What do you think caused them to become BPD in the first place?

[Confused108]

I was wondering if anyone here knows what might have happened to that BPD person in your life that made them have this disorder? Mine I believe started spiraling ou of control when my Mom broke off our relationship at 14 yrs old. My ex was a loving caring person. After our seperation she became this nasty person with major Push/Pull . At the time I had no idea what the heck was going on with her. She started dating all these guys on our block and basically hated me. First when I tried to get back with her it was yes then etc. then she moved and I lost contact with her until 2 years ago. Now this June she tells me she never stopped loving me etc push / pull and finally dumped me for good in Sept. She is not the same person I loved all those years ago. Anyone else think or know what might have started their ex or loved one on their path to BPD?

[Little oak]

My ex had a hard childhood from what she told me,she adored her father but her mother and father separated,her father met another woman who disliked her and often my ex would be left to her own devices at a young age. Her brother was schizophrenic and sadly committed suicide by hanging,up until present both she and her mum appeared to be in competition with one another eg who had the newest car,if one had the other had to do one better.

[enlighten me]

There are many statistics out there saying the majority is nurture and then a large percentage for genetics.

Personally I believe that genetics accounts for a lot of the nurture statistics and it could be down to having a borderline parent that is abusive. The fact that they were abused I think hides the genetic factor as this is taken as the cause. I also doubt my ex wifes account of childhood abuse and think a lot of what she called abuse was in fact her being punished for her behaviour.

It can also be caused by a head injury.

[SeekSusan]

My partner was a victim of sadistic childhood sexual abuse.

[Mutt]

For a lot of years it was believed that BPD was caused by poor parenting and neglect and it's now believed that it's caused by both environment and some people are at risk of developing the disorder genetically. I think that parents are at the top of the rung when it comes to BPD and parents must of felt a lot of guilt if they were blamed for poor parenting, which is not always the case. Possibilities are a parent that suffers from mental health issues, neglect, childhood trauma; sexual and physical abuse.

I suspect that there is mental illness in my ex wife's family and I know that she was abandoned by her mother and left with her grandparents. I believe that the grandfather was hyper critical, but it's speculative because I get the feeling that family members split the grandfather black. I do know that she was subjected to sexual abuse in early childhood.

[hashtag_loyal]

From what I've read (and my own observations) it comes down to a hyper-sensitive child growing up in an environment of invalidation from primary caregivers.

This invalidation can often times include outright emotional, physical or sexual abuse, but does not have to. A "mismatch" between parenting styles and the child's attachment patterns can probably account for the times when BPD develops in otherwise loving families.

That said, BPD does appear to be much more common when one of the parents is BPD as well.

This was certainly true in my ex's case. Her mom is almost certainly NPD, and her dad is most likely BPD, and was absent from most of his kids lives starting around the time my ex turned 4. Both parents would beat her. Both parents would put the needs of themselves and their (considerably younger) lovers ahead of the needs of their children. Knowing all this, it is not surprising that my ex was later diagnosed with BPD, and is most likely co-morbid with DID as well. Truly sad stuff.

[hopealways]

It's caused by core trauma induced by an emotionally neglectful mother.

[Eyeamme]

I dunno. I think I was a pretty validating mom. My daughter 34 uBPD. I also have a son that is 31 that is fine.  I was a single mom but their father had shared custody. Who knows... .

[zundertowz]

Her father left her mother at an early age and disappeared for 10 years.  :)uring that time her mother married 3 times and she bounced around with many different step brothers and sisters, none of who she is on good terms with.  I think her mother was more concerned about her drama than her kids.  Although my ex treats her kids very good, more like best friends tho, she has repeated the pattern, way to many men in and out of her kids lives and I think she has lived in close to ten different places with them.  They both have anxiety and depression problems in their early teens.

But I also must say that being a hermit also runs in my exs family.  Her mother is now alone, so is her father, sister, 3 uncles, and cousin.  They are all miserable hermits.  My ex is the opposite tho she craves attention... .I worry she may kill herself when if she is alone when shes older.

