Do I Keep Attracting People With BPD?

[Our abuse recovery guide]

Is it possible to be someone who keeps attracting people with BPD / narcissistic conditions?  I don't know if I have become a kind of magnet or if I am just seeing specters everywhere.

Background, childhood: I grew up with a mother undiagnosed BPD as well as an aunt (her sister) with similar behaviours.  My mother received a diagnosis of depression but she is very high functioning and very intelligent, refusing to acknowledge her many other symptoms and behaviours let alone ever discuss them with a doctor.  The abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, lies, was never-ending and always hidden from outsiders.  I was taught that the abuse was "normal" yet I was suffering extremely and was pretty mixed up so I escaped home at age 16 (decades ago) and ended all contact about 10 years ago.  Both her husbands and both her daughters all left her in the most absolute of ways.  Her sister is highly abusive to her family and yet somehow maintains loyalty from them while they suffer (no idea how she succeeds at this).  I am doing my best to extremely limit contact with her while trying to have at least some contact with the rest of the family.  Both my mother and aunt each accuse the other of having BPD but both refuse to acknowledge their own.

Background, young adult years: After escaping home at an early age, I immediately began an 8 year relationship with a partner who I thought was my savior and best friend only to realize in later years that he did much of the same things to me that my mother did.  No diagnosis yet never-ending manipulation, besmirching, lies, gaslighting.  We eventually split after I started getting therapy and he wanted to move on to someone else.  I then started a new relationship and she turned out to have diagnosed Schizoaffective Disorder with BPD!  That one lasted 2 years while I continued therapy and I finally ended it and ended all contact.

I worked my tail off in therapy for 2 decades and continue to make constant effort.  I am constantly checking myself to make sure that I don't have the same symptoms or behave the same way as these 4 people did in my life as I don't ever want to cause the same damage to others.  I realized years ago that I cannot yet trust myself to get into intimate relationships or live with anyone and I want to accept onus for myself.  Instead I have learned to focus on healing and learning and keeping myself safe, trying to create a nice life for myself on my own.  I've worked so hard for so long and thought I was doing really well.

Now... gawd... the building I live in was sold and the new landlady is behaving the same way!  She's broken numerous laws against me, threatened me, is manipulative, lies, practices double-talk constantly and more.  During a hearing when I had to take her to a landlord-tenant tribunal, she was acting so bizarrely even the adjudicator made a comment about it and used the word "unreasonable" in the order.  I won my case against her but her very first action afterward was to threaten me again.  I'm low income with a physical disability in a city where the rents have skyrocketed (more than twice my monthly income with less than 1% availability rate) and I have nowhere to go, no place I could afford even if I wanted to move and feel stuck having to deal with this woman.  So often I catch myself sitting with my face in my hands shaking my head with thoughts swirling around in my head and feeling sick to my stomach.  Can this really be my... ?luck?

Can this actually be possible?  Can someone become a kind of magnet for people with a condition?  I've heard of women who seem to keep getting involved with men who will physically abuse them.  Is there an equivalent for children in families with BPD (or other conditions that might include a narcissistic element) that then grow up and keep finding themselves in the same circumstances?  I feel like I'm in a movie or book or something where all the characters are utterly dysfunctional.  At the same time, while I ask this question, my other question has to be, have I trained my brain to see BPD where there isn't any?  Am I just seeing specters?  It's so important to me to accept onus for myself and that includes not unjustly accusing others nor besmirching them.  With each of these (now) 5 people in my life I have needed to trust councilors and outsiders with the lists of behaviours so that they can tell me what is bizarre and what is normal.  I've had to learn how to tell the difference.  I think I have managed to find many lovely friends and have some decent relationships in my community, yet I am starting to run out of hope that I can just have a safe and happy life --- must there always be at least one person around who behaves in such damages ways?

[DaughterOfHera]

Is it possible to be someone who keeps attracting people with BPD / narcissistic conditions?  I don't know if I have become a kind of magnet or if I am just seeing specters everywhere.

