Do you seem to attract people with BPD like a magnet?

[Cat Familiar]

I do. I figured out that's because of my family of origin. I seem to tolerate behavior that would send normal people running for the hills.

Case in point. For the last eight years, I've been buying milk and eggs from a neighbor. She'd always seemed a bit fringey, but I've lived "off the grid" before, so I could understand. Also, she's a fabulous animal trainer, so we had a lot in common.

Over the years I noticed her difficulties with anger management, creating drama, general chaos in her life which led to financial hardships and interpersonal difficulties.

I tried to create a boundary such that our relationship was transactional, but I did develop a fondness for her and a friendship, but I kept her at a distance as much as possible. That said, I did get sucked into assisting her with copying materials for a couple of court issues. (I have a printer and she doesn't.) And helping her by driving her to a couple of appointments when she broke her foot. In addition, I accompanied her to court when she had a dispute with a neighbor, who had backed her up to her fence with his tractor.

Surprise, in that issue, she was the one who received the restraining order, even though he had a history of behaving badly in the neighborhood, only because in a public meeting, she had loudly stated that she "hoped his tractor would overturn on top of him and that no one would find him until it was too late" and he, and the judge, interpreted that as a "death threat".

So, you can see she is a "loopy character". Over the years, I gave her a bit of financial assistance when one of her animals accrued excessive vet bills.

As time passed, I could see that her financial situation and living circumstances were deteriorating and recently she let loose her anger on her elderly father, who had been giving her a small monthly stipend, which he subsequently rescinded.

This week she told me she was suicidal and was doing things which seemed totally out of character, such as giving away her favorite dog. Having had a friend commit suicide, I took this very seriously. As a neighbor, I don't know her longterm friends, but I did know of one person, who is the executive director of an agency that assists disabled individuals and I let her know that our mutual acquaintance was suicidal.

Then ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.

I was accused of "betraying her" and all sorts of other negative vitriol and that my actions stemmed from my desire to hurt her and further damage her life.

So I have completely severed contact with her, which was not my intention. My husband had found a website that helps people who are behind on their house payments and I had forwarded that to her earlier in the week. I discovered an agency that would help her with some minor household repairs. Another friend of hers was starting a GoFundMe account for her and I had photographed her and sent that friend the photos.

She totally shut down all offers of assistance and currently I look over the ridge that separates our properties for smoke as she had threatened to burn down her house.

The ED of the agency I spoke with is a "Mandated Reporter" and I explained everything I had witnessed. It's in her lap as to whether to send Adult Protective Services or not. She's known this woman for over thirty years, so she has a better idea of what to expect.

So... .no good deed goes unpunished?

[zachira]

 "I figured out that's because of my family of origin. I seem to tolerate behavior that would send normal people running for the hills." You are wondering about if others attract people with BPD like a magnet. I grew up with a BPD mother, and like you I have often tolerated behavior that would send normal people running for the hills. The more I have developed my self esteem and ego strength through therapy and other positive activities and interactions with healthy people, the more healthy people I attract and the better are my boundaries with emotionally draining people. I think this is all about how much you want to give, knowing that with certain people it will not end well. I admire your compassion and all you have done for your neighbor. I think those of us who come from challenging families often have more compassion for the down trodden and want to help as we know what it is like to feel emotional pain. Our challenge is to know our limits on how much we want to give and who we want to help. Thank you for sharing your story, as many of us on this site are/have been in similar situations. Keep us posted as we care and are always here to listen.

[formflier]

Sounds like you did the right thing.  Unfortunately... that's usually... .or sometimes not a popular thing

Hang in there

FF

[Cat Familiar]

zachira and formflier,
Thanks for the support. I know my boundaries are getting better and hopefully I'll be smart enough in the future to not step in these messes.

In a serendipitous turn of events, the day of my neighbor's "explosion" I had my bi-monthly appointment with my psychologist.

