Can I please ask for your experiences of BPD

[Coffeeplease88]

Hi everyone.
Just that really...I’m 29 and have just been diagnosed. I have suffered from lengthy periods of depression and emptiness for about 8 years (since the pregnancy of my first son, i have two children, 7 and 3). This current episode is the worst I have suffered, even though I was previously hospitalised. I feel as though I have no personality left, all that’s there is emptiness, loneliness, with small moments of okayness, when I can be alone or have the space to do something I like. I just want to know it gets better...I’d like to be fun to be around again.

Myname...what was the final straw that made you leave? My head is a total mess this morning, but I know that’s partly due to only getting five hours sleep. I feel disrespected...he told me he’s never been like this with anyone else before...he spoke about his ex wife sleeping with others with her, but that’s it, so he says. I wish his other two exs (one of which he says was the only women he loved but took their son 400 miles away) would contact me and tell me he’d done similar, I know how awful that sounds but I would feel less shit, as I’ve brought it on myself. My inconsistency with it all I think reflects moments I’ve had the balls not the play games, but few and far between

The real moment that made me leave was when we were out for a drink with one of his friends. At one point, he went outside to make a phone call and his friend said to me that we seemed so much happier when the other wasn't there than when they were there and it was a total wake up call. It was how I felt but hadn't realised it was so obvious to others and I realised that I was scared of him and of saying the wrong thing. I didn't want to be like that anymore.

But what is most important to remember is that he is responsible for his behaviour. You are not to blame at all. You didn't ask to be treated like this and you also didn't ask for any of the circumstances which led to the BPD. You have not brought anything on yourself. This man is abusive arsehole.

Mine wanted me to have sex with other people, then when I went off and had sex with someone else and told him he was sick!

I wouldn't recommend most of the things I did to get through it, but the positive things I think I mentioned upthread - exercise, yoga, meditation, reading, I took up music again, and finally got through the other side, and don't know why I stayed so long.

How long were you together? We’ve been together a year...last night was our anniversary. He’s shown me so many things, and I’ve definitely grown up a bit since being with him, so it’s very difficult...I mentioned before I think I’m suffering limerence, but I’m not sure as I’m not sure if that’s just part of bpd?

Gerbil I had a guy round about 6 months ago on the proviso I would have sex with him...I didn’t we did other stuff, but nothing “finished” ... bf was so upset, said I’d done it wrong because me and the other guy sat and chatted for about an hour

This is going to sound corny but after a decade of hell, the emptiness, depressions, drug addiction, etc, I reached a point where suicide seemed the only option to release me from the pain. I started living as if I were already dead. I just threw away all thoughts of what others might think of me. I was functioning in the world but internally I was totally on a different planet. One day I heard this song and it touched something in me. For the first time I felt in my heart that I was real - I can't describe it. It led to the beginning of the journey to healing beyond anything I had been told was possible. Only you can rescue by Matt Redman.

I want you to know that you are loved, you are important, you matter. I want you to feel peace everyday and feel joy and contentment, right in the middle of the storms of this life. I believe full and complete healing is possible for you, it happened to me and it can happen to you. Ask me anything.

Hi remain, so good to hear you have managed to pull yourself back from the brink...how is your life now?
Because I blame myself for everything and carry excessive amounts of guilt...I have in some ways convinced myself this relationship is normal, he knows I’m fucked up and so I don’t think I can do any better...i don’t think I actually know what a healthy relationship looks like??

Coffee reading this, this morning made a lump in my throat, I just want to hug you!! Being sexually adventures as we all know is apart of BPD because we constantly chase a thrill to fill a void perhaps... but it doesn't sound like you get anything out of the situation, if your partner wants to spice things up why can't you just do something between yourselfs???
He shouldn't put you in danger, do you get any sexual satisfaction from sleeping with men he tells you too? Do you think your other half has any of his own mental health problems?

