I am fascinated by my pwBPD

[Wize]

Like some new species discovered on a remote island, I'm fascinated by my stbx BPDw.  I want to understand what it is.  Is it an evolution of the human species or a devolution or a mutation.  Is it even human?    That's harsh, but cut me some slack. 

[jhkbuzz]

Is it even human?     

It's a mental health disorder.

[Wize]

It's a mental health disorder.

It's a personality disorder.  They are the disorder and the disorder is them.

[Herodias]

I'm fascinated by my stbx BPDw.  I want to understand what it is.

.      

Me too! It's ok, it helps up to learn and not go back or ever have one again!

[JerryRG]

Everyone tells me to stop trying to rationalize them, I will never figure them out but I sure tried for years and I just got more confused.

Like waking up from a bad dream or a coma, no frame of reference because their reality shifts in and out, I was gaslighted tonight and yet I still question if what I seen with my own eyes was indeed real

[Wize]

Like waking up from a bad dream or a coma, no frame of reference because their reality shifts in and out

I think what's so striking about pwBPD is they are relatively hidden from the world because they so adeptly wear their masks.  I'm 43, have traveled the world, seen atrocities, immense beauty and met people from many cultures.  And yet my pwBPD has left me wondering what I have witnessed.  Now that I know how to identify BPD traits, my ex will become much less of an anomaly.

[JerryRG]

That's the most difficult thing for me too, what the heck just happened, I lost my mind while with her and yet I walked willingly into the lost forest and just about didn't find my way back out, it was like she wanted me to die and be her trophy, I can't help but see her as evil because she did so many unspeakable things that just rock me to the core.

[Wize]

it was like she wanted me to die and be her trophy, I can't help but see her as evil because she did so many unspeakable things that just rock me to the core.  

I don't think she wanted you as a trophy, I think she wanted a continuous supply of life blood.  Like a parasite keeping its host close by.

[JerryRG]

Yeah, she did ask if I would commit suicide with her in the beginning of our relationship. Scary stuff

[Wize]

she did ask if I would commit suicide with her in the beginning of our relationship.  

You know, I'm a lot like you in that we both are still very much emotionally attached to our exes but we are taken with the crystal clear knowledge of how much better off we are without them.  It feels like damned if we do and damned if we don't, when it comes to being with them, but we know we can actually have a decent life away from them.

[SoMadSoSad]

I still cant get over the fact that she left me for someone else. Their ability to move on is mind boggling to say the least. I dont think i will ever get over that.

[Wize]

I still cant get over the fact that she left me for someone else. Their ability to move on is mind boggling to say the least. I dont think i will ever get over that.

I struggle with that too.  It's confounding. It makes me question the entire reality of the relationship.  What was real, what wasn't? How was I so deceived?  That's what makes these pwBPD fascinating to me. They have truly uncanny powers of deception and manipulation.  Which almost leads me to think that BPD is an evolution not a devolution of human existence. Then again, this BPD does not end up serving them well and is actually a destructive force in their lives.  If evolving is becoming better able to survive in the world, then BPD is most certainly not forward progress.

[SoMadSoSad]

It's confounding. It makes me question the entire reality of the relationship.  What was real, what wasn't? How was I so deceived?  

I think everything in the relationship was real, its just that they are able to let go of certain attachments just as easily as they attached.

[Wize]

Then I suppose it's a matter of understanding what the attachment was... .for the pwBPD.  It certainly wasn't the same as my attachment. 

[SoMadSoSad]

Then I suppose it's a matter of understanding what the attachment was... .for the pwBPD.  It certainly wasn't the same as my attachment. 

what if the feelings you are feeling now are similar to the ones they feel during the end of the relationship. Her fear of being abandoned is triggered and it probably feels she has already been abandoned so her only option is to leave the relationship as you have triggered her worst fear and gave her pain to her core. Leaving the relationship would feel like relief and confirms all her bad feelings were due to you. Then in her head she has to rationalize how exactly you made her feel that pain just how we try to rationalize what happened after the discard.

[Wize]

Her fear of being abandoned is triggered and it probably feels she has already been abandoned so her only option is to leave the relationship as you have triggered her worst fear and gave her pain to her core.

Very good insight.  Thank you.  The hardest part of what I'm dealing with seems to revolve around the fact that she simply lives in a different reality than me. That's the mental illness.  But your explanation and insight does help me with my anger and bitterness towards her.  She felt abandoned therefore reality, to her, was that she was being abandoned. The bitterness and anger come in when I realize that she's too proud and selfish to look deeper at the pattern of destruction she leaves everywhere she goes.  She's too arrogant to consider that she is the common denominator in all of her chaos and drama.  

[SoMadSoSad]

She felt abandoned therefore reality, to her, was that she was being abandoned. The bitterness and anger come in when I realize that she's too proud and selfish to look deeper at the pattern of destruction she leaves everywhere she goes.

