What is the one thing...

[Blade99d]

I know that my ex is either BPD or NPD, and while she will never see it, what is the one thing that let you know he or she was BPD/NPD?

[Saffron2]

When I just broke down and started crying because of a really bad situation that I'm in and he just looked at me with a blank stare.  Of course there's a laundry list of other things, but this incident really let me know that a black hole existed where his soul should have been.

And you? 

[Moonie75]

Not the first  , but first one I came up against & just couldn't ignore... . Has to be the punishing me so way out of proportion to the event that had upset her. making me jump through hoop after hoop to pacify her. But just expecting more, the more I did. And more so, seeming to take pleasure from it!

It wasn't the first thing that concerned me, but was definitely the first WAKE UP MOONIE, SHE'S NOT WIRED UP RIGHT moment in our relationship!

[papawapa]

I had no clue what BPD was until I ended up in the psych ward for being suicidal over something that happened between us. My psychiatrist told me he believed she had BPD. After researching it I became convinced that it is so.

[Ittookthislong]

my ex told me very openly that he pleasures himself while ;looking at himself in the mirror. then he went on to tell me about a girl who liked him once who he was attracted to but when she tried to seduce him he acted dissenterested and said he realized he didnt need anybody he only needed himself (trying to be polite here with my wording).

i dont know why that didnt make me run, but he was affectionate with me so i shrugged it off. i think i realized he was off, or at least wayyyyyyy different than i thought, was after helping him in more ways than ive ever helped anyone, and us arguing once before only, he left me saying that i brought him down and i was in his way.

very odd person, looking back i cant figure out if he was the most humble man ever - constanly saying with puppy eyes how he didnt think he was good enough, telling me he wanted me because i make him want to be a good person, or he believed he was a moviestar living out a script - just so self absorbed and aloof.

also i asked him to paint something for me once and instead of just saying no he punched the stairs with both hands and broke a finger on each hand- his of way of saying he wasnt going to paint for me i guess. I was so thrown off that i started questioning what i had done- in my mind i thought we got along and that i was so kind to him- at least i tried harder than i ever had with anyone, but something i was doing made him blow as though it had been building up for sometime.

i think - and this sounds a little BPDish to resort to feelings to indicate things, but sometimes the feeling everyone here is left with that is similar is the common thread and indicator- the experiences vary, and things get lost in the details- but we all recognize that seem feeling - almost injustice or being had sprinkled with a lot of confusion and topped with rumination

[Littleopener]

He actually said to me "everything that is wrong between us is your fault and your fault alone"

Also, as Moonie said, getting the horrible horrible silent treatment punishment for something tiny I mentioned.

[Scout99]

Smart topic!  

Good for both self reflection and future reference and with time can also become like goodie bag of    to learn from or for people to read who might suspect they are in r/s where the norm is a bit warped... .

In my r/s with a man who turned out to be, what I consider a textbook case of NPD, however undiagnosed, as most of those are, it actually took a long time before I started to think along the lines of PD's at all... . I just wasn't familiar with mental disorders or diseases so I did not know what to look for at all... . I knew men could be jerks, but this was sort of a whole different ball game... . of weird... .

The first   came quite early into the r/s, we were soo in love and he had taken me up to his place for a weekend (one of the first times I was there), and the morning after we came up we were sitting at the breakfast table and his sister had come over for a visit, (first time I met her), and he had made up all kinds of plans for us for the day, that we should do. Places he wanted to show me and so on. But suddenly the phone rang and a friend of his wanted to go out fishing, and suddenly the plans changed... . He spent all day picking and choosing which vobblers to use and then went fishing for eight hours in the afternoon and evening with his friend, and I was not even invited to come along... . When he got home late at night, I was watching a movie on TV, and he wanted me to come to bed, but I chose to stay and finish the movie, (just didn't feel like cuddling... . )... . In the morning I got a raging speech about how I apparently always? was trying to stop him from doing fun things by himself and how if I were going to continue? doing so and would continue? punishing him by refusing? him sex for it I could kiss this r/s goodbye... .  He also accused me of being a conflict instigator and told me that he never instigates conflict and cannot be in a r/s where there is conflict, and his understanding of that is that if conflict would occur, it would be my fault, not his... .

