How many know if it was BPD or are assuming

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I've shared my story before and I don't know if my ex gf had BPD or just extreme

Emotional issues based on experiences from past, some beyond her control

And others self inflicted.

But how many here are just assuming it is Bpd versus knowing for certain?

I keep thinking of all the things I did wrong in relationship and how things she did were actions or reactions to that. 

I was texting female friends early on. A couple former interests.  Then had an escalated argument over that. I never should have allowed either to happen.

I also should have been less self absorbed perhaps during relationship.  Especially once she moved in.

And I should have been more loving. Kind. Understanding and patient.

Here was a beatiful woman desiring my full time. Attention. And love. And I feel I threw it all away. 

And I feel now no one will ever compare to her. In spite of her jealousy.  Neediness.  Insecurity.  I feel no one will compare to her or the love she seemed to have for me.

But I guess if she had that depth of love I thought. Or the ability to be committed , she wouldn't have walked out after an argument. 

And I guess that her two failed marriages and other bad relationship prior to me. As well as losing custody of her children should have been an indicator too.

But I love her and can't help but think I pushed her away.

I'm finally in no contact mode. The first month I texted her way too much.

I saw her Christmas Eve at lunch to exchange gifts. Left her with a good memory of me and us.  But too little too late.

[Scopikaz]

I've shared my story before and I don't know if my ex gf had BPD or just extreme

Emotional issues based on experiences from past, some beyond her control

And others self inflicted.

But how many here are just assuming it is Bpd versus knowing for certain?

I keep thinking of all the things I did wrong in relationship and how things she did were actions or reactions to that. 

I was texting female friends early on. A couple former interests.  Then had an escalated argument over that. I never should have allowed either to happen.

I also should have been less self absorbed perhaps during relationship.  Especially once she moved in.

And I should have been more loving. Kind. Understanding and patient.

Here was a beatiful woman desiring my full time. Attention. And love. And I feel I threw it all away. 

And I feel now no one will ever compare to her. In spite of her jealousy.  Neediness.  Insecurity.  I feel no one will compare to her or the love she seemed to have for me.

But I guess if she had that depth of love I thought. Or the ability to be committed , she wouldn't have walked out after an argument. 

And I guess that her two failed marriages and other bad relationship prior to me. As well as losing custody of her children should have been an indicator too.

But I love her and can't help but think I pushed her away.

I'm finally in no contact mode. The first month I texted her way too much.

I saw her Christmas Eve at lunch to exchange gifts. Left her with a good memory of me and us.  But too little too late.

[Lonely_Astro]

I know it's BPD.  J is diagnosed, on meds, and (last I was told) going to DBT. 

We can all sit around and think about the "what ifs", the "should've", or the "if only".  In reality, none of those things we think of would've changed the outcome.  That is BPD.  Someone once told me that BPD's are like emotional black holes.  You can keep throwing all you have into the r/s and you'll never get what you put into it back.  Sure, you may get some of it back during the idealization phase but as soon as that's over, it's over.

Then there's the "slights".  You never know what will set them off.  You can look at them a certain way (J is horrible at reading facial expressions), say something wrong, or just walk into a room and it will trigger them in some way.  They will punish you for how they feel, every time.  It's simply not healthy because they aren't heathy.  Ultimately, most of them never will be.  Does that make the pain we feel any less?  No.  But we all need to take comfort in that we can and will heal, they won't.

I've spent the past couple of days reminiscing about J.  We had some great times and I do miss her.  Not the lying, cheating, manpulating her but the her I know she wants to be (even if she isn't really that woman).  I miss her laugh, her touch, and above all her smile.  But I don't miss the ST, the loathing, and the "poor pitiful me" routine.  I don't miss the stress of wondering if what she was telling me was true or not.  Do I think everything she told me was a lie?  No.  I fully believe she does/did love me; in her way of loving.

Try not to focus on whether you'll ever find someone who takes her place in your heart.  She was special to you and will always occupy a space there (J does in mind).  But also know that it feels so real to you because, for you, it was real.  Her perception of the r/s was most likely a lot different than yours.  Keep in mind they go with how they feel (feelings = facts).  J told me she loved me deeply up until she stopped talking to me (I haven't attempted to reach out to her, nor do I plan to).  Do I think she was lying?  Maybe not in that moment, but with the things she has said/done her capacity of love is much different than mine.  Even in the end after she brought rupture of the r/s, she tried to be the martyr.  I imagine if I were to reach out and she responded, she'd tell me how she's spent the past few days of NC crying and missing me.  I doubt that's true.  Why?  I have a story about a time she told me that and I knew it was a lie, but it's to long to type in this thread.

Keep grinding.  It gets better with time and distance.  I should know, this was my second round with her.  A r/s with them doesn't get better, no matter the number of times you try.

