Borderline Personality Disorder – My Ex-Girlfriend Has BPD – Introduction – Part 1
This is my first post in what will be a series dedicated to the subject of Borderline Personality Disorder (or BPD). As the title of this post states, my ex-girlfriend has BPD. If you are not familiar with the disorder, I earnestly suggest you read the DSM-IV description and diagnosis criteria. After reading the DSM info, you have a decent baseline overview of the disorder, but as I have found through experience and further research, there is so much more to it than what is presented in the ‘textbook’ DSM overview.
My motivation in writing about this subject is twofold. First, I hope that writing about my experience with someone having BPD will advance my healing. Second, I hope you will learn something about this nasty disorder that may prevent you from having to endure the pain that I have endured.
You may be wondering why I would ever consider dating someone with this disorder; I didn’t even know of Borderline Personality Disorder until three months after we broke up. Had I known of the disorder prior, I NEVER would have allowed myself to endure the abuse I did. For nearly a year, that is what I endured, both mental and emotional abuse unlike any I’d ever experienced in my life. My nasty, year-long divorce was a cake-walk in comparison.
Do I feel like a victim? Yes, and no. It was my job to protect myself, and I failed myself. There were clear warning signs – RED FLAGS – very early on. I recognized them as such too, but disregarded them. I pushed them away, or discounted them for what they really were for a few reasons. First, the good felt soooo good. Second, I lacked the self-confidence and boundaries required to thwart the onslaught of questionable behaviors I witnessed in her. Third, I let my penis do too much of the thinking.
If you know about this disorder, you probably already have a good understanding of what I am talking about. If you are not familiar with BPD, I hope you will stay tuned-in to the coming posts. Hopefully you can learn from my experience. If some of what I have written today doesn’t seem completely clear, I will provide more background in the coming posts that should help.
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Here is a tip a great tip from a post I wrote on BPD
Divorcing someone with borderline personality disorder tip: separate yourself emotionally from your BPD ex and don’t be lured back in. There is going to be times when your phone is going to ring or you’ll receive a e-mail in your inbox and it will be your BPD ex in the midst of some sort of crisis begging for your help. Just like in the tip mentioned above you need to stick with the rules in separate yourself. Most likely this victim like behavior is the same thing that drew you to the borderline in the 1st place. Remember, that there is nothing you can do to “help” them and by constantly poisoning your new normal and stable life by allowing their problems to seep in only brings you back to where you were before the divorce.
http://www.askaden.com/2010/05/divorcing-someone-with-borderline.html
[...] posts in this series: Intro – Part 1 / The Meeting – Part 2 / Trap Set – Part [...]