Is it "normal" for pwBPD to act normal to the outside world?

[mermaidsarereal]

Hi all,
My mom who I suspect has BPD has recently moved in with me following the death of my brother. As you can imagine, she is having a really difficult time and is making my life a living hell. For her entire life, her bad moments seem episodic. Meaning when she is fine she is fine- she's great to hang out with, super sweet and intelligent. If you met her you would think she is just a really sweet old lady. But she has a Jekyll and Hyde personality which can change at any moment. I can feel her anxiety well up like a storm cloud rolling in- it will start with a few comments, or an increase in panicky phone calls while I'm at work. Sometimes I can say something offhand like I'm worried about someone else and I see her eyes go black and know that I am going to have to go through a few days of rage, insults, crying, drama, threats, etc. It's like I have my own personal terrorist who comes and goes randomly. Is this typical? Or does a pwBPD just always act like this?

[beatricex]

hi mermaidsarereal,
Yes they can act normal to the outside world...however, my mom is severely OCD and is a hoarder (her place has piles of stuff in it) so, how "normal" is this really?

Sometimes I think long term friends have stuck around to see how the story ends...and out of morbid curiousity, because she is so eccentric.  I have been contacted by enough of her friends to know that a lot of the charm is she's so super involved in her kids lives, and they really like to hear my side of it.

Also, she doesn't treat others as badly as close family members, typically it takes her years to turn on her "best" friends (which she eventually does), so I guess their tolerance level is higher for that reason too.

Tell me more about the most recent rage.  What did you do to instigate it?  (tongue in cheek because I'm sure it was almost nothing)
 

b

[worried_sister]

Hello,
I think it depends on the person. I have a younger teenage sister with BPD and a grandmother with BPD, and though they share a few traits, I also see BPD appear differently in them (these differences might exist, at least partially, due to the fact that my grandmother is untreated and my sister is currently getting treatment).
When my sister is out in the world, she absolutely hates conflict and avoids it at all costs. She starts fights a lot at home, but never in public and barely with friends. On the other hand, my grandmother gets into a lot of conflict in her daily life. She lives in a small town and when we visit, she often refuses to go into certain stores because she's had conflicts with the owners. She's had falling outs with many friends, holds intense grudges with neighbors, and isn't afraid to tell people she thinks the artwork in their cafe is tacky. Basically she's done things in public that my sister would be horrified to do. It's hard to figure out which of my grandmother's actions are due to BPD and which are just part of her personality. Another way they differ is with honesty. My grandmother is obsessed with honesty, but my sister is somewhat of a compulsive liar (this is just to show their difference in personalities even though they share a diagnosis).
I think overall, I would say that (from my experience) it's not unusual for people with BPD to act differently in public than with their families, but it's not a strict pattern that everyone with BPD exhibits. There's definitely a spectrum of traits and actions that changes depending on the person. I hope this helps

[Notwendy]

My BPD mother has a charming outer persona. It's all an act but she's quite good at it. It's errie to see her do it because I don't "know" that person. It's a persona she reserves for people outside the family. We see a different one. Sometimes she's nice and pleasant but also raging, mean and says hurtful things. Sometimes I think she enjoys being hurtful to us.

The charming persona is also manipulative.

People in her circle think she's wonderful. We also suspect they think her children are just horrible for not being around her more but they have no idea how she treats us and also we don't have any interest in telling them. I think people who know her for some time have some idea something else is going on, but they don't know the full picture. Her relatives probably think something is off but would not admit it.

[pursuingJoy]

I echo almost all of Notwendy's post re: my BPD MIL. Her family members land on, "That's just how she is," quietly fade when she dysregulates, and come back when things come back to baseline.

I can feel her anxiety well up like a storm cloud rolling in

You nailed the description of this dynamic. What does it mean for you? What do you do with it?

[zachira]

Unfortunately yes, and this is also true with people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. It is enormously frustrating. Oftentimes what happens, is the smear campaign against you begins long before you are aware, and the disordered person is so calm and collected with people they are not close to, that other people can not believe how badly they act with family members. Know that some people do not fall for the phony nice person performance, and once they see the act will distance themselves if they can.