Morning CM. I haven’t slept with any guys, I can’t go through with it. I have cheated in the past, but this relationship provides such anxiety I couldn’t handle anymore. I get a thrill in the sense that when we’re discussing things or I’m texting or he’s sending videos of me to his friends, I get his attention 🙈 I think that what it is. But I struggle massively with the extent of it all...it’s everyday...I remember trying to write my dissertation last year and my friend saying “your phone is constantly going off, that’s a full time job, he needs to leave you to concentrate”. We don’t have sex without other people being discussed, I nearly always end up making up some story about how I’ve slept with someone. But to his defence, I’ve played along. I did cry outside this guys house after I’d arranged to sleep with him through dp encouragement, he knew I sat and cried and then went to get a smoothie.
I just don’t feel respected, best myself up constantly because I’m inconsistant

This is all seems you have no intention of sleeping with these meets and just want the attention from your fella and the fact he just went and got a smoothie after seeing you cry is damn right disrespectful, heartless and weak!!! If it was other way around you wouldn't pressure him to do it so why should he put pressure on you.
This whole situation is making me anxious so god for fucking bid how anxious you feel girl.
Apart from this how is every other aspect of your relationship? Does he physically hurt you?

Sorry cm, I went to get the smoothie! But it continued after the crying episode, but again I let it. There is a guy that I was parent helper with on a school trip, we sat and chatted the whole way there and back. I have no friends at my sons school, I’d joined be parent council to try and make some but feel so ashamed of myself I can’t go. Anyway, this guy was a bit flirty with me, although married. Now dp and I discuss me and this guy sleeping together, and I make out I want to(I don’t and won’t), dp even bought me new underwear to do it in! Me and this other guy have never had any sexual conversations whatsoever, and I won’t. So that’s the current thing, and of course the swinging site.

My head is a mess and foggy today, time is just ticking by, my son is upstairs playing but I’m taking him out shortly.
I feel like I want to cry, I want to cry for myself and the stupid things I do and say, cry because I feel like a piece of shit, because I’m not being self respecting, I feel used, some random on a swinging site has my address. I can’t make sense of anything. But I feel I can’t cry because I deserve it all...dp always says “we show people how we want to be treated” and here the fuck I am. I can’t uni work today, I don’t want to parent, I want to get in bed and put a film on to forget

Your 'D'P is talking a whole load of shit. Those of us who have been brought up with abuse do often end up in abusive relationships because that's what we're used to, and perhaps we had the model of thinking that we can change people or put up with it (I'm looking at you DM) but we don't deserve it. No one deserves it and only someone abusive would even suggest that. I used to get very caught up with whose "fault" it was all the time, but actually it doesn't matter whether it's his fault or your fault, if it's not making you happy then get out. You won't ever sort yourself out with all of this going on.

Perhaps taking your son out somewhere will help you - I don't know where you are but it's sunny and cold here - nice to be out for a bit. Good luck.

YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO BE TREATED LIKE THIS.

Your partner is a predator, exploiting your vulnerability. This is his fault, not yours. He's fucking with you. Get the hell away from him and I promise you, life will be so much easier. You're not fucked up - when I was freaking out about my diagnosis my GP said to me that personalities are a spectrum and everyone is somewhere along that spectrum. I am what I am. I was with my ex for 2 years on and off. With the benefit of hindsight (and 8 years in a stable relationship with my DH), I can't believe I put up with his shit for so long and I can see how his actions made the BPD worse.

I go to leave, I’m even working out just now what to say to him...but then I think of all the good stuff, mountain biking, walks, he’s funny, intelligent, charismatic. And I also think, why can’t I live up to his ex? When we first got together he told me we were going to get married, sent me links to big houses, told me he loved me like no other, that doesn’t happen anymore . I grasp hold of those happy moments. I’m being an idiot , it’s like I want to show him my worth so he can start to value me again...I am aware this is a skewed way of thinking

You are being used by someone who is suppose to love, respect, treat you right, how can you you respect yourself when your partner is putting you in dangerous and degrading situation, you deserve better, your other half does not deserve you, he deserves to be alone with his fucked up mind games, you need to find some inner strength from somewhere which I know is hard and get out of this situation. Your other half has made you more vulnerable and being vulnerable is so much harder when your bpd because where so much more vulnerable to ourselves without other people inflicting it on us.

Coffee you said you were afraid to leave this man because of the downward spiral it could create- but what about what he's doing to you now? It is abuse. I kept going back to the first boy because I truly loved him.

He told me that I was a pity friend and he only hung out with me because he felt sorry for me.I went back to him.

When someone I thought of as a father figure died the things he said to me hurt me more because he was the first person I told. I went back to him.

We arranged to a FWB arrangement then he snapped at me for flirting with him. He told me that he'd gone out on dates with a girl I hated. I still went back to him.

