Punishments

[Jonathan Ricciardi]

What are the popular forms of punishment for those with BPD? I understand the text book, but would rather hear from personal experience. Thanks.

[Lonely_Astro]

By far, J chose to ST (silent treatment).   

J is an inward rage type, so you'd never really know when she was raging other than reading her body language or she'd throw an emotional jab or two at you.  She not a physical abuser, she's an emotional one.

[Jonathan Ricciardi]

Jabs as in insults? To your manhood? Intelligence? Looks? Did you ever engage her back? Silent treatment is tough because, breaking it takes someone breaking down.

[fromheeltoheal]

And also consider that a borderline may not consider it "punishment" Jonathan, it may be doing what they need to do to make it through the day, like the rest of us, and someone with a mental illness is going to come up with different coping tools than those without.

I'm not being invalidating, just looking at it from multiple perspectives, and the one that matters for you at this point is how her behavior made you feel, what you made it mean, why you stayed, and what you're going to do about it now.  Are you clear on those things?

[blackbirdsong]

What are the popular forms of punishment for those with BPD? I understand the text book, but would rather hear from personal experience. Thanks.

I don't believe BPD has concept of punishments.

I don't imagine my exGF as someone who wakes up in the morning and develops strategies like ST, rage, manipulation etc.

Those things are our perceptions of their defense mechanisms, this is actually BPD. So, I don't believe she did anything by planning it.

But doesn't change the fact that it is hurtful.

At least for me, making this difference in my mind helped me in my healing process. 

[Driver]

I would say it's the other way round. It's pwBPD who feel punished even though they are not. NC is not a punishment for example but a tool to detach oneself from another in order to suffer the least possible.

However pwBPD may seek "justice" by revenging themselves such as insulting, threatening, calling the police, or self-harming.

[Lonely_Astro]

Jabs as in insults? To your manhood? Intelligence? Looks? Did you ever engage her back? Silent treatment is tough because, breaking it takes someone breaking down.

No, not like that.  J never cut me down or anything to my face.  I'm certain she did to others when I wasn't around.  What I mean by that is she a friend of mine once asked her how I was doing and she said "he's in a bad mood.  He's always b!tching about something, he's so negative all the time".  On its face, that may not sound like an insult. But, that was her perspective of me, feelings equal facts.  She also said to another person that I made her feel bad because I "talked to her like a child" and "made her feel inferior".  Something she never discussed with me.  :)id I talk to her like that?  Maybe.  To me, I was talking to her like I would any other person, but to her I was being "mean" or "unfair"... .to her.  Once again, feelings equal facts with her.  She never addressed either statement to me, I found this stuff out later.

What I meant about jabs toward me is that when she was raging (internally), she would pick an argument over something trivial.  If I didn't engage in it, she would say I didn't care about her or her 'problems' (and frankly, any little thing is a problem to a BP it seems).  If I tried to validate and redirect, she would accuse me of trying to 'therapy' her or 'control her'.  Of course, that wasn't true from my perspective, but it was from her.  :)id I always make perfect choices/decisions in how I responded?  Of course not.  I just did the best I could to show love and support to her.

She would also say things that were veiled insults, such as talking bad about someone and then say, "he's like you, weird.  The only weird person I want in my life is you."  That statement came during a moment we were breaking it off because I found out she had been on a couple of dates with this guy while keeping me in limbo.  Another example was saying "well, they say disorder attracts disorder", implying that I'm just as disordered as she is.  

Of course, the ST and raging started happening more frequently as we got closer to the discard.  Raging was first and then ST.  

In hindsight, I think the last few weeks before the discard were so great because she was trying to rekindle her connection to me.  When that didn't happen, she discarded.  But in true BPD fashion, it was a "I forgot to tell you, but I've moved on" event.

