Did you do any detective work on your BPDex and their condition origin?

[Ad Meliora]

So how much Sherlock Holmes-ing did you do regarding your last relationship?  Did you figure out how long your partner may have had BPD? Did you figure out some of the root causes of your ex’s condition?

Those who don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. You’ve heard that before, and it’s a truism because, well, it’s true.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get on the BPD rollercoaster ride again.  One way to avoid that is to do what many of us have come here to do:  Learn from our past mistakes.

She didn’t reveal much to me, even though I was curious and asked a lot of questions. I figured the BPD happened sometime after a break-up in college but there was a piece of the puzzle I forgot to factor in.

Down in her basement she had a junk room, just piled to the ceiling with stuff.  The rest of her house she tried to keep fairly neat, but this is the place where everything was thrown.  One day she was going through things looking for something and came across a framed picture.  Inside was an old typed/mimiographed (old copier) style lettering.  It was titled “Top 10 excuses for not showing up for work by [BPDex]”.  She just laughed and read through them aloud to me, telling me the story of each she vaguely remembered.  It was given to her by her supervisor in the early 90’s when she interned at a large international company.  This man, bless his soul, took the time to write down all of these excuses and frame them so that anyone in the future would know just what they were getting into with this person as an employee, as a friend, and a romantic partner.  For her it was a sense of pride, but as I read the elaborate excuses generated by someone who was maybe 21 at the time it made me wonder.

I didn’t think too much of it then.  I was more interested in the Wonder Woman costume hanging in the corner and hoping she was going to model that at some point (I think she promised that).  Now I can see she had 30 years of practice (at least) of excuse making of storytelling.  I was no match for someone so experienced in the arts of deception and braggadocio.  Completely convincing and unwavering in her [twisted] thinking in this regard.

It was a red flag I ignored. Subtle, but something I should’ve looked at noticing the patterns then were still holding now.

The detective work has shifted focus now from my BPDex to me.  I’m the prime suspect in what lead to this failed relationship full of character assignation and personal denigration.  Poirot is on the case (Agatha Christie’s).  Sherlock’s ghost may be needed.  One revelation I’ve had in the months working on this case is that I think my BPDex was a lot like me. Not the monster part, the good part, the Dr. Jekyll part.  There was that part that worked so well and her “backstory” also checked out.  She had an alibi, so to speak, which caused me to ignore fact after fact (red flag after… ).  There was a key difference.  She had twisted thinking and I did not.  She attempted to twist my thinking, not so we could be together or closer…oh no, it was to make me suffer.  Suffer like her, suffer worse than her.  Making me the Mr. Hyde, so she could just “hide”.

[Turkish]

No detective work needed by me.

Her father was a serial cheater and abuser. My ex caught her dad in bed with another woman when she was 6 back in Mexico. Dad brought the rest of the family to the USA when she was 11. Doubtless he was celibate by himself working here.

Her dad finally kind of calmed down when he got a DUI and lost his license for a while. That was before I met her.

The year she left me and D1 and S3, her dad was caught in her another affair. She started openly disrespecting her mom,  whom she previously worshipped, at parties. She resented her mom for not finally kicking her dad out, I think. That's when I started thinking about emotional enmeshment and I landed here less than a year later. Living with me, she acted like her dad (and one weekend talk where I thought we could work out of, she admitted that).

Later, after we split and she left me for her boy toy cum husband, she described to me her relationship with her mom which sounded to me like emotional incest My ex was aware of it, a major realization.

Then I looked at myself and what kind of women I had always been attracted to and looked at my mom. I started reading and posting on the PSI board. My mom later admitted to me that she had BPD (she also told me that she thought my ex had BPD).

Not everyone here had messed up parents, but based upon what I've seen, most of us would do well to look backwards into our FOO (family of origin) to understand why we continued with such obviously (to an outsider) dysfunctional relationships.

I thought about dropping my uBPDx when we were just friend dating due to her push-pull behaviors which were frustrating. It's on me why I continued, not on her.

