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During the last couple of years, I've noticed my ex (uBPD\NPD) seems to copy and paste my words back to me often when we try to communicate via text or a parenting communication website. It reminds me of when a kid says to another kid who is mimicing them "stop copying me" and the other one responds with "stop copying me" and it keeps going until someone breaks the cycle. Does anyone know what this type of behavior is called when an adult BPD person does it?

So far it only seems to happen when he gets upset about something.

For example, I wrote "I read condescension and aggression in your message above. Maybe I'm just imagining it?"
He replied with "I read control and manipulation in your refusal to adhere to the court orders. Maybe I'm just imaging it?"

A better example about a different topic: I wrote "Your assessments and assumptions are incorrect and I'm forced (for legal reasons) to state: I disagree with your assessments and assumptions. Your perceptions of the past and any perceived slights appears to be leading you to incorrect assumptions about who I am and by your constant verbal attacks on my character and motivations you are continuing the verbal harassment and emotional abuse that I am glad to be free from after 20 years with you.
Please stop."  

He then copied the above statement verbatim and pasted it right back to me.

Is this mockery? Is it deflection? Projection? Victim mentality? All of the above?

I'm learning to not make statements like these because he turns around and tries to use it against me.

i think this is a fitting description. "mockery" would be as well. i dont think this is a "BPD thing".


dont JADE. avoid relitigating the past (or the present). that will help break the cycle.

Thanks! I'm trying my best to not JADE. It takes practice.

I've also learned that I can't ignore what he wrote and not respond because then he assumes he's right about something when I actually disagree. In those cases, I usually just write that I disagree and I leave it at that.

it does. there will always be trying times/people that will test you.


are we talking about a coparenting decision here or a disagreement about how events transpired? if so, whats the worst that could happen if he assumes hes right about something?

I say this to help resolve this, get on as problem solving track - not to criticize. These are really "loaded" statements.

It might be easier to help sort this if we have the backstory... .

What were you responding to in the above text? What is the legal advise you are referring too.

Are you familiar with a tactic called BIFF?

The first example is about the spring break daycare dispute we've been having. I've posted about it on another post. It's a long story. We've had lots of miscommunication during the last couple of years. Per the last marriage/divorce counselor, she recommended letting the other person know when their statements come across as negative so we can try to work on that. That's what I was trying to do without coming across as attacking him.

In the second example, he accuses me of being abusive to him and all sorts of awful things I didn't do. We're using a website for communication that can be used as a legal document in court, if we ever were to go back to court. Per my lawyer, I was documenting that I disagree with him that I abused him for twenty years and that I'm a crappy mother and tell the kids horrible things about him (I don't). If I don't have it written that I disagree, then it's assumed I agree with what he's saying. Our court order specifies to not involve the kids in our disputes, to not bad mouth the other parent and so forth. I have proof he's done this to the kids and he projects his behaviors back on to me accusing me of doing what he's been doing with zero proof.

Yes, I am familiar with BIFF and try to use that as much as possible. These loaded statements don't happen often. Just once in awhile.

Every time mine broke it off she’d throw my words at me.

I mentioned self-care to her back when we started talking since she was always telling me she’s helping people and I suggested she should think about herself. When she broke it off the first time she said I have to fix myself, self-care remember?

Second time there was some small arguement and I told her let’s just walk away from this like nothing happened. Few days later she brought it up and said “I cannot walk away, can you?” I told her no I can’t. When she ended it this time she said “we have to forget, let’s just walk away from this like nothing happened”.

Last time she said a whole concoction of things that I’m tired of remembering, luckily might be forgetting , but my words were echoing back to me then too.

Hey there I_Am_The_Fire,

First off - I love the name; it conveys so much strength and endurance.

Second, wow - I'm impressed that you're keeping your head as much as you are right now, given how difficult it must be to be falsely accused of abuse and such. I want to second Skip's endorsement of BIFF - as difficult as it can be to implement sometimes.

