“She’ll be sorry.”
The Predator
Most people are familiar with the characteristics of violent men, either by first-hand experience or through news and true crime books and TV shows. We all know what they look like: fearless, callous, thrill- and pleasure seeking guys who take what they want and who get easily frustrated if someone gets in their way. It’s the familiar antisocial person ranging from the neighbourhood thug who gets into fights when he is drunk, to the full-fledged psychopath that entirely lacks empathy and uses other people for money, sex or other benefits.
And the Prey?
People with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are a completely different breed. Their core features are their desperate need for love and lack of interpersonal skills. They fall head over heels in love with people they don’t know the first thing about and then become disillusioned and deeply resentful when the other person fails to match their fantasies. They are emotionally unstable and vulnerable and they feel very hurt and betrayed when people, as they see it, let them down. They fear being abandoned and often threaten to kill themselves. Another typical behavior is self-harm, cutting or burning themselves.
Borderlines can often come across as poor and misunderstood – perhaps because they genuinely feel that way – and being vulnerable they hardly evoke any fear in others. Their melodramatic gestures are sometimes pathetic or tragic, but again, nothing that will scare anyone. But it should.
Emo
Despite of the soap opera-type behavior found in psychiatric literature, between 25-50 percent of people with borderline are boys and men, and males who are angry, jealous and hateful tend to be dangerous. Women may think these guys, with their frailness and tragic personas are intriguing and good projects for improvement. A typical example of what they may look like comes from the musical genre called Emo. As the name suggests it deals with emotionally intense feeling of romantic nature, often tragic and bitter themes. And like borderlines they are often interested in self-harm and suicide.
But bitterness and hate isn’t just expressed by self-destructive gestures. In the emo lyrics you can often find passages that would suggest violence towards partners as well. Here are some excerpts from one of the more popular emo bands Fall Out Boy’s song Chicago Is So Two Years Ago,
My heart is on my sleeve
Wear it like a bruise or black eye
My badge, my witness
Means that I believed
Every single lie you said
You want apologies
Girl, you might hold your breath
Until your breathing stops forever, forever
the only thing you’ll get
Is this curse on your lips:
I hope they taste of me forever
With every breath I wish your body will be broken again, again
With every breath I wish your body will be broken again, again
With every breath I wish your body will be broken again, again
With every breath I wish your body will be broken again
Lashing Out
While the emo isn’t the only borderline male it seems like a pretty good example. And like the lyrics above suggest, borderline violence isn’t just directed at the self. A study on correlates of personality disorders conducted by clinical psychologist Joshua Miller and colleagues confirms this violent aspect of BPD. They had students fill in self-measures of personality disorders as well as other measure of for instance crime and violence. As expected, they found that crime was most strongly associated with psychopathy (which is a dimensional trait that to some extent can be found in the normal population). Also as expected, borderline was linked to self-harm. But perhaps more surprisingly, borderline was also strongly correlated with intimate partner violence, even more so than for psychopathy and narcissism.
Self-measures may of course be exaggerated, especially when we are talking about people with a taste for drama. But other research confirms that this is for real. One study from 2007 by psychiatrist Donald Black found that around 30 percent of new inmates in Iowa met the criteria for borderline and another study from this year by psychiatrist Marc Schroeder and colleagues, again looking at actual offenders, found a similar pattern with borderline being the second most common personality disorder after antisocial personality disorder. Of offenders who had committed both sexual and non-sexual violent crime half were antisocials and a third were borderlines as compared to third most common category of narcissistic disorder at a mere 3 percent. Given that borderline is rare in the general population, around 1-2 percent, it’s clear that these individuals are very violent.
The Hidden Threat
So it seems the borderline personality is a large and rather hidden threat to women (and probably some men too although women are usually less violent). No one seems to talk about these men. They rarely feature in the media or public debate. Maybe it’s just because they are so fragile and look more like victims than perpetrators. Pointing the finger at these guys may feel like kicking on someone who is already lying down. But they are not victims of anything but their own shaky grip on reality, and excusing them or looking the other way will only make for more violence.
