I wonder if there is way to prevent them from ruinig more people's life ?

[guy4caligirl]

This is an amazing illness , I don't even know how many members we have on this site , that suffered the same treatment of humiliation and still in pain .

I should say this is a crime they do to us , they hook us and they destroy every emotion we have because  the majority that fall for that are good hearted people aimed to please the partner .

How could anyone stop this madness should we stand still an let our replacement join us in a year or two on this sight ?

Or should we alert him ?

Shame !

GUY$CALIGIRL

[SpringInMyStep]

Good question! I wonder this myself and have the urge to warn everyone of my ex! (but of course I don't)

I really feel that if I knew anything about BPD beforehand, I wouldn't be in this predicament. I just think it was a combination of my state of mind at the time and her intense need... .disaster waiting to happen.

[guy4caligirl]

Good question! I wonder this myself and have the urge to warn everyone of my ex! (but of course I don't)

I really feel that if I knew anything about BPD beforehand, I wouldn't be in this predicament. I just think it was a combination of my state of mind at the time and her intense need... .disaster waiting to happen.

Her ex or beloved parents did not even say a word about the illness , they just ignored us so she will be out of their sites and let us deal with them instead of them and now because you need her mom's help or sister to deal with this situation of hit and run they too ignore you !

I am not going to loose anything I lost her already  but I am thinking to continue letting her be aware of  her illness not for her to come back to me , but for her own good wish me luck I know she will

what do you all think about that ?

[clydegriffith]

Disaster is just a part of their life cycle. The BPDx causes chaos wherever she goes. It's always just a matter of time.

[SpringInMyStep]

Her ex or beloved parents did not even say a word about the illness , they just ignored us so she will be out of their sites and let us deal with them instead of them and now because you need her mom's help or sister to deal with this situation of hit and run they too ignore you !

I am not going to loose anything I lost her already  but I am thinking to continue letting her be aware of  her illness not for her to come back to me , but for her own good wish me luck I know she will

what do you all think about that ?

Well I can tell you that she won't really respond well to you telling her that she's ill... .trust me. But you can keep the focus on you and let her know that she should not contact you anymore and then keep firm and do not respond to any communications from her. Unfortunately, these are not normal relationships and we must cut all ties in order to properly heal.

[tim_tom]

Scarlet Letter B

[Mutt]

!

I am not going to loose anything I lost her already  but I am thinking to continue letting her be aware of  her illness not for her to come back to me , but for her own good wish me luck I know she will

what do you all think about that ?

Hi guy4caligirl,

Recall what Skip said about your ground zero? I have to agree with SpringInMyStep. She's not going to respond well. She's mentally ill. BPD is a part of her personality and it's like asking you to think differently because of your personality. How would that make you feel and react?

Ground zero for you is letting go of the notion that you can change her. Change comes from you. What is your goal by telling her she is mentally ill? I think it shows that you are compassionate and you still care about her and that's fine. That said, she's feeling engulfed right now, closeness and intimacy triggers feelings of rejection/abandonment for her. That's why she's triggered and distant.

[Swiggle]

I'm not a huge social media person, but I often wonder. What if more people were more aware of these types of things. I mean you hear about disorders but one doens't usually really learn about them until they have had a tramatic event and searched for answeres. By then it is to late, they have already gotten involved. I see all these articles about love, marriage, relationships circulate on social media but I never see articles about stuff like this. You know really informative articles that someone might read and think, "wow, this really fits with the guy I just started talking too". Maybe it would help some people? I don't think warning people would always help. But having informative info. about things such as thing could cause some to investigate further.

I always see the stupid crap like "if you can't love me at my worst you don't deserve me at my best" or people constantly putting up quotes about soulmates and intense love or talking marriage after two dates. Who knows maybe people wouldn't see it anyway even if it was out there since they might not be ready.

[Pingo]

I don't think I would have listened if an ex of my ex came to me and told me what I was in for.  Even though most of us see red flags early on, we are also hooked to this person so fast that we are willing to overlook them. 

I'm not a huge social media person, but I often wonder. What if more people were more aware of these types of things. I mean you hear about disorders but one doens't usually really learn about them until they have had a tramatic event and searched for answeres. By then it is to late, they have already gotten involved. I see all these articles about love, marriage, relationships circulate on social media but I never see articles about stuff like this. You know really informative articles that someone might read and think, "wow, this really fits with the guy I just started talking too". Maybe it would help some people? I don't think warning people would always help. But having informative info. about things such as thing could cause some to investigate further.

I always see the stupid crap like "if you can't love me at my worst you don't deserve me at my best" or people constantly putting up quotes about soulmates and intense love or talking marriage after two dates. Who knows maybe people wouldn't see it anyway even if it was out there since they might not be ready.

