After divorcing my BPD ex-wife (who left me for another man), I had the exact same struggles and they still exist years later.  I loved her mom, her brothers, all our nieces, etc.  Just this past week for Christmas and New Years, I sent dozens of texts to people that probably wouldn't reply because my ex made me out to be the problem.  It still frustrates me and there's no easy answers.

Keep reaching out to the son and support him as much as you can.  But like everything else we've talked about, your mental health must come 1st!  If it's too much, take a break.



That's 100% accurate, he's running from his problems because it's easier than facing them.


He will reach out when it's beneficial for him...likely when he's ready to run from additional problems.

My ex told me about a year after leaving that she still cared for me and wanted me to have a great life, but she was done and had to completely sever ties between us.  It's absolutely mental illness and the unhealthy ways they justify their decisions to cut people out of their lives.  Rifts with family is now a massive red flag for me; he's just repeating the patterns that have always been there.

That is what I mean FOR HER.  Her outlook is linked to her feelings.  A good day is the most awesome, unbelievable day ever.  A bad day is torture and unlivable.  Everything is amplified 100x because everything is feelings-based.

So when your kid says, "You're a terrible person," she believes that in the moment....and often in that moment only.  But if you look at why she said that, there's going to be some type of challenge to what she was dealing with in that exact moment.  Maybe it's obvious, like she wanted money or a favor.  Or maybe it's hidden and something you knew nothing about.

And here's what it means FOR YOU.

When she says things out of character, outside of what makes sense in the moment, she's disordered.  No matter what you say she'll argue, and it's best in that moment to either show compassion or walk away.  Why?  Because it's not personal, she's saying something horrible because she's struggling mentally and hurting inside.  It feels better to ague and say horrible things than it does just to let the moment pass.  That's why she's acting out, but YOU have options in those moments a well.

Can you fix her?  NO.  Can you avoid those explosive, ugly arguments that makes you want to pull your hair out?  YES.  You don't take what she's saying personally and you either try to calm her down or just walk away.  Her drama doesn't have to be your drama.

Sometimes with my BPD daughter, I can calm her down within seconds because she just wants to be seen, to be heard.  Compassion changes everything in the moment and she's able to calm down and think rationally.  That's all BPDs need sometimes, they're exactly like the screaming baby.  So while I can't fix her, she is so much better when she comes to dad and unloads because I never take it personal anymore.  I just comfort her and help her level out emotionally.

Does that make sense?

@lisaea1523 , do you have any family relatives or close female friends that could move into your house for a few weeks, or at least to check on you regularly? That could bring you some feelings of safety and support you might need.

And don't be afraid of losing him because if he wanted that, he would not be acting out so much. It's the other way around; he acts out because he feels like the relationship is much more important now, and the bond is stronger.

I have a friend who has DID (dissociative identity disorder), because she went through the most horrifying traumas during childhood. Each personality has a different name, age, taste for food, way of speaking, and mannerism. Even the voice is quite different. And their memory is compartmentalized, which means one identity can't recall what the other identity experienced, did, or said, unless they talk to each other inside the person's head and it is communicated. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to expect accountability from the main identity for what the other identities said. And it's even hard to pressure any single identity because they can switch at any time.

The splitting from BPD is different because it's just two different modes of the same person. So yes, they are capable of being accountable for their actions done in the hate mode, such as the specific offenses, but they may have a hard time recalling everything they did due to the excess of emotion. One thing you can do is to record the phone conversations or use security cameras in your place to record all interactions. But you should only do that if the other person authorizes it first or if you are in danger.

If you are unsure, you can research more about DID and perhaps find a video that shows a real-world identity transition (one that's not fake). But if you said 5 or 6 personalities, then it looks like she has DID, and she could very well have BPD as well, because the comorbidity rate is high (BPD is diagnosed in 30-70% of DID patients).

In regard to accountability, it's always a good thing, but most of the time it may not be possible for you to make them see it. Frequently, accountability is something only a good specialized therapist would be able to promote.

