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I don't know how often over the last 2 years I've thought that my BPDex was like a 3 year old. And I'm aware that BPD is generally thought of an arrested development in terms of emotional/ personal development.

I just realised, that if a 2-3 year old was abandoned somewhere then they too would "latch on" to any kind looking adult "no matter what" and would do anything to cling to that adult and to try and get them to care for them.

And at age 2-3, "mirroring" is what all kids do. They mirror their parents and the people around them, intuitively learning what behaviours are considered "normal" in that environment.

And kids that age are totally malleable - it's a survival thing - they will adapt to whoever the caretakers are and to whatever the caretakers' rules are.

I guess another example is pets - any abandoned cat or dog will try and get on your good side, if you seem halfway decent and will do "whatever" you want and will put up with "whoever" you are, as long as they're allowed to stick around, have a place to sleep and get fed.

And they are very persuasive at getting fed. They will "be nice", doing whatever you want them to do/ refraining from whatever behaviour you don't want them to do, just so they will get fed. Like 2-3 year old kids they are completely malleable and will adapt to anyone and anything, so that there's someone they can attach to.

I think it's this what creates the "idealisation" phase. I know my dog idealises me, and I know 2-3 year olds idealise their parents. It's just the most sensible thing to do for them, in terms of survival (being taken care of).

And that's what makes that idealisation phase seem "so amazing" to us. We're assuming we've met a normally developed adult and "as if by magic" they love all the things we love, they think we're great, they think we're special, and we are all they focus on.

No wonder it feels "amazing" - it's like someone is making themselves in our image. That's why with BPD it's called a "manufactured soulmate". It's not some big coincidence... .This isn't us magically meeting "the one" we've waited for all our lives. This is someone so undeveloped, so raw, that they don't have an inner blueprint yet. And so they adopt ours and we think "What an amazing coincidence - we're so compatible in so many ways!"

And then I guess we've got that little toddler, or a pet dog that adores us. And we lap it up. We assume that it's an adult, who just happens to be ultra-compatible with us, the love-of-our-lives.

So we assume "Right, this is the falling in love phase done, let's start the wonderful-and-mature-adult-relationship phase now."

But that's where it stops working. Because the pwBPD has just found their saviour. And has successfully gotten the saviour to "adopt" them, by fulfilling all his/her expectations. By being "perfect", they've secured someone to look after them.

And now the pwBPD wants to be looked after like a 3 year old and to be allowed to play like a 3 year old and to act out like a 3 year old and to think like a 3 year old and to have no responsibilities like a 3 year old and to follow their moods like a 3 year old and to say nice or nasty things as they pop into their head like a 3 year old.

And if we have kids, we understand this phase. We know to expect it. We take the "terrible threes" behaviour with humour and a pinch of salt, knowing that 3 year olds will test all the limits and need some loving but firm boundaries put in place. We know three year olds can behave like little dictators. We know they can be charming and sweet as pie. We know they can have formidable tantrums. We know that's all a healthy part of development and that they will grow out of it.

When a pw BPD does all this, we're naturally shocked and confused and disappointed and hurt and helpless.
If we'd been given fair warning, that this is an adult with arrested development, an adult who's a 3 year old emotionally, we'd be able to prepare ourselves and we'd know what to expect (more or less).

But because we've just come out of the idealisation phase, where the pwBPD has created themselves in our image, we're stuck in a totally different script. We think we've met our soulmate and that we're going to have this amazing relationship with our soulmate. Only to find out that we're confronted with mayhem and madness (an adult behaving like a 3 year old).

If we knew all this before it started, it wouldn't be traumatic at all, would it?

I think it's just because we experience it all "backwards" (only find out what's going on at the very end). And because it comes as such a shock, after what we assumed was the perfect "finding the one" phase.

Total misunderstanding, hey?
Two completely different scripts going on.

Jesus icky I could not have said or written anything close to what I just read that’s so precise.I read this twice and it really really depicts what is going on in their minds.It puts into perspective a few things that I saw these last two weeks when I left my BPD gf.She sent me a text when I left her written exactly like this (for the sake of privacy let’s pretend her name is bingo) .So I got a text as follows:

Bingo this and bingo that,bingo what are you doing with your life,bingo why did you act that way,I’m tired of living to other people’s expectations! 

