PROGNOSIS: Why does BPD sometimes inactive for years?

[BPDFamily.com]

When I look back in the relationship with my STBxW, her BPD traits were apparent from the beginning. Yes, they got worse as time passed but then our entire relationship only lasted less than 2 years. And I did not learn about BPD until it was too late to maybe do anything abut it.

In reading various posts here, I find it to be very curious how BPD, in some, seems to lay dormant for years and then it rears its ugly head 10 or 15 years into a marriage. I don’t understand how this can be if BPD is an illness that usually manifests itself during ones adolescence or young adulthood.

Does anyone know why this sometimes happens?

[crazyhorse]

When I look back in the relationship with my STBxW, her BPD traits were apparent from the beginning. Yes, they got worse as time passed but then our entire relationship only lasted less than 2 years. And I did not learn about BPD until it was too late to maybe do anything abut it.

In reading various posts here, I find it to be very curious how BPD, in some, seems to lay dormant for years and then it rears its ugly head 10 or 15 years into a marriage. I don’t understand how this can be if BPD is an illness that usually manifests itself during ones adolescence or young adulthood.

Does anyone know why this sometimes happens?

[csandra]

In my case, I can look back and see the red flags, but really they just became blips.  I felt that our marriage and family were better than most.  I felt loved and more secure than I EVER did with FOO and I would guess that he did , as well. 

When we first started dating, I was working in a large city Alcohol Detox.  One of my patients, a mother of young children, hung herself in a closet hours after I went off shift.  My grandfather had died of alcoholism during the previous year.  My best friend was drinking heavily AND cheating on her husband.  I had had serious problems with alcohol in the past.

So, I very casually said that I had decided that I had problem with alcohol and chose not to drink.  I didn't say, "and I hope you don't drink, wish you didn't drink, care if you drink".  In his NPD , mirroring glory he said , "me too.  I have also had a problem with alcohol, my mom is an alcoholic and I don't need/want to drink either".  And so it went for 15 years.  We didn't drink, we didn't talk about wanting to drink, we didn't serve alcohol in our home, we gossiped about people who we thought had alcohol issues.  Our kids had never seen anyone drunk/intoxicated except for on tv.

  Five years ago, there were pressures at work for him to drink in order to fit in, progress through the company, entertain clients, etc.  And, he worked in health care no less.  In all the first 15 years, he never indicated that he wanted to drink.  The lies and the hiding were what really broke our relationship.  His drinking didn't get really bad until the end.  He does still have his job and a few new gfs but his home/family and life as he knew it is gone.

I am convinced that the alcohol unleashed the NPD tendencies that were always there, but somehow contained.  I also suspect that the alcohol uncovered possible bipolar as our son was diagnosed within the past few years and my husband was exhibiting new, risky behaviors (spending, drinking while driving, strip clubs, new obsession with music).

[Silas Pseudonym]

Hi

The way some of the posts are written, I have wondered the same thing.

Somewhere I read (an MD), don't diagnose BPD if the person is drinking.  If they stop drinking, they must be clean a year (maybe two).  Alcohol certainly exacerbates the behaviour.

In my N-BPD, he has had 2 sober periods.  One 6 mo, & one 2 years, I like him better drunk.  Until very recently I thought that was the main problem, alcohol.  Now I believe you can't fix a PD until the person is sober.  The estranged never coped with the problem, blamed me for being unable to drink.  Now he drinks, but is super athletic & does yoga.  Physically he is holding up better than his cronies, one dead of liver cancer, & the other (drinking) who survived Hep C.  What he isn't seeing is the effect on his tiny little brain. 

In someone NOT drinking the behaviour may be more subtle, & it IS all a continuum. 

There were times in our marriage when all seemed well.  We had longer peaceful periods when I was doing what he wanted me to do.  Barefoot & pregnant, then later, he was fired & we needed my income, his new job paid about the same, somehow he knew there was nothing to hold over my head.  Indeed I almost left.  He had a way of keeping us broke so I never had cash to go (fear of abandonment).

I talk to his siblings though, & the behavior was there very early on.  He was able to keep the mask up, for nearly two years when we first married.  Now he justifies his rages because he has gotten away with it for so long.  "I'll never change now."

I think, if they truly are BPD, the people close may be minimizing the behavior to survive, for what ever reason, in my case it was the kids.  I did not want him having them alone.  It was only after leaving I saw the true extent & only now see the damage done.

