Is it “normal” for BPD people to create stories or false “realities” about people? I am really struggling with that. Not only was she raging, but she was telling me how she’s finally “figured it all out”, etc. I was so shocked that she would even think those things, let alone believe them. Like I said, it’s like she’s possessed.
I think it falls well within what is normal for a BPD person to alter reality for their own purposes (feeling secure in themselves despite how fragmented they are as people).
My heart goes out to you. I can relate to a lot of what you've said, here. There are a few things - a few BPD tendencies - that stand out to me, that might be at play in your situation.
1] BPD black-and-white thinking. BPD people tend to vacillate between idealizing and demonizing others based on whether that person is meeting their needs. For example, my sister has at different points in our lives spread grand exaggerated tales of how amazing I am, and horror stories about what a terrible, cruel person I am. When I am going along with her whims in order to keep the peace, I am great. When I am enforcing boundaries or trying to hold her accountable, I am evil.
I have learned to accept that everything she says, does and thinks is not about me. It can only ever be about her. But if I'm being totally honest, it still hurts. Particularly when she poisons people against me, which she has done off and on over the years. I have found that any relationship of mine that she can touch - any mutual friends or family members - will be weaponized against me when she doesn't get her way in our relationship, or when she fears abandonment or rejection from me.
For this reason I try to keep her socially separate from my life, and I've learned to accept that my contact with some people in her life who I really care about will be sporadic at times. It's crazy-making, but there's not much I can do about it except set boundaries and limitations for my interactions with her and hope for the best.
2] The BPD tendency to edit and revise reality to suit their needs. Sometimes my sister will do major editing to better cast herself as a victim (and therefore anyone who tries to hold her accountable for her behavior or even discuss her behavior is a monster) or else to cast herself as better and more accomplished than she is (I think of it as, "She would rather bully and manipulate people into seeing her as a good person than do the hard work of actually
becoming that person".
BPD people struggle with identity, and will often try to mold themselves into what they think other people are seeking. This makes them feel more wanted and helps stave off their abject terror of being rejected or abandoned. A huge part of how I've seen that play out is in trying to modify the truth. The truth is evidence against their carefully crafted persona, and it's therefore the enemy. More than anything in the world, they are addicted to being liked, and like any addict they will go to great lengths to feel liked. Tweaking the facts is one of the easier ways to lay the groundwork for that.
In disputes about the truth of things they seem to need to guilt, manipulate, attack or badger people into going along with their narrative rather than live in reality and address reality. Either that or use further edits to reality in order to paint the other person as a lying monster in order to ensure the opposing version isn't given any weight.
My way of combating this tendency in my sister is to keep a journal. When my sister tries to gaslight me and tell me that something didn't happen, or that it happened in a way that was very different from what I remember, it is extremely helpful to be able to refer back to the journal and review my account of that situation. I would almost never share that knowledge with my sister or try to argue with her about the facts. The journal is there to keep me sane through the manipulations of truth.
Like any reasonable person, when someone gives me a different account of an event I tend to question my own memory of it, even when I know the person speaking has a history of lies or embellishment. So in cases where it's not possible to double-check the facts I'm often left wondering what the truth is. It's extremely crazy-making, very gaslighting. It messes with my head. I only wish I'd stuck to journaling throughout my life. It would help me now.
3] The apparent BPD allergy to accountability or personal responsibility of any kind. This goes hand in hand with the previous item in that they often use truth-revising to escape accountability. I don't think this is because they are terrible people, it's just because they live in utter terror of being abandoned or rejected, and admitting to any flaws might give others an excuse to think ill of them or even leave them.
My sister rarely apologizes for anything, no matter how bad her behavior has been. Apologizing means admitting you are wrong, and being wrong is the same as being bad and being bad means giving people grounds for being rejected or abandoned. At least that seems to be her thought process. Similarly, my sister will not get treatment even though she's had a diagnosis because to do so would be to admit there's something wrong with her and she is insistent that she is fine, that others are just evil and want to cast her in a negative light.
The flip side of this is her tendency to take advantage of other people's accountability. Most responsible people, when they make a mistake or lose their temper or something, admit the wrong and apologize and try to change their behavior. If they are in conflict with someone they will admit their role in the conflict and try to move things toward resolution.
My sister seems to have an almost predatory attitude toward other people's accountability and will seize on an apology or admission of guilt as proof that she was in the right, or that she is the victim and the other person was the aggressor. Even when the reverse is true and the other person is just trying to make peace.
I have been able to find no way around this except to try to stick to "we" language rather than "you" or "I". As in, "We have created conflict here, how can we resolve it? Let's both agree to ____." But even that is a minefield.
4] The BPD 'whiteboard' approach to conflict. I see this as a form of gaslighting (as are so many of the BPD behaviors). For example, my sister will freak out and yell and attack me really viciously and say she's never going to speak to me again, and then call me 2 hours later and talk casually, as though nothing ever happened. If I try to discuss it she will gloss it over or else turn it back on me. There is no resolution of the behavior, and no accountability.
5] The BPD lack of empathy or concern for other people's experience. This goes hand in hand with the whole victim thing, and needing to paint things in black-and-white where they are good and the other person is bad. They don't seem to have any perception of or concern for other people's pain. In fact, if anything other people's pain seems to threaten them as evidence of their being bad or rejectable/abandonable and they will attack people for showing that pain.
I should say that I don't believe all BPD people are this way, particularly those in treatment, but this has been my experience of the BPD people in my life. It's really hard. I don't really know all the answers but this board has been helping me a lot. Just feeling not so alone has had a huge impact on my level of stress.