I see these articles and memes on fb about terrific marriage, soulmates, etc and I just laugh thinking these people have no idea what they are talking about.  They are over simplistic and only apply to perhaps a select few who are really healthy.  I've become quite cynical I guess.

[merlin4926]

I agree. I had never heard of BPD and only when it started to go wrong for me did I learn about it. I wish it was more in the media so people might sense something isn't quite right before they get really hurt. I know my ex is just going to do to other people what he did to me.  I also now see that his ex wasn't the person he made her out to be - she may have had some issues but most of the mess her life ended up in was down to him

[merlin4926]

Ironically his ex did try and warn me without in any way slagging him off and I thought it was because she wanted him back - wish I'd listened to her now x

[icom]

Well, provided that we’re equipped with sufficient agency (the capacity to act independently and make free choices), we are our own arbiter in these matters, and are under no moral obligation to maintain interpersonal connections that are personally compromising.

One of the shortest and most effective words in the English language is the word “No”.  The moment you bring this word into play, you militate personal harm. 

Another aspect to this is that the moment I bring up the topic of Personality Disorders I’m either met with a wall of silence, or complete denial that these disorders exist.   

Besides, it’s one of life’s truisms that the only time advice is acknowledged or appreciated is after the fact. 

[Raybo48]

Letting a BPD know about their illness can be a very dangerous venture.  One of the main reasons that this disorder is so hard to treat is that they simply don't see they have a disorder at all so it's not like they are even in denial over it.   It would be like telling a non they have a disorder, it will not compute... .period.   I attempted this a couple of times with my BPDxgf and the results were extremely ugly.  She took it as a personal attack and latched onto it and became vindictive for several days.  It's just not worth it ESPECIALLY if you plan on exiting the relationship.  I mean what's the point.

As far as warning other people... .That can also be a very dangerous game.  I have thought about it myself and would love to warn every guy she comes across, but in the end the only person that would look crazy would be me.  You have to remember that the BPD can appear very 'normal' in the beginning stages of a relationship because they put their best foot forward in almost every case and for you to sit there and try to warn someone of their impending doom would make you look like the psycho one.  It would also invite your exBPD to file harassment charges against you and if you think you can convince a judge that your ex has a personality disorder good luck with all that.

Lastly, why would you want to spend the energy making it your goal to warn anyone about their condition?  All it would do is keep you intertwined in their drama filled life and you wouldn't break free from the 'addiction'.  You would still be the co-dependent in the relationship, but in just another dysfunctional role.  

Best advice, move on down the road and let the next person deal with them and hopefully when it's over the non will have a good support group to begin healing.

[Butterfly44]

Letting a BPD know about their illness can be a very dangerous venture.  One of the main reasons that this disorder is so hard to treat is that they simply don't see they have a disorder at all so it's not like they are even in denial over it.   It would be like telling a non they have a disorder, it will not compute... .period.   I attempted this a couple of times with my pbdxgf and the results were extremely ugly.  She took it as a personal attack and latched onto it and became vindictive for several days.  It's just not worth it ESPECIALLY if you plan on exiting the relationship.  I mean what's the point.

As far as warning other people... .That can also be a very dangerous game.  I have thought about it myself and would love to warn every guy she comes across, but in the end the only person that would look crazy would be me.  You have to remember that the BPD can appear very 'normal' in the beginning stages of a relationship because they put their best foot forward in almost every case and for you to sit there and try to warn someone of their impending doom would make you look like the psycho one.  It would also invite your expbd to file harassment charges against you and if you think you can convince a judge that your ex has a personality disorder good luck with all that.

Lastly, why would you want to spend the energy making it your goal to warn anyone about their condition?  All it would do is keep you intertwined in their drama filled life and you wouldn't break free from the 'addiction'.  You would still be the co-dependent in the relationship, but in just another dysfunctional role.  




Best advice, move on down the road and let the next person deal with them and hopefully when it's over the non will have a good support group to begin healing.






I agree with you here Raybo... .completely. Mine seemed to have no idea what on earth was wrong with her (or maybe she did) She did at times appear completely "normal". We went to a sleeping disorder clinic together and after talking to her, even the guy we saw in regards to that said he couldn't help her but he would refer her to a great team of psychotherapists that he had at the same clinic. I breathed a sigh of relief at this and told her how great it was that she would be able to get the therapy she really needed. At that point she proclaimed very loudly in a hospital waiting room, that maybe if she wasn't in such an abusive relationship then she'd be ok! That maybe if *I* wasn't such an abusive partner, she wouldn't be having the problems she was having. The whole waiting room was staring at me. I had to walk away almost in tears I was that humiliated. On the way back home she told me her reason for saying that was because I'd made out she was "mad". Just because I'd used the word therapy to her! I had to be duly punished of course and that's what she did to me... .humiliated me in the worst way.

