BPD can be cured --but you may not like the result

[Fanie]

I saw this quote in a 2006 topic (it was not discussed)

    BPD can be cured --but you may not like the result

to be honest , this scared me ... .

[goldylamont]

I've often wondered the same. There was a previous thread that discussed complete recovery from BPD. And a book was brought up that was written by a woman claiming to have fully recovered from BPD. Well it turns out the publisher of the book and personal friend also posted on the thread, said he knew the woman and could attest that her life had improved greatly after years of therapy.

Everyone was congratulatory, and rightfully so. However I asked the question--what happened to this woman's husband? How did things turn out for him? It sounded like he was around during the recovery and had to deal with a lot of abuse, including his wife's sexual fantasies/flirting with her therapist. Well, that question was never answered. Still, I'd like to read the book of the husband of this recovered BPD woman and hear things from his perspective... .

[Fanie]

I guess we all know that it can get much better over

years of cooperative therapy ("cured" so to speak)

What worries me is what the writer meant by:

"but you may not like the result"

That brings me to another area:

should therapy be only for the BPD or should it

be a "couples therapy" ?

[waverider]

That is a difficult question to answer. Most of the time I believe it is just managed better. Much the same way an addict learns healthier coping skills, but they are still vulnerable to the addiction if exposed to it. The instinctive behavior is still there, it just doesn't dominate them

You also have to ask yourself, even if it is "cured" and the instinctive behavior is erased. You will be left with someone who has missed out on a lifetime of "normal" emotional development and experiences. So there is a whole foundation missing, scarred if you like.

Additional to this they will by definition be a different person with a different attitude. Not just having the "bad" surgically removed. a lot of the things you also like will be changed. Likewise you will be changed by the whole experience. You will not go back to the idealized RS you once had. So you may no longer be even remotely compatible. This I have heard before.

[waverider]

I guess we all know that it can get much better over

years of cooperative therapy ("cured" so to speak)

What worries me is what the writer meant by:

"but you may not like the result"

That brings me to another area:

should therapy be only for the BPD or should it

be a "couples therapy" ?

Couples therapy rarely works until BPD is off the cards. You would become a distraction to the extent that owning issues is distracted by trying to divert responsibility.

It is not such a bad idea for the non to attend T also, as undergoing T for the pwBPD is no easy passage.

[OutOfEgypt]

You also have to ask yourself, even if it is "cured" and the instinctive behavior is erased. You will be left with someone who has missed out on a lifetime of "normal" emotional development and experiences. So there is a whole foundation missing, scarred if you like.

I agree with this.  The unconscious need to lie, project, act out, push off all conflict to those closest to her, to manipulate, to seduce, to blame... . this is something pretty engrained.  That is something that has become their unconscious and default way of relating and handling emotional closeness.  I think "cured" is a relative term... . more like managed.

But I definitely second the encouragement for the non-BPD to find a good T.  I sweat I have PTSD from the things I've lived through from my ex.  If I had not beeng seeing a therapist for the past few years, I would probably still be stuck in the perpetual cycle with my ex... . longing, hoping, pining, waiting, and being tortured.

[DontPanic]

This thread has struck a tone for me, it belies the notion that people can get better. I don't have BPD, I've seen the ruin it can cause. We all have been affected by someone with a terrible disease. How would we feel if the tone of the message being sent to others is that we are so broken that we cant get better but that we manage our lives a little better? that the person in question that has this horrid affliction should perhaps always be treated a little differently, perhaps with a bit less trust?

I guess this strikes a tone with me as I am an alcoholic and an addict that has a fair bit of recovery under my belt. My children have never known the person i was and while I could go back to the way I was... I would hate that someone sat in fear that I could at any moment ruin there lives because of my bad choices... I have shared in AA meetings (perhaps incorrectly) that I'm thankful that I am just an alcoholic and an addict and dont have BPD.

Perhaps I too was being unfair in judging someone elses disorder as worse than my own. perhaps this thread has shed some light on this for me.

[charred]

You CAN win the lottery... but you may not like the result of trying over and over in vain to do so (going broke perhaps.)

