***My personal experience with pwBPD***

[SpareMe]

I don't have BPD, but I'd like to put a reply here to maybe help anyone who is dating someone with BPD, and have my learning experience as a sort of warning, hopefully in advance with the relationship. Maybe of some importance, I am a male, I was dating a female with BPD who also had associated ADHD and moderate anxiety, research has shown if you have BPD you are more likely to have ADHD as well. She was taking medications for these disorders, none of which seemed to do her any good. So I guess that's where I'll start, with a reminder this isn't being typed to hurt anyone with BPD, and it's subjective - all disorders fall into a spectrum, so these warnings may be more extreme than they need to be:

-Medications. Don't hope to change the behavior patterns with drugs. BPD is not very responsive to any of them. One might think with the extreme agitation, anger, vindictive stuff that goes on, that using a drug that inhibits adrenaline would be of major help (beta blockers, in specific - or try alpha blockers, it won't matter) it turns out beta blockers might tone them down a little bit, but they still hang onto the anger over various situations for days on end. To make matters equally aggravating, research shows mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, antidepressants (which are useless anyway), and other psych meds to be next-to-pointless for people with BPD, which is why a psychiatrist will commonly simply say No Thanks to people suffering with the disorder until we can find some way of effectively dealing with their behaviors.

-For anyone even suspecting they are dating someone with BPD look for the telltale signs: stress or drug-induced breakdowns at the idea of you leaving (early on in the relationship - would commonly be alcohol with will open the door to a full range of dramatic expression). Anger fits that instead of lasting an hour, last days. Abnormally vindictive behaviors, again this stuff lasts Days (or weeks). They simply cannot let go of things that anger them, they are splitting and you might be blacklisted for a very long time. If there is Ever any suspected self-mutilating behaviors, this is classic BPD. If she or he gains access to your home after cutting themselves, getting a nosebleed, and just need to come in for a few minutes to use your bathroom, this is a classic behavior. Their pain is so immense, they feel SO MUCH (and often text in caps like that), they are barely hesitate to inflict physical pain to accomplish whatever goal they're looking to achieve.

-People with BPD are fulfilled with a close connection (significant other) and fear of abandonment becomes dramatically applied whether it's real or perceived. It doesn't matter if that fear is verbalized, it will be acted on when you try to leave them.

-Extreme aggression, uncontrollable. It will happen, after months or years - I don't know - but it's bound to happen. One could call this "splitting," i.e. the sufferer sees the world in black or white. People with BPD also hold onto this anger for much longer time periods - the DSM lists hours, but from my experience anger fits can last from days to weeks.

-Emphasis on vindictive behaviors. People with BPD will have difficulty not retaliating because the extremes of aggression they continually feel. Homicidal ideation wouldn't be surprising, but from literature it seems suicidal ideation is far more common, including self-mutilating behaviors. Given the opportunity, it's important to remember people suffering with BPD may act on every avenue of your life to get back at you for wrong-doing. People dating someone with BPD must remain vigilant at all times, keep your bank accounts, personal info, text messages, emails, passwords, everything must be totally hidden. Don't Tempt Them. Keep a detailed record of your history together in case they have the money and start screaming rape, in this case you have kept a detailed text history indicating your somewhat average responses to someone who is experiencing psychosis via text messages on a regular basis. I'll start typing like a person with borderline to prove a point: YOU NEED TO KEEP A HISTORY OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP IN CASE YOU NEED TO VINDICATE YOURSELF LEGALLY.

-It would appear the worse thing you can possibly do to a person with BPD is ignore them. Even after you break up, an ex-girl or boyfriend may simply not accept it, they might keep texting you, holding onto the relationship sending biting text messages that you need to meet in person, or maybe go so far as to send you texts of their new boyfriend/girlfriend to show you how easily they can move on (yet they still keep texting you). Given something of this nature is happening, like I said above, cover yourself legally, you may even need to inform friends and family about the relationship in advance, or even your employer or school. Gather the money to get legal advice, an hour-sit down is upwards of 200-300 dollars (which is why you must keep all your information totally secret). Once you start blocking their emails, phone number, messenger/Facebook other social networking, that's when things might start to get completely out of hand, even if the relationship is over.

-If you were dating an person with BPD who is on a more severe part of the spectrum, don't be surprised if they exhibit externalized aggression (physical violence). This isn't just for males, but includes females, studies have shown after the 1992 movie, "Single White Female" was made, BPD was over-represented in female prison populations. Even though suicidality is a key characteristic of BPD that's often later on in the disorder, BPD sufferers are also more likely to experience homicidality. I had my life threatened with my relationship with a female with BPD, I didn't take it seriously, and that wound up being a mistake. While her threats weren't carried out on my physically (instead every other area of my life was threatened), I still wound up sleeping with a gun next to my bed. And I would seriously recommend you do the same if you feel you are dealing with an extreme case.

-Again, for the most extreme cases, seriously consider the following: after covering yourself legally, pack up your bags. Let your trusted friends and family know what's going on, tell the person it's over. Tell them you are completely detaching. It's the end. Then you should move away for a month, go into hiding, get a job somewhere temporarily to boost your resume, go on a vacation to Canada, whatever! Just make sure they don't know where you are, and they can't get a hold of you. Hopefully 3 or 4 weeks of complete radiosilence will bring the relationship to a complete stop. If you maintain contact with them, they may hold onto the relationship even after it's "over," and make strides to continue it at extreme costs. In my case, my ex-girlfriend sent me emails saying,
"Remember that time that you raped me? I called my friends on those days and recorded it. They know what happened. I hope you're ######6 proud of yourself go suck on your mommy's titty you small dicked piece of $#%^."
Or to the dean of my school, in a more professional tone,
"A student at your school has given me medical advice in violation of a hippocratic oath which has lead to my detriment in health the death of my child."
Bizarre, batshit crazy, but it still enough to need to have a 20 minute talk with the dean of my school to remove holds from my account. The threats included more than that, and still affects me socially to this day. The relationship lasted less than 4 months.

A last note, from a PhD I had a talk with who studied BPD and has treated many dozens of different cases, here's a following trend he noted:

(paraphrasing) "The person suffering from BPD aren't always suicidal. Often earlier on they have no desire to hurt themselves, however, generally when they're not suicidal they make everyone else around them want to kill themselves. It's often only later in life, when they hit rock bottom, that they start self-mutilating and experiencing suicidal ideation, ironically this is when they are more tolerable to the people around them as well."

So. That's all folks. To all you normal brained people out there, who are suspecting BPD in a significant other, this isn't something to play around with, take it damn serious. I wish everyone luck out there, even the people with BPD, because I know you're suffering. I had to feel it every day, the agonizing pain of a person who hated themselves and feared me leaving. The irony though, she was so beautiful I couldn't take her anger seriously, I simply couldn't comprehend it or find where it was coming from. She also had access to work that paid well and lived in a first world country. And we live in California, arguably the second best state only surpassed by Oregon. Anyway on a last, somewhat hopeless note, remember, as with all personality disorders, by definition these disorders are lifelong. If you don't love the person for who they are now, seriously, don't expect things to get better. Medications won't help them. If you don't think you can adapt to your situation currently, get the heck out while the person hasn't gathered ammunition to hurt you with during later events. The smarter they are, the worse you will end up when you try to detach from the relationship, particularly if they know the legal system. Good freaking luck. Remember my relationship only carried on for 4 months, and lead to the most disastrous relationship consequences of my entire life (I'm in my mid-thirties).