I have BPD, gf is fed up and wants breakup :(

[KathyM]

Bz42, the good news is, you can overcome BPD (borderline personality disorder) if you seek out the right professional to help you. They are light years ahead in this area from what I've been told. I don't have it myself, but I know people who do. There is also a book that was written by a woman with BPD and it's about how she conquered it and is living an authentic happy BPD free life. I don't know the title though.

 

Hey, look at it this way, at least you aren't a narcissist right? There is no real way to overcome that.

 

Good luck to you.

Counseling with the right counselor can improve some of the symptoms of BPD, but I do want to stress that a person shouldn't have unrealistic expectations about counseling. Any personality disorder is very difficult to treat, because it is so pervasive. It has formed over a period of years, and there is no quick fix, no medication, that makes you healthy when you are dealing with a personality disorder. It requires long term therapy to change your thinking patterns and perceptions. Medication may stablize your mood swings, but we are talking about long term therapy that is necessary to alter dysfunctional cognitions and perceptions. NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) can actually be improved through therapy as well, but then again, we are talking about long term therapy to change dysfunctional thinking and behavioral patterns that are pervasive.

[KathyM]

Ok, so most of the advice I am getting from people here is about BPD, I get it. What I am focusing on is getting my girlfriend to change her mind (nearly impossible). She has changed her mind a couple times in the past, I told her I would change, blah blah. This time I feel it is more real and final. I haven't given here space and would always want to be with her (i love her so much).

 

I need suggestions on getting her to actually trust me and see me as a man or once. I don't need advice saying, just let her go and stuff...if I was going to do that I wouldn't still be posting on this thread.

 

She told me to just leave, we are way behind on bills currently and she sees that it was all my fault (I agree). She told me not to worry about it and leave, but I would not budge on the fact that I was going to pay them. She then texted me and told me when the bills are paid to leave.

 

We live together in a small apt, and when she tells me to leave she is telling me to move back to my hometown, across the country.

 

I know her mind is made, how do I "not change her mind", but get her to really think about it and second guess her decision. Her decisions to break up come at times when she is angry. The past could breakups were when we were late on a bill, etc.

 

 

Please help, I cleaned the entire apt spotless to show her that I am putting in effort like I never have before. I bought her tulips, chocolate, teddy bear to show that I love her and always will and that I am sorry for my impulses getting in the way of priorities.

 

I am maturing ever so quickly since the start of this thread. I don't look at life in the coldest of ways anymore and now as an adult.

 

Any advice/suggestions will be appreciated because if she can give me the chance, it won't be wasted guaranteed.

 

Thanks everyone, you guys are like my family right now.

You say this time is different, and that somehow you've seen the light, and you want to convince your gf that you have changed. I'm sorry, but doing some nice gestures for her is not going to get rid of the elephant in the room. If you do, in fact, have BPD or some other psychological issue that caused your relationship troubles, then that will continue to negatively affect your relationship(s) in the future, unless you take steps to overcome that. You may have the best of intentions now, but don't kid yourself. The problems will arise again if you don't get help in overcoming the psychological issues you are dealing with. You can't get her to automatically trust that you are going to do things differently in the future. You have proven to her that you have not changed. Words don't mean a darn thing. Intentions mean very little. Actions are what shows a person you have changed, and that would have to happen over a good period of time, not days or months. If you have not done the work to address the psychological issues you are having, then your words mean nothing. Your brief actions to try to win her back are not enough to convince her that things will be different this time. She has no legitimate reason to believe things will be different this time around. I would suggest that, if you want to try to save the relationship, which could very well be futile at this point, you should let her know that you understand the things you did in the past that were harmful to the relationship, that you want to make every effort to change those behaviors, and that you are seeking counseling to overcome those issues. Then tell her how much you love her and you hope she'll give you the chance to prove that you can change. That is all you can do. But whether or not she does leave, do get counseling, or your relationship(s) will eventually suffer and/or fail without it, regardless of your good intentions at this point.