At the time I dropped my jaw... . First of all, I am a very calm person, I hardly even raise my voice, not even this time... .  We had been together for about three months, he had mostly except for one time before this come to my city to visit me, so I did not really feel I had stopped him ever from doing anything he wanted to do, not so this time either... . I told him however then at the time that it felt strange that he had this strong reaction, and asked him how he think it felt for me to be stranded in his house together with his cat and not even have a car to get anywhere, not even to buy something to eat for a whole afternoon and evening, and the only night we would have time to spend together, (I was going home the following evening)... .

His response to that was to say flat out that he knew that he was a very selfish person, and that he had never been with anyone before that had ever asked of him to have to think about what they wanted or anything like that, and excused himself with being 30+ and not knowing about these things... . I of course made excuses for him and smoothed things over and left with a feeling of slight fear in the pit of my stomach of ever "causing" anything even resembling a discussion again... . Hello eggshells... .   

Like others the list then became long, with constant break up/make up scenarios, raging, the blackening of his eyes when he could go for days with some internal rage thing going on and so on... .

The things that stood out and became hard to smooth over was the fact that he had a child, (age 11 at the time we met), and who about six months prior to our r/s had decided to go NC with his father, for to me then unknown reasons, apart from the mother of course being blamed for it by the entire family and I was told the son did not want it this way but was forced by his mother to cut all contact... . To begin with I thought she, (the ex), was a b*tch... . But later on when there was a custody issue and some mediators were appointed, that I also got to see, I for the first time got to hear somebody not from this family talk about the son and how he felt and so on... . And when they described the things his son was unhappy, sad, worried, angry and all things about. I immediately felt in my stomach, that I knew what he had been through... . I recognized the things the son described... . And if I could feel so bad about such stuff, then what wouldn't it be like for a kid?

My ex NPD bf's reaction to said meeting was telling too... . He kept rambling the whole way home about how horrible it was for him not to be able to see his son whenever he wanted and all the things he wanted to do with him, (that of course only were things he liked himself), he did not touch with one word upon any of the long list of things his son had stated as reasons for not wanting to have his father around him anymore... . I bet he never even listened to any of it... .

The last straw that made me sure that NPD was the thing and not bipolar disease that I thought for a while due to the periods of bad moods he used to have and the euphoria that usually came after when we had broken up and I then after much pushing and overwhelming charm took him back again... . (I think we broke up and made up about five times during our three year long r/s). Today I recognize those cycles as his way of devaluing and then kicking things into idealization again by starting to court me all over again... .

Anyway about six months before we finally broke up my mothers sister fell ill and was dying from cancer. It was caught too late and doctors decided nothing could be done and it would now be around three months before she would die... . A terrible blow for a strong and vibrant woman who by that time only had a bit of stomach pain... . For me knowing how much she meant to my mother and also to me, (my extra mother), I turend to my bf for support... . His response when I told him this sad news was a loong silence and after that he yelled at me over the phone words I shall never forget. He yelled: I don't know what the ___ you want me to say... . I don't want to have to care about other peoples d*mn feelings!

By then narcissism had crossed my mind, and that did it for me... . By then I knew... . By then the list of signs was so long I could have covered my house with it... .  

With the man I am seeing now, or not as we are in NC mode for the moment... .  the scenario was very different. First of all, I am different and know a lot more about both myself and about PD's and mental health in general than before... . So I watched for signs of   's... .

