My Everything.

I'm in a very complicated situation with a girl with HPD traits which seems like it would be impossible for us to solve. I've decided that the best approach in my attempt to leverage this community to try to solve this problem is to use the present central post as a repository for all aspects of the situation, which draws from satellite posts to create a cohesive whole, and use these satellite posts for more general topics / aspects of the problem which may be of interest to other people with HPD as well (wherein link/reference to relevant sections of this central post would be provided as context). I will edit this post as I go, I will likely develop on the points below and I will be feeding it with relevant portions / citations from my other posts.

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TABLE OF CONTENT

ABOUT HER
ABOUT ME
UNTIL I MET HER
WHAT BROUGHT US HERE
WHY THE SITUATION IS COMPLICATED
WHY SHE IS SPECIAL TO ME
AM I AT LEAST EQUALLY SPECIAL TO HER THOUGH?
WHAT I'VE GAINED FROM HER SO FAR
WHAT IT HAS COST ME
CONTINGENCY: WHAT IF NOT NOW? / WHAT IF THERE IS NOT SOLUTION?
MINIMUM PRELIMINARY REQUIREMENTS
WHAT SHE NEEDS TO ADDRESS ON HER OWN
REQUIREMENTS TO BE ABLE TO HAVE HER IN MY LIFE
CHALLENGES WE WOULD HAVE TO OVERCOME FOR US TO STAY TOGETHER
WHY I WOULD WANT TO HAVE HER IN MY LIFE & WHAT WE WOULD BRING EACH OTHER
WHAT I THINK I CAN EXPECT FROM HER, AND WHAT I KNOW I CANNOT
RISKS TO ADDRESS


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ABOUT HER - From a Psychological Perspective


45-80% HPD* - Corresponding to 38.2% of Histrionic Traits in Terms of Variety
Infantile (80%) > Vivacious (40%) > Appeasing (35%) > Theatrical (35%) > Tempestuous (23%) > Disingenuous (16%)
30-50% BPD** - Corresponding to 58.4% of Borderline Traits in Terms of Variety
Discouraged (80%) > Petulant (60%) > Impulsive (55%) > Self-Destructive (25%)
20-35% NPD*** - Corresponding to 30% of Narcissistic Traits in Terms of Variety
Amorous (54%) > Pure/Normal (54%) > Hedonistic (47%) > Compensatory (37%) > Unprincipled (23%) > Malignant (13%) > Elitist (12%) > Fanatic (0%)
~20% OCPD**** - Corresponding to 39% of Obsessive–Compulsive Traits in Terms of Variety
Conscientious (64%) > Parsimonious (62%) > Bureaucratic (46%) > Puritanical (25%)
~15% ASPD***** - Corresponding to 21.4% of Antisocial Traits in Terms of Variety
Reputation-Defending (57%) > Malevolent (20%) > Risk-taking (18%) > Covetous (12%) > Nomadic (0%)


Other
75% Voguish Melancholic
25% Virtuous Masochistic

Notes:

* While she is only expressing ~38% of the H subtype behaviors, I think H traits are the strongest drivers of her personality (though Borderline and Narcissistic traits closely follow suit). She preferably expresses some subtype characteristics over others but strongly express many non-subtype specific traits peculiar to H personalities as I've come across on the forums. The more I've read the more I've come to develop the idea that this is explained by the fact that there is a set of general drives and tendencies in H type personalities very intrinsic to the disorder BUT that characteristics/behaviors specific to this or that subtype are entirely and somewhat dynamically shaped at a higher cognitive level (i.e. entirely based on learning, as opposed to the neurostructural and neurochemical differences which underly the drives and tendencies of HPDIs), and so reflect an HPDIs later environment, observations/experiences, and emotional states. In any case: I've observed that the proportion in which she expresses various traits varies over time, and over the course of how she feels. I think that naturally she is (or in any case was) much inclined to express traits of the infantile subtype. She naturally used to express quite a low level of traits of the disingenuous subtype (which I don't think correspond to who she is deep inside), but when she feels hurt, when her older sister manipulated her to behave in that manner (I put it in the past tense because I assume and hope she doesn't anymore), or when she spends time with one of her female friends I believe to have strong ASPD traits, she does express traits of that subtype (to a limited extent as far as my knowledge goes, but I'm basing my assessment on the fact that I most likely see only the tip of the iceberg of that). Though I never expressed these feelings as I had started to grow apart from my friendship with her sister when I started to realize it, I was quite mad at her at some point as I hold her responsible for promoting such traits in her little sister in the past (at which moment they were yet virtually inexistent in her little sister's personality) in the course of using her as puppet, somewhat against her interest (probably on the false pretense of a feeling of "sisterhood" or making it sound like a fun thing to do), and withholding from her little sister much of the sense of right and wrong (which she very well understood herself) with respect to those traits. As for traits of the other subgroups, I know their expression fluctuate but I haven't really noticed exactly with respect to what.