I had a nice kvetch session about my crabby husband post hip replacement surgery. (Actually he's doing quite well now. The issue I dealt with was prior to the surgery. I was trying to give him a realistic idea of what he was about to face with his recovery. He had thought that he'd be up and running immediately--kinda like taking the car to the shop for a replacement part. All communication from me was interpreted as me "being negative" or "unsupportive" when all I was doing was trying to make sure our house would be safe for his recovery, with all the needed equipment, and that he would realize that he would be unable to immediately return to his normal lifestyle. He got a major wakeup call and though he's doing OK, his recovery is quite slow in comparison to some. He had this arrogant idea that since he was once a standout athlete that he'd recover far quicker than most. What he didn't take into consideration was his years of being a couch potato.)

My P validated my choices about my neighbor and I've never had a moment's doubt that I did the right thing. I am very sorry for the mess she finds herself in, but it was a product of her own choices and not my business. The following day I met up with a friend who is a chaplain and also did a lot of phone counseling for the County with suicide prevention. She also validated me.

The interesting thing is that nice as being validated is by professionals, it didn't mean as much to me as it would have a few years ago, when I might have wondered if I had done the "right thing". This time around, I knew from the beginning that my actions were the best I could do.

I was able to share a humorous, and slightly sad aside with my P about another wack job that I had gotten involved with a couple of years ago. My wonderful handyman who I'd known for 15 years had died suddenly and for a year I was the sole handy person around here, since my husband is a total urban city boy and had no clue about fixing things.

There's a lot I'm able to do, but some things are just beyond my pay grade or would take far too long for me to figure out, even with YouTube videos. So I started looking online for handymen. I found someone, who seemed somewhat knowledgeable, if yet another "fringey" personality. He was fine for a while. I'd call him for a day's work every few weeks. Over a year, he started seeming "off" and it occurred to me that he might be using drugs.

I'd always paid him more than he asked, but after a couple of times when he either cancelled at the last minute or his work was subpar or he took far too long on a simple repair, I quit calling him.

Instead, I hired a friend's contractor husband, who had recently quit working building cell towers and was looking for smaller local jobs. When my former handyman called, asking for work, I told him that I'd found someone else. As you could imagine, this call didn't go well.

It had been a few months since I'd seen the handyman and fortunately he lived far away. Out of the blue, he called on Christmas Eve, leaving a message that he didn't have money to buy his son a Christmas present and asking for "severance pay."

Of course we didn't respond to this, but we did start locking our gate. UGH... .

[formflier]

In my real estate business... .I use lots of those handyman types.

They are notorious for being all over the place.

My only advice would be to skip telling them you found someone else.

"Well... .I don't have anything for you at the moment."

Leave the door open.  Or offer work you know he wouldn't want.

Yeah... .I've had to deal with that  a lot.  One of the reasons I want to downsize.

FF

[Cat Familiar]

Thankfully my friend's husband is a great guy and I'll bundle up a few days of work for him now and then.

I'd certainly be very leery of hiring somebody from an online directory after this!

Good advice. I would have said something similar except he had started working on finishing the basement of the garage, and had totally screwed up the electrical. Thank goodness we hadn't had him back to finish insulating it and doing the sheetrock. It took my friend's husband a long time to straighten up the mess he had made and thankfully it hadn't started a fire.

[Cromwell]

I never thought so, but looking back at relationships that troubled me early on and I was the one to quickly discard, I do start to notice red flags and similar behaviour as to what I put up with this time around.

It sounds back to front that I didnt manage so well with the benefit of maturity, but thats the whole point, I discarded before there was anything negative to experience, ie, at the first initial signs of trouble.

I often feel that if I was my younger self again, I wouldnt have got into this in the first place, but then again I met my BPDx at a time I was very emotionally vulnerable for other reasons.

I dont think its down to magnetism as such, but something similar. There are people out there that look for targets, in this case, it is looking for vulnerable people in some way, if you show any signs of this, it is an open invitation to pursue further. Its a bit like a burglar who will walk down a street, ignore every house until finds one with no alarm, lower window open, and high hedge row. They just walked past a house with iron gates, doberman sitting in the garden, alarm and a sign saying burglars will be shot.