Background, childhood: I grew up with a mother undiagnosed BPD as well as an aunt (her sister) with similar behaviours.  My mother received a diagnosis of depression but she is very high functioning and very intelligent, refusing to acknowledge her many other symptoms and behaviours let alone ever discuss them with a doctor.  The abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, lies, was never-ending and always hidden from outsiders.  I was taught that the abuse was "normal" yet I was suffering extremely and was pretty mixed up so I escaped home at age 16 (decades ago) and ended all contact about 10 years ago.  Both her husbands and both her daughters all left her in the most absolute of ways.  Her sister is highly abusive to her family and yet somehow maintains loyalty from them while they suffer (no idea how she succeeds at this).  I am doing my best to extremely limit contact with her while trying to have at least some contact with the rest of the family.  Both my mother and aunt each accuse the other of having BPD but both refuse to acknowledge their own.

Background, young adult years: After escaping home at an early age, I immediately began an 8 year relationship with a partner who I thought was my savior and best friend only to realize in later years that he did much of the same things to me that my mother did.  No diagnosis yet never-ending manipulation, besmirching, lies, gaslighting.  We eventually split after I started getting therapy and he wanted to move on to someone else.  I then started a new relationship and she turned out to have diagnosed Schizoaffective Disorder with BPD!  That one lasted 2 years while I continued therapy and I finally ended it and ended all contact.

I worked my tail off in therapy for 2 decades and continue to make constant effort.  I am constantly checking myself to make sure that I don't have the same symptoms or behave the same way as these 4 people did in my life as I don't ever want to cause the same damage to others.  I realized years ago that I cannot yet trust myself to get into intimate relationships or live with anyone and I want to accept onus for myself.  Instead I have learned to focus on healing and learning and keeping myself safe, trying to create a nice life for myself on my own.  I've worked so hard for so long and thought I was doing really well.

Now... gawd... the building I live in was sold and the new landlady is behaving the same way!  She's broken numerous laws against me, threatened me, is manipulative, lies, practices double-talk constantly and more.  During a hearing when I had to take her to a landlord-tenant tribunal, she was acting so bizarrely even the adjudicator made a comment about it and used the word "unreasonable" in the order.  I won my case against her but her very first action afterward was to threaten me again.  I'm low income with a physical disability in a city where the rents have skyrocketed (more than twice my monthly income with less than 1% availability rate) and I have nowhere to go, no place I could afford even if I wanted to move and feel stuck having to deal with this woman.  So often I catch myself sitting with my face in my hands shaking my head with thoughts swirling around in my head and feeling sick to my stomach.  Can this really be my... ?luck?

Can this actually be possible?  Can someone become a kind of magnet for people with a condition?  I've heard of women who seem to keep getting involved with men who will physically abuse them.  Is there an equivalent for children in families with BPD (or other conditions that might include a narcissistic element) that then grow up and keep finding themselves in the same circumstances?  I feel like I'm in a movie or book or something where all the characters are utterly dysfunctional.  At the same time, while I ask this question, my other question has to be, have I trained my brain to see BPD where there isn't any?  Am I just seeing specters?  It's so important to me to accept onus for myself and that includes not unjustly accusing others nor besmirching them.  With each of these (now) 5 people in my life I have needed to trust councilors and outsiders with the lists of behaviours so that they can tell me what is bizarre and what is normal.  I've had to learn how to tell the difference.  I think I have managed to find many lovely friends and have some decent relationships in my community, yet I am starting to run out of hope that I can just have a safe and happy life --- must there always be at least one person around who behaves in such damages ways?

[Notwendy]

Yes, but not in a hopeless way. I think we are both more aware of recognizing BPD but also not recognizing some subtle disorder due to it feeling "familiar" to us. If we didn't grow up with "normal" we may not have a sense of normal.

The other is that, we didn't acquire a sense of normal boundaries. Those were not present in our family growing up. We also learned some behaviors that served a purpose for us in our families but not once we are adults. Many of us become the kind of people who "fix" others and caretake maybe too much.

I also did not want to behave like my BPD mother and so made sure I didn't behave like she does. I looked to my father as the idea of "normal" but his behavior was enabling and co-dependent. I didn't recognize co-dependent, people pleasing, and enabling behaviors as being disordered because the focus was on my mother's disordered behaviors.

