The Reality of a BPD Relationship

How do you tell your loved ones and friends what you went through?

How do you make them understand?

What do you tell them about Borderline Personality Disorder? Do you even tell them?

People that have never been involved with someone that has the illness can never know to be honest. You can only know if you've been involved with someone that has BPD. The process of brainwashing, manipulation, emotional and even physical abuse over an extended period of time has traumatic effects on your psyche. A trauma bond is formed.

You become addicted to the person with BPD. You become a slave to Intermittent Reinforcement, desperately clutching to any amount of normalcy and affection that you can. Over time, that affection becomes less and less, and the rage and blaming become the norm. Then without warning you are split, painted black, devalued, rejected, abandoned, betrayed. The BPD will show no remorse. No guilt. No empathy. It doesn't matter how much you loved them. It doesn't matter how much you did for them on any level. You are the perceived enemy for whatever paranoid delusion is happening in their mind and you need to be punished. In the end, you're a shell of a human being. You feel like your soul has been sucked out. You've lost yourself.

This does not happen over night.

I empathize completely with people that suffer from BPD, but there is nothing really being done for the people that suffer from being involved with them in close relationships. Either family members, or a personal relationship. Even a friendship. It's a very serious issue that many people are silently suffering from. Especially if you're a man. Men don't report abuse. Men take it in stride and deal with it. We're taught from a young age to respect women and never be aggressive towards them in any way.

But what if the man is being abused?

What is Borderline Personality Disorder?

People who are diagnosed with borderline personality disorder have at least five of the following symptoms. They may:

1. Make frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.

2. Have a pattern of difficult relationships caused by alternating between extremes of intense admiration and hatred of others.

3. Have an unstable self-image or be unsure of his or her own identity.

4. Act impulsively in ways that are self-damaging, such as extravagant spending, frequent and unprotected sex with many partners, substance abuse, binge eating, or reckless driving.

5. Have recurring suicidal thoughts, make repeated suicide attempts, or cause self-injury through mutilation, such as cutting or burning himself or herself.

6. Have frequent emotional overreactions or intense mood swings, including feeling depressed, irritable, or anxious. These mood swings usually only last a few hours at a time. In rare cases, they may last a day or two.

7. Have long-term feelings of emptiness.

8. Have inappropriate, fierce anger or problems controlling anger. The person may often display temper tantrums or get into physical fights.

9. Have temporary episodes of feeling suspicious of others without reason (paranoia) or losing a sense of reality.

My ex who we'll call "Mai" exhibited every single one of these criteria over an extended period of time. I plan on recounting as much of it as I can over a period of time so I can confront it, accept it, and put it behind me. You will never get closure from someone that has BPD. Not ever. They will string you along as long as they can to keep you engaged. Even after they've betrayed your trust in the most horrific ways, they can "hoover" you back in at any time and pretend like nothing bad ever happened. They will never face any wrong they committed in the past or apologize for it. Not ever.