As much as I despise labels, when it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck ... it is probably a duck

[Depression = 72% of members]

As much as I despise labels, when it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck ... .it is probably a duck.  I don't need a "label" to blame her; Her actions, choices and behavior that essentially destroyed me stand alone on their own merit.

For myself personally I have never given much thought to personality disorders ... .well actually none at all until my recent relationship.  The discovery of the PD link was purely accidental too, as I was looking for information with regard to "pathological lying", which is yet another label. 

After much research, at least three different online screening tests taken numerous times and some hard and honest reflection I have come to the conclusion my ex most likely suffers from BPD and possibly at least one other PD.  The behavior I have seen fits BPD like a glove and while she may not be on the extreme end of the "scale", the behavior is still consistent with the disorder per the DSM.  To be honest I really dislike this conclusion but the alternative is she is just a bad person who intentionally treated me like an object and used me until I was destroyed then threw me away like a broken toy, but not before she replaced that toy with a new one.  Perhaps she is both, but I still believe there is a good person within her, the person I fell deeply in love with.  Yet that person is but a fraction of her true self.

Do I use the BPD label to avoid responsibility for my share in a failed relationship ... .absolutely not.  I apologized on numerous occasions for the things I was responsible for ... .she however apologized for nothing.  The sad thing is, the things I did wrong were a direct result of her behavior and treatment of me.   At the end of the day the label means nothing, what matters is how she treated me and how I reacted. 

I could have done things differently, handled myself better especially if I had known about BPD when I was in the relationship.  I know for certain I would have been less likely to make some of the mistakes I made.  Knowing this however wouldn't have changed who she is, it would have merely delayed the inevitable.  This fact has admittedly been a difficult one for me to accept because I do still carry guilt.

I use the "label" now to help try and understand what makes no sense to me, to bring some clarity to the enormous amount of confusion I feel and illogical behavior I witnessed. 

I don't use the label to blame her, I use it to understand her better.

[C.Stein]

As much as I despise labels, when it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck ... .it is probably a duck.  I don't need a "label" to blame her; Her actions, choices and behavior that essentially destroyed me stand alone on their own merit.

For myself personally I have never given much thought to personality disorders ... .well actually none at all until my recent relationship.  The discovery of the PD link was purely accidental too, as I was looking for information with regard to "pathological lying", which is yet another label. 

After much research, at least three different online screening tests taken numerous times and some hard and honest reflection I have come to the conclusion my ex most likely suffers from BPD and possibly at least one other PD.  The behavior I have seen fits BPD like a glove and while she may not be on the extreme end of the "scale", the behavior is still consistent with the disorder per the DSM.  To be honest I really dislike this conclusion but the alternative is she is just a bad person who intentionally treated me like an object and used me until I was destroyed then threw me away like a broken toy, but not before she replaced that toy with a new one.  Perhaps she is both, but I still believe there is a good person within her, the person I fell deeply in love with.  Yet that person is but a fraction of her true self.

Do I use the BPD label to avoid responsibility for my share in a failed relationship ... .absolutely not.  I apologized on numerous occasions for the things I was responsible for ... .she however apologized for nothing.  The sad thing is, the things I did wrong were a direct result of her behavior and treatment of me.   At the end of the day the label means nothing, what matters is how she treated me and how I reacted. 

I could have done things differently, handled myself better especially if I had known about BPD when I was in the relationship.  I know for certain I would have been less likely to make some of the mistakes I made.  Knowing this however wouldn't have changed who she is, it would have merely delayed the inevitable.  This fact has admittedly been a difficult one for me to accept because I do still carry guilt.

I use the "label" now to help try and understand what makes no sense to me, to bring some clarity to the enormous amount of confusion I feel and illogical behavior I witnessed. 

I don't use the label to blame her, I use it to understand her better.

[PolandSpring4]

Do I use the BPD label to avoid responsibility for my share in a failed relationship ... .absolutely not.  I apologized on numerous occasions for the things I was responsible for ... .she however apologized for nothing.  The sad thing is, the things I did wrong were a direct result of her behavior and treatment of me.   At the end of the day the label means nothing, what matters is how she treated me and how I reacted. 

I think this is a very important point. It's very easy to shift all of the blame onto our current or former partners because they're mentally ill, but personal growth doesn't occur unless we acknowledge and accept our own failures. I apologized for what I did wrong. She didn't. Was the relationship destined for failure anyway? Probably, but I know I don't want to continue repeating mistakes in my dating endeavors and not learn from this experience.

