Border-Line Personality Disorder -

[Heimdallr]

Of all the personality disorders, this one scares and saddens me the most: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/borderline-personality-disorder/index.shtml


The people who suffer from it seem truly sad and pathetic. They are very lonely and they don't really have a "sense of self" to fall back on if they are rejected by other people. They have little to no developed sense of identity. In order to feel "whole" or even human they tend to latch onto other people. If they are rejected, they react with terrible anger and hatred.

Here is a perfect example of borderline:

I think most stalkers are BPD. Any thoughts on this disorder or those who suffer (or are enjoying) it?

 

[Anime Dad]

It's one of the most intense and destructive personality disorders to live with; so it's often the most self diagnosed on tumblr dot com because it offers an instant excuse for negative attention seeking and abusive behaviors. Take a stroll in the tumblr forum and tally up just how many of these shining examples will have BPD in their usernames or sidebars. It's almost always teens who mistake their evolving sense of identity, self absorption and teenage melodrama for a personality disorder that isn't diagnosed until adulthood.

Real BPD sufferers are both horrifying and sad. They tend to be ticking time bombs and the fallout is always nuclear. There are some great sites that talk about having / living with someone who has BPD that are excellent reads. Not sure if linking to them is kosher, but I have some resources to drop if there's interest. You can also checkout the /BPDlovedones on reddit for some first hand accounts that tend to be a little heartbreaking.

Edit: There's also a huge overlap between BPD and Otherkin which is fascinating and not surprising when you consider the lack of identity issue. But using otherkin as a 'coping mechanism' is the exact opposite of healthy in this instance.

 

[Vitriol]

It's one of the most intense and destructive personality disorders to live with; so it's often the most self diagnosed on tumblr dot com because it offers an instant excuse for negative attention seeking and abusive behaviors. Take a stroll in the tumblr forum and tally up just how many of these shining examples will have BPD in their usernames or sidebars. It's almost always teens who mistake their evolving sense of identity, self absorption and teenage melodrama for a personality disorder that isn't diagnosed until adulthood.

Real BPD sufferers are both horrifying and sad. They tend to be ticking time bombs and the fallout is always nuclear. There are some great sites that talk about having / living with someone who has BPD that are excellent reads. Not sure if linking to them is kosher, but I have some resources to drop if there's interest. You can also checkout the /BPDlovedones on reddit for some first hand accounts that tend to be a little heartbreaking.

Edit: There's also a huge overlap between BPD and Otherkin which is fascinating and not surprising when you consider the lack of identity issue. But using otherkin as a 'coping mechanism' is the exact opposite of healthy in this instance.

Linking is fine.

 

[glass_houses]

NOTE: The following comes from a combination of a blog post and a highly detailed and lengthy email to a friend. It's extremely tl;dr and while I've cut a fair amount of detail out of it there's still a huge amount of :autism: in here. Read at your own frustration or leisure. As I do indeed have the diagnosed :autism: and other mental issues on top of an interesting life with 'interesting' people, please take me at my word when I say that I don't actively seek out or tolerate the company of predators. I'm just really, really bad at knowing when I'm in trouble and need to start running, when even Blind Freddy is long gone.


I'm living with one. She's very likely to be the third I've had the misfortune to live with, although she seems to be the only one with a formal diagnosis. I'd read online that there are some BPD who have insight into their own disorder and that while they can't control that little switch in their head, when it flicks back they can objectively see the damage they've caused and they do their best to clean it up and make amends. I'd thought that she might be one of this minority, but even when her switch is turned off, she's still a fucking nightmare. Switch on, she's highly aggressive and unpredictable. Switch off, she stops screaming and becomes sneaky and incredibly manipulative.

Spoiler: general observations

I've lost hundreds of dollars to her, either stolen or freely lent, and she fucking lies about everything. There are gifts that I've freely given her- some small, cheap pieces of furniture, a blanket, many small sundry items- that I was happy to part with because I believe that if someone is missing small necessities and you have extra, then giving what you can spare is a combination of both personal integrity and paying it forward (and I have a lot to pay forward for). With everything that she's 'borrowed' or made disappear, what I gave her because it was right to give has become a sore point. What's the point of giving things to a habitual thief? And when I front her about the latest disappearances, usually cleaning or kitchen ware, she throws up a word salad of bizarre and contradictory denial, and smirks when I give up and go away. I'm not sure whether she's smirking because she genuinely thinks I've bought into her crap or just likes to see my face. It's probably irrelevant either way, given the circumstances.

Spoiler: small thefts add up to massive amounts

I've been out of work for a year, and I've some spectacular medical problems that stop me from going back even though Centrelink is convinced that I'm still employable and that I won't get marched offsite by a quite rightfully irate safety officer on the grounds that I'm dangerous to have around. The things she steals on a regular basis are cleaning supplies. I clear $106 a week after rent- just after rent- and by the time you factor in absolutely everything, having to replace even a bottle of the cheapest generic cleaner a fortnight can mean the difference between catching a bus or walking twenty minutes to the discount supermarket and back. I mean, it's good exercise in general, but when the subtropical sun is blazing and UV is bouncing off concrete, buildings and asphalt, or it's pissing down rain, or the four lane road I have to walk along is bumper to bumper with cars spewing exhaust everywhere, it's downright unhealthy. The cleaning supplies, however, are by no means the end of it.

