BPD and ASPD -- I don't feel like you.

Twistedmister wrote: Rapidly shifting emotions and a lack of a stable indentity.....can certainly lead, to an impaired sense of empathy. It can also lead to an impaired sense, of value, commonality........it makes it easy, for someone like me or you, to see certain aspects of themselves....revealed in the absence of other aspects. (when we are rapidly cycling)

I appreciated this insight very much. It reminded me of the black and white shifting of BPD, and how rapidly (and insidiously) it can occur.

Twisted, your writing reminds me a lot of another individual who used to post on this board. Like him, you have very atypical, stream-of-consciousness writing that oftentimes contains rather shattering insights. Very soulful, deep, and piercing.

If i love someone one minue, and hate them the next.........LITERALLY...........then it gets to be a a strain, trying to disprove one emotion and validate the other.
Eventually, the idea of love.......or hate.........kind of loses meaning. The emotions are still there and strong, but the laughable transient nature at their core.........allows for me, not to hold too seriously to any one version of events/reality/self........however you would like to define it.

This? This is perfect. Thank you. This is how I experience everything. I am utterly shocked at reading this. I had no way to voice this philosophy before. So not only have you shocked me into wordlessness, you've again proved me why these boards hold true and golden merit -- we find people cut of the same cloth on this pages.

Empathy isn't really understanding someone's pain.........it's just feeling badly cause you notice it.
You most likely, have a very impaired sense of empathy.........how it's impaired, may be different to anyone else.......but you don't have to care, to have empathy.
I mean...you could see someone crying, and feel badly....but not care that you feel badly......that would still be empathy.

I don't know about that last observation, though. I will have to think on it. Empathy, no matter where I read its definition, strongly implies that caring is an essential component.

Thank you for the response. It is truly and deeply appreciated.

-- Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:47 am --

kirayng wrote:So , not sure how much extra stuff parallels your experience, I definitely get the homicidal urges.... I don't even see people as something that matters to me at all most of the time, honestly when someone gets their little ego bruised I am appalled and a bit repulsed.... well who knows what dx that belongs with.

I appreciated this, thank you. It made me smile. I think it belongs to the Highly Intelligent and Cynical dx.

But in all seriousness, thank you for explaining your experiences with homicidal ideation and cyclical periods of emotional deficit. I think, regardless of diagnosis, these things are generally poorly examined, poorly known, and very little spoken of outside of circles like our own. It's an unfortunate double edged sword, homicidality. You can't admit to it without the potential for serious ramification. And if you can't admit to it, it may never resolve.

Love your writing btw, it's juicy in my head with words rich in meaning and layers.

Thank you. I am quite.. humbled at the number of people that have said this in this thread. I appreciate the compliment. Thank you for reading.

I will respond to the rest of the posts tomorrow, when I'm not falling over from exhaustion.

ireneadler999 wrote:i don't know. i think philosophical lawlessness can just be the natural outcome of not being able to identify after a time where and how you are in terms of beliefs. i've just settled on a form of nihilism.

You and Twisted have helped me view this issue from an entirely new perspective. Like, you've literally torn off the face of how I was understanding the problem, rendering it into a completely different construct. I've always thought of it as a separate, paradoxical form of myself. One that never comfortably adhered to who I thought I was, simply because I was seeing it as being separate. Alien.

My inability to commit to any sort of philosophical stance, my nihilism, my misanthropy, my sadism. These things are, ultimately, no different than my empathy, my intuition, my ability to deeply feel. They all arise from the same place. If we choose to look at it through the perspective of identity struggle and loss, then it's not so difficult to understand, is it? I've always felt empty, always. My name, the personal facts about my life, the fingers that I am typing with. They feel completely alien. I've always thought of that as dissociation, and it probably is. But the core behind it? No sense of self. So it would make sense, then, that I would abhor my sadism, my homicidality. Just as it makes sense that I cannot connect my experiences of empathy and love to who I am, either.

As you and Twisted have so beautifully pointed out -- when one experiences extremes of everything and nothing, and spends a lifetime trying to decide which is real -- it all becomes empty. And beautiful. But ultimately: fleeting.

i think people with pd's (maybe bpd especially) are more inclined to identify and name our dark sides because we've been identified so often as 'the family patient' or 'the problem,' or what have you.

Both of you, and others in this thread, have mentioned this concept of over-analysis. Of blowing things up larger than they are. This is a difficult thing, because I know I am fully capable of doing that, but it is also extremely difficult to know when I am analyzing a thing out of proportion, or whether that thing is larger than I can ever appropriately appreciate. Again, though, I appreciate your insights that this may be nothing more than a search for the self, and I will attempt to keep this in mind when trying to move forward.

Thank you.

i sometimes think a good definition of bpd is: human struggle/questions concentrated (definition of concentrated as in concentrated juice ). i think it's human-ness squared.

