BPD has many symptoms, some very common, others not so and the sufferer doesn't need to have every one. My exBPD never exhibited any desire to self harm but she definitely ticked every other box.

It seems like your partner was trying to get you to 'change' to suit her disjointed view of the relationship but I'm sure you've already realised that this is impossible - she doesn't know what she wants from one moment to the next so how can you ever hope to become this 'changed' person?

Nor should you even try as the problem is hers. All you can do is adapt to try and keep the conflict to a minimum but we can never change to become that mythical 'perfect' person our BPD partner wants. Even if you changed one aspect of yourself they'll only criticise something else that they see as your fault. It's a no-win situation.

From what you've said your partner isn't receptive to counselling so is unlikely to stick to any prescribed course of treatment, assuming she is even willing to give it a try.  Without professional treatment things won't change - the relationship now is the one you'll always have and the only question is are you prepared to continue in this way?

It's draining - both physically and especially mentally, as I'm sure you're already aware of.

Best wishes

Thank you both for your input.

It's a good way to start, and hopefully I get more answers as well.

Methuen,

Thank you for sharing this. Your post captures something many people here wonder about but rarely hear described so honestly.

When a parent with BPD dies, things don’t resolve neatly. The chaos may stop, but the imprint of those dynamics doesn’t just disappear. After years of living in that environment, it makes sense that the nervous system doesn’t simply switch off.

Your line about grieving the mother you never had rather than the one you lost really stood out to me. That kind of grief is complicated. It can include loss, relief, exhaustion, and unfinished hopes all tangled together.

What also stood out is that even at the end, you still showed up. Sitting with her in the hospital, staying overnight, making sure you had done everything you could. That says a lot about the kind of daughter you were, regardless of whether she could acknowledge it.

And your doctor’s comment about grief meaning you must have had a close relationship… that’s a common misunderstanding from people who haven’t lived this experience. The grief often comes from a lifetime of trying.

Two months is not very long after a lifetime of what you went through.

Thank you for coming back and sharing where you are.

— Mutt

I haven't been here for a while.  I think a part of the reason for that was emotional exhaustion, lack of energy, and another part was that uBPD mom (89yrs) finally got into assisted living (after 6 years of waiting for her to agree/consent, and then work her way through a waiting list). The relief after helping her move to AL gave me space to do a few other things (I used to be on here hours a day sometimes trying to learn and make sense of her, and learn strategies to grow).

What follows is a bit of a reflective piece following mom's passing, and because this site sustained me for many years once I found it.  I got a lot of support here, and learned so much. It was a real difference maker to find a community that understood, and I was a frequent poster. While the posters on here have changed since I started (and dropped off), I see patterns with the current problems and stories. With BPD, the wheels on the bus just keep going round and round. It's a terrible illness that has devasting impact on relationships, and causes distress for everyone.  What follows is just a few thoughts and observations since mom passed in January.

Assisted living didn't change the BPD, but it still made an enormous difference in our life.  They were responsible for her instead of me/H. That was intense relief. In the beginning there was a honeymoon period which wore off quickly for her, and soon her emotional needs and demands were as before.  We still had to take her to all her medical and dental appointments, do her shopping, and pick up the phone for every little difficulty she had (and contrived crisis), but the work load was still diminished although remaining significant. My observation is that nothing changed with her.  Still negative.  Still chaotic.  Still needy.  Still demanding. But the relief for us was that professionals could now handle some of it (daily needs, connectivity, giving her meds), and we could leave town and know that she was taken care of, and not lying on the floor of her house injured or even dead.  She used to always rage that if we loved her, we wouldn't go away and leave her.  It was awful.  One time we were 2000 km away in a campsite, and she would text we had to come home and help her because her phone wasn't working.  She was serious.

So glad those days are gone.  Looking back, there is some years of bad stuff that I don't know how we survived (H and I).  I really don't.  I live in a small town where everybody knows everybody, and everybody thought she was wonderful.  But she only showed those people her good parts.  As the only daughter, there was an expectation "to take good care of her".

Mom went into hospital in the New Year (had stopped eating and taking her meds), went palliative a few days later, and passed away a few days after that. She had so many complex health problems. She was a fighter in every respect, including fighting death! She had her family (me, H, D, S-in law, S) with her, and once she went palliative, despite the relationship, I stayed with her at the hospital and asked for a chair-bed for nights.  That was a journey I hope fades from my memory.  I did it for her, but probably mostly for myself. I am weary of feeling guilt, and wanted to know I had done everything I could.  I tried so hard to be a good daughter (and I was), but with her BPD illness, failure was the only option (as she saw it).