I think deep down some of them know they cause chaos and drama. But what is the point of changing your entire self when you can find someone new to love you for you. Someone who validates that you are fine the way you are.

[jhkbuzz]

They have truly uncanny powers of deception and manipulation.

You might consider that you're viewing it through an incorrect lens. You are thinking, "Gosh, if I engaged in those types of behaviors I'd be a lying, manipulative S.O.B." - because you know that you would be behaving this way purposely - in order to gain something.

People with BPD are not typically premeditated or manipulative on a conscious, plotting level. The nature of BPD is that emotional development is arrested - and they are often in a great deal of emotional pain due to their tendency to emotionally dysregulate.  I do not mean the following as an insult, but it's a useful analogy: imagine a inconsolable or raging toddler. They have not yet developed the ability to self-soothe and need the adults around them to teach them how to do this; how to calm themselves, how to recognize that whatever they are feeling will pass. People with BPD do not have the ability to self soothe; they are constantly looking for people that will provide this function for them. In the beginning, we did. As time went on and the disorder began to play out, we didn't.

Anger is a very normal part of the grieving process - it took me a while to get over my own anger, TBH. But at some point you have to make a choice to either acknowledge that you were involved with a person with severe mental health issues, or continually paint them as a sub-human monster.

[fromheeltoheal]

I don't think she wanted you as a trophy, I think she wanted a continuous supply of life blood.  Like a parasite keeping its host close by.

Or a vampire?  Borderline personality disorder is a recognized personality disorder, a mental illness, and folks have studied it extensively.  Coming up with descriptions out of a place of hurt and confusion is natural, and it's helpful to learn what it really is.

If you're up for it and really want to know, The Search For The Real Self: Unmasking The Personality Disorders Of Our Age by Masterson is a great book that explains how a 'normal' self develops, fascinating in its own right, but also what happens when normal development gets interrupted, when order becomes disorder.  For me, once I read it the confusion went away immediately, that didn't make it OK, her behaviors were still completely unacceptable, but at least I understood why she does what she does, which made me feel a lot better, and also cemented my decision to leave her and never look back, except at myself.

That's not the only resource on the subject, there are plenty, but point is the information is out there, so we need not default to blood sucking parasites, although that's mostly the anger talking, a normal part of detachment, as long as we channel it well and not get too far off track yes?

[Skip]

I am fascinated by my pwBPD. Is it even human?    

My guess is that she is a very human, feeling person, who fears her own feelings and lives a life to avoid them.  According the the APA, 28% of the population is operating in a "mind struggle" (my term, not the APA's).

As emotionally mature adults, we are best served if we learn how to live an adjusted balanced life and coexist in a world with people that "mind struggle".

Getting the divorce is emotionally mature decision at times like this.

Is painting someone we loved (or still love) as a sub-human lifeform emotionally mature?  Or is it us in our own "mind struggle"?

A question to ponder.  

[Sadly]

I don't know, sub human mutant is a pretty awful thing to say but as pointed out, anger and hurt can trigger these descriptions. Consider this if you would: How amazing the brain actually is. A woman, suffers the most unimaginable pain in childbirth. So incredible that the brain actually makes her forget! Yes, she remembers it hurt but the memory of the actual pain is blanked out by her brain. It comes back in all its horror and agony the second time, there is an oh god moment, now I remember why I wasn't going to do this again. Why, survival of the species. Believe me, no woman would have more than one child if her brain allowed her to remember. Why then is it not conceivable that the horror and hell going on in a PwBPD' brain also blanked off, shut down, in order for them to survive? This actually may be a cr*p analogy but it has occurred to me before when I have seen the total blank disbelief on my ex's face when I have told him of the things he has said and done. And his total belief that I am mad and making things up. I dunno, they are not all the same but I really don't think they are sub human. Hope this makes sense. xx

[Wize]

I think interacting with a pwBPD would make anyone's mind struggle. Fortunately my struggle is only temporary, until I process the new information.

[fromheeltoheal]

Why then is it not conceivable that the horror and hell going on in a PwBPD' brain also blanked off, shut down, in order for them to survive?

That's one option Sadly, and there's also projection, push the feelings off on someone else, cognitive distortion, change the memory so that it no longer resembles the actual facts, impulsive behavior, a railing against strong emotions, all the tools we all use to some extent, it's a matter of degree, and to the extreme it gets labelled disordered, and contributes strongly to "a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships" which we're all familiar with.

[Sadly]

Yes, either way it's awful isn't it? I think the more I learned here and the more I thought, that's when the anger went. Yes, I could feel normal anger in a moment when he was being a pig and p*ssed me off but the anger stage in this process, I went through that pretty quickly, ages ago and it hasn't returned. Wish the other stages would happen like that.   x