Thoughts on ex gf

[Downtown]

How did you summon the strength to let go of your ex wife?

I didn't let go, Augustus. Rather, I was forced out of my home in handcuffs. An online therapist, who claimed to have treated many BPD couples, said that BPD relationships typically last either 18 months or 15 years. They last 18 months, he explained, when the "Non" (non-BPDer) has strong personal boundaries. The Non enjoys the 6 month honeymoon period of mirroring and then is willing to spend up to a year trying to reestablish the wonderful honeymoon conditions. Then he bails.

 

The relationship lasts 15 years, he explained, when the Non is an excessive caregiver and thus has low personal boundaries. Such a Non typically never bails. Instead, the BPDer leaves him because, as the years go by, she becomes increasingly resentful of his inability to make her happy or fix her. Also, she may become increasingly fearful of abandonment as she sees her body aging.

 

This explanation struck a strong chord with me because my relationship lasted 15 years, at which time my wife had me arrested on a trumped up charge and filed a restraining order barring me from my own home for a year and a half (when the divorce was finalized). What happened was that, as the years went by, I had started establishing stronger personal boundaries and doing far less "walking on eggshells."

 

That improvement in my behavior greatly increased my exW's fear of abandonment because she mistakenly believed that I was planning to leave her. At the same time, she became increasingly resentful of my inability to make her happy, an impossible task.

 

Excessive caregivers like me typically are loath to walk away from a sick loved one. We therefore hold on for years until we eventually are the ones who are left behind. Our problem is not that we want to help other people but, rather, that we keep doing so even when it is to our great detriment. Sadly, our desire to be needed (for what we can do) far exceeds our desire to be loved (for the men we already are).

I got this thought in my head about explaining to her in detail and letting her know that i know exactly who she is. EXACTLY.

Good luck with that, Augustus. The conventional wisdom at all the BPD websites is that you should encourage a BPDer to see a psychologist and let him decide what to tell her. But even he is unlikely to tell her. Psychologists and other therapists generally are loath to tell a high functioning BPDer the name of her disorder (for her own protection).

 

If you decide to tell her about BPD traits she almost certainly will project the accusation back onto you. Because the projection is created entirely in her subconscious mind (which is protecting her fragile ego from seeing too much of reality), she will be absolutely convinced -- at a conscious level -- that YOU are the BPDer.

 

There are rare exceptions to this outcome. A small portion of BPDers -- probably less than 5% -- have sufficient self awareness to know that they have many serious issues and to welcome information about those issues. Typically, those self aware BPDers are low functioning people who are in great pain.

 

I must concede, however, that this is a case of "do what I say" -- not "do what I did." What I actually did was to slip a BPD book into a box of my exW's belongings that she was picking up. Because I still loved her, I wanted to make sure no stone had been left unturned. Of course, when she found the book, she decided that I was the BPDer -- never mind that she was the one who had been sexually molested for years by her own father.

[Augustus64]

Wow downtown Im really sorry you had to go through that. i hope your in a great place now you seem like such a great guy. Im like you, the excessive giver. who didn't establish his personal boundaries early and she used this to do and say some terrible things to me. I would stupidly always rationalize these instances of insanity completely wrong and still get back with her. Certainly we would have been together for that 15 year run and with kids involved for sure it would have been hell and heaven but i just want heaven now. i really do. You opened up my eyes about loathing walking away, that was me. Every time i did when we would reconcile she would thank me. Saying the only way she could have gotten better if her anchor wasn't there to keep her still. You struck a chord with me when you explained the desire to be needed trumping the desire to be loved for the men we already are. Thats what has to change. I'll help someone sure, id give the shirt off my back if a stranger needed i,t but not if its below zero outside. You've helped me tremendously man i wish i could pay you or something. if anything comes to mind or develops i hope i can run it by you in the future. thanks again

[Downtown]

Augustus, I'm glad to hear you found the BPD information useful. As to repaying me, nobody knows better than you the sheer joy of being needed and useful. So I've already been payed many times over. Similarly, you are now in a position to pass this information -- warning signs, actually -- on to others in need. Like me, you can point them to a few of the hundreds of mental health websites that are educating the lay public about BPD symptoms.