She's stolen a lot of kitchen shit, which is mine but is supposed to be for the entire house to use. Baking tins, plates, plastic containers. Mixing bowls. For some weird reason she keeps taking my casserole dishes, but I won't let her get away with those. She's stolen makeup from me, taken a hell of a lot of shit that I put in the bathroom cabinet for various minor medical issues for all of us, but refuses to replace or even acknowledge that she's the one who's used it. A ways back she asked for some emergency tampons. I had five boxes of the things so I told her she could help herself. A couple weeks later I discovered the hard way that she'd completely cleaned me out- there's no way she could have used them all, so the vast majority probably ended up in her bedroom- and was genuinely surprised that I was pissed off.

Spoiler: why yes, I am indeed an idiot!

When she first moved in, I did another stupid, trusting thing. I've a ton of DVDs, courtesy of me being in my mid thirties, without children, a partner, or a mortgage, or a disposition towards fashion and things like alcohol and smoking. I've tried to sell the bulk of them, but everyone's in the same financial boat right now, so no one wanted them, not even for two dollars when they can just pirate it for free. So, I put most of them in the tv cabinet for everyone to borrow. There are a great many that, I suspect, will never be seen again. I lent her a fuckton of old CDs with the understanding that she'd pick out the ones she'd like and give me $2 for every five she wanted to keep. A week later she tried to gaslight me and convince me that I'd given them all to her as a gift. She eventually backed down, and told me that she was- is- still deciding what ones she wants. Meanwhile, a ton of inserts and posters from them have been blue tacked to her bedroom wall.

Last week I made a terrible, terrible mistake. She asked if I had a padlock to borrow, and I stupidly said yes. But I really fucked up when I made the mistake of opening my tool crate in front of her. Her eyes lit up and that's when I realised that along with various other items, I am going to have to pick out the most expensive ones and hide them somewhere. Also, I know damn well that it's a good quality lock I'll never see again.

The third house mate holds our lease, handles the house bills and negotiates with the landlords. When BPD and I frequently fuck up our finances, it's her who pays the bills due until we scratch up the money. I don't expect her to buy anything that isn't urgent and extremely expensive, because she's the one keeping a roof over our heads. When I finally, finally go back to work and end my period of scabbing off others, that will change. But right now, because she is coping the brunt of the parasitic life that BPD and I "enjoy", I do not expect her to contribute to the consumables.

Spoiler: Massive tl;dr autism on my part

She damaged a book I lent her. I'm not religious in general, but when it comes to books I come very close to. I've even set up a community bookshelf for everyone in the dining room, with shit I've bought $2 for a shopping bag, a couple free boxes full from Gumtree, shit like that. It's a very eclectic collection, most I didn't even have to pay for, but a house without books isn't a house, even if there's not much of anything targeted to a general audience. I have no attachment to any of them, I just like seeing them there. There are a decent amount that are from my personal library and that I have tried to sell at one point, but let's just say that there is a reason people are giving away entire boxes of them on Gumtree. My own books, that I don't want people to borrow willy nilly are stashed away in my bedroom, same as the DVDs I'm attached to. The first week she moved in I made the mistake of lending a book very, very important to me. Twenty one years old, immaculate condition, first Australian edition and, given that my memory is pretty fucked up, is a signifier for me. I've had it for fifteen years, and I got it at a very important time in my life. Some people use photographs or tourist trinkets to jog their memory; the only thing that works for me personally are books. Makes it hard to move house, I must admit.

She had it for weeks. I tried to get it back off her every couple of days, but she fobbed me off. Finally I put my foot down and she grudgingly gave it back.

The dust jacket had been torn. And when she handed it back to me, she dropped it. Because this was in the laundry, which isn't screened in, and it'd been pissing down rain, it landed in a puddle and was instantly covered in mud. I freaked the fuck out. Aside from the fact that it is ridiculously difficult replace, as a memory signifier it felt intensely like she'd damaged that memory. And it's not a signifier for one occasion, it's for the best two years of my entire life, the friends I'd had, the time I'd spent with them, the places I had been.

I know... :autism:

I pitched a massive fit. It wasn't completely ruined and it couldn't be replaced anyway, but I felt- feel- intensely like she should make a token gesture of apology, especially because even back then things were going missing. If it had been a good friend who'd done the same thing I've have been mollified by a heartfelt apology, a hug and maybe being shouted a beverage when we next went out, all with the acknowledgment that the memories associated with this book are powerful and very important. But since she wasn't and isn't a friend, she has to do something a lot better than the vague contempt and irritation she showed me when she saw my initial reaction. For about five hours straight I leaned on her, telling her that she was going to have to buy another copy for me. Different edition from overseas, which pissed me off because mine is in Australian English, and the only two Australian editions that are up on eBay are shredded. First she rolled her eyes, then she got annoyed that I was making such a huge stink about it, then she got pissed off because I wouldn't shut up, then, when I told her the exact edition she was going to get, she tried to pay me off with a handful of shrapnel for the book alone without postage. Finally she backed down and told me she'd bought the volume and since I received a notice the next day telling me it was unavailable I had thought she'd bought it.

Silly me.

