Punishment and revenge are central to the manifestation of what Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is and means when it comes to relationships. The struggle of those with BPD relationally, is rooted in a proverbial no-win situation.
Relationships & Borderline Personality Disorder
“We also have intense and sudden mood changes, and we have severe difficulty regulating our emotions. Unintentionally, we tend to blame others when we make a mistake, which causes us to be manipulative and cruel to those we care about.”
But it's important to remember that you're not responsible for another person. The person with BPD is responsible for their own actions and behaviors.
Indeed, the idea that people with BPD are maliciously emotionally manipulative is common, causing even some clinicians to avoid working with them. The way your loved one behaves toward you can profoundly fracture your relationship and leave you with deep shame, anger, resentment, and hopelessness.
BPD splitting destroys relationships because the behaviour can be impulsive or reckless in order to alleviate the pain, often hurting loved ones in the process. It can feel like everyone abandons or hurts them, often causing them to look for evidence, and creating problems from nothing.
Often, the person with BPD will react towards loved ones as if they were the abusers from their past, and take out vengeance and anger towards them. When the person with BPD feels abandoned, they can become abusive or controlling as a way to defend against feelings of abandonment or feeling unworthy.
What others perceive as a simple mistake to be brushed off, people with BPD might perceive as a serious wrongdoing. You might hold onto a grudge for days, or until the person has apologized sufficiently.
What are the conditions that may drive a person in their manipulative behavior? In BPD, these conditions are a lack of affective self-understanding, difficulties with regulating one's own emotions, and an impeded interaffectivity that makes it incredibly difficult for the person to feel connected with other people.
Borderline personality disorder causes a broad range of reactions that can be considered self-destructive or self-sabotaging. It influences thoughts, emotions, behavior, and communication, adding a degree of volatility and unpredictability to daily living that can be unsettling for BPD sufferers and their loved ones.
Expecting Others To Act Selfishly Is A Key Symptom Of Borderline Personality Disorder.
For instance, a person with BPD is not trying to be manipulative; they are scared of being left or abandoned. They are also not uncaring people. They do care about family and friends but find it difficult not to act selfishly when experiencing their own heightened emotions.
Cyclical Nature of BPD Abandonment
The fear of being abandoned often causes people with BPD to form unhealthy attachments. Sometimes, they may abruptly cut off these relationships, effectively abandoning their partners. Other times, they make frantic attempts to hold onto relationships.
People with BPD may experience rage when they perceive rejection, neglect, or abandonment in a relationship. During rage, a person may say or do things that they later regret. This could lead to ending the relationship in the heat of the moment. BPD rage is often followed by significant regret and shame.
Unpredictability, irritability, defiance and impatience signify the petulant borderline. They tend to be stubborn, pessimistic and resentful as well. They teeter between extreme feelings of being unworthy and anger. They can explode with these episodes of anger.
Family members may be quick to deny or argue the feelings experienced the person with BPD. If these feelings are ignored, the individual may resort to self-destructive ways to express their emotions.
People with BPD fear abandonment and have trouble maintaining relationships. Nevertheless, they tend to lie, which ruins trust and intimacy, fosters resentment, and harms the very relationships they fear losing. Many family members and friends of those with BPD cite lying as a major problem in their relationships.
However, those positive attributes are not without the proverbial strings attached; when the BPD explodes with vindictive rage, all they said or gave to their loved one may be taken away in one fell swoop of aggression. BPDs experience the world in extremes: black-and-white or all-or-nothing.
No. Borderline Personality Disorder and cheating are not connected, though certain symptoms of BPD could drive someone to cheat. That said, if you and your partner are willing to work through the challenges of BPD and go to therapy, then there is no reason your relationship can't succeed.
Intense episodic irritability or anxiety lasting a few hours or more than a few days). Recurring feelings of emptiness. Frequent intense, inappropriate anger or issues controlling temper. Severe dissociative symptoms or stress-related paranoia.
According to HealthyPlace, selfishness in the case of BPD arises from unmet needs: People with a borderline personality often report being neglected or abused as children. Consequently, they feel empty, angry, and deserving of nurturing.
Intense outburst of anger. Repeated involvement in risky, impulsive behaviors. Lack of a stable or clear self-image. Intense, often unreasonable fear of being abandoned.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the term sadistic as “taking pleasure in the infliction of pain, punishment, or humiliation on others.” Psychology Today assert that it is certainly possible for some individuals with BPD to be genuinely manipulative or sadistic.
Separations, disagreements, and rejections—real or perceived—are the most common triggers for symptoms. A person with BPD is highly sensitive to abandonment and being alone, which brings about intense feelings of anger, fear, suicidal thoughts and self-harm, and very impulsive decisions.
These results suggest that patients with BPD report becoming more accepting and forgiving over time.