As people we are supposed to go through maturation stages growing up... and BPD is a disorder where the person didn't successfully complete most the stages... in fact they got stuck at a very early one. Their personality is a result of that failure to mature normally. The older the person is, the more time the personality they have is set and stabilized as it is. Splitting (things are all bad or all good)... is something a 2-3 yr old does, having a complete lack of empathy... is normal for a very young child, out of site out of mind (lack of object constancy)... also normal for an infant/toddler... but not for a normal adult.

A person that didn't mature as they should can certainly get help and go back and deal with maturing after the fact... it can be done... . but they are facing it with the maturity level of a 2-3 yr old, the stick to it mindset of a 2-3 yr old. The really hard part to accept... the BPD like symptoms that are infuriating to us, that shatter our self esteem and caused many of us the greatest heartache of our lives... are part and parcel of the BPD, so are the qualities that made us bond to them so strongly. Kids idealize you... normal adults don't, if you fell for an adoring pwBPD... much of that attraction came from the disorder based way they acted. If they also act crazy and fight with us (we trigger them)... then the long road to a cure is likely to be badly influenced by our triggering them... . it is more likely they will fight and recycle over and over with us than get cured... and if they were cured... they would be a different person than the one we are hooked on... normal, not child like exuberant and electric... . but concerned about their own life, friends, jobs, cleaning house, and anything else that is non-romantic and normal.

The hardest thing for me to accept fully (radically)... was that if my pwBPD was not a pwBPD... she would not be the one that I was hooked on, she would not be my dream girl (nightmare really)... . and that she would probably have met someone else good/normal and had a normal r/s with them, not me. The whole BPD r/s is about ego/false self/falseness and need. We relate to them with all kinds of strong emotions that are stirred up by what seems to be getting the unconditional love we didn't get enough of when we were little... . but they are not normal/healthy mature adults or they wouldn't act like they do. I found out how much I needed to deal with my past as a result of the BPD r/s... . but that was all the good that came of it, and at an extreme price. If we didn't get the unconditional love we needed as a child... we need to get T ourselves... but holding out hope for a pwBPD to get cured... and to still love us the way they acted like they did when they idealized us... . is to me less likely than winning the lottery.

Lots of people have won lotteries... so hope springs eternal.

Good luck

[OutOfEgypt]

I've been seeing a T for almost four years.  Granted, part of the reason it has taken so long is that I've been through hell and back with my uBPDexw.  But before I was extremely shy, people-pleasing, anxious, passive, compliant, self-judging, codependent, perfectionistic, overly sensitive, etc.  I was, in other words, a perfect match for a Narcissist or a pwBPD.  They look for people to dominate, punish, and control, and I was looking for someone to control me, define me, and punish me.  I've worked through this stuff with the most intense therapy I've ever done, and I've made massive strides.  A woman I went on a few dates with even told me that I came across as slightly "cocky"... . sure of myself... . strong.  Things I never saw in myself before, and definitely not while living under the regime of trying to cope with my BPD partner.

But it is still there.  That "force" or tendency still is there.  It sits there, waiting at my door.  I feel it.  And it is a daily action to not go back and "drink", to use the alcoholic metaphor.  Similar in some ways.  So, even after 4 years of intense therapy in the midst of terrible trauma, I've changed dramatically but in a sense it hasn't gone away.  I've learned awareness and become stronger emotionally to feel my feelings and not have to run back into hiding behind the meek and passive facade I knew for my entire life.

With all the hard work I've done, my T says that the destructive force in me is like a big, strong oak tree -hard and strong and difficult to work through.  But that for a person with BPD or NPD, you're talking about a giant redwood in comparison.  The severity and depth of their engrained ways of emotionally coping are so massive that they dwarf what I've worked through.

So this tells me a few things by way of comparison... . if it was hard for me, it is going to be doubly hard for a person with BPD... . and it will take very intense commitment (sadly, something which people with BPD usually lack by virtue of how they are!).  And it also tells me that for the BPD person, if they are truly working through things and making progress, they will become more aware of their tendencies, but those tendencies will still call to them.  They aren't going to wake up one day and never feel the compulsion to lie or project or grab attention from another man.  They can become stronger in comparison to this force, but it won't simply disappear.

[MustangMan]

You CAN win the lottery... but you may not like the result of trying over and over in vain to do so (going broke perhaps.)

