So I just started dating a girl with BPD

I meet this girl on the internet a couple months ago. From the very start she told me she had Borderline Personality Disorder. I thought how bad couple it be.. It's not a real Personality Disorder it's only "Borderline". So a couple months go by and we meet in real life and last Friday she kind of told me that I need to look it up and make sure I know what I am getting in to before we go any further. So everything I have read is summed up with run away as fast as you can, but the tone i get off those are wrighten by exs that have been hurt and are bitter. Most of them were on dating sites and other advice sites not structured sites. So is my big question is.. Is this relationship doomed? I know nothing is that black and white (<--see what I did there), and every person and relationship is deferent. So lets start out with what I figured out.. The first thing I figured out was I have a relationship from back in college that this feels a lot like. Doing research for this relationship might explain why that old girl fiend would get inspirationally mad about things like, I talked to another girl named Sara and start throwing things at me. I always found this amusing because she could never hit me and then that would piss her off more. Any ways I dated that girl for 2 years and then she left me got in to meth cleaned up and she is now a pretty successful lawyer and she has been a seemingly stable relationship for 8 years. So I may have some exsperance dating some one with BPD.. anyways back to the current girl. We are very much in the infatuation faze of the relationship. Even before I started reading the about BPD I always kind of wondered what it would be like when reality steps in. What kind of gives me hope is one she really wants me to understand what is going on, and I think her past therorpy might have helped her understand what is going on. There has been a couple emotionally left field days and they always came with a warning. she would tell me she was feeling twisted or she was spinning those days. but for the most part when things are bad when she has a rough day she seems to be able to stay positive. She seems every aware of what is happing and how it effects her judgment. Now after reading about BPD I wonder is this an act to make me think she has it under control. I have asked her if she would go back to therapy? She said she would like to but doesn't have insurance right now. I also said I would like to go with her to understand it. Is this like PTSD? I'm a military contractor most the people I work with suffer from PTSD of sum sort and I have learned to deal with there erationality is by letting them do there thing and when they calm down talk about things like rationally. I don't want to say this relationship is doomed and I want to try it make it work. I have a girl that thinks deferentially then other people.. how do make it work?

You only know if you try.

Couple of notes.
You need to to be aware of the things the may happen.
You need to know if she's being treated, which will alter what may or may not happen.
You need to be prepared to be hurt.
You need to be prepared to sever all ties and never look back.

If you're prepared for that, you can try.

We're not heartless people.
We can love. We do love. Intensely, quickly... but we can change at the drop of a dime and come back just as fast.
We're volatile. We're like a drug, and chances are you're going to get addicted, and you need to be prepared for withdrawal if she flees... I mean...

If you can make her take it slow, you have the best chance.
MAKE HER. It will be hard, and she will probably struggle with the concept a little, but she'll be all the better for it.
So will you. We rush, don't let her.
You'll be able to figure out what you're dealing with and she'll be able to pace herself out, maybe NOT burn out.
Ya know?

We have lots of threads here on ourselves. READ SOME.
I'm a recovered BPD. I'd love to talk.
PM anytime.

I'd also say read as much as you can about how to communicate with BPDs, like Stop Walking On Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has BPD. There are certain things that are perfectly fine when dealing with other people that will trigger a borderline's issues.

As you’ve already pointed out, each person and each relationship is different. Not everything you read online or in other reading material are going to apply to this girl or your relationship with her. You’re just going to have to take things slow, practice excellent communication and see how things progress.

Personally, I consider it a good sign that she was upfront about her BPD from the very beginning. It sounds like she’s very self-aware and has done a fairly good job of keeping you abreast of her mood fluctuations. I wouldn’t interpret her openness as an act or manipulation. If she wanted to manipulate you she would have chosen a far more appealing way to do so; she’d probably go as far as to feign happiness during those periods when she was struggling.

BPD is universally misunderstood and loathed. I’m sure you found this out during your research. We’re all painfully aware of what’s out there. By telling you about her BPD and encouraging you to read about it, she really put herself out there. She basically put herself in a position to be rejected and that’s hard for anyone to do.

Anyway, if you’re really interested in this girl and want to continue seeing here, this is my humble advice. (Some of it might not be relevant to your situation or this girl.)

1. Encourage her to continue therapy when she can afford it. If she can’t afford to do so now, encourage her to be pro-active in other ways; participating in online forums, reading self-help books geared towards BPD, utilizing DBT workbooks, or revisiting what she learned in past therapy. Making some kind of therapy a stipulation of the relationship just seems like a good idea when it comes to dating and mental illness. Even when things are going well, it’s just nice to have those resources at your disposal.

2. Practice excellent communication with each other. Obviously communication is fundamental to any relationship, but you want to kick that up a notch. It might help to find out what her triggers are, what she does when she’s having a rough time, what she can do to get through it and what you can do to ease the situation for both of you. Sometimes I need my husband close and comforting me and sometimes I need to be left alone. There might be occasions where she slips or loses control; it might help to have a plan so if that happens you’ll at least have an idea of what to expect.