** I may be projecting a little in terms of her BPD sides. My assessment takes into account this potential bias. Note that the estimated range is somewhat lower than her compliance with BPD traits. The reason for this discrepancy (which is also present in my assessment of personality traits of hers typical of the other PDs) is that while she expresses many PD / Subtype traits (variety), she seems to do so with less intensity. I myself express much fewer BPD traits than she does in terms of variety, yet I express them much more deeply than she does. I would die for who I am, but my feeling is that most people wouldn't, and that at least until two years ago, she expressed personality traits much more superficially than I do. I could wish for no better than seeing her chose who she wants to be and build her personality to a point in the future at which she would feel so strongly about everything she has decided is HER that she'd be ready to die for these things. Getting even half way there would mean the world to me. I fill with joy every time I see her affirm something as herself which doesn't seem to be dictated by her surrounding.

*** I remember her mum describing her dad as a narcissist. I've had insufficient contact with him to see any of that, and it might just have been an expression of her own H traits, but if it is true, which I believe it might, it's interesting to see those traits expressed in both of his daughters as well.

**** Here again, while she is more diversely obsessive than I am (39% vs 31% of subtype traits), I'm certain to be at least 50% more obsessive than she is in terms of intensity. She used to eat very little to look like a mannequin which would hurt me to see, but I think (hope) she stopped with that. While I do look at her as a beautiful "thing" (from a design point of view) when she looks skinny, to my heart she'd look a million times more beautiful with a normal weight. I used to think that when I'd be with her we'd cook and bake healthy things together, which I expected to solve this point in the natural course of things (unless she was emotionally attached to look so). Now that I've been learning intensively about PDs since realizing she had HPD traits a month ago, I also see the detrimental effect this may have on her expression of H traits as a result of the stress that some degree of under-nutrition might put on her hormones, metabolism, and limbic system.

This is the current state of my assessment of her personality. These ranges represent the average of what I have seen, heard and felt over the past 5-6 years. It takes account of the present, though this is not to mean that it is a picture of how she is now. I would like to be able to narrow it down further, but we'll need to talk freely to that effect. I hope I'll find a solution for me and her to be able to communicate freely on this, and I think it could be a relief for her if she's able to trust me, but before then, I think I cannot compress those estimated ranges much further. Please note that these are are not wild guesses though (I've read all answers to all questions pertaining to HPD on Quora, all posts on the last 800 topics on this forum, >400 additional posts from select forum members, and numerous external resources in the course of the last past weeks, so I'd look at this as a reasonably educated assessment).

If necessary / upon request, I will outline the drives and tendencies typical of H type personalities that are not particular to any subtype, most of which, if not all, she strongly correspond to.


ABOUT MYSELF - From a Psychological Perspective

There's always two sides of any situations, and a reply on another topic of mine on this forum had me open my eyes on the fact that there might be unconscious things in me beyond what I already knew / thought I knew. So I realized that if I wanted to be able to help her, I'd have to make myself capable of a but-load of introspection as well, and so I did. The advantage is that, while it's easier to fool oneself than fool another person, past that barrier it's much easier to analyze myself than it is to analyze her.