As people we are supposed to go through maturation stages growing up... and BPD is a disorder where the person didn't successfully complete most the stages... in fact they got stuck at a very early one. Their personality is a result of that failure to mature normally. The older the person is, the more time the personality they have is set and stabilized as it is. Splitting (things are all bad or all good)... is something a 2-3 yr old does, having a complete lack of empathy... is normal for a very young child, out of site out of mind (lack of object constancy)... also normal for an infant/toddler... but not for a normal adult.

A person that didn't mature as they should can certainly get help and go back and deal with maturing after the fact... it can be done... . but they are facing it with the maturity level of a 2-3 yr old, the stick to it mindset of a 2-3 yr old. The really hard part to accept... the BPD like symptoms that are infuriating to us, that shatter our self esteem and caused many of us the greatest heartache of our lives... are part and parcel of the BPD, so are the qualities that made us bond to them so strongly. Kids idealize you... normal adults don't, if you fell for an adoring pwBPD... much of that attraction came from the disorder based way they acted. If they also act crazy and fight with us (we trigger them)... then the long road to a cure is likely to be badly influenced by our triggering them... . it is more likely they will fight and recycle over and over with us than get cured... and if they were cured... they would be a different person than the one we are hooked on... normal, not child like exuberant and electric... . but concerned about their own life, friends, jobs, cleaning house, and anything else that is non-romantic and normal.

The hardest thing for me to accept fully (radically)... was that if my pwBPD was not a pwBPD... she would not be the one that I was hooked on, she would not be my dream girl (nightmare really)... . and that she would probably have met someone else good/normal and had a normal r/s with them, not me. The whole BPD r/s is about ego/false self/falseness and need. We relate to them with all kinds of strong emotions that are stirred up by what seems to be getting the unconditional love we didn't get enough of when we were little... . but they are not normal/healthy mature adults or they wouldn't act like they do. I found out how much I needed to deal with my past as a result of the BPD r/s... . but that was all the good that came of it, and at an extreme price. If we didn't get the unconditional love we needed as a child... we need to get T ourselves... but holding out hope for a pwBPD to get cured... and to still love us the way they acted like they did when they idealized us... . is to me less likely than winning the lottery.

Lots of people have won lotteries... so hope springs eternal.

Good luck

Sincelrely Charred, I have read a lot on BPD, but this thing you wrote, is gold my friend.  This is my feel good post of the day.  Thanks

[OutOfEgypt]

charred, I concur with MustangMan.  

A person that didn't mature as they should can certainly get help and go back and deal with maturing after the fact... it can be done... . but they are facing it with the maturity level of a 2-3 yr old, the stick to it mindset of a 2-3 yr old.

This is true.  My T has used similar language.  Their ways of relating are so regressive that it is literally like you are dealing with a grown child who doesn't want to grow up.  They have the emotional age of something between a 3 year old and an 8 year old.  The task to "cure" them essentially involves re-parenting and them facing the guilt and shame and what-not that keeps those mechanisms, which they are very much friends with, in place.  

[charred]

Thanks for the compliments.

I read a lot about BPD... and picked up a book that I didn't think was on it called "The search for the Real Self"... which turned out to be about BPD/NPD/and shchizoid PD's... and how they come about and are treated. Opened my eyes to a lot of things.

I miss feeling intensely alive... that is what was unusual about the BPD r/s... it was magical or a nightmarish hell, but I felt things deeply. Most of my life and relationships have been muted/blunted and in comparison boring. What I learned is that my own maturing involved detaching and distancing from a lot of feelings and situations that I thought involved feelings. You don't selectively avoid feeling, as you detach you feel less pain... and less pleasure, you are hurt less and happy less, you are not hurt by people close to you... as you no longer get close to people. My pwBPD busted the boundaries that kept most people at a distance, and activated emotions that had been repressed for decades... both good and bad (more terrible than wonderful for sure.) For quite a while I pined for the r/s with her... wanted to find a way to have the good stuff but not the bad... longed for a workable solution to an irrational desire... to have my disordered person without the disorder. But the fact is that not only is she really immature... but I am a bit as well.

