Did your PWBPD tell you from the outset about their disorder ...

[insideoutside]

if at all, or did they downplay it?

My friend told me after about 6 weeks he had been diagnosed Bipolar.  He also said he had an addictive personality and was a sex addict and had 'other' issues but he wouldn't' tell me what the other issues were; seemingly embarrassed by whatever it was saying they were 'personal' but he would tell me one day.  That one day never came as he cut me off before ever revealing what it was.

I believe this other issue is BPD; he fits the traits, the push/pull, the 'angst' of talking about feelings, the ST, the manipulation (trying to get me to have phone sex all the time) and he said he was in weekly therapy, sometimes daily if he was having a bad time.  Also if he texted me constantly whilst I was at work and I would reply 'aren't you busy today' to which he would reply 'I'm always busy'.  On reflection I assume he meant his mind was constantly busy.

I'm just curious; did most of us find out that our PWBPD had BPD by googling their odd behaviour or did your PWBPD tell you of their disorder?

[JerryRG]

Hello izzybusy

My exgf did tell me and she was involved with DBT and her husband withdrew his support and refused to pay the insurance so my exgf had to discontinue.

I'm thinking the real story is she just gave up and quit going to the sessions. She's always the victum. She later on told me her mental health "issues" were all related to her drinking and then abusing drugs.

Even if that were true she still has the option of AA and Alanon or NA.

She's not doing anything to help herself or to be a better parent to our son.

And from what I know about her after 4 years, she's classic BPD with narcissist traits. She's only fooling herself and guess who's paying for her choices.

[pjstock42]

Mine did not tell me about BPD or narcissistic personality disorder, I didn't even know that these things existed until after the discard which led me to scouring the internet to find out what had just happened to me.

She did tell me many other things, VERY early on in the relationship that I would now know to be BPD red flags almost immediately. She had tried to kill herself, she was on a cocktail of anti-depressant/anti-psychotic meds with no regimen and just popped them whenever she felt like it, she had a long trail of destruction behind her in terms of romantic/friendship relationships etc. She even told me how she had more than once moved out of a place she was sharing with a guy with no warning (   this is exactly what she did to me).

I honestly can't say if things would have been any better had she told me about the specific condition early on. Maybe I could have done research then and learned how to manage the relationship better but in truth, it probably would have just delayed the inevitable and made things even worse in the long run. She is not and never will be capable of stable long term relationships on a platonic, romantic or professional level.

[mitchell16]

my exBPDgf never told me about BPD, I had never heard about BPD. But she gave me little hints in the beginning and I think she knew since she works in the mental health field and much later in the relationship she admitted that she had been in therapy on and off most of her life. some of the things she told me was, she couldnt do a long term relationship, she had abandonment disorder, she had OCD, had at one time an eating disorder, during her first marriage she tried to kill herself, everyone told her that she was just to hard on men that she was in a relationship with, she had been sexual abused, she had affairs on her first husband wile they dated and even after they had been married, at one time she had been addicted to xanax. The list of red flags goes on and on. Being an idot, I ignored all those signs. for the first 18 months or so I thought I was going crazy, I was being accused of things that I didnt remember doing, arguments that I didnt have a clue how they got started or even why. when I found the book walking on eggshells by complete accident then it all made sense. of course, I didnt run like I should have, I tried to make it work. But in the end, the disorder won.

[gotbushels]

No.

She got some dx from a P a few years prior. I found out a few months in. The drugs seemed the "targeted" instead of the "generic" sort.

Like pjstock42, my ex did seem to treat the medication as "pop" as you feel like it. I'm quite sure psychiatrically-prescribed drugs are far enough from aspirin or paracetamol to disallow this sort of "self-application". I didn't really know anything about what a serious mental illness was then--so I didn't connect the drugs to "bad choice of partner". That was a mistake I made.

  mitchell16 may I ask how you stumbled upon walking on eggshells? I got it after asking around after my ex struck me.

[pjstock42]

My ex had 5/6 active prescriptions of powerful anti-depressants / anti-psychotics at the same time, all from different psychiatrists/providers.

I remember vividly the last time she had to go see someone to get a new prescription. She was so upset that they wouldn't just blindly give her more and didn't want to "waste her time" talking to this person just to get her pills. When she came home after the appointment, she was incredibly distraught and enraged. She told me how he was asking her about her childhood, about her relationships etc. and she was so angry that she had to go through this process to get more of her meds. This should have been another red flag for me because it showed that she had zero willingness to be introspective and talk about any of her underlying issues and instead cared only about getting more of her meds. She would pop these things like candy every day - if the weather wasn't nice, take a pill; if she had some minor work stress, take a pill; if she just felt generally unhappy about anything; take a pill. She felt entitled to having all of these medications and had somehow created this entire personhood that existed only from precariously balancing on top of a cocktail of powerful, brain altering drugs. I think she used these medications simply to numb out the part of her brain that would cause her to have any sort of guilt/shame/accountability about anything in her life and that she will continue to do this for as long as she can. My fault in this was believing that our relationship was & would continue to be stable when the person in control of 50% of it was incredibly unstable at her core.

