I've been seeing this girl for the past 4 months, and she is great, she's smart, she's beautiful, we have lots in common, and I haven't felt so naturally drawn to one woman in my 21 years of life. However, there is a problem, and that is that she has been diagnosed with BPD-(Borderline Personality Disorder). Basically, it's a personality disorder that at times makes her highly impulsive, overly clingy and sometimes very angry for no particular reason. She is on a lot of medication for it, and most of the time is fine, but she has her moments where she just loses it. She also has a history of self-harm and used to cut herself, but doesn't anymore. She told me it all stems from when she was 11-until she was diagnosed at 16, her Mother used to force her into Beauty Pageants, and she told me that her Mother would often force her to stay in her room for the 24 hours-(sometimes more) leading up the pageant, so she wouldn't eat any junk food without her Mother knowing and "Get fat". Which caused her to become paranoid about her self-image and became a bulimic from the age of 13 until she was 18. She is still far too self-conscious, but is no longer a bulimic. Anyway, even though she lives at home, she has still been staying over at my place a lot, the past month. To the point where she is practically living with me. She doesn't work, but neither do I.

Her rage is probably the biggest issue though. Just yesterday, we were putting away the dishes, and I put a fork, where the spoons should have been, and she just flipped out. It was like all her inner rage was coming out, she was pretty vicious verbally and wouldn't listen to reason, and even threw a plate at me which I managed to duck out of the way of luckily. She sort of immediatly realised what she did and started crying and apologising and threw herself at me, so I just held her for what was seriously like 30 minutes. The anger though was completely unexpected and pretty scary, and got me thinking, you know?

I really do like her a lot, more than any other woman I have been in a relationship with, because her REAL personality-(when not having an outburst or going through a mood) is amazing, and I have to say the sex is the best I have ever had, because she uses it as a way to release pent-up anger which is pretty wild. But I am not sure if I am ready to be in a relationship with a chick with so much baggage.

What would you all do in my situation? And Have any of you been in a relationship with someone with BPD or other mental disorders, and if so, how did you handle it?

CLIFFS:

- Dating girl with BPD.
- Really like her
- Amazing personality when not going through what the doctors call "an attack"
- Sex is great
- Practically living with me now
- She is capable of violent outbursts. Meds try to counter it.
- Highly clingy
- Not sure if I can handle the baggage

Borderline

from what i heard, you should ***** run, and do it now. THey also tend to mirror you, so i would question if the good side of her, is actually her real personality as well.

First, read this thread:

A lot of you know myself and WVUskinsfan...

Next, you need to seriously sit down and think about whether you are willing to put yourself through this or if you need to cut ties right now. (And cut ties means cut ties. No contact whatsover. No matter the tantrums or threats to you or to herself).

Stick around if you're happy with living a rollercoaster walk-on-eggshells life full of maddening lows, or if you can't conceivably find anyone else.

It doesn't seem impossible that she could kill you, which means if you respect yourself, leave.

My wife has been diagnosed with BPD and I can tell you that the answer is patience & therapy. I have learned to be docile in the worst moments & to explain my take on things in such a way as to release the pressure of the moment. It is very difficult to manage & professional help is the only long-term cure. For you, learning not to take the verbal abuse personally is key. Don't fuel the fire by responding in a negative way. Take the blame. Apologize. Tell her she is right but you can't make her feel like you are placating her. Be sincere but non combative. I will use a low tone of voice if she is yelling & she usually reciprocates with out realising. It is important to keep in mind that it is a condition & not something she wants to do. Being understanding in critical moments usually gets the response you got (tears & her throwing herself at you). If you plan on being with her then therapy (And a good thetapist) is a must. Good luck

Leave now. You only know the tip of the iceberg of what you're in for if you stay with this. Get out. Now. My mother is BPD. It's a nightmare.

Seems like this crazy gf motif comes up a lot. It's so obvious that she's gonna cause you all kinds of trouble, and only you know if you think her up side is worth it to you.