She never once said thank you, or sorry. I shared nice memories, said nice things, but not surprisingly, even at end of life there was no need on her part to resolve anything. I suppose it's magical thinking to hope that at end of life, she could say anything that would give me something positive to hang onto for the rest of my life.

A dear friend lost her mother about 8 months ago, and continues to grieve although the grief is slowly lessening.  When mom passed, I continued to grieve the mother I never had, instead of the one I lost.  Can I really grieve the one I lost? My grief is profound, but so so complicated. There are a few good memories, and some funny ones too.  It's just messy.  I think maybe that's what someone meant when they said "it doesn't get better after they die".  Some things change: the chaos and interruptions stop, the drama episodes end, the physical and emotional demands stop, the rages and abuse ends, but remarkably it's like the sensations and feelings from a lifetime of those behaviors, lives on in my body.  My nervous system hasn't recognized her passing.  My body aches and problems haven't either. They're with me for the rest of my life.  And neither has my memory, or ability to sleep realized that she's passed. She's still everywhere.  I've been struggling with depressive-like symptoms (some days I am a hot mess).  My new (young) doctor said "no" to sleeping aids because he labelled it grief.  He actually said "my grief was an indication of how close my relationship to my mother was".  I just looked at him.  He is young.  It was an Ygritte moment when she says "You know nothing Jon Snow". My brain wanted to inform him that doctors should be asking questions of their patients to learn what is really going on instead of making assumptions filled with bias (from their own lived experience) but I kept my mouth shut.  Where I live, nearly half of the population isn't lucky enough to have a family doctor. 

I'm still not sleeping, and she passed over 2 months ago.

I am retiring from my most demanding part-time retirement job (meaning I came out of retirement to work 2 part time jobs which gave me a boundary from my mother's demands and expectations and rages).  I am going to transition back to full time retirement one part-time job at a time, if that makes sense. If it sounds crazy, it probably is. The lengths we go to in order to navigate our family member with BPD are extreme.

I am mom's executor, so I've already put probably hundreds of hours into that.  In that way, she's still all around me (paperwork and processes everywhere at home), and I haven't been able to move on.  It's impossible to articulate how much work and time is involved in being an executor (at least where I live).

Her memorial service is happening in May.  Maybe once that is over, I will be able to move on a bit, because having to honour all the good parts of her will be behind me.

A lifetime friend told me today that in her mind, she's always seen me as a spunky, energetic, engaged person, and for a while now that spark has been gone.  I looked at her and said one word: defeated.

She is a dear friend and replied by saying all the right things.  She's wonderful.  But it was interesting to hear the perspective from someone who knows me. I can't "see" myself, but she described it, and I summed up her description in one single word.

After work yesterday, a colleague came to check in on me.  Someone caring about me just triggers me, because that's always what I wanted from my mum.  Mom was just so narcissistic that her self-absorption demanded all caring be for her at her whim.  There was nothing left for her child (I was an "only"). Remarkably, she could care about other people, just not family members. So this colleague coming to check in just flooded me with sadness and the waterworks opened up.  Just brutal. Such a vulnerable feeling. It's a part-time job that I love because of the nature of the work (my career- but in a very part-time capacity), but it's demanding, takes a lot of energy, and is physically hard on my body, so it is time to let go.  That is another loss. 

Pivoting away from "loss", what leaving the work will give me is freedom and space to do some things on my bucket list.  I have a long bucket list, so now I have to work on getting excited about that and moving forward, instead of looking back. It's so easy to focus on the loss and trauma (especially during grief), but it's important to look forward too, and I just realized I have to do that while writing this.

But I recognize it is hard to get excited when the body is full of so much trauma. I have been overwhelmed by problems, and I am weary.  It's a process to feel better, and doesn't just magically happen when they die.  But I want to start feeling myself again, and am hopeful that I will be able to find that.  It's been a while.  The next thing to work on.  Always something more to work on.

Just my observations of my experience after mother passed.  When others used to post that their mother had passed, I always wondered what that experience would be like.

 

A month and a half later, and the OP never responded... I guess he got the answer he needed! 

I've mentioned before, but journaling helped me keep my head on straight.  I also had a tendency to forget how miserable I was just a month or a week ago, over literally nothing.  And also forget how warped my own perceptions became because of the tendency to try to downplay conflict.

I'd get back to those moments where I'd be mentally telling myself "this is so miserable and wrong, I can't wait til I'm not married to her anymore." instead of those moments where I'm like "hey, she put up a cute picture of all of us together.  that's my family, and I love them." 

