Wondering about mirroring

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Last November when I asked my then BPDgf to leave me alone she was at my apartment with a myriad of aches and pains from head to toe and back. She kept me up late showing every square inch of her body, tumors, bumps, lymph nodes, red spots, suspicious aches and pains in various places.

This developed into her theory of cancer then lupus as she found her new bf and her excuse for not having to care for our son. She spent the next four months pretending she was ill and then the long awaited miracle arrived. She was cured.

Of coarse she was pretending and every rational person could see through this fantacy. She's done this many times in the past.

Question?

I am in remission and I do have cancer with chemo keeping me alive.

Could she have been mirroring my cancer in hope of garnering sympathy from unsuspecting people?

I know she's not rational so maybe my question is mute, just cannot imagine why an adult would try and then believe they can continue to fool people into believing serious illnesses and they always disappear into thin air.

So strange for an adult, I can remember doing something similar as a child maybe... .

[JerryRG]

Last November when I asked my then BPDgf to leave me alone she was at my apartment with a myriad of aches and pains from head to toe and back. She kept me up late showing every square inch of her body, tumors, bumps, lymph nodes, red spots, suspicious aches and pains in various places.

This developed into her theory of cancer then lupus as she found her new bf and her excuse for not having to care for our son. She spent the next four months pretending she was ill and then the long awaited miracle arrived. She was cured.

Of coarse she was pretending and every rational person could see through this fantacy. She's done this many times in the past.

Question?

I am in remission and I do have cancer with chemo keeping me alive.

Could she have been mirroring my cancer in hope of garnering sympathy from unsuspecting people?

I know she's not rational so maybe my question is mute, just cannot imagine why an adult would try and then believe they can continue to fool people into believing serious illnesses and they always disappear into thin air.

So strange for an adult, I can remember doing something similar as a child maybe... .

[CC85]

Jerry, First of all, sorry to hear that you had cancer and I pray that everything is clear now... .keep up the fight against that horrible disease!

I know we've mentioned a number of similarities between our ex's BPD traits and I can relate to what you are saying there... .

Here are a few of the big ones that I had during 4 years:

- She was stabbed in the ovary by a psycho ex, so may not be able to have children again. (when we tried, suprise suprise she fell pregnant almost immediately!)

- She regularly had all the symptoms of Ovarian cancer and she was set to die at 35 (she's currently 31). When we went for numerous check ups during the pregnancy I asked the doctor (naturally as a caring Dad to be) and he carried our tests and examinations and said there really wasn't a lot to worry about.

- She had an eye condition from birth that made her eye look lazy... .it was only noticeable when she wanted it to be (I think it was just a squint!)

- We went to hospital once as she had a lump in her chest... .the doctor said it was just a harmless cyst but for my ex, she decided it was a cancerous lump that may need removing.

- She once rang me to say she was feeling faint, I rushed home from work and she had collapsed and it was as if she had been drinking... .she was kept in a stroke ward (horrific to experience) but all scans and checks revealed no stroke, no seizure and it was just put down to anxiety.

- She had all kinds of self diagnoses conditions, would somehow how various prescriptions (all mainly drugs for treating pain or anxiety).

The thing I found most frustrating was that she would say she had follow up appointments / scans for each of the ailments but then I would not hear anything more and when quizzed, she would say "oh the pains's gone now".

She would also always have to have something wrong if either of her sons were ill, rather that give them 100% sympathy, it had to be a bit about her too, same with me... .I badly broke my arm and had to have a metal plate and screws fitted but got very little sympathy as she "wasn't feeling great either".

I think it's purely for the attention and drama Jerry... .

[JerryRG]

Thanks CC85

This is simply amazing, and yes the empathy did not flow both ways, I had the cancer surgury and I had extreme bleeding so much so the nurse was panicked which sent me into severe anxiety. Sent my exgf a text expressing my fears and she told me to "get off the pity pot".

The nurse had just filled in that day and wasn't familier with my surgery and once the doc came in he explained my situation was routine.

My exgf needed to one me up on everything.

I told her I was sexually abused from an early age up to around 5, she told me before I told her she also was abused as a child. After I told her about me she then changed her story to she was abused while still in the hospital after her birth. She found records of the incident and had just forgotten.

Whoa this brings back memories of strangeness

[Should I stay or...]

Hi JerryRG,

I was married to a similar behaving bp... .boy do I have stories. Look up:

www.medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Hysterical+personality+disorder

I hope you fully recover and stay stress free, stress is the cause of many illnesses.

[JerryRG]

Thank you Should I stay or... .

Can this be mixed with BPD?

[Should I stay or...]

Thank you Should I stay or... .

Can this be mixed with BPD?

Did you ever hear of the condition Munchausen syndrome by proxy? I thought my ex-wife had this condition until she was finally diagnosed with HBP  Do you have children? Munchausen would be more applicable if she wanted to obtain attention through the illnesses of the children, even causing the illness?

Yes, HBP or histrionic BP is a branch of BP disorder.

[JerryRG]

I know a woman who did this to her children. My exgf would dose our son with advil/Tylenol when she got frustrated with him. She would say he had a fever but usually he was just warm from normal activity.

[Turkish]

I know a woman who did this to her children. My exgf would dose our son with advil/Tylenol when she got frustrated with him. She would say he had a fever but usually he was just warm from normal activity.

My Ex used to do this, she got this anxiety from her mom. Some of it is cultural. It took a long time for me to reinforce, "he/she has a fever? What's the temp?" It can be hard for fathers, maybe, to let go of the "mother always knows best" mentality. On the other hand, just because the other parent has PD traits, it doesn't mean that everything should be automatically dismissed either.

Recently, D4 has exhibited something like allergies. My Ex wanted to keep dosing her with OTC Zyrtec. If our daughter was noticably irritated, I gave her some. My Ex wanted to start giving it to her every day. Even our daughter started asking me. I walked it back by not dosing on my time. It was only about two weeks where D was irritated. Now she's ok.