[FannyB]

Hi Scopikaz


Based on my reading I would say that less than a third are actually diagnosed - the rest are in  denial. Since coming to the 'BPD conclusion' with my ex I have re-cycled and observed her behaviours through enlightened eyes. The way that she acted second time around was fully in keeping with her having BPD.

Even if I'm wrong I know that:

• She lacks emotional resilience



• She lacks emotional consistency

That means that she's not a viable long term partner for me - nor probably for anyone else, and that's the salient point in all our deliberations. 


Fanny

[Michelle27]

My ex wasn't diagnosed but he had 8 of the 9 traits.  He was in the process of heading into therapy, had started CBT, was in line for DBT, had a referral to a psychiatrist in place, had taken anger management classes and was involved with our local mental health organization.   During all of this, he assured me that he was doing it for him, and not just to keep me around.  We had many discussions about this, and yet, when I decided I couldn't do it anymore and said I was done, he quit everything which was very telling.

I believe he was on track to get a diagnosis but as far as what he said, he never got that far.  Of course knowing that much of what he said were lies, who knows?

[balletomane]

My ex was diagnosed with a personality disorder. I don't know which one specifically - he just came out of an appointment with his psychiatrist one day saying "He thinks I have a personality disorder" and gave me no further specifics. I think BPD is the most likely option, as it's the most commonly diagnosed and it seems to fit my ex most closely.

I think you're sensible not to want to assume too much. I get a bit uncomfortable about the amount of armchair diagnosing that goes round here sometimes - when people are writing that their mother had a PD, their ex had a PD, their new boss has a PD, and their classmate has a PD I start to think that maybe they're just projecting their past bad experiences onto people and trying to medicalise every difficult interaction they face. But there is a HUGE difference between assuming too much about other people's mental health history and undermining and second-guessing your own experiences of pain in a relationship. Even if your ex didn't have BPD, her behaviour was still hurtful, and for good reasons - she doesn't need to have a label for your pain to be valid.

Everyone makes mistakes in a relationship. Everyone is selfish sometimes. In a healthy relationship, you say sorry for it and you move on. Before my ex with BPD, I had a three-and-a-half year relationship with a lovely guy who remains a good friend, and when I did something to upset him I would listen to his point of view, I would say sorry, and we would move on. He would do the same when he upset me. That was it. Done. With my ex with BPD, sorry was never enough, everything was always somebody else's fault, and his reactions to little things (such as me getting us lost when I was trying to navigate to a place neither of us had visited before) were treated as like the end of the world. I could beat myself up and say it was my fault for not carrying a backup map, written instructions, GPS, and a compass - but in truth we were in a perfectly safe area, we were close to where we needed to be, and it wasn't imperative that we arrive there at a certain time, so his furious reaction was entirely inappropriate. It doesn't matter if that was BPD or not, it was still not a tenable situation for me to live with - always having the threat of his mood swings present in my life, always feeling that it was my responsible to stop the pendulum swinging. It's the same for you. There is absolutely nothing you could have done to stop it. You only have control over your own self and your own actions, not over your ex's behaviour, so now the important question is not what you might have done differently back then, but what are you going to do for yourself now to help yourself feel better?

[MakingMyWay]

My ex is not diagnosed, but i'm making a conclusion based on the traits and all of the reading I've done. Not just here, but several other sources. I've tried to seperate opinions from facts and made assumptions based on that.

I think a lot of us have had these thoughts of "maybe of I tries harder things would be better". For me though, I made a lot of mistakes early on and committed myself to

make sure they didn't happen again. But it always seemed the more I tried the more she pushed me away. And that was exhausting.

It's important to remember that no matter how hard you try, you cannot fix them unless they are willing to fix themselves.

[thisworld]

We can look at our own wounds, the scars they have left on us realistically and honestly (which sometimes happens only after a period of healing and hard, honest work on ourselves) and get a clue from that. The diagnosis of what has happened to many of us is recognizable enough: emotional abuse. If you feel that your pain is genuine, that you are not making it up or exaggerating it to manipulate another person, then only that, being a survivor of abuse should suffice. That doesn't exclude other things we may discover about ourselves, like we were codependent, that we had narcissistic traits ourselves, that we are bordelines maybe. Sometimes, working with a therapist helps. The other person's diagnosis doesn't mean much in this sense. The effect on you will be the same whether her diagnosis shifts in years to something else, whether experts discover something comorbid or decide to move Antisocial personality disorder/psychopathy under the headline of borderline or somewhere else. The person will remain the same despite the name. Understanding of the disorder makes us understand what was happening, and can even change some of our boundaries and behaviours the second time. However, I see that for many people sexual boundaries remain the same and our partners' behaviours don't change much. Do we want to experience that again?

