Going through the list at
https://www.bpdfamily.com/content/borderline-personality-disorder-clinical-overview1) Intense fears of abandonment
That's something that escaped my notice, because I didn't see any desperate attempts on her part to spend time with me or other people. I was rather hurt and baffled by her frequent pushing me off, cancelling meetings with me, and prioritizing over me some stuff she could have easily done at some other time. Her actions said she didn't really care that much about spending time with me and being close to me. At the same time she would always profess that I was the most important person in her life, her only true friend, the man of her dreams, the ideal one, the person she'd been waiting for her whole life, that she would die without me, that she loved me crazy and that she would go mad for me.
But one thing would stand out here. She would quite often make me promise to her that I should never leave her. She frequently stressed that we should do absolutely everything for our relationship to last forever. On her part she repeated that she would love me forever even when she would hate me.
2) A pattern of unstable relationships
She was approaching 40 and wanting to get out of her 3rd serious relationship. Never married and still looking for a guy she would like to have a child with. She said she had horrible fights with her partner, who was an evil and very demonised person (her words). Later I learned that she had more boyfriends, but I assume that she didn't count those relationships that lasted less than like 2 years or something. I once remarked that sex in the public toilet wouldn't be most likely what a woman should like (due to bad smells and the like that tend to put women off), yet surprisingly she said that she used to have sex in the public toilet more than once which made me wonder: you do not usually have sex in the public toilet with the partner you live with, so it sounded like more casual sex.
She would tell me that for some reason people leave her and her friendships and relationships somehow do not survive. She would say she was a very difficult person and she did warn me in the very beginning that she was a hard person to be friends with. She warned me it would be a bumpy ride.
3) Unstable self-image
This one escaped my notice, too, I didn't really pay attention. But she did say that she was the most beautiful woman in our big company, a good person and that she deserved the best man for her, while at other times she'd say she was ugly, horrible and that she hated herself.
She also paid a lot of attention to what her family would say about her, to fashion trends, to what other people would think about her. That was not surprising in itself, but what struck me was the fact, that those opinions seemed to her more important that her own happiness. Like she would not choose to do things that would make her happy if those things should be criticized by her parents, her colleagues or even people she didn't know personally. Sticking to fashion trends, culture, tradition and her religion (which she herself observed had little to do with the Bible) was very much important to her, like she was not either willing or able to abandon them, even if she knew they were flawed. All those rituals and external rules seemed to give her some sense of stability or basic esteem.
At the same time she was very unwilling to change just anything in her life and she would say that people do not change. Like when she would hear a testimony of some criminal who converted to Christianity she would disbelieve it and assure me: "This is not really possible. He must be largely the same person inside. People do not change."
4) Impulsive and self-destructive behaviors
I knew she experimented with drugs like cocaine and her former sex life was shrouded in a bit of a mystery. She admitted she didn't want to tell me about a number of things from her past, because she was afraid I might leave her or abandon her, and no longer be her friend or love her. So I don't know much about that.
Her only impulse I noticed was cleaning. She was obsessed with cleaning and vacuum cleaning her flat. You could really eat off the floor at her place, but she would constantly say it's dirty. She was cleaning, vacuum cleaning, washing and ironing like most of the time, that was my impression. We didn't live together, but she would often, really often say, that she didn't want me to come over, because she had to do a lot of cleaning - though she had cleaned her flat like 2 or 3 days before. I'd say every time I was ready to come over and help her, but she'd always, always refuse (she invited me only when she wanted, on her terms, and basically whenever I suggested I could come over she'd turn that down; I had to wait for her to be in a proper mood, which was like totally unpredictable, but when it did happen it was fantastic). She also saw germs, viruses and the like everywhere, so she was an extremely clean person - I had no big problem with that, but it did stick out.
5) Suicidal behavior or self-injury
She told me she had suicidal thoughts, she had wanted to commit a suicide not long before she met me, and some time into our relationship when she had those depressed periods, which were becoming more frequent and longer, she would tell me her greatest desire was for me to come over and chop her up with an axe. To me that was the more painful as it showed that my total love for her was no longer enough for her and it no longer gave her any substantial comfort (as it used to in the beginning).
