Someone with BPD might also push someone away in order to “test” whether the person will stay with them or come back to them after being pushed away.
People with BPD often have trouble regulating their emotions and may act impulsively. This can lead to them pushing people away, either emotionally or physically. If you're concerned that you may be pushing people away, it's important to seek help from a mental health professional.
Sometimes, they may abruptly cut off these relationships, effectively abandoning their partners. Other times, they make frantic attempts to hold onto relationships. These overly intense or erratic behaviors, in turn, often push loved ones away.
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.
Remember that splitting is a symptom of borderline personality disorder - while it can be difficult not to take their words and actions personally, remember that the person is not intentionally trying to hurt you.
Although BPD patients commonly use emotional manipulation techniques, their intent is not to manipulate others – but, in fact, to cry for help. Some of the things people with BPD do that are commonly viewed as being “manipulative” are threatening suicide, self-harm, and more.
It is now universally recognized by mental health professionals as a debilitating illness that affects every aspect of a person's life. Borderline personality disorder causes a broad range of reactions that can be considered self-destructive or self-sabotaging.
Push/Pull behaviors
A common theory about why you might use this behavior if you have BPD is because you desperately crave closeness in your relationships but, fearing abandonment, you choose to reject this person before they can reject you.
If the person experiencing borderline personality disorder symptoms feels insecure about a relationship, they may attempt to distance themselves from the other person. They could continually ask for reassurances that you wish to maintain your friendship or romantic partnership with them.
Whatever lands in the unfair category in the mind of someone with BPD will be fuel for the fire of punishment and/or revenge. For both loved ones, and indeed those with BPD a toxic relational dynamic emerges and is repeated in cyclical and patterned ways.
It's characterized by unstable moods and emotions, which affect relationships and behaviors. As a result, friendships with people with BPD can be rocky. Sometimes, people with BPD engage in behaviors that can seem manipulative, mean-spirited, or destructive.
FP is someone who individuals with BPD often hold in the highest regard trust with their life, and are heavily emotionally attached to and dependent on [19]. They often unintentionally put their entire self-worth into the relationship with their FP, thereby making frantic efforts to prevent their FP from leaving.
They do care about family and friends but find it difficult not to act selfishly when experiencing their own heightened emotions. They do want to change, but it is so hard.
Physical touch can be interpreted as a sign of intimacy and closeness. For someone with BPD, who struggles with a fear of abandonment, touch might stir up feelings of vulnerability and fear, leading to avoiding physical contact.
Those with BPD halted her at a significantly greater distance than did healthy controls. "People with BPD are going around in the world with brain signals constantly telling them that people are threatening," Fineberg says. "They need more space around them to feel safe."
People with borderline personality disorder may experience intense mood swings and feel uncertainty about how they see themselves. Their feelings for others can change quickly, and swing from extreme closeness to extreme dislike. These changing feelings can lead to unstable relationships and emotional pain.
Those who have BPD tend to be very intense, dramatic, and exciting. This means they tend to attract others who are depressed and/or suffering low self-esteem.
Conversely, the individual with BPD may end the relationship abruptly and without warning. They may state that their partner is not meeting their needs or is not worth their time, and may move on to a new relationship without looking back.
If you have a partner with BPD, they test because the beginning of the relationship is over, and now that you're not fawning over them every second, they're very afraid of losing you. They may be biting just to see how long you stay. Meanwhile, you're not passing the test.
While not one of the nine criteria for a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD), selfishness can be a symptom of the disease. Selfishness interferes with healthy relationships, worsens risky behavior and worsens addiction--all symptoms of BPD. How do we know when we're being selfish?
Stonewalling may also be a direct result of a disorder, such as borderline personality disorder or narcissism that causes someone to manipulate others by freezing them out. This behavior also becomes manipulative when, despite evidence, a person denies they are stonewalling someone.
There are many ways someone with BPD might engage in self-sabotage. Some engage in impulsive behaviors that wreak havoc on their lives. Others might secretly put their friends “to the test” by pushing them away to see if they still love them when they stick around.
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.”
BPD And Toxic Relationships
The quick changing nature of BPD symptoms (e.g., emotional peaks and valleys) can lead to conflict-filled, chaotic relationships that may develop into toxic relationships.