Unlike my ex NPD he was very, very, very sensitive and feeling as a person, and talked and reflected a lot about not being able to be there for his ex when she needed him and how lonely and lost he had felt after they broke up and seemed more like in an emotional mess at times. Then again at other times he could seem very sharp tongued  and could bite your head off if you didn't get for instance which communications tool he wanted me to use for contacting him at a certain time... . And craved almost that I would be able to be a mindreader knowing which days the phones had been ringing too much at work... . and so on... . In short he could one evening gladly talk or chat for hours on end, just to bite my head of the next day for sending one text at the for him wrong time... . or for texting instead of calling or calling instead of texting... . confusing to say the least... .  

In short the first things I noticed were not pure BPD traits but other things that he probably has developed as coping strategies to avoid being exposed as different or prevent criticism. The first was that he has slight OCD tendencies about phones, and compulsive things like always always wanting to talk over the phone in the morning, a lot of rituals, compulsive working out. And also a severe difficulty to be able to make plans that go outside of the daily rituals, and then stick to them... .  

Then also the very many ailments, like headaches, toothaches, stomach trouble, back pain, muscle pain, not to mention he is the only person I know who can catch a cold several times a week!  He also told me he had experienced panic attacks and was terrified of having one ever again, hence a lot of compulsive avoiding and worrying to the border of being able to be diagnosed with GAD, (generelized anxiety disorder). I have had to do a lot of calming down talks with him and do "reality checks" when he every time he has to turn down some request from some co worker or such, always of course feares the worst, that he is going to get fired?  

I gave him a book on anxiety once and he was so thankful for it, but he has never to this day dared to open it. He is terrified of criticism and of being left and abandoned.  

He has said himself at times when he suddenly falls into a depressed mode that he feels so lost and feels such a void inside.  

And that he always always expects catastrophe to lurk around the corner.

He says over and over he knows he is going to loose me, and frets about us making our r/s more established because of it.  

He does the push and pull over and over and either talks for hours and days about our future only to the next day declare that we are not in a r/s, that he doesn't want a long distance r/s and he will now start to look for a woman closer to where he lives or that I shall not expect him to be faithful... .

And then dement all of the above some time later... .  

However he dances closer and closer to where my boundary is, and now we are in NC because he has said that he is beginning to see another woman and just wants me for a friend, because he is so terrified to lose me... .

I don't accept that, so I have told him that if he goes through with this I am out. And will not talk to him until he sorts this out... . We are now NC since friday... .  

[popeye6031]

I suppose none of us can say for sure whether our partner has BPD unless diagnosed. of course, but the behaviour of my fiancee from very early were red flags to me:

1/ Telling me she loved me very early on, while also telling another guy how much she loved him

2/ Accusing  me of having feelnigs for my ex gf who I had finished with 2 years before (all to hide the fact that she was in fact starting a relationship with another guy)

3/ Going crazy over messages or anyting from any girls; accusing me of flirting (I was too paranoid to even think about flirting) while she was over the top fliritng with every guy we meet.

4/ Mirroring me and then every other guy she meets; going crazy if I disagreed to meet outlandish demands; constantly accused of not doing enough and not loving her after busting my b*lls to do everyting I can.

5/ Best in the worrld for a few days, then some inconsequential event causing me to be the worst in the world.

6/ Asking "do you love me?" Or saying  "you love me very much, right?" or "you're not gonna leave me, right?"  Or "you're not gonna find another girl?" or "you're not gonna cheat on me, right?" or "don't find another girl!"  All related to abandonement issues.

7/ Flipping out every time I do something with friends or family like going to the movies or meeting an old school buddy for lunch.  This somehow gets translated to ignoring her, cheating on her and ussually results in me receiving a ton of texts and calls asking what I am doing.  Then it results in a row.

8/ Getting annoyed when I do something to help out my family like pick up my brother from town when he is out drinking or leave over soem dinner to his work.  Get told to stay out of his life.

9/ Nipped and twisted at side and arm one night as I would not leave a party causing me to drunkenly lash out and hold her against the wall (I have never even lifted my fist to someone in my life before).  Everyone saw what I did and I looked bad.  They did not see the 25 bruises I had on the side of my body and arms.