6) Wide mood swings
I'd take her on some nice trips to the most beautiful places I knew about, I wanted her to rest and forget about her sufferings and problems for a while. She told me she would cry and shout for joy when she'd be back home, she admitted those were the happiest moments in her life. Yet within a few hours she'd become distant, depressed, angry and didn't want to meet. I've never seen anything like that in my life before.
She was also quite undecisive. One day she'd tell me to help her with some furniture she wanted in her flat, I did the measurements and the project, than she changed her mind, I told her to consult someone else, she would, had a new project from a specialist, then changed her mind again, and again, and a new project, and again, and so after many months she was still stuck at the same place, angry with people ("because neither me nor anyone else wanted to help her"), accumulating more and more projects of this one piece of furniture and never really able to decide on what she really wanted. Like she was constantly looking for some kind of unreachable perfection and becoming more and more furious, as no person in the world was ever able to offer her what she really wanted.
7) Chronic feelings of emptiness
I thought it was just her depression caused by lack of sleep, poor job, no kids and no husband problems. But she would more and more often confess that she was feeling empty inside and did not want to live.
8) Inappropriate anger
That is a HUGE understatement! It was a seething, earth scorching wrath I can't remember ever seeing in my lifetime. No one ever has verbally abused me as this precious being did. But right from the start I knew she was in a deep pain, so I tried to hold out and wait and never to retaliate.
I've never seen such anger in my life, but personally, to me, that was not a big problem. I had an escape, a hideout, a safe haven - I had my God. She would be often stunned by my reactions to her anger and told me I must be crazy to keep loving her despite her treating me so badly. She knew, she was ashamed, she was sorry, but there was little she could do to control herself. I understood and I knew I could put up with her anger forever. It was unpleasant, it hurt, but I knew and believed that deep inside she still loved me so I did not take it so personally. And I resorted to my God. When she'd come down it was all bliss again. She would apologise for her misbehaviour most of the time, at least during the first months of our relationship.
9) Periods of paranoia and loss of contact with reality
I noticed her unreasonable fears and unfounded suspicions about other people early into our relationship. Fear and suspicions pervaded her life and thinking. Feared her former boyfriend, feared her mother's reactions, feared viruses and bacteria, feared her boss at work and her boss's boss, feared losing her poorly paid job and feared applying for a different job. I tried to reason with her and present to her that most of her fears were in fact unreal, highly improbable, and that 99% of the bad things she feared so much actually never took place. But she kept feeding those irrational fears, which was quite noticable, even by our coworkers. It was draining her and causing her insomnia, but she refused to even try and fight those fears, like she didn't really want to get rid of them and like she constantly needed to have something to be afraid of and to worry about. Her fears were MUCH MORE worse and they put me down MUCH MORE than her hurricane anger.
Apart from the above mentioned points, which seem to be diagnostic of the BPD, there are a numer of other things I noticed, which other people in this forum mentioned as well:
a) Idealization and devaluation
I couldn't believe it was really happening to me. It would be worth waiting for such a friend and such a love even millions of years. It really would. She seemed to love me more than any other person in my life ever before. It was a total, complete, understanding, uncontrolling love. She said she wanted to have a baby with me one month into our relationship (though we had no sexual contact for months in the beginning), she was my real soulmate, she was the first person in my life whose mere touch was so unbelievably satisfying the deep need inside, she was so dear to me I was ready to die for her and on one occassion I rescued her from likely death risking my own life - these were seconds, I could have died with her, but I had no doubts about what I was doing. I did not know, I really didn't, that it was ever possible to have such a fulfilling and satisfying relationship with another human being. And it was not about sex. Yes, it was important to me that she was a woman, that she was not obese and that she desired so much to be with me.