[C.Stein]

I know I don't want to continue repeating mistakes in my dating endeavors and not learn from this experience.

If there is a silver lining to all this pain and despair this is it.  These types of relationships expose parts of ourselves (negative and positive) that we may have never seen on our own.  It is an opportunity for meaningful self growth that shouldn't be overlooked.

[Reforming]

I think we can all teeter between blame and personal responsibility at various points in our recovery.

A relationship with a pwBPD can result in so much pain and suffering that acknowledging our own agency in what happened can be enormously challenging. But when we're ready to look deeper we can see that the experience brings our own choices into stark relief.

In the aftermath of my relationship I knew that there were lessons that I needed to learn but I felt so betrayed and violated that I didn't want to hear them.

I felt a bit little like a worm on a wriggling on hook. Stuck and in a lot of pain.

The deeper truth about any trauma, failure or reversal is that while it may cause us enormous pain it also gives us an opportunity for growth and wisdom. We learn much more from our failures than our successes. We can choose to learn from our relationships - adapt and thrive. This is the hallmark of success. Or we can ignore those lessons, deny our own agency and focus on the choices and actions of others. When we do this we often find ourselves making the same mistakes again and again until we're willing to learn.

When others talk about these relationships being a gift it can feel like a bitter pill. But the possibility for growth goes beyond learning to avoid relationship with disordered people. We can learn so much about our own strengths and weaknesses. We can uncover the resources and learn new skills to overcome adversity. We can learn to be more compassionate to ourselves and others enriching our relationships. We can learn to be much more aware of our own choices. I realise that this isn't easy - growth is painful but also creates the real opportunity for happiness, excitement and fulfilment too

Thanks for sharing

Reforming

[JerryRG]

Well said C.Stein

After all the insanity and chaos we are just trying to get some grip on our own reality after living through the relationship with someone who may live in their own alternative reality. Knowledge is power, if we forget our past we are much more likely to repeat it.

Thanks again.

[Pretty Woman]

Very nicely expressed.

I ended up here having known nothing about Personality Disorders. I actually was doing a google search: serial breakups, circular arguments
because I started seeing patterns.

The "walks like a duck, talks like a duck" analogy is very appropriate for persons with this disorder. I am still amazed how thousands of people who don't know each other seem to follow the same patterns within these disorders, they do many of the same things. You are absolutely right however, knowing my ex is disordered does not relieve me of any responsibility. I could have done things differently however I truly believe these unions are no-win. I would have had to have 0 boundaries to make this work and clearly I didn't. I think my stubbornness to cave to her demands was our undoing but I am glad I stayed true to myself. She seems to be doing well with her current girlfriend who is extremely passive and very desperate to be liked (I am not being mean as we were friends too so I know her personality). If it works for them Mazel Tov, I just prefer an equal partnership.

[Skip]

We often use the quote incorrectly... .that's telling in its own sense.

When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. ~ James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916)

Riley implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject's habitual characteristics. It is sometimes used to counter abstruse, or even valid, arguments that something is not what it appears to be.

The are some reports that this was originally translated from a french phrase that was used  to promote a mechanical decoy duck. The "duck" wasn't a duck at all.

  I only point this out as someone's mental health issues aren't necessarily accurately discerned based on how people make us feel and the severity of their impairments are not directly related to how much they hurt us.

That said, I think coming to a psychology board to work through these things is very helpful and long as we don't lose perspective and get caught up in the label and blame game, we have an opportunity to learn about the "human nature" that we are struggling with in our life.

Researchers labeled these disorders to help people understand human psychology and make reasoned decisions to work with, around, or help. A lot of Internet sites have taken it to the absurd level of creating the suspicion of an evil race within our communities and families that is causing a lot of polarizing. "He's insane, psycho, completely wrong, evil, the problem." This thinking is rarely helpful.

Mojo Mallard Machine and Thrasher Motion Decoy Systems
swims like a duck and quacks like a duck
https://youtu.be/eVf1E1FZIyc?t=5s

[joeramabeme]

Hi C. Stein

Very interesting and insightful post - as usual. 

A number of thoughts went through my mind while reading your post and I wonder if I can bring a couple of twists to your comments.

