How do you know when/if they want help?

to Empathy101

To everyone, I ask whether you have encountered an HPD who knew/suspected and wanted help? Apparently those are incredibly rare so how do you know if they do know (and don’t know where to go or what to do)?

This HPD girl told me she knew something was wrong with her and told me that she is seeking help. But in her case, knowing that she was different made her feel like she had the license to treat people like crap and that people around her just have to adjust and forgive her for all she put them through.

The point is, how do you really know if they're trying and want help? We 'normals', at least from my collective assessment of this board, tend to focus on our pain and all the damage that has occurred during during those relations. What about their pain? I find it strikingly amusing that they can be judged as terrible people for their lack of empathy, and yet, we seem to lack enough empathy to grasp what they might be struggling with. Sure, some do not want help. Forget them! What about those who DO - and are lost on where to go and what to do?

In my experience, you won't really know for sure because most of the time they will tell you what you want to hear. Lies and half truths are normal to them. Saying they want help or trying to get help may be another manipulation method, again using your empathy against you. If saying that will provide them with constant supply they will do it. What about their pain? I think the 'victims' do grasp what the PDs are struggling with but they know from experience that trying to help the PDs may cause the destruction of the non-PD's own self; and after their experience with the PD, they know very well that this is not worth it. Just my opinion.

to help the PDs may cause the destruction of the non-PD's own self; and after their experience with the PD, they know very well that this is not worth it

Yes. My love and empathy for her kept her afloat, but it was my steadfast commitment to those traits and the belief in the rightness of them that lead to me circling the drain.

I very much want to love again, and to be loved. It is terrifying, though, to think of trusting someone again, as I trusted my HPD, only to find out that the whole thing was smoke and mirrors, designed to suck all of the love and empathy out of me, leaving me dry.

The point is, how do you really know if they're trying and want help? We 'normals', at least from my collective assessment of this board, tend to focus on our pain and all the damage that has occurred during during those relations. What about their pain? I find it strikingly amusing that they can be judged as terrible people for their lack of empathy, and yet, we seem to lack enough empathy to grasp what they might be struggling with. Sure, some do not want help. Forget them! What about those who DO - and are lost on where to go and what to do?

Empathy101 - I understand your intention is honorable and you are seeking a balance, but your collective assessment is a bit odd. Let me explain my perspective.

Are you suggesting that if nons vent their anger and pain due to the damage caused to them, they become non-empathetic to HPDs? Venting of anger and pain is a normal feeling, which if suppressed can cause more harm than good. Also, if you read between the lines of the post from nons, you will realize that they really feel for their HPD partners and try very hard to understand and empathize with them. Now, is it their fault that with their "normal" wiring they are unable to grasp what is going on in the wiring of their HPD partner's brains? Why do you think they come here month after month to understand their HPD partners? Don't you think its because they really want to empathize and make sense of their partners, and essentially feel that there must be some good in them, so that they can get some closure about the relationship and their partner whom they have loved. Pls. understand that there are nons here who were in long-term relationships and even in marriages worth quite a few years of their lives. I am sure that venting of feelings by both nons and HPDs, if not taken personally, will help both nons and HPDs gain empathy for each other, since all of it is painful human suffering, whether its as a non or as an HPD. Ignoring this suffering and venting of anger will certainly not help anyone gain empathy.

Now coming to your question of "how do you know". Well, you will know with your "normal" instinct and judgement but not if you get swayed away by an HPDs cry for help. You can't make this judgement if you are caught up in the drama and pity-seeking of an HPD. So, you will have to notice the ACTIONS taken by an HPD towards seeking improvement, but you can't rely on their words. Remember, you can't rescue or help someone else to improve, but if they take the FIRST STEP, you can be supportive of that.

If an HPD "actively" seeks your help:
1. You can point her out to sources of information and suggest she see a professional
2. If she is sincere, she will take ACTION and see a professional and read your information
3. She will come back with some awareness and then seek validation of those light-bulb moments
4. Once your instinct and "normal" judgement tells you that she is sincere, you can then help her be on the straight path
5. As a friend or in a relationship, you can then start by setting boundaries and helping her set these for herself as well. You can also teach her to enforce these boundaries by enforcing them yourself as well.
6. With a combination of therapy and boundary setting in relationships, she will improve over time.

Note: The above steps will only hold good, if you are not devalued by her. This will mean that you will have to maintain your "normal" sense of judgement, instinct and self-assurance, and as TK says in his guide (in one of the older posts on this forum), be a balanced, well-adjusted and in-control man. None of this will be possible if you "rush" to help her when she cries wolf, because then you will be instantly devalued as a stupid man who can be easily manipulated.

