I'll propose an idea that this emotional reaction you are feeling is due to the situation now, but also something hurtful in the past.

BPD mother would do the silent treatment when we were kids if she was angry at us. This was hurtful and scary at the time. If I experience something similar in the present, I also react very emotionally to that. I feel as if it must be my fault somehow and that I have to somehow fix it.

Something like this happened during the time my father passed away. BPD mother was angry at me, told her family members and some family friends to not speak to me. I have no idea what reason she gave them. What also shocked me was that they seemed to believe her. I did grieve the loss of these relationships. I think you may be feeling some grief about this.

I also think some of this grief was about losing the illusion of what I hoped and thought my family was. If they truly could just cut me off like that, what kind of relationship was this?

For BPD mother though- I think this is a common push pull pattern. Just as she'd push me away, later she'd pull. You feel like it's somehow your fault. It's not. It's a pattern.

You are also seeing a family pattern. Family members take on roles that may be dysfunctional but that keep the family in balance. When one family member changes their behavior- all family members feel a sense of discomfort. They may try to get the family member back in their pattern- but if that person doesn't- they may get angry, even cast out that member, and reconfigure themselves into a new grouping.

That happened when I also didn't want to be the rescuer, emotional caretaker and began to have boundaries. I felt these were positive changes for me but my family was circled around BPD mother's feelings and moods.

You are making positive changes for yourself and changing the cycle of dysfunction for you and your future family. Your sister is reacting to this but it's not anything you are doing wrong- it isn't your job to manage her emotions. How to cope? Therapy helps and I recommend it, to help you navigate these changes. Your fiance is supportive but he's not a professional experienced with these dynamics, and so therapy can help too. If your sister doesn't attend your wedding- it's on her- and it may be more peaceful for you if she doesn't. Also prepare for her possibly showing up, and what you would do if she escalates. (have someone designated to step out with her if she does).

One of the challenges of elderly people with BPD is that sometimes their behavior is related to BPD and also possible it's related to age related issues- like dehydration, urinary infection, reacting to medicines, and also a bit of both, but the physical issues need to be looked for.

When these medicines became more controlled and BPD mother's doctor could not prescribe them to her regularly- he had her go to a rehab program. The program managed the withdwawal but then she signed herself out and refused to go to follow up appointments. At this point, she was off them, and unable to get any more. However, these medicines had been helping her to cope with her BPD- they are not specifically for BPD and they were not given to her for that (she would say other reasons, I'm not sure if she was officially diagnosed with that at the time)  but they helped with the anxiety she had due to that.

Off all medicines, BPD mother could not cope at all. BPD has been described as being like having no skin. She was miserable. She also felt shame because now it was obvious that we kids knew about the drugs. We already knew, she just didn't have it out in the open. BPD is a spectrum and people can be different but her anxiety was so high, she was completely miserable all the time. She found a psychiatrist to help manage it- and who was able to precribe these drugs. She was back on them. They worked for her, even past age 65. It was several years later that she began reacting to them. 

BPD mother kept a lot of what she was doing to herself. We weren't aware of all that was going on with her when she lived independently at her home. There were some withdrawal events when she took the medicine too fast- taking more than prescribed but since it was controlled, she couldn't get refills right away. One idea to consider with your mother is that her stumbling and memory difficulty could be a reaction to the medicines or that she's taking them more than prescribed.

Eventually, she had to move to assisted living. There, her medicines were kept by the nurses and given as prescribed. Sometimes she'd be fine and other times, she would have very unusual behaviors- not just forgetting words- she was wandering around, not knowing where she was, saying strange things. Sometimes this was because of a urinary infection and eventually it was connected to the dose of Lorazepam, a regular dose that had worked for her didn't anymore. Yet she still had very bad anxiety and so they had to find other medicines that could work for her, some of the other antidepressants in low doses.

