My undiagnosed BPD exgf Ive had no contact with in 4 months. The end was violent and i had to get an RO. The state also filed charges. All the legal stuff has been resolved.
Since the breakup ive done exhaustive research & the only conclusion i can come up with is she is BPD/npd. My question is i met her psych when we were together (exgf requested). Now knowing what i know, is it appropriate for me to contact her psych with my theory. Im trying to move on but i do still care & if this info could help my ex get the help she really needs & potentially save her life (saw her 2 weeks ago but didnt talk to her, shes lost a ton of weight and a friend say shes bulimic, she looks AWFUL)
I've cut my ex out of my life. Due to the way he treated me - including violence at the end - it's the only healthy choice I could make. I didn't press charges - nor get a RO - because I didn't have the energy left to deal with him in court. His chaos and games had already made me very ill, both physically and emotionally. Due to what he put me through, and his clear callousness and blatant selfishness, I can say absolutely that I do not care about him any more. But peering into the root of the reason for that, I see no 'vulnerability' in him - and I think this is what makes a big difference in caring/not caring about what happens to a PW a personality disorder, after they've wreaked havoc on us and our lives.
In contrast, I have a friend who has a much more vulnerable presentation. He has been diagnosed with BPD traits, in combination with other traits of other PD's. So not a clear cut case of BPD, but as time progresses and his life and his ability to cope with stress spirals, he is increasingly 'more BPD' in presentation. He is now in a terrible predicament - finally he's lashed out with violence towards others - and as a result, has been in prison for the last week. He was only meant to be held there for one night, and then sectioned, but due to several system failures (the court closing for two days due to power failure, followed 2x non-productions - i.e. not being brought to court for psych assessment when he was supposed to be) this has dragged on for a week - and unable to cope with being targeted by the ASPD's prevalent on the prison wing (he is extremely vulnerable to this - his presentation makes him an obvious and natural target), he has self harmed in there. If the prison actually manages to do it's job at last and produce him at court tomorrow, he will be sectioned tomorrow and taken to a mental ward in a hospital. I find it impossible not to help him. He has no one else. I've been to court every day for the last week and have fought to get him help within the prison, and to get him produced. I am extremely concerned about his welfare and this has all been so frustrating. I completely understand your concern and your predicament.
I can say that both my ex and the friend who I refer to above have had a negative impact on my life. The difference is that I view my ex as 'deliberately destructive'. Whereas the negative impact regarding my friend is more a consequence of the time, energy and resources that I have - almost constantly - 'had to' pour in to try and get him out of the terrible predicaments his personality difficulties/disorders - inevitably - lead him into. Also, the friend has also brought some good things into my life too. The good input, as well as his talents (he's extremely gifted, creatively - and for him to not get somewhere with this is a real waste of talent) - added to his clear vulnerability - all in all, I simply don't see him as 'wilfully bad' i.e. an evil person (as with my ex) but just 'experiencing difficulties' which actually destroy him more than anyone else, and that he's actually a good person with gifts and something worthwhile to offer the world. Whereas my ex really is just a selfish, talentless jerk, motivated only by the basest of desires and with nothing of any good to offer to world.
What is the point of all of the above post? The feeling of 'responsibility', and by extension 'co-dependence'. Where do we draw the line? I am struggling with this myself now. My friend has no one else to battle for him - to stop him from slipping through the slats in the system and spiraling towards rock bottom, and fast. Without my help, it is 100% certain that he would have been made homeless long ago and - being the way he is - would likely have been murdered on the streets. If keeping him from this fate was a one off, it would be one thing. But it's not - it's a constant battle - and that battle has taken its toll on me, in many ways. At what point do I realize (or face) that I can't control the outcome for him? And that no matter how much time/resources/energy/focus/money I pour in, I'm not 'saving him' really, I'm just delaying the inevitable. And in the meantime, doing all of this for him is seriously messing up my own life.
How deep this will go for you? How much will you pour in? Right now, you want to intervene with the psychiatrist to help your ex. Being an 'authority' on my friend - knowing as I do his inner state, his difficulties, his life history - and feeling this need to intervene - is something I'm very familiar with - and have done - so many times. Has that changed the outcome for my friend in the long run? Not really**. And at what cost? I am now standing on the other side of a solid 25 year history of intervening/bailing out/stopping him from hitting rock bottom, time and time again. And finally I'm facing the fact that I can't 'control' this. I can't stop the plane crash from happening. Ultimately it is now happening. But instead of there being just one casualty - the pilot, there are two - the co-pilot who didn't know when to strap on her parachute and jump, due to not facing the fact that the pilot was always going to crash that plane.
(**Yes, my input has always been regarded as 'valuable' by the psychs (and others). It has helped put the psychs in the picture of what's going on in his life - but that's all. I can assure you that a psychiatrist is not going to listen to a layperson's diagnosis - no matter how 'well read' we may be. Diagnosis is their job, not ours - and their training for this is incredibly extensive.)
Right now, you feel you need to intervene and speak with the psych. So I ask you to consider the future, based on the past and what you know of her. She's not suddenly going to get 'better' (sorry, but BPD is a personality disorder, not a mental illness - a PD is
who someone is), so what will come next? Please think about how this may progress. Perhaps she'll be released from the hospital and have no where to go, so you will put her up at your place - and mayhem will follow. Perhaps she will get into a relationship with a psychopath who abuses her (a very common pairing for BPD's) and you will try to get her away from him, possibly at great risk to yourself. Perhaps you will play patsy, giving her money for food which she instead spends on drink or drugs. Perhaps you will spend a lot of time from now on running to shrinks and the courts over and over again, trying to tell everyone that she is basically a good person and trying to mitigate on her behalf and 'get her the right treatment'. I have done all of this, and then some. And I can tell you that at some point - hopefully sooner rather than later - I hope you will be strong enough to draw the line and face the truth:
You can not stop the train wreck. But it's up to you if you want to waste your life trying - and it can so very easily come to that, little by little, drop by drop.
I'm sorry. I know this is a long post and not what you want to hear. I know your motivation to help her is coming from a really good place. But I also know where this goes - or at least where it's gone for my friend and by extension, for me - and I really think the outcome is pretty much inevitable - pwBPD don't suddenly get well. Some of them do learn to manage their emotional issues a little better due to DBT, which can give them better outcomes but it doesn't change who they are - and committing to this work (it takes YEARS to be effective) - and maybe even more so, committing to the therapist who is helping them - is something a pwBPD has extreme difficulty doing. We can't 'make' that happen for them, as much as we wish we could. Whatever we pour in trying to do so is like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. Please, please, please maintain NC.
Self harm in an attempt to manipulate hospital staff is likely the main reason she's doing this - extremely common to be done this way (my friend always starves himself on ward). Shrinks aren't stupid. They may be letting her 'get away with' bulimia for a while, to see where she draws the line and at what point she will herself pull out of it. If she doesn't they won't let her die in hospital. You know that, right? They'll put her on a drip if they have to. Please trust them to do their jobs.
