memory loss and BPD

[Stamp]

I don't know whether this is related to BPD or not.  My partner frequently has conversations with me that she entirely forgets, and if I bring up something from the conversation we start to tread on thin ice and she can easily explode into anger.  I have never mentioned to her that I think she has memory loss because even hinting at the subject causes tension.

Here's a recent example -

We talked about my daughter's (her stepdaughter) wedding photos.  My partner had been the photographer for the wedding as she is an amateur photographer.  The wedding was last December and she still has not finished 'polishing' the pictures because she's had computer issues and also because she's too much of a perfectionist, but she's almost done.  During this recent conversation she said that she although the album would not be done when my daughter and her husband returned from being away for the summer, the photos were done and she wanted to at least be able to give them a flashdrive with the photos on it while she finished the album.  She asked me to get a flashdrive for her.

This morning I brought her the flash drive and said it was for my daughter's wedding pics and she clearly had no recollection of the conversation (and it had been an entirely pleasant conversation, so it wasn't because it was an argument).  She told me that she had no idea what I was talking about, that the only time we'd talked about the photos was in January when we'd had a huge argument about them (we've actually talked about them several times since then) and that I was probably confusing that with a video she wanted to send to a friend of ours or maybe the photos for our friend's wedding that was this past Thursday. 

In the past I would have tried to make her remember the conversation and we would have ended up in an argument.  This time I just said that I must have misunderstood and let the subject drop.  This took a while as she repeated over and over that there was no way she would EVER have said that she wanted to put the pictures on a flash drive, and that the album wasn't anywhere near ready because the pictures were so bad because there weren't enough of them, etc. etc.  I did not respond to any of that, I just repeated that I must have misunderstood her.  She eventually moved on to another subject and we avoided an argument.

Is this typical?  This happens all the time.  She does drink wine every evening, but only two glasses most of the time, occasionally three, so I'm thinking it's not because of substance abuse.  However, at least once a week there will be a conversation we've had that she's entirely forgotten that involves plans or decisions that she then forgets she's made. 

thanks,

stamp

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[SweetCharlotte]

Yes; I consistently find that my uBPDh compartmentalizes or cordons off particular conversations or parts of conversations. It's as if they never happened. This is a result of dissociation. While a person is dissociating, they cannot form new memories. You can't always tell when this is happening.

Gosh, if she has BPD and she was responsible for your daughter's wedding photos and there have already been arguments and she feels the photos did not turn out OK and now she has been holding them back for almost a year . . . I see this as a potentially explosive and corrosive situation. Wedding photos are very important for a bride. This will be a source of pressure for your partner; she may start projecting blame. Maybe you could deflect it by offering to foot the bill for studio portraits of the bride and groom (if they still have their outfits). Then your partner's photo album will be less disappointing.

[Stamp]

SweetCharlotte,

The good news is that the bride and groom have a couple of photos that she gave them right away and they know my partner well and knew it would take a long time for her to get the album together.  Interestingly, after our touchy conversation today she emailed our daughter with a selection of layouts for the album and told her that the album was almost ready to get printed.  I have not mentioned anything to her, I only know because our daughter asked me which album I liked best.  I've seen the photos that my partner has finished and they are gorgeous.  She only has two or three left to retouch, but she just can't bring herself to finish them, I think because she feels that the quality isn't good enough because she's so hard on herself. 

Thanks for the explanation of how she manages to forget these conversations.  It makes more sense now.  I do feel for her, she must, in some part of her brain, realize that she has these memory lapses and it must be scary to realize that. 

[slimmiller]

I have seen this many times. Thats why it can feel like living in a make believe world at times.


Dropping it as you did is probably the wisest thing you could have done. Its maddening yes but the memory is simply not stored in a way that its accessable to her.

For me its almost like a computer. You save pictures, files etc onto a portable hard drive and the next time you boot up the computer to get the pics the computer has no idea where they are. My exBPD has that look in her eyes when she tries to go back and gets a slightly dazed blank stare then her eyes refocus and she reframes and its like the wires shorted and the converstaion completely shifts. I used to think I was crazy and seeiing things but now realize that trying to argue or jog her memory is futile.

