My 18 yr old SD has BPD. She leans into her anger heavily.
I was wondering if anyone else here becomes afraid of approaching/engaging w them during the bad moments.

I grew up w a histrionic narcissistic mother who often raged. So for me, it’s quite triggering and I feel small and scared.. but I digress. A 50yr old mouse. 

Someone mentioned grey rocking and envisioning Sancho ducking the whizzing hurtful words of blame. I will give that a go! My husband has always told me not to take her words personally.

I think a form of dissociating from trauma is known in childhood. To not remember is a coping mechanism.

What I have read is that 7 years of abusive relationship as an adult would cause similar effects as childhood abuse. Can't recall the source.

Why this happened in shorter relationships, I don't know for sure but one idea is that these episodes are so different from the social persona that it's confusing. It's the social person one gets to know first. Also since the pwBPD blames you, and she's so different at other times, it's believable.

With my BPD mother, the good times seemed to have a "spell like" affect- so much that we questioned our own perception- did this really happen? I think we forget because, we want to forget because we have seen the "good" side. BPD affects the most intimate relationships the most and so, it may only be with you, and that makes you wonder if it is you and if perhaps you are crazy. You're not.

So what to do about the memories coming back? I think everyone who has been or is in a disordered relationship would benefit from therapy to help with emotional recovery. If one has moved on and feels recovered but has the occasional memory, that might be a lesser issue.

I'll try to be brief.  Daughter has over 8 characteristics of BPD.  The current situation is this:  I keep very rigid boundaries.  All of a sudden with a new "fiancé" my daughter wants me to participate.  Next week is invitation 4.  She wants me to go with her and granddaughter dress shopping.  Her tone is getting short in text messages because Thanksgiving I went elsewhere, I was invited to her dress fitting(I had a doctor's appointment ), and she says a lunch or coffee invitation was also done since this engagement. First marriage done at courthouse on my birthday and divorce was barely two or three months before the move in and engagement.  Now next week I just can't sit in her vehicle for an hour to David's and I'm unsure if I can drive.  Worse yet she has reserved a wedding date at my church my husband and I chose for our vows. I'm overwhelmed and her controlling nature is ready to explode with me as I remain no contact this Christmas. Questions?  Advice?

Thanks for sharing your story and one way or another she is gonna have to give it up cause she has indictments coming so it’s either gonna be probation of jail either one of them she ain’t gonna be able to just do what she want as far as me I guess idk it’s so hard to just give up and I won’t but I am establishing boundaries that I won’t allow to be crossed thank you again I’m sure I’ll have more issues down as I could myself.up learning to manage how to deal with my issues an situations

Agreed. Share more if you're comfortable. I'm sure you'll be surprised to see that we've all experienced it. It's very surprising and validating to see you're not alone. Like The Bridge said, we're with you. This is a seemingly impossible journey. Vent.

I think we all do. I'm unsure I'm qualified to speak on this since mine is relatively fresh, but I often get triggered by things I see online or on TV. I get reminded of lots of things. And yes they constantly bring up things you did to hurt them somehow.

Even your throwing her out story, triggered something in me. 7 months into dating she came over with an overnight bag, started going off on me, finger in my face, her super close to me yelling that I'm an aszhole, her being aggressive because I was annoyed and I'm controlling and insecure because she was over an hour late when I made us dinner, and she didn't let me know. And "everyone knows I'm always late". She kept on for an hour or so about how I don't listen, "I didn't think you were stupid", etc. I told her no one talks to me like that in my home and she should leave until she calms down, she claims I shoved her out of my house....the doorbell camera footage said otherwise...then it became about me deflecting and denying her reality   and I have no  accountability.

The more you all post the less crazy I feel.

Hi. I’ve written my story on here and have explained my situation involving drugs and my wife. We were both using cocaine for approximately the last 5 years of our 27 year relationship.
It started because my wife’s business partner was having an affair with someone that dealt drugs, so my wife asked him for some and it snowballed.

For the last 3 of those 5 years I kept telling my wife to stop picking it up. She wouldn't listen, and carried on, and would shove it in my face. It came to a head when I said the words “stop getting coke you are killing me” and her whole behaviour towards me changed, culminating in her running off with her friends husband who by this point was the one supplying her the drugs. She had apparently told him we no longer wanted it but he would message her every Friday when she was at work to go and collect it even after being told we didn’t want any but you know what addiction is like!

I have not touched it since we split up, over 2 years ago. She would tell me she quit too, but then admitted to doing it once with her drug dealer boyfriend (that has been a coke addict for over 30 years) and I also caught her coming out of another drug dealers house a little while after that as well. I’m pretty sure they are still on it.

Since splitting up with her she has ended up in hospital on three occasions likely linked to her drink and drug abuse, and at the age of 46 has suddenly developed asthma too, which I also believe is down to the drugs.

