Confabulation and BPD

[Depression = 72% of members]

I was looking for articles on confabulation and BPD. Many people think that the BPD person is out and out lying, but it seems to me, on some occasions, that the person is confabulating. This has been in situations where, to acknowledge the actual reality of the situation would compromise the person's vision of themselves as a sympathetic heroic being.

Even though I know their view of the past is incorrect, born out by logical facts that can be proven, it still messes with my mind to hear these alternate views of a past event. I have tried to press the person on this by stating facts that would prove their version of this past event to be incorrect, but I stop because they get so upset, that to press on would seem to be tearing the very fabric of their psychological being apart. As if the truth were to come out, it would not help, but only collapse any type of personhood they have; their psyche being that fragile.

And I think the reason for the confabulation might be to maintain a sense of decent personhood and not have to face that they did something really horrible, because they are so emotionally sensitive that their ego would not be able to survive acknowledgement of their horrible actions.

At any rate, I am trying to make sense of this because hearing these alternate confabulated realities really messes with my own head. It makes me start to feel crazy. Thank goodness I rely heavily on logic and facts. (Without it I would be totally lost).

At first I thought they were lying, but the more I think about it, I think they really believe what they are saying. They have to because they are not psychologically able to accept that they might not be perfect given that they only engage in black and white thinking (what I have read about BPD persons). And so if they are not all good, then that must mean that they are all bad and they cannot bear that thought and survive psychologically. They are unable to comprehend that everyone is flawed and everyone makes mistakes and our persons and behaviors are ever changing complex patchwork quilts of shades of grey.

To remind myself of this, I can feel compassion instead of anger; as one would feel compassion for a small child hiding in a closet, unable to face a fearsome monster; in this case, a person hiding under a confabulation; unable to face the fearsome monster of a past reality of less than stellar actions.

Any thoughts on this?

[tvroyalty]

I was looking for articles on confabulation and BPD. Many people think that the BPD person is out and out lying, but it seems to me, on some occasions, that the person is confabulating. This has been in situations where, to acknowledge the actual reality of the situation would compromise the person's vision of themselves as a sympathetic heroic being.

Even though I know their view of the past is incorrect, born out by logical facts that can be proven, it still messes with my mind to hear these alternate views of a past event. I have tried to press the person on this by stating facts that would prove their version of this past event to be incorrect, but I stop because they get so upset, that to press on would seem to be tearing the very fabric of their psychological being apart. As if the truth were to come out, it would not help, but only collapse any type of personhood they have; their psyche being that fragile.

And I think the reason for the confabulation might be to maintain a sense of decent personhood and not have to face that they did something really horrible, because they are so emotionally sensitive that their ego would not be able to survive acknowledgement of their horrible actions.

At any rate, I am trying to make sense of this because hearing these alternate confabulated realities really messes with my own head. It makes me start to feel crazy. Thank goodness I rely heavily on logic and facts. (Without it I would be totally lost).

At first I thought they were lying, but the more I think about it, I think they really believe what they are saying. They have to because they are not psychologically able to accept that they might not be perfect given that they only engage in black and white thinking (what I have read about BPD persons). And so if they are not all good, then that must mean that they are all bad and they cannot bear that thought and survive psychologically. They are unable to comprehend that everyone is flawed and everyone makes mistakes and our persons and behaviors are ever changing complex patchwork quilts of shades of grey.

To remind myself of this, I can feel compassion instead of anger; as one would feel compassion for a small child hiding in a closet, unable to face a fearsome monster; in this case, a person hiding under a confabulation; unable to face the fearsome monster of a past reality of less than stellar actions.

Any thoughts on this?

[Pilpel]

I had an experience years ago when I was reading through an old journal.  When I was in my mid-20s I dated a very cool musician.  We were on again and off again.  And then we just weren't on any more at all.  And for years I told the story that we dated, but that we never officially broke up.  And I looked back on that as a bit of a sore wound.

