5 Things I Experienced Dating Someone with BPD

     Love is blind. Absolutely, unequivocally blind. So much so that it tricks us into thinking red flags are just paranoia. 

    I found this out when I dated, and eventually got engaged to, my childhood best friend. Growing up, we weren't exactly 100 percent close all the time, but we were close enough to share our feelings and talk at odd hours of the night on the phone. We were close enough to trust each other with the biggest secrets and bring each other up when we needed it. 

    I found out the hard way, however, that things are not always what they appear to be. It took trial and error, constant yelling, manipulation, and a damaged mentality to face that. One thing I did not know about him that I found out much later was that he was diagnosed with a severe mental disorder called "borderline personality disorder". I'm sure many of you have heard of it; hell, you probably even know someone who has it. 

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    The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines "borderline personality disorder" as: "pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and emotion, as well as marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts." In short, it causes trouble maintaining interpersonal relationships, mood swings, impulsivity, and a distorted self-image.*

In order to be diagnosed with this, the person must fall under five (or more) criteria:

• Chronic feelings of emptiness
• Emotional instability in reaction to day-to-day events (e.g., intense episodic sadness, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)
• Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
• Identity disturbance with markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self
• Impulsive behavior in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)
• Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
• A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by extremes between idealization and devaluation (also known as "splitting")
• Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-harming behavior
• Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

    

    You're probably asking yourself, "Shay, if this was something you knew he had but weren't sure you could handle, why did you decide to get into a relationship with him?" The thing is, I didn't know he had it; it wasn't something he made very clear or communicated to me, let alone anything regarding his mindset. I went into the relationship completely blind to what was to come.

Disclaimer: I know that not everyone with BPD is a "threat" or a lost cause in terms of being in a relationship. However, this is my personal experience with someone who was diagnosed, yet untreated in any way shape, or form. Therefore, this made the relationship (and even himself) very hard to tolerate and optimistically preserve. I don't know a lot of other people with BPD, though I do know that it is a fairly common personality disorder. From what I hear, however, many people who have it are actually very caring, loving, and charitable people. This typically applies to those who are getting some sort of help for it, though. 

1. I was walking on eggshells.

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    I constantly found myself tripping and stumbling over words I wasn't sure how to phrase. It felt like no matter what I said or even how I said it, it always seemed to set him off in some way. It wasn't in some normal way, either, like maybe saying something under my breath in terms of "you never help me do anything around here"; he'd never pull me aside and say, "Hey, what you said was hurtful and I didn't like it. I really want you to apologize because I promise I'm trying." It always turned into something bigger. MUCH bigger. 

    Explosive arguing and him accusing me of being a bad person for making one comment, or any other one similar to it, under my breath or telling him to his face. Now don't get me wrong---I'm not saying I'm perfect. None of us are; I'm sure we've all vocalized how we felt about something a bit harsher than how we intended. I have never, ever dealt with someone getting into a screaming match with me over something as trivial as cleaning a house or addressing their lack of consideration by not picking up after themselves. Almost everything I said, whether it was in the moment or after much consideration, was wrong and initiated a blow-out. This brings me to my next point...

2. I questioned my own sanity (gaslighting).

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    Whenever an argument would conclude, we would separate and take time to ourselves (which was probably the healthiest thing to really come from the fallout). All the while, I would playback the previous 10-15 minutes in my head and begin to ask myself a fleet of questions: was what I said really that bad? Was it how I said it? Am I the wrong one here? Should I be the one apologizing? That was the trend, as well; I found myself apologizing way more than he was. I found myself crying more than what we necessary. Not because I was frustrated or under pressure, but because I was questioning my own sense of self. I knew I wasn't always the nicest person; I know I didn't always say the nicest things or phrased it properly, but I couldn't have been the only one constantly ending the argument with a sincere apology. 

    

    Whenever I returned to him post-conflict, his demeanor would take a complete 180. He would be occupied with a video game or constantly on his phone and his body language would speak volumes---comfortable and slouched. He would continue to brush me off the entire rest of the evening, though, never letting me forget the recollection of our past altercation. I felt very manipulated and uncomfortable. Then I began to brush off my emotions as me overreacting because clearly if he was neutral then I should've been the same. He wouldn't apologize to me, but instead, he would essentially yearn for reassurance (this was constant) and expressed his dread of being abandoned. This was a cycle that never ended.

