I feel so confused in my judgement of BPD Ex

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

I was reading an article, which I will link to on experiences of BPD. It had quotes from people who had BPD, loved ones of people with BPD, therapists, every angle. I feel so bad, because I vilify my ex for having BPD, but I also feel immense empathy. How do we know when someone who has BPD is a bad person or just an illness? I feel like so many of us here are confused because of that It's really hard.

Article: https://mindcology.com/quotes/24-quotes-borderline-personality-disorder/

[tyr616]

I was reading an article, which I will link to on experiences of BPD. It had quotes from people who had BPD, loved ones of people with BPD, therapists, every angle. I feel so bad, because I vilify my ex for having BPD, but I also feel immense empathy. How do we know when someone who has BPD is a bad person or just an illness? I feel like so many of us here are confused because of that It's really hard.

Article: https://mindcology.com/quotes/24-quotes-borderline-personality-disorder/

[enlighten me]

Its very easy when coming from a place of hurt to vilify the other person. Both my uBPD exs have done awful things to me and my children which will never be forgiven by me. That said I don't hate them I pity them. They have a condition which drives them to do things that end up hurting people who get close to them. Yes you may argue that theres a choice for them to make but when your brains not allowing you to see the facts or consequences then their choices may not be as obvious.

Ive seen my exs repeat a cycle time and again and I'm thankful that I am not stuck with this disorder of constantly wanting to be loved but never being happy when I get it and destroying it.

[heartandwhole]

Hi tyr616,



I think it's human to feel angry and judgmental toward someone who hurts us. I hope you will be gentle with yourself and your feelings. In my view, BPD is a heartbreaking disorder, which leaves its sufferers in a lot of pain, and often without the skills to manage it.

What has helped me is the concept (from Blaise Aguirre, MD) that a pwBPD's behavior comes from a skills deficit, and not necessarily a plan to cause chaos and hurt to others.

I think people with BPD deserve our compassion. And I know it can be really, really hard to get in touch with that when experiencing the behaviors that can hurt so much. That's when self-compassion is a lifeline. 

heartandwhole

[ynwa]

Hey tyr616,

In any situation, it is easy to acknowledge becoming mad, angry, disappointed with people we love right?

Someone with BPD is affected yes, and that brings our compassion. 
However it EFFECTS you, and your life.   Reacting to that is a natural response, and can be as brutal as the cause.  Learning about it, can help, practicing empathy and validation can help.

But, no one is perfect.  No one can be "on point" every day, all the time.

Your feelings are valid, they are real, and do not feel ashamed of them.   Especially since someone with BPD, even just mildly traited can push things out of a person that they did not know existed.  And the BPD, can be doing it without even knowing or having a purpose.

What you are feeling is part of the process, part of the understanding, and you will probably come to many conclusions, and then replace them with many more, and then perhaps go back to some old ones. 

 

[EdR]

I understand where you are coming from. For me the label of "undiagnosed BPD" has almost become a coping mechanism in itself.

Without this label I have witnessed the fall of Lucifer several times now... .

With this label I am still able to care about them and excuse some of their behaviour.

I guess the fall of Lucifer scenarios would have been easier to deal with though... .BPD just seems to keep me caring and somewhat worrying about them.

But tbh I just cannot logically explain the behaviour without this label and I refuse to see someone as "all black" or in the Lucifer case "the devil". So I am stuck caring I guess :-p

[Mutt]

Hi tyr616,



If we step back and look at mental illness as a whole, a person is not defined by their mental illlness. They have people in their lives that see past that, they love them unconditionally diagnosed or not diagnosed.

Then there are strained and broken r/s’s. I can understand although the actions of a pwBPD are driven by the disorder. If someone is undiagnosed, low functioning and is incognizant of their disorder, we should self protect or cut off all contact.

If I didn’t have kids would have gone no contact and I probably will when our kids are of age. She’s tops when it comes to BPD behaviours, I have my doubts that she’ll get better, if she does it’s going to be because of one of the kids or her other kids with other men.

A pwBPD are scared of the world around them, it’s filled with abandonment and sometimes they want to hurt you because they feel hurt. Like I said earlier, an adult is still responsible for their actions, a pwBPD or a person afflicted by any number of mental illness has a responsibility to take care of their mental illness.