It may take some trial and error for your mother's doctors to see what can help her. While I wish, and I know you do too, that my mother wasn't dependent on these kinds of drugs, it became a quality of life decision. She had had therapy over the years but was resistant to it and when rehab and therapy was offered to her, she refused it. Off any medicine, she was completely miserable. What good does it do for an elderly person if they are drug free but miserable all the time? Medicines were the only option to help her cope. They didn't help BPD but they did help with the anxiety.

It may take the medical providers some trial and error to find what may help with your mother. Each person is different and may respond to the medicines differently. It's hard to know what is going on with your mother. Maybe it's the medicines, maybe it's that she's also getting older and more prone to falls and memory challenges, or a urinary infection, getting dehydrated.

I understand your frustration with your mother's doctors. Another issue they may be dealing with is that, doctors respond to what the patient tells them and so if your mother is saying- or not saying- inaccurate things to them- they may respond to that. While I know you are angry at them, it would be better for your mother if you could have a working relationship with them- give them feedback on what is going on with her. It would help them know what is going on with her so they could decide what to do.

Ultimately- no medicine worked to change the BPD behaviors- there is no medicine specifically for that, but they did help with what was for her a part of it- the anxiety, 

You're looking at this logically, like if you can diagnose a sore throat, stomach aches, fever, and congestion then it could be COVID or the flu.  For medical stuff, that's very helpful.  But not so much when it comes to mental illness.

Why?  Because regardless of what's diagnosed, your partner has to (1) accept it and (2) be ready to do something about it.  Like Forever said, many never get diagnosed and those who do, often never accept it or decide to actively work to overcome their most damaging mental traits. 

If we flip this back to the flu symptoms, you can tell someone to go get a COVID test, you can tell them to take cold meds, but you can't force them to do any of it.  Until they actively want to get better, they're not going to.  At least with COVID or the flu, it runs its course either way.  The same is not true with mental illness, it tends to get worse in time.

Just keep doing what you're doing, research DBT more and keep asking questions here.  But as you're doing those things, don't look at this like, "How can I use this to fix him?"  That's where we all went wrong at first because we can't fix anyone else, even with the common cold.  They have to fix themselves.  Instead, you should be looking with the mindset of "how can I use this to meet him where he's at now, to avoid arguments or to have more productive conversations."

That's the golden ticket that allows everything to start changing.  It's not what he does, it's what you do in response to what he does.

I WOULD NOT approach him directly to talk about BPD.  When I did that with my ex-wife (despite everyone here telling me not to), it was the last "real" conversation we had for over a year.  And the call winded down with her crying uncontrollable saying, "I'm not crazy...I'm not crazy...You think I'm crazy...I'm not crazy..."  It absolutely broke my heart and it broke hers too.  I never once said that she was crazy, but that's what she heard through the fog of mental illness.  It ruined any chance we had of reconciliation and there's so many other stories here exactly like mine.

I will say this on the flip-side, the way my ex reacted, she definitely took a long, hard look at her recent actions.  Maybe she even sought counseling, I don't know, but others told me that her mindset did begin to change for a period of time and she would mention mental illness terms from time to time.  She had never done that before.  So maybe me telling her helped in a way, I have no idea, but it was the final nail in the coffin in terms of our marriage.  It brought tremendous shame and regret whenever she was around me for the next 12-18 months.

With a normal relationship - ie with a non-BPD partner - it's easier to stay friends afterwards because you're 'out of each other's system' amd don't want to e involved romantically with each other but as you'll know, a BPD relationship is not so easy to make a clean break from because at the time it was the most intense and seemingly perfect relationship we've ever had.

Because your relationship was so good and intense, you'll find it hard to simply close it down and will want to rekindle it - as we all did when it happened to us. For the BPD partner, though they may have feelings for us they also see us as a commodity; a resource to use and fall back on when and if needed. That is the nature of their illness and we have to be aware of this. They can come back to us only to promptly drop us again as their emotions dictate.

Even if they're seeing someone new they will keep us 'in reserve' rather than end up being totally alone and we can never be sure they're keeping contact with us for the right reason.

