Frank Discussion of BPD: *WARNING* May be confronting

[Former-Member]

yes @Former-Member  I am...  I slept in today so I'm up  plus Im on the west coast 🙂

[Former-Member]

I can’t sleep.  I want to clarify something I wrote earlier in this thread.  I said that my ex was very manipulative and he used threats of suicide as part of his manipulative arsenal. I don’t want anybody to think I am saying this without evidence or lightly. So please read my story and if, after that you think it wasn’t being used in that way, then that is up to you. This is only a couple of examples of probably 50 or more that show how he operated.

It was reasonably early on, months after we had met.  I was talking about some of my friends to him.  This seemed to irritate him in a way I had not seen and within minutes he was irate and raving about these people he had never met.  I mean really ranting like something had become unhinged.  I was dumbstruck.  I was like “calm down, there is no need to be talking like that”, and things to that effect.  Really taken aback by what was happening. Anyhow he wouldn’t stop. He continued and his abuse towards these people, who I had been describing that were my friends, went way beyond over the top. I let him go on for a while, hoping he would calm down but he didn’t so I had to leave. This was ranting abuse on a level I had never experienced, especially not sparked by anything but the mention of some of my friends.

I was shaken as I drove home and I resolved that I could not see him again. The unbridled expletives, racist slurs and bigotry were just way beyond my idea of acceptable, under any circumstances let alone the ones that had apparently triggered them.

So the next day I rang and told him I was sorry, but we were too different and I could not see him anymore.

Later that day messages began to arrive.  Messages along the lines of “I can’t live without you”  “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have done what I have done”  “Tell my mother I’m sorry” “I probably took too many but well it’s done now”  on and on like that.  When I received them my heart flew into my mouth, I began shaking. I thought this meant he was about to, or in the process of, suicide.  I didn’t know what to do.  I didn’t want to think I did nothing and then find out he was dead.  I would have great difficulty living with that, I knew that much.  So I rang him.

He answered the phone, his words were slurred and he certainly sounded like he had taken too many pills.  I was mortified. I had never had to deal first hand with anything like this before and all the theory flew out the window with the confrontation of the reality. For 7 hours I talked to him.  I was crying, pleading with him, assuring him I would not leave him.  It was7 hours of hell. I didn’t want him to sleep because I didn’t want him to pass away in his sleep.

By the end of the 7 hours he had finally turned the corner and was fairly lucid again.  I was drained, I was shaking. My eyes were puffy and I was a complete mess. Once I was sure he was safe, I promised him again I would not cut contact with him and the phone call ended.  I was a mess. For days afterwards I was completely psychologically and emotionally wiped.  He on the other hand, never mentioned it again, as if it just hadn’t happened.   When I tried to talk to him about it he brushed it off and said something akin to “yeah I shouldn’t have done that” and that was it.  I was gobsmacked and I thought this very strange and it stuck in my mind for a long time.  Of course what he did will never leave me, but I mean his reaction afterwards and how he had allegedly been on the verge of suicide yet lalallalala the next day, and I was the one left shattered and an emotional wreck.

To cut a long story short.  A year or so later I had the opportunity to ask his mother about that day. It was supposed to have been a day he was staying in the house behind hers.  He had told me he was alone which is another reason I had been so concerned for him.  Well as it turns out he was not alone, he was not taking any pills, he did not take any pills and he had not been anything out of the ordinary, that is according to his mother. Not only that, there was no house behind her house and all along he had been in the house with her and his father.  He had made the whole thing up to get me talking to him again.

He also made up a dead dog, which did not die because I saw it at the same time.  He made up singing at a 3 year old’s funeral, which never happened and I met the mother and the little girl when she was 8.  Yet he had described looking at the casket, trying to sing, with tears pouring out of his eyes and his voice cracking.

So when I say he made things up to manipulate me, I mean :-  he made things up to manipulate me. And those are just a small sample.   I just want it out there so people don’t think I am being callous when I am saying he was very manipulative, because he was.

[Phoenix_Rising]

Hi,

I've only skimmed through this thread because I didn't want to think too hard about it. However, here are a few thoughts I have...

There was a big push to get BPD renamed complex trauma, in the DSM V, but it didn't get through. I think this was a mistake. It puzzles me when some people talk about having BPD AND CPTSD. This makes no sense - how would anyone do a differential diagnosis between these two labels??? It is well accepted among more enlightened researchers and clinicians that BPD, as well as most other MIs, are at their core due to trauma. Personally, I reject the medical model entirely and it is my hope that one day the whole mental health system will be based on a trauma-informed model rather than the medical model. I never identify as having a MI - I tend to say I have "some mental health issues." Usually, (as some of you may have noticed), I will talk about "my muddle" or "my puzzle" or "my big feelings."