Even to the end, she insisted on believing she was being referred to a psychiatrist for her sleeping issues and not for anything else. She just didn't want to see it or couldn't even see it despite the consultant for sleeping disorders telling her he couldn't help her! So no, it's never a great idea to confront them... .they really can't see their issues and sadly don't even want to. To admit to a disorder would do nothing but heighten their feelings of shame and make them feel worse than they already feel... .definitely a no no.

[guy4caligirl]

!

I am not going to loose anything I lost her already  but I am thinking to continue letting her be aware of  her illness not for her to come back to me , but for her own good wish me luck I know she will

what do you all think about that ?

Hi guy4caligirl,

Recall what Skip said about your ground zero? I have to agree with SpringInMyStep. She's not going to respond well. She's mentally ill. BPD is a part of her personality and it's like asking you to think differently because of your personality. How would that make you feel and react?

Ground zero for you is letting go of the notion that you can change her. Change comes from you. What is your goal by telling her she is mentally ill? I think it shows that you are compassionate and you still care about her and that's fine. That said, she's feeling engulfed right now, closeness and intimacy triggers feelings of rejection/abandonment for her. That's why she's triggered and distant.

Closeness and intimacy trigger feelings of rejection /abandonment for her , that's why she's triggered  and distant

Mutt what does abandonment means here in this sentence ? is  it me abandoning  her or vise versa ?

[Mutt]

Mutt what does abandonment means here in this sentence ? is  it me abandoning  her or vise versa ?

Neither.

At the core of this disorder is the core wound of abandonment, abandonment, abandonment fears. Most of if not all of the behavior in borderline personality disorder is driven from the fear of re-experiencing intolerable pain from their core wound of abandonment.

Hi jh4cm,

I know its something I'll never know the answer to but I'm so curious to know what my uexBPDgf's core wound of abandonment is.

I don't think any one of us will ever know, unless our exes actually recover and then tell us their understanding of their own disorder and recovery.  Still I love to speculate... .

Her father (also had BPD) left her & her mum when she was 4 years old n by all accounts wasn't winning dad of the year in the 4 yrs he knew her. My ex never saw him again n he died in a mental institution when she was 17. Her mother (suffered depression for years) wasn't very maturnal and throughout my exs childhood they were at each others throats eventually resulting in ex running away aged 14. My ex then claims she got raped (aged 15) & moved to a new city where she met a 'paranoid schizophrenic' who constantly beat her & sexually degraded her. (allegedly). She stayed with this guy for 10 months apparantly.

Maybe it was the abandonment of her father?  Maybe it was some degree of neglect from her mother?  The things is, my understanding is that in some cases, just the *perception* of abandonment and betrayal might sufficiently produce a "core wound of abandonment."   And this "core wound" it is not unlike a traumatic event triggering PTSD in other people -- different people may experience the same event but only some end up developing PTSD (i.e., 9/11/2001). But when such an event occurs to you at a very early age, it can have the effect to arresting your emotional development.

My question is do you think its likely she has been a pwBPD from the age of 3-4 or is it possibly to do with this alleged crazy guy she met when she was 15 and/or the rape incident?

My person opinion is its a combination of her mum probably neglecting her emotionally as an infant combined with the abandonment from her dad aged 4 but i cant help wonder if the crazy guy that physically & sexually abused her may have kick-started the whole thing. I mean is it even possible to 'get' BPD at 15 years of age? Does she perhaps have BPD and now also PTSD?  I know obviously its possible shes made the whole thing up - even her best mate from years ago told me she didn't believe the rape claim.

I think she "got it" as a toddler.  And all the painful experiences she has suffered since that point has only served to re-enforce her dysfunctional/disordered behaviors.  I think BPD and PTSD are very related.  But people with PTSD don't necessarily have the deep emotional/attachment issues that people with BPD seem to have.

I've often wondered if there was ever any sexual abuse from one of her mums many boyfriends when ex was a young girl. Maybe even from her own father who knows.

Maybe.  Maybe.  And maybe it was the perception or delusion of sexual abuse.

In the case of my exBPDgf, there was a very specific event in our relationship that opened up a lot of information that I didn't have any idea how to process at the time: her best-friend (at the time) died during a hiking accident and may exBPDgf has having a really difficult time handling it, i.e., the night that she died.  And that evening, she told me about the death of her mother which she never talked to me about before.

She told me, that when she was very young (age 4?) her mother died suddenly and that she felt very guilty that all her family members were being so nice to her, but she herself did not feel very sad that her mother had died.  My guess is that it was too much a traumatic shock to lose her mother.  And this "shock", this sudden loss of her mother, was probably her core abandonment trauma.

