Borderline Personality Disorder
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We have no intention of avoiding any issues on this blog as they relate to our situation. The first of many is mental illness. We take this very seriously because it has so adversely affected so many lives in our situation.
We strongly believe PEW has Borderline Personality Disorder. She has not been formally diagnosed because she refuses to seek professional help. Of course, I’m sure that those who readily acknowledge that there may be a problem as significant as BPD and desire to seek assistance are few and far between. PEW and LM did have psychiatric testing during one of the custody evaluations and the results confirmed a personality disorder for her, but the therapist refused to diagnose her. Of course there is a lot more to that whole evaluation that we will cover in detail later and it will shock you to your core (unless you’re a heartless bastard).
Borderline Personality Disorder will hereafter be referred to as BPD. There are nine traits or symptoms (a minimum of five of which need to be met in order to make a formal diagnosis) as detailed in the DSM-IV:
1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating).
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness.
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.
Most of these traits you will see in our Christmas 2007 posts, which became forever tied to Christmas 2006 due to the antics of PEW, not to mention the hundreds of posts waiting in the wings. BPD is serious and most experts believe it is caused by early childhood trauma. If you have been around a BPD person you will begin to sense when this trauma occurred because it becomes apparent that they literally stopped developing emotionally at that point in their life. Our BPD stopped developing at about age 6, and it often feels like you are dealing with a 6 year old when talking to her. At 6, most children don’t think about how their actions affect others around them or even how they affect their own future. This is very apparent with PEW.
Unfortunately, it takes many years of intensive therapy to help BPD’s. Due to the nature of the disorder, they are often unwilling to admit that their problems are due to their own actions and therefore they believe everyone else needs the therapy, not them.
We have listed resources where you can get help if you are truly dealing with someone that has a mental disorder. Talking with others who are in your situation is often helpful, and really the only way we have been able to make it through the last four years. Additionally, you will need to dig deep and find a way to laugh. Despite the seriousness of our stories, there are times when somehow managing to find some shred of humor in certain things helped buoy us as well.
Click here to see a very important and informative video regarding borderline personality disorder!
May 25th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
ALso check out the DSM-IV for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. My PEW fits all 10 criteria.
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Great site, unfortunately “I can feel your pain”.
Just wanted to point out one thing. You had incorrectly indicated that one must meet all 9 criteria to receive a BPD diagnosis.
While my ex-psycho met all 9 criteria for BPD, with a big dose of NPD and AsPD to Boot, it is only necessary for someone to meet any 5 of the 9 traits to be diagnosed with BPD.
just a technicality really. The diagnoses really doesn’t matter. “if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck,,”
BPD,NPD,HPD or AsPD = Cluster B = a whole lot of pain and misery on the receiving end. Yuck!
Remember, the personality disordered are not crazy, they just drive the rest of us that way !!
Good luck:
Hoover
June 9th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Unclear description so edited! Thanks for pointing out the error. We did know this - it just didn’t read quite clearly.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:26 pm
OMG!!! 4 years?? Me too!!!
Are you sure we’re not related…somehow???
Anyway, my wife and I have believed for some time that mine is Ill! The EX (havent got a PC nickname for her) has exhibited NPD and BPD signs. Her outbursts, and the things that have gone on…especially involving the children!
I’m sure she’s at least 2nd generation too because her mother was sick too!
God Love You! I’m in it too!!!
November 21st, 2008 at 5:04 am
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November 25th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
This is IDENTICAL to the way my ex behaved.She would push me,scream ,yell and yell at my stepson who loved me as his own dad.She would go off for no reason at all and everything was my fault even when she took disappeared for a day and a half on a drunk.I got a therapist and she said that the ex most probably had bpd.Of course the ex said I have it not her. After two years from our divorce(which I did not want and fought against)I called to ask to speak to my(step)son,who I have not been allowed to see.Of course she hardly said a word but will not allow it.I miss him and hope he is allright with a nut for a MoM.I used to hate her for the hell she put ALL of us through including herself but now I pity such a sad creature.I loved her more than my life itself and it has ruined any chance of ever loving again,I MISS MY SON SO MUCH THAT IT HURTS.I wish she would get help take CHARGE of her life.If anyone reading this has this illness PLEASE seek help,ther is ZERO stigma attached,it is the same as getting ill and seeing an M.D.You must help yourself PLEASE the people who love you are getting weary of being abused and seeing their loved ones hurting.I dont know if my Ex is evil,sick,just plain bad or what.This has ruined me.
