Could someone explain the reason why people with BPD take what you say and make it so negative AND how that's got anything to do with abandonment issues?
For example: Beautiful day all is well in the world sitting on the porch drinking
ice tea...
Me: Did you have a red bike when you were a kid?
Him: why would you think all kids would have a red bike? Why not blue or green? Did just the popular kids have red bikes or something? There is plenty of kids that didn't even have a bike... what about those kids?
Me:
In my experience, it's usually because questions like that trigger memories of abuse and neglect that may be tangentially related to the original query. They'll go through three or four layers of memories to that abuse and re-experience it like someone had smacked them right then and there.
To give you an example of my past, early on when me and my ex had moved in together, and my dad was visiting us to check out the apartment. I went to go get a cup of milk to drink one night. I didn't think much of it when she asked me "why are you drinking milk?" Surprised, I said what's the big deal, and how I've been drinking milk since I was a kid. She then told me that growing up, she didn't drink milk because "no one just drinks milk like that!"
Years later, I found out that her mother reserved the milk for her own use and for cooking only, and that she wasn't allowed to drink milk ever after she was weaned. Then again, she wasn't allowed to eat too much "because she was fat" (when it was that she didn't want her and didn't want to spend a penny more than she had to). Also, as a result of the neglect at home, she developed a binge eating habit with her grandmother where they would polish off boxes of cookies and candies in one sitting.
Notice that we've gone far away from the original point.
My point is that people with BPD get triggered EASILY. All communications must be looked at through that filter.