If you're willing to accept this then by all means try to be friends but try not to read too much into his responses. I'd limit any contact to just the occasional 'Hi, how's things?' and if he doesn't respond then don't press it any further as the ball is in his court. The more you put into it the greater chance of you being hurt again. Just my thoughts.

I can empathise totally as it was exactly my situation. After 4 years of her BPD behaviour which consisted mainly of her moods and constantly breaking up  - I suppose we could call this 'standard BPD' and was hard enough to cope with, she suddenly seemed to go up the scale and now seemed on the verge of possible violence. Add to that the jet-black eye pupils of one who is totally removed from reality and it became quite scary.

This made me really re-think the relationship as moods are one thing but violence is a totally different ball game, especially as BPD are so good at playing the victim and it would be so easy for us to end up the villain.

I think then I knew I'd reached the end of the relationship; she wouldn't change nor ever accept professional help and all the signs were of her actually getting worse so I'd have to either endure this or finally end it and I chose the latter, hard though it was.

It all depends on how much you're willing to take and we all have different breaking points.

Best wishes

Couldn't agree more CC43, my aunt is everything my mum wishes she was, my aunt is a vivacious, outgoing lady who has lived a life having many interesting hobbies such as wing walking with an air acrobatic team, body building, modelling. She's outgoing and my mother hates that! My aunt coped amazingly losing her husband suddenly a year after my dad died too and that will no doubt stick in my mind throat. To make it worse, my ain't and I look alike, are just like each other in personality and are very close so again she hates it! What she does is to try and invent back stories that she had a horrific childhood to excuse why she is the way she is and make my late grandfather out to be Josef Fritzl but she was in a household of 4 adults and 3 other siblings and nobody saw anything bad happen! Interestingly my Gran had the same traits and used to make my granddad's life hell at times!

The general consensus is that you don't tell the disordered person a diagnostic "label" such as BPD, too often there's a negative overreaction.  We read here that there are even some therapists who treat BPD patients without them being told what precisely the therapy sessions are for.  There is simply too much Denial, Blaming and Blame Shifting for the person to truly listen, especially to a close relationship partner... there is just too much baggage from the close relationship.


My close person - who may have BPD, I never did have confirmation and it's been two decades - never figured it out.  After 8 years in and out of family court (during and after divorce) and with the court consistently ignoring her allegations and antics... the final time we were in court the decision read that she needed counseling but the court declined to order it.

Family or domestic courts deal with litigants as they are.  They don't try to "fix" them.  That is a concept we need to ponder for ourselves.  Perhaps you can share your thoughts with his therapist?  I doubt there is a law you can't provide information.  But be aware that unless your spouse gave permission, the therapist can't share any details with you.

He has a job and is well payed (a little bit more than me thank god). He is constantly behind with tasks and always feeling bad about tasks that are piling up: emails, etc.. Any time he tries to sit down and actually work he gets huge anxiety attacks and so sitting down to actually do stuff is extremely painful to him. He keeps telling me he needs help with that, but I am too weak to help him: "you are never there for me, you will never be there for me".

I believe that he does not want to accept or even investigate the idea that he might have BPD, though he has heard of the concept: a previous girlfriend told him. He is set on ADHD as his diagnosis and is working from that hypothesis. I think that DBT may be his best bet for him, but it sounds like I should not be the one to suggest that. I have been secretly reading about DBT, trying to learn the skills, listening to things that Marsha Linehan has said. Most recently I saw a video on youtube where she explains radical acceptance and it literally felt like that is exactly what he should be doing and is having trouble with. It felt like that is what I should be doing too, of course, I am quite moved by the idea and it has somehow managed to soothe my nervous system for a day. That and the fact that he is currently giving me the cold shoulder and not really interacting with me at all other than work (we are colleagues) and kids. He would occasionally give me tasks: get me that medicine, call that person... but he wants to spend no time with me and he is pulling away emotionally.. Sadly to me this feels better than the alternative of constantly being worried that the next thing I say/do/ not do will set him off.  The kids feel this change in me too - the last day they have been more relaxed, fighting less, hugging more. That was totally devastating to me, the realization that when I am stuck in fight/flight my children are there with me.