[FannyB]

Her mother is either borderline or bi-polar. Daddy lived in work, so it was an emotionally toxic situation in which to raise an only child.  :'(

Saying that though, the whole family does seem to have a propensity for anxiety which has passed down to the kids - so the genetics theory can't be ruled out.

Fanny

[Hopeful83]

My ex was sexually abused when he was a child, not by a caretaker but by someone who worked for the family. That person STILL works with them at the family home, something I was horrified to learn of after we visited last year. He didn't tell me until we'd left that he was the guy who'd done all that horrific stuff to him. I'm not sure I would have been able to shut up had I known while we were there. 

I strongly suspect that he's torn. In his culture children are brought up to regard their parents as Gods. His parents worked hard to earn well for him and his brother's future, so in that sense of things he feels he owes a lot to them. However, his love for them is ridden with guilt, which I used to find rather disturbing. He'd get tears in his eyes when he'd say he'd do absolutely anything for them (in the end it seems he got rid of me to keep them happy, so I guess I should have really paid more attention to that red flag).

When I asked him if his parents knew of the abuse he said no, but that he thinks they strongly suspected something was up because that guy went missing for a while back when my ex was a child. But sure enough, he ended back there working for them. I feel that he's torn because he has this massive sense of duty, and yet his parents failed to protect him when he was at his most vulnerable. And the abuser is STILL with the family. I can't get my head around that one.

Add to all this a mother who is manipulative, controlling and quite frankly cold, and I guess you have a bit of a recipe for disaster. I always thought of his rage as a bi-product of his abuse, but put together with other symptoms it's very likely he has BPD.

[juniorswailing]

Mine seems to have had a troubled childhood as a result of being abandoned by her real mother, although after she got in touch years later my ex is glad that she was abandoned, and being treated like a princess by her adoptive mother.

Add that to being mixed race and growing up through the 60s – 80s in a working class area of a provincial Scottish town then I guess it wasn’t easy.

An abusive first husband and a cheating second husband as well as a series of other traumas then were thrown into the mix although I’m now doubting how much, if any, of what she told me is actually true. Some of it is lies but some of it will be the truth.

[troisette]

"From what I've read (and my own observations) it comes down to a hyper-sensitive child growing up in an environment of invalidation from primary caregivers."

I think that's true, and I think there is a genetic factor too.

I was a hps child in an environment of invalidation but I don't have BPD. But I did hook into my BPD because our families in many ways mirrored their dynamics, so there was a sense of familiarity for me - sans BPD.

But my former partner's mother and brother, both now deceased, were mentally ill. His mother a narcissist I believe, I don't know what the diagnosis was for his brother but his life was bizarre.

So I'd say it's a mixture of nurture and nature. That the circumstances of childhood can trigger whatever the latent genes that cause BPD.

[enlighten me]

I was reading about PTSD and they where saying that in the study the Swedish soldiers who developed PTSD in Bosnia all had lower than normal levels of cortisol prior to deployment and the area of the brain ( I believe it was the hippocampus) that controls cortisol was smaller. They said that this predisposition may never have been triggered if they hadn't served in a conflict.

[GreenEyedMonster]

My ex said that his mother told him that he was difficult to console as a small infant and had a tendency to act very distressed for no reason.  So there's your genetic component.

His dad was an absent alcoholic with little interest in his kids.  His mom had been abused as a child and was probably borderline herself.  He was "spousified" by his mom from a young age to compensate for her bad marriage, and his mother used him to assuage all of her own abandonment fears.  She would state that she was fine with him dating or seeing other women, but then do or say things to make sure that he would never feel safe with anyone but her.  She treated him like an accessory, choosing almost everything about his life, and threatening to abandon him if he did not comply.  He was also bullied excessively in school.

As they say, genetics loads the gun and the environment pulls the trigger.

