When BPD leans toward Psychopathy

[Hope0807]

The day I found bpdfamily.com those heavy tears fell in a brand new way and the darkest clouds had parted just enough for me to ultimately feel what we all so deeply need to know after the fallout…we are not alone.  I shudder to think of all the souls that lie in the wakes of our BPD, broken and tossed aside, with no clear understanding of what they were truly involved in.

About 4 months free of my uBPDexh, I have grown extremely grateful for this "family" site.  I understand that here there are also parents, children, and significant others of persons with BPD who search endlessly to hold on to hope and compassion, and employ many coping mechanisms to deal with the disorder and maintain harmony as best they can. 

With that said, I have been greatly struggling to rest with the "BPD" term alone and I'd like to know if anyone shares some of my thoughts?  In short, it has been nearly impossible for me to attribute my ex's relentless cruelty and lack of genuine compassionate actions (without a well-disguised self serving agenda) to this mental illness alone.  Although a necessary emotion in all this healing and definitely one I've spent many an adrenaline-filled day in... .I am NOT writing this from a place of anger.  I have accepted that the person I allowed myself to be enmeshed with was very sick.  I have accepted that his "sick" does not make me sick too, but have fully acknowledged that part of me was indeed broken in my own way and fit perfectly into his world of requiring me to rescue him in a wide variety of way.  I have read and researched more about these disorders than I have ever read in all my years of college or life in general.  It has consumed me.  That consumption for knowledge and information has also led to healing that I am so grateful for, and also so aware that I have a long way to go yet.  Make no mistake that I have been equally retrospective and work on myself, daily.

Soo…….whilst on this journey I found myself in the realm of information about that dreaded, terrifying term that horror movies are made of…"Psychopath"… it fit MY ex and MY experience even more fully and completely than "BPD".  I have learned that personality disorders and other mental illnesses often intersect and overlap.  At the same time that I feel unrelentingly DISTURBED, I have also found a new sense of peace in finding information that validates what I've been feeling and quietly questioning for years.  Although my ex has not killed an animal or person, his actions and way he goes through life without anyone really recognizing his darkness, there no longer a doubt in my mind that his conscience is severely malformed and quite possibly missing.  There is an amazing website that spells out the person I've been married to and then some.  Have you ever felt that "BPD" just can't explain away the extent of all you've endured and know they will go on to do all over again to someone else?

[talithacumi]

Thanks for posting hope0807. I, too, have experienced some treatment from my expwBPD that can't really be explained by this particular disorder alone, including, most significantly, having been "date" raped by him twice in the two years immediately following our breakup when I still lived in the same city as he did and could be persuaded/allowed myself to meet with him in person. The last time was the worst. I saw a look of sadistic pleasure on his face while he had me pinned down, slamming into me over and over so hard he dislocated a vertebra, that I'd never seen before. I left bruised, bleeding, barely able to walk, and severely emotionally traumatized. He has subsequently - and very lovingly - referred to this incident as proof of how much he still loves/cares about me - and how much power I still have to excite/move him to do things like betray his loyalty to the woman he left me for, was living with at the time, and is still with today.

I moved out of state three weeks later, had very limited contact with him for the next six months, went full NC for the next 18, and have only recently - as part of my therapy - gotten very superficially back in touch with him via text as a means of confronting/overcoming my fear of him in general.

Whether it's just BPD ... .or something more ... .all I know is that he's capable of saying/doing anything without any apparent compunction, guilt, shame, or remorse of any kind ... .as well as lying, editing, gaslighting, JADEing to make himself feel/look as good about it as he possibly can once it's over.

If it is just BPD, it's a very dark side of that disorder that no one likes to think or talk about. I'd be interested in finding out how prevalent this kind of behavior actually is - and where it fits into BPD pathology in general.

[Take2]

Yes... .I too have concluded that if my ex-uBPD-bf may have overlapping characteristics of NPD and ASPD.