3. Infidelity

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    One of the biggest red flags I had about the relationship, not necessarily related to BPD, was that he was constantly on his phone and seemed to be bothered by the idea of me accessing it. I realized that I was always very open with him and gave him all of the information to everything that I know, but it almost always went down to a one-way street. I noticed that he had a lot of friends on Snapchat and just about all of them were girls. I'm not the kind of girlfriend who absolutely disallows my partner to have friends of the opposite sex, despite it being a very traditional and conservative aspect of a relationship, but I was always suspicious of him because it seemed that he wanted to talk more to them about what he was feeling or thinking rather than me, his partner---the woman laying right next to him. Another thing that he would do that would rub me the wrong way was to go out with female coworkers one-on-one rather than in groups. That is what led to what it did; he decided to get drunk with this girl and rather than doing the smart thing and message me to pick him up, he went off to a hotel with this girl and slept with her. 

    Despite having chance after chance to tell me the truth, it wasn't until a mutual friend stopped by our house while I was at work that he admitted it had happened. He texted me to tell me. Yeah, pretty good way to deliver news like that, huh? When I asked him why it happened, even to this day, he always tells me that he "doesn't know why", that he "wasn't planning it" and "it didn't mean anything". That was where I knew our relationship was pretty much unsalvagable but attempted to make it work regardless. Obviously, nothing was the same after that though. He blames his insecurity; I blame his emotional intellect.

4.  Trouble with honesty/communicating

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    He had an excuse for every little thing, no matter what it was. If I said something that offended him, he'd keep it to himself then use it against me at a later time. Rather than telling me things about the relationship that needed improving or that was ultimately lacking, he let the relationship fall apart by giving me mixed signals, undermining his (and my) feelings, and being very dismissive with me in regards to being 100 percent upfront. We had even tried going to couple's counseling to see if we could find better ways for us to argue in a healthy manner and be more open with each other, but it took much convincing. The slightest altercation that came up before that made him want to immediately cut and run and he'd suggested breaking up after a conflict about boundaries. 

    He was constantly on his phone, usually with the screen facing away from me, and about a month before we officially broke up he removed my fingerprint access and changed his password. That was pretty much the moment I knew that he was likely talking to someone else and began to piece together why he'd spent so much time on his phone.

5. Impulsivity

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       It's going to sound very embarrassing, but not at all far from the truth. When I say that a 16-month-old toddler (my daughter) has less impulsivity than a 22-year-old man, you'd look at me like I smoked crack. The rate at which he did things without thinking about it---from driving a female coworker he had just met all the way to Chicago (from northern Indiana) in the dead of night after a night out at the bar (he did not tell me he was doing this) to constantly having "no money" despite being paid a few days before---was indescribable. He felt the need to buy things with a semblance of a plan on how to use them, never do anything with them, and then continue to buy things that don't pertain to what he'd previously bought. 

Everything that he did or said never went through the processing portion of his brain before carrying it out, and I found myself trying to counter it on several occasions. 

    Yet whenever I call him out for this, suddenly I'm attacking him and making him out to be this stupid person. Of course, he'd make this feeling very clear inevitably. Before you start to think about it, he didn't have health insurance at the time and didn't make a lot of money income-wise, so his payments were basically net from just taxes. Yet he was working a full-time job that was giving him more than 40 hours a week, but he complained that he couldn't go see a psychiatrist for medication or a psychologist for DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, made specifically for those with BPD), couldn't go to a dentist to get his teeth cleaned, etc. because of the lack of health insurance that he refused to get. 

In short, and I won't lie, dating someone with borderline personality disorder should not be taken lightly. Take things very slow, do your research, and support them in getting the help that they need. Some people will tell you, "absolutely stay away; they cannot be fixed", but I've met others who believe it's reasonable to be with someone who has a personality disorder, but they have to be the ones to work hard in managing it. Not you. 

You have to remember that it is not your job to fix people, and just because you love them does not mean you are at an obligation to stay and heal them. Set boundaries and stick to them; give them achievable ultimatums. ex. "I love you and I do want to be with you, but if you don't go get help then I refuse to keep myself surrounded in this environment." Remember that you are strong, but you don't need to be invincible. Know when to call it quits; maintain your self-respect.

Most importantly, love healthily.

Sources:

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) Criteria for Diagnosis

My experience