It is painful, as you know how it is wrecking her life, how it has wrecked your relationship, yet they carry on oblivious to the damage it causes. I would google the affects the drug has on you for reasons to quit, she would google the affects it has on you for reasons to carry on doing it.

No matter how much you want them to quit, how you would do absolutely anything in your power you possibly could to make them see, make them realise, it is absolutely impossible to do so unless they want to give it up themselves.

I am 51 and she is going to be 40 and no we’ve always been and they using relationship which I know is not good but and I know that I need to PLEASE READing I can’t make her do anything else and I need to worry about myself get that it’s just hard because I don’t know how to stop loving her and I don’t know how to let her go and I don’t know if I really want to. I really don’t everybody else in her life is just giving up on her and and pushed her away when she does this PLEASE READ and I’m not gonna be that person with her. I’m not gonna give up on her. I’m not gonna freaking. We have an amazing love. It’s just yeah that push pool thing and I will always choose her. Maybe not over my sobriety per se anymore, but I will always choose her over everything else in my life and I guess if I got a lover from afar, I have to love her from afar for a while until she freaking becomes ready because there’s no ins and outs about it. She’s gonna have to freaking get off the drugs because she has indictments coming and she’s going to be put on probation or put in jail or whatever which honestly part of me kind of would like to see her go to jail. I hate saying that, but that’s gonna be the only part a problem. I think that it’s gonna be able to get her to freaking realize what she needs to do, but yeah, that helps me a little bit. I mean, I don’t like a lot of the things that you said that I should do that. I know that I need to do, but I mean, I just need to start learning to not play into the bullPLEASE READ and just let it go and you know let her do her thing and then you know it’ll make it less of a PLEASE READing issue and less time behind it and just I don’t know it’s just it’s so PLEASE READing hard to love somebody with BPD but thank you I appreciate any help in the matter cause it’s just I need to learn how to manage it

Hi Pook,

I think that repression of traumas is very common, as is the general concept of repression.  In addition, if you were "out of it" for a while, it's easy to understand why your memories of events surrounding that scary incident are hazy.  On top of that, since you were operating in "survival mode" for such a long time, it was normal for you to focus on just getting through the day, rather than reflect or piece together a tapestry of dysfunction.  As you know, many BPD behaviors don't seem logical, at least on the surface.

I guess it should be no surprise to you that your ex blames you for trying to throw her out.  I bet she blames you for throwing her out several times, even if the fact patterns don't line up.  The pwBPD in my life says the exact same thing, when typically the fact pattern is completely opposite (e.g. when I've asked her not to leave our home after an angry outburst).  You know how blaming others is a common BPD tactic.  Their narrative is that others are ruining their life and being abusive, when usually the opposite is true:  she's acting horrendously and treating her loved ones like crap.

When BPD behaviors started to emerge in my young adult stepdaughter, I was alarmed by the string of increasingly dysfunctional incidents, as well as by the angry rages she displayed.  At first, I took everything she said at face value.  But over time, I saw how fact patterns just didn't seem to line up.  As I learned more information, sometimes months after certain incidents, I was able to go back and re-interpret her stories with that knowledge.  Then I understood how her stories and accusations were wildly distorted, and often projections.  I saw how what she was purportedly upset about wasn't really the problem--it was deflection from something more serious that she was trying to hide, from herself and others.  I guess I was able to see the patterns because I wasn't the object of her rages.  Maybe I saw more clearly than the other loved ones around me because of that.

I'm not sure how best to deal with traumas and confusing memories except to amp up self-care, whatever that looks like.

Yes, I have had that kind of experience.

I had a flash memory. It was very fuzzy, but somehow I had thought this memory of an incident with BPD mother from my childhood, at the time, was a dream. I asked some family members about it and they confirmed it was true.

I had read about such things and was skeptical but now I know this can happen.

This memory came back after I observed something similar to what you experienced with your ex wife. My father was sick, and my mother was being critical and dismissive of it.

I had not thought about the experiences in my childhood and tried to make a good relationship with my parents as an adult. Once I left home, I didn't see the dysfunction as much. My parents mostly held it together during visits. I thought things were fine. Until I saw they weren't and then remembered. The post you read triggered your feelings and the memory.

It's odd the pwBPD becomes more verbally and emotionally abusive to a partner in this situation. It's the opposite of what we'd expect. My own explanation is that the (BPD)Vicim-(Partner or other family member) Rescuer roles are expected and customary. If someone is not feeling well- they are perceived as not being in their role- and so are perceived as being Persecutor to the pwBPD and so they attack them back.

Somehow my BPD mother didn't connect her behavior with people's response to it. That your ex-wife remembers this as you "throwing her out" fits her victim perception.

I think we tend to look back at things we did or didn't do that caused issues but we probably have less control of how someone with BPD responds than we think. That this wasn't your fault is so plainly obvious here. That you reacted to how you were treated fits the circumstances. It's your ex-wife's thoughts and feelings that influenced her experience of it. You didn't cause that.