Years later, I read my journal.  And I realize that all the way through our relationship, he was telling me that he wasn't looking for a girlfriend. But I was so naive that I interpreted his wanting to have sex with me with us being "together."  We did "date."  But we were never boyfriend and girlfriend like I thought we were in my mind.  Even though I wrote down events as truthfully as I could at the time.  It's interesting that while I was living through it, I couldn't see reality for what it was.  I'm grateful that I did keep a journal, and that it allowed me to re-examine certain periods in my life and see them completely differently with more mature eyes.

Anyhow,  just retelling that story to say that I think everyone confabulates to various degrees.  I've experienced it myself.  But BPDs definitely confabulate to a stronger degree.  I've also tried to hash out the past with my BPD SIL.  And the more I try to approach her with facts, the more twisted her view of reality becomes.  To the point that I'm thinking, "How can you pull new things out of your butt like that and not know that you're completely making things up?"

I've heard it said that emotions equal truth for a BPD.  And that seems to be my experience.   The more I try to get to the truth, the more convoluted and twisted her interpretation of reality becomes.  And for me that's been the one of the biggest limitations in our relationship: there is no shared reality. 

[HappyChappy]

Hi tvroyalty,

You ask a very interesting question.

They are unable to comprehend that everyone is flawed

I would say the above is more about the lack of empathy a BPD has. Someone with BPD engages in fantasy thinking of a type, possibly confabulation, but we’re just debating syntax on that. When someone with BPD triangulates for example, they will try and force reality to fit their perception by distorting the facts. They will also reward the scapegoat for failing and chastise them for doing well. I have seen this first hand. They get upset if reality doesn’t fit their perception. Their perception may run off feelings rather than facts. However they do consciously lie (we all do) and the Borderline name is because they dip in an out of this fantasy thinking, among other things.

But I get that this understanding can help us accept their behaviour more so. The best analogy I’ve had for doing that, is to see them as young children. Because someone with a PD doesn't develop the frontal lobe, i.e. certain adult emotions, such as empathy. In stead they develop the emotions of an 8 year old child to higher levels of sophistication. So the sulking, the rageing, the back and white thinking etc... .

To remind myself of this, I can feel compassion instead of anger; as one would feel compassion for a small child hiding in a closet... .a person hiding under a confabulation.

So of course they are lying to get what they want, but like young kids, this may not be malicious, just selfish. As we have patience for young children, I guess we must have patience for the BPD in our lives. But the main thing to never forget, is most of this isn’t our fault, or indeed our problem necessarily, even though a BPD will project the blame on us. So what other issues are you trying to resolve in order to come to terms with the BPD realisation ?

[tvroyalty]

Hi, thanks to both of you for writing. To Pilpel, I had a similar situation with a guy, who kept telling me, especially right after we had sex that "this wasn't gonna last", so of course this bothered me and I eventually just ghosted him. The moderators changed my moniker to TVroyalty. It is actually queenbeetv which might be a trigger for some people. At any rate, it was a tongue in cheek public access show I did in SF, CA for a few years in the late 90's. This show happened after the "no relationship" guy, who I now realize was a class A1 narcissist (now that I look back on many of my relationships, I realize that most were that way because I was trained in that dynamic) At any rate, I did get some local fame because of the show. I am telling you this because it figures into the story. When I was sleeping with this guy, who I wanted to be my boyfriend, he just wasn't that into me because I was a nerdy office worker & he didn't care too much when I stopped "seeing" him. I ran into the guy yrs later after my show had been popular on the local public access channel & according to this guy, he had been my boyfriend... .and I was like "Huh?" because every single time we would have sex, he would say something along the lines of "You know this is probably the last time we're ever gonna have sex", always, every... .single... .time... .And here I meet up with him years later and he says that I was his girlfriend then, and it is only because I gained some amount of local fame and it was prestigious that he would tell people that I was his girlfriend. At any rate, after this amount of time passed, I realizd that the guy was still an a hole. (He didn't remember any of the abusive things he had done to me) and according to him, we had this great passionate relationship which he obviously had confabulated because my limited semi fame made him look better in other's eyes (many people in SF were familiar with the show) And I know for sure that I would've remembered had he been my boyfriend because it caused me so much pain that he was just having sex with me that I couldn't take it and had to get away from him.
At any rate, I didn't associate with him very long after I met up with him after years had passed. At that point, I had better self esteem and was also more educated about personality disorders and realized that he had not changed in the slightest and was still an insensitive narcissist. So that confabulation tale is about him and his confabulation.
This is not to say that I have not done my own, but I try to avoid it as much as possible. We all want to soft light and vaseline smear the lens that is focused on our past, but I did a really bad confabulation as a teenager and it freaked me out that I had distorted reality so bad, that I swore that no matter how painful, I would always acknowledge the stark reality of a situation.