You sometimes go back and forth between wondering what's real and what's the aberration... are the cute moments the reality, and the insane, unhinged screaming matches over nothing just something that happens?  Or is the opposite true?  If we didn't have kids it would be an easy decision, but then I caught myself wondering what the fighting does to our kids and the impact that has.  What does she think, seeing me get screamed at for no reason?  She thinks it's okay mom behaves that way? It's okay to allow someone to treat you like that?  I didn't want that.


When my attorney advised me to keep a separate account with money in it, and I asked "what if she accuses me of hiding assets?" I thought the distinction she made was helpful: it's okay to take actions to protect yourself and preserve assets.  In this case, I would disclose the accounts if/when we were in court, but until then they were for my own protection, given BPDxw's attempts to withdraw money from them to punish me, or keep me from filing (she seemed to believe that if she took all our money out of our accounts, I wouldn't ever be able to hire an attorney.  It didn't occur to her that she was obliterating any remaining trust I had in her and pushing me to take actions to protect myself, which ended up being concrete steps toward physically separating our assets, and then an inevitable divorce.

Similarly, with respect to keeping a separate storage unit and putting things in it, BPDxw had threatened to throw out personal possessions of mine, and I had caught her doing this on a few occasions.  Getting a $40/month 6'x6'x6' storage locker was easy after that.  I felt no guilt over it.  I was just protecting myself from her, and preserving family memories & heirlooms so my daughter would get them some day. 

Hi ShadowWarren, and welcome to the BPD family!

I carefully analyzed your story. Yes, it does seem like high-functioning BPD, as well as CPTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder). Therefore, I highly recommend you not get her pregnant. I have 6 kids, 2 with each disordered mother, so I know what I'm talking about. First you must get her into treatment and then wait for a long time until she recovers.

Now let me make some constructive criticism on your journey. People with BPD have distorted views, and it seems like you have believed them and supported her views by agreeing that you were "a monster" and just doing so much of what she demanded. That also puts you as a "Mr. Nice Guy," which reinforces her devaluation of you. I do a lot for my current wife, and I tell her that I move mountains for her, but I never try to fulfill her unrealistic expectations, and I never do something she is demanding in a hostile way. Usually, I just do what I think is important for her, and I do it on my time and on my terms. I don't get too much out of my way unless I see it is a real emergency. For instance, I would never be the financial provider and the housekeeper at the same time if she isn't putting up nearly as much effort, unless she is really in a very bad mental state of incapability, such as having panic attacks all day long in the bathroom. Also, I would never leave a job because of her insecurities, because this leaves a precedent of more and more inappropriate demands. Unless I had another better job opportunity already.

The good part is that you made your trip, so you took care of yourself and your values. Keep putting your own sanity in first place.

Hey Camp.  You started this thread ten days ago, stating that you'd be leaving in two weeks time.  You're just about at that date.  How are you doing?  Has anything changed in your planning?  Please share an update when you can.

Your story is so similar to many others recounted here.  The chaos, the increasingly frequent ups, downs and reversals.  Also, the strong initial connection and idealization at the start of the relationship as well as the increasing discord, "untrust" and overall is also a telltale indicator of her mental health issues being a major indicator.  BPD is often identified by extreme Projection, Denial, Blaming and Blame Shifting.  That your counselor recommended you read "Stop Walking on Eggshells" - a book describing BPD - speaks loudly about what was evident to the trained professional.

Don't worry about a diagnosis, most of us here never learned of a diagnosis from a therapist.  (Likely the reason your counselor never named or diagnosed a specific personality disorder is because a diagnosis can't be made from secondhand sources.  Your ex refused to attend sessions and therefore no diagnosis.)  Rather than waiting for an official diagnosis which you're unlikely to get, look at the effects and impact on your life, the evidence, so to speak.

As the sayings go, history may not exactly repeat but it certainly rhymes.  You see how the behavior pattern has rhymed in your life just as it has for so many here.

We all have issues, a variety of imperfections and quirks.  Generally that's manageable.  Her issues are clearly impacting her life to the extent that her relationships are so dysfunctional that she, whether consciously or unconsciously, sabotages them.

So, what to do going forward?  The relationship has ended.  Probably best to "lick your wounds", recover and move on.  You know that if you restart the relationship, the dysfunctional roller coaster life would just restart.  You can't fix her... she has to decide for herself to seek help - and stick with therapy for years - so she can work on her issues.  And that may never happen.  Sadly.

Hello dear community,
This is my first message.