Labeling can be both helpful and harmful.  Helpful when trying to understand or categorize for the purpose of making a decision or understanding.  Harmful when those labels are dismissive by broadly generalizing the nature of something.  I read your post as you portraying yourself as labeling in a harmful way. 

I had a T that told me I was seeing too much about my ex through the lens of a BPD label.  I spent some time thinking through his comment and came to the conclusion that this was not the case because it was a label that helped me to contextualize my relationship history, potential future interactions and overall healing with an understanding that I do not and could not inherently possess nor develop.  I do not use this framework to blame or accuse her, rather, to understand what happened and how to best view things now with this knowledge.

You mentioned not using the label to blame her and not avoiding your own responsibility.  Here is another angle in this context.  After my wife announced wanting a divorce; I told her how our marriage had profoundly changed my life in multiple ways of which any one of them would be a godsend.  Her response to me was; "you should hold onto that". 

I mention this story because I think we tend to see ourselves as using BPD label to explain negative or unwanted behaviors such as acting out, blaming, gas lighting etc.  But the reality is, it also provides a broader understanding to many other questions.  I would have thought my exes response to my comment would have been to share how her life was changed by the marriage or at a minimum to feel some sense of compassion or warmth given how much better I had become. 

She cannot reflect inwardly and so even a powerful statement about how she has been involved in life-changing is also met with a projecting statement - about me.  She cannot internalize her own dysregulated behaviors whether they are good or bad.

Having a label like "BPD" helped me to understand all of this and build a personal construct to put the context of my relationship in an understandable way.

I could have done things differently, handled myself better especially if I had known about BPD when I was in the relationship.  I know for certain I would have been less likely to make some of the mistakes I made.  Knowing this however wouldn't have changed who she is, it would have merely delayed the inevitable.  This fact has admittedly been a difficult one for me to accept because I do still carry guilt.

I denied my wife had BPD for a long time and only slowly (and still continuing) to accept that she really has a personality disorder that impacted our marriage.  Have you experienced this?

Always enjoy reading your posts.  Thanks for everything you bring to this board.

[C.Stein]

Labeling can be both helpful and harmful.  Helpful when trying to understand or categorize for the purpose of making a decision or understanding.  Harmful when those labels are dismissive by broadly generalizing the nature of something.  I read your post as you portraying yourself as labeling in a harmful way.

When alone with my thoughts I don't apply the label.  I see the behavior and things she did for what they are and how they impacted me.  It is a cause (her behavior) and effect (my reaction) association, a stark reality, no label necessary.  That association is also bi-directional.   This is how I have "operated" my entire life.  Now I apply the "label" here in an attempt to understand what drove the behavior, not to excuse her behavior or to avoid my own culpability.  Quite simply I want to understand why she might have behaved like she did, partly to alleviate my own confusion and pain, and partly so I can find a way to forgive her.  Perhaps I also do this because I can't accept she is a bad person as it would be all too easy to come to that conclusion without the borderline association.

Honestly, this whole trip down BPD lane has brought me to a place where I don't really want to be.  I "see" dysfunction everywhere now and I don't like it one bit.  Eventually once I work through the last vestiges of this failed relationship I hope this new "sight" goes with it.  It is good to be informed in order to avoid making the same mistakes in the future, but the danger of the box is all too real.

I denied my wife had BPD for a long time and only slowly (and still continuing) to accept that she really has a personality disorder that impacted our marriage.  Have you experienced this?

For my own situation I cannot confirm or deny she has BPD.  As I pointed out in my first post, the screening tests I took using my knowledge of her strongly suggest she may suffer from BPD.  The inconsistency of her behavior makes it all the more difficult to apply the "label" in an attempt to understand what happened.  There were times in our relationship where she fit almost every DSM criterion and there were times when she didn't.  The inconsistency is the most difficult aspect of these types of relationships, especially when you are dealing with a inward waif type.

Thing is, over time I have come to see how the "borderline" was pervasive throughout her entire personality, both the good and bad, not just the times when she fit the DSM criterion.   This has been a slow realization and a hard one because some of the things I found the most attractive about her were very likely influenced by the disorder.  So what does that say about me?  Still trying to figure that one out.

[C.Stein]

Do I use the BPD label to avoid responsibility for my share in a failed relationship ... .absolutely not.  I apologized on numerous occasions for the things I was responsible for ... .she however apologized for nothing.  The sad thing is, the things I did wrong were a direct result of her behavior and treatment of me.   At the end of the day the label means nothing, what matters is how she treated me and how I reacted.