For a more personal and in-depth look at these guys, check out Shanon’s excellent post,
http://strangedaysinthecity.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/boderline-boys-and-6-ways-to-spot-them/
Staffan's Personality Blog 
They may not figure in the media much, but this is where I make my living, and in acute psychiatric care, we are very aware of the violence of male borderlines. I could tell you a hundred stories. Your report is spot on – they are behind antisocial/sociopathic men in violence toward others, but not enormously, and way ahead of psychotic and certainly depressed individuals.
A few additional points. They are indeed also dangerous to men, because they are more likely to be gay or bisexual. There are a half-dozen theories for this, all of which may provide some of the explanation but none of which covers the waterfront, in my experience. It is considered impolite to notice this. Females with BPD are more likely to be lesbian, and much more likely than other females to be assaultive as well. (I don’t know if those are also related to each other – that the lesbians with BPD are more assaultive. Could be, but it doesn’t jump out at me from experience.)
There is a confounding factor in this. We are increasingly separating out those who have PTSD because of childhood sexual trauma, especially incest, from BPD. They have been largely lumped together for decades, and while I think there will alway be a lot of overlap, they are not the same population, and that’s going to screw up the data. You can make up theories in your own head about why this confusion and overlap exist. Heritable or pre natal factors have not been studied as much as early childhood experiences, but may be involved.
It makes sense that the men would be more gay than the average since the whole personality feels more feminine but why then lesbians? Perhaps it’s simply harder for gay people to have good relationships because of their general situation?
Yes, there seems to be some confounding between BPD and PTSD, I don’t know that much about the latter to be honest. I think it’s really hard to tell if a person with BPD really has genuine traumatic memories or if it’s just part of how they interpret their experiences.
My experience is that lesbians are much less insistent that the only way to same-sex attraction is genetic predisposition. Because of the wrath they incur from gay men from even suggesting otherwise, they tend not to be very public about it. But many identify their own mistreatment at the hands of men, especially when they were children, as part of their lesbianism. Trying to keep peace in the LGBT community, they often identify themselves as exceptions when they say this. But there are a lot of exceptions.
I think there is too much subjectivity as these diagnoses. I for one, I fit completely on many of the traits of a person neurotic-psychotic, but do not do evil or to a single file of ants.
As always …
there is a long range with great diversity of types.
reblogged:)
Thanks!
[…] Fragile and Dangerous – Men with Borderline Personality Disorder – from staffan. […]
If that pathogen theory is true, which I suspect it is, then gay men may have their orientation at an early age, a fact that they might interpret as the condition being genetic in origin.
I do not like that way that psychology uses to determine parameters of normalcy in people’s behavior.
I think the main component that defines the so-called” mentally ill” is hyper emotional sensitivity and therefore large gap tolerance with everyday situations.
At most, I think before determining if a shy person is sick or abnormal, we must seek to understand what makes them timid and shyness is always a negative value within the range of human personality.
I believe that people eccentric *, have higher internal variation in their personalities, a strategy based on evolutionary adaptability.
They are like those plant species extremely sensitive to changes and are the first to perish by sudden changes (negative) in the environment such as pollution or deforestation.
I do not think being intolerant, even inflexible, for example, completely dysfunctional societies in which we (the West) is something abnormal or wrong, but quite the contrary, it is quite logical.
The question of whether people with psychiatric diagnoses are really medically ill in some sense is still relevant today although psychiatrists don’t care to admit it. I side with Thomas Szasz who claims that there has to be organic failure, otherwise it’s just maladaptive behavior and not medical conditions. (And that’s not saying it’s not problematic or biological in nature.)
I’m not sure what you mean by “internal variation”. In the case of personality disorder there is rather the opposite – they stick to their guns no matter what.
When he says that” mental disorders” can prove to be problematic, it depends a lot on context. For example, I learned that in Sweden (as well as in Eastern nations) prizes up for discretion and shyness. It is valued in these countries while in the U.S. it is not.
What is for you can not serve me, and it can be applied at national scales. (or would it be better, scales groups because already seems consensus among psychologists that the larger culture of a nation tends to stifle divergent expressions, even in alleged democracies).
Even though bipolar disorder and schizophrenia for example, are grueling and require drug treatment, can not be classified as a disease because, at least in my opinion, to be determined as a disease, it must have a cycle of events organic, which can result in death of the patient.