3. Please, please, please don’t turn her into a project. Do not be at her beck and call. Do not try to be her Knight and Shining armor and do not try to rebuild or fix her. It’s one thing to be supportive and encouraging; it’s another thing to be co-dependent. This is someone you’re planning to date, who might be a girlfriend and a partner; try to avoid becoming a caregiver.

4. This might not be an issue. We have no idea who this person is, but I’ll go ahead and say it; don’t loan her money or put your own well being at risk in order to rescue her from her own mistakes. I’m not saying this is typical, but it’s just reasonable advice regardless.

5. Finally, if you decide this isn’t working for you, don’t feel obligated to stay in the relationship out of guilt or a need to care for her. I’m sure many of us have been in relationships where we lingered around a little too long because the other person was too clingy or begged us to stay or even made empty threats. If something like this were to happen, don’t allow it to deter you. You’re just prolonging the inevitable. If you’re ever ready to leave; leave and make a clean break. Don’t allow yourself to get sucked back in time and time again.

You make her sound very reasonable. Either she is reasonable and definitely worth a chance, or you're being hopeful and talking her up

It seems like psychopathic women often times get mis-diagnosed with BPD. I think that gives BPD a worse name than it really is. Psychopath with PMS is NOT BPD.

Like they said above, she's being really honest about something she wouldn't have to be honest about. That's a great sign.

She is being very honest. She has told me about her deferent personality and how it's not like multiple personality it's still the same her just deferent faces. She has told me what to expect when she start getting twisted and how she copes. I don't know how much counseling she has had in the past, but from what I have read on here she seems to talk more like the post from people that are recovering. I know she has talked about hating some of the medication she used to be on, but wishing she could go back on to adderall. when I asked her if she would go back to counseling she said yes if she could pay for it. This forum has been very helpful in understanding in understanding her. It's also helping me because I took a personality test on one of threads here and it said it was very likely I'm Schizoid, and looking at there thread was the first time I have ever went wow people that have the same problems as me. I grew up with a father that taught me that emotions were a sign of weakness. I have entered the real world and found that that is far from true. I can I have been frustrated but I can logically deal with my frustration but I not sure if I can say I have ever really been angry. People in my life that are very emotional or close to there family I have great love and adermation for because it's something I really want my life. My parents are very co-dependent. Being like them scares the hell out of me so I really want to keep that out of my relationship. I'm not going to loan her money I did that once it killed my credit score and I ended up paying off a loan I co-signed on. Anyways enough about me back to how I feel about her. I think the way she thinks is amazingly beautiful. It's a way that I can never see the world. I don't want to change her, I want to understand her.



Thank you I think I will be using this site a lot to understand her.

So I guess this my one year update. I am currently in Afghanistan have been scene September and I have until next September tell I go home. I'm a contractor, here and i had everything lined up before I started getting serous. I go home every 4 months for 2 weeks I got back from last R&R a couple weeks ago. So i don't think my girlfriend has BPD. I think her mom does. My GF does not drink or do hard drugs. She smokes weed, it helps her with arthritis she has from a bone disorder and yes I think she is self medicating because it helps her relax. Her mom is junky. She didn't marry her baby's daddy. She turned me down when I offered to marry her so she could get my health benefits, She does want to get married, just when the time is right. Her mom has been engaged twice that i know of in the last year, and married a lot, my GF stopped keeping count. I think she has some learned behavior from her Mom's BPD. My sister is a counseller and she is the one that pointed a lot this out. I think she does have a mood disorder. She has gone a DR for it and was on medication. She quit her job and lost her insurance so she is off her medication. But recently my sister has pointed out that she thinks she has PMDD. because there is cycle that once a month she hates me, well not just me she hates everything. When it is not that time of the month she is an awesome GF. It's just rough those morning when I wake and have an email from her that I hate her, and she wants me to die. I never feel physically threatened by her, and she makes it a point to let me know even though she hates me she will take care of the stuff of mine she has. I know alot of what she does or say is to get a reaction out of me. It's hard being on the other side of the world because when I was there I could see it coming and help her see the good side of things before she got to far on the bad. It's also hard because when she get's like this she wont talk to me on the phone or over skype. It's just on text or email.

HI bobcat! Welcome back, and thanks for the update!

So, I'm a little confused: she told you she was BPD, but now you don't think that she has BPD, but that her mother does? You don't have to be a drinker or drug user to be BPD. Just some of us tend to self-medicate with that kind of stuff.

Even when you're "recovered", it's more like being in "remission" - because that bomb can always go off, but finding better coping strategies and skills are how we can learn to modify our behavior - it doesn't mean that the feelings and thoughts are no longer present. Does that make sense?

I'm sorry to hear that you're in Afghanistan. Hopefully you'll get to come home for good, soon!

Keep updating us, and let us know how you're getting along :0)


AMP

The not being BPD is my unprofessional diagnoses and talking to my sister who is a pro. My GF was diagnosed with BPD when ishe was 14 after being raped. She has never been diagnosed after she turned 18. My sister told me that the two things she looks for in her patents with BPD is there relationship patterns and drug use.