[bz42]

Thank for your input, one thin I forgot to mention is that she has always told me she wanted a baby. Whenever she would bring it up, I would shut her down and say that financially we were not ready. She loves babies and I can tell that she has always wanted one.

 

She tested me a few weeks ago and told me he was 3 weeks pregnant. I think this was a test as to see my reactions. I think what she really wants is a baby and she wants out because I won't give her one.

 

Could this also be a factor in this?

[d'Arthez]

It might, but it really sounds like you are clutching at straws. Since the relationship is highly unstable, adding another life to the equation is the last thing you or your gf should be thinking about.

 

I still stand by my advice earlier in the thread.

[bz42]

My plan is to sit her down and have a talk. I am still thinking of the right way to approach this. Any suggestions? I am going to tell her I don't have BPD and I was just trying to make an excuse for my behaviors.

 

Also, I'm going to acknowledge the fact that she wants a baby and not just shut her down.

 

Any suggestions on how to make it a smooth conversation would help.

 

Thanks all.

[Feelin Frisky]

... . A person with BPD operates on an emotional level as maybe a 5 year old. ... Temper tantrums, I love/hate you, poor impulse control, mood swings, inability to understand consequences, etc. Since we can all be emotionally immature at times a lot of us could probably read the diagnostic criteria for BPD and see a bit of ourselves. The younger you are, the more likely this is.

 

...

 

Wow, great post. Thanks for adding some valuable knowledge to this thread. I just have personal experience which I sorta sorted out in retrospect after much suffering and water under the bridge of time. I actually had to move away and leave no trail to close my ex out of my life because her revolving set of sub-identities would convince each other that nothing bad between us had happened between us and she'd take liberties of showing up and making sexual advances to me either at my apartment or just seeming to "happen by" my job (we worked in the financial district in NYC within blocks so it was easy for her to "find" me). I didn't see it yet as a "stalking" and I wasn't out meeting anyone else after our ecstasies followed by agonies--just working hard most of the time and I'd acquiesce to her because I'm human and she was a sexy and beautiful girl. I just would like to add to the "etc" in the quote above if I may.

 

Perhaps 5 years old is where something like BPD starts because it is the age when we start to have an identity with others. Most of us start to understand consequences but I think the BPD sufferer, develops an avoidance of THREAT of consequence whereas most people just fear the consequence in context and learn to move on from it. The pattern of trying to avoid threat of feeling is what turns into the blame game and what used to be called a "complex". When I was younger, people would use that expression all the time--like "what do you have, a complex?" and it was usually blown off as a joke or put down. My experience led me to realize that there really are "complexes" and that people who develop them become socially toxic.

 

Like you say in your post, many will not be perceived by others as having anything amiss, but it's when they get close to someone else and just try to deal with life as it comes that the system of "threats" and the assumption of consequences over-rides context and the partner is left confused, off-put, angry by out of proportion displays. And then logic becomes the partner's undoing as they try to argue with a person who isn't playing by the same rule book. They have borderlines that insulate them from reality and responsibility.

 

If we face it, perceptions, assessments, judgements and other elements of social interaction happen very quickly. Medicine exists now to give people what I think of as an almost "sacred interval" to people who "over-feel" and over-react. All of us do have feelings but some of us have floods where others have trickles or light mists. A proper medicine should give one an interval--sometimes a microsecond--to ascertain the appropriateness of feeling in context so we who don't react well by happenstance of our natural individual chemistries, can choose the dimension of our reaction rather than have it bowl us over.

 

No one who feels intense fear wants to feel that feeling. It's natural to not want to. But in a complex like BPD where feelings give rise to perceptions of threats that are out of context and disproportionate which create toxic sociospheres, there is no way to out-think your feelings. They consume all. And people in relationships with such folk whom are not masters of feelings become swept into their partner's disease. I think the issue will always be trying to achieve that "sacred interval" where one either reacts or over-reacts with gut fear and anger or one has that micro-second of choice (detached clarity) in which to decide how to feel. That is pretty much the core of what medicine can do and I so wish I would have had this understanding and access when I was younger. Cheers.