Your main mistake is thinking that the anger isnt part of her personality, it is , and you will have to deal with it at some point much more often than you would expect.
Dating someone with that kind of issue is pretty similar to playing poker , you think you can handle running bad because you never ran bad enough to understand it, but at some point maybe she ll get worse or you wont be strong enough to deal with it.

You know the answer to your question but can you accept that answer.

So wait, she is clinky, has mother issues, self image issues, and gets emotional for no apparent reason? Sounds like most women. Deal with it.

One of my friends would call her boyfriend IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SOCCER GAME HE WAS COACHING just to see if he would pick up the phone 'just in case.' After a few times she went ballistic that he doesn't answer the phone any more and destroys all of his soccer VHS tapes.

100000% standard, espesh if she is pretty. These girls are taught from day 1 of their life that they are daddy's perfect little princess, surroundings themselves with do-boys and alpha bitches. Welcome to earth.

Jesus christ, no.

OP, I know it's not as easy as it sounds, but get out. This isn't getting better for you. You can gloss over all the negative **** by saying "well she's got a great personality" but bottom line is these people are absolutely ****ing INSANE and there is something deeply wrong inside that can't really be fixed.

Personality disorders are nearly impossible to treat, it isn't getting better, and unless you want a lifetime of hell I suggest you take the next convenient exit.

Ah, dear, I feel for you. It's a tough road to follow. Incredible highs. Depressing lows. The short answer to your problem is, as a poster above put it, therapy. If she's presently in therapy, you have a chance at a successful, long term relationship. If not in therapy, walk away. And this will be a tough thing to do, because of her clingy-ness.

One of the most difficult and frustrating and self-perpetuating things about dealing with a borderline is their difficulty, and sometimes total inability to trust. Which is why she needs therapy.

To give an example: She says, "Do you think I'm pretty?" You say, "Yes, of course." and she immediately will think, "He's just saying that because he knows it's what I want to hear." Or, "He's just saying that because he wants to get laid." I know, I know, we all do this to some extent, but, for a borderline, this is an unending cycle which usually ends in disaster.

It's not your fault. It's her inability to trust you, or anyone at this point. It's not your fault. She was conditioned this way. She cannot trust those closest to her, because, look at her track record. I repeat: Therapy. Through a good therapist, she can learn to trust herself and her choices, because, right now, that little voice in her head is not very trustworthy. Medication alone cannot 'fix' this. If she learns to trust her therapist, and then herself, there's a good chance you can have a successful relationship with her.

Good luck.

1) Borderline Personality Disorder (or any personality disorder) cannot be cured or fixed or really dealt with by medication. Other comorbid issues such as depression or anxiety can be managed by medication, but any underlying personality disorder requires fairly intensive therapy to make any changes. So is she in therapy? If not, you need to understand this will not get better. You cannot fix this or her. These are long entrenched patterns of thinking and behaving and even if she recognizes in other moments that she doesn't want to act that way, nothing will change without some sort of treatment.

2) This is part of her real personality. And more to the point, you have really no idea who she will be if/when she deals with the BPD. Neither does she. She won't just be exactly like she is minus the crazy. That's not the way it works.

3) No one can tell you if you should or shouldn't stay with her. Only you can determine if being with someone who has significant personality problems is something you are willing to do. I think most people would prefer something easier, because being with her would take a tremendous amount of work and patience. If that's something you are willing to do then best of luck, but I might suggest you have people you can talk to as your own support system as well.

This is a despicable post. He's talking about somebody with a mental health issue, and you come in all "lol women that's standard".

OP,

People like this ******* don't know anything about your ability to tolerate the situation, and don't know anything about how you feel about her. You're going to be the person best equipped to make this call. You know it's not going to be easy, you just need to decide if it's worth it.

A few people in this forum are going to have helpful advice, but the vast majority are going to be idiot misogynists and children that you should ignore.

Short version: My ex-wife has BPD. Leave now.