I have seen a very sweet guy.  I have seen a very, very scary man.  He's never physically hurt me.  But I have had the gut feeling more than once that some day, if I don't get out of his life, he will just kill me.  Is that accurate?  who knows.  I have slept with him out of fear.  He didn't rape me or hurt me.  But I was afraid of what he would do if I didn't.  And yet, I went on to sleep with him several times after that and it was back to a different, nicer guy.  Many problems in those statements.  Both about him and me. 

Most of the time I have known him he has displayed zero empathy.  He seems able to shut off his emotions completely and has done so many times with many others.  I don't know how much is his intense need to protect himself vs truly not being able to care.  I have realized that some on here, myself included, seem to have much more dangerous/abusive relationships than others.  It might mean some are only displaying BPD traits vs those with full blow BPD.  Or could be overlapping disorders. 

[Hope0807]

Thank you for your thoughts.  When my ex painted me black (unbeknownst to me) and was blaming me for everything…in my shame and guilt I sobbed into his chest that maybe we could make love once more someday.  Not long after that he seduced me in a robotic trance and attempted to forcibly sodomize me.  We had not had anal sex in our years together.  In that moment a very, very large dose of whatever was sick surfaced even more so for me.  He did not love me, nor was the tenderness I felt toward him in all those years reciprocated.  He would not be missing me as I had already started to miss him.  My replacements were already perfectly aligned and what I saw that day and so many others was not merely a person who suffers from emotional dysregulation.  With that same sadistic look on his face he mentioned numerous times over the years (when he was really angry at someone) that he had "…sick, sick, very sick and torturous thoughts…" of what he would to people that really pissed him off and said "I can't even speak them out loud because the thought are so demented…" and here I thought he just really has issues.  What the heck?  The flip side of his rage and anger was a warmth and charisma that cannot be compared.  

I can't strongly enough suggest you at least watch the brief video on Welcome page of psychopathfree.com  

Please let me know your thoughts if you do.  To me, there is no longer a question that although the person I spent 7 years with has all 9 "BPD" criteria…he leans STRONGLY toward the more fitting term…Psychopath.

Yes... .I too have concluded that if my ex-uBPD-bf may have overlapping characteristics of NPD and ASPD.

I have seen a very sweet guy.  I have seen a very, very scary man.  He's never physically hurt me.  But I have had the gut feeling more than once that some day, if I don't get out of his life, he will just kill me.  Is that accurate?  who knows.  I have slept with him out of fear.  He didn't rape me or hurt me.  But I was afraid of what he would do if I didn't.  And yet, I went on to sleep with him several times after that and it was back to a different, nicer guy.  Many problems in those statements.  Both about him and me.  

Most of the time I have known him he has displayed zero empathy.  He seems able to shut off his emotions completely and has done so many times with many others.  I don't know how much is his intense need to protect himself vs truly not being able to care.  I have realized that some on here, myself included, seem to have much more dangerous/abusive relationships than others.  It might mean some are only displaying BPD traits vs those with full blow BPD.  Or could be overlapping disorders.  

Thanks for posting hope0807. I, too, have experienced some treatment from my expwBPD that can't really be explained by this particular disorder alone, including, most significantly, having been "date" raped by him twice in the two years immediately following our breakup when I still lived in the same city as he did and could be persuaded/allowed myself to meet with him in person. The last time was the worst. I saw a look of sadistic pleasure on his face while he had me pinned down, slamming into me over and over so hard he dislocated a vertebra, that I'd never seen before. I left bruised, bleeding, barely able to walk, and severely emotionally traumatized. He has subsequently - and very lovingly - referred to this incident as proof of how much he still loves/cares about me - and how much power I still have to excite/move him to do things like betray his loyalty to the woman he left me for, was living with at the time, and is still with today.

I moved out of state three weeks later, had very limited contact with him for the next six months, went full NC for the next 18, and have only recently - as part of my therapy - gotten very superficially back in touch with him via text as a means of confronting/overcoming my fear of him in general.