[Michelle27]

My ex's Mom passed away a couple years before I met him.  His Dad remarried right before we met.  In the 15 years we were together, I heard repeated stories about how his Dad mistreated him when he was young.  In particular, he told a story of his Dad beating him often, including one time in which his head was smashed into the concrete until he was in a coma.  He said that social services became involved and it was dealt with.  

Other stories of his history from him gave the perspective that his birth Mom was an amazing woman and her death of cancer had traumatized him.  He spoke so highly of her that when I daughter was born, I suggested using her name as our daughter's middle name.  The anniversary of her death hit him hard every year as well as Christmas always being tough for him because she died a few weeks before Christmas.  Of course, in the first few years, I was touched by his displays of emotion and thought it meant he was in touch with his feelings and/or his Mom was an amazing woman.

His Dad being so horrible to him growing up never did jive with how he was so obvious about how desperately he seemed to be seeking his approval.  Whenever my ex did anything like fixing something around the house, he would call his Dad and it seemed to me that he was hoping for his Dad to say something like he was proud of him.  From my perspective, his Dad was a miserable old man with nothing positive to say about anyone.  He seemed angry at the world, had horrible opinions of others and definitely painted people black all the time.  Eventually, the woman he married left him and her and I have been very open with each other about how similar the problems in her marriage were to mine.  I always just assumed his Dad was depressed.  I had discussions with my ex about this and he would agree that his Dad was probably depressed but he'd say his Dad was too old and stuck in his ways to ever think about getting help.

When his Dad and step mom split up, I watched both his Dad and him split her black in a big way.  I think she's a nice woman and have maintained a good relationship with her for over 15 years so I never understood this.  

My ex's relationship with his older sister was always a little odd to me.  She was like a surrogate parent for him, and said and did things that implied that she was glad that when I came along, I took him off her hands as he was living with her after the split from his first wife when we met.  Several years ago, when things were really bad in our relationship, I was pretty much in a caretaking role.  I dealt with everything including all the cleaning, cooking and parenting as he could barely cope with going to work.  I was horrified to discover that he told his sister and Dad that he was having trouble keeping up with everything (cooking and cleaning) because I was doing nothing and he was doing it all.  I was so upset by this that I had him call his Dad in my presence and tell him that he had in fact lied about it. He refused to tell his sister however and claimed he would tell her later.  I don't know if he did.  

Since we split up, I have had numerous conversations with his first wife and have learned some things that changed my perspective.  She knew his birth Mom and told me that she was NOT the saint that my ex described her.  That she was in fact prone to rages, likely had some mental health issues and always created drama in their marriage.  

The first 5 years or so of our relationship and marriage, things with my ex were pretty smooth.  No rages although now that I look back, there were definite red flags that I ignored.  Everything changed though when we were informed that his son from his first marriage at 7 years old disclosed years of sexual abuse by his stepbrothers in his Mother's home.  My ex fell apart emotionally and that's when the raging started, the cheating and more, although the lies I now know were pretty much the whole relationship.

This convoluted answer I know doesn't make it clear where his BPD (undiagnosed but he meets 8 of the 9 criteria) comes from.  But I believe it was a combination of his sensitive nature and neglect and abuse as well as inconsistent parenting.  His reaction to his son's sexual abuse in hindsight make me believe he has a history of sexual abuse although he vehemently denied it.  I will likely never know for sure.

[Fr4nz]

For a lot of years it was believed that BPD was caused by poor parenting and neglect and it's now believed that it's caused by both environment and some people are at risk of developing the disorder genetically. I think that parents are at the top of the rung when it comes to BPD and parents must of felt a lot of guilt if they were blamed for poor parenting, which is not always the case. Possibilities are a parent that suffers from mental health issues, neglect, childhood trauma; sexual and physical abuse.

I suspect that there is mental illness in my ex wife's family and I know that she was abandoned by her mother and left with her grandparents. I believe that the grandfather was hyper critical, but it's speculative because I get the feeling that family members split the grandfather black. I do know that she was subjected to sexual abuse in early childhood.