This deserves some clarification.  My reactions are what need scrutiny by me.  Regardless of the reasons for my reactions and behavior, the important thing to take away from this is I allowed myself to react/behave the way I did.  This is the most important thing to learn here because I let her impact me in a way that resulted in behavior that is not a true representation of who I am.  I allowed myself to be something I am not and this is where the core of my own guilt resides and the potential for positive self-actualized growth is the greatest.  This understanding is a part of my silver lining.

[bestintentions]

[ I only point this out as someone's mental health issues aren't necessarily accurately discerned based on how people make us feel and the severity of their impairments are not directly related to how much they hurt us.

Skip - believing "how people make us feel" is actually the fundamental problem most people have in beginning to heal IMO.  Our emotions are products of our own thoughts.  Knowing this is the case, can I let these bad emotions pass at all times like a computer could?  I wish.

JRB - if my stbx is not BPD, then she is a bad person.  Based on the way I was treated, spoken to, taken advantage of and the way it ended... .there's no other conclusion I could come to.  Pretty black and white, huh?    

[Skip]

  bestintentions

Excellent point! How people make us feel doesn't mean they are a healthy partner or even love us back.

[Lucky Jim]

I could have done things differently, handled myself better especially if I had known about BPD when I was in the relationship.  I know for certain I would have been less likely to make some of the mistakes I made.  Knowing this however wouldn't have changed who she is, it would have merely delayed the inevitable.  This fact has admittedly been a difficult one for me to accept because I do still carry guilt.

Hey C. Stein, Why do you still carry guilt?  You're human.  Sure, we all could have done things differently had we known more about BPD from the outset, but who knew?  Most pwBPD blame others, particularly the SO, for the conflicts they encounter. Perhaps your Ex blamed you?  If so, that is how a person w/BPD copes, by projecting his/her issues onto others.  Suggest you let go of the guilt, which is like carrying a rock in your backpack.  

LuckyJim

[Kelli Cornett]

What an amazing thread. Could have just as easily been my own story.
Nothing really to add, but just reading things like this make me feel less alone in my situation.

[JQ]

I know I don't want to continue repeating mistakes in my dating endeavors and not learn from this experience.

If there is a silver lining to all this pain and despair this is it.  These types of relationships expose parts of ourselves (negative and positive) that we may have never seen on our own.  It is an opportunity for meaningful self growth that shouldn't be overlooked.

C.Stein,

Excellent thread, very thought provoking. I would agree with your statement "These types of relationship expose parts of ourselves (Positive & Negative" that we may have never seen before.)  I like you didn't know about BPD until the r/s with an old friend who had confided in me that her therapist had given her the news after we researched her behavior & thought she had bi-polar. At least with bi-polar there were better odds of her maintaining with meds, etc.  I digress. I learned that she had been in & out of therapy with Ph.d's, psychiatrist, Clinical Psychologist & therapist for over 25 yrs with little change of her behavior. I started to research everything in BPD which led to doing that deep dive on myself. I learned that I was a codependent & had a history that came with it. I looked back at my childhood & saw why I became the codependent. I applied the DSM to my step mother & a life time of experience of her "wacko" behavior & she met 7-8 of the 9 criteria in the DSM. I then applied the same to my step sister and yep she had about 7 of them & of coarse my 1/2 brother who had severe abandonment issues among other DSM criteria I won't bore everyone with.

With all of that now known I realized that I was choosing women very much like my step mother and why wouldn't I? I was conditioned to seek them out almost unconsciously & there ensued the drama filled r/s with my respective BPD's including my step mother/sister/brother. I had a history of them.

Knowing now what I do, like you I see a lot of PD out there. In fact my dear friend who is a Clinical Therapist, conducts group & individual BPD therapy & teaches group classes on it to others says there are a lot of PD out there. "Most people would be surprised just how unwell a lot of people are & the position they hold in society."  

