My pwBPD spoke in a childlike voice

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I know this might look like a silly topic, but I'm genuinely curious about something. Is "baby talk" a common habit among borderlines? I ask because that's the impression I get from reading other's posts. For example, I remember reading a comment not long ago where a member said that his ex described their sex as "yummy sex." This is something I could hear my ex saying. She was really big on baby talk. When she was ready to go to sleep she would say it was time to "go night-night." When she was hungry she would say it was time to "go yum-yum." I've seen several instances of baby talk here when people are quoting their exes, and it just got me wondering if this is a common trait among borderlines, and if so, why? Then again, maybe I'm just imagining this correlation. Did your exes exhibit baby talk?

[Nuitari]

I know this might look like a silly topic, but I'm genuinely curious about something. Is "baby talk" a common habit among borderlines? I ask because that's the impression I get from reading other's posts. For example, I remember reading a comment not long ago where a member said that his ex described their sex as "yummy sex." This is something I could hear my ex saying. She was really big on baby talk. When she was ready to go to sleep she would say it was time to "go night-night." When she was hungry she would say it was time to "go yum-yum." I've seen several instances of baby talk here when people are quoting their exes, and it just got me wondering if this is a common trait among borderlines, and if so, why? Then again, maybe I'm just imagining this correlation. Did your exes exhibit baby talk?

[Esquared]

I know this might look like a silly topic, but I'm genuinely curious about something. Is "baby talk" a common habit among borderlines? I ask because that's the impression I get from reading other's posts. For example, I remember reading a comment not long ago where a member said that his ex described their sex as "yummy sex." This is something I could hear my ex saying. She was really big on baby talk. When she was ready to go to sleep she would say it was time to "go night-night." When she was hungry she would say it was time to "go yum-yum." I've seen several instances of baby talk here when people are quoting their exes, and it just got me wondering if this is a common trait among borderlines, and if so, why? Then again, maybe I'm just imagining this correlation. Did your exes exhibit baby talk?

Mine occasionally said "choo choo" when she saw a train, and named her items like her cell phone.

[beggarsblanket]

underneath everything, there is a child that never was allowed to grow up in many borderlines. And maybe also in ourselves.

So it is kind of suppressed and when we feel totally safe in a loving relationship, this part can come out.

I think deep down that was the deepest connection we shared, to really open up these young and innocent parts in ourselves.

Unfortunately, these parts are hidden beneath a lot of brokenness, and the brokenness will make sure that that connection will fail sooner or later.

Babytalk i never really experienced, i think it was more that a part of our love was a childish love, both in a good and a bad way.

You say many things that have been on the verge of my awareness for months. I saw childish behaviour from my BPD ex. In the single most touching and perplexing moment of our relationship she became almost infantile with me. It was one of a handful of moments of astonishing trust and openness that she shared with me. Those moments are gifts that I cherish today, despite the hurts.

I saw the childishness in her early on but never admitted it in myself. There are many examples in my own behaviour, looking back on things. The best aspect of the whole relationship, which we discussed many times, was the playfulness.

It had a fairytale mood, but fairytales have dark sides. We carried on at the cognitive level of adults, but it was emotional abandon, recklessness. We played well because she knew my vulnerabilities. She exposed my tenderest wounds, and I felt comforted by that. I felt a sense of safety and acceptance, not a sense of isolation or shame. Feelings of safety and acceptance are basic feelings that I recall from my own childhood.

These feelings also emerge when I go into the manic phase of bipolar, with an intensity that is hard to convey. I described it to a psychiatrist like this:

"I have a great feeling of harmony in the species, despite all pain. It's a feeling I have had often, since I was a kid, as if I were at home in the species. But then it was always just a vague comforting feeling, never so constant and beckoning as now."

This is what I have lost through all my suffering. Now it takes hurt -- the manic flight or relationship trauma -- to expose it.

You sum up the confusion of my relationship well: "these parts are hidden beneath a lot of brokenness, and the brokenness will make sure that that connection will fail sooner or later." How I wish I had known this sooner. I was naive to enter a relationship with someone so wounded when I am so wounded myself.

[valet]

Yeah, my ex was pretty prolific with the 'baby talk'.

It would kind of weird me out at times, because if she was in one of those 'moods' (or, as once removed is saying, perhaps it is a schema identity) she would just not snap out of it. I'd had to leave the room and go do something else—then eventually she would return to 'normal'.

I don't think that this is something that can be restricted to a pwBPD exclusively, though. However, considering the nature of the disorder it would make sense given the ability to slip into an emotionally arrested state at moments.

It still amazes me that I have yet to really figure her out fully in my own mind. Closure is illusive, but with each new memory or trait I dig up I become calmer and life gets a whole bunch more pleasant on the regular.

[foodlover]

My GF uses baby talk all the time. I don't know if she is trying to look cute or if its reverting back to childhood. IDK,

[Notwendy]

My mother does this. Sometimes it's part of being manipulative - she gets all flirty, bats her eyes talks in this cute little baby voice. Oh I'm so helpless I need a big strong person to do this for me. Kind of freaky when that big strong person is me- and I'm not big or strong. Somehow though she was so super feminine that I felt like I was masculine compared to her- and I have no manly traits!

She's used the baby voice with my kids and it freaks them out to hear their grandma do this. But they have grown up with stronger boundaries than I did and her behavior doesn't affect them as it did me.

I don't know why she does this. I guess for one it works. I don't have proof of this but I suspect she was abused as a child. She is often in emotional pain without a source that I can tell. We tried our best to care for her and to make her happy - but we couldn't help this.