35-45% NPD* - Corresponding to 41.2% of Narcissistic Traits in Terms of Variety
Elitist (62%) > Fanatic (60%) > Pure (55%) > Compensatory (43%) > Hedonistic (43%) > Amorous (31%) > Unprincipled (18%) > Malignant (18%)
30-40% BPD*** - Corresponding to 33.5% of Borderline Traits in Terms of Variety
Petulant (60%) > Discouraged (33%) > Impulsive (21%) > Self-destructive (15%)
25-30% ASPD** - Corresponding to 40.4% of Antisocial Traits in Terms of Variety
Risk-Taking (82%) > Reputation-Defending (43%) > Nomadic (36%) > Malevolent (21%) > Covetous (20%)
25-30% HPD***** - Corresponding to 24.8% of Histrionic Traits in Terms of Variety
Infantile (70%) > Tempestuous (30%) > Vivacious (21%) > Theatrical (16%) > Appeasing (8%) > Disingenuous (4%)
25-30% OCPD**** - Corresponding to 31% of Obsessive–Compulsive Traits in Terms of Variety
Conscientious (60%) > Puritanical (34%) > Parsimonious (34%) > Bedeviled (19%) > Bureaucratic (8%)


Other
70% Voguish Melancholic
40% Virtuous Masochistic
40% BD

Notes:

Below is a list of terms for each PD which are terms I think apply to me in one of three ways:
(1) Subconscious & Which I Thus Far I Had No Knowledge Of: I don't "think" the term corresponds to me, and I don't act like it, but from analysis I recognize it is possible that I have this subtle tendency inside and actively compensate for it, which is why neither I nor people who know me well would never think of myself like it.
(2) Unexpressed Tendency I am Consciously Aware Of But Constantly Repress/Compensate For in My Decision Making: I know I'm at risk of being like the term describes, but that does not correspond to who I want to be, so there's a buffer thought process in my head that filters how I naturally tend to be from what ends up being decisions, actions, and behaviors). Note that if I haven't slept for a few days / I am Very Sick / I am injured, and someone crosses me, my ability to repress it might sharply decrease for a short instant.
(3) Natural Tendency I Proudly Embrace Because It is Fully aligned with the person I want to be.

*Terms Relevant to Who I Am: Feels privileged and empowered by virtue of special childhood status and pseudo-achievements, Seeks favored and good life, Is upwardly mobile, Pretentious, Expensive supercilious contempt and arrogance toward others, Lost pride reestablished with extravagant claims and fantasies, Deficient in reciprocity, Bold in environments, Self-confident, Competitive, Seeks high targets, Seeks to counteract or cancel out deep feelings of inferiority and lack of self-esteem, Self-worth results from self-enhancement, Self-deceptive, Blame shifted onto others, Idiosyncratic, Often self-biographical, Procrastinative, The most prone to fantastic inner worlds which replace social life, Enticing, Beguiling, Glib and clever, Fraudulent, Arrogant, Exploitive, Fearless, Ruthless, Aggressive, Merciless
// Coming from a family which on my father's side traces itself far back in history, it is easy to me to fall to the temptation of taking refuge behind the idea that I am superior as I descend from this and that person, and that I belong from birthright to the very tiny minor portion of humanity who has and is building everything around us. It is also interesting how I've never had any interest (just like my siblings) in learning/knowing more about this in my entire childhood and teens, but that I've fallen prey to learning more about it and connecting more with that side of the family at the time I was the most emotionally under pressure in relation to her. Our mum had educated us with the very healthy notion that it mattered what we built ourselves in life, not what our family had achieved before us, and it had worked very well until then. I know this is a psychological shield, and I know of the risks of using it. With exception of that defense mechanism, I must say that I was significantly more narcissistic when I met her than I am now, which is both good and bad. I was so full of myself I thought I was nearly perfect, nearly invincible. That there was nothing worthwhile I could not do, nothing worthwhile I could not achieve if I set out to do it. Numerous things I would never have learned, and never have grown from, if it wasn't for her. I knew I was deficient in these things but I had painted them black as irrelevant. On the other hand, I do regret sometimes how powerfully close minded I was: Being so full of myself, seeing things with such black-and-white thinking, and being so selfish did make me extremely powerful at very short term tasks. But I am now stronger on long term stuff or when it comes to the overall picture, which probably will be more at my advantage as I age.

