How Did You Find Out About BPD?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

About 2-3 months into my marriage, I googled "wife is angry all the time".  BAM!  Got all these hits referencing BPD.  I was like "What the hell is Borderline Personality Disorder?"  I had never heard of it before and thought it was some new radical concept until I started reading about it. 

I tell my friends and family about it now.  They just can't seem to grasp it (BPD).  They just say, "Nah, she's just a crazy b!tch".  Lol! 

[babyspook]

About 2-3 months into my marriage, I googled "wife is angry all the time".  BAM!  Got all these hits referencing BPD.  I was like "What the hell is Borderline Personality Disorder?"  I had never heard of it before and thought it was some new radical concept until I started reading about it. 

I tell my friends and family about it now.  They just can't seem to grasp it (BPD).  They just say, "Nah, she's just a crazy b!tch".  Lol! 

[santa]

My ex was diagnosed bipolar before I met her. After spending 4 years with her, I knew that wasn't it. I did a little research because I wanted to figure out what was really wrong with her. She fits BPD perfectly.

[WalrusGumboot]

I endured 18 years of crazy-making in my marriage without knowing what it was. I tried everything in the book to make her happy. One evening she went into the spare bedroom with her pistol. Scared as hell, I talked her out of it and took the gun away. She then spent the next hour raging about how I was not doing this, that, whatever. Then she started crying and made me feel like a bad, bad man. I said my apologies, yada yada, then she wanted sex. We did. Afterwards I felt awful. I felt sick how twisted it was, how within a few hours I was talking my wife out of killing herself, then getting yelled at, then calming her and feeling sorry for her, then having sex.  

The next day I joined a very popular women's site, which happened to have a message board. I started a thread with the subject being "What am I doing wrong?" or something like that. Quite a few responses, but "an angel" went right to the point and said it sounded like she had BPD. I had no clue what it was   She provided some links, and I read them and had my eyes opened. I was a veracious reader on the topic since then.

[strikeforce]

She same out an told me the whole story of her past and her BPD diagnosis by the third date

[Turkish]

Year one into our r/s, I started getting the typical behaviors (in retrospect, from the first date!). I kept telling myself, "it shouldn't be this hard... . she has to have some kind of PD!" I started searching, came up with BPD as the most likely fit. It sounded too odd, though. I didn't read too much about it. I took on the FOG and that was it. This was my first LTR, so I let her "lead" even though her past r/s weren't stable. I should have "manned up" as my X always said, and lead. Very confusing for someone who is proud of her feminism, yet clings to the old gender roles. Disorienting.

At that point, we were having trouble, of course, I was "forced" to go into counseling, then a toxic recycle I let happen, and I forgot about it. I was fully into the Dance Of Death (up the irons!), then the first baby... . home. etc... . 5 years later, I found my way here.

[maxen]

even before the wedding there were issues. she seemed to want me to do lots for her that she could do herself, and she was professionally such a successful and competent person. once in the marriage the eating got more compulsive, the driving scared me, the slovenliness was epic, the 'forgetting' was bizarre. i wondered how much of it was the alcohol. in her 20s she had either mutilated herself or tried to or wanted to. she'd had a history of unsuccessful relationships, often ending in dishonesty. i'd never heard of borderline disorder but didn't need to know it to know there were problems. but i had issues too and if she could accept mine, i could accept hers.

last june she moved in with someone else after a campaign of deceit. (this other person is a woman so let's add "confusion of identity." utterly blasted, i started therapy. after 2 or 3 weeks my T spotted the BPD. she (the T) has worked with pwBPD so i'm not making the diagnosis.

it's said sometimes that the label doesn't matter, the behaviors matter. this is true. however, if there is a diagnosis then one can be confident of certain patterns and of a certain predictability. so we victims of pwBPD can dismiss the idea that if only we had said it right, if only we had done this or that, if only we had more patience, if only we had validated better, if only we had gone to therapy ourselves, the r/s could have worked. as my T keeps telling me, "this isn't about you. it's impossible to have an emotionally reciprocal relationship with a pwBPD."

[Pearl55]

About 2-3 months into my marriage, I googled "wife is angry all the time".  BAM!  Got all these hits referencing BPD.  I was like "What the hell is Borderline Personality Disorder?"  I had never heard of it before and thought it was some new radical concept until I started reading about it. 