Long story short, two months later and me getting more and more impatient for it to arrive and she saying vague things like nothing she'd bought for herself at the same time had arrived either, I finally went online to the old listing and discovered that by co-incidence, it'd ended because the seller hadn't relisted it straight away after the listing period had ended. She said that she'd buy it when she got paid. I know that I will never, ever see it.

(Incidentally, after drama over some very important letter of mine that disappeared into her room under the heading of, "Grabbed everything and forgot to sort it, not sorry, not my fault", I'm beginning to suspect that it's not the international postal system that's eaten a recent eBay purchase of my own.)

Spoiler: money, money, money

That was a week ago. I finally got to the point where I told her that for $150, everything that I was pissed off at having to replace, everything that she was renting to buy, everything that she'd flat out stolen either admitted or denied, everything that had been for the house and was lent to her on the grounds that she'd just moved in and couldn't afford to buy her own right now but is now utterly refusing to give back or even acknowledge that it was given to her in the first place, everything of mine that she'd cleaned out entirely when I told her she could she could have some to tide her over, shit she'd nicked randomly... $150 to shut me up and give her some peace and quiet. All tallied properly it's actually closer to $600, a month's worth of rent, but I just want to forget it and move on.

She said she'd give me that this week, but on Sunday night I got a text from her telling me that she couldn't afford it. Apparently, she hadn't paid last fortnight's rent and she now had to pay that on top of this fortnight's rent. Jesus fucking Christ. I ended up having to contact the health worker who is assigned to my case to pay my fucking medication. I ended up having to borrow $10 from the third housemate for bread and milk, even though I still owe her for my share of the electricity bill. I'm shy on food. It's ridiculous. Stupid me for taking BPD her at her word, and thinking that I could have luxuries like mobile phone credit, yet more cleaning supplies, various sundries for the pet rats that make me get up of a morning and whom I've been spending long periods of time scrubbing clean my vet's hospital cages in payment for their incessant hypochondria, and various bills both personal and house.

And when I spoke to third housemate, third housemate said that BPD had told her that I was trying to borrow money off of her. Fuck's sake.

I'm such a bloody mug.

Shall I discuss her social life and miscellaneous idiosyncrasies?

The third house mate and I are both in our mid thirties. She works bloody hard with insane hours, and when she's home she basically holes up in her room and sleeps. BPD, however, has recently turned twenty and I don't think she's ever had a job. It took me eighteen months and moving to another state to get my first one after finishing my diploma, and that's with working harder to find work than I did after finally getting work. I don't think she's ever had a job interview in her life. But again, given how long I've been out of work right now it's very much a pot and kettle thing.

Spoiler: enjoying life with good company is one thing...

She smokes vast quantities of pot and drinks vast quantities of alcohol. And then there are her friends. Ah yes, her friends, her 'not-boyfriends' as third housemate and I call them. An endless parade of males, all of them her friends. We're quite certain that she's taking money off of at least some of them, although whether she realises it's prostitution is another matter. I'm on the autism spectrum so it takes me a very long time to be able to see someone's face, but even with that I'm pretty certain that many of them have only visited once or twice. As a general rule, if we hear her having noisy sex then she's definitely into it. If she disappears into her room for vast amounts of time and knocking on her bedroom door gets a yell of, "Don't come in, I'm naked!" we're pretty certain that the man/s in there for her are bringing with them cash or property for the privilege. The house is a very old Queenslander up on pillars, high enough to make it effectively two stories, although the only areas sealed underneath are her bedroom and the laundry just in front of that. Separating her room and the rest of the house are very thin floorboards, in an important area just in front of the only bathroom, and right under where I keep my rat cage. The noisy sex is awkward as hell, especially when I'm trying to cuddle my girls goodnight before I go to bed. The screaming fits, however, can be quite alarming and they're happening more and more often.

Generally, I've done my level best to stay out of the not-boyfriend thing, but when she first arrived she brought with her a good 'friend': a forty five year old man. At that point she hadn't even turned twenty and this deviant was spending hours here every day. I quickly banned the creepy fucker from coming upstairs and made it clear that the whole situation was fucked up by any standard. Apparently she'd been in another sharehouse with him before here. Sometimes he seemed okay. Others, I looked at his eyes and saw that he was either on drugs or having an intense period of mental illness. Either way I wanted him out of the fucking house, both upstairs and down, and I told her that even if she wasn't sleeping with him, forty five year old men should not spend large qualities of time hanging around a teenager that they're not related to, even one only just shy of their 20th birthday. The third housemate didn't really give a shit who she had over at the beginning, but eventually third housemate and I put our combined foot down about him coming over and staying over night, even if he just stayed in her bedroom for most of it, emerging only for a furtive urination under one of the trees. Creepy deviant ephebophile and BPD eventually had a falling out, much screaming that I freaked the fuck out of over and ran downstairs in my dressing gown to come to her rescue. Turned out she was just on her phone. She also told me that when he came over, he was always trying to drop MDA with her.

She's also told me on a number of occasions that she only finds older men attractive- although oddly enough none of the regular not-boyfriends is over twenty five- and that her first boyfriend was twenty years old to her thirteen. It wasn't a relationship, it was a molestation. You could put it under the inevitable "sexual abuse tales", but weirdly she doesn't repeat the story to beat you over the head with how much more of a victim she is than she looks, so there's a very high chance that this one is real. Remarkable.

