A very scary realisation

[Murbay]

Thinking about it tonight, my T diagnosed my exBPDw as being a pwBPD and he also had suspicions about her mother based on things I told him and what my ex had told him too. Previously we discussed the reasons why I felt I had been drawn into the relationship and determined it was because it was familiar to me. After talking to him about my mother he recognised strong traits within her and that may very well have been why the relationship felt familiar.

Tonight, it suddenly struck me that all 3 of them have something else in common. Something I knew but never identified with before because it just seemed there couldn't possibly be a link. All 3 of them, my ex, her mother and my mother have fibromyalgia. Seems quite common, because there are many people out there who suffer from it and aren't pwBPD. However, it played around in my head for a little bit and I decided to see if there was anything online.

Wow! The links between the 2 are far more common than I possibly imagined. Here is an except from something I was reading tonight:

"Both fibromyalgia and BPD have genetic vulnerabilities and both have possible or confirmed etiologic connections to childhood trauma. Both fibromyalgia and BPD share common etiology, i.e they are caused by the same phenomenon but have different presentation and disease process in the same individual. In other words, they both originate from the same cause but develop into different diseases. Indeed, the two are not distinct from each other and are actually versions of the same disease phenomena i.e they are both closely related spectrum disorders.

In this case one would suspect BPD is the forerunner disorder which heightens the risk of developing fibromyalgia. From a clinical perspective, a very high number of patients harbour the symptoms of both BPD and fibromyalgia and there are striking similarities between the two syndromes."

So 3 different women in my life, 1 confirmed and 2 suspected BPD all share the same clinical illness and research suggests a strong link between the two 

Again though, that's not to say all pwBPD have fibromyalgia or that all fibromyalgia sufferers have BPD, just there is a very high percentage of people who have both and they seem to be tied in more ways than one.

[elessar]

My ex always complains of pain and headache every time we get into an uncomfortable topic or she feels challenged/defensive/guilty because I point out something bad or hurtful she is. I thought it was just borderlines using pain as an excuse to avoid facing accountability for their actions. And I have also read in pubmed research articles about pain and BPD. But fibromyalgia is an interesting thought. Will have to look more into it. Isn't it funny here we are spending our time doing research on them, while they are out there enjoying life (although everyone tells me they are actually in pain even when they are having "fun"

[Tordesillas]

That's a very interesting finding!  My ex was CONSTANTLY complaining about pain... . mostly her back but other things as well.  I had begun to attribute it to the BPD tendency to make things up for attention and sympathy, but perhaps there is more to it than that.  Thanks for sharing that.