To the comment, "Most blame pwBPD" ... .I certainly do not. How can I blame someone who is severely mentally ill?  I can be angry with the disorder itself but not with the person. To me it would be the same as saying I hate this person because they have Cerebral Palsy. You simply can't IMHO.  I can say in the beginning I was angry with her, I hated her, she hurt me, my life was & will forever be changed by this relationship with her because of her BPD.  But the more I learned the more I came to learn that BPD is a Very Serious Cluster B Mental Illness & her behavior as degrading as it was to me, as disgusting as it was to a lot of people, as toxic & horrific as her behavior is I can not blame her. I truly believe once I accepted this at the core of things I could truly move forward. I learned more about BPD itself but more importantly I learned more about myself & become the lifetime recovering codependent that I am. I could & now make better life choices for me & are a lot more aware in life about everything. Yes I do see PD everywhere it seems ... .but we all have our own box of issues we need to deal with in life some more so than others.

In the end of it all ... .I am a better person because of my r/s with my exBPDgf. I am a better human being because of my total awareness of others. I am certainly a better person to myself which is what I really take away from my r/s with her. I am better to myself ... .I like myself, I enjoy my life, and I find happiness in myself and not in others anymore.  For that and much more I can say I thank her for "enlightening me" about my life and who I am.

J

[tryingsome]

I read the topic and then the discussion and the the duck, duck, goose.
Straight up. pwBPD are a-holes.
if it looks, walks, quacks as a a-hole; it is one.
Need more convincing? Ask a friend or relative.
Saying other wise is a goose.

[Woods77]

I feel like I did everything I could, I feel like she held my hand over a fire, then shouted at me if I screamed in pain.

Logic for my exBPD seemed to vanish. It's like hitting someone, then wondering why they are angry. It's hard to defy logic in a relationship despite knowing to validate and things.

Sometimes I feel I got angry or embarrassed if there was a public outburst, but that was human nature. In trying to defy my own natural reactions for over 2 years I've harmed my own personality. Something I never thought possible, you shouldn't try to stop your own instincts really, in the long term it hurts you.

You watch films and read books, the devil is portrayed clear as day, monsters, evil are just people or an event. Yet some of the worst suffering can be given from love and the partner we love or have loved. I never blamed her, it was the illness, but where is the line and sometimes you have to accept some of it is just who they are.

[JerryRG]

I remember times, events where I would question my exgf, it was a feeling I had, she was saying things that I longed to hear, yet the reality didn't line up with what was really happening.

One night sitting in my car, she was telling me of a special night she was planning, how she made dinner plans at a local steak house. How awesome the food was, what a good time we would have, how expensive it was and her willingness to spend whatever just to show her love for me.

I had heard these words before, it was an echo of nights of the past. Promises that never came true. I knew that night she was just a dreamer, a player, her intentions were suppose to keep me hanging on.

When I asked her when we were going, she exploded, as if I had awakened her from a dream. She jumped out of my car and walked away, after punching me and screaming.

She sat on a curb a block away, I remember thinking I should just drive away. But knowing her, I thought she wouldn't be safe or do something stupid. So I took her home.

Compromised my dignity and my gut feeling, my head yelling run, my heart saying, protect her.

What does it get me?

Still just a dreamer, she never could stay in reality for long.

And I kept holding on to hope she would wake up, see me, understand how much I cared. I don't think she could see anything

[jasmine-1234]

I also knew something was wrong but couldn't talk to anyone about it, I was embarassed by how much we fought.

I googled all kinds of things, problem with Google though is you can't Google it if you don't know the name. I never heard of Borderline before.  I looked under schizophrenia, that didn't seem right there weren't delusions. BiPolar, no.  Yet it didn't seem like malicious abuse... .and I could tell there was a lot of pain.

I also reacted very poorly to it, it sparked so much rage in me, kind of scary really.  Right when he moved out, we broke so many things.  I was cleaning up broken shards for weeks after, crying every time.

It wasn't until a week after we broke up, while finally telling a psychologist friend about it, that he named it Borderline. When i read about, it was spot on!  I guess it was enlightening in a way. But still very sad.  Then I felt the tremendous GUILT. In all the forums talking about how to deal with BPD's I did the total opposite. I made lists of things he needed to accomplish and didn't understand it was the disorder. I am ashamed to say I acted in ways to him that I hadn't to anyone else.

That first week I drank, a lot, for several days. Left with an empty house and little reminders of him. I felt so alone. I wound up at an AA meeting and sobbed so hard I could barely talk.  All of the guilt and loneliness came up.  I feel I abused a handicapped person. Is that bad to say?  He couldn't help some of his behavior.  Now I"m trying to sort it out. 

Thank all of you for your shares!

