Borderline Personality Disorder and Breaking Up

[J_L_C]

This is a question for individuals with 'Borderline Personality Disorder'. I'm curious to know how you've dealt with or handled breakups in the past. Have you felt as though your coping methods have been more difficult than for the average person because of your BPD?

[Toddbt12y1]

I believe me ex had bpd. If so, she reacted with zero emotion. Not long after headed up to live in ontario...

 

So canada has a devil living up there, haha.

 

I always figured one with bpd wold either cut in bad pain or be emotionless. But idk.

[Feelin Frisky]

My ex fiance had (and I'm sure still has) BPD. The one universal trait shared by BPD sufferers is unwillingness to accept that they are at fault for anything. So it is not likely you'll get many responses from people admitting they have it. The way it manifest in my ex was that she had deep dark trust issues and a lack of impulse control when it can to voicing her baseless insecurities. This would feel like a betrayal of trust to me which would break my heart and anger me intensely. I did not know about BPD when we were together or I would have accepted that it couldn't work out sooner. Instead I feel into the trap over and over of trying to argue with logic how unfair and irrational she was. And her reaction was always to deny and feign innocence so much so that she tried to escape into borderline sub-personalities. Her split personalities weren't as outward as you see in Hollywood films, they were subtle changes in identity than made me recoil and think "who ARE you?"

 

I really couldn't answer that question. And if you can't, there isn't one person their to love and respect. It is just a collection of complex fragments which were formed early in childhood. There is no reason or rationale one can use to find the true personality you can believe in. Things would trigger shifts. Sometimes she would even turn masculine and I despised that. Other times she would dress and act like a juvenile--an eighth grader maybe or less. Except for sex which she was great at and looks when she appeared a grown-up woman she seemed incapable of thinking about giving me what I wanted and all her attempts to "make nice" were her giving me what she wanted and expecting me to be absolutely joyful and nothing less. We eventually had violence and I not only broke up with her, I moved away so she couldn't find me.

[J_L_C]

My ex fiance had (and I'm sure still has) BPD. The one universal trait shared by BPD sufferers is unwillingness to accept that they are at fault for anything. So it is not likely you'll get many responses from people admitting they have it. The way it manifest in my ex was that she had deep dark trust issues and a lack of impulse control when it can to voicing her baseless insecurities. This would feel like a betrayal of trust to me which would break my heart and anger me intensely. I did not know about BPD when we were together or I would have accepted that it couldn't work out sooner. Instead I feel into the trap over and over of trying to argue with logic how unfair and irrational she was. And her reaction was always to deny and feign innocence so much so that she tried to escape into borderline sub-personalities. Her split personalities weren't as outward as you see in Hollywood films, they were subtle changes in identity than made me recoil and think "who ARE you?"

 

I really couldn't answer that question. And if you can't, there isn't one person their to love and respect. It is just a collection of complex fragments which were formed early in childhood. There is no reason or rationale one can use to find the true personality you can believe in. Things would trigger shifts. Sometimes she would even turn masculine and I despised that. Other times she would dress and act like a juvenile--an eighth grader maybe or less. Except for sex which she was great at and looks when she appeared a grown-up woman she seemed incapable of thinking about giving me what I wanted and all her attempts to "make nice" were her giving me what she wanted and expecting me to be absolutely joyful and nothing less. We eventually had violence and I not only broke up with her, I moved away so she couldn't find me.

 

I think you may be mixing up BPD with some of the other personality disorders. BPD is commonly misunderstood. Borderline personality disorder has absolutely nothing to do with multiple personalities. The key features include: Abandonment issues, Anger & Explosiveness, Self-Harm (Cutting, etc), Alcohol and Substance Abuse issues, Sensation seeking (impulsivity), Roller coaster emotions, Up-and-down relationships.

 

With myself for example, I have huge abandonment issues. When I get dumped, or lose another relationship whether it be friendship or otherwise, I get extremely worried, wonder what I did wrong to an incessant degree and therefore have HUGE issues trusting other people. Clinginess and neediness are also problems.

 

I ask this question above because I wonder if there are other people with BPD who have found their breakups to be a HUGE problem based on the additional issues that are posed as a BPD sufferer...

[tbf]

Borderliners experience splitting which is a form of black and white thinking. People become angels or demons.

[J_L_C]

Yes this is true, but they do no experience the splitting of 'themselves' into different personalities. A person with BPD does experience black and white thinking. There is no gray. For example: A person with BPD who experiences a breakup. He/She may think things such as "Omg, no one will ever love me again", "I am doomed and hopeless in love so I shouldn't even bother", etc. The gray area in which people with BPD are deficient, don't grasp the understanding of "perhaps this person just wasn't the right match, but I know he/she is out there" or "even though this person doesn't love me, I love myself and I know the eventually someone else will too".

[Eternal Sunshine]

Yes this is true, but they do no experience the splitting of 'themselves' into different personalities. A person with BPD does experience black and white thinking. There is no gray. For example: A person with BPD who experiences a breakup. He/She may think things such as "Omg, no one will ever love me again", "I am doomed and hopeless in love so I shouldn't even bother", etc. The gray area in which people with BPD are deficient, don't grasp the understanding of "perhaps this person just wasn't the right match, but I know he/she is out there" or "even though this person doesn't love me, I love myself and I know the eventually someone else will too".

 

I suspect that I have a mild form of BPD (never diagnosed though).

 

I handled my break up by seeing my ex as the most evil person that ever lived and thus I have no emotional attachment to him. It actually helped as I never felt heart broken or tempted to try to get him back. Whenever I thought of him, I felt this sense of contempt and repulsion :sick:

 

This was constant and I still feel this way now. I wouldn't touch him with a 10 foot pole. It's unthinkable how I ever cuddled or had sex with him. I remember nothing good about the relationship. The whole thing is painted black and I am beyond grateful that it's over.

[Emilia]

I think you may be mixing up BPD with some of the other personality disorders. BPD is commonly misunderstood. Borderline personality disorder has absolutely nothing to do with multiple personalities. The key features include: Abandonment issues, Anger & Explosiveness, Self-Harm (Cutting, etc), Alcohol and Substance Abuse issues, Sensation seeking (impulsivity), Roller coaster emotions, Up-and-down relationships.

 

With myself for example, I have huge abandonment issues. When I get dumped, or lose another relationship whether it be friendship or otherwise, I get extremely worried, wonder what I did wrong to an incessant degree and therefore have HUGE issues trusting other people. Clinginess and neediness are also problems.

 

I ask this question above because I wonder if there are other people with BPD who have found their breakups to be a HUGE problem based on the additional issues that are posed as a BPD sufferer...

 

If I may. One of my exes has BPD, I had a conversation with him last Sunday, haven't seen him for 2 years

 

I can't vouch for what FF meant exactly by different personalities but in my experience his description tallies with mine. My ex would be the fun, loving and slightly needy (abandonment fears) person one moment only to completely flip over something I must have said and become this mean person with cutting and inappropriate remarks the next. Very often in the same text!

 

It's not splitting of different personalities, it's being fragments of different ones. Not having a true identity and working hard to conceal real feelings if you are the kind of BPD like my ex who would rather implode than explode. ie he tried to conceal his anxiety over his abandonment issues and he truly desired a loving relationship (still does) but due to his inability to regulate his emotions he would try to suppress them in the belief that it is that kind of personality he should possess - of course that would only work for so long.

 

I compare it to going out with 2 people simultaneously, the second one is a little bit like the demon in the Exorcist. He has slightly more subtle fragments too but the loving/caring vs vicious ones were the strongest.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Emilia