How do you win back somebody with HPD? Does my ex have it?

I have this ex girlfriend who I think might have histrionic personality disorder. I'm not trying to diagnose her to make fun of my "crazy ex girlfriend", I'm just trying to understand her and figure out how to deal with her. What should I think of this?

I was friends with this girl for 5 years before we dated. I met her when I was selling jewelry at the fair one day. I was playing "hot or not", and she walked by, and I rated her about a 6-she stood out from the crowd, and she was attractive, but I felt like she didn't pull off her very revealing outfit with the physical shape she was in. She had bright red hair, striking snake tattoos all over her body, and was wearing a halter top and short shorts. When I met her, though, my rating of her went up-she had a fun and enthusiastic personality, and she bought nearly everything I suggested, and I made my best sale of the week to her, she bought over a hundred dollars worth of jewelry from me.

Later that night I saw her flirting with my boyfriend. Now when I see a girl flirting with my boyfriend, my go to tactic is to go flirt with her too, because then I have some control over the situation. It always works for various reasons. Anyway, I went up to her and said, "Hey, I know you! I sold a bunch of jewelry to you! How do you like it? You look gorgeous-that necklace really brings out your pretty eyes", blah blah. And then I asked her to hang out with us. She was fun and exciting, and everywhere we went, she would find some excuse to flash people-to get on the rides for free, or whenever somebody asked her what she did for a living, she'd say, "I'm a stripper!" and flash her boobs at them.

By the end of the night, she said, "I guess we're friends now, huh?" And I said, yeah, I guess so. And we started hanging out together. I hired her to work for me because she was friendly and personable, and she was good at organizing, and she was good at listening to me and doing what I said. She was like that after hours, too-and I really liked it. To be honest, we sort of brought out the worst in each other-I was always coming up with stupid ideas, but most people don't go along with them. She would go along with them without question, which only encouraged me to up the ante to see just how far she would go.

One night after hours, I found a hot tub stand, and lifted the lid on one of the hot tubs, and it was on, so I suggested we go skinnydipping. She took off her clothes and we got in. There was always this sexual tension between us, and I wanted to make a move on her right then and there, but the security guards caught us, and she flashed them, and they let us go, but we had to get out. One night she got drunk and kissed me on the lips, but I wasn't sure what she meant by it-especially considering that she was always making homophobic comments and stuff. But I had a feeling she was into me.

Anyway, we had a falling out and it was years before we spoke to each other, but I recently reconnected with her and asked her to go to a concert with me. At the concert we were dancing together and I kissed her, and we started making out. I was making out with this guy too, and we three spent the night together-and in the morning, I realized I was late for church, and told them to come with me. So I brought them to church, haha. She had an emotional meltdown at church, and was crying throughout the service. And she said she wanted to join my church, and started going to church with me.

At the same time I mentioned I was into BDSM, and she said she was too-I was Dominant and she was submissive, and I started taking her to munches with me as well. We went to a play party together and we did a scene together, and one of the guys asked me if I had any subs. I said no, and she said, "What about me? Aren't I your sub?" I said something to the effect of, "Well, maybe, ok, we can talk about it." Later she asked me again what a relationship meant to me, and I told her that at this point in my life, it was about sitting down, coming to an agreement, and signing a contract to make it official. She then put it on Fetlife that I was her Dom, and started calling me her Dom. I told her that we hadn't had "the talk" yet, she said we thought we already had, and I said no, that was just the pre-talk to the actual talk, and that we still needed to talk before the relationship was official. But every time I tried to bring it up and negotiate with her, she'd find some excuse to not talk about it, to not sign the contract. She was also really argumentative a lot of the time, and it started to bug me.

She started coming to therapy with me, too, and I learned a lot about her. She had been through a lot of trauma. She lost her dad in a car accident at the age of 3, and her mother was left paralyzed. Her grandparents raised her. She said her mother was a pushover and just let her do whatever she wanted, as long as she left her alone, she said her mother was very distant and never paid attention to her. Her grandparents were also very unemotional and cold, she said, but very strict-she said she would break the rules until they disciplined her, and she hated it, but she said she respected them more for it, because she felt they cared about her. She was also sexually abused at 12 years old, and had been raped several times throughout her teen years. She was in more than one abusive relationship with older men, and had been forced to have an abortion at 13, which left her severely depressed and almost caused her to drop out of school. She tried to kill herself as a teenager.