[Grey Kitty]

To be honest I really dislike this conclusion but the alternative is she is just a bad person who [... .]
I don't use the label to blame her, I use it to understand her better.

If the label helps you understand the behavior and gives you better tools to cope with it, either after the r/s is over or while in it, then there is something good there.

The problem with labeling somebody is exactly what happens when you call somebody a "bad person", isn't it?

[DazedandConfus3d]

I know I don't want to continue repeating mistakes in my dating endeavors and not learn from this experience.

If there is a silver lining to all this pain and despair this is it.  These types of relationships expose parts of ourselves (negative and positive) that we may have never seen on our own.  It is an opportunity for meaningful self growth that shouldn't be overlooked.

YES! This is exactly what I have been thinking on (in my healthier moments)

Yes, she was messed up and manipulative and deceitful and a hundred other things, but in the end I fed into that, I bought into the lies I definitely was smart enough to have spotted if only I hadn't given her my trust and love before I understood who I was  dealing with. Why? Because of flaws in myself and old traumas, which I now know I need to heal to avoid being duped again.

Also, her manipulations showed me a lot about myself- she knew JUST the right buttons to push, saw the cracks in my armour that I could not, so now when I look at what she did to me, I look less at what she did or why,but what worked on me and why and what that means I need to accomplish in my personal growth.

Good luck to all

[C.Stein]

The problem with labeling somebody is exactly what happens when you call somebody a "bad person", isn't it?

That is also a label, albeit a grossly subjective and general one.  This is what I struggle with when it comes to my ex.  She is generally a good person but she does things that are so thoughtless and selfish at times it taints all the good within her.  

Some of her behavior is clearly "borderline", while other behavior seems to speak more to personal character and integrity, even if it is influenced (marginally or not) by a PD.  So I try to avoid the labels altogether and look at her for the sum of her actions/words and how they impacted me, her, us and the relationship.  I don't need a label or box to see her like this but I use one on these boards to try and alleviate my own confusion.

So where does one draw the line here?  What percentage of "bad" makes a person "bad" and who makes that determination?  Seems to me this is a very subjective determination?

[Kelli Cornett]

The word 'bad' may be subjective, but actions that cause pain (possibly even defined as emotional abuse) are concrete.
It's not if a pwBPD fits the description of a 'bad' person or fits into some kind of DSM criteria, it's if their actions continually inflict emotional pain/abuse and chaos to their partner/family/friends.

[Grey Kitty]

So where does one draw the line here?  What percentage of "bad" makes a person "bad" and who makes that determination?  Seems to me this is a very subjective determination?

My goal is to avoid judging anybody to be a bad person. (Difficult in our current presidential race, but that isn't a topic for this forum ) I don't see any need to make this sort of judgment, and more, I think it is somewhat harmful to when I do it.

Judging behavior is a different thing, and I do that pretty freely. Abusive stuff obviously qualifies as bad!

What I'd do instead is decide that a person has exhibited enough bad behavior that I want to remove them from my life, or considerably reduce their footprint in it. This is a hard enough choice.

[C.Stein]

My goal is to avoid judging anybody to be a bad person.

I try not to judge people at all, but we all know how hard that is.  Mostly I look at behavior as it impacts me without the need to label someone as anything (ex. good, bad, borderline, etc ... .).  I know people who some would probably consider "bad" but I just see it as that is who they are.  They can be whoever and do whatever they want.  Until they do something that directly impacts me in a negative fashion, who they are as a person is not my concern and more importantly, none of my business.  When someone does do something that impacts me in a negative fashion then I have to decide if I want them in my life or not.  In cases of love, it is very hard to make that decision because love is all too often blind.  

At the end of the day and as hard as it is for me to say this, I have no room in my life for someone like my ex.  That doesn't mean I don't love and miss her, I always will, but I can't allow someone in my life who doesn't treat me with basic respect and caring, even if those times when she didn't were not that frequent (to my knowledge).  Respect and caring are not optional, especially in romantic relationships.

[One key]

If i may be so free: why you still believe there is a good person in her?

Once i concluded that my ex gf was not a good person (at best she was sometimes imitating a good person), it was so much easier to have closure and move on.

[C.Stein]

If i may be so free: why you still believe there is a good person in her?