You have to give yourself a break, a lot of us dealt with intense abusive behaviour and it’s going to wear out anyone’s patience, we were exposed to it 24/7/365. Nobody is perfect, if we became frustrated, angry, upset at our pwBPD don’t be hard in yourself. You probably did the best that you could at the time with the knowledge that you had at hand.

I’m not a doctor or a trained professional and some professionals don’t want to have patients with BPD because of how they become attached and their abusive behaviour. I didn’t hear about BPD until we broke up.

I was reading the quotes in the link and a lot of them come from a their perspective. What would our perspective look like?

My exuBPDw made me feel anxious, I have major depression the symptoms became worse. I was jumpy, irritable, confused and frustrated. I felt like I lived in a world all by myself, friends and family members knew nothing about what I was dealing and they thought that I was responsible for doing something to incur my exuBPD’s behaviour towards me. I couldn’t turn to my wife, someone that I thought should be able to offer support but I was the source of all of the problems according her. It’s a lonely and desperate space to live in.

We need our own outlet as well to express our thoughts and feelings without being judged for them, they’re just thoughts and feelings and not the end all and be all of our psychological make up.

[ynwa]

BPD just seems to keep me caring and somewhat worrying about them.

But tbh I just cannot logically explain the behaviour without this label and I refuse to see someone as "all black" or in the Lucifer case "the devil". So I am stuck caring I guess :-p

With the ending of any relationship, you are going to start seeing the "other" differently right?  Think of another ex, and how you eventually saw them in a different light, if even for something very simple. When you see people in a "different light", that kind of idea.

You used the word "logic", which is something that a person with BPD cannot deal with at times.  It literally disappears from their minds.  And they project this onto you.  Now you are walking around with memories of a person that can go from an angel to a devil and back again before you can blink right?

I think what you are asking might be permission to be Angry with your Ex?  Even though you love them deeply and care about them?   This is great, and yes you can be.  You need to process EVERYTHING to move forward.   The thing that is difficult is that we are all built to want to do work things out with the person causing the feelings.  In most cases, that just does not work.

What I am getting to, is that you have a lot of feelings right now, and for good reason.  Working through the steps of detachment and understanding often raises a lot of questions.  Part of the process is knowing that you might not get great answers.

[SummerStorm]

I feel so bad, because I vilify my ex for having BPD, but I also feel immense empathy. How do we know when someone who has BPD is a bad person or just an illness? I feel like so many of us here are confused because of that It's really hard.

It definitely is very hard.  And remember that BPD is a spectrum disorder.  Just like there are genuinely bad people out there who don't have any type of disorder that makes them that way, there are also genuinely bad people who also happen to have BPD.  For me, it has always been difficult to completely vilify my ex-friend and to listen to people who say, "She's an awful person.  Why do you keep trying to be friends with her?"  It's difficult because I've seen genuine acts of kindness from her.  It's difficult because I have actually seen her take some responsibility for her past actions and make a commitment to be a better person.  It's difficult because I do think she genuinely wants to be a good friend, a good daughter, and a good girlfriend.  I've seen her at her lowest points, desperately wanting to be "normal" and to not feel empty inside.  There is a lot of pain inside of her, even when she's not displaying it to the outside world. 

That being said, I also held my ex-friend accountable and told her when she said or did something that hurt me.  As human beings, we have the right to get mad at those who hurt us.  That being said, we also have to remember that there are just some things that a pwBPD won't ever really "get." BPD is a disorder that makes sufferers very selfish and unable to see things from another person's point of view.  For example, my ex-friend could not understand why I would get upset when she wouldn't reply to my texts but would then later send me a text asking me to do something for her.  My ex-friend's mom has been able to radically accept a lot of my ex-friend's behaviors and to depersonalize most of what she says; I have not.  Is that a flaw within me?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It takes a lot of emotional and mental strength to reach a point of radical acceptance, and considering the fact that I'm not currently a part of my ex-friend's life and may never be again, I'm not focused on reaching that point. 