Your empathy will be useful for an HPD if its applied in the "appropriate" dosage. It will prove counter-productive and "enable" her HPD behavior if you provide an over-dose. So proceed with CAUTION.

^^

I guess the easiest way to state it is that overcoming valid drama in a relationship is supposed to make that relationship stronger. When it's injected for 'fun' and the relationship was unknowingly shallow to begin with, it rather cruel from an emotional perspective.

I'm more and more convinced that we work completely differently. Just like how I stir up drama for seemingly no good reason, 'just for fun', I'd enjoy it if you did the same to me. The process is fun, but overcoming it is a big part (without waiting around for valid drama to come along).

yumi - I hope you are finding the forum useful (as well as enjoying the attention you are getting as our only current resident HPD at the moment). I must appreciate that I am learning a lot from your comments.

Coming to the drama. You are right, we nons do work a bit differently. I remember that for the first year of my relationship, I found the drama from my ex amusing. But by the second year it wore me down.

I wanted to ask you the following:

1. Do you realise that the drama is an "intimacy" avoidance technique. I realise that for HPDs it is probably a way to engage and test if the "love" and caring from your partner is still alive, but for nons it seems like an artificial act that inhibits true intimacy. Nons want to move beyond this artificial drama and build real trust and deeper commitment, both of which get broken in this drama.

2. Do you realise that probably this drama is a childhood template of yours, which you used to get attention from your close ones. And without this drama, you probably can't feel anything and it causes you anxiety. I don't know if you know this but some of our childhood templates can be destructive, since in our adult life the people we deal with are different from those in our childhood and using the same templates on them can be counter-productive. Since the story for this drama is created by you it is quite possible that you are taking up a masochistic role and forcing your partner to take up the complimentary sadistic role, which will cause you humiliation if he is unable to control himself after being subjected to it for a long time. It is a kind of abuse you are inflicting on him, which he will be forced to reply with abuse as well when he is forced to a corner. Does this thought come to you?

3. Do you realise that because of this drama, your relationship is actually remaining superficial. The emotional intimacy generated is based on this superficiality and not the reality of the relationship. This means that if a real drama of life unfolds, you and your partner might not have prepared yourself to handle it. Infact your partner might unconsciously have already started to realise that you will not be able to handle real life drama or crisis, and in such crisis create your own drama to deflect attention to yourself. In a way you and your partner are not really getting to know each other, each others strengths and weaknesses and ability to handle real life, since this artificial drama is coming in between you both and avoiding real understanding of each other.

I have more questions to ask, but I realise (from my experience with my ex) that these 3 questions are probably enough to give you a headache (sorry if that happens). So I will stop here and wait for your answers. Pls. feel free not to reply, if you find it distressing, since that is not my intention.

Are you suggesting that if nons vent their anger and pain due to the damage caused to them, they become non-empathetic to HPDs?

No, I wasn't. What I was trying to say is that the average thread is posted by a 'victim' and is understandably filled with pain, torment, suffering and, in quite a few cases, anger (and maybe a desire for revenge). In that current emotional state/condition it would be near impossible to apply empathy toward anyone else who fits into the same personalize category as someone who has wronged you. You're still grieving and healing. It's much more likely that the hurting 'victims' are in desperate need of sympathy and support for themselves. As such, there is more of a "forget them because I'm the one hurting right now!" kind of vibe to some posts. Of course, that's natural and those who were affected deserve support and sympathy.

As a general statement: This is a disorder and as hard as it is sometimes, we cannot forget that. Obviously those with the disorder (or felt to have it) have damaged other people's psyches and their lives. Hearing the stories of 'victims' is very beneficial; probably not to someone with HPD because they don't (really) care but rather to those wondering about their loved one's behavioral patterns, to a HPD currently undergoing treatment or self-aware enough to want to learn and start on that path.

You mentioned not taking anything personally. Reading that you are worthless or not worth the time/trouble or the worst people on earth or, as I saw in one post, people who should be rounded up and killed, is probably not helpful to them or to anyone else who is trying to understand the disorder. If you just recently posted something like that, are you really in a good place to comment rationally? My guess is emotions would cloud some of, if not all, of that empathy - which was what I was attempting to say.


Thank you very much for your direct answer to my question. I appreciate your input and will definitely look for TK's guide (I don't believe I've seen it yet so thanks for the heads up!)



Yumi... there's more I'd like to ask you and comment on as well but I think newtohpd gave you plenty to think about so I'll wait.

^^

yumi - thanks for your responses. It helps me understand a lot.

