Inspiration from former Picasso Muse/girlfriend

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

I recently became interested in Picasso and his relationship with women, and realized that out of his 7 wives/girlfriends, only one managed to leave him.  She went on to become a well known artist, and write a book about her life with him (for which he disowned their children), and a marriage to a healthy and loving man.  His other wives/muses seemed to have had their lives completely destroyed when he discarded them.  I will be ordering the book but in the meantime, I found an article that quotes some passages from her book. While I don't think he had BPD (maybe NPD - although the article simply calls him a psychopath), I find that a lot of the behaviour is very much a mirror of a relationship with people with BPD.  It provides particular insight to the idea of triangulation, and ganging up with the newest love interest against the discarded love interest which I certainly experienced, and which I see others experiencing.  As Picasso said himself, there are two kinds of women: goddesses, and doormats.  A reflection of the idealization vs devaluation phases.   I found it really interesting... .mostly because this one woman made it out... .despite picasso being one of the most revered and wealthy men on the planet! The complete and total lack of empathy is shocking. I had an ex once who did something that is extremely similar to something described in the article: after I had essentially almost gone through a psychological crisis, the ex started taking pictures of me... .I looked terrible. Awful. Had not slept, was extremely disturbed.  Instead of showing empathy, my pain was worthy of being photographed.  Luckily this ex was not a world famous painted, and never amounted to anything! 

https://fineartebooks.wordpress.com/category/picasso-as-psychopath/

[hotncold]

I recently became interested in Picasso and his relationship with women, and realized that out of his 7 wives/girlfriends, only one managed to leave him.  She went on to become a well known artist, and write a book about her life with him (for which he disowned their children), and a marriage to a healthy and loving man.  His other wives/muses seemed to have had their lives completely destroyed when he discarded them.  I will be ordering the book but in the meantime, I found an article that quotes some passages from her book. While I don't think he had BPD (maybe NPD - although the article simply calls him a psychopath), I find that a lot of the behaviour is very much a mirror of a relationship with people with BPD.  It provides particular insight to the idea of triangulation, and ganging up with the newest love interest against the discarded love interest which I certainly experienced, and which I see others experiencing.  As Picasso said himself, there are two kinds of women: goddesses, and doormats.  A reflection of the idealization vs devaluation phases.   I found it really interesting... .mostly because this one woman made it out... .despite picasso being one of the most revered and wealthy men on the planet! The complete and total lack of empathy is shocking. I had an ex once who did something that is extremely similar to something described in the article: after I had essentially almost gone through a psychological crisis, the ex started taking pictures of me... .I looked terrible. Awful. Had not slept, was extremely disturbed.  Instead of showing empathy, my pain was worthy of being photographed.  Luckily this ex was not a world famous painted, and never amounted to anything! 

https://fineartebooks.wordpress.com/category/picasso-as-psychopath/

[Tasia]

Her book has been made into a movie  "Surviving Picasso"  Anthony Hopkins as Picasso. I found it very interesting

[hotncold]

I'm especially interested given that two of his exes committed suicide and two others apparently suffered mental breakdown, whereas she left him and went off to a successful marriage to an equally famous man (who discovered the polio vaccine) and an artistic career.  What is interesting though is when Francoise Gilot left him... .he found and stayed with her "replacement" until his death. Perhaps he was old, and aging and losing his mind, and perhaps having finally been left by someone hurt him to the core.   A line that stands out is that he told her no one would ever want her just for her, that they would always use her just to get close to him.  It wasn't true.  But it goes to the heart of his own thinking.  That perhaps deep down he never felt that people were interested in him the man, but only in his art.  Right after I learned about BPD (from my BPDex who told me about self harming and showed me the scars), I coincidentally went to see an exhibit of Friday Kahlo.  I'm pretty sure she had BPD, and her husband NPD.  Apparently he had an affair with her sister, because he knew that she was deeply jealous of her sister!    I almost ran out of that exhibit in crisis thinking everyone in the world was BPD and a self-harmer.  I think there are many lessons to be learned from some of these artists, and the turmoil they experienced... .and expressed.