Can BPD woman really change?

[Findog]

Also, for what it's worth, there really isn't a cure for BPD. With treatment and therapy, the symptoms can be managed and minimized. In a sense, the best thing they can hope for is to become better borderlines. The fire will always burn inside them, it's just a matter of whether or not it's a raging inferno or a candle burning in a jar. They can make enough progress to no longer qualify for the diagnosis if they don't qualify for 5 of the 9 criteria specified in the DSM. But the disorder is always there.

 

[Scars]

Oh sh!t Scars! You are being hoovered! You know what that means and why a BPD does it. I'll just tell you straight up. BPD's will give you the most amazing sex you have ever had. That's what it is huh? Admit it right now. That poon is so good you can't let it go. But you need to.

Your manhood and sanity is at stake brother.

I know man, thanks for the reminder. She has had 2 attempted hoover attempts sense the break up, and is often trying to use mutual friends to try and get "information" out of me. But whenever she gets brought up, I simply say nothing, or very little "It is what it is" most often, something usually confusing and open-ended. The whole her calling me from another number happened awhile ago, but the dude who was pretty much like "yeah, i fvcked your BPD ex" happened last weekend, so yeah, it did kinda strike a nerve, but I didn't act on anything I felt. Didn't complain to a friend, didn't try and contact her nothing. In fact, I kinda forgot about this thread until I went to go read the "Mature man" topics. For the most part, I am completely over her. The sex was great, but not enough to let her destroy my life again for. Enough time has passed. I guess occasionally there is something stupid that reminds me of her, and it sucks for a moment, but I get over it quick. But I mean, hearing "yeah, I fvcked your ex" pretty much, kinda made an old scar an open wound for a bit. Kinda just came out of left field. But I'm over it.

As for Rollo, another great reminder. I kinda asked this question already knowing the answer, but thanks for reinforcing it. Completely true. They really do NEVER grow up.

-Scars

 

[Die Hard]

That is exactly what I am saying. People with PD may realize there is some dysfunction to their behavior (by the reactions of others), but in general they are ego-syntonic, i.e. they see nothing wrong with their behavior. Former BPD veterans here may agree.

It gets a little more complicated than this in clinical diagnosis, but this is a distinguishing feature of a personality disorder. Mood disorders, on the other hand, are usually ego-dystonic, in that they fully recognize there is something amiss with them (sometimes not until after the acute episode), they just may not know how to resolve it without treatment.

Well, that's a lot of of general statements about personality disorders as a group, which may or may not be applicable to each individual personality disorder. Plus, it's a lot of general statements about people with personality disorders as a group, which may or may not be applicable to each individual person.

No offense, there certainly is truth to your statements. But the way you're applying scientific information to the original question in this thread, is like trying to shave your one-day beard with large scissors.

Mood disorders, on the other hand, are usually ego-dystonic, in that they fully recognize there is something amiss with them (sometimes not until after the acute episode), they just may not know how to resolve it without treatment.

I've encountered BPD's to whom the part in bold was perfectly applicable. They still weren't able to change, so I don't disagree with your conclusion. However, the way you support that conclusion is flawed. That isn't really important with regard to the OP's question, but since you yourself stated that it would be good to be scientific, I feel the need to address these things.

 

[The_411]

I'm not sure why anyone would need to go into scientific detail unless you become intrigued and engrossed in the topic.

Nevertheless whether its BPD/NPD, HPD the suggested diagnosis isn't improtant it's the bad behavior and not tolerating it which is the key component.

Waiting for a cluster B woman to change is like waiting for Godot. It ain't happening and your wasting your time.

 

[Blue Phoenix]

Think about it

Recommitment does not make a person who is unsuited for a particular position suited for it all of a sudden. Promises by someone who has a history of letting you down in a relationship mean nothing certain in terms of the future.

Ask yourself "Who am I dealing with?" What´s her track record? We wrongly put our hope in some promise, belief or wish that the person expresses, but ignore the clear reality of who they actually are. The best predictor of the future is the past.

If your car is broken or does not have big enough tank to make the trip, even if it says it´s sorry that does not change the reality of the engine problem or limited tank size.

By Dr. Henry Cloud

Reality Factor/Bottom line everything...

 

[Buddha_Mind]

Recommitment does not make a person who is unsuited for a particular position suited for it all of a sudden. Promises by someone who has a history of letting you down in a relationship mean nothing certain in terms of the future.

Ask yourself "Who am I dealing with?" What´s her track record? We wrongly put our hope in some promise, belief or wish that the person expresses, but ignore the clear reality of who they actually are. The best predictor of the future is the past.