[troisette]

My ex is male and didn't use "baby talk" but sometimes he did have a strange conversational tone.

When he was talking about cooking, or finances, or other adult subjects, his tone and phrasing was of the 1950s.  He was a child in the fifties. It's difficult to describe here but familiar to me because we are of an age and I recognised the phrasing and the tone from my childhood - and they sounded odd in today's world.

He was serious about what he was discussing, but he sounded like a young child in the fifties copying his mother or father to sound like a grown up. It made me uncomfortable.

Does anyone else have experience of male BPD's conversations striking an odd, anachronistic note?

[Keef]

Hello everybody, I'm a newbie. Discarded since 3 weeks... .

I can relate to this childlike voice-thing. My ex gf - not yet diagnosed but meets all the criteria... .textbook - had a meltdown in September, a proper one. I won't write of all the things that happened, want to stay on the subject here, but once the emergency psych unit had arrived and had talked her out of her most desperate behaviour she started speaking with this creepy and really infantile voice, while hiding her face in a cushion. Saying things like "No I'm fine, we're just gonna watch a movie and enjoy the Saturday evening together." Like the trying to cut herself with pieces from the glass she shattered never happened. Like the melon she threw across the room wasn't now all over the place. The change of tone was really heartbreaking but of course extremely eerie.

I think maybe it's got something to do with dissociation. Denial. Wanting out, to be somewhere/someone else. Apart from this incident my ex gf seemed to enjoy belittling me (e.g. pinching my cheeks while saying how good looking I am blablabla... .nothing new there I guess).

Any thoughts?

[Chaffers]

 Mine had a lisp when she was younger and would occasionally slip back into it along with a babyish voice. Seemed to be done unconsciously.

I had noticed that when she used this voice, only ever for a sentence or so, I could trust that what she was saying was true.

Vulnerability rather expands on this and makes sense.

 Had an ex gf who wasnt borderline, I don't think, but certainly had traits. She was big on using a baby voice in a mockingly manipulative way. Also as a turn off if she didn't want sex. Which was annoying but not in a worrying way.

[Skip]

There is a interesting discussion here regarding regressive behavior:
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=142203.0

[Idsrvt2]

Yes, one of my x personalities would write like a child, very strange expressions like silly billy.  That was actually the nice persona the child like one

[AustenJ]

"Yikes Bikes" was one of her favorite sayings... .I had never heard that one before. She would also in a childlike voice say "you can't do that" when I performed oral sex on her and said that was "dirty" or "gross". Early on in the relationship, as a result of disassociation, I think, she would refer to herself by a different name and act differently when she wanted sex and was guilty/ashamed for feeling that way.

[Aesir]

My ex had several childlike mannerisms. Her voice at times and gestures too.

[Huh?]

My first real relationship, was with an overt NPD woman... .way more NPD than BPD.

She used to baby talk big time! All the time, she'd get in a child like state as soon as she'd get around me.

Funny thing is, she was in law school when we were together... .and discarded me immediatley after finishing.  She is now an assistant DA.

While she was in school, she used to brag about how she loved putting people in jail and bragged about what a ___ she was.

Then she'd come home and immediatley revert into a child... ."Could you me a drinky winky, pleezy, weezy?"

What a nut.

[Portent]

Most pwBPD have childlike aspects to their false selves. I subscribe the the false self theories for at least the psychological part of PBD. They act like a child at times because they are the creation of a child. The false-self was created by them when they were children. The false-self unlike the true-self is incapable of growing up because its not real, its the invention of a child, a creation made to fill the void left by the true-self never fully taking form and control. No matter how old the person gets the false-self is still emotionally2-4 years old.

[Portent]

My pwBPD would shift voices constantly. I didn't know why for a time until I read the about schema appraoch to BPD. It made sense to me that her schema's were broken and disjointed because of a lack of a true self so depending on which schema was in control at the time her voice would change.

[cubicinch]

my exBPD gf used to sometimes break into a baby voice. It seemed to be a way she could express some kind of joy or pleasure of her own thoughts. Fondness of something maybe? possibly even regressive thoughts... hard to explain. She would sometimes manipulate me with it, to do something for her, but I don't feel that was a particular negative trait, just playful.

[ArtistGuy70]

Sometimes. For me, it was more of speaking in a childlike sounding voice when she would say:

":)o you loovvvee meeee?"
"How much do you love meeee?"
"Thank you, Daddyyyyy."

Etc.

They stopped growing emotionally at a very young age.

[babyoctopus]

Yep. Mine try to "act cute" batting eyes, making smoochy faces. I suspect mentally trying to recreate when his mama was fawning over him expecting me to do same. I don't think so!

[StayStrongNow]

My xwBPD would have that little girl voice and I would know and my three children G10, G8 and B7 would also know she was "that way." "That way" was a term G10 came up with to acknowledge mommy was not right and they would avoid her.

Many times "that way" denoted a time the ex was drinking, taking Xanex, too many Trazadone, Cymbalta, or the many other Rx she was given and usually she would mix all the aforementioned mind altering stuff all up together. Or she was just having a BPD episode and spoke and acted like a 7 year old. My kids are smart and when this happened they would just hang up on FaceTime or call me to get them. She put up no fight, last time she could barely talk or stand up.

She has been to many in-patient clinics, the latest one is in Malibu for a 30 day stay funded by rich mommy and step dad. She has convinced the kids she has changed but I told her in a rare deviation of my NC except about the kids policy with her, that the court order stands and she gets limited visitation. I guarantee her BPD hasn't been cured in any one of these clinics, however she surely had the therapists fooled, she is a master at dupery.