High/low functioning pwBPD?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

It helps me if I can understand more about BPD. A recent post got me thinking about 'high functioning' and 'low functioning' borderlines and from what I can understand there are no categories as such. High Functioning Borderline = not a borderline.

Up to this point I've been thinking that my ex was HF as he has a fairly successful career. He seems to hold himself together at work, but still has some difficulties and conflicts. He has no close friendships with anyone at work, nor outside of it come to that. More like acquaintances he sees every now and then. He tends to keep people at a distance.

So is it this lack of closeness, that allows him to appear HF?  In this context, his emotions aren't triggered so much so he doesn't become dysregulated and act on destructive impulse?

This leads me to think that maybe he has a  level of awareness of his problems. He may not be able to control his emotional responses, but takes steps to mitigate any potential damage by keeping people at a distance? So, it appears he is perfectly 'normal'.

Are some people with BPD aware of their internal issues so that they take steps to try to control their emotions? Do they know they're being cruel to you? If they are aware why don't they seek help? Why carry on hurting others?

[Larmoyant]

It helps me if I can understand more about BPD. A recent post got me thinking about 'high functioning' and 'low functioning' borderlines and from what I can understand there are no categories as such. High Functioning Borderline = not a borderline.

Up to this point I've been thinking that my ex was HF as he has a fairly successful career. He seems to hold himself together at work, but still has some difficulties and conflicts. He has no close friendships with anyone at work, nor outside of it come to that. More like acquaintances he sees every now and then. He tends to keep people at a distance.

So is it this lack of closeness, that allows him to appear HF?  In this context, his emotions aren't triggered so much so he doesn't become dysregulated and act on destructive impulse?

This leads me to think that maybe he has a  level of awareness of his problems. He may not be able to control his emotional responses, but takes steps to mitigate any potential damage by keeping people at a distance? So, it appears he is perfectly 'normal'.

Are some people with BPD aware of their internal issues so that they take steps to try to control their emotions? Do they know they're being cruel to you? If they are aware why don't they seek help? Why carry on hurting others?

[JQ]

Hi Larm,

In case you didn't know or if you did the following is for those new ones to the group that don't ... .but my exBPDgf is very high functioning. A Ivy league education with 2 Masters. She has been employed for a Fortune 500 company for years now making six figures.  She is self aware of her BPD & has been in & out of therapy to include Ph.d's for nearly 25 plus years. 

There is a huge difference between having a personal r/s & having coworkers or professional r/s. Sometimes that line is crossed in the case of my exBPDgf where she had at least 2 office affairs while she was married to her now ex-husband. Both the men were dismissed since they were her supervisor but I'm sure they had no idea what they were getting into much like the rest of us did when we first met our respective BPD.  When the fired her previous supervisor they promoted a female over her which turned out to be very unsettling to her. My exBPDgf had told me she had "befriended" this woman before she was selected for the promotion. I heard all the stories, "I have more experience than her so I should of been selected", "i taught her the job she's in now", "I have to teach her my job now so she can be my boss"& the list goes on. Remember another symptom of BPD is illusions of being better than everyone else. Of coarse I'm paraphrasing here.  Now imagine the conflicts that arose & she would originally solve those with a flirt with her boss or perhaps more in order to keep her position. Now with a female appointed over her she lost that leverage so you guessed it. She transferred into another division with a male supervisor. And so the recycle continues.

So during my professional therapy I learned that in most cases a work r/s is just that & a coworker doesn't really get to know the "Real You". There are pleasant good mornings exchanged, have a good night/weekend or perhaps going to lunch with a group. This for anyone of us is a superficial surface type of r/s.

The difference for the BPD r/s outside of work is that you get to know the "real person", share intimate stories, become friends, share each others bodies, make plans for the future ... .all the "normal things" in a r/s.  But unlike a work r/s your personal r/s you get close to the BPD and this is where the push/pull behavior starts. We've all experienced the "Extreme Fear of Abandonment" or don't leave me and the "Extreme fear of Engulfment" this is where they start to push you away from our respective BPD. You are in deeper with them than work so the difference allows them to carry on & be somewhat successful. Someone on the boards told me his now exBPDw was very successful in business & in the coarse after their divorce 25 yrs earlier she became a VP of a division of a world wide product that everyone drinks.  She never had successful r/s and is currently trying to recycle with him after all these years.

to answer your questions do BPD take steps to TRY to control their emotions. As I said in the beginning of this post, she has been in & out of therapy for 25 plus years in an attempt to try & do just that. I even attended more than one session at her request because she wanted my "help" to control her rages. There were other issues that would never be fixed as her therapist told me in one session. As did mine and a couple of friends who are Clinical Therapist & 1 psychiatrist buddy.

Do they know they're being cruel? I would say yes to some extent. It's where the "Intense" overwhelming emotions of guilt come in. Because they've hurt the person they so disparately want to be with but are incapable of managing their behavior. I remember one moment of clarity after an intense night we woke in the morning, she was smiling at me.  She had this look in her eyes and she said the following, "I NEED you to know that I do love you", "It's important to me that you know this".  I told her I knew. In that brief moment of clarity I believed she was telling the truth of what she believed was love. But her Severe Cluster B Mental Illness soon invaded our morning a short while later and it was as if I was with someone that I didn't know. Never mind the fact that just a short time later she was professing her love for me.

We've all experienced that and more. As was told to me by more than one mental health expert, "They are severely broken people", "They are currently beyond any cure that modern pharma, surgery or therapy can provide." "The best one could hope for is some level of management of the mental illness but this will not be the end all be all you want or hope for." "This does not mean that any of their behavior will be modified to any level of your satisfaction." "There will still be rages, there will still be the infidelity, there will still be the money management problems, there will still be the alcohol abuse and all the other things we've discussed."

Remember one of our conversations Larm, you are trying to apply a logical ending to a very serious Cluster B Mental Illness that is without logic. If you are to heal from your BPD experience and move forward in a much happier life this isn't about your exBPD, this is about YOU ... .ALWAYS HAS BEEN ABOUT YOU! And getting you to a better place. It's about learning about yourself. Improving yourself.  Someone reminded me that I went through EMDR therapy for a very traumatic event in my life. I returned to this therapy when I suffered the trauma from my exBPDgf and it was truly successful in a VERY successful way. Perhaps you should consider this as well ... .just a thought.

I hope that long post helps in some small way to answer your questions. 

J

[Sadly]

Hello
J
That very long post was very helpful, it explains and makes sense of so much. In the UK it is hard to get any sort of therapy however there is an EMDR therapist locally and I am going to get in touch and hope it won't be too expensive. Thank you so very much. Hope you are well Lar.
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