Silas

[thomaso61]

Crazyhorse,

Your story may be slightly similar to mine. I ignored some of the red flags in the beginning. I put up with some minor idiosyncracies, sort of speak. For me, I was placed on the altar for quite awhile. It makes it easier to deal with some of the behaviors. Heck, who doesn't want to be idealized. As time goes on the mundane aspects of life begin creeping in. The day to day chores of life begin getting in the way of what used to be the love roller coaster or honeymoon phase. After a while you start realizing her idiosyncracies can be downright annoying. Pretty soon, the spending gets to be a problem and other things to trigger resentments that grow exponentially. Before you know it, time has passed. It took me just about 2 years to be devalued and taken off the altar. I couldn't put up with her crap anymore.

I'm not really sure about the 10-12 year stuff. That's just baffling to me.

Tom

[JoannaK]

This is such a good question.  I know that many here have mentioned, as csandra did, that their partners were "good" for years... .much longer than the usual "honeymoon" period that Thomas describes.  Normally the BPD person has shown some serious problems within the first year of the relationship, and within 3 years it is really, really troublesome.  The first year or two is kept "good" by the hormones and the adrenaline, the "rush" of new love (which is one of the reasons that so many cheat after that rush wears off). 

My exh was always difficult.  I would never say that his disorder was at bay for all of those years, but clearly, he wasn't as difficult as so many here.  He didn't cheat, he wasn't physically violent, he didn't call me names (much more subtly abusive), and he worked and drank moderately. 

It was a combination of job/life stress and my standing up to him, my being less vulnerable to his bad moods, that sent him into the depths.  He hated his job and took an early retirement payout.  With the money, he invested into a poorly planned, unmanaged business that put us in deep financial chaos.  And I started to ignore his bad moods. 

So I think that life stress might be some of it, also renewed/more substance use/abuse.  And if you aren't really careful withyourself, I would think that negative feelings, depression, just pessimism towards life, will creep back in and ultimately take over.

[TonyC]

 i dont think anybody here was dormant , ill speak for my self but i could say that as long as wthe wonderfuls outweighed the horribles ... .i looked the other way... .so in my relationship ... .if it was dormant ... .thats because i convinced myself of that ... .but as i look back ... the red flags were at half mast... .then they went up to the top at somepoint


tonyc

[thomaso61]

Those are my thoughts exactl Tony. I'm not sure it was dormant either. It was chosen to be ignored for the reason you stated. The good outweighed the bad... .for a while 

[salt]

I've never heard of it lying dormant for year as if the person was emotionally healthy.  I have heard of it getting better or worse in terms of outward behavior depending on life stage,  life milestones (marriage, baby, graduation, etc.), and their relationship status (married, divorced, dating).  But I've never heard of it lying dormant. 

[JoannaK]

Well, some people here have insisted that the marriage was really good or o.k. for years.  I think of csandra and jeffree in particular.  Now, however, as they get more familiar with this disorder, they may start to see things differently.  But csandra did post on this thread and she is quite convinced that her marriage was fine until he started drinking again.  My marriage was reasonably tolerable, but got worse.  I would never say that my exh's BPD behaviors were "dormant", however.

[StressedinCleveland]

Sickly's borderline traits were definitely not apparent through the first 5 years of marriage up until our son was about one. She would not have fulfilled any of the criteria for BPD.

That is not to say that The Sickly Puppetmaster was completely normal. She has always been anxious and high strung and moody to the point of clinical depression. It's common for an Axis II disorder like BPD to coexist with Axis I disorders like major depression, generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. Actually, the panic disorder first appeared after 5 years of marriage.

I think it's more complicated when your partner has a mix of other diagnoses and then is a high-functioning BPD on top of it. She is also exceptionally intelligent, which facilitates concealing her disorders and also serves her manipulative Puppetmaster side.

[JoannaK]

Stressed, she may not have met any of the criteria for BPD, but was she easy to live with?  I'm not sure that my exh would have met many of the criteria either back then, but he was difficult.  Also mine probably met a few of the NPD criteria and a few of the BPD criteria.  I think many "slip through the cracks" because they can have 3-4 of one Cluster B disorder and 3-4 of another Cluster B.

[tigertime]

My situation mirrors csandra's in some ways though I've not had to put up with the extremes that she has.  I would also say that most of the 20ish year relationship was very good and that things were only really bad in the last two years.