Many times she would do the same with promises she would make (as in 'I will get the kids on Wednesday' and on Friday morning she would call with an excuse why she wont be there till noon, like that was the time we had agreed upon). I wont even try and discuss it anymore. I just drop it and make plans accordingly. Its easier to let it go then waste the energy arguing because to her there is nothing to argue about or agree on

[slimmiller]

I agree it would have to be scary. I cant imagine what they go through at times. Would have to be like a nightmare is to us, only for them its without falling asleep

[SweetCharlotte]

SweetCharlotte,

The good news is that the bride and groom have a couple of photos that she gave them right away and they know my partner well and knew it would take a long time for her to get the album together.  Interestingly, after our touchy conversation today she emailed our daughter with a selection of layouts for the album and told her that the album was almost ready to get printed.  I've seen the photos that my partner has finished and they are gorgeous.  She only has two or three left to retouch, but she just can't bring herself to finish them, I think because she feels that the quality isn't good enough because she's so hard on herself. 

 

I'm glad she's making headway with the project. My H gets overwhelmed by any task that has to do with our other family members. He will offer to buy a birthday present for my son or daughter (his step-kids), then spend hours wandering from store to store and come up empty-handed. Then he blames me for making him feel bad about himself, wasting an afternoon, setting him up to disappoint the kids, etc. If only I had specified that magical present that would have made them happy. However, if I specify the present it also becomes an unbearable burden for him. He will never cease to grouse about the time I sent him to the American Girl Doll Shop, with the threat to his manhood that this entailed.

[connect]

Oh yes - memory... .

I have heard about it so much on the boards and seen it in my bf with BPD. I have noticed that he has different states he can slip in and out of like being regulated and dysregulated (and others in between). He seems to only be able to access the memories made in each state when he is NEXT in that state.

For example if he is dysregulated and we have a row - the regulated him wont remember that row properly. The next time he is dysregulated however he will remember it very clearly.

Perhaps your partner had the flashdrive conversation with you in a calm regulated state and then when you next approached her she was slightly dysregulated and couldnt access the memory of the conversation? I don't know how true this is accross the board but it holds true in my r/s.

But aside from that his bad memory causes other problems. When he remembers things wrong it can affect our r/s esp if he feels he told me something he didnt and I acted badly as a result. Recently he swears he asked me not to talk to a certain person (he didnt say this) I spoke to that person so in his head I expressly ignored his request. This is where the problems are for me.

He says his short term memory is on a 3 month span and then it gets hazy.

[Stamp]

"But aside from that his bad memory causes other problems. When he remembers things wrong it can affect our r/s esp if he feels he told me something he didnt and I acted badly as a result. Recently he swears he asked me not to talk to a certain person (he didnt say this) I spoke to that person so in his head I expressly ignored his request. This is where the problems are for me."

Yes, this sort of thing happens to us, and it's really hard because there's no way of predicting what things she's forgotten she said or what things she thinks she's said that she hasn't.  I know her overall memory is bad also, but she doesn't talk about it so it's hard to gauge how much she actually does remember.  She remembers entire parts of our early relationship completely out of order, which wouldn't be a big deal except that in the order she remembers it, she thinks I cheated on her because she remembers me going away for a weekend and sleeping with someone else.  I did do that, but at the time my partner and I had been on two dates and we were both still seeing other people.  She remembers it as being a month after we had started getting serious and declared our love for each other etc.  I never argue this point with her because I know that I can prove it on a calendar, but that won't change the way she feels, so I have always just said I was sorry that me having gone away with X hurt her, and that it won't happen again.

[j4c]

My ex has an incredible memory for things like peoples names, birthdays, phone numbers, addresses etc from years ago, but have a row with her and a day later her recollection of the fight will be nothing like what was actually said! As soon as her disorder kicks in she doesn't have the ability to think straight and so her reality becomes distorted.

Being in a r/s with someone with BPD is just so confusing when you know nothing about BPD.