** Terms Relevant to Who I Am: Impatient, Restless, Stubborn, Defiant, Sullen, Loyal, Depressed, Powerless, Seductive; Fearing loss, the individual becomes agitated; gloomy and irritable, Inward-turning.
// Black-and-white thinking, impatient, restless, enraged (by certain things), passionate, stubborn, defiant and loyal define me extremely well. I also tend to push people to extremes before I let them become close friends. The girlfriends I stayed a long time with did have to go through a lot, and those I stayed the longest with turned out to have a good degree of resilience and internal beauty. The way I acted at the time was unconscious, but I do now consciously embrace this tendency to be very selective with my friends and push them to extremes, as I end up with a group of close people I am incredibly proud of having and being attached to. Twice as a baby I lost people I had grown incredibly attached to: First I lost my Swedish Au-Pair, and later my Spanish Au-Pair.

*** Terms Relevant to Who I Am: Dauntless, Venturesome, Intrepid, Bold, Audacious, Daring, Reckless, Foolhardy, Unfazed by hazard, Pursues perilous ventures, Needs to be thought of as infallible, Unbreakable, Indomitable, Adventurer, Itinerant vagabond, Typically adapt easily in difficult situations, Mood centers in doom and invincibility, Belligerent, Rancorous, Fearless, Seek more profit, Avariciously greedy
// While I do express all of the above tendencies, only a part of them are a deep part of my personality, the remaining majority I express but they feel as somewhat more superficial parts of my personality. I was quite greedy and belligerent when I was young for instance, but these traits never felt as being the deepest part of me, and I've mostly ceased to express them.

**** Terms Relevant to Who I Am: Labile, high-strung emotions, Nascent pouting, Demanding, Fastens and clutches to another, is excessively attached, Stays fused to, Fixated on another individual, Persistent sensation seeking, Primitive regressions into fantasy, Attachment to significant others is highly demanding, Running the gamut from intense love to intense rage to intense guilt, all of which may be expressed simultaneously, Stormy, Impassioned, Turbulent, Engaging others in conversation, Easily bored, Intolerant of frustration, Extreme emotional excitement, Fits of anger, Over time, these individuals may become less and less histrionic and more and more disgruntled and critical of others, Health Focused, Charming, "When I am seeking to complete a goal. I can be very forceful and intense and outgoing", Love for others very immature and perhaps only self-serving, Desire to be an inspiration or a motivator, Energy level typical of hypomania, Adventurous, Playfull, Intense, Optimistic, Race around, get things done, start projects, and persuade others to join them with an energy and friendliness, Markets self-appearance, Cameleon (I feel I could take on any job, any function, and have effectively done so with achievements in radically different industries), Dramatic, Romantic, Smooth over troubles, Compromising, Self-sacrifices, Absolute Goodwill, Guilt Feeling, Egocentric, Sincere, Spontaneous
// The interesting thing with relation to H parts of my personality is that these are the only PD sides of me which have increased after I met this girl, but I was already expressing these traits quite long before, most of them more intensely in my childhood than at the moment we met.

***** Terms Relevant to Who I Am: Duty-bound, Earnest, Hardworking, Meticulous, Painstaking, Inflexible, Austere, Self-righteous, Zealous, Judgmental; Unsharing, Dreads exposure of personal improprieties and contrary impulses, Frustrations; Obsessions and Compulsions condense and control contradictory emotions, Closed-minded.
// Here too I express these traits less extremely than I once did before, or in the first years after meeting her.

Overall, I'd say I'm quite an extreme person (I don't think anyone close to me would disagree), but I think I am more densely and deeply so than she is at the present time. I do see so much potential in her though, and if she'd want to work with me on this, I hope I could help her reach this potential and make her actually live through her deeper dreams in the future (if she can accept the notion that she should dis-idealize them if she is to hold them equally dear as she experiences them). Every month that passes her brain plasticity decreases, but she is still very young and she still has most of that potential if she decides to intensely work on it now while she still has a high level of plasticity, which I believe she might be inclined to want to do.

You have a very structured mind, nothing wrong with that, as that can be a strength.