Mutt, you got more or less a realistic picture of the whole problem, since I've read, more or less, the very same things from academic literature and from 2010's enlightening posts. For sure there's a mix of environmental and genetic factors, probably with a focus on the former.

I'd also add that Masterson (one of the major BPD experts) claims that BPD emerges during the pre-oedipal stage (0-3 years); at the beginning of this stage the infant doesn't have a own self (or better, its self is fused with the mother's one), and it is during this extremely important phase that the child "shapes" its own self by "exploring" the world, little by little, thus gradually detaching from the mother.

If, for some reason, experiences related to this "exploration" are not positive - this usually depends on how the primary caregiver handles the baby... .for example, a mother could be a loving, yet "helicopter" mother, or she is neglective/abusive/etc. - the infant may fail to shape its own self, thus potentially giving birth, among other possible things, to the disorder we're talking about.

[steve195915]

My BPDgf had a father that she loved immensely that ended up leaving and divorcing the mother, remarrying and abandoning her completely for his new family.  Her mother and her had a very contentious relationship and she looked to her father for comfort.  Not sure if her mother had issues but I do know there was some sort of abuse there, maybe some hitting and lots of yelling with verbal abuse. 

[Teereese]

Genetics - his mom had mental health issues and his dad was a molester, both alcoholics, one a drug abuser. He suffered extreme child abuse - physical, sexual and emotional, as well as neglect and lack of nurturing.

I know he is a product of his childhood.

[enlighten me]

For a lot of years it was believed that BPD was caused by poor parenting and neglect and it's now believed that it's caused by both environment and some people are at risk of developing the disorder genetically. I think that parents are at the top of the rung when it comes to BPD and parents must of felt a lot of guilt if they were blamed for poor parenting, which is not always the case. Possibilities are a parent that suffers from mental health issues, neglect, childhood trauma; sexual and physical abuse.

I suspect that there is mental illness in my ex wife's family and I know that she was abandoned by her mother and left with her grandparents. I believe that the grandfather was hyper critical, but it's speculative because I get the feeling that family members split the grandfather black. I do know that she was subjected to sexual abuse in early childhood.

Mutt, you got more or less a realistic picture of the whole problem, since I've read, more or less, the very same things from academic literature and from 2010's enlightening posts. For sure there's a mix of environmental and genetic factors, probably with a focus on the former.

I'd also add that Masterson (one of the major BPD experts) claims that BPD emerges during the pre-oedipal stage (0-3 years); at the beginning of this stage the infant doesn't have a own self (or better, its self is fused with the mother's one), and it is during this extremely important phase that the child "shapes" its own self by "exploring" the world, little by little, thus gradually detaching from the mother.

If, for some reason, experiences related to this "exploration" are not positive - this usually depends on how the primary caregiver handles the baby... .for example, a mother could be a loving, yet "helicopter" mother, or she is neglective/abusive/etc. - the infant may fail to shape its own self, thus potentially giving birth, among other possible things, to the disorder we're talking about.

How does this explain twins growing up in the same environment but only one developing BPD?

[Schermarhorn]

This is what my ex said what happened to her. She is a pathological liar, so who knows how much truth is in them.

-Her mother and step mother used to lock her in the basement and not feed her. She said they also both physically beat her.

-Her grandfather tried to sell her into prostitution.

-Her dad will not be alone with her, because he is sexually attracted to her.

-One grandmother tried to kill her

-The other grandmother told her she deserved to "die" on multiple occasions.

[Little oak]

I'm finding it quite difficult to understand how a childhood can cause someone to be nasty to a loved one. I understand genetics can't be helped but surely we make conscious decisions in the things we do or don't do and if we make a mistake we attempt to make amends.

