Borderline Personality Disorder- do you have it or know anyone with it?

a piece of advice for you: GET AWAY with your LIFE, if it's not too late!!!!

I did

Her doing and thought I would die, but the best thing that ever happened to me. Didn't realize how good it can be without somone like this.

I have worked with several people with personality disorders, including BPD. I would not willingly enter into any sort of personal relationship if I had a choice (i.e. it was not a family member).

beepeedee wrote:

How is living with BPD, or being close to someone who has it? What are your thoughts and experiences?

Which definition, DSM IV, or DSM V?

Run for the hills. Insane in the sack, but utter misery out of it.

DONT DO IT.

I know a guy who is borderline Borderline Personality Disorder. He's close, but has not yet crossed the Borderline.

what are the symptoms, compared to bipolar?

Yeah, I have it. What's it to ya?

I am 110% confident an ex girlfriend of mine had this or a slight variation from it (narcissistic pd, histrionic pd). Let me tell you that being close to someone who won't recognize his or her problems is an emotional roller coaster and he or she is a monster. You will suffer and be put through much unneeded stress. It's best to detach and move on. You wouldn't want to marry someone like this anyway as they'd put you through a life of misery and turmoil. Not fun. Not fun at all.

One minute you are up and nothing can go wrong (idealization) and then in a split second all that goes away (devaluation). Once the frequencies of those emotional waves start to overlap with one another is when things really become nasty. Even more of a killer to the thought should be that he or she is more prone to physically cheat on you because they don't care the same way you do about relationships and boundaries.

cluster b wrote:

One minute you are up and nothing can go wrong (idealization) and then in a split second all that goes away (devaluation). Once the frequencies of those emotional waves start to overlap with one another is when things really become nasty. Even more of a killer to the thought should be that he or she is more prone to physically cheat on you because they don't care the same way you do about relationships and boundaries.

One of my parents seemed to have something along these lines. Growing up in that household had its challenges.

BPD is one of the most challenging and difficult treat. About 75% have a history of parasuicidal act and 10% eventually die as a direct result of having BPD.

People suffering from BPD have the following characteristics: 1). Emotional dysregulation and instability. Emotional responses are reactive with difficulties with depression, anxiety, irritability as well as problems and anger and proper expression of their anger. 2). Behavioral dysregulation as evidenced by extreme and problematic impulsive bx. 3). Cognitively dysregulated such as depersonalization, dissociation, delusions brought on by stress. As a result, BPD often have trouble feeling empathy and commonly have no sense of self. 4). Interpersonal dysregulation with relationships that are often chaotic, intense, and marked with difficulties at every turn. Despite the chaos that surrounds relationships they will go to nearly any length to avoid people leaving them.

Bipolar people can blend in quite well. 4% of people have bipolar with many going undiagnosed until problematic behavior results in job loss, divorce, financial ruin, etc...It can take up to 10 years for someone to get properly diagnosed because the symptoms can be subtle and the ability to live without "episodes" for long periods of time.

Many of the most successful people in leadership, the arts, business have battled bipolar symptoms. They experience life at a greater intensity and with greater awareness than average people. As a result, depression quickly leads to despair or happiness can lead to mania defined as euphoria, elevated, and expansive mood. Their minds race at incredible speeds with flights of ideas, pressured speech, tangentiality, adn diminished need for sleep. They can be quick to anger, but at the same time can be the life of the party and get everyone laughing when sliding toward the manic end of the spectrum. As disorganization worsens, they may develop persecutory and grandiose ideas of reference that often become delusions.

whatya do with:

'I hate you, don't leave me'

hardly enough room to encapsulate here ...

I'm 99% sure that my father is BPD. The hardest thing about it is that he is completely unable to understand that the way people act toward him is a direct result of his own actions. I can't explain to him that I don't want to be around him because of his propensity to throw complete temper tantrums. He's so disconnected from reality that he would just think that this was a false accusation. He'll go to his grave thinking that his family treated him like dirt for no reason. In reality, everyone tried incredibly hard to be good to him, but there came a point where we couldn't take the abuse anymore.