Spoiler: ...but there's getting buzzed on a night in the town, and there's getting smashed every single day

I made it very clear to her at that point, and so did third housemate, that while pot and alcohol are indeed highly enjoyable, any form of powder or pills are not to be brought into the premises unless she wants to be kicked out so fast and hard that she'll need surgery to remove the boot wedged into her sphincter. We also tried to put a cap on visitor numbers and visiting hours. It's partially worked in that it's a bit quieter. People are coming and going at 10pm, 12am, 1am, 3am. They try to be quiet but I hear them anyway. BPD keeps weird hours. She sleeps around the mid morning to early afternoons, and without guests will nap in the wee hours after smoking vast quantities of pot, which isn't often because she's terrified of being alone.

The vast quantities of pot are great in the short term. She's stoned out of her brain downstairs, I get to chill out and relax. Then I started getting knocks on my door very late at night. I'm nocturnal so I was still awake. It turned out that someone was "stalking" BPD. The first time I took it moderately seriously, but eventually I worked out that if she spent three full days stoned, I'd get the knock on the door on the third night. So far there's been a number of ex boyfriends, weird people who suddenly decided to start following her around, oh, and there was that car full of Africans (we have a sizable refugee community here) who were by all indications just finishing their alcohol before hitting the 24hr takeaway restaurant a block away. That one she mumbled about for a while. For a couple weeks afterwards she kept telling me that they were sneaking into the front yard at night to rattle the door to under the house and terrorise her. Considering that I can hear people sneaking in and out and trying to open and shut that door quietly, I knew that one to be a load of shit.

Spoiler: holier than thou, or understandable? you decide

Another person we saw quite a bit of when BPD first arrived was a rather lovely middle aged lady (we'll call her 'L') who came over often, bringing everything from a washing machine to various bits of kit, to BPD's groceries. L took BDP's dog for walks and to the groomers and back, and I ended up having to open some of the kitchen cupboards to convince her that we had everything we needed and that no, she didn't need to buy more. For a period after BPD first moved in she dabbled in agrophobia, so that lovely L was pretty much doing everything for BPD, up to and including taking her washing home and doing it before the washing machine arrived. Because BPD called her by her first name, and BPD is tall and Caucasian and L is Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander with a radically different bone structure to BPD's, let alone the skin or hair, and without any form of identification other than L's name and L's obvious love for BPD, I arrived at the conclusion that L was BPD's aunt or cousin. When I attempted to get some emergency contact numbers off of BPD I received an angry rant about how no one would come for her anyway if she had to go to hospital. If nothing else we needed to know where to send her dog, and I ended up sending a text pointing out that L obviously loved her.

I got a text back saying, and I quote, "I'd watch your bloody opinions mate". I opted to apologise and dropped the subject, deciding that BPD's dog would be best sent to the pound.

Not long after that I managed to corner L for an emergency contact number. In the process, I discovered that she was BPD's Mum.

Mum.

I come from a blended family, and I can tell you exactly what you call the woman who raises you: Mum. That's when my moral outrage kicked in.

Smoking weed should be legal. Drinking is legal. Casual sex is legal. Having many friends is legal. Having an easy life is legal. And that's the way it should be. Too much of any of those things is incredibly unhealthy at best, at worst downright dangerous to both yourself and unwitting bystanders. But I am not going to stand over you with a pinched mouth and a sour expression, passing moral judgement. If any of these things is ever under threat of being made illegal under law or religion, I'll march side by side with the most STD ridden, strung out prostitutes, enthusiastically cheering on the bluest shades of danger hair, chanting chants led by gendertrender hairy six foot men in skirts, mingling with the creepy fucks in fetish gear, otherkin, furries, people dragging Realdolls and Reborns like they're humans and not dolls, hell, even the most foul smelling of corprophiles. And even normal looking people, who invariably cover up some incredibly weird shit by blending in with everyone else. It's not right for me, but it's still my right to have it, and the right of everyone else.

BPD wants to have ridiculous amounts of casual sex? Spend days upon days on end stoned out of her tiny mind? Drink vast quantities of alcohol? She's a legal adult and so long as all involved are fully consenting and aware, it's entirely her own right and business to do whatever the hell she wants to do. From where I stand, the major problems are these:

1.) She's leading a lifestyle that brings her into contact with and makes her incredibly vulnerable to predators
2.) She's bringing them into a house shared by others who don't share her inclinations, and who are old enough to know just how monstrous monsters can be.
3.) Can't she keep the noise down? Christ. Fuck or fight, it's up to you, but I'm sure as hell not a voyeur and being forced into one makes my skin crawl.
4.) Stop fucking stealing and lying

So. With all of this, even I was surprised at how shocked and disgusted I am at BPD's treatment of her mother. I flat out told L that the way she was treated by BPD was beyond disrespectful, and that if L raised BPD, then BPD should either break ties entirely or else treat L with the respect she deserves. L told me that their relationship was difficult and shrugged.

That was the second last time I saw her. The last was when BPD had demanded that L come over and wash the dog... without BPD even being home. And L? L finished with the dog and went home. I was upstairs and saw her walking back to her car by chance. I was too far away to see if she was actually crying, but even where I was I could see that she was one of the saddest people I've ever met.