I tell my friends and family about it now.  They just can't seem to grasp it (BPD).  They just say, "Nah, she's just a crazy b!tch".  Lol! 

Haha they are more than crazy they are real psychos! I actually cried a lot but I think I have to take it easy now but I'm so angry for taking my marriage so seriously!

[Pretty Woman]

After the third time she dumped me (blocked my number) and I could not rationalize with her at all, I googled "multiple breakups". I also Googled, "multiple lesbian breakups" since I hadn't been in a situation like this before.

Borderline Personality Disorder popped up along with "rollercoaster relationships". As I read the signs it was like reading a template or blueprint of my relationship.

I never said anything to her about what I read but when I got into therapy my therapist said, "Yeah she is BPD and you have BPD traits".

It was a wake up call to say the least.

[LilMissSunshine]

At first thought his bizarre behavior was based in his unfortunate addiction relapse - narcotics.  I even secured an alanon sponser.  As he slipped deeper into his addiction the gas lighting started; accused me of all sorts of ridiculous, untrue behavior; fabrications, twisted incidents.  Then the flipping started.  One day accused me of being BPD     So, I started researching and YIKES.  Learned some new terms:  "projection", "gas lighting", etc. 

[Pretty Woman]

Lil Miss,

   That was another sign for me. My ex used a lot of terms like: passive-agressive, projecting and gaslighting---to describe me.

Her ex before me was a psychologist.

[Turkish]

Lil Miss,

   That was another sign for me. My ex used a lot of terms like: passive-agressive, projecting and gaslighting---to describe me.

Her ex before me was a psychologist.

I have told mine now and then that I understand a lot of this from a psychological perspective. She, of course, threw this out and used it against me the other night during our argument. I knew she really didn't know what she was talking about when I admitted my co-dependency and she said, "yeah, the smoking!" I now believe what at least two of my friends who know her have said, that she isn't nearly as smart as she thinks she is.

And she's still watching the motivational videos on youtube... . good luck to her!

[State85]

Googled "Crazy a$$ girlfriend"

[Littleopener]

I'm not that experienced in relationships, wondered if his behaviour was normal. Explained it to friend. She was all "noo way is that normal, have you researched BPD?". That and the no closure which was massively telling.

[LilMissSunshine]

I have told mine now and then that I understand a lot of this from a psychological perspective. She, of course, threw this out and used it against me the other night during our argument. I knew she really didn't know what she was talking about when I admitted my co-dependency and she said,  "yeah, the smoking."  I now believe what at least two of my friends who know her have said, that she isn't nearly as smart as she thinks she is.

And she's still watching the motivational videos on youtube... . good luck to her.

Scary and

Lil Miss,

   That was another sign for me. My ex used a lot of terms like: passive-agressive, projecting and gaslighting---to describe me.

Her ex before me was a psychologist .

Even scarier.

[Sammamish]

After 3 months of marriage and some serious crazy-making behaviour, I googled a few things like "angry wife" "mood swings" and "walking on eggshells". Several clicks later I found this amazing website. Now, here I am a year and half later, separated from my uBPDw, but feeling much better with myself.

Interestingly, before marrying her, I even told her that I sometimes felt I was "walking on eggshells" around her. She said previous b/f's had said exactly the same thing to her and she couldn't understand why! (at least that's what she said).

Ah the red flags we choose to ignore...

[Love Is Not Enough]

Ah the red flags we choose to ignore...

NO KIDDING! LOL  

My T (God Bless Her) told me on our third session based mostly on my gf's self burning. I thought it was interesting, but unfortunately did not take it as seriously as I should have. I wish now my T had thrown me up against the wall and slapped me a few times to get me understand the seriousness of this disorder.

I'm on session what number now? Oh yeah, next week will be number 95... .

[arn131arn]

I googled "professional victim" and couldn't believe what I saw. 

It was jaw-dropping, and surreal.

We were on our way to our third couples therapy session later that week, and I had printed out a list of red flag behavior that I was going to tell the therapist how I felt.

I didn't show her the list or tell her about it; but she may have had a clue bc she ended the therapy that week... .