As you know, she's fully enraptured with a new guy.  He's all she's ever wanted and they're going to make it.  She's head over heels for him and him her, they're soul mates.  They've been together 2 months.  This is what we call the idealization or honeymoon phase.  They are inseparable.  They're planning a trip to AZ to see his family, she's picking his mom up at the airport... .she's fully in his life.  Except, as recent as this past week (before I found out all this), she was telling me that she "miss me, all of me" and that she would "love me forever and always" and she "wasn't sure about her wants and desires with me".  Funny, to be so in love with someone yet tell your ex those things, right?   She's using all of us, he just can't see it yet.  Hell, maybe they have an open r/s or something, I don't know.  She said, at the very end, she wanted to be "a friend" to me.  I declined the offer.

[FannyB]

Borderlines who 'act in' can be extremely passive aggressive - and this can shape the tactics they use to hang you out to dry. For example, my ex was fond of the 'double bind' i.e. when you were being devalued you couldn't win whatever you did. One time she accused me of being parsimonious when I wouldn't overbid on a second-hand item on ebay. When I told her that it wasn't worth buying at that price, so I had bought her a new one, I seamlessly morphed into someone who was profligate! 

I think that's why it's said that borderlines indulge in crazy-making behaviour.


Fanny

[zeus123]

yes i agree with bbs, their acting-out behavior, manipulation and lies are not premeditated but rather they display them as time goes by as a defense reflex, it is part of their survival strategy. you will never know where to stand with a BPD because they can not even discern this for themselves. in other words this is the illness revealing itself to us by their ambivalent behaviors and emotions, this is the way they are wired and you have to accept it because we can not repair archaic wounds left over from childhood abandonment by their mother.

[FallBack!Monster]

They don't care because they don't have the mental capacity to feel empathy.  I never felt that she planned the things she did. If she had enough smarts to do so, she probably wouldn't do it.

[Lonely_Astro]

Borderlines who 'act in' can be extremely passive aggressive - and this can shape the tactics they use to hang you out to dry. For example, my ex was fond of the 'double bind' i.e. when you were being devalued you couldn't win whatever you did. One time she accused me of being parsimonious when I wouldn't overbid on a second-hand item on ebay. When I told her that it wasn't worth buying at that price, so I had bought her a new one, I seamlessly morphed into someone who was profligate! 

I think that's why it's said that borderlines indulge in crazy-making behaviour.


Fanny

This would be the best way to describe J.  She is extremely passive aggressive.  Basically, it was my fault that I couldn't read her ever shifting mind.  She would say that she understood she had issues, but her actions showed she either a) really didn't or b) didn't care enough to make a concerted effort to help herself.

One of the silliest jabs she would make at me was I was "going to end up hating her" because I didn't like country music (and she seemed to not like ANY of my music genre choices. I kid you not).  That was an actual statement from her.  Plus there were several times she put me down (which I ignored) about my musical choices.  She's really, really focused on music for some reason.  She is ALWAYS listening to music.  

That brings back a memory for me, btw, albeit a bizarre one.  We had just finished sleeping together and she said she wanted to shower.  I suggested coming along and she got super weird about it and wouldn't let me. So, she went to take a shower (and took her phone with her, of course). She turned on music and I could hear her belting out some country song.  I don't know why, but it just seemed like something a young teenage girl would do.  It was just... .awkward for me.  When she got out she apologized for it and said "I always have to listen to music and sing in the shower like that. I just love the water."   I don't know why, but it just seemed like a strange moment. Anyone have an idea of maybe why it was for me?

Not trying to hijack the thread, it was just something that I thought of while writing about J's deplorable behavior toward me that I'm just now starting to really reflect on.

.    

[C.Stein]

I don't believe BPD has concept of punishments.

I don't agree with this.  Reason being my ex actually admitted she can be vindictive ... .and was a few times with me.

[C.Stein]

That brings back a memory for me, btw, albeit a bizarre one.  We had just finished sleeping together and she said she wanted to shower.  I suggested coming along and she got super weird about it and wouldn't let me. So, she went to take a shower (and took her phone with her, of course). She turned on music and I could hear her belting out some country song.  I don't know why, but it just seemed like something a young teenage girl would do.  It was just... .awkward for me.  When she got out she apologized for it and said "I always have to listen to music and sing in the shower like that. I just love the water."   I don't know why, but it just seemed like a strange moment. Anyone have an idea of maybe why it was for me?