My ex is only clinically diagnosed with Depression and Anxiety. Anything else she referred to as her "Sickness."

[ILMBPDC]

Mine was raised by a mom with BPD and has major abandonment issues from his father leaving them when he was a baby and then being raised by a succession of sh*tty stepdads. It is my opinion that his BPD was pretty well ingrained from a young age and I don't even know if therapy would help him much because of this.

My daughter has BPD as well, I've mentioned this before. Hers started after a few terrible years of bullying in school followed by an extremely emotionally/verbally abusive relationship at 15 that she hid from me until the very end where I demanded she end it (I am happy to say, she did end it and was diagnosed with BPD less than a year later). Luckily, we were able to get her into therapy and DBT and while she is not "cured" she is very high functioning and  is able to manage her symptoms for the most part. She probably should have continued with therapy for much longer...I don't even remember why she stopped going. I think DBT was over and there was no strong encouragement for her to continue and so we just left it. And now her insurance is not great and therapy is expensive.

[Cromwell]

I think detective work is over egging the pudding

Or maybe im writing from a different time frame in recovery, probably this.

Do you feel like some lateral thinking exercise to this question?

Why bring the iconic BEST {undisputed} detective into this

Very petty, boring, run of the mill

Dyadic?

You being the big guns out only,

When you need to.

Your ex is not a mystery BUT i do know how it feels to feel that way, emotionally attached.

Enigma,

Highly manipulative.

And all that jazz.

Im non emotionally attached from this. So. Why do i see this as nothing that warrants 'investagation

At best, enquiries, For that we have run of the mill constables or in the States rotound usually field officers.

Why are you bringing out the master? Did she really embody all that is to get nonplussed over?

You realise these people, to minimally experience health care professionals, are incredibly boring?

[poppy2]

The detective work has shifted focus now from my BPDex to me.  I’m the prime suspect in what lead to this failed relationship full of character assignation and personal denigration.  Poirot is on the case (Agatha Christie’s).  Sherlock’s ghost may be needed.  One revelation I’ve had in the months working on this case is that I think my BPDex was a lot like me. Not the monster part, the good part, the Dr. Jekyll part.  There was that part that worked so well and her “backstory” also checked out.  She had an alibi, so to speak, which caused me to ignore fact after fact (red flag after… ).  There was a key difference.  She had twisted thinking and I did not.  She attempted to twist my thinking, not so we could be together or closer…oh no, it was to make me suffer.  Suffer like her, suffer worse than her.  Making me the Mr. Hyde, so she could just “hide”.

The Poirot and Holmes part brought a smile to my face I like your sense of humor Ad Meliora!

But certainly not the part about projecting Mr. Hyde onto you. We all project in relarionships (that is part of what makes them exciting!) but having her Mr Hyde projected onto you must have been awful.

I can't really answer your original question, except to say that I learnt things about both my ex's that related to severe neglect in early childhood. Both also had alcoholic fathers. Both manifested the BPD with me gradually, one with the 'threat' of abandonment (the side of BPD as severely disregulated attachment) and one with a dissociative or series of dissociative episodes. She also was possibly psychotic at times without me knowing it.

For me, and maybe this is helpful for you, it won't be information that will help protect me in the future. I think people can have traumas and it can also make them stronger. It will be my gut - the gift of fear. It will be learning to sit with and trust my own feelings about a person - not to swipe them away, excuse them, explain them, or be forgiving about them. Seeing the 'real' person instead of the person I'd like to see... and that is very hard sometimes. I think we lose this basic trust in ourselves after harrowing experiences and once we recover it, or maybe find it for the first time even, it will protect us from similar future situations.

Because I know what you mean - the Dr Jekyll part felt good, right? it maybe felt so good that we would overlook the other parts. And I don't think it was necessarily wrong to feel (im speaking for myself, but trying to relate to you), rather that if we had been able to see or accept the whole person (including their  ), we probably wouldn't have wanted to continue the relarionship. What do you think? if you had sat with your feelings of uncertainty or unease about this excuses list, how would it have changed your perception of your ex?

