Can BPD sit dormant & then be triggered by say, her own divorce?

[Moonie75]

From conversations with people who've known my ex for some years, it seems she's always been slightly highly strung but NOTHING compares with how she's been in last three years.

She had relationships prior to being married like most of us. Then met a guy, settled into living together, followed by marriage & then having two lovely children. This lasted eight years & there's nothing that suggests she raged or left the relationship etc etc etc (all the usual BPD behaviors)

We knew each other as children (with a crush on each other) & then didn't see each other for 21 years. We met at a wedding & quickly things progressed into a very intense friendship. She then left her husband (for the first & only time) and we started our relationship. She's never gone back to him & never recycled any previous boyfriend. The whole shebang seems to start with me, her 'first love' as she puts it, and first relationship post divorce.

As far as i can gather, and I'm almost 100% on this, I'm the first person to have had the BPD roller coaster with her & it's getting ever worse! Even her own family have started to stand back in amazement at her push/pull hero/devil carry on.

She was abandoned by her father as a 5 year old & along with her (bi polar)sister, was dragged through a horrendous divorce between the parents. Although she now has a great relationship with her biological father & also her step father who brought the girls up as if his own.

Could her divorce have triggered a dormant condition which prior, had only shown mild signs now & again?

[Reg]

Hmm, interesting question, my ex had less symptoms of the BPD untill she was about to get a divorce and had a relationship with someone who had also BPD treats and who dumped her from one day on another, making it impossible for her to take any contact at all (new job, new phone number, new adress).  From that moment on, it all seems to have been going much faster and much worse.  As if this new abandonment triggered it to the worst... .

Reg

[Moonie75]

Funny how the little things can hurt much more than the big mahoosive batterings we take in these relationships.

Without doubt the one comment that's hurt me the most (and cemented my theory is "I've never treated anybody as badly as I've treated you"

OMG that really made me pi$$ed!

Of all the people she's known she's actually admitted that I've had the worst ride!

[Reg]

Moonie, that is indeed something to be pissed !  I'm really curious also if anyone knows indeed if borderline can be triggered by events later in life, or be triggered to a worse level... .   I think it is very well possible.

Reg

[Moonie75]

Reg dear boy, I'm certain she was damaged by her parents divorce, mothers mental breakdown & her fathers seeming not to care about any of them after he moved on. It would damage any 5 year old little girl who witnessed this & also felt the need to protect her 3 year old little sister from it, (as best a 5 year old could any way). It would damage the strongest 5 year old!

But I'm also certain that her own divorce (though nothing like as aggressive) dumped a tanker load of fuel onto the fire.

And getting worse. A previously popular & respected woman is now getting a name locally for being a bit nuts, nasty & cheap! It's heartbreaking to watch the demise of someone capable of better!

[Reg]

Hi Moonie,

Actually mine was also not raised in great circumstances.  Mother and father were never there (mother except when my ex was really ill), she was raised by an aunt and grandmother, her father had a drinking problem, they had a very abusive relationship, most of the time verbally (still have) and sometimes physically.  When she was 12 they temporarely were seperated.  All of the relationships my ex had were abusive, verbally, sometimes physically and many sexually.  Well ours was also becoming verbally abusive from both sides, and when she went to the next level, physically and cheating it was all over.

I always told her that everything we experience in life, leaves scars, but she hardly believed that... .

Same story with her, she's been loosing a lot of her friends, and is now in the middle of a circle of other known BPD's... .   From respected to cheap... .

I saw the same happening with someone with BPD in my street, who moved to be close to my ex, from a popular person, to someone who has been abondoned by everyone in my village and surroundings, from respected to the stigma crazy... .

The only person who can get them to seek help is themselves... .   Mine didn't want any and lives in denial, so seems yours.  That is sad, but it is after all, if we like it or not, their decision... .