Intellectualizing life instead of living it in the moment, keeping people at a distance rather than being genuine and authentic with them, doing a job that pays the bills instead of something I am passionate about... . those are acceptable adult coping mechanisms... short of a full blown PD... but involving the same lack of being intensely alive as I had before my r/s with my pwBPD. For quite a while I was seeing a T to manage the stress of ending the r/s... and then trying to figure out what I should do (based on what others wanted and reeling from the r/s)... but with mindfulness and some 20/20 insight... I see that it is my life and I need to live it. I hope my exBPDgf gets help, gets cured, and all is well for her... but I am not going to delude myself that it is likely, and I sure am not going to put my life on hold hoping the unlikely blessed event occurs someday. I don't have BPD or NPD... but few people talk about schizoid tendencies... which are being non-social and distancing yourself from others and living life... . via detachment and muting your feelings. Estimates for the percent of the population that is schizoid to be between 1 and 40%... . that is a huge range, but since they suffer in silence, are not leaving a wake of destruction behind them and tend to be socially acceptable (albeit living life as a wallflower)... no one knows for sure how many they are or what to do for them... as they tend to not seek help.

I have tasted Technicolor living with full feelings and can't go back to black and white detachment. Evading feelings is a mistake, experience them and appreciate what they do for you, evading them is how you manage to get stuck unable to mature or feel. Take the good and the bad... it is the bad that makes the good so good... . that is living.

[OutOfEgypt]

I have tasted technicolor living and can't go back to black and white. Evading feelings is a mistake, experience them and appreciate what they do for you, evading them is how you manage to get stuck unable to mature or feel. Take the good and the bad... it is the bad that makes the good so good... . that is living.

Well said.  After almost 4 years of ISTDP, I 100% agree.  Your core feelings are perhaps your biggest ally in life, where the rubber meets the road.

[OutOfEgypt]

Though 80's pop-punk may not be your thing, I've been listening today to this song from my youth, and it's funny because... . I wonder if the larger portion of this album was written about the guy's experience with a woman with BPD/NPD.  This song in particular is almost prophetic in explaining how it was with my ex:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KduIwjpyTi4&feature=youtu.be&t=15m59s

[Alex86]

Intellectualizing life instead of living it in the moment, keeping people at a distance rather than being genuine and authentic with them, doing a job that pays the bills instead of something I am passionate about... . those are acceptable adult coping mechanisms... short of a full blown PD... but involving the same lack of being intensely alive as I had before my r/s with my pwBPD.

That was one of the things that attracted me to her from the beginning. I was looking for a long time for that aliveness, childish element. I hadn't known then that she was uBPD.

She also made me feel childish sometimes. And she knew that but I believe this was also her greater fear. She was using it to like her. Somehow she knew what I wanted. She told me that I was "making" her to show me that child (in a good sense).

When we were together I had convinced her to start therapy. This by itself was a big big trigger for her. So so many emotions and questions came to the surface for her after the second session... . like:

"Will you still love me after this? What if I lose this childish behavior?

I have learn't to think with my heart (meaning impulsively) but the T wants to think with my mind and I can't handle this.

I still want to remain child. I feel like am losing myself."

I loved her so much that now, as others have said, I see other girls and seem to me like boring or with no passion.

I'm not sure if I get over this since that is what I was looking for in a girl even before I met my ex.

I'm so screwed. All things went to hell.

[waverider]

Thanks for the compliments.

I read a lot about BPD... and picked up a book that I didn't think was on it called "The search for the Real Self"... which turned out to be about BPD/NPD/and shchizoid PD's... and how they come about and are treated. Opened my eyes to a lot of things.

I miss feeling intensely alive... that is what was unusual about the BPD r/s... it was magical or a nightmarish hell, but I felt things deeply. Most of my life and relationships have been muted/blunted and in comparison boring. What I learned is that my own maturing involved detaching and distancing from a lot of feelings and situations that I thought involved feelings. You don't selectively avoid feeling, as you detach you feel less pain... and less pleasure, you are hurt less and happy less, you are not hurt by people close to you... as you no longer get close to people. My pwBPD busted the boundaries that kept most people at a distance, and activated emotions that had been repressed for decades... both good and bad (more terrible than wonderful for sure.) For quite a while I pined for the r/s with her... wanted to find a way to have the good stuff but not the bad... longed for a workable solution to an irrational desire... to have my disordered person without the disorder. But the fact is that not only is she really immature... but I am a bit as well.