When I got that text I was actually somewhat disturbed to see her talking about herself in this fashion.Like a child ranting off and the worst part was I never ever criticized her much at all.I did try to explain to her that booking a vacation with me and her two sons three months ago ,then waiting until the week before to handle her sons passport paperwork (which screwed up) wasn’t a well thought out plan.Then I had (tried) to explain to her that her deciding to go on vacation anyways with her best friend and never having asked me to go was also disrespectful given I had reserved that time and money to go with her.This of course ended in her saying to me and I quote:

Jesus this is annoying,why does me telling you anything always have to be so complicated?

I then had to explain to her what being courteous was in a relationship,telling your partner you replaced them on a vacation that you asked me to go on was very rude.It was also rude to not tell me two weekends ago you were again off for the weekend with your friend and you literally tell me the day before? Never caring that maybe I’d like to have known so I could have made plans myself ? For this I got the ( not everything is preplanned in life nobody lives that way, you are the problem)!
This from someone who lives in a 31/2 with two kids with two different fathers.This from someone who’s moved 3 times in one year because she screwed up her last relationship by cheating  and lost a house neither one could afford.She also bought a dog before moving out the house never thinking she had to get rid of it literally 5 weeks later because she moved into her moms apartment.The fact she leased a car with the minimal mileage allowed never taking into account she will and almost has gone over miles because she didn’t calculate how far her kids schools are.She also has to move in literally 2 months because her apartment is rented June 1st and off she goes to a vacation never thinking where will she live ,which schools have room for her kids now going to high school next year.
It took her 3 weeks to get her sons hair cut,she doesn’t know their shoe sizes.She doesn’t take her birth control on time hence 3 abortions .

All that to say she lives exactly like an unmonitored child but in an adults body .Its just a matter of time before she does too many drugs or gets a non reversible std from the reckless things she’s done and will do.

I agree with Shawnlam wow very articulate  |iiii With arrested development in mind a child also devaluates to a degree the mind at that age can't integrate good and bad qualities you're either the best parent in the world or the worst one.

Sounds like a very articulate expression of radical acceptance

I think to add to all this is often a scenario growing up where they end up having to idolise one parent at the expense of hating the other. This is my direct experience where i noticed my exs mother had an almost what id call emotionally-incensctious relationship with my ex. the absent father, who i never got any story of why he left, but plenty of what were extreme devaluations about him.

in effect, in order to survive growing up she had to take one side, and it was the mother (Who probably had BPD or similair herself). this set a precedent for future relationships where it is idolisation followed by being painted black. One clue i got was she let slip that before her father left she was very close to him. quite a contrast to what happened later and the hatred she continually showed (which im sure was induced and emulated by the mother).

what i feel really is repressed in her is that this isnt so much "daddy issues" as it is mommy issues. but having been kept in the fog for so long as a child and having to role play to get a long and survive, it has became a conditioned belief.

where did I come unwittingly into the mix? I got to be part of this idolisation/hated surrogate father role play, punished and tortured for what really was deflection of something that has affected her core far earlier in life.

as ive came to believe this and make sense of it, it has been enlightening in some ways, but invoking a sense of nausea at the same time. All the better to be out of this role play dyad, and i do wonder if she will ever get out of this state of mind and find some element of peace in her lifetime.

 its easy for me to see it for what it is, im not emotionally involved, perhaps on a subconscious level she does realise it and this would lead some way to explain how their outward behaviour has became so combative and conflictual. theres a great conflict inside of repressing an uncomfortable truth about why she had to lead a life of pretence in order to assure she wouldnt be abandoned by the last remaining 'caregiver'.

Yeah.
I've been giggling about myself today, because when I think of a stray dog attaching itself to a new potential caretaker, it will do the mirroring and fulfilling-expectations thing.

So for all of us that have ever had a dog, we know they adore us and idolise us (unless we're horrible to them and sadly, even then, most abused dogs will *still* idolise the person they've attached to, but that's a different topic).