I get it - the loaded statements are tough to avoid. I sent a bunch off to my STBX last week and found myself re-reading them over and over again to make sure I didn't say anything too damaging or anything that could be used against me. In legal terms, I'm fine, but I was still left with a bit of a sick feeling in my gut alongside some of the satisfaction I got for what at the time felt like sticking up for myself. The more I read about BPD and NPD, the more I can see how much I'm getting hooked by her in some of these times that I think I'm sticking up for myself. It sucks, right? Tools like BIFF feel like going grey rock, which not all of us want to do. But, if we don't want to get hooked again, or worse get ourselves in legal trouble, then the only thing standing between us and more misery is our ability to use these tools effectively.

I've found with my STBX that throwing in a little bit of validation with BIFF can calm things down pretty quickly or at least diffuse a situation enough to get me off the hook temporarily.

What might that look like in your scenario?

You mentioned that you're forced by legal reasons to state that you disagree with his assessment of the scenario. Is this language that your lawyer encouraged? If not, I wonder if there's a more BPD-friendly way to say it. (And I know, it's absolutely unfair that we have to be BPD-friendly to someone who is ripping our lives apart and accusing us of false things.)

Could you say something like "Your perceptions of the past sound really hurtful and even agonizing. I'm sorry you're having these feelings." It might not be the time or place for validation, but that's up to you to determine based on how he responds to stuff like that.

 Then throw in some BIFF... .
"This forum has been set up for communication about necessary things, like information related to the children or (fill in the blank). I appreciate your willingness to use the forum for our necessary communication." Then, if there was anything you reasonably needed to respond to about plans, the kids, anything, respond to it in a BIFF tone.

In my opinion, as much as it hurts, his insults don't require a response. He might escalate them, but if you're communicating on a website that could be used as a legal document, I say let him have at it.

As a separate issue, it might be worth posting again about how to talk to the kids about his behavior if you haven't already, or read some of the posts from other members that are dealing with this. I'm watching it go down in my FOO right now and it makes my stomach turn to see the little ones learning how to be experts at the Karpman Triangle because that's the only way they get attention from adults. Breaks my heart.

good luck to you, and feel free to try out some of your responses here before sending to him if that seems helpful.

-L

Sorry to hear you're still going through this kind of stuff.

I've noticed that anything i say gets repeated in a different context. As if she were the one saying it.

I think this has to do with projection as well. They project any perceived negative stuff about them straight back onto us.

I agree, I'm alos sorry there is this much level of conflict, this far out.  

Let break down the question... .


It looks most like a protracted cycle of conflict. You both will drop glove and punch it out when a disagreement surfaces. The conflict bring forwards all the feeling of being wronged over the years.

Which pop-cycle do you want, cherry or grape?
Cherry!
You selfish ass, you know I hate grape! (trigger)
You hate my mother too, and all she ever did was love you, but she was never good enough for you. (contempt)
I read condescension and aggression in your message above. Maybe I'm just imagining it? (passive aggressive)
I read control and manipulation in your message. Maybe I'm just imaging it, you bi__h! (passive aggressive)
FU (aggression)
FU (aggression)

Who had the "odd behavior above"?  :)id this fall apart at response #6.

We could side with you - this is crappy, no doubt - say there was nothing wrong with you text to him (then we are blaming you). We could pin it on #6, then you are right.

I'm not sure either is fair to you.


I like lighthouse's BIFF for responses in general.

My suggestion is to chat here about the real issue... .what is the ongoing fight all about?  How do you find truce?

lighthouse9, thank you!

