What can be done to help them?

Hey everybody, I just wanna say how glad I am to have found this forum. It helped me put in perspective a lot of things concerning this one person in my life over the past year and half who I am now undoubtedly positive has HPD. She fits in with all the symptoms and stories exactly, and maybe even has a bit of Borderline in her as well.

We dated for a while a long time ago, for a very short time, but the pain involved in the relationship was one of the worst things I have ever gone through. Truly my heart goes out to everyone here who is struggling in marriage and even have kids with these kind of people.

By now I am over the pain associated with the break-up but still see this girl quite often because we are in a lot of the same classes together. (I'm a senior in college.) I keep reading over and over again about how the best thing that can be done with these people is "NO CONTACT," but that is clearly not possible at this point and really do care about this person and don't want to believe that she's a hopeless case. I understand that I am little more than an object to her, but she is more than an object to me. I'm not even looking for some miracle to "cure" her but any positive impact I could have is better than none. Therapy is out of the question because I think she'd be pretty offended if I told her I thought she had this. I don't know how I'd tell her or if she'd even get therapy for it anyway.

Now I'm keeping myself pretty emotionally distant while still treating her with as much kindness as a can which seems to be working out as well as anything right now. Truth be told she does make me angry sometimes and I've seen her hurt a few other people quite a lot over the time I've known her as well. Funny how someone can make you feel so intensely both love and hate towards them. I trying hard to not to let my emotions get in the way of understanding her.

I don't even really know what I'm trying to ask to be honest I guess I'm just trying to figure out the best way to deal with her because I really don't want to believe anyone is hopeless and she sure isn't going away anytime soon.

Hey there R.W.,

I know a few HPDs and always wanted to try this just to see what would happen. Maybe you can try it for me.

Since Christmastime is here, bake some homemade cookies (bear with me here) in some Xmas type shapes (Xmas trees would be logical), and wrap them up in whatever way you see fit and attach a note which reads "Merry Christmas. Maybe we could bake more of these together sometime, no strings attached." Then give the cookies to her.

The point is to subconsciously make her think of an activity that reminds her of her (in theory) incomplete and unsatisfactory bond with her mother. If we can guess correctly, she deeply craves the love of her cold mother, and baking cookies is an activity that is oft viewed as a bonding mother/daughter activity, and her interest will be piqued. Should she contact you and accept, when you meet up, make the statement "So did you and your mom ever bake cookies together when you were a kid?" or something to that effect. If she's HPD, you're probably likely to hear a no to that.

Basically, you are trying to see if that is indeed her conflict, that all she really, truly wants is her mother's unconditional love. Try to dig around and find out. If her mom is still around, tell her "Maybe next time, we can invite your mom and we can all bake cookies together." I think your HPD will go gaga when you tell her that. The way to help them is to either resolve their conflict with their mother (good luck), or get them to realize their actions are hurtful and destructive (good luck, but you should read the posts of Scarlett, they can realize what they do and change). Otherwise, yep, the mantra is NO CONTACT.

As for me, I've never been involved romantically or hurt by an HPD. I just find HPDs curious people and like learning about what makes them tick.

Some of you need to read up on more current research on personality disorders. I know much more about borderline than histronic, but a personality disorder, which is faulty wiring in the brain, is genetic with environmental factors making it better or worse. Unfortunately, being genetic, often the parents themselves have the same faulty wiring in their brains and are not what we consider "good" parents. HOWEVER there are plenty of people who live in extremely abusive situations who do not develop a personality disorder. The predisposition to geting one is determined by your genes. I'm going to recommend a book,w hich is for borderlines, and is terrific, if you truly want to understand the person you are with rather than just bashing what she did to you because of her illness.

As you read, there are chapters about treatment options as well as why the behavior is unstable. Because of the faulty wiring nobody here can tell you how this person will act toward your kindness. The person herself does not know. Against her will, she may act out in a way contrary to how others would act. If you want to do an act of kindness, do it without expecting a necessarily typical reaction. And if you want to learn more about personality disorders, other than rants from people on a forum, here's a really good book. You can order it from Amazon or take it out of a library. It is very helpful:

http://www.bpddemystified.com/index.asp?id=24

Hi RW,

First, I would like to commend you for your compassion-and your desire to help her.

I agree with AG, they seem to be hard wired in this condition.

Like you, I never wanted to give up on my wife. Unfortunatly, I had never heard of HPD and knew very little about BPD, so I tried things that I thought would "logically" help her. Things like trying to run "interference" for her through life's problems, telling her how beautiful and wonderful she was, trying to be a better listener, "proving" that I didn't just want her for sex, ect.

I think the only long term solution is intensive therapy. Unfortunatly, by the conditions very nature they do not think anything is wrong with them- and will resent the crap out of you if you suggest anything like therapy.