December 12th, 2008 at 1:40 am
Unfortunately our situation is eerily similar to yours.
My ex-husband and I get along well, except for the first year, immediately after we split up. The first year was really, really tough, because he was angry I wanted a divorce. But after he accepted the reality that our marriage was over, he acted agreeable. We didn’t hire any attorneys. I went to a paralegal, and had everything written up fairly, and he was in full agreement, and that was that. I didn’t see any point in padding any attorneys pockets.
We even sat next to each other in court, on the day our divorce was finalized. The Judge called us back into his chambers to say he was shocked/impressed/ confused about how we could sit in court next to each other, at our divorce hearing. lol
Now, my new husband’s ex-girlfriend is a flippin nutcase. My husband & I have put out so much money trying to protect the kids from her (hubby has sole custody), because she’s a long term, self-admitted meth addict. We asked for a psych evaluation to be done, so we would know what disorders/illnesses she has, but she used the “I only acted crazy for ten years, because I was using meth.” And the Mediator & Judge gave her the benefit of the doubt.
We’ve been dealing with the courts for years, and finally got her court ordered to be randomly drug testing, supervised visitations were ordered, etc…but she’s transitioned to unsupervised day visits, and lo and behold, she’s acting unstable again, during the unsupervised day visits.
She told the kids, she’s going to make my life a living hell. She’s going to ruin our marriage, and ruin our lives.
My stepkids have to see a counselor, after they visit her. We take them to see a counselor, it’s not court ordered, because they need help processing all of the toxic crap and lies she feeds to them, during her unsupervised day visits. The counselor documents everything for us, and we willingly submit their counselor’s documentation to the Judge, but the Judge keeps allowing the nutcase access to the kids.
It’s.freaking.crazy.
December 16th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Heh… BPD to the T. 5 of the 9 is all that’s required for a diagnosis. My PEW had several bell ringer periods where she exhibited all 9 (Silly me, I should have forced the involuntary commit that’s possible when she exhibited #5 on a periodic basis…). One should also keep in mind that there’s the potential for co-morbidity with B-Cluster illnesses. You can have BPD+NPD (though that’s somewhat rare in women and more likely in men…), or bipolar-affective disorder plus BPD (Heh… That’d describe the ex and her hellchild…and the less said of what all they did, the better- I’m trying to heal from the madness, not share the wounds I got from it all with others…).
Mental healthcare providers are often loathe to hand out a diagnosis of BPD, muting it with a diagnosis of bipolar with “borderline tendencies” which is a BS diagnosis… BPD’s not diagnosed often because it’s difficult to get a bead on the people because they’re a hollow core of a person with actor’s personnas placed up as fronts- they’re a myriad of facades and it’s hard to see the forest for the trees unless you’re looking for the cause of the noise in your life. Moreover, they don’t like treating the people afflicted with this disorder- they’re of the mind that there’s nothing wrong with them and everyone else has the “issues”, something that’s part of the nature of the illness in question.
A watchphrase that should get yout to start questioning the possibility of this illness is: Facts follow feelings with a Borderline. That is, their reality is defined by how they feel about something. What they feel is real and facts that don’t match up with those feelings can’t be real- they’ve got to be lies. Literally speaking, if the Borderline feels that the sky is actually green, they’ll see it that way and think you’re insane trying to tell them it’s blue- or you’re trying to get them to think they’re crazy.