I should never have reacted the way I did.

10/ Ordering me to tell of everyone that adds me to FB before accepting.  She has full access and has rejected, deleted and blcoked a lot of people.  She checks me emails and facebook regularly

When she is not doing these things, she is very lovable, sweet and generous but the not knowing when the good mood will stop constantly keeps me on edge about my every move and what I say.

For the first 15 months, I did not have a clue what was going on, thought she just had trust issues because of a previous relationship but after my mum (she is a cognitive therapist) suggested she might have a PD, I started reading around on the net and came across BPD and this website.

Now, it is all making a lot more sense.

So, it would be more like a number of things over a period of time that will make alarms bells go off and maybe not one thing.  What things are you seeing Blade99d?

[Lao Tzu]

Great Topic,

     My actual first r/s with her was many decades ago and I didn't have aclue about BPD until a few months ago, so I'm really talking about how I very recently 'diagnosed' BPD in a very old r/s.  At that time I would have to say that I, myself, had some BPD traits and certainly some very major abandonment issues.  So, many of the things she did I was doing as well, such as idealizing her and being only too happy to move the r/s along way too rapidly.  When I looked at everything carefully and honestly, though, there was only one sticking point in her bahavior I just couldn't explain away.  At the time, I thought she left me because her family had put pressure on her.  The inexplicable thing was that she didn't initially go back to her husband (sorry, but shame is an important part of a r/s for many pwBPD), but (while she was still living with me) she started seeing yet another guy. 

     My excuses for her didn't hold much water, did they?  Her family wasn't pushing her to cheat on the guy she was cheating with, I should imagine.  The real point was that as BPD-like as I myself was at the time, even on my worst day could never have just found somebody else after expressing the kind of love that makes us leave our spouse and blah, blah, blah. I could explain away a million things she had done (self-gaslighting, I guess), but not that. 

     So many psychiatric disorders are things we all do regularly, just amped up hugely and thus quite interfering in the patient's lives.  To me, this is no different.  While deeply in love with someone, I could certainly appreciate another pretty girl or even still feel something for someone I loved before.  The difference is that I can control those feelings easily and thus don't pay them any attention.  The pwBPD can't control (regulate) their feelings at all and thus keep doing these 'crazy' things.  I hope this makes sense in terms of answering your question.

LT 

[maryy16]

My first  should have been when I asked him about scars on his hands at the beginning of our relationship.  I asked him how he got the scars and he said it was because he got mad a punched a shower door which broke.  When I asked him what made him so angry as to punch the door, he said he couldn't remember.  I thought at the time "he was so angry that he punched a shower door which broke and cut his hand so badly that he had to have stitches and he doesn't even remember why he was mad?"

[Blade99d]

Thanks for all the candid responses, for me, there were 2 things that sum it up for me, the splitting black and white is first.  I have never in my life seen someone go from love to hate in the blink of an eye.  This took me a long time to get a bearing on.  Interestingly enough, friends of hers told me early on, I would have to have thick skin to date her.  How insightful. The second thing was that there was no empathy, or apology ever, but there was plenty of gaslighting... . no thats not how it happened, this is how it happened.  Her version was always correct.  If there is a third thing, it would be the blaming, everything was my fault.  Its amazing what we will put up with until the lightbulb goes off. 

[O.Hi]

Its amazing what we will put up with until the lightbulb goes off. 

You can say that again. I overlooked a laundry list of 's at the beginning of my relationship. Working with a good therapist to figure out how I did that. Parental approval issues?

The big 's I missed:

• Huge rages over seemingly small things



• Daily drinking



• Being very paranoid about my exgirlfriend (relationship ended 2 years before)



• Calling all her ex boyfriends misogynist $$holes, but saying I was different



• Asking big favors constantly. Raging if mistakes were made during the process.