I classify them as” debilitating eccentric personalities”. A variant of the term” eccentric personality” I like to define.
Regarding the ”internal variation” of personality as well, is a redefinition of alleged environmental causes. That is not there is the environment that determines your personality or character, but it is your genetic heritage and their susceptibility to mood variation that now determines your core personality as well as their possible responses to the environment.
I think that psychology has to be bent in studying deviant behavior, but have not studied the causes for the prevalence of certain types of personality and behavior among the majority.
Well, they have studied, but considered as normal while others are considered abnormal. As a result, U.S. schools now seek to identify students suffering from mental disorders, whereas bypass the problem of education in the country for various ethnic groups as well as the problematic own people, even the majority, of white, which in large part is also made by so-called normal.
Shyness, introversion and more serious, divergent thinking, become renamed as defects while normapath perfect pass as angels who have never blame the constant massacres that hit American schools, more than in any other country in the world.
I living in a third world country, I have a tendency, I think totally explainable, to deny completely the cultural norm, social and behavioral existing here. I have noticed that a large percentage of the greatest geniuses in the history of mankind suffered from some form of mental disorder. If this really is true, then I must be right, that there is something wrong with the animal extremist social old-fashioned is not creative and not live life in a more intense way.
You may need these normal robots to keep society functioning.
The borderline personality disorder gave me the idea to be a compilation of many symptoms of other disorders. Must be why this is on the borderline between neurosis to psychosis.
Not sure what you mean by that.
What I mean by this is that the borderline personality disorder seems somewhat artificial in its conceptuality and description, resembling other personality disorders such as histrionic, avoidant personality disorder, antisocial, schizoid personality, and resemble with bipolar disorder.
The” carriers” of these variations of human behavior, both seem to condense traces of psychosis and the neurosis.
Regarding shyness, I think the DSM has some idea that it should be debilitating in the person’s culture. But that only makes the whole idea of these “disorders” even sillier since it suggests that what is normal in Finland is Asperger in America.
I agree that this should be conceptualized as extreme personalities and some psychologist even say that explicitly. But psychiatry is big business so they will no doubt cling on to the idea of pathology.
This is not to say that these people don’t have big problems, or that they can’t be helped by professional expertise. But psychiatry does this under false pretences and it hinders the understanding of human nature.
True, personality disorders blend into each other. But this is only a problem if you think of them as distinct categories.With a dimensional view it makes more sense.
Yes, I realize that much of modern Western medicine does not seem to be based on the search for a cure in the case of organics diseases such as diabetes. They do not seek to find the central cause of the problem and create drugs that act to eliminate it. I do not know if they do it on purpose, to make more money, but I doubt it.
In the case of eccentric personalities, as I said before. The debilitating eccentric personalities, resulting indeed in great distress, especially because in these cases, we see the ‘patients’ difficulty in controlling their emotions and actions. The” cure” for this problem could be an electronic device that could play the role of regulator of emotions that most humans already present naturally or some molecular intervention that could act to solve the problem, but do not mischaracterize the personality the person, since the eccentricity is a two-sided coin with (great) advantages and disadvantages.
Of course these possibilities only serve to those of exceeded the optimum eccentrics traits, or patients with ”mental disorders”.
In fact, I realize that there are some big mistakes that psychology has committed.
As you have posted before about the power of introvert. I realize that introversion is strongly related traits better than the extraversion and we live in a rule based on sociability, mean, humans have evolved to be more social, despite disagreeing with the idea that one thing does not annul the other.
That is precisely why we have the examples of Scandinavian and Asian societies, which in my opinion, are even more social than the classic Western societies (French and English speaking) while exhibiting a much greater tendency to introverted personality. The idea that the more cheerful and popular, more socially participative is a lie.
The pathologizing of introverted and therefore the” divergent” is something very serious but not new since a large part of human history this was the rule. The problem is that we can not always make the same mistakes.
Political correctness appears as a major force that seeks to remove what is most unique in the West, individuality.
Contrary to what most lovers of individuality believe the politically correct does not appear as paladin shield against prejudice of the majority, but as a substitute of oppression.
http://talentdevelop.com/articles/TOPDAAM1.html
Staffan,
What do you think about it??
Thanks for the link.