[Trog]

My ex had multiple diagnosis with doctors unable to agree, I don't really care what her actual diagnosis is or should be, all I know for sure is that she's was some kind of clusterf*** that taught be one very valuable and painful lesson.

There is a time when we really want to intellectualise "what they are", usually because it's so incredible painful and our heads like to take over some of the pain, if we can understand it, it would have less have power. The real "pain relief" is to stop guessing and focuses entirely on what caused you to date your cluster bomb, its infinitely more interesting than ruminating over the diagnosis of a man or woman who isnt even in your life. What a waste of time!

[Scopikaz]

In my case it started out she was married. We started communicating on fb through nightly sharing. Deep. Emotional.  Past. Present. Future.  Goals. Dreams. Hopes. Fears. Whole nine yards. We did that for two months before ever meeting face to face. I never met her before. We were friends through having worked at same place but had never met.  When we met we simply had dinner. Nothing happened at all. The sharing continued another month. Then we met again and it became physical.  So mine started out not right at all.  She was beautiful for sure. Probably out of my league. But truly the emotional bond we had from months of nightly messaging is what started it.  I knew about her past. Her two failed marriages. Having lost custody of her children. People tried to warn me but I didn't listen. People today try to warn me if she wanted to come back I'd be crazy to take her. But I would .  But I don't see it ever happening. And as some said thank god for unanswered prayers

[WhatJustHappened?]

I think most of us are guessing but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... .

I also know many pwBPD would never admit they have or get treatment. All I know is that after comparing my stories with others and reading the characteristics of BPD, whether it's BPD or another PD, there's something wrong and more importantly, something I can't deal with or accept.

I was shocked at how similar my situation was to others and at how many characteristics my exBPDgf shared from the BPD list.

[Scopikaz]

Oh I totally agree  my ex gf has many of the characteristics. Some more than others no doubt. But most fit her or her past or our relationship to a tee.  For my part I was insecure in the relationship.  Also had my own trust issues.  And I allowed my emotions to go to places I haven't before. I think my emotions were the way they were when we fought the few times we did because it was being enhanced by her deep emotions. 

But I can't blame her. I allowed myself to be drug down rather than bolstering her up

[blackbirdsong]

The fact that I know that she has BPD (diagnosed) haunts me and makes me want to recycle since she is in therapy and aware of her problem. I feel like I gave her a false hope that she can rely on me and then I left her. Really awful feeling, every day.

[SummerStorm]

Mine was formally diagnosed with BPD on June 5th.  She told me to research it.  On June 7th, she asked if what I read sounded like her, and I said it did.  We never discussed it again after that, and I haven't seen her since.  We do still text.  She's actually a great girl when she doesn't have an emotional attachment to someone.  She and her stepsister spend time together and have a lot of fun, and she seems to get along with her stepbrother.  She's got major abandonment issues with her mom, but I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that her mom is very ill. 

[hopealways]

The fact that the posts on this board resonate with us is enough.  A diagnosis is not necessary for us to heal.

[Lonely_Astro]

The fact that I know that she has BPD (diagnosed) haunts me and makes me want to recycle since she is in therapy and aware of her problem. I feel like I gave her a false hope that she can rely on me and then I left her. Really awful feeling, every day.

Therapy isn't a magic bullet.  J is going through DBT (since mid-Sept) and it didn't change a thing.  In fact, it made her 'worse'.  The mask she had been wearing fully crumbled and she was an absolute terror after that for me (ST was more frequent, obsessed over her ex, starting dating another guy while I was in limbo).  Trust me, it isn't the answer.

DBT takes years to make a difference, if it makes a difference, and they have to be willing to do the serious work.  Most of them don't (50% drop out) and somewhere around 20% of the other 50% end up backsliding at some point.  BPD is a mental illness with no cure.  Yes, I know there are some on here that say people 'recover'.  Recovering and being cured are two separate things in my book.  An alcoholic can recover from alcoholism but they'll tell you they are still an alcoholic, that they aren't cured.

Side note: J knows she has BPD (obviously) and is what we call high functioning (another indicator that DBT won't be effective for her).  She's on meds and in DBT.  That still didn't stop her from emotionally abusing me most of this past year, had multiple romantic interests, pathologically lied to me about various things (large and small), manipulated, and otherwise not been a nice person.  She knows the difference between 'right' and 'wrong', she just doesn't seem to care.  So, she's fully aware of her 'issue' (as she puts it), but that doesn't stop her from hurting people because she "can't help herself".  So, being aware doesn't change anything for some of them.

Don't beat yourself up.  Seriously.  It's not your fault she's mentally ill.

[burritoman]

If my ex isn't BPD then the definition needs to be rewritten.

Also, I've recently begun going to therapy and my therapist confirmed all of her behavior as classic BPD.