The way my eldest siblings treat our mother, who raised them even though they're not biologically hers, is pretty much on par to this kind of shit. Seeing it from both the inside and outside makes me want to pick up a two-by-four, and start swinging at the entitled little shit who pisses on the one who stepped in to care for them with nothing but love and respect, and whose worst disciplinary action is to take their gaming console. L raised her, took her after whatever BPD's trauma was, put up with the lying, the stealing, the complete contempt... it's foul.

Spoiler: I'm over this shit

BPD's soul mandatory house chore is cleaning the bathroom we share. Needless to say she doesn't. Which is weird because she is obsessive about her room, steals cleaning shit all the fucking time, freaks the fuck out if one of her visitors touch so much as the tv remote without her telling them they can. It's happened quite a few times: I walk from my room to the bathroom, she's happy and talking a mile a minute. I turn around and start to walk back and as suddenly as that she starts screaming that her hapless victim is a fucking cunt for touching something over and over again, which usually lasts for five or ten minutes until she flicks her switch and she's happy again, fast as that.

The screaming bouts are getting worse, unfortunately. Several of the not-boyfriends have turned out to be actual boyfriends, which have either opted to run in the opposite direction or, having decided that they were too vanilla (i.e, had a regular job, smoked weed as a recreation and not as a religion, and weren't obviously dangerous), BPD runs them off herself. It can be quite frightening, to the point I've seriously considered going downstairs once or twice to make sure she wasn't about to knife the poor bastard. There's been a couple that were around often enough that I could see their faces and have a quick chat with. The most recent one was here a couple of nights ago, and it was... disturbing.

This particular lad comes across as shy and maybe even nice, and usually talks about my pitiful collection of geraniums in the front garden or the cabinet I'm allegedly restoring. I got a text late saying that he was coming up to use the shower. All good. But the second part of the text made my skin crawl: "He's shy please don't start any convos with him". I've seen it before, both as a close witness and once as a victim. The BPDs do not want their object of affection to have any relationships other than with them. They will go to obscene and bizarre lengths to end friendships and estrange families, and on one occasion, living in another sharehouse with a young couple who seemed normal the first couple of weeks, I had misfortune to be below their bedroom, they fucked like rabbits until she started going after his job. It paid well enough that they could start saving to buy their own house, and she decided it had to go because her partner genuinely enjoyed his job and was very good at it. A BPD will go to insane lengths to make sure that there's nothing in their victim's life but them. They will publicly mutilate themselves, destroy their victim's reputation, and also the victim's family and friends, to the point where years after the BPD is gone, their former victim is still the town villain, even though no one can tell you exactly what it was they did. This woman relied on him to pay the fucking bills, but she still wanted him to change jobs because while he was working, he wasn't thinking about her.

I lasted about six weeks at that place. I was only there that long because I got hammered with glandular fever two weeks in.

I've not seen the isolation and destruction process quite as openly though, but then BPD's just starting out. She's got plenty of years to hone her skills.

Spoiler: aesthetics

And when I've had friends and family over and I introduce them to her for the first time, they always look a bit taken aback. BPD is, from a purely aesthetic point of view, a rather striking lass. She is very tall, very thin, the type of complexion that always looks fashionably tanned, and has very long hair. She wears a fuckton of makeup even to sleep, so I've never really seen her face properly. She likes to do weird designs on her cheekbones. The thing that takes people aback is her fashion style. It took third housemate and I a week or so to get used to it. It's normal to us, not for others. I'm not fucked up enough to find kids attractive, but as she's twenty she actually isn't one regardless of how I see her. So I don't know what third housemate's opinion is, especially given that third housemate bats for the other side.

Clothes in general: BPD's not a fan. Less is definitely more. She wears bras as shirts, so there's a lot of skin showing, long skirts with surprise slits or hiked up high on one side. She takes random cloth and garments and ties them creatively into knots and lumps. She told me that she wants to have her own fashion style. I think she's trying to go for the bohemian "I just don't care" style, and sometimes she does make it, but usually not. It's a good thing she has such a flat chest, so the bras look purely decorative as opposed to come hither. I don't give much of a shit what she wears and doesn't wear providing I don't have to see nips or maps, but when visitors come over I get reminded that walking around in front of random strangers in a lacy strapless and a token drape as a skirt, completely blase, isn't usually done.

Spoiler: I really didn't know any better even though I should have

When she first arrived in the house, she quickly established that she has simultaneous and contradictory fears about being around people and not being alone. For a while she refused to leave the house at all, and said that it took her ages to build up the courage to come upstairs to use the bathroom. I don't tend to leave the house much so she quickly got used to me never being gone for more than a few hours at a time. So the first time I was away the full day and didn't come back until the evening, I finally checked my phone to see that she'd sent texts to both myself and third housemate begging to know when we were coming home. I went downstairs to talk, and found her working on... something, she builds weird shit that is supposed to be useful but can't tell you what it's for, and then takes it to pieces again and forgets about it... in a mood best described as "angry terror", and asking where I'd been. There was a large pocket knife open beside her. I asked her if she was using it to make whatever it was that she was making, and she said no, it was there in case she needed to protect herself from being attacked.

