful romantic relationship. i think it's a mix-up. that's all. . in very few cases, it is possible to create that healing bond as part of a romantic relationship, thereby combining the therapeutic healing with the romantic love. but most of us aren't that lucky - most of the time a BPD's quest for that deep healing bond will fail and they will move on, leaving a traumatised ex-partner behind wondering what the heck just happened and wondering how to pick up the pieces

hmmmmm, thanks. I got pretty close to the second scenario you describe. I'm older than my now ex partner and stood in the dual role of lover and helper, but I didn't know anything about BPD as helper. I counselled as best friend, lover, partner, collaborator and so on, so I did think we were completely able to withstand what may have come. But, and that's a big but, I didn't recognize anything about BPD. I saw all the turbulence and such, but did not quite think I would be focal point when she split and turned all the energy of the disorder to me. That's the excruciating part: I think if she came back and I was better ready and somewhat healed after this episode that we could well again. I want to hope that's true, even though everyone's wisdom says abandon all hope and find a way to live without her.

. i understood what you meant about handing out candy. and re-reading my comment, i thought it sounded too abrupt, but i couldn't click on the "modify" button anymore, to soften my comment! i only wanted to say that i don't think it's a voluntary thing they do. . i feel a lot like you do about it "not being about me". i've written here that i feel like he's just using me as his security blanket. . i think that's partly true, but i also think we're both a bit wrong : ). . yes, our BPD (ex)partners are choosing us as their security blanket for their needs. BUT they chose US not someone else. they don't randomly choose anyone. just like us, they pick the people they love and like and admire most as partners. so they did choose us, because they thought we would be the most lovely, most beautiful, most caring, most wonderful security blanket they could find, out of all the millions of potential security blankets out there. . i think we need to be aware that both of those motivations are going on. yes, to some degree they are using us, in their desparation. but also, they are choosing us, because they think we are the most trustworthy, most beautiful, most special option they have. . i think by only focussing on the fact that they used us, we're trying to protect ourselves against the hurt of having to grieve the true love we've lost. it's a hard mix of things to grieve. it's easier to just grive one: either grieving the true love we lost OR grieving the fact that we were used. i think it takes an incredible amount of courage to deeply realise that we human beings are ALL flawed and that we all fall in love out of true love but also out of a need to be held, to be seen, to be cared for. and that that is what happened to us - they genuinely loved us and they used us in their desparation, too

. : ). i think "everyone's wisdom" is also an attempt to avoid pain. people want to see you not get hurt, so they say that hope = 0%. maybe you think the same - you don't want to get hurt, so lets say hope = 0% and be done with it. my opinion is that with the help of a community like this one here, your chances are approx. 20%. in some ways, it's easier if hope = 0%. 20% is not an easy hope to live with! it's up to you, what you do. and you should base it on how strong you feel - what you feel you could cope with. if you don't feel strong enough to look after YOURSELF, then it's better to walk away from it . (that's just my opinion, tho)

@renard. btw, i split up with my partner on wednesday. then realised it is BPD. then had a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig think (here) as to whether i could cope with that and whether i still wanted to be part of the relationship, even if he was mainly using me as his security blanket. (yes, i'm a special security blanket for him, but still a security blanket). i've now decided i want to give it a go          (i think i may be crazy, haha). BUT. i think i now also have a 20% chance that it'll work. 80% chance is that he'll make me the focal point of all the negative BPD stuff now and he'll reject me for not being a good-enough-security-blanket and will move on, seeking a better one. so then i too will be going through total grieving. : (

hmmmmm, I'm sorry to know that your break up is so recent. I don't know if it's any consolation, but that has got to be difficult. I hope you have some support around you.

As for hope, I don't know to extinguish it altogether, but I feel that to nurture it is to create a kind of pain I can't bear. I also don't know how to put probability into this mix. I just hope I can at least speak to her one more time. I think that's what hope looks like--not for the relationship--but to know she is okay or that we could talk once. That's probably stupid, especially given that the final communication involved her yelling at me through the phone and then another awful voice mail in which she was not connected very closely to reality.