 

Indeed, even the American Congress -- yes, the one that can't agree on anything -- unanimously declared (in 2008) the month of May to be Borderline Personality Disorder Awareness Month "...as a means of educating our nation about this disorder, the needs of those suffering from it, and its consequences." So take care, Caregiver. Your first objective, of course, is to start taking better care of yourself.

[loversquarrel]

Great thread Augustus and great info Downtown!! I too did much research on BPD, it helped me a great deal to understand my Ex and what she did to me. My ex suffers from BPD, Anxiety and depression, as well as PTSD. I can't figure out about her cancer story though?? To me it was a great deal of manipulation....I have read BPDers are excellent manipulators, but I see your research indicates otherwise?? Can you please elaborate? Any and all info I can get on this subject helps, thank you.

[Downtown]

I have read BPDers are excellent manipulators, but I see your research indicates otherwise?? Can you please elaborate?

LS, my experience is that, because BPDers are so fearful of abandonment and engulfment, they tend to be very controlling -- to keep you from leaving and from being intimate for too long. Yet, because they generally lack control of impulses and emotions, BPDers are very reactive to whatever is going on in the room at the moment. This is not a good trait to have if a person wants to be good at manipulation because success requires careful planning and flawless execution. BPDers usually are not like that with interpersonal relationships. Instead, they are controlling in a very opportunistic way.

 

My BPDer exW, for example, was sufficiently controlling to have me thrown into jail for three days, giving her plenty of time to obtain a restraining order barring me from returning to my home for 18 months (the time it takes to get a divorce here). This was not something she planned and schemed, however. Rather, she simply saw a great opportunity to get rid of me during one of our many fights.

 

To prevent her from destroying the door to my bedroom, I had pushed her away from the door. When she stepped backward, she tripped and fell down -- at a time when her sister and our granddaughter both were there to witness the event. Calling the police, was a no-brainer for her. It required no planning or "manipulation" whatsoever. Her controlling behavior, then, was simply opportunistic and reactive to an opportunity that had dropped into her lap.

 

I caution, however, that about 3/4 of those adults having full-blown BPD are not simply "BPDers" but, rather, are "BPDers/narcissists," "BPDers/sociopaths," "BPDers/narcissists/sociopaths," or some other combination of PDs. That is, about 75% of BPDers also have one or two other lifetime PDs as well. For example, almost 40% of them also have NPD (Narcissism) and about 15% also have ASPD (Sociopathy). All of these figures are the results of a 2008 study shown in Table 3 at Prevalence, Correlates, Disability, and Comorbidity of DSM-IV Borderline Personality Disorder: Results from the Wave 2 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.

 

I mention these two co-occurring PDs because narcissists and sociopaths tend to be extremely controlling in a very manipulative way. It therefore stands to reason that many "BPDers" will be observed to be extremely manipulating. Well, yes, and many will observed to have blond hair and speak French too. None of these characteristics, however, have anything to do with the BPD traits themselves.

 

IMO, this comorbidity of BPD with other PDs is why you will find so much misguided information online that confuses BPDers with full-blown narcissists and sociopaths. Shari Schreiber's online blogs, for example, mistakenly describe BPDers largely as sociopaths who plot and scheme so they can spin an enticing web to ensnare their prey. Finally, I will concede that, in trying to be controlling, most BPDers will sometimes try to be manipulating. Yet, for the reasons given above, I believe most of them are just not any good at it.

[loversquarrel]

Downtown, thank you for further explaining your research, it helped me a great deal to clarify her form of manipulation with me. I see now how her cancer story conflicted with her BPD disorder. It drew me closer to her which took care of the issue of abandonment, yet her constant breakdowns confirmed her fear of being found out which resulted in a fear of losing me (abandonment if you will). I would definitely characterize her as also having narcissistic characteristics, so it all makes sense. Thank you again for the explanation, it helped tremendously.