Devaluation - well, her losing her trust in me, her esteem for me, and her interest in me - that hurt. Her losing her trust in me and her esteem for me hurt so badly, but strangely I discovered I still could put up with that. I was not perfect, I knew my faults, so… I knew it would happen. But her losing interest in me was the thing that really killed the relationship or, should I rather say, it killed my absolute fascination with her which I was able to rekindle over and over again during those 2 years when I was constantly pulled and pushed, totally ignored and drawn again into that closest intimacy. I never devaluated her. Never entertained any bad or demeaning thought about her. I tried to be understanding as much as possible, although I couldn't help sometimes and would raise my voice and once I told her in a nasty way to F__K OFF me when she relentlessly stuck to her abusive way of thinking.
She kept telling me I was her ideal man, her dream, she proposed to me, she wanted to marry me. And maybe in a different life I would, although I suspected she might leave me one day, when for some reason, despite her frequent assertions, she would simply lose interest in me. She told me it was NOT difficult for her to leave all her former partners (it was always her who initiated those break ups), because in the end "there was just nothing" (her words). So when she stops feeling anything she is not willing to fight for the relationship, to try and rekindle anything, to try and stick it out, she simply leaves.
In my case, I noticed she would just show less and less interest in me. I suspected there was something going on which she initially denied. She no longer wanted to meet up, no longer going for a walk, no longer willing to talk, no longer willing to hear my voice or be close to me. She only kept texting but did it only when she wanted and responded to my messages only at her conveniance. Once I decided to check what was going on, I saw she was at her flat at the time she would not respond to my messages. The next day she explained she had problems with her phone. I chose to believe her one more time, though I knew she might be lying. Next weekend, same situation. Monday moring her text keep coming in, I'm cold and delay to respond. I try to confront her, she explodes and finally admits there is someone in her life. She wants to stay friends, but only by the means of short messages. I tell her in that case I'll keep being one of her typical friends, but me being her soulmate, her closest person on earth, her dear friend is no longer possible on my part. She reacted as usual: angry, furious, but no change of behaviour on her part. So here we are today, if I see her at work I just say hello, if I occassionally find something of interest on the Internet I'd send her a link: "an interesting stuff, worth reading: LINK", I was happy to give her a nice flower on Women's Day. I wish her all the best. I keep praying for her daily, though these are no longer those desperate prayers I fought for her for months.
b) Materialism
I had an impression that things, money, her status and her surroundings were more important to her than a loving relationship with other human being. I mean, knowing her, I suppose that she would never marry a poor guy who could provide for her basic needs only but who would love her dearly and crazy. She told me she had "big needs" in financial terms and this lack of finances to pay for all her fancies was a major cause of anxiety and depression for her. Somehow, having been loved with an absolute and total love was not enough for her. She had to check a number of other boxes not even to be happy, but just not to be depressed. Material things.
When I met her she was still with her last partner, they were verbally abusing each other on a daily basis. She desperately wanted to dump him. I asked her what she was waiting for. Her response? "I want to keep him a bit, because I still want to use him" (the guy was very goot at planning stylish interiors and as she was still in the process of arranging her flat she needed him for this task).
Months later she said she did not want any husband in her life, she did not want any guy trodding round her flat and telling her what to do. Later she said she would want one, but only for expressed purposes: 1) sex, 2) money, 3) helping her with running the house and doing those bits of housework which a man is supposed to do.
c) Always a victim
Yes, her last partner was a devil incarnate. All people where evil. Everyone did better than her, everyone had more luck than her, everyone was better off, everyone was more happy, had a better job, God helped other people but not her (she recently got a beautiful flat in an area she dreamt about, she was moved to a more quiet and peaceful position in our company where she did not have that much work to do, but as you guess - all of that is never enough, these are just drops in a bucket). Always complaining, always envious of others, very seldom thankful or grateful for anything. She basically refused to be grateful or thankful even when she would calm down and decided to stick to this constantly grumbling victim mode. I personally believe that her prioritizing material things over love and people, and her refusing to exit that disgusting victim mode constributed to a large extend to her depression and unhappiness. Yet she angrily kept refusing even trying to change her point of view, most of the time. That was really disgusting and frustrating.