Sadly, you can not "save" her. Just like old Forrest Gump couldn't "save" Jenny. She will have to make the decision herself. Do not get emotionally involved- she will not consider your feelings and will hurt you in the end.

Hi RW-

Please, please take the time to read back through all the posts' here, even back to 2007. You'll read plenty of stories of the futility of trying to change HPD's, and then you can decide for yourself what you want. Do you want to maintain a no-contact status ? Or do you want to attempt to rehabilitate the HPD, because of co-dependency issues? One thing for sure is, is the heartache of trying is profound and and unending and most likely you'll ultimately be discarded. And looking back then, you'll see the disappointment as minimal now of letting go as compared to trying to rebuild your life then. Best Wishes!

*post deleted*

RW --

In short, you can't help her. Nobody can "fix" her; she has to do it for herself.

In fact, imo, that is one of the more important lessons you can take away from a relationship with an HPD. As you read through the posts on this forum, notice how many of us are "fixers", knights in shining armor, etc.

I'm not blaming the victims, either. It's not a bad thing to be a compassionate and caring human being. But, you also need good boundaries and the ability to recognize manipulative / controlling people in your life.

best wishes
caro

AGCDEFG wrote:Some of you need to read up on more current research on personality disorders. I know much more about borderline than histronic, but a personality disorder, which is faulty wiring in the brain, is genetic with environmental factors making it better or worse.

Can you link to some publications about physiological causes of HPD? I know that some links have been discovered between BPD and neurotransmitter imbalances concerning mood regulation, but I've never heard anything similar about HPD, which from what I know of it, is a behavioural problem stemming from learned maladaptive coping mechanisms.

caro81VA wrote:In short, you can't help her. Nobody can "fix" her; she has to do it for herself.
In fact, imo, that is one of the more important lessons you can take away from a relationship with an HPD.

Exactly. This holds true for every relationship you'll ever be in.

As you read through the posts on this forum, notice how many of us are "fixers", knights in shining armor, etc.

*points wryly to username* Yep, that's me.

Yeah, I think I already knew deep down the case was something like that...

The more I think about it and the more I learn the more I start to think that this could be the worst PD of them all. At least with someone with ASPD is very difficult to get close to them in the first place. Someone with HPD will make you fall for them like you never thought you could fall for anyone, before you're able to see them for their true selves. I struggle to think of anything more deeply damaging. Do they have ANY concept of the kind of harm they do to people? Any depth to them beyond the masks they put on? How can they possibly lack empathy and yet be so good at creating a false sense of it?

I can't speak for all HPDs... there may be some that have more hope than others... but I feel like deep down this girl is more black and empty than I ever imagined a person could be. A lot of my lingering pain just comes from trying to reconcile the fact that a person like this could possibly exist. It seems like trying to block out, forget, and ignore her fakeness just makes me more numb to everything real... and I feel so helpless about everything.

I can't wait until I never have to see her again, and I hate saying that. I find it ridiculous that anyone could have such an effect on me. I can't make sense of it, but the emotions I feel are real. I just have to learn to live with the scar I now have.

R.W. wrote:... there may be some that have more hope than others... but I feel like deep down this girl is more black and empty than I ever imagined a person could be. A lot of my lingering pain just comes from trying to reconcile the fact that a person like this could possibly exist. It seems like trying to block out, forget, and ignore her fakeness just makes me more numb to everything real... and I feel so helpless about everything.

I can defiently relate to what you are saying here RW cause that is exactly how I felt about the whole miserable ordeal. It's amazing to ponder, especially in looking back through the aftermath, that people like this actually exist among us. It is surreal and I think for me it was where my biggest source of PTSD came from. Just know that in time will come to an acceptance of her and her condition, and although you may not feel that way right now, you will walk away from this with a recognition of inner strength you may have not known existed

R.W. wrote:I can't wait until I never have to see her again, and I hate saying that. I find it ridiculous that anyone could have such an effect on me. I can't make sense of it, but the emotions I feel are real. I just have to learn to live with the scar I now have.

No need to hate saying that. Frankly it is the truth. Having no contact with an HPD is the most effective way to heal.

Yah the whole thing is ridiculous and the range of emotions it brings up is equally crazy. The shock of her and what she brings does eventually die down and when that happens you will be able to slowly but surely rebuild your life while seeing her more and more from the rearview mirror of your life. More than ever right now it is important to have some patience for time will be your biggest healer.

Don't be too concerned with that scar. In time it slowly becomes a scab and that scab eventually gives way to some new fresh skin. Black gives way to blue and in just like the scar, your pain will fade in good time.

Keep the focus on you and rebuild your life they way you want it...when all is said and done, that and not the hpd will be the true measure of your life