Intellectualizing life instead of living it in the moment, keeping people at a distance rather than being genuine and authentic with them, doing a job that pays the bills instead of something I am passionate about... . those are acceptable adult coping mechanisms... short of a full blown PD... but involving the same lack of being intensely alive as I had before my r/s with my pwBPD. For quite a while I was seeing a T to manage the stress of ending the r/s... and then trying to figure out what I should do (based on what others wanted and reeling from the r/s)... but with mindfulness and some 20/20 insight... I see that it is my life and I need to live it. I hope my exBPDgf gets help, gets cured, and all is well for her... but I am not going to delude myself that it is likely, and I sure am not going to put my life on hold hoping the unlikely blessed event occurs someday. I don't have BPD or NPD... but few people talk about schizoid tendencies... which are being non-social and distancing yourself from others and living life... . via detachment and muting your feelings. Estimates for the percent of the population that is schizoid to be between 1 and 40%... . that is a huge range, but since they suffer in silence, are not leaving a wake of destruction behind them and tend to be socially acceptable (albeit living life as a wallflower)... no one knows for sure how many they are or what to do for them... as they tend to not seek help.

I have tasted Technicolor living with full feelings and can't go back to black and white detachment. Evading feelings is a mistake, experience them and appreciate what they do for you, evading them is how you manage to get stuck unable to mature or feel. Take the good and the bad... it is the bad that makes the good so good... . that is living.

Some good points you make here. Can I ask how much of your coming to terms with it was developed while your were in the RS and how much of was in recovery after leaving?

The reason I ask is that learning this stuff whilst you are in the RS, it is possible to also learn ways to live safely with it and not let it destroy you as a person. In other words you can develop management skills, that you otherwise dont develop when you are learning after the event. Learning to live with a drug if you like rather than just learning that to survive you need to avoid it.

It is one of the reasons a message I promote on the Staying board is that commitment to staying is not permanent ( I know a BPD like fleeting commitment), you do have the choice to ultimately leave if it comes to it. However, commitment in the moment helps you develop better coping skills, as you get to practice them, so that if you do leave you will be better prepared for it and a little less scarred.

[waverider]

An interesting analogy I heard once about learning to live with a pwBPD. It is like once you were living in a war zone. By learning how to live with the disorder, it is going from a real war zone to a video game version. You can ride the excitement, but you have learned the tools that enable hit the pause/stop/restart button. You are also aware that the emotions are not really life or death issues. You have the ability to control just how much they absorb you, you just need to learn how to apply that control.

An oversimplification, but there is some merit to it. I guess it plays on the the knowledge and awareness of where your values and boundaries lie, so that you can let your inner child go play on the other side for a while ,yet being able to call it back to the "sensible" side when necessary. Otherwise, as previously stated by others, restricting yourself to the 'sensible' side can feel a little dull knowing that there is fun to be had on the other side of the line.

[NewMom]

I miss feeling intensely alive... that is what was unusual about the BPD r/s... it was magical or a nightmarish hell, but I felt things deeply.

Yes, that is what I try to explain to my friends when they question how it was ever possible to be in this r/s for so many years.  The magical moments (in our case they were palpable almost all the time) were UNBELIEVABLE.  Like movie-love kind of thing.  And when the nightmare started it was as if the romantic-film thing turned into Chucky mixed with Nightmare on Elm Street.  But the magic, intense love is what I miss - and who wouldn't.  But that kind of love, not seeing anything else, no reality, is exactly that: Not real, not adult but child-like. 

[charred]

Thanks for the compliments.

I read a lot about BPD... and picked up a book that I didn't think was on it called "The search for the Real Self"... which turned out to be about BPD/NPD/and shchizoid PD's... and how they come about and are treated. Opened my eyes to a lot of things.

I miss feeling intensely alive... that is what was unusual about the BPD r/s... it was magical or a nightmarish hell, but I felt things deeply. Most of my life and relationships have been muted/blunted and in comparison boring. What I learned is that my own maturing involved detaching and distancing from a lot of feelings and situations that I thought involved feelings. You don't selectively avoid feeling, as you detach you feel less pain... and less pleasure, you are hurt less and happy less, you are not hurt by people close to you... as you no longer get close to people. My pwBPD busted the boundaries that kept most people at a distance, and activated emotions that had been repressed for decades... both good and bad (more terrible than wonderful for sure.) For quite a while I pined for the r/s with her... wanted to find a way to have the good stuff but not the bad... longed for a workable solution to an irrational desire... to have my disordered person without the disorder. But the fact is that not only is she really immature... but I am a bit as well.