If your car is broken or does not have big enough tank to make the trip, even if it says it´s sorry that does not change the reality of the engine problem or limited tank size.

By Dr. Henry Cloud

Reality Factor/Bottom line everything...

^^ Good stuff. Is it hormones that make reality so hard to see sometimes?

hearing "yeah, I fvcked your ex" pretty much, kinda made an old scar an open wound for a bit.

What the fvck is wrong with that guy? Sounds like a total douche. Why would anyone go say this to someone?

BPD or not...if you are experiencing a cycle of behavior...destructive than love than destructive than love again and again...extreme acts of disrespect (violence or cheating), I don't think you need any explicit DSM to say "this is fvcked"...

I do feel for those here who have been brought to hell and back by a crazy woman's empty promises and deliberately-caused pain...I can imagine anyone with any sort of empathy could find it easy to get caught up with a chick like this and breaking that cycle has got to be damn, damn hard.

 

[squirrels]

I actually found this forum trying to research BPD, so that could be a factor Colossus.

What does that tell you about this forum and its ideas about "BPD"?

DSM Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder:

1) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.

...such as constructing elaborate schemes, mind games, and tactics to "snag" and "hang on to" women

2) A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.

...such as alternating between intense romantic/sexual desire for a woman and the "****y-funny/neghit" attitude of aloofness, or coveting women and then devaluing them all as "BPD slvts"...


3) Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.

...constantly needing to return to the forum and ask others for advice and to explain/justify your every encounter with women, instead of relying on your own gut to know what to do...

4) Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving).

...I think any forum devoted to seduction of women encourages promiscuous sex...


5) Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself.

Can't speak to this one.

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).

There's enough of this here...I'm guilty of it probably more than anyone.

7) Chronic feelings of emptiness

...that draw you back to the forum to find others to "understand", despite that it never fulfills you...

8) Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).

...how often do we jump down each other's throats for one person not being "Don Juan" in another's eyes?

9) Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms

Have you guys been in "Anything Else" lately? For that matter, have you noticed how everyone on here is scared that every girl they don't get on with is a "BPD psycho looking to tear us men apart", and that every news article is somehow a sign of the "feminazi agenda"??


Think about it for a second. This whole damned forum itself is "BPD".

That's why when you research it, you're led here.

We all learned to deal with "BPD people" by becoming "BPD people"...and now it's all we see, all we identify with, in anyone.

If people on this forum are drawing a disproportionate number of "BPD women", maybe they need to look at what it is in THEM that draws this kind of experience into their lives repeatedly. We recognize "BPD" in people, we identify with it, and we're DRAWN to it. Like attracts like, so if all the women people on this forum are finding are "BPD", what does that say about YOU? About ME?

There are plenty of "ordinary" people in happy relationships with beautiful, generous women...guys who have never known "the game". If "the game" is so perfect...then why are they happy and we're still sitting here being miserable?? We forget why we came here. It wasn't to spread the truth of the evil and insanity of the world...it was to be happy.

Soldiers at war kill at will. They develop a certain mindset that revolves around self-preservation and the preservation of their fellow soldiers. The teens and twenties were our "war". We were "hardened" by it, becoming the equal to the monsters we were trying to defeat and willing to do whatever it took. That mentality BECAME us...it CONSUMED us.

The "war" is over...and now we're soldiers without a cause, knowing nothing but to fight. So we create our own battles. Like the damned Mujihadeen after the Russians left Afghanistan, we find others to destroy and conquer in the name of our "SoSuave religion". It's all we know.

How do we go back after that? After going through hellfire, fighting wars in our own minds and hearts, how do we come back to a world that's largely ignorant of that struggle?

That's the "mature man"'s struggle. Not to continue to find "BPD" in the world WITHOUT and fight it, but to learn how to deal with the "BPD" that's WITHIN.

There has to be a better way than the stuff that worked when we were bouncing around the club-scene at age 22. We try to deny it, but we're "outgrowing" the system that got us this far. Of course we can't go back to the narrow confines of the "AFC" system, but maybe the "DJ" system is not as much use to us now either...the castle we built for ourselves has become our prison.

We have become the big fish in this tiny-a$$ pond. Do we stay and sit on our a$$es and become tired pontificating f**ks? Do we stay in the BPD-muck with the rest of the crazies and continue to try to become the "best of the worst"?

Do we continue to believe that "they can't change"? After all, if what I say is true, then it generalizes to us. Are you any less human than them? Do you not have the same thoughts, feelings, strengths and weaknesses? If "they can't change", then doesn't that mean "we can't change"?

