Empaths and BPD

who else would read books and watch shows and empathize with the bad guys? hahaha they just need some love :'( Also back when i was up late playing video games a big fat scary bug flew right past me and landed next to my laptop. I sobbed so hard because i was soooo afraid but i couldn't get myself to kill the poor thing he was also afraid so i just started dancing around crying while my boyfriend over skype was like "... what r u doing srsly". So i decided to catch it with a glass and some paper and then it suddenly ran it's little bug booty over to the side of the table and hid somewhere in the darkness and oh god panic overload

anyway i have problem telling people close to me "bad news" about myself. The hurt on their face is just too much to handle, even more so then mine.

Hi! Thanks for posting this! It has really helped me with my current situation. I am not diagnosed with borderline, but I feel as though due to its criteria I may be at some point. Who really now's. Haha But I can relate with you and confusion. I feel sometimes, based on extensive research on both what it means to be an empath and also on BPD itself. From clinical perspective it is what it is, but I think many are misdiagnosed which saddens me. I personally believe many diagnosed with BPD are ACTUAL Empaths that underwent sever emotionally suppressing abusive experiences in their childhood and as a result it has effect them in such a way that can IN FACT present as something such is BPD. But I could be wrong ofcourse. Just a theory. Hopes this helps in any way.

This makes so much sense. I dated (and still love) a guy with undiagnosed BPD. This seems to absolutely hit the nail on the head. I told him one time that he has to be more empathetic if he wants to make me happy. The trick with that was... he was extraordinarily adept at recognizing my facial expressions. He could read me like a book. At first I thought it was endearing and I loved the fact that someone paid that much attention to me, but I began wondering if he was using that manipulatively later on in the relationship. What I meant by 'empathetic' to him was mainly referring to his inability to practice cognitive empathy. My thoughts when we were together were 'If we have a different perspective on something, his perspective is the only one he can fathom.' He literally could not fathom the possibility that something he was doing was something I thought we should improve upon in our relationship, therefore the problems were never resolved. This is a great piece of information as I've been obsessively attempting to understand BPD as a means of recovering from our relationship (which I'm beginning to wonder if I have my own set of issues to work through). Thanks for sharing.

I have been wondering for a long time before I wandered onto this site if being an Empath and having BPD go hand-in-hand. I am willing to bet that at least 90% of you on here are empathic.

Definitely have high empathy ..too much sometimes it can be a nightmare

does empathy really matter
i think not
or at least not as much as ppl think
it's all about insentives

take for excample the single motherhood in black communities (usa)
it's at about 60%
they get more money if there's not man in the house
it's bad for the kids it's bad for the woman
it's a less than empathic thing to do

ppl are not complicated
75-90% of their actions are very predictable

the strenth of empthy is finding happyness in the company of ppl

I wouldn't be surprised. I feel like I have quite a bit of empathy, provided I am not dysregulated as ###$ lol. I kind of wish I didn't have it but it's the way it is.

Exactly. This thought has been wandering in my mind from a long time. I am highly empathetic and I sense that most, if not all BPDs are highly sensitive and empathetic people.

It actually feels like I can read the other peoples thoughts or what they need from me, thus BPDs are very good at getting inside someones mind and manipulating people. Though this is the reason my mood changes depending on the company of the people i am with. I think of it as a curse and blessing at the same time.

only that half times you swich off empathy.you also half times lack cognitive empathy and you doubt your perseptions and you do not know what the truth is.
you could be the greatest manipulator of all because you can see what orhers want and need and their fear but you fail at manipulating and you can’t because of your own fear will block you at succesfully manipulating .
plus because half times you do feel intense empathy and you do not want to hurt others.but other times the empathy is turned off.because you feel too much you can’t stand it.

pontmercy wrote:A lot of my problems stem from empathizing too much, actually. Even seeing people sad on TV can trigger me into an awful sobbing curled up in a ball state. Same with real life. I suppose at that point it becomes almost selfish, huh? Injustice for me is always taken personally too.

I've been told I'm fairly good at reading people, but I'm very very very VERY bad at interpreting neutral expressions. I always assume they're upset, and that's the paranoid side of me, I guess. I'm good at recognizing the subtle speech/typing patterns of people when their emotions change.

I'm also very good at sensing and recognizing emotions then throwing that all out the window and freaking out instead. That's the BPD, I'm assuming. :/

Ha, wow, this is me to a tee! I do the same thing, though I am finding ways to self-soothe. I sense *everything* and yet I don't trust myself. I don't trust that what I am sensing is real, because my perception is so skewed. In these times, I try to remember to take time to myself to reflect on the facts of the situation vs. what I "felt", I can't leave this part out b/c it points to a trigger which points to something that I can hone in on to work on.

Neutral expressions, though? Whew. My adopted mama was a tough cookie and I remember her as mostly having mean face. When she didn't have mean face, I was confused and thrown off by her (and others') regular face. Now I get noticeably anxious when I can't "read" someone's face. I have to talk to myself and remember that people's faces often exist in a normal state lol

-- Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:11 pm --

MessyMackenzie wrote:who else would read books and watch shows and empathize with the bad guys? hahaha they just need some love :'( Also back when i was up late playing video games a big fat scary bug flew right past me and landed next to my laptop. I sobbed so hard because i was soooo afraid but i couldn't get myself to kill the poor thing he was also afraid so i just started dancing around crying while my boyfriend over skype was like "... what r u doing srsly". So i decided to catch it with a glass and some paper and then it suddenly ran it's little bug booty over to the side of the table and hid somewhere in the darkness and oh god panic overload

anyway i have problem telling people close to me "bad news" about myself. The hurt on their face is just too much to handle, even more so then mine.

I struggle with this, too. I assume it's connected to the shame I have/feel.