January 25th, 2009 at 8:17 am
The last paragraph by DarkElf says it ALL. BPDs alter the facts to fit their feelings, not the other way around as the rest of us do. My husband definitely has BPD. He has acted in ways that are just ridiculous. It is as you said: they are like children. Literally. And they throw tantrums like children do. I have three kids; I know a temper tantrum when I see one. You do not have to have all 9 of the criteria to be diagnosed but he absolutely does. The first time I read the criteria, I was so happy I wanted to cry. FINALLY somebody could understand! It was as if they’d observed him for a year and then written it about him. At first I thought he had NPD (and given co-morbidity, I am not so sure he doesn’t) but it didn’t all fit him. THIS does. He was abusive, jealous, childish, paranoid and would say just the craziest things. People with BPD don’t seem to know anyone; everyone is who and what they think that person is and it doesn’t seem to matter who that person REALLY is. The hardest thing I think in dealing with BPDs (besides the repeated suicidal threats and attempts) is the fact that the idea that other people have feelings or are even “real people” the way they are never even seems to occur to them. It isn’t even selfishness; it’s oblivion. If they do something to you and you are hurt by it, they accuse you of just saying that to hurt THEM and they really believe that. Why? Because it isn’t possible that you have feelings. Only they do. The fact that you are SAYING you do is only an attempt to hurt them in some way because YOU don’t care about their feelings.
After 5 years of putting up with this craziness almost EVERY SINGLE DAY (and it got crazy; more than I will ever admit, I think), I was finally done. Not one more thing. Not one more crazy thing out of his mouth, not one more broken thing, not one more night with him locked in the bathroom with a knife, not one more time of him putting his hands on me. And you know what? He FINALLY got help. He finally realized that it really IS him and not everyone else. His doctor put him on Trileptal, an anti-seizure medication and he is like a different person. He doesn’t take offense at everything I say, he doesn’t get mad for no reason, doesn’t threaten or try to kill himself and he doesn’t freak when we argue and break things or become physically abusive. He still gets upset sometimes but it is “normal” upset, for normal reasons. When he comes in the room, I don’t feel like punching his face in anymore. I can actually stand him. More, I can actually get along with him and joke around and he doesn’t get angry or hurt or offended and accuse me of trying to hurt him. I am finally married to the person I knew he really was underneath all that crap.
The moral of the story is that though it is not their fault for having BPD, failing to get treatment for it is. My husband would have undoubtedly ended up a suicide statistic of BPD before much longer. He is one of the worst cases I’ve ever heard of, as far as his behavior. His life was unbearable and so was mine. Now it is SO MUCH better and I’m glad I stuck it out. Those of you who couldn’t… you’ll not be judged by me. I can understand, believe me. Just remember that no matter what, for all intents and purposes it’s out of your life and that’s all you could ask for.
February 24th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
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March 8th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
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March 20th, 2009 at 3:53 am
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March 27th, 2009 at 11:03 am
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April 2nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
THANK YOU for this website. It has brought me so much relief! Our path is not an easy one.
I’m almost certain our PEW has BPD (and more) and unfortunately I think it is also manifesting in SD (age 11). PEW exhibits inappropriate sexual behaviors around teenagers/middle school students (histrionic?), lies and distorts reality, breaks court orders, etc. She has no real sense of identity (emptiness) and takes on the characteristics of those around her at the time. For example, she became obsessed with a certain gentleman we knew mutually, and after successfully alienating us from him, she proceeded to (almost overnight) move to his same city of residence, convert to his religion, convert to his political party, convert to his same musical tastes, etc. She suddenly became someone obsessed with singing and dancing (he was in a band) and everything that was his favorite became her favorite too!
Every time SD calls I can hear PEW screaming like a maniac in the background - she screams A LOT about EVERYTHING (yet projects this onto me and tells SD to tell people I scream a lot about everything and break things). SD instigates conflict frequently, humiliates us, lies (I suspect to get more attention from mom who leaves her home alone for extended periods of time before and after school). I have even caught SD abusing our cat in an effort to get it to scratch her so that she could get attention by crying about how the “evil cat scratched her”. I have watched PEW baby her over these scratches then proceed to tell us that it is infected and insinuate our cat has rabies. I will also note that SD loved the cat when we got it, but after her weekly visitation back at PEW’s she came back to us and started talking about how much better PEW’s cat was and started calling it names. I suspect PEW not only tries to alienate SD from us but also our cat.