This confabulation I did had to do with a high school boyfriend (all my boyfriends were narcissistic a holes because I was trained in that dynamic by my parents/// I was supposed to be the supportive one and ask for little and take whatever abuse they wanted to dole out) At any rate, same scenario as the first. I wanted this guy to be my bf, but he only wanted sex. Because I was too oversensitive for rejection, I pushed him into being my bf & then he broke up with me about a week before the junior prom and I already had my dress and everything. So what happened (that I did not acknowledge at the time it was happening) was that I walked home freaking out (I already had a pretty bad anxiety/depression disorder by this time most likely made worse by my upbringing) and while walking home, I was freaking out so bad I thought I was going to die. I just could not handle the rejection, so I came upon an idea that wld help myself get through this because I had no one 2 talk 2 about it (no friends/I was the weirdo who everyone made fun of at school/ and I couldn't talk to my parents) so the "good Idea" that I had to save my sanity, was to "pretend it didn't happen". And so the next day and all days after that, I went to this guy's house and hung out with him and had sex and then we went to the prom. After prom we went to this party at someone's house and then I couldn't find him. Later I learned that he slept with a girl at the party. The next day I confronted him in his truck and he told me that he had broken up with me and I argued with him about it, but he stuck to it and it finally hit me... .that too painful memory that I had suppressed  out of the need for psychological survival finally came back & I realized that he was right. He did break up with me... .& then I was so freaked out that I had been able to brainwash myself so much & I realized that if I ever did that again I would be on the road to permanent crazy town and so I promised myself from that moment on to be logical and factual and no matter how bad things hurt to be totally honest with myself, because the thought of being totally nuts was more scary than the pain of any rejection. So maybe I have lied to myself or confabulated over the years. I hope this has not been so. But because of that time where I forced total amnesia on myself of this breakup, I never want that to happen again and so try to always be fact and logic based to the point of seeming like Spock or Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.
I can see how you might have confabulated about that guy. It's very painful when someone you like does not like you back and having parents who couldn't love us in the way we needed sets the stage for these types of relationships to happen over and over and over again. Child of NPD/BPD parents= the "gift" that keeps on giving. I have wasted my life with too many of these guys. But no more. It is better to be alone and love yourself than submit to any more bad treatment from a lover or friend.

And Happy Chappy, you are right about the lack of empathy from the NPD/BPD. I just got tore a new one last night with no awareness of the tearing from the tearee. And when I brought it up and said it was not ok. It started a fight, so I had to just go into distraction mode to keep the peace as usual. And you're right about being rewarded for failing and being chastised (or in my case ignored) for doing well. Even though I made the cover of a weekly SF magazine, my parents have never even watched one episode of the show I did that so many people liked. They said it was too coarse to watch. Oh well, whaddya gonna do?

[Pilpel]

Thanks for sharing your stories.  That guy who was using you for sex and then calls you his girlfriend years later --that's soo annoying.  Good for you for just getting away from him when you saw him again.  Your HS story is heartbreaking.  It made me think of that tv series Awkward.  BTW, that is so neat that you did your own public access show!