Another HPD experience?

Hi All,

I found your forum about a week ago and have been very impressed with it. Reading about other people's experiences with, and insights into, HPD has been really helpful.

About a year ago I became emotionally involved with a girl who seemed OK at first but then things started to deteriorate in bizarre ways. So many things I've read in these posts could have been written about her actions
and my reactions.

She will suddenly change from being highly seductive to totally witholding attention/affection. She has become extremely controlling about contact between us, the turning point for me was when she recently started to shout
stuff like "Hello? is anyone there?" down the phone if I tried calling her.

When I did bump into her unexpectedly, her emotional state could be really volatile, it would start off affectionately, "normal" even, but suddenly become erratic, before deteriorating into rage. Maybe I said something which didn't fit in her world, I don't know. But the tirade was usually accompanied by remarks (clearly intended to be hurtful) about my personal appearance.

She also seems to have this funny kind of gullibility in relation to her identity, being very quick to affirm that she knows who she is even though "other people" (whoever they are) might not. When I told her I had a sister with her name she looked startled and said "but it isn't me" in much the same way my four year old might seek assurance there's no monsters under the bed at bedtime.

Worse, I could see these kind of behaviours were not normal, but somehow the times when I had her undivided attention made it all worthwhile. Am I right in thinking these controlling behaviours and identity problems could be due to HPD?

Thanks again to everyone who has shared what they've been through (and are still going) through. It's nice not to feel alone in the world!

I'd like to vent my HPD story in the not too distant future.


cheers

Welcome to our nightmare, Alex Cooper

*need more input*, but I will say that some of those behaviors are not indicative of HPD as I understand it.
Keep in mind, I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.

Hi RacerX,
Thanks for your 2c.
I just read your musings on "the look" and thought it had bearing on what I said. You're right that I may not have put enough details in (thats a work in progress)

Sure the emotional volatility I see comes with cute facial expressions and almost cartoonish body language. Perhaps the final rage is born of frustration at not being able to find the "right" emotional state to show the world.

If I had no idea about "normal" emotional behaviour and had to try and define myself in terms of who I was with, trying to control whom you saw and when (gotta put on the proper facade first) would seem like the logical thing to do.

Although I'm in a really bad place, I can sort of see how to get out, at least.[/i]

Baz,
Hope you're hanging in there and I totally understand about the work in progress. Took me some time to gather my thoughts. Not gathered yet because they keep changing. You'd be amazed at how rapidly your perceptions can change once you're out of the situation and start learning more about the truck you've just been flattened by.

I'll leave you with a few comments that I have found helpful to mull over:

#1 Relationships are sold as the key to happiness.

#2 Neurotic: A smart person who's emotions make them think stupid. I've spent hard time with an HPD case. Of course I'm neurotic!

#3 No matter how attractive *you* may think she is, there's some guy somewhere who's sick of putting up with her $hit.

Best,
-John

I've been reading this forum for a few weeks now and it's been really helpful to me. I decided it was time to share some of my own experience. I've been with a male HPD for about a year and a half now. As I first was getting to know him, I noticed several, shall we say, "issues" that he had that I thought were disconnected from each other: sudden shifts in mood; cognitive problems, such as not being able to stay on a topic for more than a few sentences [I thought it was ADHD then]; being sexually preoccupied too much of the time; alcohol abuse; and possible bisexuality, among other things. It took me a long time to realize that his problems added up perfectly to HPD. When I read more about HPD, I was amazed at how well he fit the description. Anyway, things have progressively deteriorated in our relationship the longer we have been together. When we first met, he was over-solicitous (a warning sign, of course) and extremely affectionate. I was shocked when the "reversals of affection," as I call them, started. For no apparent reason, he would suddenly switch from being very sweet and caring to being distant and hostile. I read somewhere that HPDs can have a "Jeckell and Hyde" personality, and that certainly fits him. I can take it if someone is upset with me for a good reason, especially if he can discuss it with me. But having him turn on me for no apparent reason and with no explanation is making me kinda crazy. When I insist on trying to talk through our problems, he just gets very angry and accuses me of "lecturing" him and trying to intentionally detain him from other activities. I am still trying to accept that here is this intelligent, successful person who is incapable of reasoning through a problem and resolving it. He also is COMPLETELY incapable of empathy. I've decided that he can't guess at what others might feel in a situation because he has no clue what he would feel in the situation.

Anyway, I could go on and on (sorry), but the current state of affairs is this: we have spent most of the past week apart, although still talking some. I feel completely torn. Part of me (my brain) knows that the best thing by far would be to cut my losses and let this person go and move on with my life. The rest of me (my heart) is heartbroken over losing the part of him that has meant so much to me. While I know that these two parts of him are inseparable, and I would always have to take the bad with the good, part of me still hopes that somehow he will miraculously change into a stable, reasonable adult and we'll live happily ever after. Wow, writing it down makes me feel even more stupid than I did before. I'm sure it's good, though, because part of the problem is my not accepting the reality that the person I fell in love with never really existed at all.

Anyway, you guys have really helped me know that I'm not really crazy, even though I feel like it at times. Thanks for your postings, and I would appreciate any words of wisdom or encouragement.

Roni

Roni,
Sorry to hear about your misfortune. About all I can say for encouragement is this: Things can only get better from here now that you know (well...strongly suspect) what you're up against.
Wisdom...well you can only expect so much wisdom from a guy like me
But here goes: he needs to know that you suspect HPD whether you decide to keep him or not. If you're going to be the one to tell him, you must act completely adoring and supportive and don't let him set you off. No easy task when you've got accumulated baggage from the relationship. It has to be that way because otherwise he'll suppress the memory of you ever telling him.

Take care,
X

Thanks for your kind words, Racer X. As for trying to talk with my boyfriend about HPD, I have actually already tried several times. I admit that it wasn't under the best of circumstances, but even when I've tried to convince him that learning something about HPD might be helpful or at least interesting to him, he just says that he isn't interested because he's happy the way he is. (Which he obviously is not.) I would love it if he would try to gain some insight, but it looks hopeless. Not to say that I am blameless in our problems. My faults include not being able to let something go even when it's obvious that talking about it isn't going to get anywhere. Also, I tend to say very critical things when I'm very angry and hurt. Both tendencies that do not mix well with HPD.