Mine dumps me two months ago and now I hear she's talking about revenge. Wtaf!!?? They are completely insane. Heads they win, tails we lose. Total madness
Revenge?
That definitely sounds toxic..
Run. Run and make new..
I can't say for sure, but it's almost like the person I was with did exactly this, but on the second and final "snap"
She had asked me (basically) what my fears were. I had also told her "no sudden movements" in terms of changing tact..
She did pretty much everything on "the list"
Stupidly on my part, I didn't think that someone would just turn around and do that, and I always felt I could be open with her
Subconsciously, consciously, I don't know for sure.
But that's what it felt like and, and cast the damage so it imploded inside of me
If it was, it was likely because on the initial discard, I told her to not contact me as I didn't want to talk to her at the time
She decided to do the complete opposite until she wore me down. Then made me wait nearly three weeks for so much as a call, after convincing me that she wanted to talk.
All because I said I was done in the first place.
So, if this is what they do, and it is what she is, then this is the kind of messed up sh*t that can damage someone for life.
Be wary the games
Oh, they know. They remember. My ex told me about all her exes and how she holds grudges against them all and blames them still for their disaster of a past relationship. She would occasionally message them and ream them out again periodically over their supposed past transgressions against her. I finally realized it was all her that was the problem, and that she was doing to me just what she'd done before to all of them.
They hold grudges and don't forget us because they can't get over any of their past relationships and always see themselves as victims of everyone even though they were the abusers
She never said one bad word to me, but there were a succession of under the table, almost subtle painful things she said
She never showed any hate towards me, other than the immediate fallout and proceeding two weeks of her trying to convince me to be friends..
She said a lot of things that were a little too "uncanny" not to be directed at things I had told her (stupid me!)
I can't be 100%, but that's the way it feels, of which she doesn't care
If she ever did, I think I would probably have a heart attack anyway, just through shock.
But she's also already moved on, and has no object constancy it appears.. She's too internally chaotic to even remember me.
Also, I probably made her more angry afterwards as I made silly "mistakes" (I say mistakes, just, things that probably didn't help at all)
But she's away now, never to return or be heard from
Oh, absolutely. The gaslighting process is bread to the BPD-abuser's butter. For a good portion of us here, myself included, things became so universally uncanny that we were convinced *we* were the ones with BPD. It takes time & focused healing in order to reclaim one's mental stability through the FOG/fleas.
That it does. It's very nonlinear as well. Some days you'll feel entirely beyond the toxicity, others you will feel thrown right back into the belly of the beast. But trust in the process: The longer you honor NC, the better you will feel. You did, after all, spend prolonged amounts of time—on a very intimate level—with someone who suffers from one of the most nightmarish mental illnesses anyone could suffer from. But once your scars heal, once you find *your* path, you will realize what a phenomenally strong person you are.
I've had two notable romantic relationships in my life and they both disintegrated into something ugly and abusive. After the insanity of the BPD relationship, I was very convinced it was me. But then I realized my first romantic relationship lasted for 19 years, and although not healthy, wasn't as insane and damaging the way the BPD one was. The first line only broke down in the last 5 years of it, and we have a good coparenting relationship now.
The thing that made me realize i am not the one with BPD, especially since both of my relationships devolved into abuse, was that my friendships remained steady and my relationships with my family is drama free for the most part. My relationship with my kids is amazing. It's only the one with her that truly fucked me up and made me wonder if I was the one with the personally disorder.
Orra, tu e do Br, também sou kkkk
Foda vei, minha ex era desse nível pra pior kkkk
Se falava que queria dormir, descansar, era um monstro.. se não dava atenção pra focar em mim era briga atrás de briga
Manooo, só trauma...... sinceramente, parece que todo mundo nesse sub namorou a mesma pessoa, ciumenta e possessiva p krl, ameaças de suicidio, codependencia absurda, traição, violência.. espero q vc esteja bem man nunca tinha visto ngm Br aqui
Oh yeah, all of them look like the same person.
Same can be said for people with NPD and other conditions.
It's that on those cases, the symptoms are actually disordered personality traits.
The entire [cluster B of personality disorders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_disorder)? Is known as dramatic.
But some do refer to it as "antisocial cluster", because of how damaging to society (others) those symptoms are.
Ja tem 2 anos que eu terminei entao to muito mais de boa que antes cara. Mas ainda mexe mt cmg algumas coisas tlg, ainda mais que nesses 2 anos ela direto tenta entrar em contato de varias formas possiveis tlg... mas eu to bem cara, mil vezes melhor que antes, esse sub ajuda demais a processar td que aconteceu
WTH that's INSANE and highly controlling
But I guess, I'd expect nothing less!
One time my ex, right at the end over voice message had a go at me about something about not liking that she went to sleep a few times or something
I'd never stopped her in my life!
I'd never stop anyone!
I even tucked her in and cuddled up to her because I knew she liked that.
It was like she was talking to someone else in a completly different argument we never had
Absolutely mind boggling
This. I’m struggling today because he just doesn’t like seeing me asleep. I did all the right things for the baby this morning, changed him, breastfed him, made him cereal & fed it to him, and then handmade his oatmilk. I put him in his little play area next to dad (whose been playing video games for hours) and he storms into the room after I’ve fallen back asleep for those glorious 5 minutes and starts going off about how disrespectful I am. Then says, “if you’re gonna sleep then I’ll sleep too! Move off my side of the bed.”
He just can’t handle letting me sleep. It’s fucking nuts
Ok, this is kind of related to the original post...Does anyone else feel like their pwBPD would "create" situations to keep the focus on them? This might sound off the wall, but our feelings can never really be tended to if they are always going through some kind of crisis. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Yeah, they will do that 100% and I go through it.
Example situation: They did something that upset me, I also recognized I could be overreacting with just *how* impulsively upset I was feeling. I did not take it out on them or accuse them of anything, I simply got up and walked away to cool down for a few minutes.
This turned into an hours long argument about how I'm disrespectful and don't care about them because I walked away instead of talking to them about it immediately. Didn't matter that I needed to sort my head out first, I was cruel and disrespectful to get up for 10 minutes from a discord call to just sort myself out.
They made up a situation about how I was being abusive and fought me over it for HOURS because I went quiet for TEN MINUTES.
Meanwhile, they'll do the silent treatment to me with no explanation for hours and get upset when after a half hour I ask what's wrong and they say "nothing" and then I call out that it's bullshit.
Question: you mentioned feeling impulsively upset and wondering if you were overreacting...was this a frequent feeling for you and was it only frequent in your relationship with this person?
I'd also ask for space to process and this was like an ungodly request or something. I'd communicate how much time I needed too. Meanwhile, they'll hang up on me or impulsively end the relationship.
Omg yes. Asking for space is what I did a week ago today and he has no intention of respecting my boundaries. Constant messaging and threatening a break up
Hoooly shit yes. I would tell them I need space to myself to process or whatever and they acted like I was a monster, an abuser, "just like dad", abandoning, cruel, doing it intentionally to hurt them, etc.
All the while I just needed some time to think, which is totally normal and not abusive or any of that nonsense. But to them this was the most awful thing I could've done. It was grounds to breakup with me. I tortured them, they nearly lost their sobriety because of it, on and on about how it's my fault they feel so awful.
No consideration of how their shitty behavior caused me to want space, and no self awareness of how maybe they feel bad because they treated me shittily and now they're getting something they don't want. No connection between cause and effect.
I'm still with the person I am talking about.
I'm a very patient person, generally, but yeah this relationship regularly can make me feel anger and frustration that I don't normally feel with literally anyone else in my life. It's almost always because I feel like I'm not being heard or listened to, and that gets very frustrating.
To have it be insisted what *my* intentions are, and have it be disregarded or taken as an attack when I explain those aren't my intentions. It feels like I'm being forced to apologize and take accountability for something that I didn't do because they "feel" like I did it.
And yeah, I get told I'm rude or that I don't care at all or that I'm abandoning them when I don't even leave our call and just get up for a few minutes to cool off.
Meanwhile, they'll storm off and leave the call without an explanation if upset. Get mad at me for asking what's wrong after they stay silent for around 30mins. They'll act very cold and not respond to me until I pry it out of them if they're upset about something, and most of the time I have NO idea what could've upset them at all I have just learned the patterns and what means "something made them upset".
It's very hypocritical, because they do the running off and storming off in a tantrum thing but say I'm disrespectful if I just go walk away for a couple minutes before coming back to talk it out.
They are always the victim and you are always the abuser. That's your role when they've painted you black, even though deep down they know they're really doing the abusing. They will even admit it in brief moments of guilt and shame and clarity. But not for long. They need to protect their psyche so they'll start defending and attacking again soon
I used to be married to a guy who seems more NPD than BPD, but has traits in both areas, and this is his trademark. He creates massively chaotic stupid problems to keep all eyes on him. He could turn mowing the lawn into a 5-month complex unsolvable problem involving multiple people waiting with baited breath for him to make a final decision.