For instance, my wife frequently says that she feels like killing me, and she hasn't accepted yet that this is an obvious projection of her past anger toward her father. She always gets angry when I try to talk it out and states that her anger is just because of things I do. So she always feels at least partially justified in what she does when lashing out at me. The extreme anger toward her father has clearly been shown in regressive hypnotherapy. Also, her projection of her father on me has been shown during the usage of a Brazilian psychoactive brew that unlocks the EGO for a few hours, since she literally saw him on me. But yet she still does not recognize the link. I think her EGO blocks her from seeing it because she wants to be a good person and doesn't want to admit that she has such a bad desire (to kill her father).

Side note: any psychoactive brew or substance is dangerous for people with BPD or any other disorder related to psychosis, as it can induce a permanent hallucination disorder, so don't even think about it.

He may well reach out once his new relationship begins to show the inevitable cracks - the cycle will run exactly as it did with you as BPD is extremely repetitive. Please don't think his new partner is doing anything 'better' than you did; they're just the new focus of his attention at the moment... and that is the key phrase 'at the moment'. The situation could change tomorrow when his view of her changes from idealisation to realising she's not perfect.

It's a sad irony that BDP sufferers fear abandonment and always want to be with someone yet their callous treatment usually ends in driving partners away. Even if they're with someone new they still want safeguards to fall back on, which is why they want to know if their ex-partner is still available. They'll send out innocent-sounding messages but they're really just seeing if you're still interested - this means they can put you 'on the substitute bench' for possible later use.  It's a cold and cruel way to go on but that is their nature; they always think of themselves and their immediate needs.

You mentioned you've only known him 5 months which, while still having been a bad experience which will take time to recover from, isn't too long a period. Imagine you have 5 years of this..10 years.. 20+ years. Is this what you want your life to be like? Without him first accepting he has a problem, getting treatment and sticking to it, the cycle will only repeat ad infinitum.

In my own BPD experience I had 4 years and I truly wish I'd ended things after her very first outburst, which came about 2 months after we met. It wouldn't then have hurt so much or taken so long to recover from. It wouldn't have enabled her to get deep under my skin either - and that's the hard part; getting them out of your mind.

It may be best to try and put this down to experience and move on with your life to find someone who will treat you as you treat them.

Would you say your niece has had a very difficult time carving out an adult's life for herself?  That has been a central problem for my stepdaughter.  I think it's mostly due to her not feeling responsible for her own life.
————-


She has made an adult life for herself with a few caveats. She has a job but she often has to take time off because she’s been “injured” in some way or another. I can’t decide if it’s for attention, she wants a break from responsibility, or she is being legitimate in her complaints.  The fact I question it at all is telling. She went through a string of jobs that she left because she had personal issues with coworkers. She claimed every one was working against her and were unkind to her so she had to quit because she couldn’t take it anymore. Some jobs she just stopped going to. This current job she has had for almost two years but she’s been gone six months or more of that on two pregnancies and maternity leave.

She has a home and she hasn’t moved back in with me since she left home to go to college.  There were times she asked to come home. We said that she could but in the end she didn’t want to adhere to our expectations and limits and decided to couch surf instead. She bought a home this past year with her children’s father. I am not sure how or if she got someone to co-sign for her because she couldn’t even get an apartment without a co-signer - but that’s not my concern honestly. She has a home that she pays for and goes to a job.

On the surface she looks functional. I know she does. Some people are surprised to learn how much absolute dysfunction she lives in because she presents on the surface as very together. They don’t know when she comes home she cuts herself and outsources parenting because it’s too stressful and her toddler is being “mean” to her. They don’t know the police know her and children’s father by name because they’ve been there breaking up fights and deescalating her or taking her straight to the ER for mental health reasons. When people get to know her they begin to see she can really only keep up that appearance so long. She will talk about how great certain coworkers are or new friends but weeks later she can’t stand them and they were covertly awful the whole time until she “figured out who they really were.” I’m sure that the truth is they found out who she really was.

I hope she can continue to live some of the life she has at present. When the dv situation was really bad between her and her bf i urged her to leave and offered to help her get her own place. She told me that she wasn’t leaving because she needed his money and she didn’t want to parent alone. I fear that at some point police may decide that her children will live somewhere else if she doesn’t choose to. I worry that the stress of parenting and not being able to control her children will create an unsafe environment for her kids.