I was a bit concerned over some of the issues she had. Nobody else seemed to like her, and several people in her life described her as self-centered, manipulative, sneaky, stupid, annoying, lacking empathy, "too much", a loud mouth, an attention whore, or a sociopath. Several people told me they didn't want her at their parties, or that she could come, but try to get her to "tone it down a little". She told me she had no friends and didn't know why. After spending some time with her, I started to understand why. She really did completely lack empathy. She would piss people off, and then ask me what she did wrong. I'd read the conversation and it was obvious that was she being extremely rude, but she couldn't see it at all. In one instance, a guy she was talking to had made a spelling error and she said, "So where did you learn to spell?" He was understandably very insulted, but when he got upset, she didn't understand what was so rude about what she said. I told her it was rude, especially considering the context in which she had already been putting him down a lot, but she said, "People are just too sensitive. We should be able to just be honest with each other." She didn't seem to have the ability to understand things from other people's perspective at all, and this eventually became glaringly obvious to me, as I was constantly finding myself in the position of mediator between her and people she'd pissed off. She was always surprised when people would react to things she said or did by getting upset. She also constantly contradicted herself, until I started to wonder if she even knew what she meant by half of what she said.

One day she started talking in an Australian accent out of the blue. When somebody asked her why, she said she had an uncle that was Australian and that it had rubbed off on her when she was little. From then on, sometimes she used the accent and sometimes she didn't have it. I started to really wonder about her and think she might have some sort of autism spectrum disorder or something. I also caught her lying to me about seeing a guy that I was seeing at the time that I wanted to have a threesome with. He told me he had seen her, and didn't like her because she was too self-centered and everything was always about her. I didn't mind that because he was a jerk anyway, but I told her I had seen him and she told me she had never met him in real life. I asked him what was up, and he produced a pretty authentic looking screenshot of their conversation in which they met up. From there I pretty much could deduce she was lying because she didn't want me to know she was seeing him behind my back. She was also always very paranoid and always thought people didn't like her for some reason after she had just met them. She thought this about practically everyone. Yet at the same time, when she thought somebody did like her, she trusted them completely. She would meet some guy and spend the night with him, even if it was really sketchy. She was super promiscuous and didn't seem to have any reservations when it came to who she slept with, and I was always worried she'd get herself killed or pick up an STD.

One time we went to a munch together, and she introduced herself as my sub. And she started to ask tons of questions, and raise her hand a lot, and it was kind of cringe-worthy because she was talking so much, so loud, and drawing so much attention to us. A lot of the things she was saying were off-topic, or were dumb questions. After she started talking out of turn and the entire room shushed her, I decided it was time to intervene, and I told her to ask me from now on before she raised her hand. She said ok, but then she raised her hand. I nudged her to remind her to ask me first, and she asked me, "Do you think shoelaces could be used as a whip?" And I started to say, No, I don't think that would work because-But then she raised her hand before I could finish my sentence, and asked the question. Another guy said what I was about to, that it wouldn't work because they were too lightweight, but one other girl said that maybe you could use the ones with the little plastic ends. And my girlfriend pointed to me and said, "She said it wouldn't work!" Then she raised her hand again, and I was like, please, for the love of God, talk to me about it first, I didn't say that but I was thinking it, so I tapped her and asked her what she was going to say, and she said, "I was wondering if you could use a sock as a gag!" And I said, well, yeah, you probably could, but you ignored me last time and I think you've talked enough this time, so I think we're done for today. But she raised her hand and said, "She told me not to say this, but I'm going to do it anyway and just take the punishment later."

