BPD or ADHD?

[BowlOfPetunias]

After a lot of struggling and resistance from my wife, our daughter has been officially diagnosed with ADHD and my wife is even considering medication.  My wife also recognizes the symptoms in our son.

I decided to try googling ADHD and lying, and found a lot that sounded familiar--but not only related to our kids, but also to my wife.  I also found some stuff on marital problems created by ADHD.  Some of the things that really hurt--making promises she does not fulfill, denying that she just did something hurtful, not keeping up her end of the housework, walking on eggshells, blameshifting--were reflected in the article.

I sent her an article on ADHD and marital problems with a cover note relating it to our kids and the behavior that I find hurtful.  I suggested that working on it could make it easier for us to work as a team.  Naturally, I would not send her an article on BPD.  I also find it hopeful to think that ADHD could be the issue instead of BPD, since ADHD is more treatable.

Is it possible for a nonprofessional to tell between ADHD and BPD symptoms?

Perhaps this could be a comorbidity issue.  If so, it would be hard to separate things like BPD lying from ADHD lying.

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[livednlearned]

Does your wife have a fear of abandonment that seems to be at the heart of BPD?

[BowlOfPetunias]

She has gotten very upset when I have tried sleeping on the couch because of a fight.  She has told me that she thought that we would get divorced if I slept on the couch.

Some fights have resulted in her bringing up divorce, only to walk it back (push/pull.)  Fights have also lead to "Oh, if you think that I am such a horrible person then why do you want to stay with me?" 

She has sometimes joked that she would kill me before she would let us get divorced. 

While she has invoked the divorce threat on several occasions, I only used it once when things were really, really bad--lots and lots of rage getting out of hand.  I told her that she was abusing me and that if we did not start marriage counseling and work on ending that abuse then I would have to leave.  From what the therapist said during sessions, she was incredibly distraught and desperate when she contacted him.  He also remarked several times that most of the messages she left for him were overly emotional/dramatic.

She is very upset about our son not wanting to spend a lot of time with us.  He is 14, so this is normal.  I know all mothers would be upset, but she seems more upset than would be normal.

She was adopted.  I believe she has some abandonment issues because of that.  She found her birth mother.  She believes she found her birth father.  He had a DNA test done showing they were not related and she argues that he must have lied about the results.  Her parents moved far away after we were married.  She wanted her adopted mother to move closer when her father died and her mother started having heart failure.  Her adopted mother was very NPD, which probably created some fear of abandonment (conditional love, you're not good enough.)

She has gotten very jealous without any reason on some occasions.  For example, she got very angry when I was doing my dissertation research in a foreign country and had lunch with a US woman who was running an NGO in the country.  I told her that this was a business lunch with a colleague.  This woman was engaged to a local man. 

To be fair, she has not gotten jealous when I go out of town for some volunteer work.  There have been times, however, when she has demanded that I rush back from the volunteer work because of an emergency, such as having a car repossessed because she forgot to make the payment. 

Another jealousy example--we went to a beach town recently and I took my son to the beach itself.  We were about to buy 2 badges.  A woman was leaving and offered to give us her badge so we only had to buy 1.  When we met up with my wife and told her this, she told me that this woman must have thought I was cute and that she would kill her if she tried to do anything with me.  Sort of joking, but you know how jokes can be unsettling and reveal underlying truths.

She has also been jealous of my studies or other time I spend that is not focused on her.  There was one huge fight while I was working on my dissertation because she was upset that I had brought my shoulder bag with me in case there was any downtime when I could work on my dissertation.  When I am reading something important (often in Spanish), she has repeatedly interrupted me and gotten upset when I ask her to let me focus--why don't I want to focus on her?  Why do I want to spend so much time on the computer?  She says it's like I don't want to spend any time with her at all.  Keep in mind that she will completely forget I am with her if she starts a conversation with at total stranger we meet while standing in line for a roller coaster. 

She also does other things that prevent us from spending very much time alone together.  When our son was old enough to understand TV, for example, she insisted that we stop watch the shows that we had enjoyed together.  Recently, she invited someone else to stay in our hotel during our family vacation.  (Luckily this fell through because the other woman could not get a plane ticket.)  Or she will forget that she suggested that we have sex that night and declare that the whole family is going to stay up late watching a movie.  So she wants time together, but not intimate time--perhaps meaning that she fears my seeing the real person she is and then leaving her (a BPD trait, of course.)

[Horselover33]

My husband has ADHD, BPD and PTSD.  He was raised in a very invalidating environment, with a very narcissistic mother, where his brother was placed on a pedestal and he in turn never measured up.  He learned to lie because he never measured up in his parents eyes, so lies were a way of being who people wanted him to be and get attention since he was forgotten most of the time.  On the flip side his brother has extensive narcissistic tendencies just like his mother.  His lying has gotten so much better over the years, he doesn't pretend to be other people anymore, but it still comes out when he has done something wrong and doesn't want to face the consequences and feel awful about himself. 

BPD can result from a child that has ADHD because of the difficulties growing up, knowing you are different and that it is hard to fit in and all the dis-regulation of emotions that comes with that if the environment doesn't support working through those challenges.  So it may not be a situation of one or the other, but a combination, however I am no expert and can only speak from my own experiences.   

From what you have described your wife has experienced the abandonment issues from adoption, as well as a adoptive mother where love was very conditional where her needs may not have been validated. 

We are fortunate in the sense my husband has accepted his diagnosis and is working towards a day when he no longer exhibits the 9 criteria for a BPD diagnosis, however he will always have ADHD and will be on medication his whole life to manage how he focuses and organizes his life.   

I can empathize with you and can relate to the daily struggles of a partner faced with these challenges.  It isn't easy and it's a tough environment to be your daily existence.  There is however light at the end of the tunnel for BPD if people can get the right professional support and commit to DBT therapy.   

[isilme]

I think all personality issues lie along a spectrum, and there will be overlap.  Sometimes, medication can help if any part of the issue is a chemical one, or nutrition, but there will always be the wired personality responses that are also a problem. 

I initially found BPD after first reading up on passive aggressive behavior - H is like that, so is his mom.  Then I read about narcissism, close, but not quite right.  If I read about ADHD, I'd bet he has some hallmarks of that, too.  But he DOES exhibit the fear of abandonment and shame avoidance (or self-loathing when he chooses to wallow in it) that seem to be a big red flag for BPD.