So any of us that have had a dog, knows the dog will adapt to us and will end up in a symbiotic relationship with us and gives us that fantastically adoring "welcome home" whenever we've been out and about. There's no-one like a dog to make you feel adored and loved and accepted. Their charming and wonderful ability to say "Hiiii - It's you! The person I love most on earth! You're home! Yay!" is what dogs are generally loved for.

So, I think none of us that have one of these dogs-that-adore-us, is under the misconception that somehow, amazingly, against all odds, we have found "the one". The one dog on earth that is "perfect" for us.

Unless we're completely delusional, haha, then we realise this is a tendency inherent in all dogs - their ability to adapt to whomever and to adore whomever. And we take it with a pinch of salt and know that the reason they adore us is because we know how to work a can-opener and make yummy dog food magically appear, as if manna is falling from the heavens. We know they do the "adoring us" thing out of "selfish survival" reasons.

And that's what's going on with pwBPD too. They latch onto us like an adoring, stray dog, relieved to have finally found a "home".

But unlike with a stray dog, we get confused, cos we don't realise pwBPD are walking around, and we think the adoration has something to do with US. It's wonderful for the ego, until it all comes crashing down and the fallacy/ misunderstanding is revealed.

icky we are going to fall out over this.

if you read my other post, cats have been identified as the borderlines of the animal world and I will never again have one in my home.

dogs on the other hand are known for their loyalty. Look at the history of dogs that have stayed by their masters side until the end.

Cats are the real selfish, amoral and emotionally cold yet calculating, users of humans.

will you accept to replace cats with dogs in your post and im fully in agreement with you  :) :) :)

I'll up you on this, Misty : )

I was speaking bout the idealisation phase of BPD. You're talking about the later phase, I think?

Let's say in BPD we've got the adoring-dog doing the idealisation phase and then it switches into the selfish, mysterious, unloyal cat-ness of the later BPD phase... .

What do you think?  : )

I think i need to find a pet, and there was this very idealisation phase chameleon I saw a few months back in a glass tank at the store. It was surreal how triggering it was, putting its sucker feet up to the glass moving its eyes in a way to say "please take me home". have you ever seen them? expensive, look fascinating, but disloyal all the same im sure.

i had once a cat that i bonded to closely, it did the borderline thing and triangulated against me with a neighbour. I sort of miss him a lot at times and wonder if hes ok. despite im sure hes probably surviving far better than I am. :)

You're a goof, Misty : )

A chameleon might suit you as a pet - I think you could have the same sense of humour, maybe! : )

Oooh, this happened to us once - we were the triangulators!

We had what we assumed was a stray cat turn up at our house... .He lived with us as an outdoor cat. We bought all the cat stuff - litter box, food, you name it.

After 4 years, we had to move house and we had heard of these borderline kitties, and so thought "We'd better go round to EVERYONE who lives on this and the surrounding streets and just ask if this is anyone's borderline cat, before we move house with him... ."

After lots of houses, sure enough, a lady looked at us stunned and confused and said "Yes, of course that's my cat!"

When we explained that he'd been living with us for 4 years on what we assumed was a pretty much full-time/ round-clock-basis, she was really surprised! : )

(The cat stayed with her, btw... .We did not take him along!)

receycled after 4 years!

if mine ever dares show his ungrateful pathethic eyed whiskered face again hes getting no contact as well. not putting up with it anymore.

youve urged me to put his sleeping basket outside today, i dont want any excuses, not stepping one paw in here ever again.

was a real violent sadistic sob too, should see the claw marks when i dared change to dried food. oh the rage, pulled curtains down and everything.

not sure about unfriending on fb today though, dont want to trigger abandoment too quick.

he was very agile, sure at times has been scouting around the house, checking to see if there was a replacement

note to self: buy an attack trained doberman. improve window locks.

will update regularly here, still cant get out my head someone out there could provide better than i ever tried.

Well, I think you need to take a long hard look at your childhood, to work out why you got involved with a cat with these issues.

There must be an underlying reason this happened.

Have you accepted that your cat is unlikely to get therapy and work on his issues?

I think you need to make sure your daily obsessing over the way your cat treated you doesn't get out of hand. It's not good for your health to be so focussed on this.

Being abandoned by a borderline cat can make you a stronger and better person you know.
I think you should work on the personal growth aspect of this experience.

hahahaha! thanks icky, i needed that  :) :) :)