Be gentle with yourself.  As ynwa wrote, no one is perfect.  We all say and do things that we later regret.  The difference between you and your ex is that you have the ability to learn from your own actions and to forgive others for theirs, but your ex does not. 

[Cire155]

I understand what you are feeling. I felt sympathy for my ex but not empathy. The reason I don't feel empathy is because I logically couldn't accept the train of thought of thinking with that illness. Even if I tried to have empathy it wouldn't be true to myself because if I put myself in the shoes of my exBPD, I would still question why I would do things like cheat or lie. I have seen my ex have fun at a place with another guy while she was in a relationship with me. I can't empathize with those actions and don't care to try to. I can only sympathize with her having that illness and the possible causes of it.
Here is how I made logic of the confusion I felt after the discard:
1. I love and care about a person that discarded me because of an illness
2. The love and emotions were so intense from this relationship because of the illness that caused me to love and care so much and overlook multiple red flags
3. This person betrayed me so many times because of the illness
4. The same thing that gave you intense love is the same thing that will give you intense lows which is the illness.
 My conclusion was that the illness showed me who I was. It pushed me to take a look at myself and face the problems I had avoided from my childhood. Its natural at first to want to hate your person with BPD but when you start fixing yourself it becomes clear on what you need a partner to be. I don't knock anyone on staying with a person with BPD but its not anything I want to entertain in my life. In my logic I took the illness and separated it from my ex. I care for my ex but we can't ever be in a position where I could ever trust them. Not because of the person but I don't trust the illness. So I never say anything bad about my ex but tell people It just didn't work out. Before I knew she had an illness I would say she was  I want to believe that this good person in them exists but due to some unfortunate events they have adopted this warped defense mechanism for survival. I will never get to know who she really was supposed to be.

[Lost-love-mind]

Here is how I made logic of the confusion I felt after the discard:
1. I love and care about a person that discarded me because of an illness
2. The love and emotions were so intense from this relationship because of the illness that caused me to love and care so much and overlook multiple red flags
3. This person betrayed me so many times because of the illness
4. The same thing that gave you intense love is the same thing that will give you intense lows which is the illness.
 My conclusion was that the illness showed me who I was. It pushed me to take a look at myself and face the problems I had avoided from my childhood. Its natural at first to want to hate your person with BPD but when you start fixing yourself it becomes clear on what you need a partner to be. I don't knock anyone on staying with a person with BPD but its not anything I want to entertain in my life. In my logic I took the illness and separated it from my ex. I care for my ex but we can't ever be in a position where I could ever trust them. Not because of the person but I don't trust the illness. So I never say anything bad about my ex but tell people It just didn't work out. Before I knew she had an illness I would say she was  I want to believe that this good person in them exists but due to some unfortunate events they have adopted this warped defense mechanism for survival. I will never get to know who she really was supposed to be.

Thank you for that analysis. I needed it based on my recent attempt at contacting my ex suspected pwBPD.
After falling back into the idea of her softer "blacking" of me (e.g. not blocking me on Twitter) I tried to contact her again.

What a mistake. She gave me her answer by blocking me. Devastate me to accept the inevitable.

Reading your analysis of the illness brings back the perspective I had before the attempt I made in the last few weeks.

Using your words: " I will never get the chance to know who she was supposed to be". Adding that I cannot continue with the delusion (my codependent nature) she  can be saved .
Thank you

[ynwa]

I will never get the chance to know who she was supposed to be". Adding that I cannot continue with the delusion (my codependent nature) she  can be saved .

Understanding that you do not need to save anyone is a hard truth for anyone.  Thumbs up!

[EdR]

For me it is not just about saving. It is about feeling a genuine mutual connection. She confided in me. She trusted me. She truly thought I was amazing.

But then it all got severed, and I suddenly became disposable. That genuine connection seemed to have become disposable.

But was it really? I have heard her parents say multiple times that she got emotional when she was in her "pushing me away" - phase. Her behaviour and her messages were quite ambigious as well.
Is that a sign of someone who does not care?

I don't think so. That's one of the things I hate about my situation. I feel like we could have been/remained the best friends (or maybe even more indeed), but it's like something is blocking her.
And I couldn't and can't do anything about it.