Honestly LA, I don't see what the issue is here and it doesn't seem all that strange to me.  Not sure why she would feel the need to apologize though, unless she was playing that nasty country music to annoy you.

[FannyB]

I don't believe BPD has concept of punishments.

I don't agree with this.  Reason being my ex actually admitted she can be vindictive ... .and was a few times with me.

Mine could most definitely be vindictive and mete out passive aggressive justice to her unsuspecting victim once her sense of self-righteous indignation was triggered. 

I think it's a toxic legacy of the under-cooked emotional development.


Fanny

[blackbirdsong]

I don't believe BPD has concept of punishments.

I don't agree with this.  Reason being my ex actually admitted she can be vindictive ... .and was a few times with me.

So as XY% of people without any diagnose.

I was refering to BPD.

Sometimes I think that we forget that persons with BPD are people too... .

Not all of their behavior is BPD driven... .

[MapleBob]

Borderlines who 'act in' can be extremely passive aggressive - and this can shape the tactics they use to hang you out to dry. For example, my ex was fond of the 'double bind' i.e. when you were being devalued you couldn't win whatever you did.

This was pretty much my experience as well. It's a chess game - if they can get what they want/need through setting up a no-win situation for you, they'll do it, because it's all about them. Making them out to be premeditated about their manipulation is almost giving them too much credit!

[fromheeltoheal]

because it's all about them.

Have you started to dig into why it had to be that way for your ex Maple?

[MapleBob]

because it's all about them.

Have you started to dig into why it had to be that way for your ex Maple?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but yes, absolutely. I understand where she's coming from, and what factors in to why she's like that.

[fromheeltoheal]

because it's all about them.

Have you started to dig into why it had to be that way for your ex Maple?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but yes, absolutely. I understand where she's coming from, and what factors in to why she's like that.

It could be a couple of things: someone who is in constant emotional pain is going to only be able to focus on themselves, like a terminal cancer patient who can only focus on their physical pain.  We cut them slack for that because they have cancer, harder to do with someone with a mental illness who's behavior hurts us, but the analogy could be valid.  The other piece might be that someone who is in constant fear of both abandonment and engulfment, opposing fears, can find that being in control of the relationship allows them to straddle the fence between those fears.

It can be helpful to discover the motivations of our exes as part of letting that go, leaving them to their illness and behaviors, as we shift the focus from our exes to ourselves and from the past to the future.  It's a process and with time, distance and information our perception of what went on can change, and along with it our perception of our exes and ourselves. 

[C.Stein]

I don't believe BPD has concept of punishments.

I don't agree with this.  Reason being my ex actually admitted she can be vindictive ... .and was a few times with me.

So as XY% of people without any diagnose.

I was refering to BPD.

Sometimes I think that we forget that persons with BPD are people too... .

Not all of their behavior is BPD driven... .

Not following you here.  In the case of my ex the behavior I observed was almost certainly BPD (read emotionally impulse) driven.  The reason I brought it up was due to the blanket nature of your quoted statement and to point out that they are "people" and every person is different.

[MapleBob]

It can be helpful to discover the motivations of our exes as part of letting that go, leaving them to their illness and behaviors, as we shift the focus from our exes to ourselves and from the past to the future.  It's a process and with time, distance and information our perception of what went on can change, and along with it our perception of our exes and ourselves. 

Sure, absolutely. My situation with her was very very complicated (aren't they all?). She has a combination of FOO issues (adult child of an alcoholic, poor parental boundaries, witness to some infidelity), ex-husband issues (he strikes me as an adult child, and their boundaries and relationship are very atypical for exes), and the long-distance nature of our relationship didn't help, even though that was meant to change (lots of complications there, but for her I guess it mainly exacerbated the fear of abandonment).