After the munch she told me that she didn't think she should get punished for it because she thought it was a stupid rule. And she kept arguing with me in the middle of the room, and I kept telling her that we would talk about it later, that this wasn't the time and place, but she kept arguing, and I told her repeatedly that the discussion was over. I eventually had to walk away. Then she left the room and walked to the bar by herself, hid in the bathroom, crying, and started calling everyone we knew to talk about the argument we just had. Afterwards, she seemed to have forgotten about it and was all zip-a-dee-doo-dah again, until I brought it up and told her that she couldn't drive home (I was teaching her to drive) because of how she acted up at the munch. She said she didn't think she should be punished because we hadn't negotiated that rule beforehand-and I said, yeah, you're right, we should have negotiated, and we're going to have to negotiate soon so this doesn't happen again. But I still don't like how you handled it, so I'm driving home this time.

I let it go for a week, and we were happy together during that time. But after a week I decided I couldn't put it off anymore and we would have to talk about the disagreements we were having and set some ground rules, and negotiate the terms. So I sent her a letter telling her the things that weren't working, how I wanted her to be more respectful to me in public and not make public scenes any more, and I told her the terms of the relationship I had in mind. She replied by completely shifting blame to me, and refusing to accept responsibility for anything. She said everybody else thought what I did at the munch was bogus, that I was just mad that it backfired and blew up in my face, that I was being controlling and abusive, that nobody else thinks she talks too much, on and on. So I went and talked to one of the people she mentioned as thinking what I did was bogus and that signing a contract was a bad idea, and this woman said that I was absolutely right, that she DOES talk too much, that she had gotten complaints about it and was going to talk to her about it herself, that there was nothing wrong with a contract if that's what I wanted, and that anybody would be mad about what she did to me at the munch.

So I told her that. And during the course of this argument, she asked if we were going to church, but when I went to pick her up, she wouldn't answer the door or answer any phone calls, so I left without her, because I was already late. So the next day, when I told her this, I ended it with, "I'm picking you up at 12:30 for therapy. Open the door on time, or I'm done." She said ok. But the next day when I came to pick her up, at the last minute she said, "I don't feel like going to therapy today." But I had already driven 30 minutes out of my way to pick her up. I told her that if you skip your appointment with the therapist, he will charge you out of your pocket. I said it was rude and socially inappropriate for her to make me drive all the way to come get her and then cancel last minute before he had time to reschedule, so I highly recommend not skipping therapy. At that point she stopped talking to me altogether and she ignored me for a week. She blocked me on Fetlife. I tried to apologize to her and work things out, but she wouldn't reply.

Finally, after a week, she sent me a long melodramatic letter on Facebook talking about how much I'd hurt her, how sad she was, what a horrible person I was for it, how she missed us so much and how she wanted us to be the way we were again, and basically blaming me for everything that happened, saying I had blown it up for no reason. It kinda pissed me off that she still couldn't see what she did wrong or be accountable for any of it, so I took a day off before I replied. When I replied, I tried to be as calm and considerate as I could, and told her I was sorry for hurting her, and that's not what I had intended, that I just wanted her to talk to me about the relationship. I said sorry, again, for making the rule without negotiating.

After that, she sent me another long letter, this time making as many personal attacks as she could, saying she never respected me, while simultaneously making grandiose statements about herself like that "every Dom says I'm a perfect sub. I'm naturally sub oriented," and doing a complete 180, claiming that she didn't care, that I didn't hurt her at all, and that I should "know her better than that after 7 years". The contradictions were just striking, and not only was she being contradictory, but accusatory with her statements. So I replied to her:

"Today you said:

"I wasn't ever mad at you."

"It had nothing to do with anything emotional. You don't read very well. I'm not In the least bit sad."

"You didn't hurt me at all."

On Tuesday you told me, quote:

"You hurt me and I don't want to talk"

"All I can do is cry."

"At this point my depression is at an all time high . Severe. It's alarming. "

"It just hurts."

"I can't even begin to process you. To heal from your words."

"The fact you can't see any of your words to be hurtful and didn't understand why I'd be mad astounds me."

"You drained me emotionally"

"Nothing you said in the novel you wrote was accurate or described me accurate and most of it was hurtful and unnecessary."

"I don't want to be sad. I want to be the way we were. Happy. Friends. Lovers."

Are you trying to gaslight me, or do you have such a short term memory that you can't even remember what you said one paragraph ago? Are you really that stupid, or do you just think I'm stupid? Or are you just completely insane?