My pet theory is that things started to slide after a significant bereavement then hit the rocks 4 months into a bout of depression a couple of years ago.  It was actually me who said to him that I thought he was angry with me (though I didn't know why) - he came back from a session with counsellor who was helping with looking at depressive illness and was very agitated that we weren't soulmates/didn't share dreams etc and was also VERY angry about my mom (who I'd have said he was close to). After a couple of months when I was reeling from this and really scared about what was happening to us (he's never been physically scary), I made the massive mistake of getting too friendly with a male friend (not an affair but my uBPDh describes it as such and has never let me forget about my 'adultery'.  In his view, I 'left' him and 'broke' him and 'lived a lie' because I didn't share with him just how anxious and confused I was.

Red flags were there all along e.g. splitting up with me (before marriage) when under pressure with exams then coming back next day/reading my diary because he didn't know what was going on in my head/frequently saying I should have married x,y or z etc but I think these two events (death and my friendship) just pushed him over the edge and pushed us into OZ bigtime.

I was someone who did not share feelings easily but am very easy-going - I was very good at doing all the practical stuff, coping with job and house changes etc but always felt that I couldn't match what he needed emotionally.  I felt SO guilty about what I'd done to him I did just about everything he asked for the 18 months following that counselling session (even when he'd left and very quickly started new relationship).  It wasn't until he left second time that I was given copy of SWOE and though he's undiagnosed and would have a fit if he knew I thought he was BPD, so much seems to fit and explain the madness of recent years (and the red flags from the past).

I also realise how much I colluded with him - if I had been less easy-going would this have surfaced earlier? I have always tried to avoid conflict so would try hard to appease.  

[Starry]

My ex and I were together for more than 15 years. The first 7 years we've been without kids. So the two of us. Many possibilities to escape. I went out for shopping, to see friends, doing things on my own. Both had a job. I remember we had great holidays.

When the kids were born, I was already under enormous stress because I alway did things "right". I think I adapted to the unwritten rules to keep the relationship in track until than. My ex was always dominant and a perfectionist, but I could cope with that. After the kids were born, I couldn't be the perfect person anylonger. I started to work even harder and became exhausted.

My ex hated his job and wanted to quit (this was already his deepest wish when we met) and tried to convince me about the advantage of him being home. This scared me. Him being home all day, taking care of the kids. He became more rigid and inflexible. What kind of future we would have?

So I think he was always kind of BPD, but it came out under stress and pressure. When he wasn't able to control us anymore, he wanted to cling to the old situation. When my children got older, they sometimes were rebellious and he hated that. They had to listen and do as he say. Not do as I do, but do as I say.

I think "not being able to control the people around you" is the biggest trigger to a BPD. So that's why it can take years before it will arise. In my case I had therapy the last months and if not for that I still would not have known that was not OK. I also believe that there comes a time the partner will become more conscious and will see things she/he hasn't seen before.

I still thank the Lord I managed to get out every day ... .It was soo hard to live in that crazy situation with my littles ones. I didn't know right from wrong. Totally brain washed and messed up.

Starry

[StressedinCleveland]

Stressed, she may not have met any of the criteria for BPD, but was she easy to live with?  I'm not sure that my exh would have met many of the criteria either back then, but he was difficult. 

No, I was quite happy with her for the first 5-6 years. I wouldn't have wanted a child if I had doubts about the relationship.

Also mine probably met a few of the NPD criteria and a few of the BPD criteria.  I think many "slip through the cracks" because they can have 3-4 of one Cluster B disorder and 3-4 of another Cluster B.

Sickly is pure Borderline for the personality disorder (Axis II) part of it. She just has lots of other psych disorders (Axis I).

I should mention that the symptoms arose after we moved to Cleveland from New York City when our son was a baby. She did very well and was happy in NYC, even while complaining about stress. She did go to the Emergency Room a number of times for "asthma attacks" which in retrospect were probably panic attacks. The diagnosis of panic attack was never made in NYC, it was only made after we moved.

[a_close_call]

This is very interesting.

I had always wondered about the role drinking and drugs may have played in what my uBPDNPDxgf did to me. I know that in between her separation and meeting me she started partying again after only drinking very occasionally during most of her 7 year marriage, primarily when she was raising her kids. I had wondered how she could have kept the marriage together that long based on what I experienced.