I have a romantic relationship with my now Ex-Girlfriend, for over 3 years.

I got advised by my therapist to read Stop Walking on Eggshells, found this community, went through a lot of threads before writing this message.

My ex, has no diagnosis, I of course knew something was not right, but still not sure if it's BPD or something else.

After reading the book, of course a lot of the information rang the bell, but there are some that haven't, that's why I'm concerned if it's BPD or not.

She is great communicating her needs.

At the beginnning she was in a relationship when we met, and it took some time to get to date her.
We met at a party in the summer of 2022, and slowly started talking, but she was living with her ex that time.

It took 4-5 months till we got together, and she left her ex.
I think it was 4 months later that we moved together.

She didn't trash any of her exes, was quite believable what she said about them, but she cheated on her ex with me, and when she left him, never admitted that it was because of another man.

She left her previous ex by cheating on him too with this one before me.

Her relationships were not short lived. The previous was 5 years, and before that was about 1,5.
She has a steady job, for over 6 years now.

Jealousy came quick. She asked me to remove all the girls I follow on socials, I did of course, as I thought she will be ok after. Obviously always something new came. Slowly.

She expected me to provide, which i did mostly, but of course I couldn't totally take over all her bills. I did provide a beautiful flat, food, dates, 2-3 vacations a year.

My job comes with a lots of travelling, therefore the abandonment fears came quick too.
She coped for years tho. She wanted kids, and get married. I promised her it's going to happen.

Lovebombing, admiration towards me, I felt like in heaven.

She is raised well, coming from a conservative family, but suffered a lot of trauma.
As she was young, her family left her in another country when her little sister was born with her grandparents, so I thought the abandonment fears are because of this traumatic experience.

The jealousy, the untrust never stopped, she was blaming me for not making her feel "safe" enough, altough I did everything I could to make her happy.

I had a close female friend, who we long time ago had a romantic night with, altough never followed through and we became very close friends. She hated it, and tried to seperate me from her.

I sometimes love being alone to recharge, therefore I have my own office room in the flat, and every time I went away to my room, she became extremely hostile towards me, stating I don't love her, etc etc. Lots of fights because of this.

Always clingy, expected me to spend all my free time with her, If I tried to go out with a friend for chat, sometimes became arguments, and of course at the end I gave in, stay at home with her.

Always constantly "being sick", back pain, excuses why now she can't do something like cleaning, housework, etc. Needless to say, I love doing housework, and always was there to help, cooking as well, etc.

Despite she said she was traditional, expected me to provide, she also expected me to help everything at home.

She took accountability sometimes tho.

I know she never cheated on me, she was very transparent, also always texted in front of me, openly, never hid her phone, etc..(She always took her phone to the toilet and the bathroom tho.)

But she wanted to know my Unlock Code, so she could sneak into my phone when I went to have a shower/etc...
She also wanted to see my location.

She stated she doesn't trust my, altough I have never gave her reason not to.

Most of her friendships ended in weird way, just in the 3 years 4 very close friendships of her with other females have ending in ways, that they were the problem, the jealous, the fake...etc.

She always had some kind of bad words about them.

I also got to know that in her workplace, most people didn't like her, and her explanation was "they are jealous, etc etc.." Yes, she is a really beautiful woman.

After year 1,5 it started to turn worse.
I was blamed for everything, i did 100 things right, the 101st was not in a way as she expected and I was the problem.

Late night fights especially a day before I needed to fly away for work, were constant.
"Where is my ring? Where is my princess treatment? Buy me this, buy me that", despite the fact I already spent a huge amount of money on her. Illogical spendings on herself, and expectations from me.

Yes she liked to drink wine in the evenings. Only wine, no drugs, but was vaping hard all the time.

Sex was crazy. Never ever experienced anything like that.

Broke up last year, but she didn't move out, found her reaching out to her ex, looked into her phone while we were broken up but still sleeping in the bed with me, to see her dating profile.

We got back together in weeks, so she stayed, but the constant blaming, that I am not doing enough continued.

2 times she phisically assaulted me also. Just slaps, but still.

She has never ever threatened with suicide, tho, not even self-harm.

So why I think it could be BPD:
- Extreme fear of abandonment
- Irrational jealousy
- Irrational spending of her and my money
- Alcohol abuse
- Vaping abuse
- Constant back pain
- Blaming
- Picking fights
- No accountability
- Black and white views
- Delusional memories of previous fights and events

Why I think it might not be BPD:
- No trashing previous relationships
- No self harm / threatening with suicide

She broke up with me a few months ago, then I helped her move out (first time in her life she lived alone and paid for her own apartment. She blocked me everywhere.

