Understanding or accepting BPD criteria

[seeking balance]

Hey Leaving Board!

When I started looking at the criteria - I understood it, but had a hard time relating it completely to my ex.

From article 3 - https://bpdfamily.com/bpdresources/nk_a103.htm

For BPD to be diagnosed, at least five of the following signs and symptoms must be present:

* Intense fears of abandonment

* A pattern of unstable relationships

* Unstable self-image

* Impulsive and self-destructive behaviors

* Suicidal behavior or self-injury

* Wide mood swings

* Chronic feelings of emptiness

* Inappropriate anger

* Periods of paranoia and loss of contact with reality

I remember in MC, the therapist looking at me and saying EX does not have a sense of self ... .  and I said "I don't understand what that means".  And I didn't, honestly.  MC says, "you know how you know who you are and what you like, your EX doesn't"... .  and I said, "I don't understand."

From my perspective, my exw was a PhD, charasmatic, said all the right things... .  how could this be true?  I truly didn't understand, heck, I don't think I ever truly understand - eventually I just accepted this as true.

Overall, my ex's actions were aligned with BPD - but my view of her words spoken and some of her successes just didn't add up.  It was when I started understanding maladaptive coping mechanisms that it started to click.

Which of the criteria stumps you when you think of applying it to your EX?

Peace,

SB

[myself]

They almost all apply, but we didn't go through any suicide attempts together (she threatened it, once, and told me of thoughts of it in her past). Her abandonment fears exist, but she hides them beneath layers of acting more independant than she actually is, and being the one who leaves. She wouldn't admit to feeling empty, but it's there.

[really]

The rollercoaster ride was so furious that I can probably apply any of these to myself... .  

But

* Intense fears of abandonment

For someone who cheated on me with at least two people, she used to get into a panic if I ever was in female company - went nuts a night that I introduced a new colleague to someone else from work at a bar... .  simply to introduce him to some people... .  she went on about how our relationship would be better if I did not spend all night drinking with other women ... .  it was literally a 2 min conversation and I went home shortly thereafter.

* A pattern of unstable relationships

Her ex's (apart from the one that dumped her) are all evil.   Me, her previous ex (I knew him, he was not evil), one before that.   Am sure she cheated in every one.

* Unstable self-image

Very much

* Impulsive and self-destructive behaviors

Yes!  Drank in excess... .  don't even want to think about impulsivity of a night we went to a club, she was chatted up by someone and later suggested I go home as she wanted to stay out with her friend... .  God knows what happened later.

* Suicidal behavior or self-injury

Regularly took tablets to help her sleep.   Self harmed at least once during our relationship.   Also took an overdose while I was not around.

* Wide mood swings

Incredible mood swings.

* Chronic feelings of emptiness

God knows.   Don't feel like I knew her at all now.

* Inappropriate anger

Went nuts at me for all sorts of things.  Best one was the day I was supposed to pick her up to look for a cat for her grandmother, got run off road by bus, blew two tyres (was lucky not to have been seriously injured) and she raged about how I had ruined her day.   Many many other similar stories


* Periods of paranoia and loss of contact with reality

Was paranoid about what people thought about her.  Thought people (like my friends who were aware she had lied and cheated on me) hated her.  I tried to reassure her that they simply wanted the best for me and wanted me to be happy and I had explained the circumstances... .  Stupid me I was justifying her cheating. 

[BentNotBroken]

Don't forget that this criteria is a part of the requirements for all of the personality disorders in the DSM IV

General diagnostic criteria for a Personality Disorder

(DSM IV - TR)

A. An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture. This pattern is manifested in two (or more) of the following areas:

(1) cognition (i.e., ways of perceiving and interpreting self, other people, and events)

(2) affectivity (i.e., the range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional response)

(3) interpersonal functioning

(4) impulse control

B. The enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations.

C. The enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

D. The pattern is stable and of long duration and its onset can be traced back at least to adolescence or early adulthood.