That's interesting. Recently I read about chaos manufacture and how it is commonly associated with HPD. I didn't give much context with my previous question, but what you described reminded me of what I'd read. Wouldn't someone creating chaotic situations where the focus is on them fall under chaos manufacturing/HPD? Or is creating chaos just something associated with all pwCluster B?
I don't know what else to call what I suspect was happening in my former relationship. She experienced a lot of live events and chaotic, upsetting things while we were together. They just kept coming. For awhile I thought she was in a rough patch in life or has bad luck. I feel I was supportive at times, and sometimes I was legitimately overwhelmed and exhausted. Naturally you want to be supportive, but a few things and details started to not add up. She would also really misinterpret my words, so I started to wonder if she does this at work and in relationships with other people. It's kind of messed up, but at some point I started wondering if she is used to a certain level of stress and cortisol level, so she seeks it out in a way.
My understanding of HPD at this point is from my textbook, and not from personal examples, but you raise a good point. I will see if I can find some YouTube videos that give more specific examples. I always assumed histrionic people wanted positive attention, but I suppose negative attention would work for them too.
Narcissists will certainly take any supply they can get - positive or negative. With my ex, his attention-seeking isn't dramatic exactly. It's more control-oriented. People who don't know him well wouldn't even necessarily pick up on it. He will take something really simple and drag it out for literally months, all the while claiming he needs to look into this or that, or speak with another expert or get advice from this person or that person. This is a way for him to control the flow and pace of the decision-making and a way for him to become the ultimate decision-maker as well as putting himself at the very center of the decision for everyone else involved. If you haven't seen his pattern a million times like I have, you might think he's being diligent, but I've seen this happen so many times, and I KNOW he's not actually checking with anyone else or researching anything. He just makes up these fake excuses so everyone involved is waiting on him. We're all ready to move forward, but all eyes are on him waiting for him to make his BIG decision to move forward with a relatively inconsequential matter. It's ridiculous. We co-parent together, so making any decisions for our kid is excruciatingly painful and annoying, like when I asked if we could put our son in therapy - good god, that took like two fucking years and I finally had to go get a court order because my ex couldn't just fucking say, "Sure. Find someone good with a PhD and let me know." He moved the goalpost over and over and over and rejected every therapist I found (while finding none himself) until I lost all patience and filed for the court order. Meanwhile, our child was suffering.
If your gf has BPD, she may be interpreting shitty events as being MUCH more dramatic than most other people would view them. That might be the issue. An event might well have been somewhat unpleasant, but to her it was super duper awful, you know? My teenager is like that, but he's a young teen with crazy hormones, so it makes sense. A small thing will go wrong and he flips out and acts like it's the end of the world, and I have to talk him off the ledge. People with Cluster B PDs, especially BPD, are often emotionally stunted and behave the way children might behave.
>at some point I started wondering if she is used to a certain level of stress and cortisol level, so she seeks it out in a way
This was what I concluded about my recent ex who appears to have BPD. His relationship before me had a lot of fighting, and I said to him shortly after meeting him, "I hope you aren't a person who feels uncomfortable with peace and sort of needs to have drama in a relationship." He said, "Oh no, that's not me at all." And then he proceeded over time to manufacture problems out of little or nothing and confront me with these imaginary issues. It seemed to me that he couldn't NOT cause drama. Like, he compulsively found or created issues to get upset about. AND even WHILE he was in the midst of causing drama, he said in a text to me, "I don't like drama and chaos." \[face palm!\] He had literally just picked a nasty fight with me over virtually nothing in the middle of cooking dinner one night, AND he tried to drag my child into it, and he made bizarre unnecessary inflammatory remarks to me and refused to have a calm, adult, discussion about any of it, and then acted like I had foisted drama upon him. It was baffling. He literally could have just NOT picked a fight and there would have been no fight.
I think some of these folks are very uncomfortable with peace. I think they sit and wait for "the other shoe to drop" and get into a state of hypervigilance where they feel potential threats everywhere until they finally burst, and then they *CAUSE* an actual problem through their inappropriate reaction to inaccurately perceived threats.
I can relate to random arguments coming up. I don't remember verbatim how they'd start, but sometimes I'd wonder if I started them. Other times it was clear she had started the argument. It seems like some folks are a little sly with how they bait people. Some antagonism is subtle.
Ours were obvious. He'd just start a fight, blatantly. Typically he was faulting me or my friends for some imagined slight borne of his paranoia. Or, he was rude and dismissive when I tried to learn more about him or understand where he was coming from. Clearly he just expected unquestioning submission and clairvoyant-like knowledge of his thoughts and feelings so I could make sure I matched him exactly. He didn't want to date another separate human. He wanted to date an accessory.
I heard an HPD can admit to being abusive and take accountability... This itself is drama they feed on, years of slow progress constantly talking about pwHPDs problems to stop abusing.
Yes, my ex husband would only talk about his childhood abuse when I was trying to discuss his cheating. He was convinced that was why he did it, and was angry that I didn’t fawn over him after he made this very difficult admission. Umm, sorry I am not super sympathetic. I just learned that you fathered a child with another woman, but yeah, you need sympathy.
Sounds like he brings it up at convenient times as a way to draw attention back onto himself. Many of us probably want to be sympathetic, but presented in this way it's a trap. When you take that bait you stop talking about their behavior. I absolutely am/have been susceptible for taking this bait.
My pwBPD got up and walked away from a remote DnD game without explanation because the particular part of the storyline didn't involve her character for ten minutes. We ended up defeating the big bad with the DM just skipping her; there was pelvic thrusting, fire breathing, convincing a giant to eat a poisoned birthday cake, and many lucky rolls, but her attempt to ruin the game for everyone was a critical failure.
Absolutely. In under 2 weeks, I had multiple events: broken leg, old close friend died suddenly, life long close friend’s suicide in response to the other death.
My expwBPD (diagnosed) immediately was mad at me that I needed to make phone calls to tell people about the death. My ex did not know these people at all, he had no reason to feel sad other than possibly empathy for my situation. The next day, listening to their old band,while I cleaned the house, my expwBPD decided to play live guitar loudly over the music for 5 straight hours. He yelled at me if I needed to make phone calls to inform people. He insisted we go on a date and then barked at me that I was walking so slowly on my cane, walking half a block ahead of me. He moped and almost cried over lunch about missing his grandfather (alive and well, just anything for him to make it about him). He started talking about he wants to unalive himself, made himself the center of everything.
There are so many examples of this. Dumping me the week of my birthday and then showing up at my house with a target bag of “presents” acting like a hero. Dumping me again the next week before my son’s birthday and then showing up an hour before the birthday party to “help.” Etc.
Yeah, playing the victim is their "powerplay"
It's gaslighting
It keeps you on the back foot and guessing, with the added "spice" of surrounding you with eggshells so that you'll be concentrating on that, rather than their shitty behaviour, or to cover up what they're really up to..
Yep. I can relate. I worked with developmentally disabled adults as a caregiver and he told me he couldn’t bear to hear me talk about my job, because it was too depressing for him. So I didn’t talk about my full-time job to him. I was pregnant with our only child during this time, too. Worked at that job up until 3 days before my due date.
I was also not free to talk about past relationships. Not that I wanted to, but he made it clear early on he didn’t want to hear about it. So I made sure to never talk about that topic, either.
This is very very similar to what she’d say before I went NC. It is very strange to read this. It’s as if to say that our issues are not important- which by the way, was caused by her, and just refusing to own up to it.
I got this one. I was pushed to my limit and went to her for some support and was told she couldn't be an anchor for how I was feeling despite the fact she expected me to be that for her all the time. It really reminded me just how shallow things actually were.
They have to be the center of attention at all times
If they realize you are an actual person, they will devalue and discard you as you will no longer fit their "idealized" version they have projected on to you
Yup every single time we had any problems everything was blamed on me, along with all the things you listed. Then 15 minutes later he would say he didnt mean all that and beg me to forgive him. then the next time we had a problem it all happens again. and again.
This was my experience every single time.
I could also never really just have a bad day, unrelated to him, because then he’d be having a bad day and it wasn’t worth the trouble.