If you're not mad, and you're not hurt, then what the ###$ did I do wrong that you need space from, anyway?"

After that she started stumbling all over herself. She said, "The more you talk the less I want to talk to you, sorry." And I said, "The more you talk, the more I'm starting to see your true colors. I'm not unaware of the times you've lied to me, and maybe I should have paid more attention to all the red flags I saw." Then all of a sudden, she's reasonable. NOW she's willing to talk, and she changes the subject really fast. I started talking to her like I'd talk to my dad, who is a narcissist, and we finally start getting somewhere-eventually, I reason with her until she apologizes, and we end on a somewhat friendly note. But it wasn't a big making up thing. I'm avoiding her and she still isn't speaking to me. Her boss told me that she acts the same way at work, that she's manipulative and acts like a total sociopath, and that I should distance myself from her.

Still, after all this, even though I think we're better off without each other, I miss her. I do want her back, maybe not in the same way, at least not for a long time, but as a friend, maybe a more casual lover, unless it SLOWLY develops into something more when I can actually handle it, and I'm pissed off it ended this way, and she's so convinced that what I did was "abusive" and is posting all these memes on Facebook about it, even though I asked my therapist and showed him the messages and he said I did what anybody would have. I didn't want it to end this soon. I liked her, she added spice to my life, I even liked all the drama, it was a relief from my chronic boredom. I don't know how to win her back, but if I can understand her, and figure out what's going through her head, maybe I have a shot at that. I was thinking of ignoring her for a long while, seeing other people, getting my life together, making her a bit jealous, making her miss me, then, maybe, in a month from now, when it's her birthday, try some big romantic gesture?

The reasons I think she might have HPD are pretty much all there. She seems to have pretty much every sign of it, the attention seeking, the dramatization, the naivete, being easily influenced, the sexual provocativeness, the manipulativeness, the lack of empathy, the self-centeredness, etc. The only thing that doesn't seem to fit is that she's usually not very emotional, or so she says she usually feels emotionally numb, but she does seem to have an awful lot of emotional breakdowns where she starts crying, like at church and at the munch the day after we broke up, she shows up with mascara running down her face... is that an example of "Shallow emotions", though? and she certainly acts very melodramatic at times. She says she thinks she bottles up her emotions so much that when they do come out, she can't stop the flood. Her facebook wall is covered with nude selfies of herself, she posts a picture of her butt every Friday, and she's got over 4,000 followers, pretty much all of them strangers, who she spends all night group videochatting with. Her Fetlife profile is even worse...

first things first: you're not her parent. it's no wonder she kicks against you. second thing: she's severely damaged. she appears to have lived her life in an emotional and intellectual vacuum. she's nothing more than a frightened child trying desperately to find some sort of love, or at least acceptance. and, in her desperation, she's prepared to try anything. she simply doesn't know any better. i have to say that i feel for her. and so do you. stop trying to out-game-play her. she's not playing games here. she's just utterly lost. treat her like the adult you want her to be rather that the child she is. knock off all this contract non-sense. and stop using her too - adults play games that children aren't equipped to. you may have your wants, however, she's not in a position to play those sorts of games with you. as such, you may have to sacrifice them to a higher purposes. be a friend to her - that's what she needs.

now, i'll be honest here. i've given this to you straight. i haven't pulled my punches one little bit. i just hope i don't end up biting my tail over it. at the moment, i'm thinking it's worth the risk. however, i will tell you this: beware of people that only tell you what you want to hear.

Hey Younglife,

If she does have HPD, and let's say for the sake of discussion she does -

Trying to understand her based on what she says/does will be pointless. On the extreme end people with this disorder swap personalities and beliefs as easily as changing into a different set of clothes.

That written, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. You can be yourself, and honest, but that is it. You can't be her therapist, you can't fix her, she is not a puzzle to be unraveled.