I want to suggest a book to read if you don't mind -

Forget about the politics, that's not why I am suggesting it. The title of the book is "Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter" by Scott Adams (yes the cartoonist).

The reason I suggest this book is it really does a good job of highlighting a truth about us humans. Emotional persuasion is a powerful tool in the hands of some who wield it well. It's not about facts, structure, consistency, or any thing along those lines... it's about appealing to our primal emotional reactions.

This may be a difference between NPD and HPD too, because while the former is about control over self/others through structure and accomplishments, the later is often more about an innate sense of how to appeal emotionally in the immediate now.

xdude wrote: I want to suggest a book to read if you don't mind

As very often Xdude, your contribution is of great value! I read the comments on Amazon and ordered the book. I hope it will help me along the way.

There will be some big limitations though in terms of my ability to leverage it both in filtering inbound appeal to my emotions and in outbound persuasion. While I may get reasonably functional at the former (at the cost of some of my focus), I don't have big hopes for the latter. Many things I understand in "Theorie" but do not properly integrate into my interactions. I think this is a BPD trait (I've heard a renowned Psychologist talk about that). It's maybe linked to being a very powerful monotasker but extremely poor multi-tasker (I don't know if this is a BPD trait, but I know both BPD traits and this phenomena co-exist in me, and I can see how they would relate). I'm very focused, stubborn, passionate, sincere and loyal, and I can see these traits as being linked to being "all-in" on everything I think about, everything I do, every feeling or interaction I have. And being "all-in" on everything, I could explain by the idea that all active higher level areas of my brain may work together for one single purpose at a time. It is very powerful for problem solving (which I excel at), but it leaves me (and people with borderline traits, if that's a trait from that group) very much prone to manipulation (at least at an immature point at which we are yet uneducated about it), because we're "all-in" on a single thing, as on a track, and thus anyone who can move the track can lead us anywhere they want (until we realize that about ourselves and integrate "red flag response mechanisms" in our sequential way of thinking). I might be mixing things that are peculiar to myself with BPD traits, but in any case, both coexist in me.

I remember something along these lines with the girl's older sister (who I saw as a close friend at the time and still have some affection for but went NC with 3 years ago, and who I realized had been manipulating me, and perhaps also her little sister, all along): Many times in conversations, when I would ask something she didn't want to answer (relating to her sister for instance), she would skillfully introduce a new track for me whereon I'd go off without even realizing she'd have not answered my question, or skillfully switched topic. After 4 months of her doing that I finally realized (several times I'd realize days later she hadn't answered my question) and told her I had realized she had often been avoiding questions from me. I was very immature at the time and wouldn't fall for these kind of simple manipulations anymore, but it shows how vulnerable an "all-in" mind can be to manipulation, until it is trained.

I'm also by nature very literal in my communication. I deeply mean everything I say, and I normally take communication from others quite literally too (I've implemented a lot of #######4 filtering processes which allow me to filter #######4 much better than the average person, but that is contrary to my natural inclination not to understand why people would say things that are not literally true, as my mind subconsciously sees it as something so counterproductive and thus illogical that it subconsciously implies no one would do that, and that no one does while this is not the case). I'm naturally all "focused" on the topic of the conversation, not on higher level parallel cognitive processes of a different nature. I think this is quite the radical opposite of an HPD mind, which seems to entertain many parallel cognitive processes in their interpersonal interactions and have a very different relationship to words, language and to "Truth" than I have. And it has been a huge problem in my interactions with this girl who I now realize communicates in a radically different way, and may possibly many times have communicated with me in an emotional language I totally failed to understand. I took her words many times literally and did things I would not have done with my current understanding. I think that several times she may have been hurt in conversation with me by picking up on things she should not have worried about and when no harm was intended*, and reacted by saying things maybe she did not mean, which I took quite literally, and literally proceeded with immense sadness.
*I must say I lack "finesse" and I'm very interpersonally clumsy without realizing about it.