My childhood was at times, traumatic. I suffered abuse,a parent with mental illness and I went in care of local authority,I've been able to maintain stable relationships, I haven't cheated or intentionally lied or turned on a loved one. I'm sorry if I sound ignorant but it's a concept I'm finding hard to grasp,genetics I understand,head trauma I understand but a difficult childhood,is this just not an excuse for poor behaviour?

[enlighten me]

www.psychcentral.com/news/2012/09/25/twin-study-finds-heavy-hand-of-genetics-in-personality-disorders/45085.html

This might help. They say that there is around a 75% connection with genetics to personality disorders.

The way I see it is that people can be genetically predisposed to the disorders. It may be that the predisposition is severe so may not need anything to set it off or it could be minor so something severe such as abuse could trigger it. Or anywhere along the spectrum between. This could be why twins can have one develop a PD and the other be fine.

Then you have those that develop it due to severe trauma who may not have been predisposed. I think this could be to do with brain plasticity where the brain rewrites itself. That is a pure assumption on my behalf though.

You can also get people develop it through a brain trauma. There is evidence to show that certain regions of the brain behave differently for pwBPD. If these areas are damaged then it wouldn't be a surprise if BPD symptoms where produced.

One thing with the trauma is that it is hard to say if genetics is the major player. A lot of incidences are involving family members so there is a possibility that it could be a heredity thing and not purely down to abuse. Another thing to consider is how much if fact and how much is fiction or a twisted version of reality.

These are just my opinions so please don't take it as fact.

[JSF13]

I am not sure how much truth there is to what my ex has told me outside of her mother being a religious cult fanatic who has now passed and her father turning to alcoholism and heroin for years. She told me she was raped, abused and very neglected. After my interactions with her I am not sure that that stuff is true. She has fabricated so much stuff about us that I am not sure I believe any of it. I also had a rough upbringing. My father is abusive and my mother an alcoholic. I have chosen to not let it define me. I found my outlet in Music. It was always my safe place but I will say I am drawn to other broken people which has left me with not many great relationships. I very much want a normal life but pick the absolute worst people

[Confused#2]

Very interesting topic.  I believe my mother was undiagnosed BPD. But out of many sibs only one has this characteristic. We were basically parented the same way (taking into account personalities, ages etc.) I am not saying the nonBPD sibs do not have issues from being raised by a BPD parent but they are basically stable, functioning people.

I think it is interesting that most people accept the stories that BPD's tell of their past abuse! Not that some have not been. But since one of the symptoms is to always see yourself as the victim, why do people not question some of these "memories" of abuse.  I am not saying to confront the BPD but it seems that people just accept this when the BPD tearfully tell you of their "abusive"past.  I believe that it is mostly the "nature" part of the equation that carries more weight in who develops the disorder.

[Climbmountains91]

His mum going off with different men every 5 mins because she wanted to be loved and having a different dad at the dinner table every week and apparently his step dads abused him. His mum actually told me that. His dad he seen him every weekend so his dad says but my ex felt rejected because his dad had this new family (wife and stepson) and he was always told to go to his room so I guess a lot of rejection and abandonment which is the core of the disorder. His mums more stable now though she's in a loving relationship she's a very "funny" woman though, very odd ! And his dad is not consistent in seeing him than my ex would like. But he's replaying it out what his parents did to him with our daughter which sucks so yeah. :/

[fromheeltoheal]

For a lot of years it was believed that BPD was caused by poor parenting and neglect and it's now believed that it's caused by both environment and some people are at risk of developing the disorder genetically. I think that parents are at the top of the rung when it comes to BPD and parents must of felt a lot of guilt if they were blamed for poor parenting, which is not always the case. Possibilities are a parent that suffers from mental health issues, neglect, childhood trauma; sexual and physical abuse.

I suspect that there is mental illness in my ex wife's family and I know that she was abandoned by her mother and left with her grandparents. I believe that the grandfather was hyper critical, but it's speculative because I get the feeling that family members split the grandfather black. I do know that she was subjected to sexual abuse in early childhood.