Because there are parts of her that are fundamentally "good" on a consistent basis.  What she has done to me does not change this fact.  This is the side of her she shows to everyone else and I don't believe it is a complete false representation, even if it does serve in some ways to mask her "dark side".  It is this person I fell in love with.  I remember asking her on several occasions why she couldn't be that person with me.  I never got an answer from her except an "I don't know".  Now I finally have an answer.

[Curiously1]

I agree that nobody is an all good or bad person. Whether the good we saw in them and they showed to us was completely fake or not in order to attach and get their needs met is up for debate but I am sure it is not as simple and as black and white as that. However,  the a sum of their actions and behaviours towards us and how it affected our wellbeing in the end is what we should care about the most as our own self respect, set of boundaries and values helps us determine whether someone is 'good' or 'bad' for us or perhaps a better way of putting it... .right for us. Labels are helpful, especially when trying to get your head around such confusing behaviour from somebody you love and wish to maintain a healthier relationship with--as much as you could/can. Labels are unhelpful when you place it on somebody just to blame them for most of what was caused in order to feel better about yourself and your own insecurities. We agreed to put up with as much as we could after all because we love/d them and possibly their potential to become better people. We nons here all seem to be striving to understand others so much you know? We care about having good connections through self-reflecting which is a good thing. I suppose the only bad feelings I have left for myself personally is becoming an enabler as I do wish she gets better one day. But that feeling bad/guilt is growing less the more I focus on myself and what I have control of (myself) and that she is ultimately responsible for herself, no matter what mistakes I felt I did her wrong and whether my own actions/mistakes will impact her in a severe way or not is not up to me anymore or for me to worry about. But I know now not to be an enabler in future when I work on myself and my boundaries. If I knew better, leaving her would probably been better for her too -- as I would have never been a part of the problem in the first place (but I was since I had some learning to do too). The more she falls, I hope, that one day she will have a good chance at checking herself for a lot longer... and then decide to get the help she needs... .otherwise there is always endless enablers like how I was... just around the corner unfortunately to take unrealistic responsibility and enable her crap behaviour all over again.
We can own our guilt and mistakes for sure (like you said to me in one of my posts) and then we can process it and eventually let it go as we're only human and can only continue to grow from this if we let ourselves. Everybody makes mistakes, a relationship is difficult enough and a relationship with a pwBPD is just too much to deal with when you want or feel that you deserve better. We should also let go of the toxic guilt/shame that was given and projected onto us from our pwBPDs too as that wasn't really about us but more about their own insecurities and how they feel about themselves.

[C.Stein]

But I know now not to be an enabler in future when I work on myself and my boundaries.

This is another potential benefit to the borderline label.  It not only helps us understand the possible how and why, it also potentially exposes aspects of ourselves that need attention under certain circumstances.  At this point we can choose to grow or choose to stagnate and repeat.

[Reforming]

The problem with labeling somebody is exactly what happens when you call somebody a "bad person", isn't it?

I struggle with when it comes to my ex.  She is generally a good person but she does things that are so thoughtless and selfish at times it taints all the good within her.  

Some of her behavior is clearly "borderline", while other behavior seems to speak more to personal character and integrity, even if it is influenced (marginally or not) by a PD.  

My ex was capable of being very kind and generous. Some of her behaviour was also very BPD / NPD. This dichotomy kept me confused and conflicted for a long time. In my mind I bargained that if I could heal her I could keep the good and ditch the bad. This good and bad come from the same place. Many of the traits I loved in my ex were also part of her disorder.

So I try to avoid the labels altogether and look at her for the sum of her actions/words and how they impacted me, her, us and the relationship.  I don't need a label or box to see her like this but I use one on these boards to try and alleviate my own confusion.

So where does one draw the line here?  What percentage of "bad" makes a person "bad" and who makes that determination?  Seems to me this is a very subjective determination

I think we're talking about boundaries which are an expression of our values. We use these to protect ourselves from harm. There is some room for subjectivity here - for example some people are happy in an open relationship - I'm not. But some boundaries are universal. Physical violence, verbal abuse, theft etc

If you put religious and moral judgements to one side bad behaviour is behaviour that causes unnecessary harm and pain to others. If someone behaves in that way towards me or others I step away to protect myself no matter how charming they are... .

I have mixed feelings about labels / diagnosis. A label or diagnosis is not a cure. Some sufferers can hide behind it and others can use it as a weapon.

On the other hand and it can help sufferers to confront their disorder, empower doctors to provide the appropriate treatment and allow loved ones learn skills which help them cope and support.