BPD ex no.1 came back once. She was the relatively healthy one. I would describe her "BPD wound" acting up as a bratty teenager. She sometimes went on full-blown tirades on how bad everyone else was but it was always relatively grounded. We tried being friends after dating on two different occasions but I found that she was weird and high maintenance even as a friend and she found me manipulative. She did text me once after a few years of no contact. Not sure if she meant to test me, she sent the text in English which is not our native language. Could have been testing me, could have been trying to contact someone else. The first time she dumped me and the second time I dumped her.

BPD ex no. 2 lives in my neighbourhood and I see her around sometimes but I strongly feel I'm never going to hear a peep from her. Her BPD wound manifests more like the classic emotional toddler with absolutely no control. She monkey-branched with a then-good friend of mine. It's tiresome seeing her around but I haven't mustered the will to move out because I like my current apartment. She dumped me.

Unfortunately, I still get updates re uBPDx every now and then. It seems they are arrogant, bloviating, blaming and lashing out at others, inconsistent and hypocritical, generally contemptuous of other people.

Their current partner (the person they cheated with, my former friend) is also similarly contemptuous of others, harming people and not avknowledging it, and shifting blame to everyone but themself.

It's so different from the reflective, thoughtful person I thought I knew.

It's very sad.

With BPDs, I believe it's important to apologize for feelings regardless of the situation.

For example, if I came to dinner at your house and said, "I don't know how you don't gain 50 pounds a year with cooking this incredible."  Some might hear that and take it as a compliment.  Others might take it like I'm saying, "No wonder all of you are so fat, you eat super unhealthy food."

My intention was a compliment, of course, even though I probably phrased it terrible.  So if I saw someone was offended, I would absolutely apologize and explain that I didn't mean it that way at all.

Why?  Because feelings are real, even though they're subjective to each person.  You and I can hear the exact same thing and get two completely different things from it.  That's why I always apologize if I unintentionally hurt someone's feelings.

However, we don't apologize for the facts derived from those feelings.  Let's say I say my "don't see how you don't gain 50 pounds" line and someone responds with explosive anger.  They say I've had it out for them for years, I ruined their last three get-togethers, I'm always trying to create problems in their life, etc.

It would be tempting to try going through each of those accusations, defending myself and explaining my intentions, but that comes off to someone mentally ill as narcissistic and cruel.  They see it like you can't understand them at all, you're always mocking them and trying to make them look crazy, etc.

So for the accusations, I don't address them directly.  Instead, I just apologize for feelings in a sincere way.  "I'm so sorry if I made you feel that way, I care about you and I'd never do anything like that to hurt you."

Maybe the argument continues, and maybe I have to walk away before things escalate.  But even then, I stick to my guns and apologize only for feelings...not distorted facts. 

I'll start a sentence with something like; I'm sorry if I upset you, I'm sorry you feel that way, I'm sorry you've felt hurt, I'm sorry we couldn't talk this out earlier. 

Then I reinforce my stance in the second half of the statement with something like- I care about you, I love you, I love spending time with you, I would never intentionally hurt you, I'm always on your side.

I hope that helps!

The problem with apologizing is twofold.

One is that it may not stop her from insisting upon repeated apologies.  It is often reported here that making apologies does not end the pwBPD complaints.

Another is that it may enable even more perceptions of {whatever} for which other apologies will be demanded as well.

I think a legally safe but general response that might work is "I'm sorry you feel hurt in that way."  In the past no court would convict you for hurting someone's "feelings".  (I'm reminded of the old children's rhyme, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me."  However, as a disclaimer, in today's woke world there are some countries starting to move in that direction, where people might be fined or imprisoned for their observations.)

Before I eventually separated and divorced there was a period of several months when I purposely did apologize for anything and everything.  It did not stop the demands, in fact she started insisting I repeat my apologies in the words she wanted to hear.  I finally set a firm Boundary: I would henceforth only apologize when I deemed I ought to apologize.  As you can expect, that didn't go over well.

Despite a perhaps different history of the term "Borderline", I've often felt like Borderline fit well with the concept of... not quite criminal enough to be incarcerated in prison but also not quite insane enough to be committed to a mental health asylum.  That in-between world is a very hard place to navigate and still keep your balance or prosper.

The irrationality of it is scary isn't it! I have been accused of being controlling and stopping him from doing the things he likes to do when I genuinely couldn't be any more laid back about that stuff if I tried. In fact I just said to him "Do you think you will feel relieved now that you will be able to do all those things I've stopped you doing?" (he's in a good headspace today so was feeling brave!) He didn't know what I meant because that was said weeks ago, so in his mind it didn't happen.

At the end, I didn't even know if she would turn up if we'd arranged to meet or if something totally out of my control had upset her, like an argument with her mother or a bad day at work and she decided to take it out on me.

Her first break up with me after a couple of months into the relationship was when she turned up to meet - but just walked right passed me and ignored me. Turns out she'd had a bad day at work but in her disordered thinking she thought I'd be mad at her for 'ruining our night' and I would then break up with her so she decided to break up with me first. How do you cope with wild thinking like that?? You can't.