My ex said some interesting things to me such as "i notice how confident youve became since stopping the drugs". It came as a surprise because I didnt think that I was any different back then (and that was when I met her, what she was referring to). So it told me that she began a relationship with someone who she felt lacked less confidence, she knew i was heavy into drugs, a strange choice of partner. Yet looking back at her prior r/s they all fitted a similar pattern, not perhaps drug involvment but say, factors that made them easier to control such as certain disabilities.

The word control here, I noticed a serious ramp up in disorder in the r/s the more I got healthier and progressing out of the slump I was in. It was almost as if she felt that because I was no longer vulnerable I would "wake up" and leave her for someone else. So if she was to have met me prior to the slump I was in, it is true, I wouldnt have gone anywhere near her, the red flags I would have noticed early on. In some ways im glad I got this experience, it has forced me into a broader perspective and less judgmental, I learned some empathy.

If anything, the experience has made me less-attractive to people with BPD than it had before, Ive in the process of healing from what I went through gained insight to stop such behavior in its tracts, and became better at recognising the red flag signs. My metaphor house in the street is more anti-PD barbed wire, trip wired lawn, gun turret structures than it probably should be for peace time, and wanting to have the personality that is less defensive, but it has to be for now, still in healing phase.

Its why I wont date properly until ive got to a stage where I dont feel emotionally vulnerable or in a state of overcompensating my defence mechanisms where I will be too paranoid with people.

[Cat Familiar]

I dont think its down to magnetism as such, but something similar. There are people out there that look for targets, in this case, it is looking for vulnerable people in some way, if you show any signs of this, it is an open invitation to pursue further. Its a bit like a burglar who will walk down a street, ignore every house until finds one with no alarm, lower window open, and high hedge row. They just walked past a house with iron gates, doberman sitting in the garden, alarm and a sign saying burglars will be shot.

I like this metaphor. This afternoon I've got to strengthen my boundaries in a non-metaphorish way. Last night my neighbor lost two sheep to either mountain lion predation or coyote attack, or both. The vet wasn't sure.

I've got my donkey on guard duty, the hot wire on the fence is working well. My next step is to run a line of hot wire down the wooden fence posts at the corners of my sheep and goat pen. So hopefully I'll prevent whatever attacked my neighbor's animals from coming here. Whatever it is, I know some of my critters have been nervous about something down by the creek.

Back to BPD. I got totally exhausted dealing with both the handyman and my wackjob neighbor. I really feel for those of you who are dealing with an out of control BPD partner!

[zachira]

I just finished reading "Attached". It is the best book I have ever read on relationships and I have read many. It describes how to attract the right people, who to stay away from, and how to relate to your significant other in ways that draw you closer and make you feel more secure.

[formflier]

and had totally screwed up the electrical.  

Ugg... .people screwing up electrical.  Scary stuff.

As you guys know... .I have and have had more houses that I can count... .so I've seen a lot of weird stuff.

We have renters in the last house we lived in (so... we've lived in the house a total of 4-5 years) of the 15 years we have owned it.  It was beautifully rehabbed before we bought it.  To include a new electrical for the dryer.

So... I was shocked when the renters called me and said it appeared the  plug had melted and the dryer didn't work.  I assumed they were not handy (they aren't) and just didn't know what they were talking about.

So... I head over for a service call when I was in town... .and... .burned and melted dryer plug

I installed a new line from the electrical service and upgraded to "4 prong".  I did an "autopsy" on the old cord and found a nick that happened... .most likely... during the installation.  It festered since 2004 and finally something arced and burned "one leg" of the 220 from the nick up to the plug.  

Very lucky it didn't spread...

FF

[Cat Familiar]

Another electrical nightmare story:
I used to rent a commercial building for my food business. For about a week I'd been smelling a "dead fish" kinda odor in the office. I couldn't track down where it was emanating, and we hadn't had any fish in the building, so it was a mystery.

