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Lucky me?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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Went through a divorce almost 6 years ago. My ex has an undiagnosed mental illness and my marriage was really bad so for me it was kind of a weight off my shoulders. It was still hard but it gets better. Find someone you can talk to about it, even if it's just a therapist, and take lots of time for self care. I did a lot of fishing, hiking, and golfing for a couple years. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed doing that stuff.
What kind of mental illness?
It was bpd wasn't it? I bet it was bpd.
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!
Isn't that a twisted combination of disorders of varying degrees? I think my therapist was reluctant to put that label on me. I don't know much about it but it seems to have a stigma
It's one "disease" that's different from most other mental illnesses. It's a personality disorder. So, like, it's not really something you're afflicted by so much as it is you. It's a "cluster b" personality disorder.
It's characterized by an extremely limited sense of identity and a very simplistic black or white way of viewing the world and most things in it. This extends to that sense of identity. So rather than saying "this person must be having a bad day", it's "this person is evil. How could they say that to me? I need to teach this person s lesson. Anything I do to them is okay because they're evil." Or "yeah normally I'd be miffed about someone running down 8 people in their car on purpose but it's George and George is my favourite person. He really seemed to enjoy that. I can't believe I never realize how much I enjoy running down people in my car too".
They'll turn on anyone on a dime and hold grudges forever, gaslight you and themselves constantly to support a worldview where emotion trumps fact, and lie about anything and everything which could indicate to someone else that they have flaws, unless those flaws are serving some kind of purpose in whatever conversation they're having. They tend to be very id-driven, promiscuous, and female. It's ridiculously common to hear people that have dated with it slept with a person with bpd to say that it's the best they've ever had.
It's borderline (heheheh) untreatable, with part of the issue being that they'll lie constantly to therapists. This coupled with the fact that there's a tendency for them to kill themselves mean even getting diagnosed becoming more and more uncommon and even when there is a diagnosis it's often pointless.
There's some evidence of a genetic component and unfortunately many people with BPD suffered abuse as children, sexual and otherwise, so environmental factors play a role as well.
It tends to be comorbid with other more typical psychiatric disorders but isn't characterized by them.
This is a pretty good overview. Black and white thinking, "masking" and "love bombing" are indicators of BPD. Love bombing is when a person showers you with attention to the point where it's enrapturing and masking is where they almost seem to magically become exactly who they think you want them to be.
To be honest, that should have been a huge red flag for me. My ex wife had zero interests or hobbies that didn't align with mine. It was like she just sat in a corner doing nothing before I came along. It was very strange.
Her relationships with other people, I later learned, followed a cycle. When she first made a new friend, she was all over them like a dog on a new chew toy. They were the greatest person ever and could do no wrong. Inevitably, that would change. It was like a switch would flip. She would go from talking about how great they were to hating them the very next day over some perceived slight which was usually either fabricated or based on something completely overblown. When she decided she had a new enemy, all bets were off.
We had a huge fight one time because she was going around telling people that one of her friends was having a relationship with a minor. It was a lie. She knew it was a lie but she didn't care. This friend had "wronged her" in some way so that made it acceptable to try to trash this poor woman's life in her mind. She dropped it when I told her I would defend her friend if it came down to it. I was furious and completely appalled. I should have left them but I didn't. It did not improve. It got much worse.
there is a support sub in reddit for (ex)partners of people with BPD. What is impressive is how ALL the stories are the same. A L L. Its like we were all dating the same person. Same gaslighting, same fights, same way of expression, same self victimization, everything.
I'm 9 months out of such relationship and I'm still recovering. I had lost myself. I think about past incidents or how I was feeling and oh man what a ride. And yes, for some reason the sex was out of this world.
First brake up was kinda manageable. I accepted her back after her cheating believing all the things she wanted to change and improve. LMAO, ofcourse the same things happened. Second brake up sent me in hell.
People with BPD just destroy whoever is very close to them. I don't believe their malicious. I'm sure they're also suffering and this is what they do believing they are protecting themselves, but yeah, they need to work on controlling their emotions otherwise they just hurt both themselves and the ones around them.
Super typical of people like that. The triangulation especially. In psychology I think it's often used literally but I think a broader definition to include bringing in new people to a situation to try and maintain control and "win" since they're almost never discussing anything in good faith, makes sense.
https://psychcentral.com/blog/psychology-self/2019/10/triangulation-and-narcissism#:~:text=What%20Is%20Triangulation?,individuals%20except%20through%20the%20manipulator.
Borderline personality disorder. An ex had it. Even when it's not malignant and there's treatment and awareness of disease, it is very challenging. It makes it very hard for the person to live congenially with anyone. It sucks to see an otherwise nice, fun and lovely person get self-sabotaged so badly that they can't keep any relationship for long. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps, a lot, though.
A lot of bpd are misdiagnosed autism or other conditions, it's particularly misdiagnosed among women