BPD Fleas.. Is that why we understand them?

[DreamerGirl]

Growing up with a BPD Mother was a nightmare, and I look at myself and wonder is this why I am so accepting with my BPDbf and his behavior.

I'm wondering, are there different degrees of BPD?  at times i get concerned I also have BPD, but possibly I'm just more self aware.

A lot of my behavior has been BPD, over the years, even when I think of my childhood, which I have told my therapist, and he says it's fleas from my childhood.  I keep wondering though, is fleas BPD, but a more evolved version?

Often I've read stories here of how a BPD girlfriend or wife is treating her partner and I can relate to her and I know how she is feeling, and then I can it's like flipping a coin, I can also relate to how he is feeling by her behaviour.  That's what confuses me.

Does anybody else feel this way or understand this feeling?

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[Notwendy]

I was raised by a mom with BPD and feel very much like what you said. My H has some traits, but isn't nearly as affected as my mom. Still, it left me wondering why my relationship at times felt similar to being with her. I was walking on eggshells around him, having circular conversations that led nowhere, and if I brought up anything it was reflected back on to me. In fact, being raised by a severely affected mother made it harder for me to recognize dysfunction at the milder end of the spectrum, and I think it is a spectrum.

They say we choose romantic partners with similar issues as our family of origin, sometimes in a milder form, sometimes not. Perhaps it is because we see it as familiar and comfortable in a way, but also, I think it is something unconscious- the chemistry between two people is what it is.

Once I became aware of the "fleas", I did a lot of personal work to address them ( an ongoing job!) . The name for those fleas for me was "co-dependency".  I found ACOA ( adult children of alcoholics and dysfunction) to be very helpful in understanding the family patterns in dysfunctional families. Although growing up, I assumed my mom was the problem, I also had to understand my dad's role as an enabler. I found that I learned behaviors from both of them.

I also recognized the good. As a teen, I just hated my mother, but that led to me not wanting to be like her so I adopted my father as a role model. I found that my role in dysfunctional relationships was to be enabling, and that this contributed to issues in my relationship. However, although we got fleas, we need to also see our parents as not all bad, as I had seen my mother as a teen.  They have good traits too, and if we got fleas, we surely got some of the good traits as well.