Mutt, you got more or less a realistic picture of the whole problem, since I've read, more or less, the very same things from academic literature and from 2010's enlightening posts. For sure there's a mix of environmental and genetic factors, probably with a focus on the former.

I'd also add that Masterson (one of the major BPD experts) claims that BPD emerges during the pre-oedipal stage (0-3 years); at the beginning of this stage the infant doesn't have a own self (or better, its self is fused with the mother's one), and it is during this extremely important phase that the child "shapes" its own self by "exploring" the world, little by little, thus gradually detaching from the mother.

If, for some reason, experiences related to this "exploration" are not positive - this usually depends on how the primary caregiver handles the baby... .for example, a mother could be a loving, yet "helicopter" mother, or she is neglective/abusive/etc. - the infant may fail to shape its own self, thus potentially giving birth, among other possible things, to the disorder we're talking about.

How does this explain twins growing up in the same environment but only one developing BPD?

Yes, to paraphrase Masterson, before we're born and slightly thereafter we do not distinguish between ourselves and our mother, to us we're one person, which isn't a stretch since we are or just were inside her.  At some point it becomes clear that we have a body, limbs, head that are separate from mother, and once in a while she's not there, we're alone in our crib wondering is she ever going to come back?  That sets up what's called abandonment depression, most of us weather it just fine, an important step in becoming and autonomous individual.  A borderline never does that, the abandonment depression is just too scary or whatever, or they're never given the opportunity because mom treats the kid like an appendage, never leaving it's side, so without the ability or opportunity to successfully detach and develop a 'self' of their own, a borderline gets stuck in that place where they do not feel whole without an attachment to complete them, can literally feel like they don't exist at all, and constantly fear abandonment by whomever they're attached to, a reenactment of that earliest bond with their mother that they never successfully detached from, so it's a matter of banging up against that abandonment depression and not passing through it, reeling away from it, over and over.

Of course mom, both parents, did what they did and a different child may navigate the same situation and successfully detach, which is where the temperament thing plays a role; what matters is how the child interprets what's going on as they develop.  And all of that is subconscious, hardwired into the personality before cognitive thought was possible, so it shows up as feelings, and flash forward a few decades, tools have been developed to tolerate and deal with those feelings, the behaviors we're all too familiar with here, being on the receiving end.

[Reforming]

I think most agree that it's a mix between genetic vulnerability and environmental / nurture.

My exes mother was diagnosed as bipolar and there's a strong history of mental illness on this side of the family - most of her aunts have been hospitalised for mental health issues.

Almost immediately after my ex was born her mother had a hysterectomy and suffered severe post partum depression. As a result she was hospitalised for an extended period - and absent from my exes early infanthood.

This illness meant ex's mother was frequently unavailable during her childhood and according to my ex they never bonded as mother and daughter.

I don't think her mother is a bad woman - she just struggled with mental illness through out her life.

Her father sounds like a good man, he was also a classic rescuer and also came from a dysfunctional family. His mother had serious mental health issues and he was mother's carer.

My ex was also sexually abused for an extended period 7-12. I realise that some posters question the truth of stories their exes tell them, but I believe her about this.

All in all a pretty toxic combination genetic vulnerability and environmental factors.

To my knowledge my ex was never diagnosed, but she exhibits many of the classic BPD symptoms. She has been hospitalised, so she may have been diagnosed, but kept it secret

Her older brother fits the criteria for NPD. Very charming but utterly lacking in empathy and cruel and destructive to his family. He's is married to a woman who is quite possibly BPD.

As I write this and I'm struck by the knowledge that these are all complex people - capable of good and bad who struggled and struggle, sometime successfully and often unsuccessfully with the hand they were dealt.

I think we all do

People are more than just their genetic inheritance and their childhood experience and we all have the capacity to change

Reforming

[balletomane]

My ex very rarely remembered what he said during rages. During times of intense negative emotion (anger, fear, etc.) he would dissociate and resort to self-harm and sometimes drinking to cope. When I was upset by some of the poisonous things he had said, he would listen to me relating what had happened, hug me, and say, "I don't remember that." He never apologised, and I realised that the hug and the "I don't remember" would be the closest he would ever come to saying sorry.

