Is it really totally uncontrollable?

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Hello. I joined maybe week ago. I posted first as person with pwBPD but i changed it to epwBPD. I had to end it. I know my story isn't long (lasted 40 days and it was long distance) but i found (and still do) myself deeply hurt and confused. I know, cause i wasn't in relationship long time that perhaps i entered it too fast, without thinking it over, but like so many others here i thought i found love of my life. Every single word she used was like from my own heart, yet i now know better. Perhaps it is worse i found pathology and not true feelings i hoped for. After many, many lies, manipulations and cheating (i know now) i ended it. Still i cling to one thought, how really is impossible for them to control it. I know she have at least 2 more people she kept pushing/pulling in same time i was there. I know she used same words of love, compassion kindness one day for me, next for someone else. Yet in same time, she studies, goes to work (not daily) and do stuff just as most of us do. How can it be that it is solely disorder when you check phone and for example see my name there, you skip it today, be sweet and love someone else, then go to sleep and next day do the same with me and ofc with sending couple messages to me during the day she spent with someone else virtually (we met over pc game and spent a lot of time there together, some days even 6-7 per day) that she is sleepy and tired? In any court system that is seen as intended and sane. I understand sleepwalking, but this i just can't. I can understand doubt, low self-esteem, depression, person with BPD can have, but intentional lies just to keep a herd of people feeding her with emotion simultaneously, to push one day only to pull another i really can't. I can to some degree but i can't pull the guilt of such behavior totally from them, nor would i ever want to. If they are totally uncontrollable then why is society not facilitating them? I mean, sure they won't put themselves on fire, but such bad treatment which can lead to lives destroyed for life (not their own ofc) surely is not something that should be left out to roam free in world (if they can't control it). If they can at some extent control their behavior then that's a totally different story... .I'm really trying to understand it, yet i honestly can't. We are not talking about someone stepping on your toe, so its accident. I'm talking about intentional series of actions that from start till end lead to hurting people... .Hope someone else understand what i'm talking about. As much as i see, they seem perfectly responsible in many areas of life except when treating certain people. I noticed girl i loved had couple friends she kept always and didn't delete them at all (but she did delete me over dozen times in 40 days), so that pattern is definitely not same for all people in their lives... .Ty for reading and answering... .

[Moorwen]

Hello. I joined maybe week ago. I posted first as person with pwBPD but i changed it to epwBPD. I had to end it. I know my story isn't long (lasted 40 days and it was long distance) but i found (and still do) myself deeply hurt and confused. I know, cause i wasn't in relationship long time that perhaps i entered it too fast, without thinking it over, but like so many others here i thought i found love of my life. Every single word she used was like from my own heart, yet i now know better. Perhaps it is worse i found pathology and not true feelings i hoped for. After many, many lies, manipulations and cheating (i know now) i ended it. Still i cling to one thought, how really is impossible for them to control it. I know she have at least 2 more people she kept pushing/pulling in same time i was there. I know she used same words of love, compassion kindness one day for me, next for someone else. Yet in same time, she studies, goes to work (not daily) and do stuff just as most of us do. How can it be that it is solely disorder when you check phone and for example see my name there, you skip it today, be sweet and love someone else, then go to sleep and next day do the same with me and ofc with sending couple messages to me during the day she spent with someone else virtually (we met over pc game and spent a lot of time there together, some days even 6-7 per day) that she is sleepy and tired? In any court system that is seen as intended and sane. I understand sleepwalking, but this i just can't. I can understand doubt, low self-esteem, depression, person with BPD can have, but intentional lies just to keep a herd of people feeding her with emotion simultaneously, to push one day only to pull another i really can't. I can to some degree but i can't pull the guilt of such behavior totally from them, nor would i ever want to. If they are totally uncontrollable then why is society not facilitating them? I mean, sure they won't put themselves on fire, but such bad treatment which can lead to lives destroyed for life (not their own ofc) surely is not something that should be left out to roam free in world (if they can't control it). If they can at some extent control their behavior then that's a totally different story... .I'm really trying to understand it, yet i honestly can't. We are not talking about someone stepping on your toe, so its accident. I'm talking about intentional series of actions that from start till end lead to hurting people... .Hope someone else understand what i'm talking about. As much as i see, they seem perfectly responsible in many areas of life except when treating certain people. I noticed girl i loved had couple friends she kept always and didn't delete them at all (but she did delete me over dozen times in 40 days), so that pattern is definitely not same for all people in their lives... .Ty for reading and answering... .

[C.Stein]

It sucks and it hurts like hell when someone does that to you.  You made the right choice.  Stand tall and move forward from this a wiser man.

[enlighten me]

BPD is a spectrum disorder so it can go from BPD light (for a better term) to full blown.

The more severe the symptoms then the harder it is to control.

In the end the disorder nearly always wins.

