Borderline personality disorder, have you met one?

[BossyPaws]

I have recently been diagnosed with BPD after years of feeling like an alien sent down to observe the human race.

But now I'm curious, what do other people see?

Have you ever met anyone with BPD and how did they present?

Obviously to me I'm totally normal and everyone else is odd but AIBU to be really, really curious as to how my condition presents to other people?? Please be honest, I'm impossible to offend.

I have this.
If I had known beforehand, I wouldn’t have had children.

My best friend has a very complicated diagnosis which was at first atypical bpd but now also includes asd and rapid cycling bipolar disorder. In terms of how she "presents" if you didn't know her you would think she was cold, rude, stand offish, social inept, and over sensitive. I met her at uni and most people really didn't like her, she didn't have any friends. We got thrown together on a group project and I found her very difficult to work with, highly opinionated and stubborn, took offence very quickly and generally held the project up by falling out with everyone. I can't say I was a fan! But over the next year we had to work together a few more times and I got to know the "real" her. I had depression and she showed me more empathy and understanding than anyone else. We've supported each other through a lot and she's one of the kindest, most thoughtful, honest, loyal people I know. It's hard to see from the outside because her guard is up almost constantly with people she doesn't know, and most people (understandably) don't have the patience to work through that. But I value her friendship extremely highly. Yes she can be very draining at times, especially when she's in a crisis, but she has a high level of insight and is very aware of the need for boundaries so we make it work. I wouldn't be without her.

BossyPaws you might be interested in - he's just this life coach guy but I've found him to be very insightful on childhood trauma and its relationship to emotional dysregulation and BPD.

Sadly I lost a friend with BPD after one too many of her meltdowns. She was offended by literally everything and took everything so personally. Spent a lot of time talking about her BPD and saying she was raising awareness etc but she did VERY little in reality to try and get a handle on it and used it as an excuse for some very, very ugly behaviour and saying unkind things. She was the most selfish person I’ve ever met- whether that was BPD related or just being a teat who knows. I had known her for 25years but by the time we parted I was well rid. I do miss her as she had some kind ways but she turned into a monster.

@gamerchick

"I used to work for someone with all the traits (but no diagnosis) of BPD."
" Or at least not that they've told me. I have met people and wondered if they were perhaps (including a family member). This is just from armchair/pop psych I've picked up along the way. "

@gamerchick

another one " although I suspect one of my nephews may have it."

"I used to work for someone with all the traits (but no diagnosis) of BPD."

Another one - and all because they had unlikeable traits.

Yes. A few. A couple have an insight into their condition and a level of self awareness and do at least try and mitigate the impact on other people and if they can’t then make amends afterwards and also try hard to deal with associated issues like substance abuse or food issues. Sometimes it’s a little tough to manage as with kids around if they are in a bad period it’s best to keep at arms length for their sake (eg drunken meltdowns are not really appropriate around them)

One is not a friend anymore. She gets herself into a series of dangerous and risky situations and won’t listen to advice or warnings. I mean situations other people would run a mile from they are so clearly dangerous. When it all goes (predictably) really wrong she just wants sympathy and to be treated like she walked into a completely safe seeming situation and had no idea it could possibly go so wrong and deserves to be treated with kid gloves. She absolutely refuses to take any responsibility for the situations she gets herself into and dismisses any suggestion she should as ‘victim blaming’.

Because she refuses to reflect on what her contribution is to these situations coming about she just repeats the situation over and over again and feels persecuted when people won’t sympathise with her when her latest relationship with a drug addict whose just got out of prison with a DV conviction goes wrong.

You can sympathise so far, but when they refuse to take any responsibility or learn and just keep expecting you to pick up the pieces or give unlimited sympathy you have to draw a line somewhere.

I feel so sad to think that this might be how other people see me.

Oh and the abuse. Should you perhaps suggest that moving a crackhead she met at a dealers house in with her and her kids two days after she met him you’ll be met with a stream of abuse about how you ‘don’t understand love’ and ‘don’t want me to be happy’ and are a bitch/cow/cunt etc.

Then three weeks later when he’s disappeared with her TV, car and money she expect you to behave like it’s come totally out of the blue.

Her getting help is almost impossible too as she manipulates it. She jumps from service to service (DV organisations, drug organisations, alcohol organisations, parenting organisations) accessing support and counselling, preferably without them knowing her full diagnosis. She manipulates them into telling her what she wants to hear (your friends are unsupportive, your family are judgemental, you are a victim with no responsibility) then as soon as they cotton on to what’s going on she drops them for the next one.

holding, as I did say, it’s not universal and I know two people who manage it well enough to have jobs, friends and functioning relationships and are very good company most of the time.

The one I’ve written a lot about is a bit of a worst case scenario.