I would say she has an adult life in a lot of ways that is propped up very precariously by others. If one of those people fail to hold the weight she’s assigned them there is a good chance she couldn’t and wouldn’t hold it up herself. I feel like she’s always teetering on disaster and she likes to present her life that way often because I think she feels that will get her the furthest in making demands. However I think she’s right but probably not for the reasons she thinks she is.

I have just come to the realization that the situation described by the image below has chronically happened to me in my childhood and in all three long-term relationships:



Those are episodes, all related to BPD:

1)

From 8 to 12 years old, I had to protect my father against my mother's physical assaults. To avoid her, my father got home as late as he could, silently, through the backdoor. While my sister and I tried to enjoy my father's presence in the room, she would notice his presence and rush in our direction. So I had to hold the door firm to prevent her from entering it, with all of my strength. From the other side, she would offend him with lots of sarcasm, very loudly.

Sometimes she would threaten to jump out the window. Once I asked him why she was behaving like that. He said that she always had strange behaviors, such as keeping poison in her drawer in case she had to end her life. And yet she functioned normally when we were young but became mentally ill as she got older. He said this was common to happen with age, but I didn't buy this explanation.

2)

Over more than 10 years, my first long-term relationship was unstable but mostly manageable. The only thing that caused conflict between us was her pathological jealousy. That was the unmanageable part. But she got much worse after she got pregnant. So I gave up on the relationship, then got her to sign a private recognition of separation, and finally I started to date outside the home. But still she would not accept it and began a real plot against me. It turned into a "living with the enemy" plot. I then had to lock myself in the room to work in peace, and I kept it locked when I left to protect my stuff. She is possessive and never accepted the loss.

3)

In my second long-term relationship, I noticed early that she had a serious problem. She was pathologically jealous of her stepdaughters and would ruminate about it all day, including their mother's name in her rantings. Things were still manageable, only until she had her own kids. Then her mood became much worse. I began having to lock myself in the room during the weekends, when I was with my older daughters from the first relationship, and I turned the music loud so that none of us would hear her rants. Once I timed her rant. She remained ranting on the other side of the door for 45 minutes straight, with no pause. We spent most of the time locked in the room because anytime we left it, she could start her rant all over again.

Curiously, once I explained to her that the music prevented us from hearing her rants, she stopped doing it at the door. So maybe the false perception of doing psychological harm to us was what sustained her behavior?

4)

My current wife has always had some raging moments related to feeling controlled. This is clearly related to her upbringing, particularly by her narcissistic father, but still I can't avoid her reactions. She screams and insults me very loudly for long periods and throws all sorts of objects at me, so I use headphones and lock myself in the room for a while until there is silence again. I haven't timed it, but I think she can go for more than one hour. At times, I have also brought the kids into the room to protect them, but usually that's not needed because I'm the only target.

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Diagnostics:

My current wife has recently been diagnosed with BPD. We have been together for 3 years now. She is the only one that regularly regrets her behavior.

My previous wife is the one with the most symptoms, about all of them, including self-harm, and may have already been diagnosed with BPD. That was a 7-year relationship.

My first wife also said she had BPD traits, and that became more evident to me many years after the divorce because of multiple rage attacks.

My mother was also said to have BPD traits by her therapist. She has always been high functioning (financially independent), but she seems to have the core BPD symptoms, such as identity disturbance.

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Has anyone here experienced the same kind of situation? Am I doing something wrong?

Please feel free to add constructive criticism if needed.