When he got together with my replacement he said some horrible stuff because I didn't react as he hoped I would. (He wanted me to be happy for him, even though we were still romantically and sexually involved and he gave me no warning that this would change.) He accused me of emotionally extorting him and when I said was just finding this sudden change in circumstances difficult to cope with, he told me "I don't give a sh*t if you can cope or not." I challenged him on that a few days later and said I had found it hurtful and did not want him to say this kind of thing to me in the future. He said that he hadn't been nasty, he'd only said that because I needed "tough love" (?), and that obviously I've been manipulating him ever since I met him - taking things he'd said out of context once I knew he'd no longer remember them, just to get him to apologise.

That's when I realised I would have to go no contact, because he wasn't even inhabiting the same reality as me: it was honestly more plausible to him that I would fabricate all this stuff out of some bizarre desire to hear apologies (that never came!) than that his psychiatrist's diagnosis was correct, and that he has a personality disorder causing dissociative difficulties and problems with taking responsibility for his actions.

[apollotech]

We were all BPD at some point in our development (did not possess an autonomous, distinct self). A healthy person develops a self and detaches from the caregiver that has been providing their identity, their self. A pwBPD doesn't make this detachment. This all occurs before recoverable memories are formed, before the age of three. Therefore, any childhood tramas that are spoken of are not the cause of BPD. It is an attachment disorder; the primary detachment during development went terribly afoul. As a result, the pwBPD is constantly gyrating between abandonment and engulfment, looking for that one perfect person to bond with in order to form a complete self.

[Lonely_Astro]

I personally believe it is both genetic predisposition and nurture.  This is what I know about my pwBPD:

- her mother was in an abusive r/s while she was pregnant with J.  After J was born, her mother left J's biological dad.  J had no contact with him and her step dad raised her.  The interesting part to this is that J would never tell me at what point her step dad came into the picture other than it was when J was a baby.  It's been hinted at that J's mother was involved with her step dad and left J's biological dad to be with the step dad.

- J's mother shows signs of mental illness as well (I have personally witnessed this).  Mother is undiagnosed, but J claimed growing up she was subjected to emotional abuse (i.e., told J she was a mistake and should've aborted her) as well as physical abuse (example: J told me she was once beat with a hot curling iron because she flinched while her mom was curling her hair).  J has never stated she was sexually abused to me.

- J has told me many times that her grandparents was a buffer for the abuse and when they died she was resentful of their death because they left her alone with her mother and that she has never dealt with / grieved for her grandparents.  In times of crisis, J will go to their gravesite.

- J's step father will not stand up to his wife.  His response (via J telling me) is that he will leave the residence or minimize the mother's behavior.  He has been known to also emotionally abuse J, but J still holds him in high regard.

- J is resentful of her half brother.  She says that her parents give him everything and see him as the perfect child.  J has told me her mother often tells her how much better her brother is and she wishes J wasn't around.  She also hates the fact that she's "messed up" and her brother is fine without a care in the world.

So, I see that the mother has a mental illness (which appears Cluster B) so J had a disposition to it, genetically speaking and then by adding the abuse in (nurture portion), it created the perfect storm for her to get BPD.  Her brother, who is idealized by her mother didn't receive the treatment that J did.  He may have the genetic ability to have a PD, but didn't have the second part of the equation.  He may not have even got the faulty gene.  Could J have turned out 'normal' had her mother shown her compassion and love?  Maybe.  That's where the debate lies: nature vs nurture or both.  While I don't pretend to be smart enough to try to figure that out, what I do know is that the sum of all J's parts have made her, her.  She has BPD.  How she got there, for me, is irrelevant.  I just wish there was a 'remedy' for it.  She has such great potential that she will never reach because of her own limitations.