Intellectualizing life instead of living it in the moment, keeping people at a distance rather than being genuine and authentic with them, doing a job that pays the bills instead of something I am passionate about... . those are acceptable adult coping mechanisms... short of a full blown PD... but involving the same lack of being intensely alive as I had before my r/s with my pwBPD. For quite a while I was seeing a T to manage the stress of ending the r/s... and then trying to figure out what I should do (based on what others wanted and reeling from the r/s)... but with mindfulness and some 20/20 insight... I see that it is my life and I need to live it. I hope my exBPDgf gets help, gets cured, and all is well for her... but I am not going to delude myself that it is likely, and I sure am not going to put my life on hold hoping the unlikely blessed event occurs someday. I don't have BPD or NPD... but few people talk about schizoid tendencies... which are being non-social and distancing yourself from others and living life... . via detachment and muting your feelings. Estimates for the percent of the population that is schizoid to be between 1 and 40%... . that is a huge range, but since they suffer in silence, are not leaving a wake of destruction behind them and tend to be socially acceptable (albeit living life as a wallflower)... no one knows for sure how many they are or what to do for them... as they tend to not seek help.

I have tasted Technicolor living with full feelings and can't go back to black and white detachment. Evading feelings is a mistake, experience them and appreciate what they do for you, evading them is how you manage to get stuck unable to mature or feel. Take the good and the bad... it is the bad that makes the good so good... . that is living.

Some good points you make here. Can I ask how much of your coming to terms with it was developed while your were in the RS and how much of was in recovery after leaving?

The reason I ask is that learning this stuff whilst you are in the RS, it is possible to also learn ways to live safely with it and not let it destroy you as a person. In other words you can develop management skills, that you otherwise dont develop when you are learning after the event. Learning to live with a drug if you like rather than just learning that to survive you need to avoid it.

It is one of the reasons a message I promote on the Staying board is that commitment to staying is not permanent ( I know a BPD like fleeting commitment), you do have the choice to ultimately leave if it comes to it. However, commitment in the moment helps you develop better coping skills, as you get to practice them, so that if you do leave you will be better prepared for it and a little less scarred.

How much in the R/S versus after the fact... well, when I first met my exBPDgf... I didn't know she was BPD... and we dated for 18 months, I was ready to marry her and abruptly she dumped me, devastating me horribly... she took up with a neighbor of mine and I was near suicidal/homicidal... so I quit my career, left a successful company and moved 1500 miles away from friends/relatives and her.  Twenty five years later... I was married with a kid, had a good job and lost it in downturn 2009... contacted 300 people for jobs... got one response. Was told to explore social media, joined FB... and she contacted me, telling me she had to explain what really happened... skeptically I agreed to talk on phone, and her voice took me 100% back to all the intense feelings... within 6 mos I was divorced... thought I had a second chance at happiness with her... and things started going horribly wrong.

In the course of the 3 yrs I tried to make it work... she did a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde transformation... and one day told me she was diagnosed BPD when she was in school for her masters degree. I was getting stressed out by her, having horrific fights, recycled 6-7 times and finally knew and accepted she was disordered. Started seeing a T about a month before the final breakup... but I would say the last 8 months of the r/s I was aware of and trying to use the tools to make things better. My stress and guilt over getting a divorce, and really hurting my daughter due to it... was crippling. Mindfulness helped me immensely. Once I insisted on staying in the present... not being led in to near hypnotic history trips to when things were good, but actually demanding my pwBPD relate to me in the present by being civil... . the r/s ended abruptly. She could not function without manipulation, lying, hysterics, blaming and so forth.

Was in treatment for PTSD for a while after the breakup (she yelled and ranted at me for 7 hrs the longest time... at which point I left... sure that I had no need for anyone that would do that ever in my life.) After that I was vitriolic toward BPD... then less so, and eventually came to see that my own issues led her to me, and that I needed boundaries and working through my own issues. So... most of the insights are after the fact, and my own experience leads me to believe that there is no real hope of a decent relationship with a person stunted at the maturity level of a 3 yr old... and I was a fool for trying to make it work the second time... once I knew she was not my dream girl, but a nightmare.

Since then I have been working on getting my own stress level down to the point I can be a good friend to people and a good partner... but it will never be with her or anyone with that serious of a PD again.