[Ad Meliora]

For me, and maybe this is helpful for you, it won't be information that will help protect me in the future. I think people can have traumas and it can also make them stronger. It will be my gut - the gift of fear. It will be learning to sit with and trust my own feelings about a person - not to swipe them away, excuse them, explain them, or be forgiving about them. Seeing the 'real' person instead of the person I'd like to see... and that is very hard sometimes. I think we lose this basic trust in ourselves after harrowing experiences and once we recover it, or maybe find it for the first time even, it will protect us from similar future situations.

Thanks everyone for participating and sharing what you learned about your ex's condition.  Sounds like it was either clear or not at all.  I guess maybe if you know the beginning you can hope to know the end, or the direction the "end" needs to go in.  If you know the origin of your BPDex's condition maybe it can make you wise if that comes up with a future partner and be a potential  .  As I said, and Poppy quoted, the investigation has shifted to me, and glad you get the reference which is supposed to be humorous Poppy.

I think your statement above is a pretty good insight. It will be about relying on our intuition and checking some of the "stories" out.  Seeing if the actions line up.  The basic trust you speak of has been violated and I think it would be hard to jump back into any kind of serious relationship until those feelings are restored, or at least I feel more on an even keel.

My example is just one small one of the constant flow of data that was coming to me and telling me, "something's not quite right here--you should check it out". I ignored those signals, those fears, to my own peril.

[Newdawnnewday]

Thanks for your excellent thread, Ad Meliora. Indeed, it could help a lot to list all that we DID see and didn't want to see, and how we'll react next time.

As for me : things were glaringly obvious from the beginning, but I didn't know anything about BPD I must say. Or very little. I knew A LOT about NPD and was only happy I hadn't (or so I thought) met YET another individual with a personality disorder. There weren't any traits of that distinctive "perverse" character displayed by people with narcissistic traits. So it was such a huge relief ! In the beginning.

First : I was love-bombed. I recently read my journal and realized, from what I had written there (in June) that I was so sure he wasn't love-bombing me (the love emanating from him FELT so SINCERE) ; looking back on it, it seems so strange, because it now feels UTTERLY clear to me that he was love-bombing me (I am now back to thinking more "logically", critically, and many of the things he said were simply OVER THE TOP ; no matter how SINCERE an individual may seem, if he says things that are over the top, it is over the top).

Then, all the redflags I overlooked. Mostly, his IMMENSE vulnerability is what made me utterly vulnerable and then, defeated, by this relationship.

From the onset, he shared, heavily, about his childhood trauma. I thought this was a sign of wonderful vulnerability. How open he seemed, forthcoming, vulnerable, willing to communicate. I just loved that ! That honesty ! That openness ! That desire to share, and be intimate ! That desire to reflect and communicate ! What a blessing.

Almost immediately, I realized he smoked pot. But I understood. How could he not, having suffered such intense trauma ! But with all I knew about trauma and addiction, perhaps I could help him find other ways to cope and heal ! So crazy of me, I know.

At the time, I thought he was a codependent.

Also, he shared how abusive his past girlfriends had been. I could totally relate. I felt so sad for him, I was determined to show him that not every woman in the world is unfaithful, abusive, deceitful. I was a good woman ! This new relationship would repair the damage inflicted upon him by these nasty ladies.

One of them he described seemed to be text-book NPD. I identified with his pain, history and experience.

By then I thought had fallen in love with a male version of me (redflag ! it was pure mirroring).

We were best friends on top of being lovers.Talk about a dream come true.

I saw he suffered from an intense fear of abandonment. That, sadly, made him all the more endearing to me. Also, I must say, it made me feel "loved, needed, desired". I finally mattered to someone. It was a bit stifling of course. But nothing I couldn't deal with.