Or can we accept that maybe there's a system that's better STILL, and maybe we owe it to ourselves to try and find it? Can we leave the ignorance behind without resenting it and pave the way to something better?

 

[The_411]

Heh I came here to get better with women and found a BPD woman. Then I went over to bpdfamily.com to figure out what the hell happened and what I was dealing with ....

 

[Colossus]

Die Hard,

Of course I'm making general statements. There are no absolutes in medicine or behavioral science. More often than not--if you prefer--the above statements apply to said disorders.

My post didn't really address the original question; it was more for everyone's info. I see "BPD" thrown around here like popcorn and I'm not sure everyone knows what the actual diagnosis entails. Not that anyone other than a physician or clinical psychologist can officially make that diagnosis, but it's good to know, at least for discussion purposes.

 

[The_411]

Die Hard,

Of course I'm making general statements. There are no absolutes in medicine or behavioral science. More often than not--if you prefer--the above statements apply to said disorders.

My post didn't really address the original question; it was more for everyone's info. I see "BPD" thrown around here like popcorn and I'm not sure everyone knows what the actual diagnosis entails. Not that anyone other than a physician or clinical psychologist can officially make that diagnosis, but it's good to know, at least for discussion purposes.

Colussus,

Moreover even the clinical psychologists and psychiatrist often miss BPD in their diagnosis or even worse they feel BPD is a wastepaper basket diagnosis.

 

[Colossus]

Could be. I did an internship at a women's prison this summer and Bipolar was more or less a blanket diagnosis. Everyone had it in their chart.

 

[wait_out]

Heh Squirrels I feel like I should award you a prize or something.

This would actually be a good topic to discuss but it's hard to do on a forum. Since it's a community we usually end up discussing collective problems, like crazy women. It's too bad NLG folded as I felt it avoided the worst pitfalls around here and seemed like a more inviting crowd to ask advice from. I've received some solid advice here in the past, but some of those posters are hardly around... whereas the guys banging the Roissy drum always are. Anyways, to expand on what you said, I ended up tight with my BPD girl because we had similarly intense personalities. It wasn't just looks sex and circumstance, so I've measured myself against the DSM criteria too -- I had to ask myself why. In the end I think the scale matters. Maybe you have tendencies that aren't always helpful (like blowing your fuse dealing with clueless 18-yo's?), but they don't disrupt your life to the same extent and can be mitigated.

I'm making a really slow reentry into the dating scene after about an 8-month deployment and a 2 month vacation... I spent most of time just chilling out and surfing not trying do deal with people, who I find set me off easily lately. RECOGNIZING those tendencies is already a good thing... the big difference between a PD'd person and us is that you still can access the rational part of your brain when your blood gets up. And at that moment you can de-escalate. That was a huge difference between my maybe-BPD-ex and myself -- you're still in control, they're not. You might be seeing red but at least you can still turn it off.

I'll admit I really liked the majority of my relationship with *that* girl, it just happened to veer beyond my ability to endure towards the end. It ended badly but moments from that relationship are some of the happiest in my life. I miss how raw everything was... i just wasn't ready to sacrifice everything else in my life for it. There's things about Kanadahar I miss too Squirrels... barreling through town to rescue your buddies who just got ambushed is a memory that wires me just thinking about it. You can't get just disassociate from your old experiences, that's what makes you who you are. It's cliche but in some ways you can never go back.

So aside from that DJ nonsense, if it's not working for you, you've got to keep going forward. I don't think it's all on us as men either though. It's not like the world is full of perfect people in perfect relationships. Agreed that brooding over all the crazy women you knew isn't too useful, but be careful of that "grass is greener" line of thought. You will probably end up brooding and blaming yourself for things which aren't even your responsibility.

 

[Mouser]

Excellent points Squirrels.

Have you been in a romantic relationship with a BPD?

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

I wrote an essay on BPD recently, you might want to have a read:

https://rationalmale.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/borderline-personality-disorder/

 

[betheman]

I do work in mental health and while soo many people are quick to jump on the BPD diagnosis, espicially in the USA it seems, a lot of the 'symptoms' are those symptoms which many women have presented with throughout life!
that said, I do think a lot of women have the same traits as psychopaths, which is a personality disorder and no you dont have to be weilding an axe!
lack of remorse, emotional detachment, callousness, unwilling to take any personal responsibility for wrong doing?
bottom line, dont trust them

as for can they change? a general and reliable rule of thumb is NO!

in order to change they have to fully commit and enagage with therapy, even then there are few guarantees. meds?? at best they keep a lid on things.. to a degree, dont rely on medication, its not that beneficial

 

[The_411]

I do work in mental health and while soo many people are quick to jump on the BPD diagnosis, espicially in the USA it seems, a lot of the 'symptoms' are those symptoms which many women have presented with throughout life!
that said, I do think a lot of women have the same traits as psychopaths, which is a personality disorder and no you dont have to be weilding an axe!
lack of remorse, emotional detachment, callousness, unwilling to take any personal responsibility for wrong doing?
bottom line, dont trust them

The problem is that we all manifest the DSM IV criteria throughout our lives. As a result people will say oh she has exhibited this criteria therefore she must be BPD/HPD etc.