All of you who have enjoyed good mental health aside from inevitable bouts of depression are very likely horrified that I didn't have her pack up her stuff then and there and kick her out, and quite reasonably so. However, when you're someone who suffers from complex mental illness and knows others who do as well, the intense need for weapons is part of the fight or flight reflex that never completely turns off like it's supposed to do. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is something that you never understand unless you've been there. And it's something I've discussed many, many times with others who also have mental illnesses.

Admittedly, this was the first time I'd had this conversation with someone who really was sitting next to a knife. I basically rattled off how a knife is incredibly dangerous to the woman who's trying to use it, and went through a couple of other options with her. (A short, heavy club is probably better than anything else when handguns are illegal and hard to come by. You don't go straight for the head, you instantly drop down and crack the fucker in the knees or feet. It'll either buy you enough time to run while he's trying to get his legs to work again, or else take advantage of the instinctual reflex to protect part of you that's been hurt, and crack him over the head as he doubles down.)

Overall, in terms of personal experience, seeing her with the knife was disturbing, but given all of the other shit that came afterwards I should have been flat out terrified.

Spoiler: what she thought of my friends, and what my friends think of her

The first few weeks after BPD moved in were great. We'd established that we enjoyed each other's company, and I'd discovered that she's an amazing conversationalist after a durry or four. Two of my friends coming over resulted in a couple of odd moments. The first friend that I introduced to BPD resulted in BPD mumbling something hospitable and excusing herself. Since it was bloody hot my friend and I sat downstairs in the relative coolness of the laundry and talked. Note that the laundry is just in front of BPD's room.

When my friend left, BPD said some really weird shit: that my friend obviously had a very set and limited way that she saw me in, that she'd never see me as anything else... I said "wat" a few times and asked for clarification but that was it. My friend, for the record, is one of those disgustingly decent human beings who work hard and care deeply for others, one of those nauseating types who, once you come to the horrifying realisation that they are a genuinely good person, make you feel guilty as hell for being a misanthrope. BPD could have still been mildly stoned from the night before, but given the way BPDs tend to fixate on someone as their own personal property, I wouldn't be surprised if she was making a feeble attempt to start the brain washing process on me.

The second friend of mine, who's met BPD a few times, took one look at her and has remained quietly horrified ever since. I'd actually been gratified to see it, as my friend is another unbelievably good person, a bizarrely liberal devout Catholic who goes to mass every Sunday but manages to be one of the most generous, least judgemental people I've ever met. I'd stupidly believed that the quiet horror was about BPD's being a bra and a tea towel away from nudity, but today she finally told me what that horror of hers really was. She said, "As soon as I took one look at her, I saw that there was nothing capable of love or caring in her, dead, dark and cold inside, and the only thing that brings her joy is hurting others."

Um.

Wow.

So. If you're still with me, you are doubtless here only because you want to hear BPD's "How I got so fucked up" story. She's told me a couple times. It was hard to make out, torrents of word salad, but surprisingly consistent.

Spoiler: wait, what?

Apparently there are two sides of her family, the decent human being side, and the drug addicts and psychotics on the other. From what I could make out, her father beat the shit out of all her family, and one of her sisters grew up weird and terrifying. Apparently, it's academic if she was psychopathic before or during her schizophrenia kicked in while she was still in single figures. She got heavily into Satanisim and started sacrificing animals, and periodically attacked BPD and the third sister, doing a lot of physical damage and sadistically enjoying the pain and fear. Being deaf and being raised in a family that was already violent, apparently no one noticed or took her seriously. She got worse and worse, and while BPD was able to pull away, the third sister instead tried to help and forgive. BPD muttered a few things about the violent sister telling everyone flat out that she wanted to kill people, writing on all the walls that she was going to sacrifice someone to Satan. Which she ended up doing, or so BPD told me, murdering the third sister and spending the next five years in a mental hospital.

The deaf sister got out a few years ago, and BPD's Jehovah's Witness family took her back in and told BPD that she should learn to forgive.

Obviously this is some premium bullshit, but thing is, I've had personal experience in fucked up, and I'm very well aware that some things are so fucked up that no one will ever believe you. And to her credit, BPD has been rather consistent in that area. She's convinced that ghosts are real, and hearing me scream one night in a mild night terror, freaked the fuck out and ended up sending a flurry of text messages that made me regret sleeping with my mobile next to my bed. It was annoying but it could have been a hell of a lot worse for her; for one thing I'd explained to her about my terrors and not to panic too much if she hears screaming nearby, and for another I haven't done anything really interesting for nearly an entire year.

Spoiler: seriously?

Just last week she came to me with the bewildering and wtf question of "Are you a Satanist?" No lead up, no good morning, "Are you a Satanist?". Okay then. I answered in the negative, and from there she moved onto asking me if I was into a number of things in the general ballpark. Finally she reminded me of what her sister had done, mentioned something about her "birth giver" being into the new age stuff and how disturbing it was, and then told me about how her grandmother, who was a devout Jehovah's Witness, telling her over and over again that "worldy" things like that are very dangerous, and how seeing many of the DVDs I had on various forms of supernatural and horror, was disturbing to her.

What had sparked this weird conversation?

