Hi Artemis,
It's good you found us here; I'm sure you will find many useful resources, not least among these the stories and insights other members provide.
What you are noticing is the classic behaviours of someone with BPD. Anyone might exhibit traces of fear of rejection / abandonment and even respond in conflicting ways. Depending on the level of emotional maturity someone that feels this way would be able to notice it and calm themselves into behaving less confusingly for another. For someone with BPD this is virtually impossible, unless some DBT type treatment has been sought and put into practise.
My understanding of what happens is as follows: The person with BPD has as their emotional base a fear of abandonment. The person with BPD has, whether genetically programmed or environmentally caused, a predisposition to swiftly changing emotions and an inability to regulate these. The mood can change within moments for no reason known to themselves. Sometimes it's a subtle picking up on something that you have said or done (and, as often as not, a misinterpretation of this), other times it may be something that has triggered some memory the correlating emotion of which is experienced very strongly and quickly. Sometimes it's just the brain's own chemistry.
Whatever the cause of the mood change, it will become an absolute reality for the pwBPD, for the next while. Depending on a bunch of circumstances, it can last minutes, hours, days, or even longer.
pwBPD are extremely sensitive to anything that could possibly be perceived as rejection. Since that is the biggest fear, the reaction will be very strong. That part is pretty logical, when you think about it.
The reason for behaving in a way that is counterintuitive has to do with getting there first. The thinking, I believe, is something like this: "If I reject you, before you have a chance to reject me, it will hurt less." or "If I lash out, maybe you will say what I need to hear to ease my pain." And sometimes, just " You hurt me, I am going to lash out because that is all I know how to do".
It takes knowledge of the disorder and a strong sense of self and a lot of patience to deal with this. I would encourage you to remember that all of this is only about 1% to do with you directly and the rest to do with the disorder and previous experiences that the pwBPD has had, from childhood onwards.
Please read the Lessons over here in the panel on the right. They will help you.
How long have you been together? How do you feel in the relationship? You sound calm in your post, which makes me glad and hopeful for you
Looking forward to reading more from you.