[Downtown]

I see now how her cancer story conflicted with her BPD disorder. It drew me closer to her which took care of the issue of abandonment, yet her constant breakdowns confirmed her fear of being found out which resulted in a fear of losing me (abandonment if you will).

LS, if I understand you correctly, I would rather not say that her cancer story conflicted with her strong BPD traits. Instead, I would say the cancer story was an ineffective way to reduce her abandonment fear. I say it was "ineffective" because, although it may have reduced her abandonment fear by bringing you closer, at the same time it increased that same fear by making her fearful of being found out. The cancer story therefore likely produced only a small net reduction in her abandonment fear. Hardly worth all the trouble.

 

Where the cancer story would have created a "conflict" -- as you say -- would be its conflicting effects on the BPDer's two great fears: abandonment and engulfment. As you said, the effect on her abandonment fear likely was a temporary reduction, which occurred because the story made you move closer to her and become more intimate. The result of this added intimacy, however, would have been an increase in her engulfment fear, because a BPDer cannot tolerate intimacy for very long without feeling suffocated -- and feeling that she is losing herself in your strong personality. Hence, she loses when you are too far away and also loses when you are too close.

 

Sadly, a BPDer is always in this lose-lose situation because her two fears lie at opposite ends of the VERY SAME spectrum. This means that, as she moves away from one fear (e.g., using the cancer story to move away from abandonment) she necessarily is drawing closer to triggering the other fear (engulfment).

 

For the very same reason, LS, you also were always in a lose-lose situation in this toxic relationship. No matter what action you took, you could not move away from both of her fears at the same time. There was no "midpoints solution" where you could have safely stood without triggering one of her two fears. That Goldilocks position -- not too far and not too close -- simply does not exist. I know because I foolishly spent 15 years searching for it.

[Augustus64]

Downtown, with the case of my ex gf and not just her persistent and intense BPD traits but the damage to her emotional core as shes unstable there as well and the fact that she takes a medication used to treat schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder (geodon) is it possible for her to ever be a stable human being at any point in life? or is it just hopeless and they are "damaged goods" as some websites put it.

[Haydn]

Dont reach friend. I did. for an extra year and nothing changed, sure there were some good times but very very outweighed by the the bad. She is ill and nothing you do to help will bring her back. I know. i know. So tough. Take care friend. With you.

[legion113]

My ex wife had bpd, yeah it was a really bad relationship, to the point where I did believe I was the crazy one, and it was all my fault. It was only after being away from her for awhile that I realized she was the one with the problem. The feelings of being crzy went away with her. The chance of a bpder being "healed" is like only 5% according to therapists, and that's only if she even acknowledges her problem. Most therapists hate dealing with them, it's easy to get sucked into their storm. Let her go man, it took me four years but man, I'm so much better without her in my life.

[Downtown]

Is it possible for her to ever be a stable human being at any point in life? or is it just hopeless?

Augustus, if your exGF has strong BPD traits, it is possible for her to learn how to greatly reduce the severity of her mood changes. There are excellent therapy programs available throughout the USA and Europe that, over a period of several years, can teach BPDers the specific skills they need to better manage their emotions. But, sadly, it is rare for a BPDer to have the self awareness and ego strength required to be willing to stay in those therapy programs long enough to make a real difference. I therefore agree with Haydn that you would be wise to move on. Importantly, you are not leaving her because she is sick but, rather, because she is unwilling to do anything to fix it.

Are they "damaged goods" as some websites put it?

No. No human being should be regarded as "damaged goods." It is the equivalent of calling someone a "piece of meat." The irony is that, at the BPD websites devoted to abused "Non" partners, you will find many of those Nons to be so angry and hurt that they exhibit a level of black-white thinking that rivals that of the BPDers they are so critical of.

[Augustus64]

Thanks Guys! i don't really want that back i was just wondering if this behavior at some point in time could be curable and she could have a decent quality of life maybe Im too compassionate i guess, anyway she has a boyfriend now and that dude has no idea what he's in for. God Bless. merry xmas everyone