In extreme cases, physical, verbal, or emotional abuse may occur. This can make dating someone with BPD challenging. It is important to remember that while having a relationship with a person with BPD can be challenging, they are not intentionally trying to hurt you.
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.
Once upset, borderline people are often unable to think straight or calm themselves in a healthy way. They may say hurtful things or act out in dangerous or inappropriate ways. This emotional volatility can cause turmoil in their relationships and stress for family members, partners, and friends.
With the proper treatment and support, people with BPD can and do have healthy and happy relationships. Setting realistic and practical goals for improvement is central to making your relationship work.
It can impact how you express your values, interests, and feelings toward others. When you live with someone with BPD, they may do everything they can to please you one day and then reject you the next. This, understandably, can catch you by surprise. But these cyclic behaviors aren't a personal choice.
Borderline personality disorder is one of the most painful mental illnesses since individuals struggling with this disorder are constantly trying to cope with volatile and overwhelming emotions.
Can a person with borderline personality disorder feel love? Absolutely! They may just have a hard time expressing it or establishing some stability in their relationships.
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.
Yes, those living with BPD often experience heightened emotions and fears of abandonment, but that certainly doesn't make them unlovable, let alone monstrous. A relationship with someone who lives with BPD is just like any other; it depends on many of the same factors such as trust, understanding and communication.
But maybe being with someone with BPD is not all bad. Many people with borderline personality disorder are intuitive, empathetic, passionate, spontaneous, resilient, creative, curious, intense, intelligent, and courageous. When not triggered, they can love deeply and commit to their partner and family.
The actions of people who have BPD can indeed feel manipulative. However, the word 'manipulative', with its pejorative suggestions of malicious scheming, does not capture the true nature of BPD-spurred behavior.
Things like “splitting,” experiencing intense emotions or mood swings and dissociation are mainstays for many folks with BPD — but they aren't the only ways it can manifest. Sometimes BPD can make people do things that are often described (and misunderstood) as being “impolite.”
Persons with BPD do not choose manipulation. It mostly happens to them. The way they experience their own emotions in a given situation involving significant others pushes them to resort to manipulative activities.
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. When something happens in a relationship that makes them feel abandoned, criticized, or rejected, their symptoms are expressed.
How Selfishness Manifests in Borderline Personality Disorder. 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.
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.
People with BPD can be very direct and honest people, and while it does not always feel that way to them and others, they are often well equipped to handle challenges in life. Myth #6: People with BPD are dramatic attention-seekers.
These changing feelings can lead to unstable relationships and emotional pain. People with borderline personality disorder also tend to view things in extremes, such as all good or all bad. Their interests and values can change quickly, and they may act impulsively or recklessly.
When a real or perceived slight is then experienced by the person with borderline personality disorder, this can cause them to feel disappointed, betrayed, unloved or abandoned, and view the other party as entirely bad. The individual may then become angry, or withdraw entirely.
Personality disorders are chronic (long-term) dysfunctional behavior patterns that are inflexible, prevalent and lead to social issues and distress. Many people who live with borderline personality disorder don't know they have it and may not realize there's a healthier way to behave and relate to others.
How to Deal with Being a “Favorite Person” for Someone with BPD. As a favorite person, you'll be expected to provide near-constant companionship, reassurance, and guidance, which is daunting and taxing. It's important to note that while “favorite-person” relationships can be unhealthy, they're not doomed to fail.
Show confidence and respect.
It is important that support people approach the relationship in a way that promotes trust and respect, which can be helpful and healing to a person with BPD. Although you may feel you know what is best, provide the person with BPD the opportunity to make decisions for themselves.
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.
Objective. Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) commonly have a favorite person (FP), whom they are heavily emotionally attached to and dependent on.