[hergestridge]

There was a lot of talk about bipolarity about my wife, but being the person closest to her I knew she wasn't so keen on discussing the inter-personal problems she was having, which basically were a bigger problem than her depressions and mood swings. She was not mentioning that to her doctors at all.

I think it was a doctor at psych ER that asked me if me and my daughter got any time apart from my wife (she doctor asked this in my wife's presence). This question seemed odd at first, but then I realized that the doctor knew exactly what was going on with my wife. He had never met any of us, but the doctor understod that my wife couldn't be left alone and he knew how confrontational and conflict-seeking she was. How did the doctor know? I thought this was odd, but I went home and googled terms like "confrontational" and "conflict-seeking" and I read the criteria for borderline. I had very little doubt from then on.

It has not been much of a relief. My wife could live with the bipolar diagnosis, but not with the BPD "label". The bipolar diagnosis even seemed like a relief for a while. She thought it was "Good to finally know".

[nolisan]

I became aware that the relationship was emotionally and financially abusive. Friends were hinting at this but finally I did some research and some quizzes on the internet.

I noticed that the abusers often have a PD and/or addiction. I saw BPD mentioned but kind of skipped over it.

I need to add that my ex is a Pagan Witch. Then one day I was googling abusive r/s's and I was curious if Witches tended to be abusive (the ex often said witches were often "irascible" (having or showing a tendency to be easily angered).

So I typed "Witch & Abuse" into the search engine. It returned and article about the 4 types of BPD : hermit, waif, queen and WITCH!

WOW the bells went off!

It was a huge moment of clarity! Suddenly things made sense! It was like getting a chemical analysis back on a mystery drug that I had become addicted to and that I knew was killing me.

I suggest you take a look at the 4 types of BPD. Mine was definitly a Queen/Witch (the most dangerous kinds) but had periods of waif and hermit. It is an eye-opener.

[Pearl55]

Love is not enough

I didn't take it seriously neither but when I read a lot about it I realised that it must be serious I moved out since 7 weeks ago but I still shake every night when I think about how serious this is and how my mental health was at risk all these years!

[RecycledNoMore]

Www./ cassanova.html

[Ironmanrises]

A close friend of mine, while still in friendship phase when she first abandoned me, hinted at Bipolar(this was in early 2012) as a possibility to the contradictory/awful behavior I had experienced. I didn't look into it. When round 1 of relationship started(same friend asked me, ("You do realize she disappeared on you before and you want to have a relationship with her?", I overlooked the words, thinking naively the opposite. Once I experienced the RAGING as she discarded me in round 1, I started to research Bipolar. My friends words echoed HEAVILY in my thoughts. Some things matched(her mood swings) but nothing further. Didn't really explain her odd behavior. Heavy digging into Bipolar and I came across a person's comment that described the push/pull behavior and suggested BPD. As soon as I typed in BPD, this forum popped up. All the lights started to turn on as I read account after account. My tears fell, as I read anonymous members on here recounting their own hellish tales and the accounts sounded EXACTLY like mine. I was never the same after that. 3 months of NC later, she reappeared(BPD style) for round 2, just like I had read about on here, and I watched as I saw her disorder play out before my eyes from beginning to horrific end(and the behavior was word for word exactly what I had read about on here). Shortly afterwards, i found the courage to finally post my nightmare.

[Iwalk-Heruns]

Had been researching behaviors towards the end of round 1 of 2 of relationship. Was leaning towards depression issues for a long time which is one of the reasons I think I stayed so long. Thought it was something that could be cured or fixed.

When he finally discarded me out of nowhere as soon as I put in search all together: silent treatment, raging, abrupt discard BPD exploded off the screen and that is when I found this site and other info.  Everything fit to a T. I finally had my answer.

Too bad it didn't get quite through to me that it couldn't be fixed because I took him back for second round. I Think I got it now though!

[brokenbutalive]

Similar to you ironman. After months of me not knowing what the hell was wrong with the relationship and honestly believing her distortions and that it was all my fault, she let it slip to me one night during one of her good moods that her ex boyfriend had once speculated that she was bipolar. It was like a curtain fell down. Suddenly i knew that it wasnt me, that her ex who she constantly vilified had been through the exact same crap. At the same time, researching bipolar, it didnt exactly fit. Then when i finally went to see a therapist she mentioned BPD... . and that led me to this site... .

