Hi and hope to find support with others with sib wbpd

[ClaireB75]

Hi there, just wanted to say hello. I am going through a strange time with an upwBPD and they are acting very strangely.

I want to ask has anyone elses pwBPD made false accusations in writing to people of authority that are actually very easily disprovable? My person has and I simply can't understand why they'd tell a lie that is so easily proved as false? Why not tell a better lie? One they might have at least a chance to get away with? I am so freaked out by this behaviour and wanted to know if anyone else has experienced it?

[Pook075]

Hi there, just wanted to say hello. I am going through a strange time with an upwBPD and they are acting very strangely.

I want to ask has anyone elses pwBPD made false accusations in writing to people of authority that are actually very easily disprovable? My person has and I simply can't understand why they'd tell a lie that is so easily proved as false? Why not tell a better lie? One they might have at least a chance to get away with? I am so freaked out by this behaviour and wanted to know if anyone else has experienced it?

Hey Claire!  Good question- and I don't think any of us are qualified to answer the "why".

My best educated guess would be that from your BPD's perspective, it was not a lie at all...at least not 100%.  Maybe they arrived to that story from their own emotional turmoil and a very jaded perspective after being hurt.  Maybe they felt like they had to push back hard enough for someone to take notice.  Maybe it was their way of crying out for help.  Maybe they panicked in the moment and said something truly stupid. Who knows?

The way they said what they said is probably not as important as why they felt like that was the best option.  That's the story within the story that I'd focus my efforts on.

[Mommydoc]

I really like Pooks response and agree.  I think of these things as distortions of facts, but yes, I have  experienced it frequently with my pwBPD, my sister.  I have come to realize that her sense of being wronged and hurt is intense and completely drives her behaviors, words, and actions. There is no moral code that guides her behavior. Recently, we have been trying to settle my mothers estate, and I was shocked at the accusations that her attorney leveled in writing at not just me, but my attorney, my husband and my mothers caregiver. I don’t think she was lying in her mind.  It was more like taking 100 different simple (benign) facts and putting them through a food processor to come out with something completely different.  It all is with the lens of her as the victim.   I think she may have a normal moral code, in dealings with other family members and friends, but because she believes I am the source of her emotional pain, I (and anyone associated with me) becomes a justified target. In my case, all of it was easily defensible.  I chose however, to step away, disengage and even try to defend the insanity of her accusations. Learning not to JADE has been a difficult but valuable tool on my journey. I would also highly reccomend Susan  Forwards book Emotional Blackmail, as there are some great exercises in there that help you, put things in perspective and “reject” the accusations, rather than ruminate on them.  Best wishes to you. 

[Notwendy]

With my BPD mother, it's a bit of both. Sometimes she deliberately lies and other times, it's a reflection of her distorted thinking. For both, I think her feelings of "being wronged" in addition to avoiding accountability (and shame) drive these behaviors.

If she says something happened or someone said something, and we correct the facts, a usual reply is "well that is the way I heard it" so - she can decide how she heard something or how she thinks something happened.

I heard her speaking to a caregiver and when the caregiver said "that isn't what happened" her reply is "I want to tell what happened my way"!

It's hard to try to rationalize the why as the reason can be emotional for them and feel "true" to them.

[Pook075]

...her reply is "I want to tell what happened my way"!

I'm sorry, but that's kind of awesome!

[Notwendy]

Yes, it's honest!!
But the tone is demeaning and commanding. Like you better be quiet and not contradict her.

And I do just that. Listen and stay quiet and let her tell me her version.

[Mommydoc]

A few things that work in responding to my sister:
-“We have different perspectives on what happened, but let’s talk about next steps going forward”
-“ Here’s where we agree, let’s focus on that”
-“ I understand how you feel ( and then add a validating statement),  this is an opportunity to move forward”

It is so easy to get stuck in their viewpoint, and so it’s important to try to reset and redirect, but it often requires an acknowledgment of some sort. What I find frustrating, is the same atuff gets recycled over and over, and even when we are successful in moving forward there is an always backtracking!

[Methuen]

I want to ask has anyone elses pwBPD made false accusations in writing to people of authority that are actually very easily disprovable?

A few years ago, my mom's family doctor finally declared on a medical long form that she was not fit to drive.  Those of us who knew her were surprised it didn't happen earlier.  Mom went into a rage.  Her Parkinson's was so bad she couldn't write (or see), so she got a flying monkey to write it out for her.  Then she put it in the mail addressed it to someone at the motor vehicle licensing branch. 