You are right that my questions were not mere questions, but had a lot of assumptions and context to them. No. my intention was not to make you realise anything, though if that happens, it depends on whether it helps you or not. My intention was to get validation of my assumptions and context based on my experience with my ex-partner. I spent a lot of time during the later half of my relationship to try and understand my ex partner and these assumptions are what I made up in my mind - so I wanted to understand, via you, if my assumptions are somewhat close to what was going on in her mind.

You asked me for examples of the "drama" so I will try and elaborate and you can see if you relate to them.

First some background - My ex-partner really tried very hard to love me, and probably in her own way she did love me a lot - I believe her when she says that. I was the center of her life, she needed me for everything in her life and she was obsessed with me. She did anything and everything to make me happy. However, she didn't know how to really understand me as a person. Obviously I did realise that her obsession was pathological and I tried to help her and encourage her to develop her own interests so that she could grow as a person. But I soon realised that it was beyond her. Ofcourse, it didn't help that I didn't know about HPD then, and all that I was doing was my own hit-and-trial way of stabilizing the relationship.

There were different kinds of drama she engaged in, and mostly they came in a cyclic sequence, though not always in the same order -

1. Most often she would taunt me about something, say, I didn't compliment her on her new dress which she bought and wore exclusively for me, especially when she cared to wear what I really liked and then she would make it into a drama about how I don't reciprocate her caring for me. Or it would be about a new hair-do that she had. Or a new lip-gloss that I failed to notice. She would also drop in a hint that other males have complimented her. She would start this mostly as "fun". I would be amused and say sorry and compliment her back, but then she would make it into another drama about how I always have to be reminded to compliment a woman I would point her out that I mostly compliment her, but that I missed out that particular day because I got caught up in something. It would go on and on, until I had to make it up to her by taking her out for lunch or dinner. Once I did that, she would be as happy as a child and tell me that she feels very lucky that I love her and that I am the best thing to happen to her in her life.

2. We would have just come back from lunch or dinner and I would relax that she is finally happy. But suddenly within a few hours, she would message me that she is feeling very upset. I would then talk to her asking her what happened and she would come up with an incident how one of her relatives has slighted her and that the world is an unhappy place and that we should get married early. I would be struggling to guess whether she wanted to talk about the incident that happened or whether it was the discussion about marriage, but before I knew she would be calling me names and telling me how I never want to talk about marriage. Most often my reaction would be complete bewilderment and as I tried to collect my wits at what hit me, she would rage on and on. This would mostly end by me telling her that I am tired and will talk later and keeping the phone down or walking out of the room.

3. As I would go about my work disturbed at what happened, she would keep calling me or messaging me, say 20 times in one hour. I would mostly have shut down by then, completely numbed and angry at what is happening and unable to understand how one can go from being a happy child to a raging person in a matter of hours. I would also try and figure out what I did to get such a reaction and try and understand why and how she was thinking, but never be able to grasp it (didn't know about HPD then). Finally I would pick up her call and she would apologize. I would expect to resolve the conflict we had, say on the topic of marriage, but then she would have completely forgotten about it and now all she wanted was to talk if we should go to a movie tomorrow. Obviously I would realize that she wanted to spend time with me and I would agree that we would go for a movie the next day.

4. The next day however, she would call me and tell me that she has fallen ill and that she has not slept the whole night. She has been vomiting and has a severe headache or backache. She would tell me that she feels she has some severe problem which she is not able to understand. She would remind me that last time we had a fight she had fallen sick too, and that I don't care for her. Obviously then I would run to her or call her and spend hours to apologize and make her feel better, besides suggesting that she go to her doc, which obviously I would realize within a few minutes was not her intention. Once she felt I cared about her, in a matter of hours she would suddenly feel well and come to me. Then we would go for the movie.

This cycle of "drama" usually started with a seemingly fun "taunt" and moved onto passive-aggressive manipulation to pretending to falling ill and keep repeating.

Now, all of this was OK with me during the first year. I just thought that some women do need more attention and mostly I carried it off with amusement and not being too emotionally involved.

But having to face this day-after-day started to wear me down by the time the second year started. During the last 6 months of the relationship, I just lost my balance and composure, especially because of the negative part of the drama and the manipulation. I was trying hard to stabilize the relationship and she was trying even harder to pick up drama and destabilize it to check if I cared - we were headed towards conflict.

Real life conflicts like problems we both were having in our career or our families were all pushed under the carpet. We never together solved those. Instead we spent time solving these unnecessary cycles of drama. Beautiful moments we could have shared supporting each other, going out or spending together, nestling in each others arms, or simply sharing some moments of quietness together were all deflected towards this drama. So no real intimacy - emotional and intellectual - was being developed. Only physical intimacy was used to buffer all the after-effects of drama. The drama, as you mention, was for her an escape from real life. The more I tried to remain grounded in reality, the more she wanted to escape into fantasy.

