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Driving her to rehab, I look across at her sleeping form. Mouth agape, disheveled hair, tattered clothes, bruised arms at injection site--the woman I used to be "in-love" with is now a pregnant tweaker mess.

Studying her face (she hardly ever wears makeup), I cannot help notice that this woman of 35, who has abused herself and trashed her life in every horrific way imaginable still does not look a day over 25.

At 26, when I met her, asking for an ID to verify that she was legal--she appeared to be about 17.

Preternaturally young.

As the mountains recede, and we enter the valley, it crosses my mind that arrested development may like the Picture of Dorian Gray hold the dark key to the fountain of youth. In exchange for eternal youth/beauty--one is afflicted with a disorder manifesting traits resembling perpetual childhood.

I've often noticed that those (even in very elderly people) who retain childlike qualities--frequently appear much more youthful than others.

This disorder, commonly arising from the ashes of childhood trauma--traps childlike emotions and impulses into the bodies of grown adults. They not only retain juvenile qualities, but those qualities appear to be almost hard-wired within their beings. Perhaps they can be described as "forever young."

I'm curious whether this anomaly is a singular experience that I have taken notice of in my XSOwBPD or whether there is some broader anecdotal evidence for this peculiar phenomenon?

Did your pwBPD appear to elude the laws of nature and remain preternaturally young?     

Yes.  I see a distinction between young and immature, and my ex was both, although she could parrot 'adult' convincingly.  I'm no beacon of maturity myself, but teenage seems teenage, even to an adult child like me.  The distributed wisdom is that emotional development stops when the order becomes the disorder, and that manifested in part by my ex being intimidated by her daughter, who was 17 and about to pass her mother in maturation, a daughter she had not much prior called her best friend.  Sad that.

But the other piece is young.  My ex was 45 and could pass for early thirties, could still pull off 'cute' well, and my theory is that ability comes out of a borderline's need to attach; youthful attractiveness as an attachment tool is not only nice but absolutely required, and we tend to get our musts.  She's coming up on 50 now, the kids are gone, and I wonder sometimes what her life looks like, how has she adapted, or not.

It's been a while conundrum, last we spoke she was off with some derelict, and now you're driving her to rehab.  Sounds like progress, or at least progression, wish you the best man.

In the case of my pwBPDgf, from a physical point of view no. She had the age she demonstrated. However, I have to add that she took great care of her physical aspect.