I like the way the theory integrates personality and so-called psychopathology, but I’m not sure about the humanistic perspective. To me an evolutionary model would fit the facts better. It’s true that many kids grow out of their antisocial tendencies making it look like this is a stage. But at the same time psychopathy is highly inheritable and it can be seen as an evolutionary strategy. And there are some very sophisticated psychopaths. I think they can evolve too, but in their own domain. Not as pleasant to contemplate perhaps but then again, evolution does not require for us to be pleasant and full of empathy and understanding.
I did not understand about the humanist you mentioned, I have not seen anything. Just saw that psychopathy would be in the early stages of the evolution of human mentality and makes sense to me, much sense, since I clearly realize, first, that psychopathy is present in most non-human species, and second I I feel that people, called normal, tend to have certain aspects of their simpleton personalites that fits with psychopathy. Summarizing what we thought, psychopathy in humans is the survival of an archaic mentality inherited mainly based on animal instinct, the idea that we are born solely for procreation and the conquest of power in our society (especially among males).
This theory perfectly slap the hole until then I realized with some anxiety in relation to the hierarchy of intellect. She ended up fitting the rest of the pieces of the puzzle, because I definitely can not believe all geniuses can be measured by IQ tests, if we know that the tests are not perfect.
The evolutionary strategy of psychopathy fits perfectly with this theory, also could not see any disconnect between the two. Like I said, psychopathy is an ancient evolutionary strategy based primarily on animal instinct archaic, and as every spectrum shows variability types.
The aspect that you set as humanist as I understood perfectly logical and explicable, since the ability of abstraction either math or verbal seems that relates completely with high intelligence (regardless of what kind, intellectual, emotional or creative).
Psychopathy is archaic yes – just like any other aspect of personality, possibly with the exception of things like conscientiousness and asperger-like traits. Empathy is based on the fight-flight response which can be found in reptiles. It’s all ancient. A psychopath may appear primitive since the criminal version is the one normally diagnosed. But most likely this is present in other people too, like priests, businessmen and politicians.
Well, I do not know if I can agree with you.
Do you have any evidence of what you’re saying?
It is known that a fairly archaic psychopathy is found in the black population (distinguished from psychopathy Hannibal Lecter, lol) and I believe they are the survival of an archaic human kind.
I agree with the fact that human behavioral variation may well be old, and that evolution is not a linear process, but I’m here postulating behaviors based on a hierarchy, which in my opinion, psychopathy is an archaic trait, closer to the animal kingdom irrational, while the abstract creativity would be a fundamental aspect common only in human beings, after all, you do not know any non-human species that has questioned whether God exists or not, where it came from and where it will later death?
Psychopathy is the trait that makes us animals while the abstract creativity, especially in this highly sensitive people, which makes us more human.
One bit of evidence would be the psychopaths themselves. A significant feature of theirs is their blunted fight-fligh reaction. Empathy means worrying about others. S if you don’t have the ability to be worried there can be no empathy.
Black people are modern humans. They live and function in societies, something most psychopaths are unable to do. They are less intelligent and more violent than others, but most of them have empathy, they will protect their children and loved ones.
You contrast psychopathy with “abstract creativity” but the theory describes the highest level this way,
“Ones behavior is guided mainly and consistently by dynamisms of responsibility, authentism and autonomy, empathy, self-perfection and personality ideal.”
Psychopathy is not strongly related to intelligence, that is abstract thought. From what I’ve read they are average or slightly below average.
As for responsibility, empathy etc, it would be nice if we evolved in that direction, but I can only see evidence of us becoming smarter. There are plenty of highly empathic low-IQ persons and vice versa. I just can’t see this pattern.
Schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, autism, and OCD have clear heritability; depression, anxiety disorders and some of the personality disorders seem to, though not so strongly. Adaptation, situation, coping, protective factors, and resilienciy are indeed important parts of defining whether something is an illness that needs treatment, and these have been somewhat neglected. But they are not everything.
I think the concept of illness requires an organic failure. Why not just say that these people have a wiring that is problematic, either because they are outliers or because of a mismatch with the modern environment? We can still help them, even with meds. But illness? I think Szasz was right on the money when he said that the term mental illness is an involuntary metaphor – it’s as if they were ill.
