Yes cynp , you could be right.

People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) often have lower baseline levels of endorphins, which can lead to chronic dysphoria and an intense, often unconscious, drive to stimulate their own opioid system. Here is some research on that:

The alarming symptoms and self-destructive behaviors of the affected patients may be explained by uncontrollable and unconscious attempts to stimulate their endogenous opioid system (EOS) and the dopaminergic reward system, regardless of the possible harmful consequences.

Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment, frequent and risky sexual contacts, and attention-seeking behavior may be explained by attempts to make use of the rewarding effects of human attachment mediated by the EOS.

Self-injury, food restriction, aggressive behavior, and sensation seeking may be interpreted as desperate attempts to artificially set the body to survival mode in order to mobilize the last reserves of the EOS.

BPD-associated symptoms, such as substance abuse, anorexia, self-injury, depersonalization, and sexual overstimulation, can be treated successfully with opioid receptor antagonists.

Source: Borderline personality disorder: A dysregulation of the endogenous opioid system?

Now the link between anger and addiction:

Anger can be an empowering and therapeutic emotion when released in a healthy way, but it can also be addictive. Just like individuals who seek thrills for the adrenaline rush, some people have the same effect from anger. Individuals can become addicted to endorphins they feel when they get angry.
Source: Addiction And Anger Management

Quite a few of us have been through that wringer.  From what has been reported, most of our female ex's (and some male ex's) are overly attached to the children, unusually possessive and thus going back to family court to fix the court order is a challenge.  A few basics:

• Court is more like to act if the interests of the child are the focus.  Court is less concerned with the conflict between the parents.
• Courts expect bickering and assume both parents are at fault.  Try to show the difference, that you are proposing solutions, not the one fomenting divisive conflict and obstruction.
• Often the court will assume the child is used to the existing order.*
• Stick to documentation and provable facts.  Unsubstantiated claims will be viewed as "he said... she said..." hearsay and largely set aside.
• Courts generally ignore allegations older than six months, though perhaps may be acceptable to argue a pattern of behavior.
• Expect delays and continuances but try to move the case along.
• Be clear and concise.  Hearings are quite brief so focus on the most important issues first. **

* In my case, the court did make minimal changes each time back in court but was unwilling to order major adjustments.  My lawyer said it was because the court didn't want to shock the child.  My response was to say it was more shocking not to make substantial changes.  My temp orders started with my ex having temp custody and I had temp alternate weekends.  The final decree two years later was Shared Custody and equal time.  It took six more long years to get an order that worked... when I had both full custody (guardianship) and majority time.  Eight years in all to fix what was obvious within months of our separation.

** At one hearing I had prepared a list of all the issues, grouped by topic.  Only a few of the issues out of a dozen were even discussed before the hearing ended.  My mistake was I didn't list the more crucial issues first.

Hi DonewithBPD ,

Yes, there are people with BPD that can't identify anything wrong in their upbringing. A girl even said she had excellent parents. Anyway, it's very unfair to receive such insults from her, and you don't have to be there for her when she is already an adult.

But now I'll be very honest with you. I don't think I would ever refer to any of my kids as a monster, unless they were really doing heinous crimes of serial killing. Certainly I would never call any of my kids an idiot publicly. If she is not smart, then maybe she has brain damage, which would not be her fault.

This study found that 81% of BPD patients had a history of brain injury (either developmental, acquired, or both), compared to only 22% of control patients with other psychiatric diagnoses.

Also, I would not be angry at my daughter for being a stripper. I would just get worried about her.

Hey MiserareNobis ,

I'm worried about you.

There is one thing I forgot to mention. Boundaries only work if you can enforce them. People tend to think that they will always be able to enforce them because the boundary is about themselves. However, that's not true when you live with a partner who has BPD. Because your partner can just persecute/harass you all night. In such cases I think there are only two options:

a) move out
b) use the police to enforce the boundary (by forcing him out and adding a restraining order).

You didn't say if he is aggressive or not or if he makes you feel threatened, but option B takes care of that. Just don't try to talk to him about a separation, because this will just make things worse and there will be no agreement.

That's what I'm about to do, to move out, unfortunately.

It's going to be tough process but hold onto the ebs and flow of peace that you will feel. Yes loneliness will come too but feeling alone with your lover around is much worse. I had her and my wonderful son leave my house for a few days after she devalued me for feeling depressed because of her before christmas. She stayed at her parents. The peace and productivity i experienced was great. It was hard not seeing my boy though. She learned nothing from the experience. Im getting my divorce ducks in a row.

Hi Pook075 ,

Congratulations for having a good relationship with all of those three people that suffer from BPD. You could even write about it in the success stories thread. But does your daughter live with you? I'm guessing she doesn't.