Sorry to hear. I, like many men, also have serious issues with my dad. Like many men his age he's been brainwashed by that Rush Limbaugh and is often irrational about anything related politics, economics, business, etc...so we are left to talk about the weather and the grandkids. He's a closet alcoholic and wasn't around much throughout teenage years because of workaholism/greed for financial success. It's extra tough when it's your dad and you know there is no way you can get through to him. He looks in the mirror and doesn't see who you see.

I've found in my work and in my personal life, it often takes a crisis to "wake someone up" from the perverbial fog they live in. There IS hope for change if people seek help, but THEY have to want to change for everyone else's benefit inc. their own. With BPD, there has been a lot of success with a combination of psychodynamic, interpersonal, and cognitive-behavioral approaches mixed with Eastern philosophies and religion. These methods have shown to be very effective with BPD people willing to get help. People can and do change, but it takes a lot of work and self-awareness/people challenging them in very real, rational terms. It takes a group to pull together who all genuinely care about a positive outcome. "How People Change" is a great book. Maybe it could spark a fire under him if you presented it in a loving, caring way.

man, I had some suspicions that my last ex-gf had borderline (and a therapist I was seeing told me it sounded like it), and now after reading these descriptions, it sounds just about definite. what a mindf*@ that part of my life was.

Borderline personality disorder is a living hell for its victims; I should know, I was one.

I have cigarette burn scars from my mother's violent rages. 911 calls where she would threaten to beat me to death with a 2x4 because somebody stole something from her (that I had nothing to do with), and she was feeling personally upset and wanted to feel power over something, so decided to threaten to kill me for half an hour. Came at me with a knife when I enrolled in University, then claimed I was an abusive son because I picked up a chair to keep her the hell away from me.

Would break into my room and steal my things whenever she wanted. I used to come home and find marks on my step-father where she'd attacked him. When she was at her violent and most abusive, she'd tell me that if I reported her, nobody would believe me because she'd been "telling people about me for years" -- basically running a distortion campaign on me since I was six and started trying to run away from home, because sooner or later the neighbours would ask what I was running from (her physically battering my father in front of me and my sister), so she started claiming that I was an emotionally ungrateful child.

Would try to tell girlfriends that I was physically abusive to her so I could never have a relationship (didn't work, anybody outside of her enablers that she sucked up to compulsively saw her bouts of insanity), but still, it's psychotic to even try. Once, when I was 16, she threatened through email to kill an ex-girlfriend of mine to say it was me... unfortunately she tried to do it when I was at school, in class, with 30 other people, so I was immediately exonerated. It never clicked that it was her until years later when she kept insisting that I'd "confessed" to a crime I could (and did) prove I didn't commit (as an excuse to keep telling family members that I did it to assault my credibility and protect herself), when she finally did a 180 about-face and admitted, braggingly, that it was her, and it was the "only way to show people what I really was".

With other people, with the enablers she wanted to suck up to like family and friends, she was the sweetest, gentlest woman. When that door closed, it was Jekyll and Hyde time.

Borderlines are monsters, period. They have no empathy, no compassion, and no soul.

I truly feel sorry for the gentleman or lady in this thread who's in a relationship with a borderline and considers himself or herself "lucky" because of the narcotic high of idealization and/or the feeling of being the "strong hero" for standing by his or her partner. Unfortunately for them, the borderline is running a distortion campaign on them now, and it WILL all come crashing down, with brutal and bitter feelings of betrayal.

I was fortunate only in that growing up in that environment, and steadfastly refusing to give in to her attempts at brainwashing and abuse, I was smarter than her and learned early on how to protect myself. I am one of the rare few who has what is known as "earned relationship security" -- a kind of parallel to normal, healthy relationship security. Most victims of borderline personality disorder do not have that.

Apologies to ray, whom I misread:

"Her doing and thought I would die, but the best thing that ever happened to me. Didn't realize how good it can be without somone like this."

I mistakenly read that as "Didn't realize how good it can be WITH someone like this". Sorry ray -- and you're darn right.

GO ON.

Thanks for the great posts. I just finished school and am looking to find work as a behavioral health RN. What type of job do you have in the BH field?