PEW is obsessed with me and encourages SD to lie to police and school officials with complete disregard for what this is doing to SD’s mental health. PEW will accuse us of not caring about SD’s extracurriculars, and then she herself will not attend. When SD played volleyball, PEW told the coach she would make pictures of the games to give to her to create a collage. Instead, she never went to most of the games, then demanded that we turn our pictures over to her for her to give to the coach (since we went to every game).
The other day SD made an attempt to extract my user name/password information in exchange for her giving me PEW’s user name/password to her email and WOW account. I had to stop her and explain that this behavior was inappropriate. However, I suspect that PEW put her up to this hoping I would be dumb enough to give her that information. She manipulates her like a puppet - even getting her to steal things from our home for her. For example, last year PEW told SD to steal her allergy meds from our home (so that we could not administer them to her) in an effort to make abuse allegations in court that we were not “administering her medications to her”.
Yes, you read that last sentence correctly.
April 2nd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
You know what? We should all get together and write a book!
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:29 pm
My wife has displayed many if not all of these symptoms in varying degrees. I have been patient and caring beyond what I though was humanly possible. However, it has come to the point where I can’t take it anymore and I was starting to lose myself. I told her that i was leaving and then she broke down and admitted all of her faults and told me that it was not my fault. Does this mean that she is on a path so self healing - is this even possible for someone with BPD to come out of it on their own? Or is this a strategy to keep me around and avoid the feelings of abandonment? It has only been a week now(since I decided to stay!!!), but I can see that anger and outbreaks have been much less intense and infrequent.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I have BPD. I was searching for BPD-related blogs, and happened across this one. I read some posts and I wanted to leave a couple of comments.
There is still a lot of stigma and misinformation about BPD. It’s a serious illness, and doesn’t mean that you suffer “one trauma” and “stop developing” as stated above. It’s expressed by different people in very different ways…Those of us dealing with identity disturbance and affective instability are different from those coping (or not) with suicidal ideation and inappropriate anger.
And maybe…some of the people you are talking about have some other kind of personality disorder. Because deceitfulness, not caring about others’ well-being, lack of remorse - those are all characteristics of Antisocial Personality Disorder, not BPD at all.
To Charles not in charge: It sounds to me like your wife has taken a big step in admitting that she has problems. But I also have to say - don’t think that it’s over. It’s not that she doesn’t want to “be good” or that she doesn’t love you, but learning how to regulate your emotions takes time and energy. Learning how to trust people takes work. Make sure she gets professional help, and make sure you both get support.
But please be aware that it isn’t always easy to get help or a diagnosis. I dealt with a lot of situations that I found stressful - like a psychologist who (without knowing my background) said that I “probably didn’t have BPD, because people who get BPD have really suffered. Do you REALLY think you could’ve suffered enough to have BPD?” On the other hand, I was diagnosed with BPD by a psychiatrist who had only seen me for 30 minutes and didn’t do any testing.
To this blog: I understand the pain that Borderliners can cause, and I commend you for trying to reach out to people who are dealing with crazy ex-es and a ridiculous custody system. I’d be bitter, too.
Your ex-wife may never read this blog, but many many people with BPD will.
So please - being Borderline doesn’t make you psycho and it doesn’t make you an evil bitch. People can be psycho bitches without any help from BPD.
But remember: Borderliners CAN get better. People recover from BPD all the time. DBT in particular has shown to be really helpful.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Fin - your contributions and information are very much appreciated and I assure you, we’re serious when we wish you continued successes with your situation. What you say is very true.