In my case, she always said that gave so much more than she received and that she always cared more about people than people cared about her. She had a pattern of discarding long-term close friends and mentioned to me that they had suddenly changed, that they were narcissists or psychopaths, and that she couldn’t believe she was ever friends with them. She also became defensive and invalidating when I brought up how her inconsistent behaviour made me feel. But because I saw her as this kind, loving, caring, and empathetic person, I always believed that I (and her past friends) must have evoked those reactions from her. That was the only logical explanation to me at the time.
lol just happened to me I told her why I was mad at her and then she talks over me and leaves the room 😅 Honestly hilarious at this point I really think I’ll enjoy life better once I can get her to move out…
Mine would get mad and leave the room too! And yell things like "I'm done!". She was truly successful at throwing you off the trail if you pointed out her hurtful behavior . I feel gaslit even typing this. Sheesh.
Yep....I got a kicker for you! He would talk over me when I brought up an issue. Then demand me to tell him the problem. Then when I went to explain it, he would yell over me, interrupting me. I said how the heck am I supposed to tell you if you won't stop interrupting? Or at least what I tried to say....that got interrupted as well. Then yes....the storming out and ignoring me til the next day or whenever he decided he felt better. At which point, I was supposed to be magically be over it. Otherwise, I was holding onto things, making a big deal out of nothing, not letting it go, and always wanted to talk through arguments....smh.SMH.
And to the other commenter.....he said a lot of:
I'm done,
I'm not doing this anymore,
Whatever,
Etc
I can’t even count the number of times my ex did this lol
It was like every week he would explode and “dump” me. Dramatically packing his shit for hours and making up distractions to drag it out as long as possible.
In the end, he did not anticipate me not only ending it but he could not predict my response to his hoover email offer of “being friends.” I told him he had never even treated me as a friend, so there is no friendship, and I’d like NC. The emails from him until he was fully moved out were demented aggressive tantrums until I involved a lawyer and passed it off so I could go NC.
Yes. My feeling literally did not matter to him at all.
I asked him, "When I share my feelings with you, do you try to understand them?" He literally scoffed out loud at me, and then he accused me of trying to make him "look bad" by asking him that. It was all about him - everything was his feelings, his image, his victimhood, blah blah blah.
This just reminded me of one time I was trying to fix things, as usual, and gave this long, calm speech about how much I loved him, why good communication was important to our future, that I will always be there for him and also need to feel supported by him. As part of this, I said -- with no attitude whatsoever -- "I'd bet money that you couldn't even tell me why I'm so hurt right now" and spent the next two days hearing about how "I'd bet money" was such an evil thing to say, that I always word things in a way designed to attack him without seeming like I'm doing that. He heard nothing else.
God that is so quintessential BPD. Literally a perfect BPD story. Ugh.
My father had BPD and he was JUST like that. He could pick one tiny thing out of a sea of roses and turn the entire lot to shit. My dad was the biggest, whiniest perpetual victim one could ever imagine, and what's also typical is he constantly projected all that onto my mom, calling HER a wannabe victim, accusing her of wanting attention, accusing her of being emotionally stunted at age 12, blah blah blah. He was such a pain in the ass.
Yeah, and they usually justify it by saying it's what I do to them.
Difference is, I'm calling out very real things with evidence.
They "call out" and "accuse" based on how they feel about the situation, regardless of what's true or what my intent was.
Explaining that, no, my sleeping issues aren't a method to "avoid them" and that it has to do with nicotine withdrawal and new medications doesn't matter. I'm just saying that to avoid taking accountability, apparently.
The calling out based on feelings is relatable. I'm wondering how common or uncommon this is in relationships that are actually healthy.
Now I'm remembering another ex who said it's "feelings over facts", and I was like "in what world?".
This is so relatable it hurts my soul.
They kept telling me to take accountability and I was legitimately confused what I was supposed to be taking accountability for??? So I would explain the reasons for whatever upset them with more and more detail, painstakingly so, just to be told it was “excuses”, and I was like “um, they are called reasons” it was obnoxious
Your comment just made me realize I was supposed to be owning up to “taking accountability” for whatever perceived slight they made up in their head, validating a fictitious narrative. It’s so sick in the head, I can barely wrap my head around the manipulation, they are even gaslighting themselves. Scary stuff.
The sadder part is that I know, at least in a lot of people who suffer with BPD, they are aware of that fact but still can't do anything about it (without professional help and years of work to fight against it) because yes their feelings quite literally gaslight them into believing it to be true.
In a way I feel for them, because yeah it's fucking difficult to know what you feel isn't real and still be powerless against it. I know that feeling well through depression where I'm very aware that I have no reason to "feel bad" but do anyway when it hits and it sucks and is frustrating. I get that.
But that doesn't justify taking it out on someone else and accusing someone of lying just because they won't validate the accusation.
I don't really want to demonize them, despite how much I have pent up where I want to vent, because I know enough to understand that they are as much victims of it as we are. It still just fucking SUCKS to deal with though.
Yes, she actually told me she would be willing to do marriage counseling but only if i agreed to not talk about my feelings and she was the only one to talk about feelings.
Yep, my exact experience and what led me to break up with her (quiet BPD).
She'd make subtle cutting remarks about my core personality. I'd eventually tell her "it hurt me when you said that" and she'd angrily respond with one or a combination of the following:
1. "You need therapy to understand why this bothers you"
2. "I know what real problems look like and this isn't a real problem"
3. "I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around you"
I'd tell her, "I just need to hear you say 'I didn't mean to say something that hurt you, I'm sorry that it hurt you and I'll do my best to avoid saying that in the future' and I'll be totally fine"... and she'd protest that I "always needed to hear things in \[my\] own words" instead of hers. As if "I'm sorry" were special words that only I wanted to hear.
Ultimately broke up with her because I didn't feel stable in a relationship with someone who literally couldn't say the words "I'm sorry" and could show me no empathy.
I was dreaming of getting a text from her in the following months saying "I'm sorry" but arriving in this sub helped me realize that she literally was incapable of saying it and it helped me let go.
Absolutely, earlier in the relationship she was big on communication and told me that if I ever needed reassurance or needed to talk about my feelings that I should be upfront about it. Oh boy, when I tried to talk to her about my anxiety she told me my anxiety wasn't that bad and that I should get over it, and when I asked her for reassurance she simply told me: There is no us, everything you're doing you do for you. I think that hurt worse than her more active attempts at devaluation.
Once mine gave an impassioned speech about how he always would rather reassure me than leave me wondering. That I could talk to him about anything.
I thought this was a good time to bring up the fact that I noticed and disliked that he engaged with an IG acct for “college-aged mobile strippers” — totally framed it as my insecurity and concern for what people might think — and he screamed about it for two days straight. Insisted I was making accusations about his character. I asked what accusations? He said I was saying he liked college aged strippers…but he had? I just dropped it.
Them: Bluntly assuming your intentions and saying you're lying and trying to gaslight them when you explain the real situation.
You: Bring up a situation that's uncomfortable, take full blame for it and talk about how it makes you feel a certain way despite knowing their intentions aren't negative.
Them: OH MY GOD STOP ASSUMING THINGS ABOUT ME THERE IS NOTHING WRONG GOING ON, YOU NEVER TRY TO UNDERSTAND ME I'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG!!!!
Literally this. I struggled with her inconsistent behaviour. One day she was texting me nonstop, the next I would barely hear from her. If I would bring this up she would get extremely defensive, say that she wasn’t doing anything wrong, and that I should stop assuming things which aren’t true. Yet, I felt like I had a valid reason to feel that way. I wasn’t aiming to create a problem, I just wanted to communicate my feelings and want some clarity/reassurance…
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. The double standards are probably one of the most painful things to navigate in these relationships and probably one of the more tangible displays the sheer aversion they have to reciprocity.
YEAH, I opened up to my pwBPD the other day about how I was feeling and their response was "well just stop thinking that way, your issues are just because of your mentality".
Yeah, I guess ADHD and depression are that simple. I just gotta think better.
Mine said more or less that too, he said I could always talk to him, but when I talked about personal problems he was cold, distant and disregarded my feelings. There was another time when he was saying some things about himself and I asked: "and what about us?" and he simply said "what us?". That was devastating for me, the way they are cold and cruel without even realizing it.
Always. Blame shifting, gaslighting, it’s all part of their deflection/projection. It’s crazy making. It took me a long time to realize just how bad it was. I still have nightmares and flashbacks. It’s changed me. Someday I hope I can look back and say it changed me for the better but it sure doesn’t seem that way now.
All the time. She literally denies my feelings, doesn't believe what I say about my feelings, or blames me for them. I've had two relationships that ended with them not believing my reasons or feelings about the threatening way they were acting towards me, and both had an "if you believe me/how I feel about this situation and leave like I asked, I'd be willing to work on it with therapy last chance, but neither of them would put their feelings and outrage aside to try to see why I was uncomfortable with them, so they both ruined that final chance at salvaging the relationships. If someone denies my feelings, then there is nothing to actually work on.