[SummerStorm]

You mentioned that she has some friends that she always is in contact with.  Remember that intimacy is what triggers the disorder.  Is it possible that these friends are still around because they've never actually gotten that close to her?  My former friend BPD has a "best friend from college" whom she has seen maybe twice in the past year.  I was her best friend for about five months.  We worked together, so we saw each other five days a week.  We also hung out outside of work, she stayed over at my house, and we had a brief sexual relationship.  As soon as we got close and her engulfment fears were triggered, she pulled away and then eventually discarded me. 

As enlighten_me mentioned, BPD is a spectrum disorder.  My former friend is 9/9 in terms of meeting the diagnostic criteria for BPD, and the only thing worse than her abandonment fear is her engulfment fear.  She has a college degree and is incredibly intelligent, but she is low-functioning in all other aspects of her life.  She did have a relationship that lasted longer than a year, and I'm pretty sure she lived with the guy, but that was a few years ago.  Since she's gotten older and is now at a point in her life when many of her friends are getting married and having kids, I've noticed that her relationships are a lot shorter.  I would imagine it's because she's dating guys who are thinking about getting married.  She always says that she "refuses to adult," but I would imagine that most of the people around her are way past that.  She can barely clean up after herself, is always running for everything, and once told me that I would have to monitor what she eats because she can't.  Most of the time I was with her, I felt like more of a parent than a friend.   

[GreenEyedMonster]

It is legitimately very hard for these people to control their impulses.

The high anxiety created by intimacy is so incredibly urgent.  It is hard to imagine unless you are in the situation.  It turns on all the "emergency" alarms in a person's brain, every mechanism of self-preservation.  It is very hard for conscious thought to overrule these things.  It is similar to how it is a reflex to pull your hand away from a hot piece of metal -- your brain does it by itself, without your conscious effort.

Consider doing some reading about Freudian defense mechanisms.  It is fascinating and will help inform you about this person's behavior.  Defense mechanisms protect people from terrible anxiety by directing their thoughts/feelings into a different direction, sort of like an emergency switch that shuts off unacceptable emotions.  The more severe a personality disorder, IMO, the more a person's behavior is directed by defense mechanisms.

[SummerStorm]

It is legitimately very hard for these people to control their impulses.

The high anxiety created by intimacy is so incredibly urgent.  It is hard to imagine unless you are in the situation.  It turns on all the "emergency" alarms in a person's brain, every mechanism of self-preservation.  It is very hard for conscious thought to overrule these things.  It is similar to how it is a reflex to pull your hand away from a hot piece of metal -- your brain does it by itself, without your conscious effort.

Consider doing some reading about Freudian defense mechanisms.  It is fascinating and will help inform you about this person's behavior.  Defense mechanisms protect people from terrible anxiety by directing their thoughts/feelings into a different direction, sort of like an emergency switch that shuts off unacceptable emotions.  The more severe a personality disorder, IMO, the more a person's behavior is directed by defense mechanisms.

Indeed.  The day before my former friend BPD moved in with her boyfriend, she cheated on him with me.  I kept telling her it wasn't a good idea and kept bringing him up, but it was like she just didn't care.  This was also the day she came back to work for a long-term sub position and had a lot of anxiety about teaching a subject she wasn't certified in.  The teacher ended up going into labor before my former friend had a chance to meet with her to discuss the class, so she was just a ball of anxiety that day. 

I really don't think they can control their impulses at all. 

[Learning_curve74]

Moorwen, I'm sorry to hear you were hurt in your relationship with a BPD person. My ex gf has BPD, so I and most all the people in the forum have experienced very similar painful experiences as you. It hurts.

BPD is a real illness. One cannot tell a person with BPD to just "get well" any more than one can tell a person with diabetes to get well. Just like a diabetic, a person with BPD can choose to manage their illness in a healthy way or not. The difference is the diabetic hurts mostly themselves whereas a person with BPD can often hurt others as well.

You might want to think of a person with BPD as having a system of dealing with their emotions and relationships as having a certain language. If somebody grows up speaking Chinese, they will find it difficult to impossible to engage with people in a society that speaks English. It's not their fault they grew up only learning Chinese, but it is their choice to figure out ways to communicate and live in an English speaking society.

[hashtag_loyal]

Short answer? No, the pwBPD can't fully control it. If they were in control of their impulses and if their emotional instability didn't interfere with their lives, they wouldn't be considered disordered in the first place.

Can they get better eventually? Of course they can, but it is going to be really hard. With enough time and quality therapy, a pwBPD can learn to respect others' feelings and also learn healthier techniques to deal with life's stress that don't involve devastating amounts of self-destructive behavior, but only if the pwBPD really, really wants it.

But even still, in moments of great stress (such as SummerStorm's example of professional uncertainty combined with terrifying impending intimacy) the pwBPD may break down and the destructive coping techniques may resurface.

So to borrow from learning_curve74's example: Yes, it's possible for an English-speaker to learn Chinese, but not many do because it is hard. Likewise, it is possible for a pwBPD to control his/her impulses but not many do because it is hard.