Looking back, I wish I'd stayed broken up and saved myself 4 years of grief.. but I still liked her so kept chasing.  It wasnt until her final - and worst - meltdown that I eventually did end it. That was day she waved her finger at me and yelled 'You never buy me anything!'..  On her fingers were diamond, sapphire and gold rings, on her wrists were heavy gold bracelets, round her neck was a gold chain and she had other jewelry I'd bought her at home. It was in full view of her while she raged yet in her mind it didn't
exist. That actually scared me; the fact that she was so detached from reality.

Hi Mama,

My observation with pwBPD is that validation, especially validation of a highly distorted memory, generally backfires.  Why?  I think it's because your daughter is clinging to a victim narrative, which means blaming you for messing up her life.  She's creating this narrative, compiling "evidence," dwelling on it and getting more and more riled up about how terrible her childhood was.  She might do this to get attention sometimes, but I think it's mostly to DEFLECT and BLAME.  Deflection entails not dealing with issues of the present.  Blaming means not taking responsibility for her own life.  And so if you validate her, I think it actually makes things worse.  She'll probably see any admission of guilt as an invitation to demand additional "confessions," "atonement" and "reparations" for even more wrongs and ancient grievances.  You see, she's not looking to repair past misunderstandings, move on or reconcile with you.  If you apologize, she won't accept it.  She won't accept that parents aren't perfect, but they did the best they could the overwhelming majority of the time, including taking their children to the doctor whenever they thought something was worrisome.  No, she's trying to paint you as a terrible mom who is responsible for ruining her life.  And I think that is dangerous, because when she blames you, she's basically abdicating responsibility for her own life and happiness, and she's giving up on herself.  She is demanding that you are responsible for her life and for fixing all her problems.  But you can't live her life or make her feel better, no matter how much you'd like to.  Does that sound about right?

Most people here will advise to validate feelings, and say something like, "I'm sorry you feel that way, I never meant to hurt you."  There's a chance that might work, but in my experience, it just doesn't.  In addition, I think it's a good idea not to JADE, short for justify, argue, defend and explain (eg "I took you to the doctor because I wanted to ensure you were healthy"), because when you JADE, you're dealing with facts, not feelings, when feelings are your daughter's currency.  While I do like this advice, and I follow it often, I don't think it necessarily works all the time when it comes to past wrongs that are highly distorted in your daughter's memory.  Because anything that "indulges" a victim narrative, which isn't even true, is counter-productive in my humble opinion.

Instead, I tend to say something like, "We can't change the past," or "We never get anywhere with this conversation, it's too stressful" and try to turn the conversation to the present.  If that doesn't work, I try to exit the "conversation" (aka blamefest) completely.  In other words, I don't "reward" her routine of dredging up ancient grievances with my attention.  What I reward is talk about trouble-shooting current issues where something can actually be done about them.

All my best to you.

My adult daughter (30 y.o.) has said she was mistreated by me as a child. I was by no means perfect, but she was never physically abused, and as a parent I made a point to never call my children names, and tried to be positive, affirming and encouragng. Love was expressed verbally every day and often. I'm sure I sometimes spoke from frustration, impatience, exasperation, erc.  I know I made mistakes and sometimes lost my temper.
Today she used an example of how I mistreated her: When she was four she was very petite. We called her our little peanut. We moved to a different city, and a year later, a family friend came to visit. Privately, she expressed concern because in one year, Jessica had gained a lot of weigh5 and she asked if I had taken her to a doctor to have her thyroid checked. I had not particularly realized quite how much she had gained - she was not overly bese, but she was defintely no longer petite. I didn't know anything about how the thyroid could affect weight, so I took her to a doctor to see if there were any issues.
Tonight, she told me that I had mistreated her by taking her to a doctor because she had gotten too fat for ⁵me and I was unhappy about it. She refused to listen as I tried to explain the actual reason. I know our BPD kids often have skewed memories from their childhood.
My question is, do I need to ask forgiveness for something I did not do? I absolutely did not care if my daughter was on the heavy side or not! It absolutely was not important to me except in so far as her health was impacted by it, or if it was an indication of a health issue that as a parent I should know about. If her perception is what is wrong, not something she claims I did that I know I didn't do, am I supposed to just suck it up, beat my breast and claim "Mea Culpa"? I can't honestly believe taking her to a doctor, even if it was because of a concern related to her weight.
I'm really struggling and annoyed about this. My conscience is clear that I never made fun of her, or called her names, or said she was fat. I seems ludicrous that I should apologize for her false memory.

Hi Leofrog
Welcome to the family and congratulations on living the BPD journey for so long. You don't say much about the most dominant aspects of BPD that affect both you and your daughter. As you probably know the diagnosis is given when someone has a certain number of the listed criteria - so individuals can have quite different sets of symptoms and signs.

On top of that there is the spectrum of low functioning to high functioning. If I had a boundary of my DD having to find a job I know that would be saying go and live on the street - which I am not prepared to do. My DD is low functioning.

So everyone's situation is different.

Just a couple of things I notice from your post - one is a calm tone. I'm wondering if I am reading that right or it's quite the opposite. The other is that you must be an observant person - you can tell things by a tone of voice etc.

I think being observant is very helpful. You can notice patterns which can in turn help you target what you think could be helpful.

Thanks for posting.