I went through a few years where I bought the magazine Fortean Times on a regular basis. I found it incredibly entertaining. I'd tried to sell the box I had of them a couple times, but ultimately I'd shrugged and kept them. I'd decided to put the stack on one of the shelves of the communal bookshelf, where they're coming in great handy for combination placemats and reading material. And when she'd seen a cover with an Ouija on it, she was instantly in fear.

jfc.

I ended up taking the Ouija issue into my bedroom so it wasn't near her, and because I'm nice I even re shelved the communal bookshelf so that the fantasy and horror were all below eye height.

Now, finally things have come to a head. It turns out that BPD's telling third housemate porkies about me on a regular basis, to the point where third housemate genuinely doesn't know who is lying. Third housemate wouldn't go into details, but from what I gather BPD has been sending her many texts re: me from nearly the first day she moved in. You remember how above I spoke about how BPD as a species get off on fucking up any form of relationship for nothing other than the joy of it? Or how mind blowing brilliant they can be at destroying your entire reputation without actually accusing you of anything?

If I could, I'd just walk away and find another house. But between finances and needing an understanding landlord to keep animals for my mental health, and being in a place where I can keep the furniture I still have, not to mention the way my books multiply at an alarming rate and getting rid of an entire kitchen of gear makes me grind my teeth, this is probably the absolute best house I could ever hope to get with my circumstances. I've dug my heels in. Third housemate is confused as hell. She's very smart and is a manager at one of the largest Maccas in Brisbane. Awesome with people in a formal structure, but outside of it she has a rather strong case of social anxiety. She's been telling me on a semi regular basis that BPD is wearing thin for quite some time now, but BPD has kicked it up by a huge number of notches, and manipulation is one of the things that make the nature of the beast.

And here's me looking back at the beginning, shaking my head at my pathetic belief that this time, with this BPD, history wouldn't repeat itself.

Some people never learn. And given the way one of the BPDs I lived with latched onto me years back, and how she utterly decimated my entire life, I bloody well should have.

 

[Wraith]

I'm not afraid of a lot of things, but I am scared of women with BPD. My last ex-gf had this without knowing it. I just thought she had ADHD, which she was diagnosed with. She was a little tiring through this, but handlable. However the BPD which I didn't recognize back then was horrifying. When I got away from her, it literally felt like the weight of an entire earth was removed off of my person. She does know now she has BPD, and is quite open about it. In a sense I feel bad for her until... she started drawing furry pron and has a fursona and went downhill.

I avoid her like I do a salad bar without a sneeze guard. I'm not exactly sure she knows if I am alive right now, and I prefer it that way.

 

[bbpoison]

Can someone test me to see if I have BPD ? Or am I too biased now?

 

[Some JERK]

Breaking up with a BPD is the 2nd most soul-draining thing you can possibly do in life. (#1 of course being staying with a BPD.) Everyone thinks schizophrenics and sociopaths are the true faces of crazy, but they're wrong. It's borderlines.

 

[Laughs_Under_Lucricities]

Breaking up with a BPD is the 2nd most soul-draining thing you can possibly do in life. (#1 of course being staying with a BPD.)

You could've just phrased it as, "Avoid them at all costs."

 

[Some JERK]

You could've just phrased it as, "Avoid them at all costs."

I'll use smaller words next time.

 

[Anti Fanta]

Can someone test me to see if I have BPD ? Or am I too biased now?

You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?

 

[bbpoison]

You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?

gottagoogle

 

[Zebedee]

BPD is generally used as a catch-phrase even in the psychological and professional community, very much like a blanket condition. You would be legitimately surprised at how many special needs professionals and how many mental health workers would diagnose a person with ADHD and BPD respectively because it is all they know.

It is a very overused term in diagnostic stages to the point that it could mean anything nowadays, and that is in part thanks to Tumblr, they should honestly be ashamed of themselves for doing such a thing. Among several other factors, it is one of the reasons that a legitimate crisis within the mental health sector exists to this day.
There really should be a fine for claiming/falsifying such a condition, it would certainly stop the idiots that do not have it from trying to get sheckles/sympathy that they don't deserve, yet it may stop the genuine cases from getting the treatment they need.

Tis' a frustrating conundrum.

 

[Gloomydoom]

You would be legitimately surprised at how many special needs professionals and how many mental health workers would diagnose a person with ADHD and BPD respectively because it is all they know.

Are people with BPD are any different than people with ADHD? I've met someone whose diagnose with ADHD and there not as hyperactive as everyone made out to be.

 

[Zebedee]

Are people with BPD are any different than people with ADHD? I've met someone whose diagnose with ADHD and there not as hyperactive as everyone made out to be.

ADHD is usually medicated, also think of their behaviour as a spectrum like obesity on the BMI. Anyone getting near to the line of extreme is fine until their behaviour goes over it.

People with ADHD cannot concentrate and require medication for it, otherwise they become assholes no matter their background. People with BPD are assholes because they were brought up that way and don't know any different.

 

[cuddle striker]

BPD attracts NPD; threads about them attract both in swarms of self defensive garbage posting.