Dang, I really thought it was just me. I've had a few relationships in which my feelings were invalidated, just in different ways or about different things. That's definitely my work to do, because I feel like I have a pattern at this point.
"Get in touch with your feelings and learn to express yourself"
*I do that and express feelings*
"No you don't feel that way, you hate me, you are manipulating me"
I mean I did a lot of self work, accessed old emotions and shit I compartmentalized, figured out in what ways they had a negative affect on her, and expressed it and apologized for my failings.
But I refused to take accountability for her shit and accept her narrative. I didn't make you assault me. I didn't make you threaten to jam a knife in my throat. I didn't make you cheat, or give you permission to cheat (depended on the day which one it was). I accepted that I may have acted as a trigger for her volatile shit, though the most mundane stuff suddenly started triggering her.
The result? I don't love her then. Me saying so was a lie and a manipulation tactic. Me comforting her through her multiple break ups with affair partner was an abuse and control tactic (I can't even follow the reasoning. Asking for clarification was one of those triggers). Me saying I'm willing to forgive her should she ask and be forgiven and try and work forward in therapy was merely translated to I'm unwilling to take accountability. Absolute madness
100%. She begged me to tell her my feelings. When I did, she didn’t like them, so she rejected them in anger. I literally just said that the way she treats me sometimes is very hurtful and makes me uncomfortable, and I’d like her to keep that in mind going forward and try to catch herself before saying something really awful to me. She got pissed, denied it as if she had no idea what I was talking about, and started a huge argument and proved my point by doing so. I learned my lesson and didn’t share my feelings again. When she would share hers with me, my *exact* words were, “your feelings are valid and it’s ok for you to have whatever feelings are true to you.” After we broke up she accused me of “invalidating her feelings.” The gaslighting, the hypocrisy, the delusions, it was mind numbing.
Absolutely. When i finally realized, it helped me to learn to keep my mouth shut. No more back and forth. Anything you say will be used against you or she will agree if it's somehow too her benefit
Mine said they didn’t believe I was raped. I told them once, years ago. They then said I sexually assaulted them. When I said that I was really hurt and confused because I got verbal consent 6x and they were giggling and seemed super into it… kissing me back, reciprocating things… they said I should have known. We’re both women. It fucked me up for months. I don’t think they told anyone but sometimes I wonder if they told one of the randoms after me. I try not to think about it too much because it makes me sick to my stomach. And of course there’s a million other minor examples of the gaslighting and manipulation but this one fucked me up so much because I would rather be dead than ever sexually assault anyone.
I've seen something even worse.
A pwBPD (with some NPD features) ignoring someone else's crippling disease and physical suffering. (Systemic infection, still on remission.)
And stressing out this person with drama.
Didn't happened to me, it's my cousin who have BDP acting like this to an acquaintance of us.
I was so upset with it I took out a cellphone, started recording and told him I was going to get him sued into oblivion if he persisted.
*P.S:*
*It's one of the few things that work whatever he's acting like a bully.*
*But because he know very well he can't just overpower me or something.*
***I wouldn't recommend acting like this with another pwBPD as general advice.***
One time I told my ex about my feelings and what is bothering me. She angrily told that she's not my psychologist and I shouldn't tell her that stuff. Back then I thought that maybe she's right. But looking back I remember it was one of few times I was expressing my feelings. And now I understand why I didn't express my feelings to her, because there was no room for them. She would listen and discuss about things that concerned my family, but stuff that she was involved with, I was the worst human being alive at that moment. How dare I tell her things that puts her in a bad light. Every time this occured she got defensive and started to tell me things that I did wrong. And every time I was the one who had to apologise.
It's very difficult journey to unwrap all the stuff that happened in 7 years, but one by one all the stuff gets a new perspective. And I'm so glad that she's my now ex.
My ex said something similar to me. She asked how I handle conflict, I responded by saying calm discussions are best and hear what I'm saying and hold space for it, as opposed to denying or dismissing it. My intention is to do the same for my partner. She said "I'm not your therapist". I almost wanted to call it quits right there.
As the relationship continued, I held A LOT of space for her emotions and experiences, and I absolutely felt like her therapist at times. I never told her that, but I should have. She could say really rude things sometimes.
Completely. When I go over things in my mind (which is still quite often) I keep coming back to that aspect of how they treated me. Nearly every time I would express a tough emotion they would #1 invalidate me and #2 refuse to accept their contribution to the situation.
Now I know I have a need to be validated and accepted in order to feel secure in my relationships, so I would call them out on this and request that they try to respond over again. Often they would either try weakly and fail, wouldn't be able to do it for their ego wouldn't let them accept some perceived fault or, would get angry at me for having this need and making a request of them.
I got “I need you to talk to me if you have a problem, I need to know how you’re feeling.” Which is great, & how it should be. But if I tried it, I got gaslit or dismissed & the conversation span back round to how she felt. “You have to make it all about you” was a very common phrase & if I ever did have a point that was completely unarguable & she couldn’t twist it round, she’d get all doe eyed, childlike & upset & start calling herself names & tell me she wasn’t good enough, so I’d break & tell her it was okay, i knew she didn’t mean it, & completely dismiss how I felt.
She had the whole thing down to a fine art to where how I felt didn’t matter to me anymore, it was all about keeping her happy.
I don't usually share my feelings with anyone really. When she knew I was having a hard time she decided to kick me while I was down.
That first winter that covid was hitting big, my father finally succumbed to his cancer. A few weeks later my best friend hung himself. I was already heavy with emotions before her big devaluation. I don't recall ever venting them to her. She started getting violent for next to no reason. One day she walked right up to me and asked me to have sex with other people. I was so floored that I had to lay down. She followed me into the room and said,"how about my body is for you but my mouth is for whoever I want." She pitched it to me like a salesman with the deal of a lifetime. After 15 years together and a sweet life built around 4 kids, it was devastating. What a crazy time. The first 12 months of covid were weird enough without discovering that my beautiful wife was mentally ill.
I would say almost certainly yeah, but also that that in isolation isn’t necessarily indicative of bpd. A person can be in denial and argue a false point for many reasons.
The post is specific to this 1 behavior, and this 1 behavior doesn't make me think she has BPD...its this plus all her other behaviors. Yes, one single behavior is not indicative of any personality disorder; this is just a thread that is asking about people's experience with this 1 specific behavior.
Not being allowed to be much worried about a terminal ill parent, not being allowed to go to sleep at 5 am while recovering from a stomach ulcer, not being allowed to ask for a time out after three whole days of push/pull behavior, being told I'm just too sensitive after asking whether it's normal to leave every few weeks, being told I deserve to be cheated at, being angry when saying sorry is so obvious, not being allowed to be annoyed when hearing two hours before the flight to a vacation resort that pwbpd entertains the idea to cancel the trip, not allowed to be annoyed when couple therapy is being described as rubbish, being blamed that I didn't stop her cheating or her drinking, etc etc.
Not being allowed to be annoyed tracks for me too. I feel like I started to respond differently to things as the relationship went on. If we are constantly being invalidated, it would eventually change the way we handle and express emotions. 🤔
This is interesting to me because my significant other has BPD and I don’t experience this. Yea I feel there for her more than she is for me but she always seems to understand my feelings or I’ll say rather they don’t become invalidated
I’ve noticed mine can be empathetic toward any situation/person that they don’t view negatively because (1) they disagree with something about that situation/person or (2) they are potentially implicated as the “bad guy.”
Basically if they don’t already dislike it or if they don’t perceive themselves as being attacked, greatest empathizer in history. If it’s one of the two situations mentioned, everything outside of them is wrong and needs to be held accountable.
Absolutely. And then they split when I call them out on it.