I know its becoming too long. So will stop here and let you respond, if it helps you.

^^

Now need to actually do something about it so I can quit. Would you suggest letting him know of these specific examples so he can help me detect them if I do any of it again?

Sure. I guess if I had this awareness then and if I knew what was happening from her point of view, I would have helped her detect them and point out to her in a non-threatening way (without knowing about HPD, I did do it for sometime, but later lost it as I started to suffer from severe confusion).

TK has been doing this in his marriage (in one of the older posts on this forum) and his relationship has been successful. Scarlett (our most-aware HPD on this forum), from whom I have learnt a lot, has been in a successful marriage with her husband (I respect her immensely).

yumi - From your description, it seems that your man is a good and patient guy. I also find that you are a very open person and perhaps your HPD condition is not as destructive as my ex-partner's - so there is a greater chance of success. If at some point, you need more help, it would be advisable if you both can attend therapy and learn how to handle your own selves and therefore handle the relationship and each other.

I mean, if she just said that she wanted to see a movie with you tomorrow or talk to you right now, cutting all the unnecessary drama to try to get your attention, you would understand, right? Since you care about her, you probably want the same anyway.

Ofcourse. I cared for and loved her. Nothing would make me happier than see her happy.

It wasn't exactly about the conflict to begin with. The conflict or drama was created solely for the purpose of getting your attention.

I realize this now.

Something I noticed is if I don't call right back, he does it himself after he's calmed down.

He always will. He loves you and cares about you. Just give him time to sort his mind out and he will surely call back. Till then just reassure yourself in your mind that he has not abandoned you and he loves you.

Then he gets confused/frustrated and says we'll talk later. I'm left feeling like an abandoned child. Ugh!

When you both are in a calm state, tell him about this and let him know casually. Use simple adult direct talk when you tell him this, without any childish pouting He cares for you and so he will keep this in mind and try his best to not do it. But you will have to realize that there will be some situations where he will not be able to help it, especially if he is tired or frustrated.

We nons don't get this idea of abandonment easily. For us a simple "lets talk later" doesn't mean abandonment. So unless you tell him this, he will not get it.

Thankfully I don't do name calling. Or raising voice. Mine's a lot more childlike (does not make it any more acceptable, I know). An adult pouting! So annoying.

Ha ha Actually, she did this too. Infact, she did this more often than the name calling example, now that you remind me of this.

Sometimes there's this sound I make (a subdued version of what a child does during a temper tantrum?). I realize how ridiculous it is and laugh when he imitates me. He finds it cute/funny depending on the situation. I'm definitely not happy with any of it.

Oh yes. Exactly.

However, she didn't know how to really understand me as a person.

How do you do this?? Forget about yourself and just focus on the other person, try to see them as a real living human being? Would that help or am I missing the point here?

This is a serious question (so bear with me):

Nons want to be loved for who they are, not because of what they can provide you with at a particular moment in time. They don't want to be seen as "love utility objects", but as living human beings. Caring, paying attention and loving you is given - its unconditional - if both of you are in love. You don't need to test or manipulate a non to love or care for you.

You don't need to forget yourself or focus just on the other person. You just need to love him for his qualities and attributes and know that even if he goes to sleep or is busy with work, or for some reason is unable to talk to you for a short period of time, he is still the same person who is as good, as trustworthy, as reliable, as loyal or as loving a human being as he is otherwise with you. He will not suddenly change into a monster and hurt you or abandon you.

Everyday is an opportunity to know him more, to know him more deeply, to see his good qualities and to see his flaws and to appreciate him for what he is. He is doing the same with you too and falling in love with you more deeply each day. For a non, love is like wine - it becomes priceless with age.

The questions are -

1. Do you trust yourself to have made the right choice and to have chosen a good man? If not, your insecurity may be the reason why you feel that he may stop caring or stop loving or abandon you.

2. Did you notice his qualities and attributes and fall in love with him for himself? Or did you just love him because you were in love with the fact that he loved you in such a fantastic way? If its the latter, then probably you don't even know what his qualities and attributes are. You may have over- idealized him and as you see more of his flaws you will devalue him equally quickly.

My ex always knew me superficially - she was worried that I would change in a few hours or a day or during the night. It was as if each morning she started with a new me and each night she bid good night to the man of that day. The next day was a new me, for her, again. Hence, she evaluated and tested me each day to check if I cared or loved her. Her memories of me were not continuous across days and nights and months, but impressions of that moment in time.