The whole point of this thread is how to handle it when the pwBPD wants to keep destroying your well-being and they are in the best place to do so, in your bed.

I don't think you can find someone who is living with a BPD partner and is able to make it work using just skills and compassion, because this is impossible. Unless they are under a serious threat of separation. The threat is only taken seriously if it has already happened before forcefully, and it can clearly happen again at any time, forcefully again.

My wife says she suffered a lot on every occasion in which she was away from me. But I think she didn't learn any lesson from those experiences because none of those occasions was a forceful separation.


Yes, being detached can be seen as a boundary, but it doesn't really work when living together, because I'm at a close distance. So she can just keep shouting, cursing, throwing objects at me, using the kids in different ways to provoke me, or throwing stuff in the trash.

But your understanding of her behavior is not precise. What I said about her walking nude and being unwell is not manipulation. It is a genuine and automatic behavior that she does when she feels the need for proximity, even while she is still very angry.

I'm self-sufficient to a point that I don't need her affection. I actually feel relieved when I am a few days away from her. So she isn't able to manipulate me at all, but she can easily turn my life into hell regardless, only because we still live together.

You said "if you don't swoop back in....boom", but that's not true. She has never exploded because I didn't "swoop back in". What I said is the opposite, that she turns down the volume when I'm distant for too long.

After I keep myself detached for many days, she stops getting angry at the flip of a hat and then starts using different tactics. She may sleep on the couch, hoping that I'll feel lonely, may make theatrical acts to make me jealous about other men, or may turn into a kind and lovely wife.

For a very long time, I have been planning to keep myself emotionally distant from her, permanently, but I always end up relaxing and forgetting about it.

Thanks for sharing your ideas and what's worked for you. I've been thinking about what you wrote, and I guess I feel some resistance to it. If it were up to some changes in my communication to make things better, wouldn't that mean that the illness is somewhat in my control? It doesn't appear that way for me. I think I'm trying to get clear on what's really within the realm of possibility, and what I can really offer in a relationship with a pwBPD, and I feel like I'm at a turning point. I feel so exhausted, my desire and intimacy with my partner has really eroded, and I dream about being alone. My partner is also my best friend, and I feel horrible about the idea of ending the relationship, for both of our sakes. But it hardly seems fair to me or to her to continue when I don't really feel willing or able.

Hi all. I’ve been divorced for about 5 years now, this community helped me muster the courage to do it, so thanks.

Might go to court to get custody of our child. Anyone who has been through a custody trial here that can help me out? Answer some questions and give some advice?

Thanks

It is truly astonishing how similar all these stories are. I, too, know that in the end I am ‘to blame,’ that I am labelled “cold” when I distance myself, and that our relationship is described as ‘we have nothing! That's not love! You can't communicate.’ The trigger may lie in his family of origin (his father repeatedly brutalises him – he is highly narcissistic, but my partner can't break away from that), but he doesn't dare to vent his anger there. But he dares to do so with ME. In a matter of seconds, I am the bad guy, all the blame is placed on me, ‘offences’ on my part that happened years ago are dug up – and then the relationship is declared over.

The interesting thing is that in such moments he manages to tell me seriously that HE is doing everything he can to maintain the relationship, but that I am ruining everything by withdrawing. He either doesn't notice that I withdraw because he has become totally abusive and takes out his anger on me, which actually has nothing to do with me, or he successfully represses it.

I repeatedly suspect that there is also a lot of shame defence at play – e.g. in the form of projection.

But despite all my understanding of the mechanisms behind it, my nervous system immediately sounds the alarm. While he can simply flip the switch again (either after a few minutes or even after weeks of silence and blocking me), I can no longer do that.

 



The last situation was ‘only’ about him drinking alcohol on New Year's Eve and sending me confused messages while heavily intoxicated, alternately devaluing me and bombarding me with love (he has alcoholism as a comorbidity to BPD/NPD, but had been sober for almost five months) and trying to call me in the middle of the night. He NEVER calls me – unless he's drunk. I've been telling him for a year that I don't want any contact when he's drunk because it's dangerous for me. But two days later, he managed to reproach me for not calling him back. My explanation that I first need to know whether he is sober led to an escalation. It is not his drinking behaviour and his disparaging remarks that are the root of the problem. No. I am the problem because I withdraw and am therefore not a partner.
I should have known that he was in crisis. His whole family is going to die soon. But I didn't even ask about it. Arguments that he didn't tell me, but only disparaged me when he was drunk, are not even taken into account.

It's a violent mechanism and it always feels like running into a wall. Sometimes my whole body trembles from the Stress.

Thank you, I appreciate your suggestions. Things are not going well. Thank you for your support.