What's with the dramatics? Is that part of BPD?

[WhatJustHappened]

Seriously, I'm so tired of the dramatics! Is that part of BPD?  Everything is harder for her

She does everything in the relationship, and I do 'nothing'

She works harder.

Has had a harder life than anyone in history of ever

She's the only one, "fill in the blank"

Is this common?

Like ___, here's your _____ trophy for all you've done. :'(

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[maxsterling]

Yep, common.  Probably a requirement for BPD, as I understand it.  Every issue is about them.  In her mind, her hurt> your hurt.  The whole world is against her.  That's the way she's been since she was a kid.

Everything will get flipped around to be about her.   That's the way it is.

Here's some examples from my r/s:

- "I've had way more pain in my life than you, so you need to be quiet about how much you have been hurt."

- One of her favorite words is "dumped".  As in her going on and on about the people that have "dumped" her in the past.  She doesn't understand that people have a right to choose not to be in a relationship with her.

- Her list of previous jobs that were all "horrible" with "horrible" bosses. 

- How everyone is looking at her, staring at her, criticizing her, judging her... .

It's just BPD.  If you are going to stay in this relationship, my feeling is that you are going to have to accept this as part of who she is.

[Littleleft]

Yup, sounds a lot like my other half.

He thinks I have no right to ever feel whatever way I might because it's all been so much worse for him all through his life. There seems to be a recurrent theme of him feeling resentment towards me for things I've done or achieved in my life like going to uni, living abroad, trying to build a career etc.

He says hes trying harder than me in our relationship (and doesn't see how hard it's been for me to stick things out through years of very difficult behaviour and how hard I've been trying for a long time to find out what I can do, how I can help and how I need to change to make things more bearable for us etc).

He thinks everything is stacked against him in life and what we might consider a normal and small setback he would see as part of life's continuing efforts to make things difficult for him.

I admit that he's had some difficult things happen (I've had a few myself!) but he tends to dwell on it all more than most and feels he has the worst luck in the world.

[WhatJustHappened]

Well I asked her to get help for her BPD and take her meds SNF she broke up with Me. Left and its all my fault.  Her BPD has "nothing" to do with us fighting. She threw my phone at me. Punched me in the tit and threw her ring which hit me below my eye.

So. ... . Yeah  if she would just take her meds...

[Littleleft]

Look after yourself WhatJustHappened.

I'm going thorough similar things and I'm trying to learn some useful info from this site re validation and boundaries at the moment to see if I can help ease the situation in any way.

I'm in the middle of another one of those ranting days with him now ( he's just popped out to smoke so i get a moments peace!).  I'm trying to use some validation and I think that's preventing it from fully escalating (at the moment it hasn't turned on to me, it's ranting about the world and his dog and how it's all f'd him over, but usually it always end up being turned onto me), but I can see there's still some potential for it happening today.

I think I really need to work on boundaries, and not having set them properly in the past has got me to where things are now.  Have you looked at the boundaries info on here?

[an0ught]

Seriously, I'm so tired of the dramatics! Is that part of BPD?  Everything is harder for her

She does everything in the relationship, and I do 'nothing'

She works harder.

Has had a harder life than anyone in history of ever

She's the only one, "fill in the blank"

Is this common?

Like ___, here's your _____ trophy for all you've done. :'(

Yes it is common. Is is a symptom of weak emotional self regulation and in some sense the root of the dysfunction.

And it is critical not to belittle these extremes. If we are not reflecting genuine "wow" back we invalidate and just make the extremes worse. It is not intuitive to take these factual overblown accounts by face value and we should not take the conjured illustrative facts by face value - but the emotions behind them need acknowledging and validation first. By following this course we help to regulate the emotion and get everyone back into calmer waters.

[bpbreakout]

I got this a few days ago, apparently the only problem I have in my life is that I have a difficult wife and BPDw has every problem under the sun (including all the ones in the previous posts & the one about BPD having nothing to do with relationship issues) so I should be grateful.

I actually think BPDw is spot on with this assessment and I think I have a lot to be grateful for though not because BPDw told me I should be this way 

[AlwaysFrustrated]

Yes I am pretty sure this is a requirement.   It can be very frustrating:

Their Mind:

I yell at you but that does not hurt you as much as when you make a face that you are upset that I am yelling at you. Your upset face hurts me more.

The anniversary of some actors death that I remember from child hood hurts more than the death of your actual family member.

No one else has had tragedy but me.

The fact you have feelings undermines the fact that I have feelings at all. So the fact you have any feelings makes me mad because you are marginalizing mine.

[AlwaysFrustrated]

Here is another:

You are struggling to find a movie because your SO has asked you to choose one.  This can be a risky event.  So you choose an action movie, you figure no emotional tie in could be there.  But in the movie a dog dies. 

Them:

Did you know they killed the dog?  You know I can't stand seeing that it reminds me of my dog growing up, why are you so inconsiderate... .

You:

Ok let's pick something out, do you have one you wanted to see?

Them:

Great so now you are pushing this on me?  You can't pick something, you are so indecisive. I told you I don't care already.

Annnnddd now night ruined... .

[Littleleft]

I know exactly what you mean AlwaysFrustrated.

Sometimes it doesn't seem to matter what we say does it, our pwBPD will want/think the opposite is right! Even if you were to agree with something they say, they can then switch it up so that they're now saying the opposite of what you agreed to.  I've noticed this a lot when he's dysregualting, we'd have lots of circular conversations.  Up until the last week when I found this site, I thought it was a good idea to offer solutions for things he was getting wound up about, but now I realise this is usually pointless and invalidating, which I hope will help me in the future!

[billybobb19]

AlwaysFrustrated,

Your example of picking the movie is like a playback of every movie I've ever gone to or rented with my BPDw.

The best thing that ever happened to me was movies on demand instead of having to go to the video rental store ie. blockbuster.  I would dread being asked to go pick out a movie.  I would have to call her when I got there and read every title on the shelves for about 45 minutes until she finally flipped out and told me to just pick something.  Then no matter what I picked out for her she would wind up being upset just how you described.  I would be inconsiderate and selfish and the night is ruined.

The next time out you try to be smart and pick out 2 or 3 movies so you at least have a better shot at not being an idiot, but alas, fail fail fail.  I was the happiest guy in the world when movies went to "on demand" because it's eliminated the video store night of terror for me.

[waverider]

Seriously, I'm so tired of the dramatics! Is that part of BPD?  Everything is harder for her

She does everything in the relationship, and I do 'nothing'

She works harder.

Has had a harder life than anyone in history of ever

She's the only one, "fill in the blank"

Is this common?

Like ___, here's your _____ trophy for all you've done. :'(

Let her have her trophy and don't bother competing, this is her game, you don't have to play. 'Her stuff", not "your stuff'.

They will always struggle to identify the common factor in all these complaints (them), no matter how smart they are, that connection just never seems possible. So nothing is to be gained by trying to point it out.