I told him I was suicidal, he made a comment about my grades. That was the last time.

I had 5 breakdowns in the space of 1 year. Nothing but constant ups and downs.

We come from broken families, where we never learnt that we have value. That we matter. I know my father was treated horribly by my grandfather but that doesn't make it okay.

This isn't your fault but you do have a choice. You deserve more than this waste of space.But I never believed that either until I had distance. It took me more than a year to get over this guy.

I want someone who is kind and loving. Reliable and honest.Someone who respects me. I don't need a man who looks perfect but someone at the end of the day humiliates and degrades me.

Coffee, I didn't know what a healthy relationship looked like either. Friendship, romantic relationship, my family. It was all totally fucked up. This is going to sound lame but I set out to teach myself. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. That was me. So I changed my focus. Instead of trying to be perfect, or repeat old patterns, I tried to make a new mistake. I measured my success by whether or not the same bad things happened. If you see what I mean. I read books and blogs, analysed TV shows and movies to try and educate myself about what a healthy relationship would look and feel like.

I had a string of abusive boyfriends because I couldn't bear to be alone. I didn't have any sense of an identity. I needed a partner to tell me who to be and to base my life around.

I spent a lot of time in the void when I first began changing away from repeating the same mistakes over and over. I still didn't believe I was worth anything or capable of love or being loved. But I did make changes anyway. It was my last ditch attempt. I knew I could not go on living with myself - well who was this "myself" anyway?

Control feels like love at the beginning doesn't it. The antidote is to learn what love really is. Love is freedom. Love is kind. Love is scary because it doesn't come in a box with walls and rules.

Leaving him is going to be an action not a conversation. With a conversation he will turn it all on you and twist everything around. It can only be an action. Even if you feel confused inside and want him to reassure you. He can only give you more of the same treatment and same responses that he has already given you. When you are sick of what he gives, you are free to leave.

Cm - you’re right, we are, or can be, our own worst enemies, so It really cuts deep if someone we idealise starts to treat us badly, it would for anyone, but bpd is like creating a wound that won’t heal. Mind games are difficult because we can already have a bit of a warped vision of reality. One of his friends was chucked out by his wife for lying about gambling £50 per week...and I was almost jealous at that level of self assuredness, I think I’d put up with that.

Orange - that guy is a cunt, thank god you got away. He sounds worse than mine! What a head fuck, you poor thing, what an ordeal to go through. How was he when you left him? After that year, did you feel the weight lift from you?

Optimistic - your point about being afraid to be alone because who would you be and who would you base your life around really really resonated with me, thank you so much for articulating that. Having someone to base my life on. How did you gather the strength to move on from your absuive relationships? Are you with someone now ?

Also, yeah I guess love and control and can feel similar ...

We weren't officially together- "unofficially official". I was forced to take a year out last year and he goes to my medical school so I do see him around the hospital. The best moment was maybe in november where I was wearing full make and had a nice dress on. I saw him walking down the path whilst I was walking up and I ignored him. He tried to speak to me a week later and I did talk to him for 10 mins as I walked out but it was different. I wasn't in love with him anymore. If i wasn't forced to take year out I honestly think I would have done the same thing all over again- so I understand how hard it can be. I cried. I wrote in my diary then 2 months after I was in love with someone who i'd known for 9 months before but he later ghosted me after a week after saying he wouldn't leave. That one hurt more I think because there was no explanation- until i messaged a couple of months later where he told me it was because he didnt like the feeling of getting attached to someone.

I used to flirt with every man that walked past me and I had a pattern. I fell in love quickly and loved deeply. I ran to these boys because I liked the attention that I got from them. I needed them to validate me to tell me that I was pretty.

I was just so desperate for love because I didn't feel loved or felt it when I was a kid. But I will not accept any of that from any man again.

If you decide to leave you will hurt- there's no denying that.It will come in waves and threaten to drown you but you will get through it and come out on the other side. It will be less than the pain of regret of wasting another 2 or 3 years with an abusive man. Another Kamal Ravikant quote that I got from his instagram used the analogy of a flower. Liking a flower meant picking it. Loving it meant caring for it. If he loved you he would have treated you better and he's had his chance.

I'm sorry for rambling. It's your choice but I wished my mother would have left my father. He was never going to change.