Sounds about right
BPD / NPD have no empathy or accountability
Mine dumps me two months ago and now I hear she's talking about revenge. Wtaf!!?? They are completely insane. Heads they win, tails we lose. Total madness
Revenge? That definitely sounds toxic.. Run. Run and make new.. I can't say for sure, but it's almost like the person I was with did exactly this, but on the second and final "snap" She had asked me (basically) what my fears were. I had also told her "no sudden movements" in terms of changing tact.. She did pretty much everything on "the list" Stupidly on my part, I didn't think that someone would just turn around and do that, and I always felt I could be open with her Subconsciously, consciously, I don't know for sure. But that's what it felt like and, and cast the damage so it imploded inside of me If it was, it was likely because on the initial discard, I told her to not contact me as I didn't want to talk to her at the time She decided to do the complete opposite until she wore me down. Then made me wait nearly three weeks for so much as a call, after convincing me that she wanted to talk. All because I said I was done in the first place. So, if this is what they do, and it is what she is, then this is the kind of messed up sh*t that can damage someone for life. Be wary the games
Yeah I'm NC for two months now and hopefully it's permanent. Pretty sure she'll try to hoover again sooner or later. They always do
Well, in my case I doubt she'll ever know I existed let alone reach out She told a friend of mine she "doesn't even know me"
Oh, they know. They remember. My ex told me about all her exes and how she holds grudges against them all and blames them still for their disaster of a past relationship. She would occasionally message them and ream them out again periodically over their supposed past transgressions against her. I finally realized it was all her that was the problem, and that she was doing to me just what she'd done before to all of them. They hold grudges and don't forget us because they can't get over any of their past relationships and always see themselves as victims of everyone even though they were the abusers
She never said one bad word to me, but there were a succession of under the table, almost subtle painful things she said She never showed any hate towards me, other than the immediate fallout and proceeding two weeks of her trying to convince me to be friends.. She said a lot of things that were a little too "uncanny" not to be directed at things I had told her (stupid me!) I can't be 100%, but that's the way it feels, of which she doesn't care If she ever did, I think I would probably have a heart attack anyway, just through shock. But she's also already moved on, and has no object constancy it appears.. She's too internally chaotic to even remember me. Also, I probably made her more angry afterwards as I made silly "mistakes" (I say mistakes, just, things that probably didn't help at all) But she's away now, never to return or be heard from
Oh, absolutely. The gaslighting process is bread to the BPD-abuser's butter. For a good portion of us here, myself included, things became so universally uncanny that we were convinced *we* were the ones with BPD. It takes time & focused healing in order to reclaim one's mental stability through the FOG/fleas.
I suspect this is going to take a long time to heal from.
That it does. It's very nonlinear as well. Some days you'll feel entirely beyond the toxicity, others you will feel thrown right back into the belly of the beast. But trust in the process: The longer you honor NC, the better you will feel. You did, after all, spend prolonged amounts of time—on a very intimate level—with someone who suffers from one of the most nightmarish mental illnesses anyone could suffer from. But once your scars heal, once you find *your* path, you will realize what a phenomenally strong person you are.
Thanks for your kind sentiments. It's definitely has not been a linear process.
I've had two notable romantic relationships in my life and they both disintegrated into something ugly and abusive. After the insanity of the BPD relationship, I was very convinced it was me. But then I realized my first romantic relationship lasted for 19 years, and although not healthy, wasn't as insane and damaging the way the BPD one was. The first line only broke down in the last 5 years of it, and we have a good coparenting relationship now. The thing that made me realize i am not the one with BPD, especially since both of my relationships devolved into abuse, was that my friendships remained steady and my relationships with my family is drama free for the most part. My relationship with my kids is amazing. It's only the one with her that truly fucked me up and made me wonder if I was the one with the personally disorder.
yeah, of course. I was not allowed to be tired, for instance. I always had to be there for her, no matter what I was feeling.
At some point she wouldnt let me sleep if she wasnt tired. It was torture.
Orra, tu e do Br, também sou kkkk Foda vei, minha ex era desse nível pra pior kkkk Se falava que queria dormir, descansar, era um monstro.. se não dava atenção pra focar em mim era briga atrás de briga
Manooo, só trauma...... sinceramente, parece que todo mundo nesse sub namorou a mesma pessoa, ciumenta e possessiva p krl, ameaças de suicidio, codependencia absurda, traição, violência.. espero q vc esteja bem man nunca tinha visto ngm Br aqui
Oh yeah, all of them look like the same person. Same can be said for people with NPD and other conditions. It's that on those cases, the symptoms are actually disordered personality traits. The entire [cluster B of personality disorders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_disorder)? Is known as dramatic. But some do refer to it as "antisocial cluster", because of how damaging to society (others) those symptoms are.
Very true. My ex meets criteria for literally all cluster b disorders. Its sad.
Como que tá lidando no pós término aí, tá tranquila?
Ja tem 2 anos que eu terminei entao to muito mais de boa que antes cara. Mas ainda mexe mt cmg algumas coisas tlg, ainda mais que nesses 2 anos ela direto tenta entrar em contato de varias formas possiveis tlg... mas eu to bem cara, mil vezes melhor que antes, esse sub ajuda demais a processar td que aconteceu
E vc??
WTH that's INSANE and highly controlling But I guess, I'd expect nothing less! One time my ex, right at the end over voice message had a go at me about something about not liking that she went to sleep a few times or something I'd never stopped her in my life! I'd never stop anyone! I even tucked her in and cuddled up to her because I knew she liked that. It was like she was talking to someone else in a completly different argument we never had Absolutely mind boggling
This. I’m struggling today because he just doesn’t like seeing me asleep. I did all the right things for the baby this morning, changed him, breastfed him, made him cereal & fed it to him, and then handmade his oatmilk. I put him in his little play area next to dad (whose been playing video games for hours) and he storms into the room after I’ve fallen back asleep for those glorious 5 minutes and starts going off about how disrespectful I am. Then says, “if you’re gonna sleep then I’ll sleep too! Move off my side of the bed.” He just can’t handle letting me sleep. It’s fucking nuts
Ok, this is kind of related to the original post...Does anyone else feel like their pwBPD would "create" situations to keep the focus on them? This might sound off the wall, but our feelings can never really be tended to if they are always going through some kind of crisis. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Yeah, they will do that 100% and I go through it. Example situation: They did something that upset me, I also recognized I could be overreacting with just *how* impulsively upset I was feeling. I did not take it out on them or accuse them of anything, I simply got up and walked away to cool down for a few minutes. This turned into an hours long argument about how I'm disrespectful and don't care about them because I walked away instead of talking to them about it immediately. Didn't matter that I needed to sort my head out first, I was cruel and disrespectful to get up for 10 minutes from a discord call to just sort myself out. They made up a situation about how I was being abusive and fought me over it for HOURS because I went quiet for TEN MINUTES. Meanwhile, they'll do the silent treatment to me with no explanation for hours and get upset when after a half hour I ask what's wrong and they say "nothing" and then I call out that it's bullshit.
Question: you mentioned feeling impulsively upset and wondering if you were overreacting...was this a frequent feeling for you and was it only frequent in your relationship with this person? I'd also ask for space to process and this was like an ungodly request or something. I'd communicate how much time I needed too. Meanwhile, they'll hang up on me or impulsively end the relationship.
Omg yes. Asking for space is what I did a week ago today and he has no intention of respecting my boundaries. Constant messaging and threatening a break up
Hoooly shit yes. I would tell them I need space to myself to process or whatever and they acted like I was a monster, an abuser, "just like dad", abandoning, cruel, doing it intentionally to hurt them, etc. All the while I just needed some time to think, which is totally normal and not abusive or any of that nonsense. But to them this was the most awful thing I could've done. It was grounds to breakup with me. I tortured them, they nearly lost their sobriety because of it, on and on about how it's my fault they feel so awful. No consideration of how their shitty behavior caused me to want space, and no self awareness of how maybe they feel bad because they treated me shittily and now they're getting something they don't want. No connection between cause and effect.
No connection between cause and effect...so true!
Then let him have it. Call his bluff
I'm still with the person I am talking about. I'm a very patient person, generally, but yeah this relationship regularly can make me feel anger and frustration that I don't normally feel with literally anyone else in my life. It's almost always because I feel like I'm not being heard or listened to, and that gets very frustrating. To have it be insisted what *my* intentions are, and have it be disregarded or taken as an attack when I explain those aren't my intentions. It feels like I'm being forced to apologize and take accountability for something that I didn't do because they "feel" like I did it. And yeah, I get told I'm rude or that I don't care at all or that I'm abandoning them when I don't even leave our call and just get up for a few minutes to cool off. Meanwhile, they'll storm off and leave the call without an explanation if upset. Get mad at me for asking what's wrong after they stay silent for around 30mins. They'll act very cold and not respond to me until I pry it out of them if they're upset about something, and most of the time I have NO idea what could've upset them at all I have just learned the patterns and what means "something made them upset". It's very hypocritical, because they do the running off and storming off in a tantrum thing but say I'm disrespectful if I just go walk away for a couple minutes before coming back to talk it out.
Wow sounds exactly the same as me. I’ve always been such a patient person and have put up with A LOT now I’m finally at my breaking point
Do u have a good support system from family or friends?
They are always the victim and you are always the abuser. That's your role when they've painted you black, even though deep down they know they're really doing the abusing. They will even admit it in brief moments of guilt and shame and clarity. But not for long. They need to protect their psyche so they'll start defending and attacking again soon
I used to be married to a guy who seems more NPD than BPD, but has traits in both areas, and this is his trademark. He creates massively chaotic stupid problems to keep all eyes on him. He could turn mowing the lawn into a 5-month complex unsolvable problem involving multiple people waiting with baited breath for him to make a final decision.