Yes, I normally do use BIFF and gray rock. I slip up now and then and can see that too. I see a trauma therapist several times per month which helps me quite a bit. Some days I do get triggered from things he's written and I work through it with my therapist. He's been accusing me of abuse for awhile now. I've learned that his definition is different than mine. Basically, if I disagree with him then I'm abusing him, according to him. It's like we speak different languages. That and he seems to be falling into the victim mentality more, especially since he seems to see everything in black and white. If I really was a victim, in his mind that would make him the abuser which doesn't fit with his reality. Therefore, I must be the abuser and he must be the victim. I think we're basically toxic to each other now and he doesn't see that. I am working on not being codependent anymore. I am no longer a doormat. I have found my voice and will speak my mind now. It's pretty much the opposite of how I used to be and I think he's not sure how to handle that still.

In this recent scenario, he calmed down quite a bit after I had asked him if everything was okay. He normally doesn't go off the deep end with accusations unless something triggered him like a breakup. He says he's very happy actually and that he and his girlfriend are doing great. I genuinely told him I was glad to hear he's happy. I don't think he knew what to do with that. All he said was he doubts that and it pretty much took the wind out of his sails. He most definitely didn't mirror that one back! LOL!

Normally when I use BIFF, it's something like "I will not respond to anything you write unless it's about the kids." and sometimes even a simple "I disagree". Then I become a broken record and just repeat it. Eventually he copies and pastes it back to me as if he came up with it.

Yes, I'll probably be talking with the kids again when they come back.

moselle, you made a good point there. I can see how it's probably also projection.

its good that youre not a doormat. the opposite of being a doormat isnt necessarily speaking our mind, but knowing how and when to speak our mind. a lot of us over compensate in the aftermath of the relationship.


im not sure this is a BIFF response. its certainly not friendly  . a BIFF (brief, informative, friendly, firm) is a "just business" response. "i will not respond to anything you write unless its about the kids" really only needs to be said once, maybe twice, ever. at that point you simply dont respond. otherwise, its just redundant, and fueling conflict.

True that one isn't friendly. It's more gray rock (business-like).

In response to your prior post... .

The real issue? That's a good question. We tend to argue about his assumptions about me. How he claims to know me better than I know myself. How I'm an angry, bitter, miserable person. How I'm a terrible mother. How everyone I know will see me for who I really am and they will leave me. How I abused him all these years. How I'm ruining his life. Even when I write "I disagree", he still spirals. Sometimes he'll go on for days especially when I don't respond for days. It seems he wants a reaction and I try to not give it to him. I know he'll escalate until he gets one or he gives up.

I think he doesn't know how to move on with his life. I think he's hung up on the past and how I wronged him, in his mind. I don't think he's been able to let go. After the divorce, he sent my fiance a message that said "my wife isn't your soulmate". We had already been divorced for awhile by that point.

Things will be fine until something sets him off. Then he brings up the past and rages. I generally don't respond to everything he writes. At the end of his rant, I'll usually just write that I disagree. I really try to not JADE but it does happen here and there. Once in awhile I'll try to explain my point of view to him because he asks and seems to want to understand. That is where I probably shouldn't even try anymore. It doesn't seem to go well. He's probably charming and/or looking for a fight. He seems to thrive on conflict.

This last big one was about spring break and how he says I'm in contempt of court orders because he claims I'm refusing to pay for daycare. It was a messy conversation. It seems like this one has been resolved, though. He finally talked with the nanny who confirmed what our contract is. That seemed to make him back off.

The whole thing with this spring break fiasco started with his message to me that gave me only two options without my consent or input. He said I can either pay for the nanny to watch them during spring break or I can take the week off and watch them. It's his week with them. It felt like he was trying to force me into doing what he wanted by not giving me any choice or options. He has the kids during spring break. This is not new. He's had time to plan for it.

Per the court order, I am paying for daycare. Not a problem. Long story short, since the orders were written, the girls are no longer in daycare because the last two ladies retired and I've had to hire a part time nanny to take them to and from school with a little after school care because my oldest has aged out of daycare. I'm basically paying her hourly with a max cap (not to exceed x amount of money). I cannot afford to pay her a full day's wage. I can only afford to pay for the before and after school care. Nannies tend to cost much more than daycare. I told him this upfront and asked him to let me know if he could find a different option that would take care of both kids and not cost more than x amount of money per week. He couldn't come up with anything. So I told him in writing that I cannot afford to pay her for more than before/after school and if he needed to have her watch the kids on non-school days then he is free to do so but he would need to pay for it himself. He didn't say no.