I still do not see where is the evidence of what you’re saying, although I agree on the fact that most human traits have evolved more or less the same time and there is some advantage in psychopathy.
About black people I do not agree with you. The actual behavior of blacks when they are without the help of white people you can find in Africa itself or in American cities where most of the population is black. The black level of functionality is high above his real level, precisely because white people camouflage their real faults management of a modern society.
When I see white people and compare them with the black people, it is clear and evident that while the first is much closer to a well human uniquely human physical appearance, the other is much closer to typical apes . It is not an offense, it’s just the reality.
As I said in Hbd Chick, I am a person with recent black ancestors, do not feel offended by it, if it is true?
I am not aware of the criteria that evaluators used to define what a modern man, but I note that even if blacks are still within the spectrum of mental and fisical modernity of humanity, yet continue much closer to our primates most other races.
I read two studies, the first showed that the average qi of a psychopath is 97 compared with the control population, which would be around 102 (white Americans). The second study said that their average would be around 105.
The idea of empathy is complicated, mainly because it is based on the idea that more extroverted people are more empathic.
I do not agree with that. I think people are more shy and introverted tend to be more empathic than the extroverts, which in my opinion, are more narcissistic. The extroverts tend to create networks of friendship and surface fluid, primarily based on a strategy to take some advantage of this wide network of friends.
Already, introverts tend to have much zeal for others, they tend to reject a large network of friends, since they understand that when you create it, you’re being fake and superficial to others.
I myself, am a very introverted person and according to me that I entered these issues HBD, I became more reticent to make friends, because in addition to being concerned about offending the people around me, I also tend to internalize what they learn, and I think this is another characteristic of introversion.
As a result, I have a strong tendency to reject any possibility to deny what I believe, especially when I have the strong conclusion that the matter in question, is already fully exploited and as a result, has been completed.
Psychology patologizou shyness and introversion and abnormal behaviors, and identify the extroverts as empathetic and I wholeheartedly disagree with that. Introverts (of course, not all of them) tend to be more empathetics so that as a result, tend to avoid a network of contacts, precisely because of his sense of justice and logic level with the head and the most emotional sensitivity.
Pathologized*
😉
Psychopaths having 97 in IQ sounds like a good approximation of what I’ve read about this. However, those psychopaths who are diagnosed are no doubt a little less intelligent than the average of their group, they normally use heavy drugs for instance.
The evidence for empathy being based on fight-flight lies in the fact that empathy – by definition – means worrying. And psychopaths have a very weak fight-flight reaction which limits their capacity for empathy. This has been found in brain imaging, cortisol level response to stress and other ways. It’s not controversial.
As for Black people, I’m not offended, I’m just trying to see things for what they are. And most psychopaths can’t function properly within their and yet there are Black communities. The mere existence of such communities is pretty strong evidence that Black people can’t be inherently psychopathic.
Overall, I agree that introverts are a bit more empathic than extraverts who can be more social for opportunistic reasons. And yes, psychology/psychiatry tend to pathologize introversion and other less common traits. If only 2 percent of the population were eating themselves to death they would be diagnosed, but when a majority do so, it’s a societal problem.
Correction: And most psychopaths can’t function properly within their communities, and yet there are Black communities.
I did not say all blacks are inherently psychopathic, I said that a very high number of them have a kind of psychopathy which I regard as archaic, a kind older and less sophisticated. Continue with the idea that we should not impose the same parameters to blacks because they are very old and a population genetically more distant than the others, deserves particular consideration to its nature.
It is also necessary to understand that the black Africans differ considerably from black Americans and Caribbean (less haitians), because the latter mingled with the white settlers. But one of the most sensible explanations to explain the failure of Africa is not only that they have a very little clever population, but also that this population has a high psychopathic behavior or as I suggested, archaic-psychopathic. Just as the law of the jungle, among the irrational animals, in Africa, the competition for resources removed or retained the phenotype less psychopathic types in the minority, while the phenotypes psychopathic increased their numbers.
It’s interesting, because I remember seeing a documentary about a peaceful community, I think central Africa, perhaps in the Central African Republic, threatened to disappear because of the neighbors, not very friendly.
The same happens with the pygmies. The peaceful communities in Africa are in constant threat because of its neighborhood archaic-psychopaths.