But also none of that is really what is important. What is important is self-honesty. Why has she grabbed your attention, and what are you hoping to get out it? This is where the real truth lies. See that's the thing about HPD. By temporarily becoming what others want, it reveals just that, what others want. She is not that, absolutely not that, but it revealed something about what you want/needed.

there's a danger in modelling your behaviour on an assumed diagnosis, because what you then see is the diagnosis and not the person standing in front of you. and, in this case, i really don't think it would be at all helpful either.

by the way, i think you want to help her. but to do that you may need to put other things you want out of this relationship to one side.

There is indeed a danger in assuming a diagnosis, but...

Also a risk to self that has to be weighed. Many people who end up in abusive relationships spend a lot of mental effort on trying to see something positive that isn't there, maybe it's something else, maybe it makes sense if I just try harder? (while the physically or psychologically abusive person uses that doubt, well-meant thinking, etc., to advantage).

Sometimes a label is the catalyst the person needs to make a clear decision. So if she really does have HPD, and if she is not self-aware, and in treatment, I would advise you to steer clear for your own mental health. Her first responsibility in that case is to work on her disordered thinking. And yours is to figure out what you want from her.

xdude wrote:if she really does have HPD

... and thereby hangs a tale. you may never know for sure. my guess is that she's so damaged that she could be diagnosed with all sorts of things (borderline/dependent/histrionic/narcissistic). but would they really be her when she's never had the opportunity to mature into anything worthwhile.

you do need to decide what your motives really are here. i'm only hoping they're altruistic.

Thanks for the replies.

I'll admit I have my own issues to deal with and I'm sure that they are frustrating to her as well. I don't have a lot of friends either, in fact she was the only real close friend I had. I miss her.

The contract thing is off the table now. I'm aware that she isn't mature enough to handle that level of relationship. I told her from the beginning that if she wanted a D/s relationship with me, it would be on my terms, and she would have to sign a contract. I got very tired of her trying to dodge the issue. She didn't have to pursue that kind of relationship with me; if she wanted a normal vanilla relationship, she should have said so, if she just wanted to stay friends or friends with benefits, I would have been happy to do that. I wouldn't have tried to control her or tell her what to do in those circumstances, but a D/s relationship is different. I wouldn't have entertained the idea of being in that kind of relationship so quickly at all, except for that it was her, and I knew her so well.

She stopped going to therapy because she felt that the therapist judged her. She only went to one session. She doesn't stick to things very long.

I'm torn when it comes to my motives. I do care about her and I want us both to improve and work out our issues. On one hand, we might be better off without each other, we tend to influence each other in a bad way. But on the other hand, I really miss her. I want her back in my life. I kind of wish none of this had happened, it was pretty impulsive of me to kiss her like that. Then another part of me wants to keep going in that direction, forget about the contract, but keep pursuing the sexual relationship, on a more casual level. So I'm torn.

I guess I just want her to understand I'm not her enemy, and reconcile our differences. From there, I guess we'll have to decide if we want to gain some distance from each other, stay close friends, or be something more than that. It would probably be best for us both if we stayed at a healthy distance from each other, but still be there for each other as friends... of course the selfish part of me would rather jump back into a sexual relationship even if it ends up disastrous.

To me it's important to understand how she thinks so I know how to interact with her. I don't really have a "default" way of talking to other people, if that makes sense. It depends on who I'm talking to. I need to be able to understand how somebody else thinks to know how I should react to them. It's not really that I'm trying to play games, I just... don't know any other way of interacting with people, and if we want to start psychoanalyzing me, well that's another story that we can certainly explore.

I just think it's important right now to understand how she thinks so I have some idea of the best way to talk to her.

from what you've written, i'd say her thinking is all over the place. just be honest with her. try not to expect too much. see where things go.

Hey man,

No psychoanalysis is really needed. It's just about being honest with yourself, what it is you want, because you do want something, we all do, and that is fine.

She wants something too, but what she wants is not aligning with what you want, so you are trying to figure out some way to sway her wants to match your wants - normal enough, it happens.

It's really just about the more honest you are with you, the more clearly you will be able to understand her (except that once you do, you may not be motivated anymore to change her). Similarly if you can't figure out what is really motivating you, then you won't be able to understand her either.

To use a metaphorical example, until we remove the specks of dust from our own eyes, we can't see the beams in others (i.e., just means we are more inclined to try to figure out others before we are willing to focus on figuring out our own motives/issues).