E. The enduring pattern is not better accounted for as a manifestation or consequence of another mental disorder.

F. The enduring pattern is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., head trauma).

Reprinted with permission from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Copyright 2000 American Psychiatric Association

BnB

[seeking balance]

Don't forget that this criteria is a part of the requirements for all of the personality disorders in the DSM IV

General diagnostic criteria for a Personality Disorder

(DSM IV - TR)

A. An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture. This pattern is manifested in two (or more) of the following areas:

(1) cognition (i.e., ways of perceiving and interpreting self, other people, and events)

(2) affectivity (i.e., the range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional response)

(3) interpersonal functioning

(4) impulse control

B. The enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations.

C. The enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

D. The pattern is stable and of long duration and its onset can be traced back at least to adolescence or early adulthood.

E. The enduring pattern is not better accounted for as a manifestation or consequence of another mental disorder.

F. The enduring pattern is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., head trauma).

Reprinted with permission from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Copyright 2000 American Psychiatric Association

BnB

Yes, thanks for adding to this.

So which of the basic 9 were hard for you to understand?

[BentNotBroken]

I had done a lot of reading on BPD, after initially thinking it was a post-partum issue with my ex. I knew she fit the DSM criteria, but I didn't want to believe it. I guess I wanted to believe that she was not a "terminal case".

The piece of the puzzle that made it finally click for me was the childhood abandonment trauma. Her parents were still together, and she hadn't really lost anyone until she was an adult. However, she had been sent to live with a relative for a couple of years so that she would be in a good school district--the one her parents were stuck living in was terrible and dangerous. Strangely, I had forgotten about this--it was a huge issue--she had talked about it quite a bit, even though it was 20 years after the fact. Once I remembered that, I knew that she was most likely BPD, and I started to accept the fact that she was really broken from way before I had ever met her, and not likely to get better no matter what I said or did.

[BleedsOrange]

Tell me if I've gone off course.

I feel like I have gotten to or am at a point where understanding HER as far as BPD criteria isnt really that important to me. I am not her therapist and she has been in therapy for longer than I went to college (I changed majors four times ). I dont know if she has a personality disorder. I DO know that my story, as far as the track of the relationship and the games that were played, matches everyone's on this board almost to a T. Even when it didnt, and I thought, "She must not be as MUCH like this as I thought," things eventually developed that were verbatim the cliches of the development and failure of these thingies. Is it wrong for me to not have much interest in her qualities and the "Why's" any more. I am more interested in the dynamic of the relationship itself. I guess While it still hurts a bit sometimes, I can kind of look at this like it was in a textbook (sucks that I was one of the subjects). I am less and less interested in her motives.

Have I lost my way. Am I just ignoring important steps? Am I deciding to bottle this up? I dont think I am, but many of you are more experienced than I and a lot of you less. HA! Sorry for the side note. I wont bogart this thread.

[OTH]

Not at all. You are getting to a better place. 

Tell me if I've gone off course.

I feel like I have gotten to or am at a point where understanding HER as far as BPD criteria isnt really that important to me. I am not her therapist and she has been in therapy for longer than I went to college (I changed majors four times ). I dont know if she has a personality disorder. I DO know that my story, as far as the track of the relationship and the games that were played, matches everyone's on this board almost to a T. Even when it didnt, and I thought, "She must not be as MUCH like this as I thought," things eventually developed that were verbatim the cliches of the development and failure of these thingies. Is it wrong for me to not have much interest in her qualities and the "Why's" any more. I am more interested in the dynamic of the relationship itself. I guess While it still hurts a bit sometimes, I can kind of look at this like it was in a textbook (sucks that I was one of the subjects). I am less and less interested in her motives.

Have I lost my way. Am I just ignoring important steps? Am I deciding to bottle this up? I dont think I am, but many of you are more experienced than I and a lot of you less. HA! Sorry for the side note. I wont bogart this thread.

[seeking balance]

great posts so far... .  let me clarify my question a bit as I am not suggesting anyone diagnose their ex -

my question was which of the criteria was hardest for you to understand/accept and why?

[BleedsOrange]

AHHHHHHHH.

Well it was definitely the mood swings. Trying to reconcile the value she held me at when she was happy and the value that she held me at when she was not. Trying to reconcile those two. Trying and trying to be the person that mde her happy and love me. Mostly trying to get past the shame of being the person that she despised.

