THE CHAOS ONLY YOU UNDERSTAND
What’s going on everyone. I hope you all are doing well. For those that have ended their relationship with their pwBPD, I wish you all the upmost success upon your healing journey. And for those that are still associated and/or in a relationship with their pwBPD, I hope that you are able to either work things out with said individual or separate yourselves from them so that you may begin healing yourselves.
For some context, I was in a relationship with my undiagnosed ex (who I honestly believe was comorbid with both BPD & NPD - but I digress) from October 2023-August 2024. We met in September of 2023, but did not become official until October. So my relationship lasted 10 going on 11 months. And I have been on my healing journey for well over a year and a half (Saturday will mark exactly 1 year and 9 months since my relationship concluded).
Of course during this time I learned about all the intricacies of personality disorders, potential ways they are created, how they manifest in behaviors as well as various forms of manipulation that occur. When studying this disorder (BPD) what I find is the core root of many of these disruptive behaviors is insecurity/shame. So much so… that it literally causes them to live in delusion and not reality.
As a matter of fact, they will literally construct reality as they see fit. Rewriting entire narratives and telling stories in ways that match their delusion, instead of the objective sequence of events that actually took place.
Perhaps the biggest revelation that I realized (as well as I assume the majority of you guys as well) during my relationship is that my partner was the problem. When I met her, she came to me with this sob story of how everyone is against her. How no one understands her and basically how she has had it rough. And to be fair everyone, there ARE people out there like that in this world. Some people are indeed rather unlucky and they do not thrive simply because circumstances make it rather hard to do so… but soon I learned (as well as the lot of you) that this DOES NOT APPLY to our pwBPD.
When you actually get to really know the pwBPD after 2-3 months (once the idealization phase ends) you are able to see why conflict always arises everywhere they turn: poor emotional regulation, lack of empathy for others, selfishness, entitlement, lack of accountability, paranoia, projection, manipulation, blame shifting, and gaslighting. Once you clock all these traits, it becomes self explanatory why no relationship of theirs actually lasts and the ones that are long term… are unhealthy/inconsistent.
This now brings me to the title of this post. The majority of the stories that they tell you regarding other people, how other people treated them, or how they treated others, I guarantee you there is a 95% chance they are either 1.) over exaggerating about what that person did / over exaggerating how they helped the other person (when it was really the other person that helped them) 2.) flat out lying on that person or 3.) omitting pieces of the story so it fits their narrative and of course 4.) the removal of context.
For example: something about me is I can get anxiety from time to time depending upon the situation. For example, speaking in front of a large crowd, doing something new for the first time, meeting someone new/meeting someone’s parents for the first time etc etc. Now more often than not I usually end up getting through these situations perfectly fine with no issues, but I would be lying if I said that the anxious thoughts did not run through my head.
So why am I sharing that example? My BPD ex had poor emotional regulation skills. One minute everything is good between you and her, then all of a sudden I call her later in the night and she is emotionally distant and barely talking. The next day when we talk she is interrupting me, making jokes at my expense, being sarcastic and overall very rude. The following day we talk and everything is fantastic almost like how things were in the first 2-3 months. Then on the last day of the week we are fighting about something that I did that apparently bothered her months ago that she is simply choosing to only bring up now out of the blue.
With her inconsistent moods/behavior towards me, naturally as the relationship progressed I began to gain anxiety whenever I would speak to her on the phone and/or hang out with her in person. And sometimes she would notice and ask me what was wrong. And then I would tell her that I began to get anxious with her around as a result of her constant mood swings and disregulated patterns of behavior.
She of course then pointed to the fact that I had pre existing anxiety issues before so that way she could wipe her hands clean and not have to take any accountability regarding how her behavior was making me feel.
For the longest while I was trying to figure out what she did there. But now I am realizing that she essentially gaslit me using the truth. She used something truthfully about me that I shared with her (my anxiety). As a way for her to blame my newfound anxiousness around her as something that was pre-existing instead of something that developed as a result of her behavior towards me.
So she completely omitted the context that anxiety and inconsistency go hand in hand. When someone is inconsistent, you are naturally going to be on edge around that person because you never know where their emotions are going to lead them. But she was a master at making me believe that me feeling that way proved that there was a problem with me, and not a problem with her emotionally immature behavior.