• Wanting the relationship to progress very quickly



• Her consistently having conflict with my friends, her parents, her sisters, coworkers, strangers



• Name calling

[maxsterling]

I went to see a therapist after the first time she raged - because she had convinced me that it was my communication issues and lack of relationship skills that set her off.  In my first session, I was describing a few arguments, saying I can't figure out what I did wrong, or how to do things differently.  After about half an hour, she reached to her bookshelf and pulled out a book titles "I hate you don't leave me", and said that she likely has BPD, and communicating with her in a rational way will always be very difficult, and that I was not doing anything wrong.  A week or two later, I was asking my girlfriend about her mom's mental illness, and she said that her mom had the same diagnosis as her - borderline personality disorder. 

[dotSlash]

First clue should have been this:

^{Before we started dating, we were making smalltalk and she told me she's been in 14 relationships, and all of them she broke up with the guy - she seemed proud at this record. I don't know why this wasn't a}

But it was actually this:

^{One night after we had intercourse, about a month into the relationship, she asked if I could go again 2 min later, and I said I'd need more time than that. She flipped out and started yelling that we're not sexually compatible and eventually stormed out, and then called me back 5 minutes later asking if she could come back in and cuddle}

[Newkate]

My first  was a big, frightening one.

I thought we had the perfect relationship. He was so in love with me. I was so in love with him. We moved in together after about 10 months. He asked for my dad's blessing to marry me. We picked out my engagement ring. We adopted two puppies. I was the "best thing to ever happen to him." He couldn't wait to have a family with me. He was always so romantic, bringing me flowers for no reason at all. Then one day after a year and a half, I was completely blindsided.

He came home and seemed stressed from work. He started talking about how the house was messy. I told him we could tackle it together (I kind of felt like I was the one doing the majority of the housework, although he saw it completely opposite way.) He told me he needed to go out and just clear his head, take some him time. I told him that it wasn't fair that he could do that I couldn't so I was gonna take some me time at home. He said that was fine. He came back later that night. Walked in. Looked at me. I was sitting there watching my girly TV dramas because it was something I rarely got to do!. He looked at the house. I had not cleaned it. He looked different. Quiet. Strange. I heard him go into the bedroom... . then I heard him ripping up paper. Immediately I had a horrible feeling. I knew what was in the bedroom. It was our notebook. We would write love letters to each other every couple of days. There he was: ripping it up. He then wrote on the last page, "IT ALL ENDS HERE." I was mortified. I didn't know what was happening. "What are you doing?" I said bawling. Then he turned and looked at me. His eyes were blank, black, nothing to them. He was completely emotionless. He started saying that this was not what he wanted. I was not who he wanted. This life is not what he wanted. He started screaming all these things about how we don't work together. Most of them were ridiculous. I liked to sleep in on the weekends, he wanted someone who would get up and do things with him. A lot of the other things were projection. I was this way, this way (things he had issues with). I remember crying and crying and he would just look at me blankly. I kept saying, "Is this a bad dream? What the **** is going on?" I was soo completely shocked. I had never heard anything cruel come out of his mouth. And there he was tearing me apart, expressionless. Saying the cruelest things he could have. Because I didn't clean the house while he went out and had me time? It was scary. That's when I figured out something pretty serious was wrong.

[frustrated b/f]

The first  - when she showed up on my doorstep with a fake pregnancy scare, there were about four more after that. Every time we broke up, here would come the pregnancy tests.

When she blatantly turned feelings into facts. Even after explaining how she was mistaken, she persisted what she felt actually happened. It was so weird, I Googled that hit five minutes later and found out about BPD

The extreme mood swings - when we lived together it was like "Guess whats behind door number 1," every night I came home from work/school.

[sadinnc98]

He texted after our first day "I am needy, lonely, depressed and hate to be alone"

[bruceli]

Its amazing what we will put up with until the lightbulb goes off. 

You can say that again. I overlooked a laundry list of 's at the beginning of my relationship. Working with a good therapist to figure out how I did that. Parental approval issues?