Finally accepting that I am who I am and have great value was hard- that I did before her and that I still do after her- IF NOT MORE! Her swings are hers, not mine and I should not allowed another person to dictate who I am when I used to know and everyone around me kept telling me. <y problems are my own, but they do not make me bad. They are just things that I learned I can improve.

Yes the conjunction of the swings and my allowance for them to affect me so deeply when they were not my fault was the hardest. I say this all the time, but I am not saying I didnt make any mistakes, but I certainly havent been punished so fervently in the past for them.

Meh. What can ya do? It's over now.

[BleedsOrange]

Also, It wasnt just mood swings. She could actually maintain a good mood and switch on whether I was good enough or not on a dime. If opinion of me is a mood, then it was those swings too.

[TeaAmongRoses]

Hey Leaving Board!

When I started looking at the criteria - I understood it, but had a hard time relating it completely to my ex.

From article 3 - https://bpdfamily.com/bpdresources/nk_a103.htm

For BPD to be diagnosed, at least five of the following signs and symptoms must be present:

* Intense fears of abandonment

* A pattern of unstable relationships

* Unstable self-image

* Impulsive and self-destructive behaviors

* Suicidal behavior or self-injury

* Wide mood swings

* Chronic feelings of emptiness

* Inappropriate anger

* Periods of paranoia and loss of contact with reality

Which of the criteria stumps you when you think of applying it to your EX?

Seeking Balance: All the criteria stump me. I believe the DSM it is written by and for psychologists. I prefer the other books to help me "understand" the disorder instead. Similar to BleedsOrange:

I dont know if she has a personality disorder. I DO know that my story, as far as the track of the relationship and the games that were played, matches everyone's on this board almost to a T.

I see and feel something really different about the people who I think have personality disorders including my ex husband. That doesn't mean they can't be high functioning in their own ways and in certain realms. Emotionally I sense something really different about them and I hear the same stories from others on this board and reported in the books. One of the things thats hard abou tbeing entangled with a BPD is the amount of self-doubt that can creep in. I struggled with the criteria for a long time too wanting to get validation, certainty, etc. I had a huge bad momemnt when I was seeing a T and that person said my husband couldn't be BPD becaue they are almost impossible to live with. THat was incredibly invalidating. But since then I've learned to trust my instinct evne though sometimes there are feelings of shame associated with labeling them. I don't have training as a psychologist but my best friend who does was willing to step out of her ethical constraints of not talking about her professional training wihth friends/family and she went out on a limb and told me my xBPDh seems to be Narcissistic to her. So, while I couldn't get my xh to go to a thearapist and get a dianosis, I didd enough reading and learning onlne as well as seeing enough therapists of my own and also having input from a friend with traingng that I trust myself in my assessment that he has some type of personality disorder. Now in retrospect he is TEXTBOOK and that still makes it hard to understand him in context of the criteria for me. So, in sum, all of the criteria confuse me, but I'm sure because of other informational resources about the disorder. Tea

[seeking balance]

Seeking Balance: All the criteria stump me. I believe the DSM it is written by and for psychologists. I prefer the other books to help me "understand" the disorder instead.

I know what you mean on it being hard - I am definitely not a therapist!

What I found helpful for me was when I would apply the poor behaviors into the criteria - I was able to depersonalize the actions a bit.  Once I could depersonalize - I could get out of my own victim mentality and onto detachment and grief.

[tailspin]

I can't imagine what it's like to feel empty.  My ex would tell me all the time that he felt empty inside, was bored, and would always ask me if I was bored too.  I would tell him that boredom was a choice and if he felt that way... .  then do something!  Bad advice, as it turns out.  I've even done an internet search on "feeling empty inside" and still have a hard time wrapping my brain around it. 

Even in my darkest and loneliest hours I feel the presence of God and I'm comforted knowing the true essence of myself.  I'm really thankful I will never know what empty feels like.

tailspin

[TeaAmongRoses]

I know what you mean on it being hard - I am definitely not a therapist!

What I found helpful for me was when I would apply the poor behaviors into the criteria - I was able to depersonalize the actions a bit.  Once I could depersonalize - I could get out of my own victim mentality and onto detachment and grief.

Yes! Understanding was absolutely crucial to begin to detach, grieve and heal. I couldn't have done it, wouldn't have done it without this knowledge.