BPD: wants everyone to love them at all times
NPD: wants everyone to pay attention to them at all times
ASPD: wants money and possibly to get laid and fuck what anyone else wants
HPD: wants everyone to worry about them at all times

etc etc. the entire cluster B section is jacked up and this thread will be infected like a boil about to pop eventually.

great honeypot.

oh yeah, content.
BPD wants NPD to really, really like her, NPD wants BPD to shut up and follow complicated directions and read everything they've ever written:

http://queenbeeing.com/how-self-proclaimed-narcissist-sam-vaknin-gaslighted-me-on-facebook/

 

[Zebedee]

BPD attracts NPD; threads about them attract both in swarms of self defensive garbage posting.

BPD: wants everyone to love them at all times
NPD: wants everyone to pay attention to them at all times
ASPD: wants money and possibly to get laid
HPD: wants everyone to worry about them at all times

etc etc. the entire cluster B section is jacked up and this thread will be infected like a boil about to pop eventually.

great honeypot.

oh yeah, content.
BPD wants NPD to really, really like her, NPD wants NPD to shut up and follow complicated directions and read everything they've ever written:

http://queenbeeing.com/how-self-proclaimed-narcissist-sam-vaknin-gaslighted-me-on-facebook/

I'm not sure whether I want to laugh at this comment or die a little inside over how brutally honest and true this is, I've seen it enough times.

 

[cuddle striker]

I work with living people at one of my two jobs. I've gotten up close and personal with thousands of em. you can smell this common combination a mile away.
if you find a BPD chances are they are right behind a NPD, and vice versa. if someone is making accusations online that someone is one of these, they likely have the other.

shit's crazy and fascinating.

I'm not sure whether I want to laugh at this comment or die a little inside over how brutally honest and true this is, I've seen it enough times.

 

[Zebedee]

I work with living people at one of my two jobs. I've gotten up close and personal with thousands of em. you can smell this common combination a mile away.
if you find a BPD chances are they are right behind a NPD, and vice versa. if someone is making accusations online that someone is one of these, they likely have the other.

shit's crazy and fascinating.

I can relate, been on a ward enough times to see this happen, BPD peeps also tend to get a little follower where they can find one, usually the timid type of person with depression or social anxiety. Easy to exploit I suppose.

 

[glass_houses]

ADHD is usually medicated, also think of their behaviour as a spectrum like obesity on the BMI. Anyone getting near to the line of extreme is fine until their behaviour goes over it.

People with ADHD cannot concentrate and require medication for it, otherwise they become assholes no matter their background. People with BPD are assholes because they were brought up that way and don't know any different.

That's really not the way it works. (Or doesn't work.) They're very different and you can have both at the same time. ADHD is cognitive, meaning that it's an information processing disorder. It's caused by a chemical imbalance and/or malfunctioning chemical receptors, and will usually respond to medications. BPD is a personality disorder. It's effectively a structural problem. You can drug people with BPD but all you can do is dope them up with something like Valium, basically sedating them so that the worst of the swings are moderately less destructive.

BTW, update on my very own BPD:

Last week she had a twenty minute screaming match. The next day she was winding herself up for another argument on her mobile with some unidentified victim, right in front of my bedroom window. I snapped and told her to go elsewhere and that I was sick of hearing hearing her arguing with people, she told me that she never argues anyone ever, I called her a liar and a thief, she stormed back to her room and then... the text messages started coming. And they're nothing shy of beautiful.

Have a squiz:




So that one subsided until last night, when I attempted yet again to call in some debts. A rather long read, but worth it. Highlights include her threatening to sue me and claiming she has asbestosis.

 

[Zebedee]

That's really not the way it works. (Or doesn't work.) They're very different and you can have both at the same time. ADHD is cognitive, meaning that it's an information processing disorder. It's caused by a chemical imbalance and/or malfunctioning chemical receptors, and will usually respond to medications. BPD is a personality disorder. It's effectively a structural problem. You can drug people with BPD but all you can do is dope them up with something like Valium, basically sedating them so that the worst of the swings are moderately less destructive.

BTW, update on my very own BPD:

Last week she had a twenty minute screaming match. The next day she was winding herself up for another argument on her mobile with some unidentified victim, right in front of my bedroom window. I snapped and told her to go elsewhere and that I was sick of hearing hearing her arguing with people, she told me that she never argues anyone ever, I called her a liar and a thief, she stormed back to her room and then... the text messages started coming. And they're nothing shy of beautiful.

Have a squiz:

View attachment 223019 View attachment 223020 View attachment 223022 View attachment 223023 View attachment 223024


So that one subsided until last night, when I attempted yet again to call in some debts. A rather long read, but worth it. Highlights include her threatening to sue me and claiming she has asbestosis.

View attachment 223026 View attachment 223027 View attachment 223028 View attachment 223029 View attachment 223030 View attachment 223031 View attachment 223033 View attachment 223034 View attachment 223035 View attachment 223037 View attachment 223038

I was not saying that they werent very different, however the behaviour patterns (depending on the severity) can be very similar, hence people diagnose both carelessly and without proper analysis.

And yes ADHD is very much a scaleling checklist, as is BPD. Despite them having entirely different causes. The difference however is ADHD does not result in manipulative behaviour, unlike BPD.

TL:dr

BPD is commonly mistaken as ADHD and vice versa, its why the people that you referenced have to state this constantly. Hence the frustration.