While we only got to know each other recently, we do have mutual friends going back to her college days and while I decided it wasn't very useful to find out more details, I know for sure she partied a lot and heard that there were lots of "burned bridges" and turbulent relationships back then. I have pretty much concluded that the combination of the structure of her marriage and the decreased partying helped her hold it together for much of her marriage. Dormant may not be the right word but it makes a lot of sense that ir would be not noticeable for long periods of time. Yet another thing that makes this disorder so elusive!

[MondayMonday]

I'd been in a gay relationship for 19 years. We met when I was 23 and he was 19. It ended last January when he came back from overseas visiting his homeland and delivered the most cruel verbal and emotional abuse to me imaginable. He went from arrogant to strange in a matter of minutes making personal jabs with surgical precision over four days. He would leave and come back the next day unannounced. Then he left for someone else he had set up back home (I found this out and personal ads he had been placing later.) What's weird is in the personal ads he was looking for someone like me: centered, caring, loved travel, etc... .He moved everything he owned out (and some of mine) with him.

It's a long story. He hasn't been officially diagnosed, but after reading the stack of books talking to a few therapist friends, and reading posts here I have no doubt in my mind that he is a high functioning BP. I'm hoping to post  it later tonight if possible. I'm trying to summarize the last two months before the break-up. A lot of weird stuff.

Suffice it to say that the first - 16 or so years were pretty good. No alcohol problems or physical violence, or acting in. However he had to be right all the time and became an instant authority on everything. Because we were also business partners, and I knew more about the business, teaching him anything new was difficult . He could be pretty irrational, insisting on doing it his way whether it was correct or not. We would end up in these circular arguments (derailing?) where I would wonder: 1) if he ever understood me, and 2) "How the hell did we end up on a completely different topic?".

The last two years things began to change. In 2004 we hired a private detective to find his birth parents. We found his birth mother and went to the country she was currently living in. The next year 2005  I sent him there by himself. When he came back my friends and I noticed he was a little different. He seemed more withdrawn more than usual. He would remain on the periphery of conversations and would interject with topics totally unrelated or do things to try to get attention.

In 2006 he went back home to see his birth mother again. He said that she said mean things to him. I think he tried to pressure her to reveal the location of his birth father. After that everything went downhill. Between 2005 and 2006 he also became increasingly critical of me to my friends and began to sabatoge our business through neglect and silent rage.

He went back to his home country at the end of October, told his adopted family and my friends that he was leaving me. He didn't tell me he was leaving me until he came back in January.

I have at least 8 picture albums and two boxes of pictures from our travels. His niece is our god child. Our moms thought of us a sons and we spent 90 percent of our time together in work and play.

 

[Silas Pseudonym]

Hi MM,

Welcome to bpdfamily.  Sorry to hear about the disintegration of your relationship.  You have come to a place, you will find how seemingly universal some of these behaviors can be.

All of us, nons & PDs alike, will experience periods our behaviour is less than exemplary.  One of those times will be the time around the end of a long term relationship.  We all, also have personality traits which will include some of the markers of a full fledged PD.  It is not a PD unless it is long term, pervasive, started in adolescence or early adulthood... .(y'all help me fill in this bit, will ya).

This thread, should make those who think there SO was "normal" until some point later in the relationship, had signs all along, but the Non chose not to confront recognize, or otherwise exacerbate the behavior.  Drugs & alcohol will cause dramatic changes in anyone, so we question where the line is, what is mental illness, which of us has it.  By definition, a PD has been there all along, if as a Non we did not acknowledge it, it goes to our own dysfunction. 

I am first to admit, I am screwed up for life by dealing with my nut for so long, so please don't think I am running you off or anything.  Just saying, I suppose, look at yourself too, for what you tolerated all along.  Most of us do for whatever reason, usually we call it love.  Is it?

Silas 

[MondayMonday]

Perhaps I should elaborate. Not all of the symptoms began the last two years of our relationship. These symptoms were present in one form or another from the beginning.

From DSM-IV:

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment:

    This was a major theme. Constantly "Where are you going?". From the living room to the kitchen.

2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes

    of idealization and devaluation:

    He would love then hate the same neighbors and friends from one day to the next. He asked my best friend

    if she believed in Jesus. She gave an ambiguous response and he told her to leave. I found this last one out

    recently.

3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self; or sense of long-term

    goals; or career choices, types of friends desired or values preferred:

    I could always tell who he was with last from his behavior and contradictory beliefs.