[Love Is Not Enough]

An interesting analogy I heard once about learning to live with a pwBPD. It is like once you were living in a war zone. By learning how to live with the disorder, it is going from a real war zone to a video game version. You can ride the excitement, but you have learned the tools that enable hit the pause/stop/restart button. You are also aware that the emotions are not really life or death issues. You have the ability to control just how much they absorb you, you just need to learn how to apply that control.

This is so true. I have posted to a few people on the undecided board before that even with treatment they may not too thrilled with the rs they end up with. Like a video game I feel like my rs is almost artificial. The excitement of the idealization was great, but I can live without it. What bothers me the most is once I realized what brought and held us together was just our disorders feeding off of each other I could see how empty the rs was. After that I never really pined for the idealization because I knew it was just another lie. It also made me look at my own emptiness, which is no easy feat.

Sometimes I think we are both just "faking it til we make it". Then I wonder if we will ever "make it". I know I need to work more on me, but it has been a struggle lately. I feel like a broken record. I just keep skipping back to the same issues over and over.

[waverider]

An interesting analogy I heard once about learning to live with a pwBPD. It is like once you were living in a war zone. By learning how to live with the disorder, it is going from a real war zone to a video game version. You can ride the excitement, but you have learned the tools that enable hit the pause/stop/restart button. You are also aware that the emotions are not really life or death issues. You have the ability to control just how much they absorb you, you just need to learn how to apply that control.

This is so true. I have posted to a few people on the undecided board before that even with treatment they may not too thrilled with the rs they end up with. Like a video game I feel like my rs is almost artificial. The excitement of the idealization was great, but I can live without it. What bothers me the most is once I realized what brought and held us together was just our disorders feeding off of each other I could see how empty the rs was. After that I never really pined for the idealization because I knew it was just another lie. It also made me look at my own emptiness, which is no easy feat.

Sometimes I think we are both just "faking it til we make it". Then I wonder if we will ever "make it". I know I need to work more on me, but it has been a struggle lately. I feel like a broken record. I just keep skipping back to the same issues over and over.

I think one of the issues you are having is it as still feeding self doubt in you. By playing along with the "fun" bit you dont feel like you are being real. I know I am real, and i know my partner struggles to be real but is doing her best to have fun, so I can enjoy her company even though her tales and actions may have a degree of fantasy, just as long as i know that the "fudging" of reality is not done with malicous intent, which it no longer is. Much as a childs tales.

Knowing where reality is doesn't mean you need to be anchored in it. I will admit I do have a fair sized inner child that i let out to play now and a then. That part of me bonds very well with a pwBPD. If fact learning about BPD taught me to recognise that inner child part of me. It is probably what attracted the pwBPD in the first place. The difference is now I have reins on it

I guess it is a case of reaching a state in your RS where you can let go of skepticism. That is not easy, but it is a sucess step when you do.

[Love Is Not Enough]

An interesting analogy I heard once about learning to live with a pwBPD. It is like once you were living in a war zone. By learning how to live with the disorder, it is going from a real war zone to a video game version. You can ride the excitement, but you have learned the tools that enable hit the pause/stop/restart button. You are also aware that the emotions are not really life or death issues. You have the ability to control just how much they absorb you, you just need to learn how to apply that control.

This is so true. I have posted to a few people on the undecided board before that even with treatment they may not too thrilled with the rs they end up with. Like a video game I feel like my rs is almost artificial. The excitement of the idealization was great, but I can live without it. What bothers me the most is once I realized what brought and held us together was just our disorders feeding off of each other I could see how empty the rs was. After that I never really pined for the idealization because I knew it was just another lie. It also made me look at my own emptiness, which is no easy feat.

Sometimes I think we are both just "faking it til we make it". Then I wonder if we will ever "make it". I know I need to work more on me, but it has been a struggle lately. I feel like a broken record. I just keep skipping back to the same issues over and over.

I think one of the issues you are having is it as still feeding self doubt in you. By playing along with the "fun" bit you dont feel like you are being real. I know I am real, and i know my partner struggles to be real but is doing her best to have fun, so I can enjoy her company even though her tales and actions may have a degree of fantasy, just as long as i know that the "fudging" of reality is not done with malicous intent, which it no longer is. Much as a childs tales.