I made mistakes, for sure, but my biggest "mistake" was just not being codependent enough. So, you know, progress. 

[cosmonaut]

That brings back a memory for me, btw, albeit a bizarre one.  We had just finished sleeping together and she said she wanted to shower.  I suggested coming along and she got super weird about it and wouldn't let me. So, she went to take a shower (and took her phone with her, of course). She turned on music and I could hear her belting out some country song.  I don't know why, but it just seemed like something a young teenage girl would do.  It was just... .awkward for me.  When she got out she apologized for it and said "I always have to listen to music and sing in the shower like that. I just love the water."   I don't know why, but it just seemed like a strange moment. Anyone have an idea of maybe why it was for me?

This is just a guess, but I think it may have been shame.  Shame is the constant nemesis of pwBPD; it is their worst enemy.  You've shared before that your relationship began as an affair.  I can imagine that there may have been deep shame involved for J, even if it was not at all obvious at the time.  I missed many, many instances when my ex felt ashamed, too.  Bathing can hold deep psychological meaning in restoring one's cleanliness and virtue.  Maybe you picked up on this subconsciously and that was what was making you feel so badly too?  Just an idea.

[cosmonaut]

And also consider that a borderline may not consider it "punishment" Jonathan, it may be doing what they need to do to make it through the day, like the rest of us, and someone with a mental illness is going to come up with different coping tools than those without.

I very much agree with this.  I think that silence especially can be used as a coping mechanism quite separate from any intended punishment.  I do think that silence (the notorious ST) can be used in a punishing way, and some pwBPD may sometimes use it that way.  But silence may also simply be a way of escaping out of control emotions.  A way to remove themselves from a trigger.  A way to escape feelings of engulfment.

The problem is that to us it can be very hard to tell if what we are dealing with is ST (punishing) or withdrawing (non-punishing).

[MapleBob]

Shame is the constant nemesis of pwBPD; it is their worst enemy.

Hmmm, yeah, I'd agree with that. I can trace what happened with my ex to shame. It also explains the fear of abandonment/attachment cycle: if you're actually intimately close with your partner then you're going to feel shame sometimes (so avoid closeness), but if you're choosing not to be actually intimately close with your partner then it's possibly because of shame, and you'll feel more shame from withholding (so avoid too much distancing). Then, as a Non, you get locked into that lose/lose pattern with them, even though you didn't do anything.

[Lonely_Astro]

That brings back a memory for me, btw, albeit a bizarre one.  We had just finished sleeping together and she said she wanted to shower.  I suggested coming along and she got super weird about it and wouldn't let me. So, she went to take a shower (and took her phone with her, of course). She turned on music and I could hear her belting out some country song.  I don't know why, but it just seemed like something a young teenage girl would do.  It was just... .awkward for me.  When she got out she apologized for it and said "I always have to listen to music and sing in the shower like that. I just love the water."   I don't know why, but it just seemed like a strange moment. Anyone have an idea of maybe why it was for me?

This is just a guess, but I think it may have been shame.  Shame is the constant nemesis of pwBPD; it is their worst enemy.  You've shared before that your relationship began as an affair.  I can imagine that there may have been deep shame involved for J, even if it was not at all obvious at the time.  I missed many, many instances when my ex felt ashamed, too.  Bathing can hold deep psychological meaning in restoring one's cleanliness and virtue.  Maybe you picked up on this subconsciously and that was what was making you feel so badly too?  Just an idea.

Perhaps you are right, Cosmo. When this took place, it was after a time any shame should've took place, but I also understand what you're saying. 

What I meant about the apology, it was for singing, not for not allowing me to shower with her (not that I was upset about that, I wasn't). Sorry, I wasn't clear on that.  It's sort of hard for me to explain as to why it seemed weird... .she just seemed like an entirely different person, if that makes sense.  This event took place well before the discard, so it wasn't that.  It was just like we were intimate, she got up from there to shower, did, got out and went about her routine business. She than went to the kitchen and got a snack, sat down on the couch and started watching this horrible reality show.  Btw she did all this without asking me if I wanted anything myself - normally I wouldn't say that's weird as I'm an adult, but I was where she was living, not my place.  Well, she was living with another girl and it was the first time I had came over, so I was being polite and not rummaging through their stuff, as I had met the roommate only once and it was the roommates house... .if that makes sense.  It was like I wasn't even there.  This whole time I had been sitting on the couch too and she suddenly looked over and it was like she suddenly remembered I was there.