I think a lot of it with BPD is when they get to the point where they have insight that their condition does impact on other people as well as them they can start to try and manage their condition so that it impacts less on other people and as a result their relationships with other people improve too.

If you think other people might see you like that, rather than blaming them for feeling like that ask why that might be the case, take responsibility. BPD is something that can be overcome because as sufferers grow older more and more recover.

Apologies, wrong thread, have reported.

I'm not saying people do see me like that, and I'm certainly not blaming them if they do..I'm blaming myself, always..I'm just sad at the possibility of it.

I think one of the major issues with BPD is emotional lability and difficulty regulating responses to intense emotions. Are you having Dialectal Behaviour Therapy?

Whilst I think it can be helpful to get a diagnosis so that you can have treatment. It's also important to bear in mind that you are just human like everyone else and some of your feelings and thoughts are normal responses to situations you find or have found yourself in. Also if at all possible try to notice all your normal healthy thoughts and feelings rather than focusing on the ones that are disrupted by BPD.

holding, it sounds like you’re halfway there to winning the battle thinking like that. At the very worst people with BPD walk through life constantly blaming other people and with a perpetual sense of victimhood with no insight into their own responsibility for their behaviour or how it impacts on others.

If you’ve got to the point where you’re looking at the issues as something in your own personality rather than something entirely imposed on you by the rest of the world then you’re in a really good position to make progress.

I don’t know if you’ve come across the following book, it’s based on intensive BPD therapy programmes of the type you’re not going to usually come across on the NHS but are offered privately or in health services abroad. It’s designed for you to work through the same programme as a self help programme on your own. I have heard it highly recommended and apparently it has great results. Might be worth a try?

www.amazon.co.uk/Managing-Intense-Emotions-Overcoming-Self-Destructive/dp/1583919155/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr2_2?keywords=bpd+managing+overcoming&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1525088550&sr=8-2-fkmr2

Checking in here as I have BPD, / complex PTSD and hoping to find friendly support rather than judgement and generalizing.

I lose count of the times I've tried to explain the difference between being an arsehole and BPD. Its a very scary, lonely place to be sometimes and those who throw judgement are often jabbing at people who already spend a large amount of their time trashing themselves.

Mightys post just reminded me, I'm in a fair few online support groups and this link is often passed around docs.google.com/file/d/1cyanUui4ZlpL0suxvBoGhgsBQwM5aAsHXKl4U2vdQ7eRPMqcwe-jPuTxqgl2/edit?pli=1#
It's the free PDF of a workbook used in hospitals for DBT it's well worth printing out and working through.

Also this one - <a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20171030054903/positivepsychologyprogram.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/DBT-Skills-Workbook.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20171030054903/positivepsychologyprogram.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/DBT-Skills-Workbook.pdf

I know three people who have a BPD diagnosis. They all have something in common. They switch from intense love/adoration to very strong dislike/hatred very quickly.
One friend is very good at managing her BPD. She really engages with the professionals and I have to say I find her the easiest to get on with. If she has a 'freak out' (for want of a better word) she soon acknowledges it and one can move forward. The other two i struggle with more. Their behaviour is a result of a need to be loved, but the resulting behaviour can be draining, upsetting and scary. I have put my barriers up and have very clear boundaries with them. I see them less than i used to. They always have some drama with someone or other. it's boring really.

I was on a mental health trust forum years ago and one member was a service user with BPD. She was uneducated, but clearly very smart - she presented as a little combative I felt, but I had a lot of admiration for her determination and working to help fellow service users.

My husband dated someone with BPD before we met and he said it was like being in an emotional rollercoaster. She had fallen out with all of her housemates and kept having to move and had lots of short term relationships because people got exhausted. The thing with her was that she got very attached to people and that is why seven years later she still stalks him and me online.

I think support groups are often suggested and also finding ways to manage meltdowns.

Also interested.. I have BPD. People do tell me I'm 'different' but can never really explain why.

LadyDeadpool

Ah right so less than a handful on a what... 100 post thread? Maybe that’s why I didn’t notice. It’s hardly enough to change the tone really is it (and hasn’t as far as I can see). Most people posting are either diagnosed or have had direct prolonged experience. Maybe try focus on that instead?

I've met a couple of people with BPD - as I've said I apparently have traits although I disagree with that diagnosis.

They were very different to me. One had been done for domestic violence & one had addictions.

I don't think I'm manipulative except when I need to be haha eg at work! & my mum says I'm manipulative in s cheeky way not a nasty way.

I have good long term friendships & don't fall out with people.

The Schizo Affective Disorder is more of a problem as I get very paranoid although I'm well at present thanks to high dose of anti psychotics.

I know one other person with this disorder & she's been sectioned & lost her job.
I'm lucky to have kept my job as my managers seem to like me and want me to stay.