You’re absolutely correct… people can be evil, psycho pains-in-the-ass without having any mental illness at all.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:27 am
I came upon your site when I googled parallel parenting and was greatly saddened by your display of life. Yes; I am the psycho ex. When my husband left me I had no idea there was another woman. Even today knowing the truth I do not blame her - it could have been anyone and he made the choice to go outside the marriage. I do not blame him or her. It happened. My life was turned upside down and I began to drink. Remember I’m psycho ex that’s what I do when my husband leaves after 20 years and I gave up a career 15 years ago and I’m scared shitless. And I did wind up in rehab where I learned a great deal. My ex is a high powered atty and filed for custody after spending my retirement and life savings on atty’s I realized I need to give up my parental rights and negotiate for time with my daughter. Today I work with indigent women who are in recovery from substance abuse. All face custody issues, are accused of being borderline and have been abandoned by our legal system and very often the fathers of their children. My ex and his wife decided parallel parenting suited them. I no longer exist for them as a parent. I meet with a therapist to learn about what is happening in my daughter’s life. She is suffering from many disorders and a fear of abandonment. I am no longer angry. I have accepted my reality. During the custody case I offered many times to try to work it out between us and not with the legal system. He thought he had the upper hand and would pay less child support - he was right but because I was so fragile after being in a custody battle with a high powered atty he had to pay more in alimony. No one wins least of all our daughter. I would prefer co-parenting but the therapists now want our $$$. So I meet with them and learn more about how two people who once loved each other and had a child together can tear that child apart bit by bit. Please take down this site. It truly hurts all of you; most of all the children. Not every ex wife is has a breakdown when the world she helped to build is shattered remains shattered. Many rebuild. Many deserve your empathy and forgiveness. And even if we don’t please don’t forget we are just like you - human.
May 25th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
I think you might be misunderstanding of what this site is designed for: for people to find a commonality amongst serious chaos. His accounts of his married and subsequent divorced life, with someone who’s mentally ill help the rest of us deal with similar situations.
The commonalities in this case are psycho ex-wives. They exist, they are very real, and they can make your life and that of your children, very very painful. Some may have BPD, some may be alcoholics such as yourself, and some just might be THAT bitter. Who knows, but the end result is the same for all of us: costly court fees, endless fights for your children’s time, painful moments lost (I missed my son’s second birthday, and I am about to miss two more of my son’s birthdays, not by my choice, and for the record I live 10 blocks from my children), and a hopeless battle against someone who doesn’t believe in the same reality that you (and the rest of the world) share.
Take the site down? Not in this lifetime.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:50 am
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June 3rd, 2009 at 2:09 pm
In response to Charles…I was a mental health counselor for 10 years and ironically enough my ex (spent 7 years together, been apart for 2) is a BPD. Of course it took me years to admit that and I never fully allowed myself to see all the signs until after we split up. I guess you could say..love is blind and I was to close to the situation to see it for what it was.
My advice in regardst to your wife… My ex went through NUMEROUS “insightful moments” during our relationship where she could recognize her problems and even almost admit she was a BPD. In those moments she seemed to have such clarity and I had high hopes that things would change. However..for her anyway, it was just part of her pattern and it never lasted long. If your wife truly wants to change and become healthy she NEEDS to work with a qualified therapist. I can almost guarantee if she is a BPD and has not sought professional help, those issues are going to arise again and again.
I have worked with numerous Borderlines over the years and the sad fact is the majority of them do not get better. I am not saying it is impossible, because I have knows a few who work very hard at managing their symptoms and having it affect their lives minimally. They still struggle with the feelings, but can learn how to cope. However, I do not believe it is something they can do on their own and they will suffer with it for life. They need to work with someone on recognizing their feelings and developing coping skills as a reaction. One way to think about it is this…BPD is a dominating part of their personality. It is how they have formed and developed based upon various life experiences and very much a part of who they are. How difficult would it be for you to change an aspect of your own personality?
I tried for years back and forth with my ex. Since I have mental health back ground I tried to help her as best as I could and stuck it out way longer then I should have in hopes that “this time it would be different.” Now…two years after the split there is near constant drama revolving around our daughter. My ex continues to struggle with the fact that she no longer has the control she use to over me and will try to use our daughter as a bargaining tool. I have just had to change my reactions to her and minimize direct interactions as much as possible. It has been a long and painful journey.
June 12th, 2009 at 8:38 am
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