Orange has described the pain well. It does come in waves. I used to feel it physically in my chest and the pit of my stomach. It was like a gnawing ache, dread and fear and pain. It was nightmarish. Colours and sounds took on a nightmarish quality and I would feel physically sick. The unreality of it and the intensity of it made me feel like I was insane, broken beyond repair.

I spent a lot of time on my own confronting the pain, sitting in it, staring at it. I was in pain all the time and holding back tears often. I hated crying and felt like if I started i would never stop. Once I decided to let myself cry. I think I'd read in a book somewhere that crying was healthy and so I let myself. I was in my room living alone so knew no one would disturb me. I cried and cried and cried. I thought I was going to die from the intensity of the sobbing. It went on for almost 2 hours. I felt physically exhausted and in pain. But it did wind down eventually. It didn't make me feel much better in itself but it was a very important experience because I proved to myself that my fear was untrue - that if I cried I couldn't ever stop and I would die. Does that make sense? I had proven that I didn't die and it did stop. That was a solid foundation and a real experience I could draw upon.

As for relationships, I actually got to the point where I recognised that what I was doing and looking for in a relationship was completely dysfunctional and I was basically hurting myself. I saw the truth that I was basically self harming. I watched myself go through pain because of the males in my life and the compulsive nature of it all - again the unreality of it all. It took time to see any of this. But once I had seen it, I couldn't un-see it. Seeing it made me go off the whole thing. I just couldn't do it any more. I resigned myself to being alone for the rest of my life. It sounds negative but it was liberating. Painful but liberating. It was liberating knowing I would never again be abused or relying on someone for approval.

Somehow after all that I am now happily married with a DS. It's a long story!

I had my first "clear" day with no pain in my chest back in 2010. It sounds stupid but up until then, everything I had done was to try and stop the pain inside me. It had been hurting for as long as I could remember. That first clear day was 3 years after my suicide/breakdown. It was in large part due to reading and re-reading the Power of Now. I found it incredibly validating where he talks about the pain-body and how it can control a person - it was the first time I'd read anything that described the depth and enormity of my feelings.

I t was in large part due to reading and re-reading the Power of Now. I found it incredibly validating where he talks about the pain-body and how it can control a person - it was the first time I'd read anything that described the depth and enormity of my feelings.

I think when I learned that the emotional pain receptors in the brain were in the same place as the physical pain receptors was when it started to make sense to me, there were times particularly as I'd just left home and was I guess starting to process some of this away from the abuse that I would actually just scream/shout with distress. Of course people said I was "attention seeking", but when I read about the physiology of it I could just see the intensity of it did make me react in the same was as physical pain. I had one friend during this time who tried to help me but in the end it was all too much for him - it was that I hate you don't leave me thing. I sometimes wonder whether I should message him and say thank you / sorry, but I'm also quite ashamed of the whole thing so I don't know.

Anyway, he was a nice man who I was horrible to / inconsistent with at times but he didn't abuse me coffee just to relate it back to your situation - how are you today?

Orange - I’m very like you. Your paragraph starting “it will hurt” (I can’t copy and paste 🤓) is actually very comforting, thank you. I’m so glad you got out of that situation and moved on, I’m sure he’ll have relationship issues for a long time to come...you’ve got incredible insight.
I didn’t contact dp yesterday, he tried to phone a few times so I answered about 7pm...he asked why I hadn’t contacted him...I said I just needed space because last night left me feeling shit and used, he then hung up...then he text saying “you’ve really made me feel shit” and “I’ve been looking at trips away for us In March” (I turn 30) so I thought I’d speak to him today and just say all this sex stuff needs to stop, that I no longer feel confident around him, that I’d like a relationship in which I can feel secure, go for runs then do uni work.
I can’t focus on uni 90% because I’m stressed about my relationship, which is ludicrous.
Remain - what were you doing up at that time?!! Sounds like you’ve had a massive journey and really turned things around, that’s amazing, clearly very intelligent. And so nice to hear you are now happily married...so it can happen ! Bpd can have successful relationships !! I will read some books. I’ve been into th been bookshop twice this week, looked for stuff, been too embarrassed to ask about things, then get overwhelmed with my diagnosis and left !

Ive just screamed at my children...little hates me brushing his teeth and I have to hold him down to do it. My grandmother is supposed to be looking after eldest for a few hours because uni is back and I have two lectures today, he doesn’t go back to school until tomorrow...but now my head is a massive mess and I feel lonely, like I can’t go back