4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging: for example; spending, sex, substance

    abuse, and binge eating:

    For privacy reasons I wont say which - but definitely in two of those areas. Not frequently, but it would

    be off the charts when it happened.

5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior:

    Non of the above.

6. Affective instability: marked shifts from baseline mood to depression, irritability, or anxiety, usually lasting

   a few hours and only rarely more than a few days:

   He could go from feeling happy dancing around. To silent rage. I would ask "Are you OK? How are you feeling? 

   What happened?" No response. I would spend and evening trying to guess what I did wrong.

7. Chronic feelings of emptiness:

   I can only say that it seemed that way to me. I never asked him if he felt empty and he never said it.

8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger; frequent displays of temper:

    Yes. Especially if I tried to teach him something or if he was embarassed by being wrong. He once threatened

    to destroy my studio equipment.

9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

    This used to get me. He could interject totally unrelated comments into a conversation with great emphasis.

    Some might say "It's good that Portland has great evironmental laws." He might say "The Queen has the     

    ultimate authority in England!". Ask him later if he believed it and he wouldn't remember. 

There are plenty of other traits not mentioned. It's a little painful to think about it all right now. It's important to  know that most of our friends thought the behavior was eccentric and they weren't exposed as often as I was, so it was thought of as cute. And we started out young. I had no reference point. No idea about emotional abuse or PD's. We had so much fun interspersed. I guess they were never disruptive enough until the end.

I broke NC last night. He had called my best friend and said that he felt that he was sinking into a dark hole. So I called him. He said that he is aware that something is wrong with him. I went over BP traits with him and he agreed.

   

[Silas Pseudonym]

Hi MM

Sorry I did not intend to imply he was not, just the theme of the thread.  It is a big thing to have a potential BPD admit he is ill.  Time will tell if he does anything about it.

I intended to add a PS... .then was knocked off line.

I too am splitting (oops, breaking up) with someone I own a business with.  Double hell that.

Hope you are well.

Silas

[pizaluvr]

I think it is all about triggers.  They are triggered by things that cause the BPD behavior to come to the surface.  I think the BPD develops at an early age.  It is probably not very noticable until something triggers it. 

I'm thinking all BPD's must have an underlying depression due to issues that were never addressed.

Damn this illness.

pizaluvr

[MondayMonday]

Silas,

Sorry I did not intend to imply he was not, just the theme of the thread.

No apology necessary. I am sorry to hear about your break-up as well.

I believe that while in the relationship without knowledge of BPD my perception became skewd a little. The OZ effect takes over. When I began reading this board and books, a lightbulb went off.

They are triggered by things that cause the BPD behavior to come to the surface.

I think that because we spent 90 percent of our time together a serious abandonment issue never surfaced. It was when I sent him home (out of the country) alone for a month to reconnect with his birth mother who said some "awful things" to him that things really went extreme. He said he felt so alone and was angry that I had not come with him. I had no idea he would interpret things that way. In my mind I was allowing him to spend quality time with his parents. He thought I had abandoned him and apparently came back to the states to seek revenge.

The person that came back was a monster. He claimed that he was now in love with a women living across town. (He's gay.)  : He thought she might be pregnant so he had to leave right away. (Impossible. He had only been in town for 9 days.)  ? There was more, but it's another topic.

I think the BPD develops at an early age.

His adopted mother told me that when she brought him home she could not passify him. He would cry all day no matter what she did for him. It's sad really.

[BrokenButterfly]

i am not trying to blame other people's actions for my husband's behaviours in what i'm about to write, but i think the people who my husband associates with greatly contributes to his BPD symptoms.

for the entire time i've known him, even before we were together, it's quite obvious he had BPD, even as a teenager - i would hazard a guess even that his symptoms began after losing his dad when he was ten years old.

for hubby, it seems that his symptoms are directly related to his stress levels too.

until he was 18, he had a very easy life. he was selfish, erratic, used drugs, did reckless things, but his mum picked up the pieces for him and so he was mostly ok emotionally.

when she died he fell to pieces.  his life became about his girlfriends and his friends.  when he was with girlfriends who were no good, and hung out with friends who were no good, his life became an erratic mess with his BPD symptoms out of control.  when he was with a good woman, or at least chasing one, and hang out with good friends, he conformed to them, and his BPD symptoms faded (not totally, but definitely a lot).