The level of indignation she felt because her doctor had "done this to her" was beyond the pale.  She slandered him in the letter, as well as outlining reasons he was wrong.  She showed it to me with pride.  I did not have much to say about the letter to her, other than something like "good for you for getting it off your chest", as it was a relief to me I wasn't being directly targeted with her rage.  I do not know if she ever got a reply back.  I doubt it, although if she had, she wouldn't have liked it and therefore wouldn't have shared it with me.

In terms of how easily disprovable it was, there were objective eye tests for sight loss from an opthalmologist (she couldn't see people walking on a road in front of her), diagnosis for Parkinson's from an internist (which she refuted and therefore refused to take medication for because she concluded she had "essential tremors" instead), results from a cognitive assessment that indicated early dementia, loss of mobility (she's bent over her walker and was having trouble getting in and out of her car), and other tests indicating poor reaction time....All this was on the medical long form the doctor filled out, and discussed with mom (H was at the appointment).

Nevertheless, mom reacted with rage, and wrote and mailed the letter maligning the doctor.  I'm sure the driver's licensing branch is used to this reaction from elderly people losing their license.

Why did she do it?

Knowing my mom as I do, in my experience she saw herself as a victim of a doctor who intentionally was trying to take something away from her. She believed he wanted to hurt her. She responds defensively by attacking whomever she is upset with.  It's a vengeful thing: you hurt me, and I'm going to hurt you back.  There is an "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" kind of thinking with her.  Kids do this on the playground, but I think my mom's emotional development was stunted in her chaotic childhood, and she just never got past that stage to a more mature way of reasoning.  Everyone who knew her refused and avoided ever being her passenger - she was scary on the road. If she was going somewhere with friends, they always drove. It was such a relief for us when she finally failed the medical exam.  She could have done a driver's test to "prove" she was roadworthy after failing the driver's medical, and for a long time after she wrote and mailed the letter, she said she was going to do the driver's test to prove the doctor wrong.  I offered to help her schedule some driving lessons to "tune up" her skills.  But she never took any lessons, and eventually relinquished her license.  She would have failed spectacularly, and I question whether any examiner would have even left the parking lot with her.

This situation isn't really about a "lie" she told per se (although there are a lifetime of those too), but it does illustrate her way of thinking about it all, and the "written" lengths she will go to, when things don't go her way.

Claire75, your situation will be entirely different, but I concur with what others have already said.  It's impossible to guess why they do these things.  In my mom's situation, it was clear to everybody except her she shouldn't be driving, and she just couldn't accept that. She was living in some alternate reality. I think when they live their life in "victim mode", they just revert to previously learned coping strategies that really aren't all that healthy or helpful.  They are emotional responses, not logical ones. 

You mention that for your person with BPD, the false accusations are easily disprovable.  Why not tell a better lie?  Because they don't see it as a lie.  On some level, they actually believe it.  They have a "different way of thinking", or "different perspectives" about it.

Can you tell us more about why you are so freaked out?

[ClaireB75]

Hi all. This is very useful thank you. I have wondered if it is not a "Lie" as such but a panicked reaction, a distortion, or maybe even a hallucination. I was freaked out because it was such a basically proveable thing. Literally, like pointing at the sky and saying it is yellow when it is blue, but in writing.
 
One example is she stated something false, that basically could have cost HER not anyone else, a lot of money, and an attorney said in all his years he'd never seen someone do that - actually act against their own financial self interest in such a way. She basically stated that a part of a trust that benefitted her and no one else, was fraudulent and blamed a family member saying they had written it while on drugs. All of this was untrue. And as the lawyer stated, the only person hurt if it was true would be her, as she benefitted from it. That is just one example. But she did it to make that person look bad in that moment as she was angry at them, but to the possible cost to herself of tens of thousands of dollars. That's the kind of thing I mean.

[Methuen]

That sounds bizarre all right.

All my life I used to invest a lot of energy trying to figure my mom out, change her mind, solve her problems, and take care of her.

I’ve learned to let go.  I’ve worked hard to detach emotionally. I wish I had learned this 30 years earlier.

So your mom is saying a part of the trust is fraudulent, and by saying this it will cost her thousands of dollars? It’s not rational to you or the lawyer.  But she had her reasons… they just don’t make sense to anyone else.  I’ve learned not to JADE -justify- argue - defend- explain. It just doesn’t work with BPD.

What would happen if you just didn’t even engage in that conversation?  What outcomes if any would be the same?  What would be different?