Whether it's just BPD ... .or something more ... .all I know is that he's capable of saying/doing anything without any apparent compunction, guilt, shame, or remorse of any kind ... .as well as lying, editing, gaslighting, JADEing to make himself feel/look as good about it as he possibly can once it's over.

If it is just BPD, it's a very dark side of that disorder that no one likes to think or talk about. I'd be interested in finding out how prevalent this kind of behavior actually is - and where it fits into BPD pathology in general.

[hurting300]

My ex girlfriend wasn't straight BPD. Our doctors we hired to review the files said their is a strong anti social personality overlap. My ex has no empathy at all. She was cold and silent while raging.

[Hope0807]

Yes, the anti social overlapping is what kept me sniffing in a direction to make more sense of my reality.

My ex girlfriend wasn't straight BPD. Our doctors we hired to review the files said their is a strong anti social personality overlap. My ex has no empathy at all. She was cold and silent while raging.

[hurting300]

I was told they never fit into one illness... it's always overlapping with other things.

[Hope0807]

Yes, isn't it all devastatingly disturbing?  Part of us hates that they cannot be helped, the other part of us doesn't want them to be helped for the hurt they've caused us…then there's the awful reality that those who lean toward psychopathy plan out the fine details of torturing their victims and derive pleasure from it all.  Those are the ones who would never even want the help if it were a guaranteed cure.  They actually actually aim to steal our souls and then mine wanted to know why I couldn't provide him with health insurance for 2 more years.

Holy shat!  Btw, I love that this site lets us talk freely about psychopathic lunatics but you can't write the the four letter word for doody because the filter picks up porn. 

Somehow I find myself wishing for an hour with someone like Joan Rivers.  She knew pain so well and survived through her work.  I'm betting after an hour she would have found a way I could laugh about some of this insanity.  I PRAY that one day this will all seem at least a LITTLE bit lighter than it is now.  

I was told they never fit into one illness... it's always overlapping with other things.

[Take2]

Holy shat!  Btw, I love that this site lets us talk freely about psychopathic lunatics but you can't write the the four letter word for doody because the filter picks up porn. 

just made me laugh out loud for real as I was reading such serious content!

[Take2]

My therapist suggested to me that my ex could be a psychopath.

Of course she never met the guy.

But the way he's turned so unbelievably cold and abusive toward me unless he very obviously needs something from me.  I cannot adequately describe the truly frightening laugh of a crazy guy watching me sob. 

[Hope0807]

I totally get it.  No description needed.

My therapist suggested to me that my ex could be a psychopath.

Of course she never met the guy.

But the way he's turned so unbelievably cold and abusive toward me unless he very obviously needs something from me.  I cannot adequately describe the truly frightening laugh of a crazy guy watching me sob. 

[Recooperating]

Interesting! I have to read up on ASPD! I always thought it was BPD/NPD.

My ex did awefull things when we had one of our breakups. He later told me he was out to destroy me completely. He had made a whole plan on how to do it. He wanted to destroy my friendships (he contacted then with awefull lies, but my friends knew better) He tried to destroy me financially (fraude, screw up my morgage) and he threathned my family and contacted my work. He wanted me to have nothing, hit rock bottom... .Looser, he should have known after all these years investing in my friendships, family relations, work relations and financial planning he would bite the dust... .But I had some scary moments there.

He lives far away from me, otherwise I know he would have tried to hurt me.

He was a martial arts fan, ex-soldier and faught a war. He has a history of violence, knocking people down because they looked the wrong way. People in his community used to fear him. He "grew" out of that as he got older. He had a lot physicall fights with his ex wife and in the last parts of our relationship I was bruised up too. I always thought PTSD was to blame or his NPD traits... .

[Indyan]

Most of the time I have known him he has displayed zero empathy. 

Or could be overlapping disorders. 

According to my T (who specializes in BPD), this is not really a BPD symptom, or it has to be very short in time (a few hours max).

My "BPD" might not be BPD after all... .it's all so confusing.

T talks now of schizotypal (STPD) or even the beginning of Schizophrenia.

Not only because of this typical coldness, but mainly because of ongoing feeling of persecution and paranoia.