I did not answer him on psychopathy more common in people of low IQ. We also have to consider that psychopathic traits are a spectrum and can be found for a significant part of the population. What most characterizes the psychopath is that he does not care to participate in socializing rituals to improve their socio-economic position, it means they go beyond these rules and as a result end up having a great success, I mean that psychopaths can reach these results.
According to the theory Gabrowski, I inferred that less intelligent people tend to develop the primary functions of the human intellect, resulting in a proto-psychopathic behavior, where certain characteristics such as artificial social charm and relaxation of scruples part of it . Like psychopaths, ordinary people (of course not all) live according to the needs of primary socialization as social status, moral, economic and even sexual. People of low IQ will have a greater tendency to psychopathic behavior aimed at improving their social and economic, without connecting to the rules of good conduct. There are people of low IQ who do not have this tendency. Does that tell us that psychopathy is more common in people with lower intelligence.
Psychopaths, even those of high intelligence, exhibit the same behavior based on little socialization and so little internalized reflexion and great conditioning based on the primary display of power and prestige in the social life of the community in which it is inserted.
As I said, for you to understand how a people really works, you should see how they behave in their ancestral lands and it is known that African-Americans are not equal to their African brothers. African nations do not work because most people do not have great empathy for each other. Just see how the Africans treat minority groups as albinos. ( and low intelligence exacerbating this situation)
I understand that psychopaths when they encounter a situation tend to seek the easy way to achieve your goal, this is clearly a sign of intelligence. However, we live in societies and depend on each other, we tend to seek the means honest and therefore more time consuming to achieve a certain goal.
The smarter in every way, would be those who would find more obstacles to climb position, while technically smart, tend to merge these two streams of practical philosophy.
So geeks technically smart have higher reproductive success than romantic intellectually smart.
The empathy is itself a form of abstraction in that it puts in the place of another, and this is something that is unlikely to be noticed among psychopaths.
I also understood when reading the theory Gabrowski, that there are three levels of evolution of the human intellect, the organic, the technical and intellectual.
Psychopaths definitely not reached the last level. (The most of humankind) This would be the highest level of abstraction.
“The same happens with the pygmies. The peaceful communities in Africa are in constant threat because of its neighborhood archaic-psychopaths.”
This can probably better be described as tribalism or clannishness than some form of psychopathy. For tribalism to thrive you have to live in groups and psychopaths are normally unable to do that. That’s not to say they can’t have the “dark” traits but you see really bad behavior all over the world – Russia, Latin America etc.
I think a lot of the violence in Africa can be explained by tribalism and the fact that nations incorporate too many different ethnic groups. That’s like former Yugoslavia in Europe – which also saw some atrocities as it fell apart. Botswana with at least 70 percent of the population of the same tribe is doing fairly well, the lowest corruption in all of the continent and no armed conflicts within the country.
But Botswana remains very poor, it seems. Maybe I’m wrong or is seeing the glass half full. Really low intelligence correlates with certain traits of psychopathy, but is perhaps because the less intelligent people that are inserted in an advanced society, can not follow all the rules in the same complex, and end up trying to skip steps.
But this relationship makes sense according to the theory Gabrowski, which I quite pertinent.
Extremely intelligent people have a tendency to internalize emotional and intellectual complexity in their lives while the less intelligent and psychopaths simply give importance to values less abstract and more real as the community’s financial success (power), especially in men.
True, Botswana is poor, not many can become engineer or doctors with those IQs. But it’s relatively peaceful, something it couldn’t be if the population was even mildly psychopathic, at least not without a very harsh totalitarian regime. This suggests that clannishness/tribalism can account for a lot of the bad behavior in Africa, where every country contains so many different ethnic groups. We had such a country in Europe, named Yugoslavia and when it fell apart you saw all sorts of horrible barbarism. If all countries of Europe were built that way you may have concluded that Europeans, or at least the most clannish of them, were psychopathic too.
But you may have a point in that psychopaths have simpler pleasures. Although this is not to say that they lack intelligence.You see a lot of businessmen who will be very sophisticated in their work so that they can have a lot of women, or even just eat fancy food (we had a guy like that here in Sweden who died at 58 simply by eating himself to death). So I guess in that way many of them are simpler. We still don’t know much about the intelligent psychopaths.