I think this is intimately related to the H suggestibility trait on a cognitive level. Instead of approaching things with all their minds in interpersonal interactions, they seem to have very little focus on the substance and instead have numerous parallel cognitive processes analyzing superficial elements of the interactions from many different angles other than their literal—and thus most often intended—angle. And that coupled with their very volatile emotions can lead them to react in a "crazy" way on something one of these processes pick up in the interaction which has nothing to do with the reality of the situation (e.g. emotionally go off tangents in conversations with someone they care about, and act on it). Instead of focusing entirely on what is being said or what they see, they have all these processes working in parallel on what superficial elements could "imply", or what the situations "suggest".
It works like (A) One of the processes picks up that a superficial detail COULD mean something -> (B) If that thing was true, the person with H traits would feel whatever feeling -> (C) Because of their emotional volatility the person with H traits starts intensely experiencing that feeling -> (D) Because feelings are more "True" than logics more specifically to a person with H traits than to the average human (which as you point out to a lesser extent already function that way), the person with H traits reacts as if the situation was true (even if almost everything logically points to the fact that it is NOT the case).

By looking at our conversations, I realized for instance that possibly the girl I'm attached to might go off tangents every time I mention another girl, which is absolutely crazy given that almost everything from the very beginning shows that she is the only one who really matters to me, and any person in their right mind would logically conclude that she doesn't have to worry the slightest about anything else than only what she does with me or fails to do with me herself.

The tragic risk with this trait is that the creation of self-fulfilling prophecies, whereby persons with H traits worry about something they shouldn't worry about*, and then develop intense feelings which they mistake for reality, then they take REAL actions according to those feeling, and unlike mistaken worries and feelings, REAL actions have REAL consequences. Even more tragic perhaps, is the fact that these REAL consequences may reinforce the broken process, as it subconsciously confirms that what the process picked-up was REAL while it was NOT, and thus reinforces the activity of the process in their interpersonal interactions as well as the weight these processes have in their decision-taking, and makes them increasingly prone to create further real life tragedy. I can see this having happened many times with this girl (including in the last 8 months), which lead me to do things I absolutely didn't want to do. I feel deeply sad and I'm profoundly angry for not having seen this earlier, as this phenomenon I think underlies most or all of the most important things that didn't happen the way it should have between us: from her maybe thinking she had something to worry about with her sister when she had absolutely nothing to worry about (which her sister may have picked up and used at the expense of both of us) to me in the second half of last year ending up thinking I was turning her into an undesirable version of herself and with the deepest pain decided that if I really cared for her I had to make my life with someone else. The only good side of this tragedy is that the pain finally lead me to understand a key part of her I previously did not understand, and in the future I will know this and if only I can pick it up, which I think I would do in most big situations, all my heart will tell me to stop next time such a situation happens. I'd like to get the opportunity to explain this mechanism to her at some point at a moment when she is in the right mindset. If on my side I'm better at understanding her defense mechanisms in live interactions with her and on her side she works to communicate with me better on her emotional state and worries and finally starts trusting me, we'll really go places.

*because the overall picture logically shows it is not true, which they seem incapable of correctly perceiving

VeritasCE wrote:I remember something along these lines with the girl's older sister (who I saw as a close friend at the time and still have some affection for but went NC with 3 years ago, and who I realized had been manipulating me, and perhaps also her little sister, all along): Many times in conversations, when I would ask something she didn't want to answer (relating to her sister for instance), she would skillfully introduce a new track for me whereon I'd go off without even realizing she'd have not answered my question, or skillfully switched topic.

Such a powerful persuasion technique. Nothing wrong with word manipulative either, just that 'persuasion' is the euphemistic word.

I do think though most N's I know tend to be fact oriented. They'll argue the facts (or facts such as they understand them, believe them), to be right. It's fine, because there are some jobs and areas of life where facts matter greatly, and we need that ruthless focus on what are the facts.

But there are other areas and jobs in life (e.g., marketing, sales, acting, politics, magic tricks, etc.) where facts matter much less than persuasion. It can be really hard for fact oriented types to accept this (including me!).

By the way I don't know if persuasive types are entirely consciously aware, or they are just innately good at it (maybe both), but anyway this is one of those matters that can drive a N type loopy in a relationship with someone who is persuasion oriented. And it really is just my very limited experience, but I now see better that my probable HPD relationship, she was very good at persuasion, facts secondary if even that.