So yes, we can attract certain people who are attracted to our dysfunctional behaviors if we have different boundaries. People with emotionally healthy boundaries feel a sense of discomfort around people who don't have them. And people who tend to push boundaries will feel comfortable pushing ours. I don't think it's as much a function of us attracting them, but a selective factor. We have some kind of boundaries but these types tend to be able to match ours and others don't.

The good news is that learned behaviors can be unlearned and replaced with functional ones. I found 12 step ACA groups to be most helpful with this- and also working with a sponsor in these groups. The patterns with BPD are very similar to alcoholism. The group actually is adult children of alcoholics and dysfunction. They are at no charge, just sometimes people donate something but that is not required, so available to all income levels and many are online now since the pandemic. Google ACA recovery groups and you probably will find some that work for you.

[DaughterOfHera]

Thank you Notwendy... you've given me some helpful things to think about.  There are days when I think I have maybe just become more "qualified" to recognize the traits of BPD or similar, and then other days I question my own mind.  I do indeed see some similarities between BPD and addictions, and this newest person (landlady) will stay away from me for awhile, then start causing me problems again like she needs a "hit" of drama or something, and all over again I am back to getting help from my local legal centre, protecting myself legally, and being clear with my boundaries as a tenant.  Then she goes away for a while, only to come back again when she needs the next "hit of drama".  My aunt is like that too.  I'm doing a search of ACA and will see where it takes me.  Thanks so much for your kind words and your sharing.

[Methuen]

Daughterofhers,

Ditto to NW’s comments.  

I think a lot of us ask ourselves at sometime if we are a magnet, and NW explains beautifully how the dynamic plays out that makes us more vulnerable to these kinds of people.  

At the same time, I have come to think that there just are a lot of dysfunctional people around, and the law of numbers just means we cross paths.  

One just has to look at the state of the world to see dysfunctional people and bullies - political, economic, religious. Generally  the problems revolve around too many people having too much power and control, amassing money and egos.  Then they use their power and control to wage war, take land, cause chaos, divisiveness and destruction, all in the name of some goal or belief they had.  And history repeats itself.  On the micro level, I think there are more dysfunctional people than we care to admit.  They are family members, bosses and colleagues, community members, landlords, church members, friends, etc. Everyone has stories about difficult people.  So I also think it’s a numbers game because to be human is to be flawed.  It’s just a matter of degrees.

To think we are a magnet could be blaming ourselves, when in fact there just are a lot of dysfunctional people, and the odds sometimes just make us cross paths.  

So I think it’s both.  The environmental influence of growing up in a BPD family makes us more at risk of being people pleasersand possibly even doormats to dysfuctional people who see the opportunity to use us a mile away, for their supply.  But I also think there are enough dysfunctional people that the math means we are all going to encounter difficult people who cause chaos, disruption, and stress.

[Notwendy]

Several years ago, there were two women who influenced a friend of mine and ended that friendship.  I don't know for certain that they had BPD but it seems that way.

I had a friend who I will call Molly (not her name). Two disordered women came into the group. One (I'll call her Patty- not her name) has a history of dysfunctional relationships with people. Another  woman who I will call Tammy, moved to town. I tried to be friends with her but she wasn't responsive. Tammy became friends with these two, and the three of them excluded me.

I didn't know what was going on so I asked Molly why Tammy didn't want to be friends with me- did I do something? to which she replied "Tammy doesn't like you" and that after that, Molly ghosted me and the three of them formed a friend group. Eventually Tammy moved and Molly and Patty  remain friends.

Molly has reached out on occasion, attempted to be friendly. I am cordial but keep her at a distance. I think the best explanation for her friendship with Patty is that she may be the co-dependent in the relationship. Molly and I didn't have issues between us before this. However, I don't want to be friends with her now.

So maybe, my choice of friends was influenced. No matter how these women treated me, I kept trying to be friends with them, to get their acceptance. This parallels my relationship with my parents. I had to try to be "good enough" for my BPD mother to gain my parents' approval. So it's understandable that this might influence my friendships.

By contrast, another friend of mine knew Patty and told me she thought Patty was crazy. She saw it and I didn't at the time.