That also trapped me further, because I kept telling myself, NO MATTER WHAT, don't abandon him. So I tolerated things I would not have otherwise, because I felt trapped in some sort of double-bind. I was MORE preoccupied with SPARING him the pain of abandonment, than sparing myself the PAIN of this relationship (it was starting to grow, and grow, and grow : and I didn't realize HOW much pain I was in, when I was IN the relationship, UNTIL I GOT OUT ! it was SOO BAD ! but I had ignored it all, by keeping the focus on "don't abandon him", whatever you do, don't do that to him).

Then, I realized his moods shifted a lot. So I looked into, "addiction" + fear of abandonment + moody.

Also, when I asked for space, because I really felt stifled, he started to SPLIT on me horribly and walk out on me. So, I looked into : addiction + fear of abandonment + splitting and then : there it was, BPD.

For a while, I still held on to hope. If it wasn't NPD, then surely, there was a way to fix this ?

FORTUNATELY, I came across the advice of wise people telling me to RUN.

I thought to myself, so many, so many people, taking time out of their lives, to EXPLAIN what has happened to them, and WARN others... telling others to RUN. Surely, this CANNOT be a mistake. All these people, describing the exact same stuff, wonderful beginnings, etc. ; and being ripped to shreds by the person they once thought was the love of their life ?

These testimonies and the advice to RUN helped me realize... I had to RUN.

Also, there was a confirmation in THE WAY I WAS starting to feel day in and day out : the suffering endured during this relationship was JUST AS BAD, if not worse, as the suffering I had known with my NPD-exes.

My entire body was screaming at me : get out !

I think that this man made me feel more fearful (scared, terrified : I couldn't pinpoint what it was) than any person w/NPD I have had the misfortune of dating.

Sheer terror coursing through my body. That was another redflag and one I couldn't overlook. 

My gut feeling constantly telling me something is off, get out, get out. 

Literally, my gut, I started to have terrible issues with my gut.

Couldn't sleep at night with him there. Something was screaming at me to get out.

And yet, it took me weeks to get out - I HAD TO MOVE. Because I had become so addicted to him that each and everytime I tried to stop, he only had to come knocking on my door to pull me back in.

Now, I'm 5 weeks out, almost. It's my second try (I've been no contact for three weeks in August already). The pain of ending this relationship, initially, was like nothing I've felt before. It was as though I had been infected with all his childhood trauma, multiplied by my own ; multiplied by each of our failed romantic histories... and staying with him, "around" him, drinking the sweet poison of his fake love, was the only thing that allowed me to "put a lid" on the burning cauldron of current and past trauma he was constantly putting back on the fire.

He was CONSTANTLY re-awakening HIS and MY most primitive wounds. Not deliberately, perhaps. But never with any kind of accountability or self-reflection. So, so incredibly destructive and self-destructive. I could have dealt with, working together on our respective traumas. But the lack of accountability and the horrible blame-shifting totally prevented that from happening.

So, it was a lost battle, from the beginning. The only way out of the pain, was to walk through MORE pain for a while (these past five weeks), to get to a safer shore.

I feel safer now, even though I'm still in a lot of pain. At least, I'm free from the burning pit of despair, terror and trauma that my relationship with him was.

And no, I'm not sad for him. I was, at the beginning. VERY. I felt guilty. I felt sad and horrified, having to abandon him, after he had told me so many times that this was what he feared most.

Certainly.

But now I don't. It would make me too weak, too fragile, too "open" and vulnerable to him, to allow myself to feel sad for him. Maybe later, maybe from a distance. But right now I need all the compassion I have for MYSELF. I need to feel sad, for me.

Also, "my abandoning" this ship was his own doing. So, how could I feel sad for something I did to protect myself ? To save my own life ? I can't really. There was no choice.

I have reached a point where I feel I can't be held accountable for something he isn't willing to (or capable) of doing.

I really wished it could have worked*. But it takes two willing participants to make a relationship work. Whatever hell of a childhood prevented him from developing a core solid enough to form relationships... that breaks my heart, and I feel sorry for him. But I don't feel sorry for protecting myself and pulling my body out of the burning furnace.

