Causes and symptoms... What's typical?

[Scattered]

I have seen where it says a cause of BPD can be "abandonment or neglect" as a child or "perceived" abandonment& neglect.

What's the perceived portion?

Which came first? Are they hardwired to have a lack of control on emotions and then any neglect, or perceived neglect sets it off, so to speak?

Is it like they do with their partners... Can really be treated nicely& fairly, but feel abandoned or neglected because of them already "seeing feelings as facts"?

I hope my questions are understandable. I'm asking out of confusion and also because I have a baby with my uBPDF and just want a little insight.

I know for a fact, his mother would drop him off and party. His father seemed to favor a cousin. He was bullied a lot until he grew taller and got "revenge". He also played a sport, got a scholarship and then was kicked off the team and he feels his family hasnt been the same toward him since he was about 19.

His friends, who he has had several ups and downs with, describe him as the best friend in the world, until you "cross" him.

He'll take our leftovers and old clothes from home and give them to the ppl he knows is in need. He doesn't think he's a bad person, he often says how good his heart is and thsf ppl dont treat him accordingly, and for that he says he knows he doesn't deserve to be happy.  And has also said, if it wasn't for our baby, he would want to die.

He's never SI since we've been together at least. He does self medicate with alcohol and a little marijuana. If he has to stop smoking, he can and does.

I'm trying to get a "gauge" on his behaviors to see if anyone can kind of tell where on the spectrum he is.

I cannot go back and proofread, hope I make some sense  and can get a few of the seniors' input!

Thanks!

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[Cloudy Days]

From what I understand the person with BPD has a predisposition to be more emotional. However their perceived abandonments and invalidations are real when they are children. For my husband his parents often blew his feelings off and told him he should not feel the way he does. Instead of teaching him how to deal with his feelings they would just tell him he was wrong for feeling that way (a huge trigger today for him) Basically he was ignored a lot by his family, there was also abuse by his father but I think the biggest impact was that in order to get any real attention he had to throw a fit and make some noise so to speak.

I can imagine that if your parent abandoned you somewhere so she could go party it would cause some abandonment issues as well as favoritism for someone else. The bullying was big in my husband's childhood too, it was caused mainly by his brother and his friends. I think all of it just snowballs. At some point they learn not to trust people and they also learn not to trust their own feelings because they have been invalidated so much as a child. Validation to a child is very important, without it they don't learn how to mature and at the core this is what happened to all of them. At some point they were very invalidated.

I do have to say that I often felt abandoned by my parents because they were heavy partyers, If they were drunk and fighting then I had no one to take care of me. I am not BPD but I am dysfunctional enough that I fell in love with someone who has BPD. Always wanting to be loved and feeling inherently unworthy of love. My parents made me feel loved, but those times when they were not there for me affected me a lot and it wasn't every day. I can't imagine having a parent that was never there for me, or who acted like they favored another person. I should mention that my husband also felt that way at a point in his life too. His father took his cousin in and focused all his attention on him and ignored my husband. I think it just all adds up, its not just one thing it's all things put together. Every case is different, of course, but they have all been invalidated. BPD is basically a sickness of invalidation in my opinion. They weren't listened to or heard when they wanted someone to listen and care for them as a child and it happened again and again until they became dysfunctional.

[Scattered]

Cloudy Days,

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond and share your experience.

I completely understand your story. And your point of invalidation is dead on from my experience. I cannot remember how many times since the beginning I've heard, you don't listen to me, why ask me something if you're not going to take my advice, you don't see where I'm coming from, you don't understand me, I'm far from dumb... All of these are statements of his perceived & real invalidation... The black and white comes in when he says I NEVER, and I could've just taken his advice, or agreed with him on something.  in every argument there is a reference of how me and his mom are the same, we don't listen to... .! (I also read it can start with resentment toward opp sex parent)

This can be something like, he replaced the entertainment stand for a taller heavier one, he asked over and over if I liked it, after I said it on sight. However, I was concerned if it was safe for our daughter, when I finally mentioned it, it was pure hell.

If you don't mind sharing some information... I'd like to ask a few questions of where you both have come from to where you are now?

I totally relate to be dysfunctional enough to end up here!

[Turkish]

Hi Scattered, I hope you are doing better and staying safe... .

Mine told me, when I finally confronted her about her affair with the man-boy, "you abandoned me, it felt just like my father."

She still seeks to bond with a man, like her, who is incapable of it due to him probably having BPD, too. She grew up witnessing no end of verbal and physical abuse towards her mother, and serial cheating by him.

In the end, my X became the manifestation of two of her three worst fears: a cheater, and a verbal and emotional abuser (the latter she always was).

Her third worst fear is being alone. Thus, she ran to another. It will end, she will go into "hermit" mode for a while and try to process it, and then attach to someone else. Forever.

There may be a genetic predisposition. A physiological difference in brain structure. This is exacerbated by childhood trauma, which she certainly experienced. Unfortunately, I liken it to a script in her head where she continues to play out that trauma, attempting to form the parental-object attachment which was never formed. She thus never went through the "normal" process of attachment, and slow detachment to fully form her own independent identity.

It's funny, though... .I went through four different homes/caregivers by the time I was two and a half, finally adopted by my mother, a single woman with Depression and some BPD traits (though I don't think she is BPD... .fully). I didn't turn out anything like my X. Could be my genetic predisposition to stoicism, or me being forced to "self-soothe" as the "lonely child," I don't know... .

Check out this link, pages 7-11, for a very concise summary which may shed a lot of light on your "diagnosis". I started reading this book last month... .when I had hope mine would work out, but stopped to read some fiction, and some other psychology books. Reality is too much fiction for me right now, and I needed some break.

www.books.google.com/books?id=aciFU9rNt84C&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false