Should I approach him with: look here's what I think - you have BPD (in addition to ADHD) and you should check out DBT because it actually helps. Or is the fact that if he wanted to, he could figure this out himself and is not doing it enough to tell me, he is not ready to accept this/work on this.. I am currently thinking it is the second.  How did your close person with BPD figure it out?

Let me just add that he is among  the smartest people I know which complicated things further.  Let me also add that I have so much respect for him (ignoring all the lashing out) and I truly look up to him in many situations and I really really want to figure out if there is a good thing I can do myself apart from stay by him, suffer through rages, try not to lose myself in the process.. Because it really feels like what I do currently is more hurtful than helpful. I enable him in many ways.

Hello, I wrote a post before about this before, but there have been a lot of updates, so I'm writing from a clean slate.

Currently, me and my partner have been in a relationship for 3-4 years now. We are long distance, but we meet in person time to time. She is FA attachment & BPD diagnosed (In therapy and medicated) and I'm ADHD & Anxiety/Panic Disorder diagnosed. I also have anxious tendencies (from trauma and past relationships), and I'm currently in the process of therapy and self care. I'm also an FP of hers.

We've had a good relationship, but we've had our ups and downs. We met when we were teenagers, and we bonded together over common interests we had. We got together almost 4 years ago almost, and it's been well. She does occasionally tend to take space whenever we have a disagreement or misunderstanding and talk to me in the morning about how it made her feel that way and how I felt a way and we come to a mutual ground about it. She does get anxious whenever I have to go to work or when I go on a trip, but she usually does tell me how she feels. We've never had any physical or verbal violence, the most is her avoiding me to not say anything she will regret. We've had a couple of times where she might read my tone or facial expression in a way and she gets upset thinking that I don't want to talk to her and that I'm forcing myself, but I clear that up with her by being direct. We would talk everyday, at first it was like everyday every hour, but slowly it shortened because we got busy, but we made time for each other still regardless. She also has a very short lived social battery, so sometimes she takes a nap or doesn't talk to anyone for a period of time in the day to recharge. I guess you could consider I'm one of the first people in her life to actually show that I care about her despite her BPD, so it was a new experience for her. I spent a lot of time with learning about her patterns and I've helped her through episodes, meltdowns, and a lot of other things. We were planning to move in together as well and we had some general ideas of where we wanted to live and she wanted to be it accessible for her to get more treatment as well.

We also did break up one time because I was at an extremely intense point of my life with my studies, my parents, my friends, and my health. I was really struggling a lot. During that time actually, my partner was pushing everyone because of a situation between her and a friend that I'll mention about in the next couple of paragraphs.

For the past few months , she's been going through a lot of stuff in her personal life (which triggered her fear of abandonment, her paranoia, and her fear of rejection). This led her to push everyone away, including me, for 2 weeks ish? Then she texted me and explained what was going through for the last couple of weeks when she was avoiding me, (which I knew from her social media) and the ultimatum she said was either to take a break or break up. She said that she doesn't think she can handle a relationship as of right now, and elaborated how she deals with SI, she's anxious, avoidant, she has paranoia and hallucinations and that she doesn't want me to have to deal with her through recovery and relapsing because it's an intense process and she doesn't want to take me down with her. As much as I was being understanding, it seemed like she was being really pushy about it regardless, like as if she was trying to get me to leave before I could leave. Kind of like she opened the door for me and wanted me to go out before I can go ahead and do it myself. She said that she's not the one for me and I deserve someone else. I care and love her a lot, and I didn't just want to leave her like that because I was fine with pursuing further in the relationship with her. She also did tell me that she feels like a burden because she can't do a lot of things because of her current living situation and her mental health, and I understand that because she's mentioned it multiple times and regardless of what I can tell her, she will still feel that way. I eventually came to terms with how she feels and I didn't try push her or anything in our relationship. I used that time validating and setting boundaries with her about it. 

