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Sometimes, I've felt my BPD was the only person who really knew me. I shared things with her I've never told anyone else. ( which sadly got thrown back in my face, time to time )


But why is that I feel still to this day I know nothing about her?


Can this connection be real if it feels so one sided? There were moments were I felt we both only knew eacother, me and her against the world.


How can she just forget?

Forgetting and repressing are two different things.

Hey letitbe,

I used to feel the same until discovering that it was mostly her against me, rather than us against the world.

I shared plenty of private matters w/her that were inevitably used against me, to hurt me, so I question whether this indicates a real connection.

LuckyJim

They lack object constancy. That is why they need  pictures, or clothing, and blow up your phone or email so much when you are not with them. They somehow forget about you. This may be a sort of shame-based defense mechanism not sure. Am sure the info about object constancy has been discussed here many times. Also, interpersonal sensitivity is noticed by clinicians studying BPD. In other words, they have an amazing ability to read people and uncover their triggers and vulnerabilities. They call them BPD psychics. They also discovered this same ability among people with Bi-Polar Disorder. Compound this with the undefined boundaries of people with BPD, and you may have a charming devil of a person who is difficult to resist. Many people in the health care and counciling professions, and popular entertainers have BPD, who are able to connect with many people on a deep emotional level.

Mine did the pity play, saying how she was a victim of almost all the important people she had in her life, mother, father, exes etc... .etc... .She told me tale upon tale of wickedness done to her  red-flag   and I swallowed it hook line and sinker. Foolishly, I reciprocated and told her many of my personal secrets to show that I was happy to trust her. This became a pattern, and she quite quickly learnt a great deal about me, more than I should ever have allowed so early on.

And this exchanging of personal information, and me adopting the knight in shining armour to save this "victim" created a set of bonds and emotions that had very little to do with reality and far more to do with emotional manipulation. So was there a connection, yes, but not a healthy one.

And as for her, in hindsight, I didn't really know her at all. I thought I did, I very quickly created an impression of her as a clever, intelligent, caring girl, for whom the world had dealt many cruel blows and that she had done so well to achieve what she had in her life.

Now? hmmm, I think rather differently! And looking back I realise that; her actions didn't match her words, she had no hobbies or pastimes to give her personality some consistency, I was never allowed to meet her friends to build a context around her and I was barred from meeting her "evil" mother. She told me her father was dead, though she told a mutual friend that he was still alive.

Maybe everything she told me was bs.

Oh yes, and during the relationship she morphed from waif to witch.

Who was she really... .I will never know.

@ stimpy: sounds familiar.  Early on, my pwBPD enumerated the wrongs she had suffered at the hands of family, friends and employers, which I now see as a red flag.   red-flag
Sure, I took the hook, too.  Relating my personal secrets was a mistake, in hindsight, because she used them against me as a way to manipulate me. 


I did the same, creating an idealized version of a person who in reality was deeply troubled.  In order to mirror me, she adopted hobbies that I enjoyed: tennis, bicycling, hiking and guitar, which helped to convince me that we were a great couple who shared the same interests.  It was all an elaborate facade that I was unable to perceive.  Who knew?  I had no experience w/BPD.

LuckyJim

Hi letitbe223,



I think a question to ask yourself, what is emotional intimacy?

I did the same as well; the mirroring during idealization makes you think you have met your ideal partner, and when they play the poor victim and you want to rescue them, it is very easy to put too much trust in them far too early into the relationship.


She makes up her own reality to fit her current emotion of the moment, this is how you go from being so great to so awful, back to great again, and on and on... .