But in my humble opinion, I think that deep down, pwBPD know full well that they are acting badly. That's why the feel such deep SHAME, which is a huge feature of BPD.
CC43, your comments on shame are on the money. With uBPDx, the day after he cheated, he spent the entire day walking and walking without eating (and then came home and tried to deny what he had done, by retrospectively claiming we were not in a relationship). When I first told him that this wasn’t true and that his actions fit the definition of cheating, he nodded and said ‘sorry’ and seemed so ashamed he could not even lift his head.
Then, just over 2 weeks later and seemingly apropos of nothing, the lashing out began - accusations, word salad, demanding that I move out, etc.
It’s not really possible to logically reconcile uBPDx’s seemingly genuine deep regret for destroying his previous relationship through cheating, and his actions in our own relationship. But in emotional terms, it makes sense. uBPDx was able to emotionally paper over his previous misdeeds by telling a story to himself and others (me) that it was a special circumstance, his former partner’s fault for being ‘horrible’ and so on. I think when that story becoming unsustainable, the shame became unbearable and anything, to the point of treating me appallingly and telling desperate, stupid lies, became justified to him.
About two weeks after the cheating, and a few days before uBPDx started painting me black, we were talking about another situation. Someone being dishonest and seemed to live in two realities at once, both believing and disbelieving their own claims, even contradicting their own accusations at the same time as they were making them. I told uBPDx that I found this extremely destabilising. uBPDx looked at me with what seemed like great compassion and said, “Is it because of me?”
At the time, I didn’t understand. I didn’t know yet that he’d been lying to me, but he obviously did and it was preying on his mind. Which wouldn’t be the case if he was entirely incapable or not cognisant of his own actions.
There was another thing I might have mentioned before – uBPDx accused me of making him feel ‘guilty for existing’. I pointed out that a year ago, he had described another friend as making him feel ‘guilty for being alive’. He looked at me with hate and said, “Are you trying to make me feel guilty for wanting to kill myself”. Which is obviously nonsensical – pointing out that his mental health spirals were following a cycle, is not the same as trying to make him feel guilty for wanting to kill himself. These are two different things.
In this case, the reality – that he was mentally ill, that there was a problem in his own head, not just the outside world – that no-one else could save him from it – was completely intolerable to uBPDx. Blaming and projecting onto me was easier.
So to summarise, I believe uBPDx, and maybe many BPD people, know exactly what they are doing cognitively, but are unable to handle the truth emotionally because they don’t have the distress tolerance or other skills. The shame or awareness they have done wrong, or that they have responsibilities to fulfil that they don’t want to, feels like an assault to them. Lashing back feels like self-defence against the assault. Thus the projections, blame shifting, distortions of reality, etc.
But then, because they aren’t actually (for the most part) psychotic, they do know they are harming others tremendously. That their actions are bad and look bad to other people. Cue more intense shame. Which feeds into more desperate attempts to relieve shame. Which leads to more lashing out. And the cycle continues…
If you went to the store to get a can of soup and it was the wrong brand by mistake- she'd feel you did it on purpose to upset you and she'd rage at you.
NotWendy, my mother was just the same! There was an incident in my childhood just like this but with fish, not soup.
Karpman Drama Triangle