I know the self doubt is something I still struggle with. I think that while I am in the moment I enjoy it, but then after I reflect on it too much and question it. I think this has a lot to do with me not being able to believe her commitment because of things she has done. I have forgiven her for those things, but they have led me to believe her loyalty is elsewhere. I know logically she did not do it with malicious intent because she was acting off of impulse and emotion, but I just can't shake feeling second class. I am better about not taking it personally and not letting it make me feel insecure, but then I get angry at myself because I feel I disrespect myself by staying. I tell myself it doesn't matter, but then the record skips back again... .

Knowing where reality is doesn't mean you need to be anchored in it. I will admit I do have a fair sized inner child that i let out to play now and a then. That part of me bonds very well with a pwBPD. If fact learning about BPD taught me to recognise that inner child part of me. It is probably what attracted the pwBPD in the first place. The difference is now I have reins on it

I agree and I do my best to not let the reality get to me. I just wish I could let go of how I feel about what her past actions mean to me.

I guess it is a case of reaching a state in your RS where you can let go of skepticism. That is not easy, but it is a sucess step when you do.

My friend tells me to have faith in her. My T tells me to treat her like the woman I want. They both point out that she has improved. I am trying my best to do both of these. At the end of the day I feel like it comes down to trust and I just can't get there.

[charred]

This is so true. I have posted to a few people on the undecided board before that even with treatment they may not too thrilled with the rs they end up with. Like a video game I feel like my rs is almost artificial. The excitement of the idealization was great, but I can live without it. What bothers me the most is once I realized what brought and held us together was just our disorders feeding off of each other I could see how empty the rs was. After that I never really pined for the idealization because I knew it was just another lie. It also made me look at my own emptiness, which is no easy feat.

Dead on.

I have read endlessly on BPD and NPD and have neither. Took a lot to accept that my dream girl was a disordered person, and that not only the issues between us were coming in part from the disorder, but also the attraction. Even tougher is accepting that it isn't just her that had issues, but I do as well... or else I would not have been hooked on and stayed with someone so toxic for so long.

Read about schizoid personality... and suspect that may be what many of us are... it is defined in wikipedia as;

"Schizoid personality disorder (SPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, and apathy. Affected individuals may simultaneously demonstrate a rich, elaborate and exclusively internal fantasy world.

SPD is not the same as schizophrenia, although they share such similar characteristics as detachment and blunted affect."

What was interesting about reading up on it, was that other books described SPD as being false self centric like BPD and NPD, but it is different. The SPD lives in a fantasy world... but it isn't fully disconnected from reality, isn't crazy and doesn't usually result in acting out in some way that people want to cure it. What it sounded like was a lot of the introvert's stereotype. Quiet, with a rich inner fantasy world. Didn't sound like me at all at first.

However, after a while I realized... it is exactly what happens... I think of how things "ought" to be, and "should" be... and in my job that is useful... helps to make plans and roadmaps and improve processes and so forth. In my personal life... not so much... I think of how I want my house to be kept, and the reality of it is never as nice... so this expectation of some illusion being the standard, instead of reality... rules the day often... without intending it or noticing it.

So... the r/s with my pwBPD was illusion and was her disorder and my illusions (which may or may not be a disorder)... playing out... it certainly wasn't reality/reality based for both of us.  The treatments for BPD have been to try to get them to go through pre-oedipal developmental stages they are stunted at... and mature like a person that isn't disordered. The porn star sex thing... is a common BPD thing and illusion... as is most of the idealization. Our ego (false self) driven fantasies can grab on to a BPD person and feel sparks... but it isn't reality based for either of us.

The chances of BPD being cured are not good, and if it is the other person with it... you can't make them get cured,... but chances are that if you were devastated by the r/s... you were not operating from a good reality base either.

Strongly recommend "The Search for the Real Self" by James Masterson... . it has the best explanation of how BPD develops and how they think I have read... and explains other developmental issues... like NPD and schizoid... which I suspect many of us are. (Stats say 1=40%... but little is known as SPD is not a problem to society and people that are SPD seldom seek help.)

[Blimblam]

charred,

I have been trying t figure out why I am so devastated myself I just ordered that book.  I was wondering if you knew more info about the schizoid personality disorder?  I think I may have a lot of schizoid tendencies full on disorder Idk.  But I want to heal.

man, charred I think you are really onto something here.