Lies, Victims, and Name Calling

[Dodgy]

Does anyone have any insight why BPD correlates with lying (outright, never happened lies), victim mentality (never ever admits wrongdoing, and it's everyone else's fault) and name calling or put downs actually helps the BPD? I experience this from my sister when the rages hit or the emotional dial is turned up based on someone else 'disappointing' or 'rejecting' her. It boggles my mind how treating family members like this actually helps the relationship, when I find myself wanting to get further and further away.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Dodgy, 

When someone suffers from BPD, they may very well self soothe in ways that are not considered healthy. They can find comfort in knowing they're a victim, or by making someone else feel bad in order to help the pwBPD feel better about themselves. Those of us around them are driven to distraction by this kind of behavior, and we see it as being unhealthy for everyone but strangely, they may be comforted, thus the 'self soothing.'

What do you think?

Wools

[beatricex]

hi Dodgy,
Well, I am no professional, but with my BPD'd Mom I suspect it was because she was ridiculed as a teen.  She got pregnant while still in highschool, and her Dad molested her.  Two separate things but both maybe embarrasing and her dad's abuse of her was maybe not kept a secret (he was the town drunk and never stopped talking when intoxicated).

The getting pregnant in highschool was pretty scandalous back then, you got kicked out of school.

So, I find that when she tells doosey lies/gossips maliciously about others, it is somehow a flashback to being made fun of (or the perception she was ridiculed) from her past, and I also suspect she feels better because it's a relief to be the aggressor instead of the one who was in fact a victim.

I believe that later in life, she went into victim mode, because this is a natural reaction to actual victimhood in her earlier years.

b

[worried_sister]

Hi there,
From what I know about BPD, people often push loved ones away in an unsuccessful attempt to bring them closer, and name calling is a way that this happens. My sister definitely does this.
Sometimes, if I do something other than spend time with my sister (call friends, take a nap, do homework, make waffles, attend a work meeting, etc), she gets really mad. She's hurt that I chose to do something else instead of hang out with her, even though we live at home with our parents together (I'm 20 and she's a teenager). But if she feels abandoned, even for an hour, she will call me really awful names.
I don't want to engage in the fight and I don't want to be called names, so I'll calmly tell her that I'm going to leave the room but that if she needs me I'll be in the house. This leads her to guilt me for leaving the room, and she calls me more names. Often, people with BPD (in my experience) don't know how to separate anger from hurt, leading to actions that don't make sense to someone else. My sister struggles to verbalize why something makes her upset, so she lashes out and pushes me away, even if that's not what she wants.
In terms if lying, I know one of the reasons my sister lies a lot is because she struggles with her identity, in addition to wanting people closer to her. As a teenager, she lies about things that normal teens lie about, but on top of that, she throws in extra stuff for no understandable reason. For example, my sister once told a bunch of her friends that she was so worried because her big sister (me) ran away from home, which is 100% untrue. I was in college in the same state and just a text away, which she knew of course. There is literally no reason why she would have thought that I ran away. I've never run away from home in my life.
Once she lied to people about a contest she won, which we easily figured out was untrue and she eventually admitted to the lie later. I've seen her lie about stuff to help her understand herself and her identity. I don't fully understand it, but I think it's not uncommon.
I really hope this helps. Thank you for sharing.

[Turkish]

The author of Understanding The Boderline Mother wrote that for a pwBPD (person with BPD), "lying feels like survival." I took that to mean that it's a coping mechanism that's worked for so long that it can be almost unconscious, a standard reaction to emotional stress.

[BigWideWorld]

It's interesting to see this thread as that's the exact issue I'm having with my mum currently, she is telling the most ridiculous lies but really seems to believe herself.

She takes playing the victim to the extreme right now, she's absolutely brutal to people. There's just no behavioural limiter.