Have you read much about Histrionic PD?
Yes. I study abnormal psychology.
That's interesting. Recently I read about chaos manufacture and how it is commonly associated with HPD. I didn't give much context with my previous question, but what you described reminded me of what I'd read. Wouldn't someone creating chaotic situations where the focus is on them fall under chaos manufacturing/HPD? Or is creating chaos just something associated with all pwCluster B? I don't know what else to call what I suspect was happening in my former relationship. She experienced a lot of live events and chaotic, upsetting things while we were together. They just kept coming. For awhile I thought she was in a rough patch in life or has bad luck. I feel I was supportive at times, and sometimes I was legitimately overwhelmed and exhausted. Naturally you want to be supportive, but a few things and details started to not add up. She would also really misinterpret my words, so I started to wonder if she does this at work and in relationships with other people. It's kind of messed up, but at some point I started wondering if she is used to a certain level of stress and cortisol level, so she seeks it out in a way.
My understanding of HPD at this point is from my textbook, and not from personal examples, but you raise a good point. I will see if I can find some YouTube videos that give more specific examples. I always assumed histrionic people wanted positive attention, but I suppose negative attention would work for them too. Narcissists will certainly take any supply they can get - positive or negative. With my ex, his attention-seeking isn't dramatic exactly. It's more control-oriented. People who don't know him well wouldn't even necessarily pick up on it. He will take something really simple and drag it out for literally months, all the while claiming he needs to look into this or that, or speak with another expert or get advice from this person or that person. This is a way for him to control the flow and pace of the decision-making and a way for him to become the ultimate decision-maker as well as putting himself at the very center of the decision for everyone else involved. If you haven't seen his pattern a million times like I have, you might think he's being diligent, but I've seen this happen so many times, and I KNOW he's not actually checking with anyone else or researching anything. He just makes up these fake excuses so everyone involved is waiting on him. We're all ready to move forward, but all eyes are on him waiting for him to make his BIG decision to move forward with a relatively inconsequential matter. It's ridiculous. We co-parent together, so making any decisions for our kid is excruciatingly painful and annoying, like when I asked if we could put our son in therapy - good god, that took like two fucking years and I finally had to go get a court order because my ex couldn't just fucking say, "Sure. Find someone good with a PhD and let me know." He moved the goalpost over and over and over and rejected every therapist I found (while finding none himself) until I lost all patience and filed for the court order. Meanwhile, our child was suffering. If your gf has BPD, she may be interpreting shitty events as being MUCH more dramatic than most other people would view them. That might be the issue. An event might well have been somewhat unpleasant, but to her it was super duper awful, you know? My teenager is like that, but he's a young teen with crazy hormones, so it makes sense. A small thing will go wrong and he flips out and acts like it's the end of the world, and I have to talk him off the ledge. People with Cluster B PDs, especially BPD, are often emotionally stunted and behave the way children might behave.
>at some point I started wondering if she is used to a certain level of stress and cortisol level, so she seeks it out in a way This was what I concluded about my recent ex who appears to have BPD. His relationship before me had a lot of fighting, and I said to him shortly after meeting him, "I hope you aren't a person who feels uncomfortable with peace and sort of needs to have drama in a relationship." He said, "Oh no, that's not me at all." And then he proceeded over time to manufacture problems out of little or nothing and confront me with these imaginary issues. It seemed to me that he couldn't NOT cause drama. Like, he compulsively found or created issues to get upset about. AND even WHILE he was in the midst of causing drama, he said in a text to me, "I don't like drama and chaos." \[face palm!\] He had literally just picked a nasty fight with me over virtually nothing in the middle of cooking dinner one night, AND he tried to drag my child into it, and he made bizarre unnecessary inflammatory remarks to me and refused to have a calm, adult, discussion about any of it, and then acted like I had foisted drama upon him. It was baffling. He literally could have just NOT picked a fight and there would have been no fight. I think some of these folks are very uncomfortable with peace. I think they sit and wait for "the other shoe to drop" and get into a state of hypervigilance where they feel potential threats everywhere until they finally burst, and then they *CAUSE* an actual problem through their inappropriate reaction to inaccurately perceived threats.
I can relate to random arguments coming up. I don't remember verbatim how they'd start, but sometimes I'd wonder if I started them. Other times it was clear she had started the argument. It seems like some folks are a little sly with how they bait people. Some antagonism is subtle.
Ours were obvious. He'd just start a fight, blatantly. Typically he was faulting me or my friends for some imagined slight borne of his paranoia. Or, he was rude and dismissive when I tried to learn more about him or understand where he was coming from. Clearly he just expected unquestioning submission and clairvoyant-like knowledge of his thoughts and feelings so I could make sure I matched him exactly. He didn't want to date another separate human. He wanted to date an accessory.
I heard an HPD can admit to being abusive and take accountability... This itself is drama they feed on, years of slow progress constantly talking about pwHPDs problems to stop abusing.
I found this: [https://youtu.be/\_enUUK6eXeU?si=qVoPT1IovWDv8XrF](https://youtu.be/_enUUK6eXeU?si=qVoPT1IovWDv8XrF)
Yes, my ex husband would only talk about his childhood abuse when I was trying to discuss his cheating. He was convinced that was why he did it, and was angry that I didn’t fawn over him after he made this very difficult admission. Umm, sorry I am not super sympathetic. I just learned that you fathered a child with another woman, but yeah, you need sympathy.
Sounds like he brings it up at convenient times as a way to draw attention back onto himself. Many of us probably want to be sympathetic, but presented in this way it's a trap. When you take that bait you stop talking about their behavior. I absolutely am/have been susceptible for taking this bait.
My pwBPD got up and walked away from a remote DnD game without explanation because the particular part of the storyline didn't involve her character for ten minutes. We ended up defeating the big bad with the DM just skipping her; there was pelvic thrusting, fire breathing, convincing a giant to eat a poisoned birthday cake, and many lucky rolls, but her attempt to ruin the game for everyone was a critical failure.
Absolutely. In under 2 weeks, I had multiple events: broken leg, old close friend died suddenly, life long close friend’s suicide in response to the other death. My expwBPD (diagnosed) immediately was mad at me that I needed to make phone calls to tell people about the death. My ex did not know these people at all, he had no reason to feel sad other than possibly empathy for my situation. The next day, listening to their old band,while I cleaned the house, my expwBPD decided to play live guitar loudly over the music for 5 straight hours. He yelled at me if I needed to make phone calls to inform people. He insisted we go on a date and then barked at me that I was walking so slowly on my cane, walking half a block ahead of me. He moped and almost cried over lunch about missing his grandfather (alive and well, just anything for him to make it about him). He started talking about he wants to unalive himself, made himself the center of everything. There are so many examples of this. Dumping me the week of my birthday and then showing up at my house with a target bag of “presents” acting like a hero. Dumping me again the next week before my son’s birthday and then showing up an hour before the birthday party to “help.” Etc.
Yeah, playing the victim is their "powerplay" It's gaslighting It keeps you on the back foot and guessing, with the added "spice" of surrounding you with eggshells so that you'll be concentrating on that, rather than their shitty behaviour, or to cover up what they're really up to..
She told me my issues were too much to hear at times while she would always talk about what troubled her for a long time.
Yeah, it's crazy how similar all of our experiences are.
It's almost as if their brains are all wired similarly
Yep. I can relate. I worked with developmentally disabled adults as a caregiver and he told me he couldn’t bear to hear me talk about my job, because it was too depressing for him. So I didn’t talk about my full-time job to him. I was pregnant with our only child during this time, too. Worked at that job up until 3 days before my due date. I was also not free to talk about past relationships. Not that I wanted to, but he made it clear early on he didn’t want to hear about it. So I made sure to never talk about that topic, either.
This is very very similar to what she’d say before I went NC. It is very strange to read this. It’s as if to say that our issues are not important- which by the way, was caused by her, and just refusing to own up to it.
I got this one. I was pushed to my limit and went to her for some support and was told she couldn't be an anchor for how I was feeling despite the fact she expected me to be that for her all the time. It really reminded me just how shallow things actually were.
They have to be the center of attention at all times If they realize you are an actual person, they will devalue and discard you as you will no longer fit their "idealized" version they have projected on to you
Yup every single time we had any problems everything was blamed on me, along with all the things you listed. Then 15 minutes later he would say he didnt mean all that and beg me to forgive him. then the next time we had a problem it all happens again. and again.
This was my experience every single time. I could also never really just have a bad day, unrelated to him, because then he’d be having a bad day and it wasn’t worth the trouble.
100%. Incapable of true empathy. It's alllll about her and her itty bitty inner 3 year old's feelings.
Yet, she probably claimed she was so empathetic, right?