She reached out to her ex, got some nice presents from him, meeting a lot.
A few months after we started talking again, I reached out.
She got back together with me, told me that they didnt become romantic, she needed someone familiar to rely on. She even shown me messages with him.

So we got back together again before Christmas, but she stayed in her own apartment, said she wanted to see if I changed. Yes, I believed everything she said was true, that I was the monster, so I promised her the stars, and to change.

I did 200% for the month, I already had a holiday for myself booked, and told her I wanted her to come. First she said ok, but we were due to couples therapy. She said to me that the only reason I now push the therapy so I can prove that she was the bad one, and she doesn't trust me wanting to be together, that I just want to revenge for her leaving me.

At the first session (1 week before the trip), she admitted she is afraid to travel with me because we will have a lots of fights, etc..

So she expected the therapist to make a decision, and she also said if I go alone she will break up with me. The therapist said to her that she has the right to decide to say she doesn't come, but manipulating should not be used in the relationship.

She was mad, as the therapist "was against her."

After long fights, she called me and said, OK, I will come to the trip, but 1 week less than you, because she couldnt get a 3 week holiday from work.

Then I bought her the tickets, and an hour later she called me in panic, crying that it might be a mistake.
She came over, shaking, in total panic, I never saw her like that before.
She said she is afraid to fly back home alone (long haul flight), despite she many time traveled alone longer flights before.

She said I should cancel her ticket, and I did, she said I can go on my trip, everything is gonna be okey and she will wait for me.

A day later she took it all back, stated that if I go, she will break up with me.

It was an important trip for me, mental and phisycal retreat, so I said, listen, I was preparing for this for the last whole 3 months, I really need to to this. (It's a muay thai camp in Thailand, tho).

A day before I went she came over, I gave her lunch which she didn't finish, was very hostile, 30 minutes later I asked if this is why she came or what, she started fighting, blaming, and then just left.

Next day I called her from the airport, and she broke up through phone finally.


I couldnt handle it, I was devastated.
She admitted she didn't do anything in this last month for me, because she observed if I changed anything.

I quit my job in that last month for her, to stay home with her, and find a job in my city.
I took her car to the service, did everyhing I could really, I was a superman for her, yet every day I was listening how I don't make her feel safe.
Despite all this, she easily thrown me away.

I went out, i started the training, etc, of course I shared stories with my friends on Instagram.
There was a day when i wrote her about her current state, and the reply was "How was the night, did you get laid?"

She tho told me she started therapy on her own.

One day suddenly she blocked me from most socials, but left some (Whatsapp/Telegram) open.

Today is day 38 of no contact.

It was not sudden breakup tho, she told me before she is not sure of being together, but mentioned always, that I am the love of her life, and she never every loved anyone like this before.

Just to add, she added that there was a time, when we were broken up she thought about suicide. But that was it, never before, never after she mentioned about this. Anxiety was NON-stop through the relationship. She didn't have much hobbies, but the last year started to read psychology books, and right a week after the breakup she told me she started going to dance classes.

Sometimes the smallest critisising became personal to her.

I know there were times when she said bad things about her sister, by her ex-friend, but to me she was always empathetic towards her. Sometimes tho mentioned how she is much more beautiful then her sister.

She never really got triggered from my facial expressions, or the most little things, but mostly of my reactions to her pokes. She never really humuliated me in front of others, and was very curious and loving towards my family members.

Her father is an alcoholic, beating her mom, and her mom used her as a mental trashcan, even saying how she never loved her father.

Manipulation, gaslighting, double-standards were her special most used weapons.

She stated many times, she is a high-value woman, and what are her epectations, but when I asked what is it that she gives, she just downplayed it and couldn't really give a proper answer.

She always stated I am an avoidant, yet when I opened up how she hurt me, she laughed, said I piss her off. That particular event, I think she regretted tho, becuase the next day she called me about it and apologised.

I bought her a ring a year ago, she knew it, now after the we again got together again, she said she doesn't like that ring's color and we had a lots of fights about it, so I should get another one. In 2 weeks I sold it, and was ready to buy another, but she said let's not rush this. She knew I wanted to ask her to marry me in that upcoming trip.

While having sex, every time she asked me to finish in her, yet as soon as it happened she blamed me for taking her seriously. After the last one, she even went to take the SOS Pill next day. Might it be she just faked the future family of ours? She always mentioned I should do this and that for the future of our children...


Do you think it's BPD?