I have learnt over the years that it is ok to have big feelings - even really really BIG big feelings...but it is never ok to express those big feelings in a way that hurts others. These days I tend to dump big angry feelings by yelling into my pillow and hitting my pillow or my toy turtle on the floor. In the past I have certainly done some less helpful things...I may possibly have put my hand straight through the fibro wall of someone's house a very long time ago when I hit it in rage . That wasn't ok, and it stunned me as much as anyone else that I had that much power when enraged.

So no, big angry feelings never ever ever MAKE someone hurt someone else. I am grateful that I have never actually had the urge to express my rage by physically hurting someone...although I know I have hurt a lot of people with my words over the years. Big angry feelings can be expressed by punching a punching bag or chopping up wood or digging a giant hole in the backyard - there is never ever a reason to express big angry feelings by hurting another person. "The illness" or "my BPD" never "makes" anyone do anything. It might "make" them get super gigantic feelings...but the person can choose whether to express those feelings by punching a pillow or punching a person. I can see that I would have done much better in the early years of my diagnosis if people had validated the rage and helped me to find healthy ways to dump it, rather than telling me to "just calm down." I can't "just calm down"...but I can express the big feelings in safe ways. In those early years, I simply didn't know how.

Regarding the whole manipulation thing...Marsha Linehan presents an argument that it is actually not possible for people with BPD to be manipulative because manipulation requires a strong theory-of-mind and good social skills...neither of which is a strong point for those of us with BPD. If someone is good at manipulating others, then those others won't know they've been manipulated. In contrast, a lot of people FEEL manipulated by a person with BPD...but it does not logically follow from this, that the person with BPD is being manipulative. Indeed, if someone feels manipulated, then the person who is "being manipulative" must be really really bad at being manipulative! Linehan explains it much better than I can, in her treatment manual for BPD.

Ok, well I've rattled that all off, off the top of my head because I don't want to think too hard about this stuff and risk getting myself into a pickle. Hopefully I haven't said anything ridiculous. Thank you for listening to my perspective.

[soul]

Hi @Phoenix_Rising - it was interesting to read about your experiences about managing your angry feelings in a   less destructive way. Well done to you that you could do that.

As for the manipulation aspect, is it possible that someone with BPD in a less elevated state can connive to meet their needs but in an extremely agitated just acts irrationally?

[soul]

Hey @Former-Member, I read your post sometime ago as I too had a sleepless night. Sometimes I think dwelling on the past can be a harmful and distressing thing yet other times can give you clarity and inform future decisions. The psych I have just started seeing had laryngitis this week so my appointment had to be postponed so this forum has been a kind of therapy I guess.

Your experiences with your ex and his manipulation were pretty full on. If I was to read my story before having lived it, I would never in a million years have believed it. I often wonder how I am still alive given the circumstances. Maybe it's a cruel joke played out by a higher being or maybe there's a reason. 

I know abandonment is a huge fear for people with BDP. Do you think your ex's attention seeking behaviour may have been to draw you close? Invoke sympathy? It seemed to be in my case. He referred to traumatic experiences in his youth stories again and again but each time they changed becoming increasingly more devastating in nature. It was if he seemed to lose all sense of reality.

I know this forum is anonymous but is there any way to send private messages?

[Former-Member]

@soul Wrote:

"Your experiences with your ex and his manipulation were pretty full on. If I was to read my story before having lived it, I would never in a million years have believed it. I often wonder how I am still alive given the circumstances. Maybe it's a cruel joke played out by a higher being or maybe there's a reason. "

I don't tell a lot of my story for exactly this reason.  And I'm ok with that.  His ridiculousness doesn't need to touch me anymore so I'm at a point I can't even be bothered.

As for the attention seeking vs manipulation.  At first I gave him that benefit of the doubt.  I was wrong to do so.  He took full advantage of me and took even tighter control on my emotional and psychological strings.  After many hundreds of hours of working through it I now know his actions were not born of fear, they were born of his need to control. It is the only explanation that fits everything he did. The only one.  I wish it wasn't so, but I now know it, without a shadow of a doubt.  It took me years to accept it, I wanted to be wrong, I REALLY wanted to be wrong.  This is where I kick myself for not trusting my instincts and allowing him to pull me into the rabbit hole he designed for me.

i have done countless hours, years, of research and I can say with total confidence that his behaviour was born out of a selfish need to control me, in evey way and he took advantage of my caring nature and want to help him.  To him those qualities were a weakness to be exploited, and exploit them he did. He coveted my characteristics and at the same time he despised them.

this is why I believe there was a lot more to him than his "diagnosis" of BPD. It irks me he was diagnosed BPD because I think it gives true BPD sufferes a bad name to have people like him included under the umbrella of the label. It is unhelpful to real BPD sufferers and it is unhelpful to those dealing with someone who has faked or tricked their way Into the diagnosis.

now I very much want to read Phoenix-Rising's contribution.  🙂  because I have not had the chance yet.