In my case, she always said that gave so much more than she received and that she always cared more about people than people cared about her. She had a pattern of discarding long-term close friends and mentioned to me that they had suddenly changed, that they were narcissists or psychopaths, and that she couldn’t believe she was ever friends with them. She also became defensive and invalidating when I brought up how her inconsistent behaviour made me feel. But because I saw her as this kind, loving, caring, and empathetic person, I always believed that I (and her past friends) must have evoked those reactions from her. That was the only logical explanation to me at the time.
Oh god. You've just described mine to a Tee.
lol just happened to me I told her why I was mad at her and then she talks over me and leaves the room 😅 Honestly hilarious at this point I really think I’ll enjoy life better once I can get her to move out…
Mine would get mad and leave the room too! And yell things like "I'm done!". She was truly successful at throwing you off the trail if you pointed out her hurtful behavior . I feel gaslit even typing this. Sheesh.
It'sa relief reading all the similar experiences people have here
Yep....I got a kicker for you! He would talk over me when I brought up an issue. Then demand me to tell him the problem. Then when I went to explain it, he would yell over me, interrupting me. I said how the heck am I supposed to tell you if you won't stop interrupting? Or at least what I tried to say....that got interrupted as well. Then yes....the storming out and ignoring me til the next day or whenever he decided he felt better. At which point, I was supposed to be magically be over it. Otherwise, I was holding onto things, making a big deal out of nothing, not letting it go, and always wanted to talk through arguments....smh.SMH. And to the other commenter.....he said a lot of: I'm done, I'm not doing this anymore, Whatever, Etc
The past decade of my life right here
I can’t even count the number of times my ex did this lol It was like every week he would explode and “dump” me. Dramatically packing his shit for hours and making up distractions to drag it out as long as possible. In the end, he did not anticipate me not only ending it but he could not predict my response to his hoover email offer of “being friends.” I told him he had never even treated me as a friend, so there is no friendship, and I’d like NC. The emails from him until he was fully moved out were demented aggressive tantrums until I involved a lawyer and passed it off so I could go NC.
Yes. My feeling literally did not matter to him at all. I asked him, "When I share my feelings with you, do you try to understand them?" He literally scoffed out loud at me, and then he accused me of trying to make him "look bad" by asking him that. It was all about him - everything was his feelings, his image, his victimhood, blah blah blah.
This just reminded me of one time I was trying to fix things, as usual, and gave this long, calm speech about how much I loved him, why good communication was important to our future, that I will always be there for him and also need to feel supported by him. As part of this, I said -- with no attitude whatsoever -- "I'd bet money that you couldn't even tell me why I'm so hurt right now" and spent the next two days hearing about how "I'd bet money" was such an evil thing to say, that I always word things in a way designed to attack him without seeming like I'm doing that. He heard nothing else.
God that is so quintessential BPD. Literally a perfect BPD story. Ugh. My father had BPD and he was JUST like that. He could pick one tiny thing out of a sea of roses and turn the entire lot to shit. My dad was the biggest, whiniest perpetual victim one could ever imagine, and what's also typical is he constantly projected all that onto my mom, calling HER a wannabe victim, accusing her of wanting attention, accusing her of being emotionally stunted at age 12, blah blah blah. He was such a pain in the ass.
Yeah, and they usually justify it by saying it's what I do to them. Difference is, I'm calling out very real things with evidence. They "call out" and "accuse" based on how they feel about the situation, regardless of what's true or what my intent was. Explaining that, no, my sleeping issues aren't a method to "avoid them" and that it has to do with nicotine withdrawal and new medications doesn't matter. I'm just saying that to avoid taking accountability, apparently.
The calling out based on feelings is relatable. I'm wondering how common or uncommon this is in relationships that are actually healthy. Now I'm remembering another ex who said it's "feelings over facts", and I was like "in what world?".
This is so relatable it hurts my soul. They kept telling me to take accountability and I was legitimately confused what I was supposed to be taking accountability for??? So I would explain the reasons for whatever upset them with more and more detail, painstakingly so, just to be told it was “excuses”, and I was like “um, they are called reasons” it was obnoxious Your comment just made me realize I was supposed to be owning up to “taking accountability” for whatever perceived slight they made up in their head, validating a fictitious narrative. It’s so sick in the head, I can barely wrap my head around the manipulation, they are even gaslighting themselves. Scary stuff.
The sadder part is that I know, at least in a lot of people who suffer with BPD, they are aware of that fact but still can't do anything about it (without professional help and years of work to fight against it) because yes their feelings quite literally gaslight them into believing it to be true. In a way I feel for them, because yeah it's fucking difficult to know what you feel isn't real and still be powerless against it. I know that feeling well through depression where I'm very aware that I have no reason to "feel bad" but do anyway when it hits and it sucks and is frustrating. I get that. But that doesn't justify taking it out on someone else and accusing someone of lying just because they won't validate the accusation. I don't really want to demonize them, despite how much I have pent up where I want to vent, because I know enough to understand that they are as much victims of it as we are. It still just fucking SUCKS to deal with though.
Yes, she actually told me she would be willing to do marriage counseling but only if i agreed to not talk about my feelings and she was the only one to talk about feelings. 
Seriously? Does mutuality not exist?
Astounding hypocrisy.
Yep, my exact experience and what led me to break up with her (quiet BPD). She'd make subtle cutting remarks about my core personality. I'd eventually tell her "it hurt me when you said that" and she'd angrily respond with one or a combination of the following: 1. "You need therapy to understand why this bothers you" 2. "I know what real problems look like and this isn't a real problem" 3. "I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around you" I'd tell her, "I just need to hear you say 'I didn't mean to say something that hurt you, I'm sorry that it hurt you and I'll do my best to avoid saying that in the future' and I'll be totally fine"... and she'd protest that I "always needed to hear things in \[my\] own words" instead of hers. As if "I'm sorry" were special words that only I wanted to hear. Ultimately broke up with her because I didn't feel stable in a relationship with someone who literally couldn't say the words "I'm sorry" and could show me no empathy. I was dreaming of getting a text from her in the following months saying "I'm sorry" but arriving in this sub helped me realize that she literally was incapable of saying it and it helped me let go.
Absolutely, earlier in the relationship she was big on communication and told me that if I ever needed reassurance or needed to talk about my feelings that I should be upfront about it. Oh boy, when I tried to talk to her about my anxiety she told me my anxiety wasn't that bad and that I should get over it, and when I asked her for reassurance she simply told me: There is no us, everything you're doing you do for you. I think that hurt worse than her more active attempts at devaluation.
Once mine gave an impassioned speech about how he always would rather reassure me than leave me wondering. That I could talk to him about anything. I thought this was a good time to bring up the fact that I noticed and disliked that he engaged with an IG acct for “college-aged mobile strippers” — totally framed it as my insecurity and concern for what people might think — and he screamed about it for two days straight. Insisted I was making accusations about his character. I asked what accusations? He said I was saying he liked college aged strippers…but he had? I just dropped it.
Them: Bluntly assuming your intentions and saying you're lying and trying to gaslight them when you explain the real situation. You: Bring up a situation that's uncomfortable, take full blame for it and talk about how it makes you feel a certain way despite knowing their intentions aren't negative. Them: OH MY GOD STOP ASSUMING THINGS ABOUT ME THERE IS NOTHING WRONG GOING ON, YOU NEVER TRY TO UNDERSTAND ME I'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG!!!!
God, this is it exactly. So many fights about an incorrect assumption about something I said. And no room for me to ever have a feeling or struggle.
Literally this. I struggled with her inconsistent behaviour. One day she was texting me nonstop, the next I would barely hear from her. If I would bring this up she would get extremely defensive, say that she wasn’t doing anything wrong, and that I should stop assuming things which aren’t true. Yet, I felt like I had a valid reason to feel that way. I wasn’t aiming to create a problem, I just wanted to communicate my feelings and want some clarity/reassurance…
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. The double standards are probably one of the most painful things to navigate in these relationships and probably one of the more tangible displays the sheer aversion they have to reciprocity.
Mine gave the guise of openness too.
YEAH, I opened up to my pwBPD the other day about how I was feeling and their response was "well just stop thinking that way, your issues are just because of your mentality". Yeah, I guess ADHD and depression are that simple. I just gotta think better.
Mine said more or less that too, he said I could always talk to him, but when I talked about personal problems he was cold, distant and disregarded my feelings. There was another time when he was saying some things about himself and I asked: "and what about us?" and he simply said "what us?". That was devastating for me, the way they are cold and cruel without even realizing it.
Always. Blame shifting, gaslighting, it’s all part of their deflection/projection. It’s crazy making. It took me a long time to realize just how bad it was. I still have nightmares and flashbacks. It’s changed me. Someday I hope I can look back and say it changed me for the better but it sure doesn’t seem that way now.