* I'm not even sure about that now. A few weeks ago, I could still utter those words and they were true, oh, how I wish it could have worked. But no, now, I don't. I don't wish for the impossible to come true. I wish THE BEST for him. And THE BEST for myself. But I don't wish for an impossible thing to come true. I wish for what's possible, only. And what's possible, what's within my reach is : ME. So, time to do : ME.

[ILMBPDC]

Not everyone here had messed up parents, but based upon what I've seen, most of us would do well to look backwards into our FOO (family of origin) to understand why we continued with such obviously (to an outsider) dysfunctional relationships.

I think if more people actually delved deep into their own childhood they might find more dysfunction than they realized - I know I am. 

I found this chart on the codependency subreddit the other day and it speaks volumes to me:

I 100% fit the neglect and abandonment wounds and I am not surprised. I have spent most of this year delving into myself and my issues. Abandonment and neglect have come up over and over - every time I try to figure out why I act like I do, why I have the issues I have, these are the subjects that keep coming up. And they are absolutely true. My childhood sucked - I had an alcoholic father and a mother who was very codependent (and who I am starting to think is a covert narcissist). I was tasked with basically raising my younger sisters when I was 9 or 10. I never had a childhood, really.

I'm not trying to play the victim, I don't want to use these things as excuses and I don't want people to feel sorry for me...but it has been immensely helpful to face my past head on and actually understand where I come from, emotionally.  Trying to figure out how to overcome this is a whole other thing and its been hard and I haven't made a ton of progress but sometimes just knowing can be a start on the right path.

[poppy2]

I think your statement above is a pretty good insight. It will be about relying on our intuition and checking some of the "stories" out.  Seeing if the actions line up.  The basic trust you speak of has been violated and I think it would be hard to jump back into any kind of serious relationship until those feelings are restored, or at least I feel more on an even keel.

My example is just one small one of the constant flow of data that was coming to me and telling me, "something's not quite right here--you should check it out". I ignored those signals, those fears, to my own peril.

Yeah, i think all of what you say here is very true. What I like about the 'gut' response is that we don't have to understand what is wrong or figure it out (this was always my commitment in the past).. if your gut feels uneasy, that's already enough reason to take distance without determining the reason why.

and @newdawnnewday...i can relate to a lot of your story. I just heard from a mutual friend that another friend is basically in the position you were in - nightmares, high arousal and stress all the time, and so on... it's so so hard at that point to realize that you need to get out and it's great you managed to do that. I think it's great in general you share so much of your story here and I can relate to, and recognize, so many of those stages you describe. Like for example the idea that they brought up primitive wounds but didn't or wouldn't try to manage them, as well as the terror, the wishing but knowing otherwise, and basically so much. I was nodding my head a lot, you chart the emotional journey of these relationships very well.

What it also reminds me of is that, when you're inside the relationship it's so hard to leave because you invested so much. I'm going to try and talk to this mutual friend and see if I can help her before she is completely broken.. she already read the Stop Caretaking book and apparently her eyes opened. Getting that advice to RUN is always an individual choice but at the same time, until someone knows what they are dealing with they can't make an informed choice about whether they should stay with it or not.

[Ad Meliora]

Then, all the redflags I overlooked. Mostly, his IMMENSE vulnerability is what made me utterly vulnerable and then, defeated, by this relationship.

I think you're onto something here Newdawn.  It was her apparent vulnerability that sucked me in.  I thought she was a "Sparrow with a Broken Wing", but that would disappear.  It was a ruse.  Something the monster inside her used to trick others to get close, to fall in love and lure in so I could be parasitized and become a mindless drone to her bidding.  Or something like that...

My BPDex smoked a lot of pot too, she tried to keep it secret, but when I realized  the depth of her suffering it just made sense.  I wish she would've shared the details of the causes, she was a closed book to me.