I was already honest with her, and it backfired. I was really clear with her about what I wanted, what wasn't working, etc. She replied by trying to deflect blame and distract from the issue. I wanted her to tell me what she wanted, but she seemed to think I should be able to read her mind and just *know* what she wants without having to tell me. She even said so much in so many words, that I should just know her enough by now to know what she wants. I don't think she knows what she wants, that's why she's constantly contradicting herself.

Now that we've broken up, it could end up in several different ways, and I want more than one thing. I want conflicting things. I know I am a bad influence on her, she knows it too, I was always encouraging her to do things that she was trying to stay away from. I was sometimes a good influence too, though, like getting her to go to therapy and go to church. All in all though, my impulsivity and thrillseeking combined with her willingness to go along with anything I said was kind of a bad combination. We didn't have the best effect on each other. But, it was fun.

And that's the thing. It's fun. I actually really like her. I like being around her. It's exciting. I don't mind how messed up she is, like I said I'm pretty messed up too. I don't have many long lasting friendships. I want to keep seeing her, I want to be friends with her again.

But I also am still really attracted to her. I want her in a sexual way. That's probably not good for either of us right now though, and probably would be really bad in the long run for the friendship. I know I don't want to have a serious relationship with her again, that was a total disaster.

So, I have these three conflicting desires. To stay away from her for our own good, to be friends with her again, to be more than friends and be lovers. I'm sort of compromising with myself and saying, I'm going to try to keep more distance between us, but, I would still like to be her friend when I happen to run into her, and, if it does happen that something sexual happens between us as it likely will knowing the both of us, so be it. So, I guess that's what I want. I want her to stop hating me, and from there I guess que sera sera. I want sex, I want excitement, I want friendship, but in a serious relationship I need firm boundaries and control, I want to progress as a person too and have more self control, I want meaning and structure in my life, am I getting what you mean or am I completely missing your point? Before we started dating I wanted to stay single for the rest of my life, when I learned about D/s relationships I wanted to try one thinking that's the only kind of relationship I could handle, but I didn't feel ready for one, I was planning on trying one in maybe 5 years or so. When she rushed into one I made an exception for her because I knew her so well. But I didn't really feel ready for a serious relationship.

But I already told her all this, that I want to be friends with her, maybe lovers. The fact is that it's more complicated than just "be yourself" or "be honest". There are a million different ways you could approach somebody with the same information and same goals. Different people respond to different approaches. My social skills are pretty limited, I grew up totally socially isolated. So everything I learned, I basically learned from trial and error selling stuff to people, and from dealing with my narcissistic dad and my dependent mother. And from taking a conflict resolution class. What I learned is that different people respond to different approaches. For instance, there is a formula to apologizing to most people effectively to get them to listen to you. Most people, statistically, respond really well to this formula-appeal to their emotions, show remorse, promise it won't happen again. Their empathy will kick in and they'll want to apologize too. They'll say, "No, no, don't be sorry, don't be sad, it's my fault too. I'm sorry." And they'll hug you and apologize and that will be the end of that issue. But with narcissistic people, or attention seeking personalities, you can't do that, because they like it when you grovel. They like the attention. They'll try to milk you for every last drop, try to make you suffer, because they don't have empathy, and they want you to beg them for their forgiveness, because it makes them feel good. That's why you can't deal with people with personality disorders in the same way you might deal with everybody else, they don't respond the same. It's incredibly valuable to understand how somebody else thinks, so that way you can adjust your pitch to appeal to them. And everybody thinks differently. So when I talk to most people-I try to appeal to their emotion, but when I talk to a narcissist, I try to appeal to their egos. So I need to understand people, to be able to know how they work, to know how I should talk to them. It's kind of like human taxonomy. You might not be able to identify *exactly* what kind of bird it is by looking at the feathers, but you will probably get a pretty good idea of what family it's in. Maybe you know it's a flicker, but you don't know if it's a Northern or Southern Flicker-but from that information, you can at least figure out what their diet is likely to be and what to use if you want to attract it. Do you get what I'm saying?