[mermaidsarereal]

Thanks for all the replies. It's helpful to hear everyone's experiences. I guess where I really struggle is that one moment she is sweet and kind and I get amnesia until the next time she has an episode. It's like I keep getting punched in the face and I'm surprised every time. We had a big fight tonight which I cannot win no matter what. I know I shouldn't try but I don't know how to respond to her ridiculous demands without defending myself.

[pursuingJoy]

This sounds so hard. What was the fight about? How are you feeling about it now?

It can be really hard to feel jerked around and surprised like this. It may help to explore the concept of radical acceptance - there's a great article about it here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=89910.0

There are three main elements, according to the article.

~~The first part is accepting that reality is what it is.

~~The second part is accepting that the event or situation causing you pain has a cause. 

~~The third part is accepting life can be worth living even with painful events in it.

There is grief involved in this process, at least for me...accepting that something is what it is, and not what it should be or what I want it to be, is always painful.

pj

[Notwendy]

The amnesia when they are acting nice is familiar to me. It's interesting that we do that. Why is it so easy to forget?

I know for me it's probably a combination of doubting myself as well as hope and wishing for the "nice mom". After all, it seems most moms are that "nice mom", even mothers who are strict, or if they get angry- they don't do or say the things my BPD mother does and says.

Also, since BPD mother blames other things or other people for her issues, it's easy to believe that it's not her but whatever she was upset about.

This is the "normal" we know when growing up, and also we were expected to accept her explanation.

I think what changed things for me was realizing that she lies to me. This was a tough realization to accept but she did it so much, it was hard to deny. If I had to identify the one thing that has changed how I see her, it's that. It's hard to trust someone once you don't know if you can believe what they say to you, and I really don't know if what she says to me is true or not

"Nice mom" and "raging mom" are two sides of this complex person and her moods can change. If she's being nice, maybe she's sincere, maybe she's being manipulative. I have to just accept that I can't truly know.

[Irina]

My undiagnosed sister has the same. She switches between a very nice, polite, charming or helpless person on the outside to an abusive person with us. I always wanted to protect her and never tell anyone else. The result is none of my friends (who also know her) know about what we go through. I have literally nobody except my partner to talk to. I dont want to distroy her life. Its a web of keeping face. At the same time in the past 2 years she is on a smear campaign to my friends about me telling them what a horrible person i or my parents are... Its very hard and unfair. She's also threatening with law case against us for severe neglect and other things. Which are not true. There is absolutely no accountability for her own actions or responsibility for her own life. Everything is our fault. And she terrorises us. She terorised my patents for 2 yeats after i left the country, writes toxic and abusive things on all walls in the house, burns personal items of us.. Its horrible and became even more so after my dad died of covid in january. They were all living in the same house. Now she terrorises my mother and through tjis she is slowly distroying my relationship with my partner as this is affecting us daily since my mom constantly calls for help or my suster sends me thousands of messages with abuse.. And in the meantime my friends think i'm crying for my father and how hard it must be to have lost a parent. Tbey haveno idea what happens truly. None of us have any moment to cry or think of my dad..  My sister's been going into rages that take hours, she doesnt let my mom sleep, she broke and destroyed things in the house, constantly screams and has severe laryngitis as a result, she threatens to burn the house, has been burning some things, pivtures of me and so on.. And then in a switch when other people are around shes normal...

[Wife struggling]

My husband does a very similar thing. He holds a high position at work and with his coworkers he is the life of the party. A jokester and always happy and fun to do things with and be around. Nobody but me and other close family really see what he’s like. Even with me, sometimes he seems so kind and loving and says how much he misses me and wants our marriage to work. Invariably a few days later, he wants other women and says he can’t stand to be tied down in our marriage.

It hurts every single time even though I’ve come to expect this will happen. It’s hard to know what’s real and what isn’t. I don’t understand how he can maintain this facade with others.