In the end, she asked me if we could still stay in touch, talk, hangout, visit and I said that was okay.

When I was reading her messages though, it sounded like she didn't want to really break up, but was throwing it in the air that it's an option I can take.

I told her we can do a break and she can take her time to get better. I only chose to take a break because I still love her and care about her, and I'm totally fine with just pausing and have her focus on herself.

We did end up to do small conversations about like what we've been up to and common interests we have. Not for very long times, mostly very very short. I would say our me and my partner's contact have been very minimal and that's because of boundaries I set with her for when we talk and interact. She agreed on it and was glad to be talking with me again very slowly. She still has me on all her social medias, she still has stuff about our relationship on all her social medias, she also sends me stuff on social media, and occasionally sends me messages.

I think I enabled her to push me away a bit because I did happen to get a vulnerable with her about my physical health in a conversation a few days ago, and after that she seemed to have withdrawn herself, even after she told me she was okay with listening to me.

Through this situation though, I noticed that she's been really close with that friend of hers that I mentioned earlier on. They've been talking about wanting to move in with each other, wanting to hang out all the time and go explore the city, and basically mirroring that friend's behaviorism and interests. This is where I got caught off guard because seeing this was pretty out of nowhere. I will say that this person also has BPD.

My partner has had a lot of toxic experiences with this person, along with positives. The most notable one was probably the one that happened when me and my partner got close. I don't exactly remember how it went down, but I believe that person wasn't happy with the fact that me and my partner got close, which led to this friend of hers ruining their relationship. Her friend had a lot of people against my partner and they would all talk bad about her and make really snarky remarks about her mental health on social media. It went so far, my partner was almost hospitalized and almost filed a lawsuit for emotional distress. They just recently rekindled their relationship after 2 years of that situation going on, and I believe that because of the positives my partner is willing to keep trying with her constantly. They've been having these kinds of extreme up and downs even before I met my partner. Other people in my partner's life in the past have gotten involved with this person differently, but it would end up creating a toxic cycle.

With this context, I don't know what to think about at the moment. As of myself, I've been trying to take care of myself with the guidance of my therapist, and have been engaging myself in new hobbies and activities with friends, family or by myself. Even though with that, this runs in the back of my mind.

I'm curious to know if this related to the push/pull cycle, or like devaluation/idealization? Emotional discarding? It might just be my ADHD that makes it hard for me to understand these concepts, but I'd appreciate any guidance.

Thank you for replying, for more context yes he has BPD diagnosed 4 years ago and is on medication to support himself. We went through the idealisation period and the honeymoon was great, even when he had periods of emotional lows and required first aide for self harm. He is experiencing a lot of change and family difficulties over the last 4 months, and was at emotional capacity. He went from I love you and intense to pulling back over a couple of weeks. I’m still working through the emotions but if I’m being honest with myself the last 4 months I have felt like I’ve been investing more and had to be very careful about what and how I said something because he would shutdown. There were signs he was hiding things from me which he hadn’t done previously but he was very good at either making me feel like I was seeing things that weren’t there or talked his way out of it. AndI wanted to believe him. It calmed my anxiety. Over the 2 weeks I felt suddenly devalued, not even friends. He had control over when he would pop up again and when he would suddenly disengage and I couldn’t work out the pattern. I’m glad I saw the location because it helped me implement my boundary of stepping back - I couldn’t heal while he easily moved on. But what I didn’t expect was for him to deliberately not reply or check messages that I did send because I believed him when he said he would be there when I came back. I understand his experience but for me the sudden shift has been hard on my nervous system.

I’m open to being friends if it’s healthy for both of us. But I am curious if others have successfully come back from the devaluation and silence NC stage and engaged in a healthy boundary friendship? And also any tips on whether complete no contact while he is not engaging or the occasional check in over the weeks or months?