I know I didn't get that in depth when I was talking about the shower earlier.  I found the singing strange because she had told me many many times before that she disliked singing and "never did it" (which, I was like "who doesn't rock out in their car from time to time".  That's hard to explain, too.  Maybe she just felt comfortable enough with me to sing around me.  I guess it really wasn't the shower but the whole thing that seemed strange to me. I don't know, maybe it was just me. It's not a big deal in the global picture, anyway.

[MapleBob]

I know I didn't get that in depth when I was talking about the shower earlier.  I found the singing strange because she had told me many many times before that she disliked singing and "never did it" (which, I was like "who doesn't rock out in their car from time to time".  That's hard to explain, too.  Maybe she just felt comfortable enough with me to sing around me.  I guess it really wasn't the shower but the whole thing that seemed strange to me. I don't know, maybe it was just me. It's not a big deal in the global picture, anyway.

So would you say that singing in the shower was "I'm singing in the shower, which is unusual for me, so I'm showing you some intimacy" and saying that you couldn't shower with her was "I'm keeping you at arm's length"? Push/pull vibe?

[anothercasualty]

I don't believe BPD has concept of punishments.

I don't agree with this.  Reason being my ex actually admitted she can be vindictive ... .and was a few times with me.

Mine actually called her ST punishment. And then anytime I took longer to respond to her than she thought I should, she accused me of punishing her. It took a while, but now I can recognize the projection.

[vortex of confusion]

I guess it really wasn't the shower but the whole thing that seemed strange to me. I don't know, maybe it was just me. It's not a big deal in the global picture, anyway.

I think it is important to not dismiss yourself in these kinds of things. I have found that there were a lot of times that my stbx would do things that were a bit off. If I tried to explain them to somebody else, I felt like the crazy one because words alone could not describe what was happening. It sometimes seems like there is a little switch in him where, if he does "normal" things when the switch is flipped, they seem abnormal and crazy because of his tone and demeanor.

Each of those little incidents may not be a big deal. When you put them all together, it is a big deal and helps you understand why you may feel like you were being punished or treated poorly. I have found that there are a lot of subtleties that have happened over the years. As isolated incidents, they don't add up to much. When it happened a lot and was all added up, yep, it was a big deal.

I know that my stbx had to clean up immediately after sex. It bothered me because it felt like he couldn't wait to get me off of him. It was like I made him feel dirty.

Something else I wanted to comment on is the fact that it doesn't really matter whether or not something is intended as a punishment or not. I have spun myself in circles trying to figure out the intent behind some of his actions. Does the intent change how it makes you feel? Does knowing whether or not something is intended as a punishment help in the healing process? Before I found out about BPD, I would try to talk to him about how I felt. I would say stuff to let him know that I was hurt by the things that he said or did. His excuse was "I didn't mean to hurt you." Somehow, that was supposed to make everything better and take away the hurt. Whether it is intended as a punishment or not, didn't make it hurt any less for me. It hurt. It friggin' hurt.

My stbx is impulsive. He is very childlike in his mannerisms and demeanor. In order to punish somebody, he would have to feel powerful enough to dole out punishment. He sees himself as powerless and acts like a child. As such, silent treatments, etc. are more like a child's temper tantrums than punishment.

[AwakenedOne]

Most if not all people have moments of revenge and punishing others after having felt wronged. That purposeful punishment probably is far lesser typically than what is often unleashed on you by a pwBPD. I don't believe they wake up with a plot against us. I think the revenge against us is often more of an hourly or minute by minute type of process. She attacked me in my sleep among other horrific things.