How on earth can a personality disorder (BPD) manifest at 30 years of age?

[Purged]

I have read that it commonly manifests at late teens/early twenties but can also do so at  30+?

This does not make any sense to me, it's a damn personality disorder, the personality develops a helluva lot younger than that. The narcissists are fully fledged at young ages and that is a personality disorder of the same cluster.

My BPDgf appears to have manifested fully at the early 20's but she says she has always felt extremely wrong. It must always be in the psyche from a young age, so what makes it lay dormant for a while, is it because life is easier and simpler in some ways at a younger age? In some ways that can make sense, but in others the reverse could be argued. This is really frustrating me, does anyone know?

Thanks, purged.

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[allibaba]

Hi there,

My husband's personality disorder(s) didn't really manifest until he hit a particularly stressful period in is life (40's).  In fact he was under significant stress due to factors out of control for about 5 yrs in a row.  Before that he showed signs but he was very high functioning.  My experience is that pd can lay dormant until stressful periods. 

My husband also always felt out of place in his younger years.

Thanks,

Allibaba

[waverider]

There are many things that can cause it, genetics, circumstances and traumatic events are the most common. Usually a combination of a few or all of these.

People can have a predisposition to it then sometimes an event, either real or perceived, can trigger a full blown episode as their previous coping mechanisms are overloaded.  Sometimes this can be a case of a previously high function pwBPD cracks and becomes low functioning as their self confidence crumbles and all the previously buried troubles come flooding back

[Hydroman]

My wife didn't manifest until 3 years ago when she was 31.  I didn't know about BPD or bipolar until after she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt.  Looking back, she exihibited personality disorder traits but nothing like now.   Its been 3 years and under care/meds and funny thing, things seem to be getting worse rather than better.  As bad as it seems for us, think of the hell our significant others who have BPD must be living through.  My main concern now is for my 3 children (5,7,9) to grow up as un-scathed as possible from all of this.   I have become "Super Dad" and can leap tall buildings in a single bound.   Underneath the costume is a tortured soul of a man who's wife is has severe BPD and bipolar and is very low functioning.

I wish you best of luck.

Hydroman