That's why I've always examined supposed BPD cases using unofficial criteria for the sole purpose of understanding how someone would react to those type of behaviors.

People with BPD and other PDs operate out of a playbook so to speak. They exhibit behaviors that are very unique to people with personality disorders and each of them exhibit exact same crazy behaviors to respond to certain situations.

It's not scientific except that science is predicated on a theory with is then tested by experience to either prove or disprove the theory.

However, ultimately, the label is irrelevant because it doesn't matter. All we need to know is that their behavior is unhealthy and that our boundaires needed to be improved greatly.

 

[Blue Phoenix]

I do work in mental health and while soo many people are quick to jump on the BPD diagnosis, espicially in the USA it seems, a lot of the 'symptoms' are those symptoms which many women have presented with throughout life! that said, I do think a lot of women have the same traits as psychopaths, which is a personality disorder and no you dont have to be weilding an axe! lack of remorse, emotional detachment, callousness, unwilling to take any personal responsibility for wrong doing? bottom line, dont trust them

You know, I prefer the term SOCIOPATH, it´s more logical. Whereas Psychopath I would call the murders and the extremely dangerous types. Sociopath would be a in a scale from 7 to 8,5 dangerous whereas a psychopath a 8,5 to 10 dangerous.

*There isn´t a consensus among the terms (psychopaths, sociopaths and anti-socials). I think "my" definition would be easier to understand.

 

[The_411]

You know, I prefer the term SOCIOPATH, it´s more logical. Whereas Psychopath I would call the murders and the extremely dangerous types. Sociopath would be a in a scale from 7 to 8,5 dangerous whereas a psychopath a 8,5 to 10 dangerous.

*There isn´t a consensus among the terms (psychopaths, sociopaths and anti-socials). I think "my" definition would be easier to understand.

Blue Phoenix,

There's not much difference betwen a sociopath and a psychopath the difference being the comorbidty of spedific personality disorders. Psychopath usually has co-morbidity including anti-social personality disorder whereas a sociopath is more likely to have comobordity including borderline personality disorder.

What does that mean? Well sociopaths while operating within their own set of rules still adhere to general of society they just lack tact, morals, and ethics or apply them situationally to fit their agenda. Psychopaths operate on within their own set of rules but do not adhere to societal rules, laws, or customs.

 

[Bible_Belt]

To the guy who originally started this thread, and to all those who followed lead with pretty foul comments such as people with borderline being "fleas," need to evaluate your ideas. For starters you sound like bitter, hard done by ex boyfriends/girlfriends that need to get your **** together, accept you dated someone with an illness and stop looking through forums about it.

Yep I have borderline, and I've been in 2 long term relationships. 1 of which I'm currently in. I have all the same thoughts and feelings as anyone with borderline; abandonment issues, anxiety, depression, irrationality. But at the age of 22 I've already learnt how to handle it.

My ex of 3 years and I are still best friends, in fact I'm friends with pretty much every guy I've ever dated. I warned my current boyfriend that if I ever over react it's not his fault and I tell him to know that he's an amazing boyfriend every day but sometimes I'm a ***** and when I am to just walk away from me. I know I'm being irrational in the moment so I leave and come back when I've calmed down. By the way I was diagnosed as having one of the worst cases of BPD they've seen so this story doesn't just apply to people with mild BPD.

Your ex girlfriends/boyfriends don't sound like they knew how to handle themselves very well and gave a bad rep to the rest of us. But don't go calling mentally ill people "fleas." That's just ****ed up. Get on with your life, don't date her again, find a new girl. You sound like a real keep proudly announcing you almost abused her back, you shouldn't have trouble finding a girl of quality.

That post was genuine.

 

[BeDJ]

That post was indeed genuine. My friend linked me this discussion and I straight away made an account and gave my 2 cents. Because I have no interest in any of the opinions of those who supported the original post due to the fact I have the same respect for you as that of the **** my dog rolls around in I'm going to now disable my account and get on with me life. These forums really aren't doing any of you of any good. Go out and meet some real girls.

So do we just walk away?