[Indyan]

I've just read about psychopathy and it doesn't describe my BPDh. They say that they are "stress immune" (definitely not his case), not easily depressed, very self-confident and even narcissistic.

Phew, it doesn't fit LOL

[Dutched]

Search for "BPD comorbidity percentage", but see to it that you are well seated in your chair.

[Take2]

Most of the time I have known him he has displayed zero empathy. 

Or could be overlapping disorders. 

According to my T (who specializes in BPD), this is not really a BPD symptom, or it has to be very short in time (a few hours max).

My "BPD" might not be BPD after all... .it's all so confusing.

T talks now of schizotypal (STPD) or even the beginning of Schizophrenia.

Not only because of this typical coldness, but mainly because of ongoing feeling of persecution and paranoia.

That's interesting.  My ex definitely seems at times to display different personalities.  Or it is just the mask comes off.  I can't tell.  But he absolutely has paranoia to the Nth degree. 

[Blimblam]

Growing up with a uBPD/aspd brother I am aware it is a broad spectrum.

It's important to realize that not everyone's ex is the same even though we may have common experiences.

There is a lot of informations on YouTube about psychopaths and npds and I found some of that to be useful although to be taken with a large grain of salt.

I do know this my brother was extremely sadistic and I wouldn't wish him upon anyone. Some people on the forum seems like their ex had heavy aspd traits and don't understand how others can have sympathy for our exs.

If your ex was heavy aspd comorbid I am very sorry it must have been a living hell.

On daily motion you can watch the film gaslight for free it might provide some insight and clarity to see a psychopath at work as the observer.

[Hope0807]

Just searched.  I'm assuming you're referring to the stat that 90+ percentage of BPDs have other disorders?  Yes, I've been reading for months.  Well aware.  Mine fits smoothly into:  substance abuse (a plethora of illegal, prescription, and alcohol), eating disorder, anxiety disorder, multiple ASPD criteria…and more.  Yet if you sat at bar with him you would think he was one of the coolest people you've ever met.  He'd definitely buy you a drink too.

Search for "BPD comorbidity percentage", but see to it that you are well seated in your chair.

[Hope0807]

I will definitely check out the movie.  I also just purchased Expired from 2007, which was touted as one of the clearest examples of a male BPD in a movie.  I'm very curious to see what they did.

Growing up with a uBPD/aspd brother I am aware it is a broad spectrum.

It's important to realize that not everyone's ex is the same even though we may have common experiences.

There is a lot of informations on YouTube about psychopaths and npds and I found some of that to be useful although to be taken with a large grain of salt.

I do know this my brother was extremely sadistic and I wouldn't wish him upon anyone. Some people on the forum seems like their ex had heavy aspd traits and don't understand how others can have sympathy for our exs.

If your ex was heavy aspd comorbid I am very sorry it must have been a living hell.

On daily motion you can watch the film gaslight for free it might provide some insight and clarity to see a psychopath at work as the observer.

[Blimblam]

I will definitely check out the movie.  I also just purchased Expired from 2007, which was touted as one of the clearest examples of a male BPD in a movie.  I'm very curious to see what they did.

Growing up with a uBPD/aspd brother I am aware it is a broad spectrum.

It's important to realize that not everyone's ex is the same even though we may have common experiences.

There is a lot of informations on YouTube about psychopaths and npds and I found some of that to be useful although to be taken with a large grain of salt.

I do know this my brother was extremely sadistic and I wouldn't wish him upon anyone. Some people on the forum seems like their ex had heavy aspd traits and don't understand how others can have sympathy for our exs.

If your ex was heavy aspd comorbid I am very sorry it must have been a living hell.

On daily motion you can watch the film gaslight for free it might provide some insight and clarity to see a psychopath at work as the observer.

When you watch the film gaslight try thinking if it this way.

First watch it as it presents it's self then try thinking of the house as a metaphor for a singular mind. And all those characters existing in one person. And your ex triggers that archetype in your head that tortures you even after they leave.

The film is also on YouTube.