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I don't understand how some can put on a face in the adult world (at work for example) and be a person whom people confide in, who offers sage advice and superior insight.

Then, at home, they are literally like emotional toddlers doing childish or even bizarre things somehow with the inability to apply their own insight to the situation?

I am a slow learner, and this perplexes me.

Does it pain you that a person can wear very different faces depending upon the situation, or social interaction?

My T referred to my ex as being "dis-integrated" as in not having an integrated personality. If only everyone knew what I know... .interestingly,  with my dBPD, dPTSD, and dDepression mother my friends from over 30 years ago said "your mom was always crazy." My mother was low functioning,  but maybe better integrated, or at least constant. 

It is very easy to use there empathic reflection to gain trust, it doesn't mean they have any idea what they are talking about , a lot of psycholgists just sit and nod there head.

I think I am thinking of more high functioning ones who really do seem to have a superior insight and wisdom among other healthy adults (and fool the best people). This to me seems like more than putting on a different face. They genuinely seem to understand human weakness and know how to subtly use it to their advantage.

I know that one. The one that gives advice to friends on marriage, encourages them to listen, to understand their perspective... .the one that goes into schools to teach bible stories, who's always so level headed in the work place... .and the. The front door closes and all rational thought goes out the window.

Are teenagers any different?

I am new to all of this - it has taken me many years to come out from the shadows - feeling guilty and blaming myself.  My son who is 35 is high functioning, married with children, but displays such childish behaviour and is vile and destructive verbally to me.   His behaviour fools most of the outside world and is charming and articulate.  He chooses his victims well i.e. myself and by proxy my daughter, his sister, who he is intensly jealous of.  He preys on our weaknesses that we will not expose him in order to keep the peace.  My question is if he is able to decide by himself who to hurt or who to charm how do we, his victims, learn how to change his pattern of behaviour towards us without causing more pain and heartache.  Running for the hills seems to be the best solution but with grandchildren in the mix its not that simple.

Oh man, I hear you!

My BPDw is a mental health counselor, specializing in traumatized children. And she's great at her job, her clients love her and she really seems to do good work! But at home it's the same stuff that everyone here goes through: volatile moods, constant criticism, intense fear of abandonment. These traumatized kids she works with all have the setup to end up with BPD themselves, ironically.

I still can't totally comprehend how she can be so functional at work, and show such insight with her kids, and be such a disaster in her marriage, family, and friendships.

The issue is at the level of emotions. They may have the emotional regulation skills of a toddler but people with BPD are not intellectually delayed- they have the mind skills of an adult and can be quite intelligent. It is the poor emotional regulation that can be disabling. Someone who has the mind of a child is intellectually disabled- and that person will also behave like a child emotionally because that is the level of their thinking skills.

Someone on this board posted that BPD is a disorder of attachment- the behaviors are worse with the people they are the most intimate with and the most intimate relationship is romantic one. Emotional investment is high, and so emotional dysfunction can be too. Most of us find it easier to act our best in informal or professional relationships. These are easier to manage for people with BPD too.

Most of us also behave in a more formal/professional role at work and are more casual with people closest to us. Same for pwBPD but the contrast is bigger. A professional relationship can be easier. The roles of the therapist/client are defined. The pwBPD can find this easier to manage than a romantic relationship. Just because they can behave themselves with people they know superficially does not mean they are able to do this with people they are close to.

We can also fall into enabling them because they are adults who function well in other circumstances, so we assume their behavior is different from a toddler having a tantrum. Why do toddlers have tantrums? It is because they have not yet gained emotional regulation skills to manage their uncomfortable feelings. If a toddler wants a cookie before dinner, and the parent says "no"- his feelings are there- they aren't wrong- he is angry, hungry, frustrated and he wants a cookie but he can't manage this so he throws a tantrum. If he was an adult, he might do other things too- manipulate  someone to get it, or if he can, buy his own. If the toddler throws a tantrum- and the parent gives him the cookie, he learns that this gets him what he wants- and keeps doing it. It is the parent's job to say "no" and let him learn the skills to manage his feelings. Children who are capable of learning these skills will do this as they mature.

I don't think think all pwBPD are children who were spoiled, but they didn't gain/learn emotional regulation skills and as adults learned more ways to get what they want. I am sure that some of them have good and well intended parents- but this is how they were, and others grew up in families with dysfunction. Maybe this is a kind of delay in skills for them- they may not have been able to learn to do this well. However, we have to not enable these behaviors or manage their feelings for them. As to how they can learn to do this- I am not a therapist, but I think this is one of the aims of that for people with BPD.

We are constantly pushed and pulled in our relationships with them, because you can never quite predict that day if you will be able to relate to them in adult mode or if they have lapsed into child mode. That has led me to shut down and distrust my BPDh. We are on constant cycles of my saying the behaviour is impossible to live with then him changing into Mr Right for just long enough to give me hope, and it hurts all the more when suddenly the screaming child acts out.

Reminds me of a long ago discussion by xW's uncle (the FOO displayed many Cluster B features... .).  He rambled on on on about how his brain was a collection of "rooms" and he would navigate from one to the other, always closing the door behind him. And that helped him get through his day.  I did not understand the significance of this soliloquy for many years, but I do now.

Not all the rooms are visibly disordered.

Oh boy, this is the million dollar question isn’t it? I was amazed how many times we would be having an argument at home, would need to go out (for a meal reservation for instance) and he could suddenly “hold court” appearing charming and smart and handsome, and then as we returned home the tantruming toddler would immediately return.

I was always so confused and heartbroken - like why can’t you still be that person for ME?

I swear... .a lot. In fact I think it's fair to say that I have a potty mouth... .but as soon as I'm in the presence of my mother I don't say a single offensive word. How can I turn my potty mouth off? It's unconscious for sure and doesn't involve that much effort. Is it my "normal"? No. Similarly I rarely swear in front of the kids, again, this takes minimal effort.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that consiously I know that swearing in front of my mother and kids is not a good thing and there would be negative consequences for that. Sweating in front of others and my W has very little negative consequences and therefore I have never consiously or more importantly subconsciously trained myself to not swear.

Our BPD SO's have not been trained that there are negative consequences for treating us badly in private, but maybe they have been aware of the shame of being horrible to us in public. If they knew they were being filmed or you had a lodger, would they behave in the same way? I think sometimes this is where a 3rd party accountability coach is good.