HEllo. The "two of you" thing...I can COMPLETELY RELATE. The only thing, is that I scare myself. Not in the sense that I am scared OF a certain aspect of me and live in denial of it's existence, but...Like the two of me thing? how one is really empathetic and one is really cold hearted and would tortue people and not feel anything ? I get that. The only thing though is that when I think about it, it scares me. I get tingly feelings and it just ..i know it's wrong. So that's good that I'm neither mentally ill nor healthy. nor neither nor both...aha. One thing that i've thought about that, for me anyway, is all the murder shows on television, I think they may have traumatized me so much that my sensitive self is somehow turned dark to handle all the fear.

Also, it's funny about the complete empath and complete apathy. I think it's more of the black and white thing-how we feel extremes. Perhaps it's healthy to try and set a middle "feeling" ground.

Perhaps it's healthy to try and set a middle "feeling" ground.

Perhaps.......but perhaps there is no health. Merely benefits........and if you decide that the middle ground is beneficial, then you may have to be a slave to that decision.
That there is some place, that is where your feelings should reside where they are not.


I think aslong as you don't end up homeless or in jail or unable to afford medical care depending on where you live........i wouldn't worry so much about it.
Why be scared? If the compulsions are minimal...........perhaps it matters far less what you are and far more, what you want. And why.

i know it's wrong

If you believe in wrong................you will be a slave to the idea of "right".


If you can grant yourself the liberty to know what is wrong and what is right........why can't you grant yourself the liberty to choose whether or not their exists such things as wrong and right? And when.......


And if so, does it not stand reason to follow............that you should neither sink nor swim based on your own belief that you are surrounded by water? Unless it is beneficial to do so..........but if you are the arbiter of what is beneficial, why can't all things be beneficial or cease their need to be?

Twistedmister wrote: I think aslong as you don't end up homeless or in jail or unable to afford medical care depending on where you live........i wouldn't worry so much about it.

It is really the basic social commitment triangle, is it not?
I was getting to that conclusion myself.

I sometimes think I'm a sociopath. I can sometimes be a 'bully', but only to those that are practically assholes.
I lack sympathy and empathy for people, but BPD's are known to have problems with empathy.

I feel the same. I just genuinely don't care for some people.

Hi electric.

I have BPD traits though not the full disorder, and I think it is very normal to have different sides to ourselves. The issue that people with BPD have is that these different sides are not well integrated. Everything has to be black or white for a Borderline and it is hard to meet in the middle, so to speak. Hence why you have distinct sides to yourself that seem so opposite to you. It is like you cannot fathom that both of these sides could exist within you when in fact they can.

I personally believe everyone has an inner sociopath that is more pronounced in some people than others. There are times when i think could kill certain people quite easily. Times when i loathe humanity and feel as if I would be ambivalent if the world ended tomorrow. But I am also extremely sensitive, empathetic and eager to help anyone in need. I hate to see anyone suffer. Both of those sides are apart of me.

In short, I do not think you are as strange as you think you are.

I am resurrecting this thread, simply because I wanted to say THANK YOU! Thank you for these wonderful posts, especially from AliceWonders. It helps to give me perspective on myself and I really needed to hear it right now.

To see that I'm not a 'bad person' but a damaged person is something that helps me so much right now and is something I can hold on to.

I also have been confining myself to labels instead of trying to find my own "personal truth", which is something I really need to do. I don't fit into any singular category or box either but am a mix and match of symptoms.

I have been having so much trouble accepting myself, and accepting my negative traits, because I attribute it to being a bad person. Self-blame = shame.

I too have identity fragmentation, and seem to have different sides to me. And a "dark side" (which has been incredibly hard to accept). Especially the part about it being triggered really resonates with me.

So while it's almost 3 years late, thank you for this thread and posts. I really needed to hear it just now. It really helps me to find some badly needed perspective.

I feel ya blank identity.
In particular the quoted section.

Didnt have the time to read much further.
This is vague and confusing. I feel so...different.

..But have to add, Im in peace with myself & feeling relatively solid.

biitchelectric wrote:I experience, in rather heavy degrees, things that the borderline diagnosis does not whisper at. They scare me, and always have. They are scaring me more fully now because when I read all of your posts on this board, I get them, but there's this darkness behind all of it that relatively few others seem to experience. The intense emotions -- I get them. The abyss-esque empathy -- I get this. The sheer terror of abandonment -- I understand this. The complete repulsion of living in one's own skin -- I know this. But there is something else, as well. Something that seems to cancel all of that out.

It's... like... there are two of me. Which may be the epitome of borderline splitting, I don't know. But it feels as though there is one part of me that is a deeply feeling, deeply emotional, and deeply empathetic individual. And then, existing in perfect tandem, is the other part of me -- the part of me that, even as I witness someone's heartbroken tears and fully recognize the deep anguish behind them, doesn't, ultimately, give a flying f*ck.