[Former-Member]

@Phoenix_Rising  exactly.  And that is why I know I was being manipulated.  Because it was covert. It was insidious.  and it was only with huge investigation and trying to unravel the terror it brought me that I was even able to understand what he was doing.  Once I understood it, I could start putting all the pieces together.  I do not think he has BPD, certainly not exclusively.  He is too manipulative.   I think he likes to play with people for his own selfish needs. I believe he is fully aware of what he does and I have a mountain of evidence to support that.  99% of the poeple he manipultes don't even know he is manipulating them because he makes sure the truth is hidden and he divides people so the truth doesn't come out.

[Phoenix_Rising]

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@soul wrote:

As for the manipulation aspect, is it possible that someone with BPD in a less elevated state can connive to meet their needs but in an extremely agitated just acts irrationally?

---

Hi @soul,

That doesn't really make sense to me. I can promise you that I have never ever layed in bed at night thinking "hmmmm how can I get so-and-so to do X." All of my behaviour that others have labelled manipulative has been, to me, my attempt to get help with immense pain.

I have definitely been labelled manipulative many MANY times over the years. I am demanding and manipulative and utterly selfish and difficult and annoying and exhausting to be with, and scary. They are my "bad words" that I have accumulated over the years. And yet...I don't think I even properly understand what it means to manipulate someone. I really wouldn't know how to figure out "if I do X, so-and-so will do Y." I genuinely do not understand the concept...so perhaps I can't be that helpful to you.

I can give you examples of behaviours that others have labelled manipulative though. Once, I was in extreme crisis and I presented at the hospital seeking an admission. I explained that there had been a triggering event and I just needed support until my psychologist came back from leave three days later. The hospital turned me away because the psychiatrist on duty didn't believe that borderlines should be in hospital. I went and sat in my car and called a talkback radio station!!! Shortly afterwards, an ambulance arrived (I was parked one street away from the hospital!!!!) and I got admitted. The staff ignored me the entire time I was there and the very clear message was that they didn't want me there, they didn't think I should be there, and they had only taken me in to avoid a media storm. Was that manipulative behaviour or was that utter desperation. All I could think was that I was going to die that day. I needed help. I had no-one. I was chaotic and definitely not thinking clearly. Manipulative or desperate???

And...now I've darn well done it again - thought I was ok to join in this conversation and now really not. @CherryBomb I've fluffed up again. Is it nearly feasting time???

Oh and @soul, the fact that I've got myself into a pickle right now, in no way indicates that this is a problematic thread. You made it very clear in the heading that it had the potential to be difficult. I really want to talk about my experiences and I will always take an opportunity to do so...I just need to be prepared to deal with the big feelings that well up. I'm glad you and the others are having this conversation.

[Former-Member]

The problem is... a real BPD suffereer I believe IS not manipulative, I believe they do genuinely suffer through traumatic emotional turmoil.  BUT  if that person (like my ex) is not actually really BPDed, then they can.  And he was manipulative.   I think it is unfair that my experience is invalidated because he can run around saying.. oh that's not my fault... I've got BPD. This is why the diagnosis has to be tightened so people like him don't erroneously get labelled BPD.

It infuriates me that my experience is invalidated because he wears a label that brings sympathy to him. After what he did to me. It is really unfair and it bring more heartache to me because people do not understand my situation or what I went through.  It makes me just want to go away and leave.

[soul]

@Phoenix_Rising - thanks for your honesty. I'm sorry to hear that you recognised the need for help and were in such a desperate situation to get it when it wasn't forthcoming. In no way am I suggesting that people with BPD are constantly thinking up evil plans. 

I think the difference in the situation with myself and @Former-Member is that our ex's were perpetrators of violence. Can BPD and domestic violence co exist or are they two separate issues? During that classic domestic violence cycle when a honeymoon phase follows a violent incident, what goes through the mind? Are they genuinely remorseful or is it a case of she will leave me if I don't apologise and try to make it up thus alleviating that possibility of abandonment?