[Lonely_Astro]

My ex wasn't diagnosed when we had our first go around. That r/s was short but intense. Shortly after it ended and we were still in contact, she told me she was diagnosed BPD. I kept in touch with her on a personal level for a couple of weeks or so after that. Then, we were NC (even though we worked together) for a few years.

We reconnected and she told me how she had been through DBT, was medicated, and in a better place. One thing led to another and we were together for about a year.  At the end of the r/s, it all imploded... .pretty much all of that had been a lie.

Currently, I am dealing with an issue from her wanting to reconnect with me... .even though we are both in other relationships.  I suspect that will self correct soon enough.

[gotbushels]

We reconnected and she told me how she had been through DBT, was medicated, and in a better place. One thing led to another and we were together for about a year.  At the end of the r/s, it all imploded... .pretty much all of that had been a lie.

Thanks for the warning Lonely_Astro.

[Lonely_Astro]

Thanks for the warning Lonely_Astro.

Just doing my part

On a more serious note, why I phrased it that way was because yes, I did know she was BPD. Yes, I entered into a r/s with her... .but under a false pretense. She was very convincing that her BPD was managed - which was a blatant lie.

[FallBack!Monster]

Been here for a few months, now. I don't post as much as I use to. But I still cannot get over how similar all of our stories are. Mine said was never diagnosed with anything but anxiety disorder. Heck if I knew what that .want then. Then one day after missing for an entire weekend, she ask me to meet her at her primary Dr office. I did. As soon as she saw me she started weeping... .Pointed at some article she had in her hand and said she thinks she has that. The Pamphlet was about PTSD. I was familiar with PTSD. BUT  still refused to admit she was diagnosed with anything but anxiety disorder.

Guess you can say I believed what I wanted. I knew she had something. Just wasnt sure what until I did research.

[JerryRG]

My exgf text me 2 days ago saying she's having an emergency and needed to see her psychiatrist, um, that cannot be a good thing and red flag #56,678.

[gotbushels]

  Lonely_Astro I liked your phrasing, I think it's actually pretty accurate. I get that "pretty much all that" is almost a generalisation but I understand the type of spirit that would say something like that. It feels accurate to me.

I wasn't thinking too much about that. If I'd separated from a pwBPD that was meaningful to me, I'd also significantly factor-in those "positive" issues if reconsidering a relationship with them. I think ":)BT, was medicated, and in a better place" are significant positives. I think we each know our ex pwBPDs some of the best out of heaps of recycles, and I think we can agree that DBT and medication is a big step forward. Your example helps me recall that there is much more than meets the eye at any moment, not to weight even "big" factors so highly, and to recall that it is a mental illness. 

Anyway, if we do go along with this "it's managed" idea, there are people that do think BPD is a lifelong illness. So then the issue transforms to a "how much is it managed, yes we all have some issues, but can I really live with that in my SO for the rest of my life?" That would then empower us to see it's still our choice. I think that helps us guard ourselves "healthier".   

[gotbushels]

  JerryRG I don't want to sound draconian and I'm not looking at shared parenting issues, but I see that as an attempt to get caretaking behaviours from you. To what extent is it okay for an exgf to do that? One of the perks of being a non where the pwBPD "discards" you 50 times is that you at some point we may learn that her "dumping" comes at a price to her.

Are you okay with continuing to receive requests on "ticket" #56,679?

[JerryRG]

Hello gotbushels

Her behaviours are not ok and I ignore anything that does not directly affect our son. She's been quiet for 2 days now. For some reason I believe my exgf is beginning to understand I don't want to be with her so maybe she's giving up on our son as well?

Nothing speaks louder about my none interest in her problems then for me to simply not respond.

[kc sunshine]

Mine told me she struggled with depression. My ex before her had mental illness as well and I remember her looking at me really sympathetically when I was telling like she knew that I was in the soup again with her. Eventually she told me about BPD and that she had been in DBT treatment. I didn't know much about it then.

[gotbushels]

  JerryRG

Great!    It sounds like your head for this area is well above the waterline--maybe it's even back in the boat where you operate best? 

[pjstock42]

Everything was great all the time right up until the end - maybe this in itself was a red flag but who knows. She laid all of this really heavy stuff on me very early on and then never really mentioned it again, I guess she needed  to get all that stuff out on the table at the onset to see if I had low enough self respect to still want to be with her and unfortunately I did. At the time, I just assumed that the only reason a person would be telling me all of these things would be doing so because they trusted me and had a connection with me.

Despite things being good overall for the duration of the relationship, there were some odd things near the end that were pretty confusing. She would gossip about someone or denigrate someone for a quality / behavior and then when I agreed with her, she would end up telling me that she had done the same behavior / exhibited the same qualities in the past and that I was being too judgmental which was always a bit of a mind****. It almost seemed like she was putting me through little tests all of the time through manipulation and I didn't even realize it was happening. She would brush these things off at the time but in the end I found out that she was cataloging the results of all of these little tests and used this information to paint me black once the discard had happened.