So he got bent out of shape when I basically told him no to his options. I didn't budget for the nanny to watch them for spring break and I can't afford to pay her for it. If I paid her for it, I wouldn't be able to pay him his alimony. The money has to come from somewhere. He really didn't like that. I am also not his default babysitter or the default parent (that is also in the parenting plan). If he had approached this in a better way, then I would have been willing to work with him on it and compromise. We have compromised on things like this before. I'm not sure what happened this time other than he tried to force it on me. I am not going to bend to his will just because he demands it. Yes this is a trigger for me. I think it comes down to he wants it his way and isn't willing to entertain other ideas. It feels like a control issue. I refuse to let him dictate to me anymore. He then tells me I'm being controlling and manipulative because I don't agree with his options. I've been doing my best to keep calm and do BIFF or even just gray rock.  It's super hard to be friendly. Lately I'm more gray rock.

I started this thread wondering what that particular behavior would be labeled as so I know how to deal with it better. Parroting my words back to me just seems weird. This whole "conversation" with him (and others) seem to spiral no matter what I say. I try to not make it worse but sometimes it happens anyway. The less I explain, the less ammo he has. So I try to keep it brief and to the point and keep the emotion out of it. The times I've written that I'll only respond to things about the kids, he'll copy and paste that one back to me. It's weird.

The second example about the legal stuff was an older example. That one hasn't come up in awhile.

No matter how many times I ask for a truce, it doesn't happen until he runs out of steam. Then he'll say he wants a truce. I agree to it. It doesn't last. Something will trigger him and he'll go off once again. Trying to resolve an issue regarding the kids is difficult when he does this which is where BIFF or gray rock should help. Most of the time I just let him spiral and I try to stay out of it.

I’m on the wrong board I know but this conversation has caught my attention and something I have definitely experienced. So my default is to look at the behaviour of my D9/7/4 and relate to my experience of them and then work back to uBPDw. So as Skip mentioned above a childish conversation might go as follows

Child A - you’re a idiot
Child B - no you’re an idiot
Child A - no you’re a double idiot
Child B - no you’re an idiot infinity

Child A probably had a view that B was an idiot, they sent the ball rolling in the direction of child B. Child B likely didn’t even internalise the accusation but just pulled up the defences and bounced the ball back. Child A bounces back and so on and so on to the point where neither child actually considers what they are saying nor are they internalising what they hear. I would say it’s deflection.

In adults, the healthy adult is trained to internalise accusations and consider what others say to them... .so

Non - H you live in a false reality
BPD - >> >> ALERT ALERT NOT NICE DEFEND DEFEND DEFEND<< << < W huuu you’re the one who’s living in a false reality
Non - >> >>  H just said I live in a false reality, I’m pretty sure I don’t, but maybe I do, I’m going to have to think about that as reality is such an odd concept, I’m pretty sure I don’t but have I fully been able to self reflect, how do I respond to this without JADE?<< <<  you’re an idiot

BPD walks away believing he defended the attack and actually got abused in the end. He walks away with you as perpetrator and him as victim... .whether you started as rescuer (you were trying to enlighten him about his own behaviour) or not, he leaves you as perpetrator by either forcing you into a reaction rather than a response or leaves you as the “wrong/broken/sick” person (basically perpetrator) by being unable to justify why you don’t live in a false reality. What the starting statement is doesn’t matter, it’s the distils down to the unanswerable question of “why?”.

The BPD will deflect everything which is painful. The Non will not and self reflects on critism through logic and reasoning.

enabler, I think you hit the nail on the head. That makes total sense. Thank you!