Reg

[danley]

Divorce is a major life alteration. I think it brings a lot of negative and shameful emotion to the surface. For my ex, divorce brought out a lot of fears and made whatever fears he already had ten times worse than before. Divorce to him meant he was a failure and thought people would think he was a failure. Although he wasn't happy with his wife, he still felt a sense of abandonment. He wanted the divorce because he felt engulfed. Divorce to him meant that people would be judging him and talking about his situation. He felt like everyone would tease him. He felt his family would reject him. All of these things are of course in his head but to him it is very real. I do believe his divorce is a double edged sword. It was something he'd been wanting but had fears about going about it. But then when he finally got what he wanted he was fearful of all his imagined outcomes from others about him. I believe divorce made him worse. It made him more paranoid and more irrational. It made him seem more selfish and more bitter. So no matter what, whether divorce came or not, he'd still be unhappy.

I tried to be supportive but It's like talking to a brick wall. Once the fear sets in there's no way to make them think differently. Once they have doomed themselves by their own hands It's hard to interact with them. It becomes a whole new set of problems... . suddenly to my ex I became non understanding and selfish because I wouldn't join him in his pity party. He'd get mad whenI used to tell him to take it day by day. To him I was committing a cardinal sin because I was being positive. In fact, he angrily said, "That's your biggest problem! You're ALWAYS positive! ". This just goes to show how disordered his mind is.

Divorce can wreak havoc on ANYONE. BUT with my ex it was the straw that broke the camels back. It took the life out of him and turned him into a vengeful drowning individual who no longer could see or think or feel beyond HIMSELF. EVERYTHING is truly about himself. And when he shows a glimmer of actually caring about me or my life, I've come to sense that It's just a tool to keep me around so that I can refuel his support bank when he is running low. As much as I care for him I cannot keep pacifying him.

He's in denial about his past. He's in denial about his present. He's always projecting the worse for his future. He cannot understand the concept of repentance. And so he goes on a glutton spree of bad and hurtful decisions only to regurgitate them all back up and either bury it like a dog buries one side of your shoes and then hits the reset button. Theres no sense of remorse for the decisions hes made. Remorse or regret is aimed at the behavior that was done. Guilt is targeted towards your “self”. So yeah, there's always hiding, guilt, thinking and hoping you never get caught, and lots of shame with my ex and his views of divorce. It's like he's trying to create an imaginary world... . an illusion for everyone and himself so he doesn't have to face reality like most normal people do.

[thisyoungdad]

I am convinced without a doubt this is what happened with my wife. She had some milder symptoms of BPD but then her parents came out for a visit and I can't stand them. Lots of f-ed up emotional issues there but anyway. So we decided it was best if I go camping for a few days. Her mother took that opportunity to share some highly inappropriate information about her father with her, she got triggered in her fear of abandonment and that set the stage for this past year. I have struggled not to hate her mother. I feel like if her mother was not so insistent on continuing an emotionally incestuous relationship with her daughter (my wife) despite the wife's best attempts to stop it, that this wouldn't have exploded this way. Every time things have been escalated the entire relationship is traced to the week after her mother left town. So I think think her BPD does sit dormant for a long time then gets triggered by her parents. It is so sad.

[confusedhubby]

Hi Moonie.

My experience seems to mirror yours a great deal. My diagnosed BPDw and I were together 14 years. When I first met her she did not appear to have many of the traits of BPD. She never talked badly of ex boyfriends, split me black etc. Over time however she began to display these traits more and more.

She was always depressed during our marriage but I did not see that as a character flaw. She would self harm herself and we would discuss it. But nothing seriously BPD. However as the marriage progressed she began to display more BPD traits. This was especially true when we entered the divorce stage. The 12 months prior that we were discussing divorce is when she became very ugly and distructive... . she split me pitch black.

I think that part of her problem was related to her alcoholism. It's been my experience that when you add substance abuse to BPD its like adding jet fuel to a fire. Everything goes into hyper-drive. So as her drinking got worse the more her BPD tendencies began to appear.