Funny how everyone knows or thinks they know bipolar disorder but no-one that ive spoken to has heard of BPD

[starshine]

After my ex dumped me I googled "cruel breakups" and BPD came up.  It was all right there.  We were together for 5 years, lived together for 4 and never had a conversation about breaking up.  He broke up with me and 4 days later was in another relationship.  Game over.

[Inside]

…I’d spent a crazy-making year wondering if I were going nuts …found myself walking the streets before dawn …had been dumped & recycled several times …had been raged at for no good reason/s … and during some time apart, while taking a personality and 'compatibility profile' test from a book on stress I’d been given, found that (from my observations) my crazy-making gf scored extremely high on ‘empathy,’ of all things.

Searching “extreme empathy,” lead to Borderline Personality Disorder.  We’d, at her insistence, been seeing a ‘couples counselor’ as a precursor to getting back together, but what I discovered about BPD, along with a multitude of crazy clues & hints was that she fit 7 of 8 criteria…  Everything fit, and unfortunately still does :'(  

Relieved that it ‘wasn’t me,’ and that things finally ‘made sense,’ when learning of the full extent of what we were up against …with the description of ‘incurable’ bantered about, I was heart sick…  Still am...  No one deserves that crap, and I couldn’t make it go away.  Though I’d have spent a lot, and was working with our former counselor to find her help, she’d not have any of it – “I refuse to be labeled!” she responded as I carefully described my concerns.  She’s seeing a therapist now, specializing in what, I don’t know … but we’ve been apart for 2 months, and after 7 recycles …I’m doing my best to finally keep it that way.  

[charred]

I heard of it from my exBPDgf... . she said she had been diagnosed BPD in grad school... . and I wasn't familiar with the term borderline enough to understand what horrors it expressed.

My exBPDgf and I had dated when I was in college... . and she abruptly dumped me (we were talking marriage)... she showed up hanging all over one of my neighbors... and I was devastated... . moved away to avoid killing someone.

24 yrs later... she looked me up on FB, I was married... and indifferent to her... till she got me on the phone... her voice brought back 100% of everything... 5 months later I was divorced... and the real hell began.  But... in one of my long long talks with her she said she had panic attacks and saw a T in grad school and was told she was BPD. She said T was great (at first)... then a while later she was trying to get the state to pull his license.   Anyway, we recycled 6-7 times... . she was like demon from hell... horrific to deal with. Been seeing a T for PTSD since we split.

I thought borderline was like... "almost"... . and I assumed "almost a problem"... . not "almost 100% nuts/psychotic... . just shy an inch or so"... and didn't look any further in to it. She was syrup sweet/bit phony when nice... . tiny bit off when clingy, but totally 100% authentic when hating... . down right scary... have no doubt she would stab me 27 times, cut my throat and shoot me (just like Jodi Arias)... but she seemed to miss me a lot and tell me I was her "soul mate".

Really learning about BPD... got on this site and read the articles, began reading the leaving board and was obssessed with finding out "why?" all this happened and how I had fallen for such a load of BS.

[Turkish]

a  common theme with a few of us here seems to be being " forced"  to go into counseling or therapy. extreme gaslighting at its best,  no? I  was even forced to go into sex counseling by nine.  after she abandoned me to it,  got validation from two been female doctors that my issues were completely healthy given an abusive partner. I  stopped going and never had a problem again.  yet four years later,  here I  am... .   now  about 30  appointments later in individual counseling... .

[Inside]

Funny how everyone knows or thinks they know bipolar disorder but no-one that ive spoken to has heard of BPD

Broken…  I’ve read that ‘clinicians’ will often diagnose a patient as “Bi-polar” because it’s considered “treatable,” whereas BPD is not -- and that medical insurance policies will often refuse to pay for BPD treatment for that reason.  That has me wondering about those diagnosed as “Bi-polar”… as it seems a common ‘misdiagnosis’ around here… 

[Inside]

and I was devastated... . moved away to avoid killing someone.

…maybe it’s this beer...   but that was my first belly laugh of this thread… and who can’t relate...