So with the current issue I'm having with him, it looks like some level of validation (or something along those lines) helped take his fuel away. He wishes we had known each other better long ago. I agreed. Although I added that if we had, we may not have had the kids and I wouldn't trade the kids for the world. Long story short, I "woke up" a few years ago from being emotionally shutdown and was officially diagnosed with PTSD from abusive relationships my entire life. If I had woken up years ago (such as 15-20 years ago), I'm pretty sure things would have been different. I don't think I would have married him if I had been awake back then or it would have been a short lived marriage.

When I did wake up, he felt I hadn't given him enough chances and I didn't work hard enough to keep the marriage going. That's a long story but it was too late for me. I was already done. His actions around and after that time pushed me even further away. I tried to talk to him about this before but it seemed futile.  Back then I didn't know about BPD. I learned about BPD after the divorce. Even knowing about his BPD, it wouldn't have changed anything for me. I felt trapped. I can see how he probably felt abandoned and became even clingier because of that which pushed me even further away faster.  It is what it is. The past can't be changed. We can only work on ourselves going forward.

There has been some progress, maybe. He seems to have stopped trying to "fix" me to make me into his version of what a "better" person is. Hopefully that one will stick this time. That was another big source of contention between us. He kept trying to change me and make me into his version of "better" and I rebelled and fought him every step of the way. It's up to me to decide who I am / who I want to be, not him or anyone else. He never seemed to understand that.

I agree that any perceived threat will be deflected by the borderline.

I disagree that the Non does not

We have to transcend this conflict, recover and be the adult here. Who else will? Once we have stopped making it worse, we can take positive steps to start managing the lost breakup relationship.

Skip is right BIFF is the way to go.

BIFF also does not allow us to vent our emotions. That is good. Do that with a therapist or a friend.

Compliment any positive steps by the borderline. Even an uneventful handover is a compliment worthy achievement.

The rewards are sometimes small, but worth celebrating

Moselle, I totally agree with you here... .however, being able to do this is a skill, a skill that we have to acquire. I have mentioned before that we have to armor ourselves with self knowledge, it is our own self doubt which enables this deflection to be absorbed by ourselves and internalized... .why is my internal reaction not "I know without a shadow of doubt that I am not delusional, nor do I live in a false reality." (for example)... .once my default is a position of certainty and not self doubt I can think clearly about adult ways to respond NOT REACT. Being put off balance by self doubt is just enough I find for my pwBPD to detract from the point or place me in a persecutor role.

Is the role of a health adult to never say anything that could be twisted to be provocative even if it is necessary and factual (I'm not saying the above is a good example) or to not react to a petulant response with further reactions?

Mental health takes effort  :) Just like physical health

I think it's healthy when we recognise our own reality and own it. Then others can disagree or agree as they see fit. And that's OK with us. Even if they get angry.

Returning to I_am_the_Fire's post, how can you write this without JADEing,(Justify, Argue, Defend , Explain) and according to BIFF ( Brief Informative Friendly and Firm)?

I wrote "I read condescension and aggression in your message above. Maybe I'm just imagining it?"

Is that not sarcastic, therefore inflammatory/invalidating?

I would have focused BIFF here... .

I am really sorry you are in a bind for spring break. That sucks. I made other commitments and can't take the kids during week, but I can them for the last weekend (or whatever). Do you want to do that?

I like that! There's some SET ( Sympathy Empathy Truth) in there too.


Oh, I've been caught by this. It's so easy to respond with a little bit or sarcasm. I'm not sure a Borderline is great at picking up subtlety or hidden meanings in the first place and I think it's best to keep it simple

Thank you all for the suggestions. It's been very helpful. I did some SET and validation and it seemed to de-escalate it all. It isn't easy for me especially since he's emotionally abusive but I do see the value in BIFF. I'm working on it and doing better.

 |iiii

This is hard and it shouldn't have to be. But it is our reality.