The big 's I missed:

[

li]Huge rages over seemingly small things[/li]

[li]Daily drinking[/li]

[li]Being very paranoid about my exgirlfriend (relationship ended 2 years before)[/li]

[li]Calling all her ex boyfriends misogynist $$holes, but saying I was different[/li]

[li]Asking big favors constantly. Raging if mistakes were made during the process.[/li]

[li]Wanting the relationship to progress very quickly[/li]

[li]Her consistently having conflict with my friends, her parents, her sisters, coworkers, strangers[/li]

[li]Name calling[/li]

[/list][/color]

Ditto, good list and all of the what everyone else said above.

[dotSlash]

He looked different. Quiet. Strange. I heard him go into the bedroom... . then I heard him ripping up paper. Immediately I had a horrible feeling. I knew what was in the bedroom. It was our notebook. We would write love letters to each other every couple of days. There he was: ripping it up. He then wrote on the last page, "IT ALL ENDS HERE." I was mortified. I didn't know what was happening. "What are you doing?" I said bawling. Then he turned and looked at me. His eyes were blank, black, nothing to them. He was completely emotionless. He started saying that this was not what he wanted. I was not who he wanted. This life is not what he wanted. He started screaming all these things about how we don't work together. Most of them were ridiculous

That's awful, and I know how you feel. On my bday my BPD gf ripped up the bday card I made for her bday after going ballistic over me saying I'd prefer to spend the night at home with her instead of going out to see a movie, which she had hoped to do. Of course this was followed by a list of accusations about how we're not compatible, how everything I do pisses her off, and how much of an ass I am. The blank stare you mentioned was there as well, that was the first time I noticed it. Then one hour later, while I was sitting alone on the couch she comes over and starts giving me a massage.

[desperatehubby]

blank stares... . her not remembering her rages when they finish

And her best ever quote -"If I die during this operation it'll be all your fault and I'll never speak to you again... . "

(That was when her gall bladder was being removed)

[Scout99]

And her best ever quote -"If I die during this operation it'll be all your fault and I'll never speak to you again... . "

(That was when her gall bladder was being removed)

WoW! This one got me laughing! Best BPD quote ever indeed! 

Thanks for sharing that! It made my day!

Best Wishes

scout99

[maxsterling]

"One night after we had intercourse, about a month into the relationship, she asked if I could go again 2 min later, and I said I'd need more time than that. She flipped out and started yelling that we're not sexually compatible and eventually stormed out, and then called me back 5 minutes later asking if she could come back in and cuddle"

WOW!  nearly the exact same thing happened to me.  And later that day when I tried to say that her comment hurt me, she flipped out and raged.

[O.Hi]

"One night after we had intercourse, about a month into the relationship, she asked if I could go again 2 min later, and I said I'd need more time than that. She flipped out and started yelling that we're not sexually compatible and eventually stormed out, and then called me back 5 minutes later asking if she could come back in and cuddle"

WOW!  nearly the exact same thing happened to me.  And later that day when I tried to say that her comment hurt me, she flipped out and raged.

Weird. I've had almost the same thing happen, too. The first few times it happened, I tried to perform. Not fun. Later I tried to gently say something like "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak". Sometimes she raged, sometimes it was ok. I think it has always been when my girlfriend is drunk.

[bruceli]

And her best ever quote -"If I die during this operation it'll be all your fault and I'll never speak to you again... . "

(That was when her gall bladder was being removed)

WoW! This one got me laughing! Best BPD quote ever indeed! 

Thanks for sharing that! It made my day!

Best Wishes

scout99

Not as good as the above but... . " I need you to cut MY grass but i sold the lawnmower so I need YOU to pay someone to have it cut... . "

[desperatehubby]

Not as good as the above but... . " I need you to cut MY grass but i sold the lawnmower so I need YOU to pay someone to have it cut... . "[/quote]


Wow, that's a good one too... . why are we living in this madness? Are we mad ourselves?