throughout our relationship, how things went - every time he got stressed, his symptoms would flare up - whether it be because he was working in a bad job (he changed jobs so many times, his current one is the first to last where he hasn't been fired), or because he was hanging around with loser friends putting pressure on him - the worst his symptoms were was when i fell pregnant and even though he claimed he wanted a baby he couldn't handle the stress, and 9 months when i had an operation and i couldn't be his servant like i had been for the last 9 years, and he couldn't deal with the "stress" of actually having to do a miscroscopic amount of housework.

with my husband, his symptoms and how long a relationship works for him, really is based on his partner.   quite simply - he keeps the majority of his symptoms under control for the first 3-12 months, after that, his relationship lasts based on how long his partner is willing to tolerate his behaviour.  and i'm the only who has been gullible to put up with him for more than 12 months - its a miracle we lasted 9 years.

for hubby, his behaviour never lies dormant for more than a few months, i just loved him enough to ignore it for 9 years.

[geroldmodel]

Looking at my relationship afterwards, I cannot say the BPD was dormant !

It has always been there, but it was easy to overlook/ignore.

We were both in our younger twenties and we were both going to college.

So we spend most of our time together... .the abandonment issues only popped-up at exams.

The BPD behaviour resembled a lot like normal "quasi-hysterical" behaviour of females in their early 20ts.

I have noticed the red-flags early on, BUT I CHOOSE TO IGNORE THEM.

The sht started really hitting the fan when we started to live together and we both took jobs with responsabilities.

[bewildered2]

It may depend on how good they are at hiding it, and on their stress levels. Remember that they work very very hard at keeping it under wraps, but it's always there. Check out a site for Borderlines. They know they're not right.

Sooner or later though they'll stop hiding it, and then it ain't dormant!

B2

[pizaluvr]

B2,

I think I would be terrified to go on a borderline site.

Have you done that?

pizaluvr

[bewildered2]

hey pizaluvr,

in the sad state i was in last summer when i wanted to try and understand my psycho-chick's behaviour i found a site for borderlines (don't ask me which one because i don't remember and i have no way of finding out because i was using a relative's computer and would be too embarrassed to ask them to dig it up for me). wow, what a difference between it and bpdfamily.

the borderline site was all about their pain, how they felt abnormal, nobody understood them, how they'll never feel good, how awful their lives are, how depressed they are, etc. short one liners. bad writing. just depressing. oh, and another thing, i don't remember any of the borderlines agonizing over broken relationships or trying to understand how a sibling/parent/lover feels about the relationship with the borderline.

it was all about them. there was next to nothing about significant others and relationships.

it led me to conclude that their pain is so overwhelming, and their needs so self-centered, that relationships were way down the list of priorities to the point that they hardly figured at all.

and back at bpdfamily all i read about was nons who were devastated by the chaos in their lives caused by a borderline relationship.     

the contrast was graphic and very revealing.

maybe it was just my take on it way back when, and perhaps i didn't get a real good glimpse because i was caught up in my own hell at the time, but i remember being very surprised. my super tough ex-bpgf seemed (at the time) to be so different from the sad defeated borderlines on the site. now i am a long way out of oz and can see her behaviour in a different light i realize the tough chick persona was just an act to cover up the mess she really was inside.

b2 

[pizaluvr]

B2,

Thanks for the reply.  I was in a sad state last summer also.  My relationship ended in December of 2005; you?

It makes sense about the borderlines not talking about relationships, they f'd them up so why would they talk about it? 

Warped!

pizaluvr

[thomaso61]

my super tough ex-bpgf seemed (at the time) to be so different from the sad defeated borderlines on the site. now i am a long way out of oz and can see her behaviour in a different light i realize the tough chick persona was just an act to cover up the mess she really was inside.

Mine as tough too. what's up with that?

[geroldmodel]

Mine as tough too. what's up with that?

Well I guess that's the difference between "Acting in" and "Acting out".

Mine was a superthough cookie too, most of the time.

She broke down a couple of times, though.

[bewildered2]

piza- mine ended (for the last time ) in june 06.

thomas and gerold- the "tough chick" persona is well explained in "get me out of here", by rachel reiland. basically it is just an act. a big, supposedly protective shell to show the world that they don't care about anyone or anything. read her book. even her kids don't register with her while she is in her hell.

they don't have any spare capacity to really love and care for others because they're too preoccupied with their own misery. and the misery goes on and on... .

b2