Longer version: She threw a remote at me and hit me in the head just after we got engaged because an old girlfriend said Hi to me. She shattered a drinking glass on my shoulder. She cut my head open with a coffee mug (I later passed out from loss of blood). She cut my eye with her engagement ring when she hit me while we were on our way to couples therapy. She hit me over the head with a wooden table leg. She cheated on me multiple times with multiple guys. She disappeared with my son for 6 weeks when he was 3 because she was mad at me. She only worked a few small menial jobs for a short time but always quit right before she was fired for not showing up/not working. She alienated all of our friends, including two separate churches we attended. She cut herself throughout our time together (13 years) and continually threatened suicide. She threatened to leave every few months because I "wasn't doing enough" even though I worked full-time and took care of the kids and house when I got home.

She eventually left and took the kids. She's an expert manipulator and liar and was able to convince the courts to give her custody. Since then (6 years) she's had many boyfriends and just recently up and moved to a town right on the Canadian border (over 5 hours from me). I'm just waiting for the day she disappears into Canada with my kids.

There's lots more, but notice the patterns of abusive behavior (which you're seeing), impulsiveness (which you're seeing), self-harm (which you're seeing), manipulation (which IS happening to you - are you seeing it though?). Everything was always someone else's fault. BPD is a learned behavior and is EXTREMELY difficult to "fix" or "cure". It requires years of intense therapy.

I don't care how amazing she is. Do not stay involved with her. You cannot even stay friends with her while she works through this because you'll only confuse her and make it harder for her to deal with her issues. Cut it off now.

I'm sure part of you feels like you're helping her by "being there for her". You're not. You're just enabling her. The best thing you can do for her is to leave and hope she gets help for this. You'll probably feel guilty. I know I did when I thought about breaking it off or leaving. Don't be - it's not your fault and it's not your responsibility.

It's not worth it.
It's not worth it.
It's not worth it.

(edit: forgot to add that she was on lots of different medications, none of which worked. And she was in therapy off and on for years, which obviously didn't work either)

100% Solid answer.

runforrestrun.gif

Seriously. There will never be a better opportunity than now. If you have to ask the question of what to do on this forum, you are not prepared to take this on long-term.

I strongly believe my ex has BPD and she has all the elements of personality listed here. I've talked about it in my blog, but basically:

Sudden rage
Physical abusiveness
Impulsivity
Lying
No trust
Mood swings
Clinginess
Blaming others
Manipulation


Ad nauseum. I wish i'd left earlier, i tried to help her and it caused me quite a bit of pain.

You've only been dating for 4 months.



imo.

At the very least, don't make any commitments for a while. That addiction part of being in love doesn't last forever. Give it time to clear before you can make a reasonable decision and then, be objective and don't feel like you're stuck because you've invested time.

On the BPD subject, the world is diagnosis happy imo and it's part of a spectrum. If you catch yourself thinking 'lol women', yeah a lot of women are something like that, but so are a lot of men.

So much bull**** in this thread. Exhibit One:
Link to evidence of this? You'd better have some hard evidence backing your opinion to make claims like this.

You have never met either of these people, and yet you state this categorically? Methinks you are rising above your knowledge and station.

Again (and I don't know the research), do you have definitive reviews of high impact peer reviewed studies that show definitively that the cluster of behaviors loosely defined as "borderline personality disorder" does not improve under any circumstances for any person without "treatment"?

Exhibit Two:
He's offering his experience with women. It may be wrong or right to generalize from that, but it puts the whole situation into perspective. No one is perfect and plenty of people have quite serious issues when you dig below the surface, including issues that manifest themselves in very obvious ways. He even gave you an example.

So the guy's a misogynist, according to what? Misogynist means he hates women - from what in his post do you draw that conclusion??? He seems to believe that most women are a little bit batty. To see hate where there is none, you might be a deep-seated misogynist yourself. Or perhaps you are a misanthrope or misandrist?

One other thing: fear of abandonment is a huge, huge issue with BPD. Expect all hell to break loose when you decide to leave or when she thinks (even irrationally and mistakenly) that you are going to leave.

Ask Mark. Oh wait.

Truthsayer; LOL.

Very familiar with BPD. Prognosis is poor. Very tough to treat. Educate yourself about what you're getting into: read a few books on BPD.

Truthsayer, the door is that way.