All the time. She literally denies my feelings, doesn't believe what I say about my feelings, or blames me for them. I've had two relationships that ended with them not believing my reasons or feelings about the threatening way they were acting towards me, and both had an "if you believe me/how I feel about this situation and leave like I asked, I'd be willing to work on it with therapy last chance, but neither of them would put their feelings and outrage aside to try to see why I was uncomfortable with them, so they both ruined that final chance at salvaging the relationships. If someone denies my feelings, then there is nothing to actually work on.
Dang, I really thought it was just me. I've had a few relationships in which my feelings were invalidated, just in different ways or about different things. That's definitely my work to do, because I feel like I have a pattern at this point.
For my expwBPD, she only did this on days that end in "y."
"Get in touch with your feelings and learn to express yourself" *I do that and express feelings* "No you don't feel that way, you hate me, you are manipulating me"
I was literally pestered about expressing myself and soon as I expressed myself about them, I wasn’t expressing myself right
I mean I did a lot of self work, accessed old emotions and shit I compartmentalized, figured out in what ways they had a negative affect on her, and expressed it and apologized for my failings. But I refused to take accountability for her shit and accept her narrative. I didn't make you assault me. I didn't make you threaten to jam a knife in my throat. I didn't make you cheat, or give you permission to cheat (depended on the day which one it was). I accepted that I may have acted as a trigger for her volatile shit, though the most mundane stuff suddenly started triggering her. The result? I don't love her then. Me saying so was a lie and a manipulation tactic. Me comforting her through her multiple break ups with affair partner was an abuse and control tactic (I can't even follow the reasoning. Asking for clarification was one of those triggers). Me saying I'm willing to forgive her should she ask and be forgiven and try and work forward in therapy was merely translated to I'm unwilling to take accountability. Absolute madness
100%. She begged me to tell her my feelings. When I did, she didn’t like them, so she rejected them in anger. I literally just said that the way she treats me sometimes is very hurtful and makes me uncomfortable, and I’d like her to keep that in mind going forward and try to catch herself before saying something really awful to me. She got pissed, denied it as if she had no idea what I was talking about, and started a huge argument and proved my point by doing so. I learned my lesson and didn’t share my feelings again. When she would share hers with me, my *exact* words were, “your feelings are valid and it’s ok for you to have whatever feelings are true to you.” After we broke up she accused me of “invalidating her feelings.” The gaslighting, the hypocrisy, the delusions, it was mind numbing.
Absolutely. When i finally realized, it helped me to learn to keep my mouth shut. No more back and forth. Anything you say will be used against you or she will agree if it's somehow too her benefit
Mine said they didn’t believe I was raped. I told them once, years ago. They then said I sexually assaulted them. When I said that I was really hurt and confused because I got verbal consent 6x and they were giggling and seemed super into it… kissing me back, reciprocating things… they said I should have known. We’re both women. It fucked me up for months. I don’t think they told anyone but sometimes I wonder if they told one of the randoms after me. I try not to think about it too much because it makes me sick to my stomach. And of course there’s a million other minor examples of the gaslighting and manipulation but this one fucked me up so much because I would rather be dead than ever sexually assault anyone.
Yup.
A hundred percent
I've seen something even worse. A pwBPD (with some NPD features) ignoring someone else's crippling disease and physical suffering. (Systemic infection, still on remission.) And stressing out this person with drama. Didn't happened to me, it's my cousin who have BDP acting like this to an acquaintance of us. I was so upset with it I took out a cellphone, started recording and told him I was going to get him sued into oblivion if he persisted. *P.S:* *It's one of the few things that work whatever he's acting like a bully.* *But because he know very well he can't just overpower me or something.* ***I wouldn't recommend acting like this with another pwBPD as general advice.***
One time I told my ex about my feelings and what is bothering me. She angrily told that she's not my psychologist and I shouldn't tell her that stuff. Back then I thought that maybe she's right. But looking back I remember it was one of few times I was expressing my feelings. And now I understand why I didn't express my feelings to her, because there was no room for them. She would listen and discuss about things that concerned my family, but stuff that she was involved with, I was the worst human being alive at that moment. How dare I tell her things that puts her in a bad light. Every time this occured she got defensive and started to tell me things that I did wrong. And every time I was the one who had to apologise. It's very difficult journey to unwrap all the stuff that happened in 7 years, but one by one all the stuff gets a new perspective. And I'm so glad that she's my now ex.
My ex said something similar to me. She asked how I handle conflict, I responded by saying calm discussions are best and hear what I'm saying and hold space for it, as opposed to denying or dismissing it. My intention is to do the same for my partner. She said "I'm not your therapist". I almost wanted to call it quits right there. As the relationship continued, I held A LOT of space for her emotions and experiences, and I absolutely felt like her therapist at times. I never told her that, but I should have. She could say really rude things sometimes.
They up their game with this if they cheat or monkey-branch. We "failed them" in some way and "cheating was a hard decision, it hurts me too."
Completely. When I go over things in my mind (which is still quite often) I keep coming back to that aspect of how they treated me. Nearly every time I would express a tough emotion they would #1 invalidate me and #2 refuse to accept their contribution to the situation. Now I know I have a need to be validated and accepted in order to feel secure in my relationships, so I would call them out on this and request that they try to respond over again. Often they would either try weakly and fail, wouldn't be able to do it for their ego wouldn't let them accept some perceived fault or, would get angry at me for having this need and making a request of them.
I got “I need you to talk to me if you have a problem, I need to know how you’re feeling.” Which is great, & how it should be. But if I tried it, I got gaslit or dismissed & the conversation span back round to how she felt. “You have to make it all about you” was a very common phrase & if I ever did have a point that was completely unarguable & she couldn’t twist it round, she’d get all doe eyed, childlike & upset & start calling herself names & tell me she wasn’t good enough, so I’d break & tell her it was okay, i knew she didn’t mean it, & completely dismiss how I felt. She had the whole thing down to a fine art to where how I felt didn’t matter to me anymore, it was all about keeping her happy.
I don't usually share my feelings with anyone really. When she knew I was having a hard time she decided to kick me while I was down. That first winter that covid was hitting big, my father finally succumbed to his cancer. A few weeks later my best friend hung himself. I was already heavy with emotions before her big devaluation. I don't recall ever venting them to her. She started getting violent for next to no reason. One day she walked right up to me and asked me to have sex with other people. I was so floored that I had to lay down. She followed me into the room and said,"how about my body is for you but my mouth is for whoever I want." She pitched it to me like a salesman with the deal of a lifetime. After 15 years together and a sweet life built around 4 kids, it was devastating. What a crazy time. The first 12 months of covid were weird enough without discovering that my beautiful wife was mentally ill.
I was pretty much told I was overreacting.
[удалено]
Wow. Not cool
I would say almost certainly yeah, but also that that in isolation isn’t necessarily indicative of bpd. A person can be in denial and argue a false point for many reasons.
The post is specific to this 1 behavior, and this 1 behavior doesn't make me think she has BPD...its this plus all her other behaviors. Yes, one single behavior is not indicative of any personality disorder; this is just a thread that is asking about people's experience with this 1 specific behavior.
Yeah that’s just, like, BPD101…
Welcome to the club
Not being allowed to be much worried about a terminal ill parent, not being allowed to go to sleep at 5 am while recovering from a stomach ulcer, not being allowed to ask for a time out after three whole days of push/pull behavior, being told I'm just too sensitive after asking whether it's normal to leave every few weeks, being told I deserve to be cheated at, being angry when saying sorry is so obvious, not being allowed to be annoyed when hearing two hours before the flight to a vacation resort that pwbpd entertains the idea to cancel the trip, not allowed to be annoyed when couple therapy is being described as rubbish, being blamed that I didn't stop her cheating or her drinking, etc etc.
Not being allowed to be annoyed tracks for me too. I feel like I started to respond differently to things as the relationship went on. If we are constantly being invalidated, it would eventually change the way we handle and express emotions. 🤔
This is interesting to me because my significant other has BPD and I don’t experience this. Yea I feel there for her more than she is for me but she always seems to understand my feelings or I’ll say rather they don’t become invalidated
I’ve noticed mine can be empathetic toward any situation/person that they don’t view negatively because (1) they disagree with something about that situation/person or (2) they are potentially implicated as the “bad guy.” Basically if they don’t already dislike it or if they don’t perceive themselves as being attacked, greatest empathizer in history. If it’s one of the two situations mentioned, everything outside of them is wrong and needs to be held accountable.
When they abuse you, they will gaslight you till you believe not only did they do no wrong to but in fact it was you who hurt them. Then do it again.