@renard. well, i think either way, you need to do some healing work for yourself  : ). if you want to move on from the relationship and leave it behind, then you need to heal yourself from the trauma of a BPD relationship - with it's incredibly intense and beautiful first phase and it's painful and harrowing second phase. if you want to try and somehow salvage the relationship, you need to do some healing work too, so that you have a chance of being strong enough to cope with all that a BPD relationship entails. so - either way, while you're waiting to talk to her again, you should be trying to heal this traumatic experience for yourself. take your time, be gentle with yourself, reach out when you need it, talk when talking helps, give yourself time, look at yourself with the compassion you would give someone else if they were in your situation.

hmmmmm, thanks for your good words. I do need to heal. I feel so bloody awful and still so confused, even though I think it's pretty clear she is BPD. It's good to talk--to friends, here, to you and others.

I hope you find peace also.

yeah, i'm okay. i got out of the relationship before it got really traumatic. so i managed to protect myself from the worst pain. now that i'm aware and informed about BPD, i know i can protect myself adequately

hmmmmm, thanks again for your words.

i was just meditating about what i wrote earlier today in my "oh dear, what now" thread about BPD having a totally separate "language" to how "normal" people communicate and that BPD's have trouble understanding us, too... and i came up with something that i do find truly positive about BPD. (cos i'm wondering whether it's actually as legitimate a way of living life as living life "normally" is.). sure, in today's western societies and cultures, there's a BIG focus on everyone needs to be predictable and reliable and logical (but a lot of that has to do with our modern society's need for capitalism's workers to function like that - it's the backbone of our society/ financial system, so people who fit in with that are valued more highly than everyone who doesn't fit in with that.). but zoom back in history one thousand, three thousand or ten thousand years, and there you have societies that may have highly valued people with traits like BPD. i do think we view BPD from a very biased societal point of view of what is mental "health" and what is "valuable". so if we use the metaphor, that BPD's are pretty "childlike", then what are the truly good traits of children? (i listed some of them in an earlier post in this thread). i like my partner's ability to be truly "in the moment". often, i think i'm too  "grown-up" and too sensible and rational. to counteract this, i do Zen meditation and learn Buddhist principles and skills. however, my BPD partner is a waaaaaaaaaay better Zen meditator and a waaaaaay better Buddhist than i'll ever be   : ). he's so in the moment. and if the moment is weird, he waits for it to pass, til a less weird moment comes along. i do envy him that  : ). and there are many similar examples. a lot of his "childlike" traits are EXCELLENT traits - they just really, really, really don't fit into our western, economical, structured, organised, logical set up. maybe i need to be less judgemental about whether BPD is "not normal". it certainly is DIFFERENT to what i and most people usually call "normal". and it certainly is a CHALLENGE to get BPD and "normal" stuff to be compatible and to funciton together. but maybe i need to think more along the lines of "being left-handed or being autistic or having BPD or speaking Esperanto or being a gifted singer" is all a truly valid part of human experience. sure, some of those ways of experiencing the world have their own particular challenges and some of them fit into our logical, organised western societal system better than others do, but. so what? maybe my point of view is far too "normed". (and i don't mean to be superficial here). (i don't mean to condone BPD being abusive towards their partners or their children!). but maybe BPD is a legitimate way of being in the world and a legitimate part of our human evolution and it just feels like a very foreign, strange culture to those of us who are non-BPD

hmmmmm, good thoughts. I am not quite on a same page, but at least in the same book. I think my partner could easily have been a saint or a visionary or a notable figure in another age than ours. Yeah, yeah, I'm  idealizing--or maybe not. She has so many incredibly good traits even though she has cut me to the core. I always called her my hero and told her how #@8&ing tough she is. I still admire her: the BPD cannot be easy to live with (the feelings of emptiness alone are an unimaginable burden). To bear such instability takes formidable strength.