OK just out of curiosity. What should I do? If my girlfriend switches personalities and it’s a personality that’s very mean to me and says very mean things to me I mean, do I forgive her when she comes back or switches back to herself that you know isn’t like that or do I need to take that because it’s not really her is it I mean it is but you can switch personalities and not you know you know what I mean it’s confusing are they to be at fault for what they say when they are in a switch personality and the things that they do or do I hold them accountable for the things that they say and they do should I forgive them or not take it personally, but how do you do that when they say very mean and cool things to you please help me with this one cause I have a feeling that you know this has been the pattern for two years now my only way I’m going to allow this to be forgiven as if she goes to treatment and gets in a place where they could help her, you know with her BPD or DID whichever one she has, but I know for a fact that she has at least five or six different personalities that she switches Through just depending on what is triggered you know what I mean, but I just need some advice from somebody that deals with something similar to do this when they switched their personalities and they are PLEASE READing saying me and horrible things. How do I handle that?

Hello -
I think I understand what you’re saying because if I’m interpreting you correctly- I have had those moments. My pwbpd is similar. She is very self destructive, self harms, goes into the deepest despair, hates her life, hates herself, hates everyone around her, threatens to leave the world, threatens to leave her family, says awful things, and sees the world as good or bad, for her or against her. But then…. We have moments where we are interacting with such warmth. She can have a conversation. She may even ask about me. I feel connected to her and I think maybe I’ve been wrong. Maybe I’ve done something or not done something that has caused her to become irrational at certain points. Maybe she was just in a rough patch. Maybe feeling used or manipulated is more about me than it is about her. Maybe she just needs to get away from this boyfriend or that job or this friend and she will have some stability. Maybe I’ve looked at her through the lens of her diagnosed mental illness but maybe everyone is wrong, including me. I feel like that is hope talking when I get like that. It’s my heart and souls way of trying to save myself from despair. It puts the burden of change on ME not her, and if the change is mine to make — I can do that. Maybe I have the power to fix this.

But the reality I’ve finally come to is that I can’t fix this. I’m not responsible for her response to the world or her emotions or the things she finds difficult in her life. I’m not able to do more than I did, and when I think back on what I have done to try to help the solution I have some peace. Because I did literally everything I could think of to help her. If it was a rough patch, I gave her the ability to lift herself out of it - whether that was my time, money, or help in whatever way. If it was my perception of the situation I certainly disregarded that many times to help her when I probably shouldn’t have. If it was something I said or did, anyone who is healthy in most other ways would entertain a conversation that could inspire some growth in the relationship. But it’s not those things.

She has a condition I can’t change or fix. She has a condition I didn’t cause and I can’t correct. I’m really disappointed sometimes that the best I can do for her is to protect myself so that in the event she someday comes to a healthier place - I will be healthy enough to support her. It causes me sincere grief that walking away is the best I can offer her because I take with me all the things I thought would right her path … but probably kept her from exhausting her options and maybe… finding help.


It really sucks. I don’t know another way to say it. It just does. I think as a mother you want to believe you can do something to rescue your child and there isn’t anything you wouldn’t give of yourself to do it. Staying small. Appeasing. Keeping peace. Lending help. Lending money. Doing favors. Answering calls from police or hospitals. Talking a child off the ledge at 3:30am. Accepting what they give you, even if it’s hateful and blaming, because you would rather that than the silence and not knowing how they are. I think most parents here have done some of that or all of that seeking the answer to help their child feel whole.  Sadly though it seems like the path out of their own destruction is to have to sit with it until they want to save their own lives.

So if that’s what you mean - yes. I’ve been there. I found myself there very often over the last decade, and I’ve realized that I was trying to carry hope. I have gotten the lesson though. That if I want to save her I have to save myself first, and maybe in time she will meet me there.

How are we defining quiet bpd?
I think it was a video by dr Ramani that I watched recently that explained many people get this concept of ‘quiet’ or ‘covert’ borderline a bit mixed up. Quiet and covert bpd being the same thing, she explained that far from meaning a person with covert bpd are less aggressive, not as loud or reactive, it simply means they are a borderline that hasn’t been discovered yet, as in ‘covert’ or under cover (something along those lines, I know it sounds like it amounts to the same thing but the way it was explained made more sense)

I think a lot of people get the idea from the fact bpd is a spectrum, and everyone is unique so each individuals behaviour traits vary. Those on the lower end of the spectrum are therefore mistaken as a quiet borderline, because their traits don’t scream and shout about their personality disorder.