Excerpt
In my relationship, I noticed a bizarre focus on death. I haven't seen anyone else mention anything like that here, although I've read about threats of suicide, and violence (the latter, more from male BPDers). I'm curious if anyone else had conversations about death with their BPD partners?
Pete, uBPDx often said he was 'funny about death' and that he didn't react to it the same way as other people. He mentioned that when his grandmother was dying, he chose not to go and see her even though she had supported him a lot, they had been close, and she would have wanted him to come. I didn't know what to make of that - it seemed completely at odds with the caring person I (thought I) knew.
This manifested sometimes in our own relationship. A mentor of my mentor died, and my mentor was grieving, I mentioned this to him and he laughed in a kind of nasty way and said 'That's a few steps removed from me.'
When my beloved childhood pet passed away, he was very supportive of me. He also cried and said (from memory) that it was the first time he had cried for a death (or something else to indicate that this was an exceptional occasion). Later, after the cheating/monkeybranching/breakup, he was partly responsible for my beloved pet's ashes being lost, and expressed no emotion.
That's just my anecdotes. It seems really disturbing in hindsight.
Reflecting on this has caused me to think about my own relationship with death. I cried a lot after I learned about the loss of pet's ashes, and am even tearing up now thinking about my little friend - who was truly one of the most important relationships I've had, or will have, in my life. But I know I loved him very much and that though I made mistakes at times, he had a very good and very long life, that I was able to give that to him, that this love will remain with me for all my life.
I suppose that for a disordered person, who can't show object constancy/ emotional constancy even for people who are still living, comprehending death (the largest absence) and behaving with decency around it are even more impossible.