She brought this up, out of the blue (to me).  I didn't understand (at the time) what her mother's death had to do with her best friend's death, except that they were both significant personal losses.  Moreover, it seemed to me that she was handling her best friend's death with great difficulty at the time.  And it didn't seem to parallel her childhood experience of not feeling grief from her mother's death.

Eventually I came to realize that this was the only time I actually witnessed her having powerful emotions associated with the loss of her best friend.  Nothing afterwards, although I wasn't with her 24/7 either.  But as far as I can recall... .nothing.  Certainly nothing close to what she exhibited the night she found out her best friend was most likely dead.  And she never talked about her mother again.

It was around this time that our relationship went into a death spiral.  A slow motion death spiral that lasted another year.  But she presented the most disordered behaviors I observed during this period.

Core wound of abandonment.

[outside9x]

I say, No, and to do so , is letting yourself in for trouble.  First you need to heal that takes time.  Secondly, I think it looks bad, as good intention as it is to do that, especially when their in their honeymoon stages.  Most won't believe you anyway, and think you are just being nasty.

Also, you might get some bad feedback as well.  It's a shame, but there is no way to broadcast this.

I know I told some of my friends the things she did, as I was hurting pretty badly, but that was it.  Of course many asked as she would not show up for important events like weddings and picnics etc.  After a while you look like a dope trying to make excuses for her.

[guy4caligirl]

I say, No, and to do so , is letting yourself in for trouble.  First you need to heal that takes time.  Secondly, I think it looks bad, as good intention as it is to do that, especially when their in their honeymoon stages.  Most won't believe you anyway, and think you are just being nasty.

Also, you might get some bad feedback as well.  It's a shame, but there is no way to broadcast this.

I know I told some of my friends the things she did, as I was hurting pretty badly, but that was it.  Of course many asked as she would not show up for important events like weddings and picnics etc.  After a while you look like a dope trying to make excuses for her.

I will never go down her road of cruelness I have conscience like no one warn me I won't I will look like she thought I am but no way she made her bed let her lay in it

[myself]

The best way to prevent this is for pwBPD to face themselves, learn to better control their destructive behaviors, and continue doing so. Which doesn't seem to happen often enough. Forcing the issue makes it worse.

[Raybo48]

The best way to prevent this is for pwBPD to face themselves, learn to better control their destructive behaviors, and continue doing so. Which doesn't seem to happen often enough. Forcing the issue makes it worse.

In order to face it themselves  they would likely have to hit rock bottom, which usually means no supply and everything in their life extremely chaotic with no one to rescue them. 

They always find a way to get supply and are extremely resourceful when it comes to that so they really have no reason to adjust their destructive behavior.

[Caredverymuch]

This is an amazing illness , I don't even know how many members we have on this site , that suffered the same treatment of humiliation and still in pain .

I should say this is a crime they do to us , they hook us and they destroy every emotion we have because  the majority that fall for that are good hearted people aimed to please the partner .

How could anyone stop this madness should we stand still an let our replacement join us in a year or two on this sight ?

Or should we alert him ?

Shame !

GUY$CALIGIRL

Many members ask this same question.  We tend to adapt a real protective and saving nature of our BPD partners while in the r/s.  It's best to concentrate on you. If you read many posts on this subject , you will find it's a common urge, but a somewhat fruitless result as the messenger.

[Tim300]

I'm not a huge social media person, but I often wonder. What if more people were more aware of these types of things. I mean you hear about disorders but one doens't usually really learn about them until they have had a tramatic event and searched for answeres. By then it is to late, they have already gotten involved. I see all these articles about love, marriage, relationships circulate on social media but I never see articles about stuff like this. You know really informative articles that someone might read and think, "wow, this really fits with the guy I just started talking too". Maybe it would help some people? I don't think warning people would always help. But having informative info. about things such as thing could cause some to investigate further.

I always see the stupid crap like "if you can't love me at my worst you don't deserve me at my best" or people constantly putting up quotes about soulmates and intense love or talking marriage after two dates. Who knows maybe people wouldn't see it anyway even if it was out there since they might not be ready.

I really like this entry.  Very good idea.  I hope to post info about BPD on Facebook at some point, likely during May (BPD Awareness Month).  However, it won't be this May, and it might not be the next few Mays.  It's still too close in time to my broken engagement and I would prefer that people don't make a connection and that it doesn't get back to my ex (who might kill me).  One way to post about BPD in a way that wouldn't draw too much attention to your personal situation would be to simply post about an article in the news where BPD is involved.  I've set up a news alert on Google News so that I get emails about BPD in the news (e.g., the other day there was a story about a gruesome attempted murder).