There's a lot I can relate to in your post.  There was a thread by Rev about "first red flag you ignored" maybe you can check that out if you haven't already.  I particularly could relate to this,

[quote]My entire body was screaming at me : get out !--Newdawn[/quote]

One night I was lying in bed at my BPDex's house.  It must have been after we were physical and I was half asleep/half awake.  I had a dream or more like a vision in what was a contented state.  The vision was of a skull and crossbones and of a poison symbol, both of which were related to my BPDex.  It was a cold and scary feeling at the time.  It made no sense to me as to why I should have such a vision regarding my ex. I blew it off.

I now think it was my subconscious trying desperately to communicate with me, my body screaming at me, you might say, to get out!  This girl is poison!  I had never experienced anything like that with any of my other romantic partners.  Truly unnerving.  But truly...true.

Thanks for posting your chart ILM.  I have some of the Abandonment column working in me.  It's been a terrible feeling to be alone and on my own, but I'm working through it.

There's this guy who's on late and he's kind of a self help guru.  He was talking about that "gut" feeling Poppy and how we tend to ignore the red flags when it seems like something we want.  He said we need to "Pay attention to the Tension" that gut feeling.  That is a cue to take a pause, just like you say.  I think that's good advice.

[Erfanovich]

My period of Sherlock started after our first break-up. Before that I had no reason to doubt her stories although some questionable things had happened in the past.
My exBPD told me some things about her youth. Her mom divorced her father at age 4. Her father never recovered from this she told. A new stephmom came and from this moment it becomes misty. She told me some things but always very incomplete or changed the subject. Because of her fathers work she there was family care or something. Stephmom was a witch and still is. During our relation I tried to improve bonds with her father which worked for some time, at the end the contact was low but I have to admit she was alwys negative about him.
Her mom died in the 90's cause unknown alone, without friends or family. Her grave is a municipal grave, we visited the grave together this year for the first time. A good talk about it was impossible and locked in her body and mind like fort Knox and remarkable: the visit was a secret for everyone, nobody was allowed to hear of it. After the second and last break up my conclusion or assumption is this youth was a hurtfull period for her where things went wrong. She could not really talk about it, or didn't want to. I still blame myself to let it go and give her more attention in this matter. Maybe it was the key in our relationship.

She had a older brother. In our talks he did not have any part in her history. Not once she mentioned him, but when we were together she wanted to show me, but it never happened. I discovered a weird push-pull game in her life. Friends an family come and go. All her old and newer friends are gone, No contact at all and trown away by her. The pattern is to be alone with someone who gives her all the attention she needs, until the moment the cracks appear. In my knowledge there is no person in her surrounding who is enough, everyone is devaluated or a lower form of life. When the person/partner has no time to give attention ( bc of work, sport or other obligations) she picks one of the devaluated persons to accompany her in this time. Not once she was just alone on her off-day from work or weekend. During our relationship I never understood this kind of behaviour and felt always pity for this girlfriend.

All together it's a misty place. I won't get the answers I have, never. In fact thats just the reason it didn't or can't work with her.
In my opinion it can be healing to investigate these things to get a clear picture, but you have to accept your role in the relation, it hurts you're the trigger of her behaviour instead of the sensible partner who did  the best to comfort her and love her. Love she is missing from her youth... My conclusion is: it doesn't matter if she is diagnosed with BPD or whatever, it did not work and won't work. Period!

 

[Ad Meliora]

All together it's a misty place. I won't get the answers I have, never. In fact thats just the reason it didn't or can't work with her.

Sounds like you did a good investigation, Erfanovich.  I agree with your conclusion about it does come down to us because we won't get the complete answers from them, or any answers really.

I like your use of the word "misty" here.  In English, we usually use the word "foggy" as it is unclear because of the fog (clouds close to the ground).  "Misty" is a poetic interpretation.  A damp, dreary, rainy place, that we maybe can't see through.

[ILMBPDC]

I discovered a weird push-pull game in her life. Friends an family come and go. All her old and newer friends are gone, No contact at all and trown away by her.

I just want to say that I noticed the same pattern with my ex. He always seems to have friends but none of them were long term or really good friends. The one "best friend" he had only known a year and then discarded him over something he said couldn't even remember! It is crazy how he couldn't seem to sustain relationships that were anything other than superficial.