For some reason, I decided to drop by the office on a weekend, a day it was never occupied. When I walked past the production area into the office, I was startled to see a small flame coming from an electrical outlet box. Probably like your situation with the melted dryer plug, there had been a small short in the wires and over time, the insulation melted, generating that weird fishy smell.

[Cat Familiar]

I've been thinking more about why I've attracted pwBPDs.

When I was young and starting to date, the boys who seemed really nice and very interested in me seemed boring. I liked the challenge of bad boys: the rule breakers, the individualists who didn't get with the program, the ones who seemed somewhat interested in me, but then other times, weren't.

This reminds me of a scene from a Woody Allen movie where he says he wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have him as a member.

So, this component of wanting the seemingly unattainable seems linked to lack of self esteem, which certainly described my feelings as a young person.


But now, I'm happy with myself, though I realize my shortcomings and try to consistently improve the way I move through the world. So, there's something else that triggers my openness and acceptance of pwBPD.

It's beyond just feeling "comfortable with crazy" from my FOO. I realized that I seem to have a desire to help people in difficult circumstances and sometimes they really have no desire to make any improvements in their lives, despite complaining about their conditions.

Knowing this, perhaps it's time for me to cut bait early and be more judicious about who I try and help, focusing upon people who really want help rather than those who seem to merely want to complain about their lives.

[Red5]

Good Morning Cat,

I am late to the post again... .it was a "long weekend" ,

Yes, me2, .I seem to attract what you are describing;... .the history (mine) speaks for itself.

For some reason; if my life was "real-estate"... .I seem to pick "fixer uppers" ... .

I concur with the other posters here, as far as your neighbor, and suicidal ideations, those require hard wired checklist responses!

You acted the right way in raising an alarm, .what do we always say, "don't rescue"... .in this case, I think, when a person says, I'm going to -xyz- myself;... .resulting in ideations of suicide, and then when they get confronted (rescued), and then they get mad about it... .well, that's too bad really, we cannot (certainly) let someone just "do that", .none of us; for the most part are wired that way, we want to save, to rescue, to help... .and then; in most of our cases, we then become entangled... .that's the "catch-22".

No ma'am, you did the right thing, .but we do have to know when to back away sometimes, whilst "helping/rescuing"... .and not let the other party shower us in burning embers, then we will get damaged ourselves due to the other parties intended/unintended malfeasance... .which is not a good thing for us in the long run.

But we help when we can... .yes; if someone says, "I want to jump off a bridge", then we should take that person on their word... .kinda like saying "bomb" on an airplane these daze... ."not cool".

Red5

[Cat Familiar]

Hi Red,
Hey, thanks for your thoughts and validation. I know that if faced with the same choices about "outing" her to her longterm friend, I'd do it again. Actually I called the ED of the agency back and had a very nice chat with her. I'd previously left a voice message, so it was good to chat with her. Apparently I didn't really "out" my neighbor, since she and others apparently had observed similar behavior in the past. She's going to check in with her in a couple of weeks. After she made a couple of calls to my neighbor's daughter and another longterm friend, she too is persona non grata.

What's different for me is that this time I'm not stepping back into the fray. I'm looking for another milk and egg supplier. I wish my neighbor well, but I no longer want to participate in the crazy. In the last week I've felt so much freer not listening to her endless harangues about people she currently dislikes or how difficult her circumstances are.

I totally sympathize with her financial difficulties. However, they've come about as a product of her choices. I kept hearing discordant bits and pieces of information from her. She was late paying her mortgage, but was considering buying a horse? What the heck? She needed advance payment from me but she "fired" one of her dog training clients? It just didn't make sense. But hey, BPD.

I love your "fixer upper" analogy. I've so been there done that, over and over and over and over and over.    I hope I'm finally done with that chapter.

I think the issue is that seeing the good in others who are otherwise quite broken, can be a double-edged sword. Time for me to take care of my own business, not think I'm Mother Teresa. 

Cat