Yes, when you have rival groups in the same border, it seems that tempers arise further. In the case of Botswana, we need to consider all the possibilities, because we know that during the colonial period, did not happen rampant crime in the region, precisely because of European tutelage, which maintained order.
Botswana has a small territory and I think still has a non-blacks Indians and whites, even where these minorities have influenced this situation I do not know.
Another interesting and alarming, incidentally, are the cases of AIDS, affecting more than 20% of adults. This large incidence of AIDS in adults may have contributed to reduce crime
At most I think when you have the right people running a country, half the problems will be reduced.
About psychopaths, I did not say they were not smart, but assuming that an advanced human intellect needs ” spiritual” evolution (I call ”abstract-advanced”) and as fundamental complement, large reflective capacity, psychopaths simply not present these fundamentals.
With suggested, psychopaths resemble people of lesser intelligence because both have evolved to understand the technical demands of intelligence, while the abstraction is definitely not a common feature in both groups and I do not mean specifically the abstraction technique, which is strongly based on mathematics or physics. As throughout the spectrum, there are mathematicians, with no emotional evolution abstract.
I’ve been blogging about my experiences with borderline men… like to hear your thoughts on it…
http://strangedaysinthecity.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/boderline-boys-and-6-ways-to-spot-them/
Thanks for getting me back on topic : ) I’ll look into it…and it’s great stuff! My only complaint is that your superior writing makes me look bad : ( I added a link at the end of this post.
HAHAHA. I just saw this. Thanks 😉 I write for a living, so I have to be good at. It’s become a survival skill.
But your blog is amazing. You’re a bad writer yourself 🙂
Hell yeah, I’m as bad as they come : )
”Despite all their crazy, abnormal and dangerous behavior, they consistently see women as “crazy,” if they come to them with a need. Misogynists are usually the weakest of men. Just like racist KKK members are usually poor, uneducated and unable to take responsible for their own lot in life and shift the blame on other races, misogynists are unable to take responsible for their behaviors and choices. It’s always the woman’s fault. And she’s always crazy.”
Wow, but that stupid comment!
True, being poor is a problem. Oops, elitism!!
Looks like my leftist brother (idiot, not you to be one, but he is definitely an idiot who thinks he is very smart), he is capable of being misogynist, anti-Asian, homophobic, prejudiced against people with mental disorders and all luck of prejudice, only to defend abstractly elect of political correctness, black and even Jews.
Managed to complete brainwash their hollow little head.
Just a curiosity, interesting how you got relationships with many men borderlines?!
I hope you have better luck in the future …
My mother is borderline. That’s why. It took me a long time to figure that out. (I mention this in the article.) When you’re raised by someone like that, it becomes your reality, what you know. familiar. Abuse is mistaken for love. It’s a very specific type of co-dependance i have to be aware of. even just recently one of these guys contacted me wanting me to heal them. it’s really hard for me to say no, because i was trained from a young age to act as my mother’s therapist so i could heal her, even though she gets angry and devaluates me if i show one inch of vulnerability.
Not sure how you missed that. Who raises you has everything to do with your romantic relationships.
I think you misinterpreted my point. People who are racist, homophobic, anti-semetic, etc. tend to blame another race or group for their problems rather than taking responsibility for themselves. Yes, people who tend to by downtrodden often exhibit this deflection. For instance much of my southern family in the south east will blame minorities for the fact that they don’t have good jobs or a good education, instead of seeing that all that is in their power and has nothing to do with anyone else. Not that rich people can’t also be racists and misogynists… but if you look at the data… the more education you receive the less likely you are to hold bigoted views. (Note that I said less likely… of course they’re still racists with an education, just not as many).
Same goes for misogyny (which all the borderlines I talked about have admitted to at some point… probably because their mothers were crazy and abused them). They blame their own shortcomings and weaknesses onto women, rather than looking to themselves (I get it… it’s painful.) That was my point. And I’ve seen it strongly in ever BPD male I’ve known, no matter how educated or out-wordly feminist they appear… or even want to be. It’s about shifting the blame of their own bad behavior and projecting their emotional and mental instability onto another — which is usually a woman they’re involved with. And, to be honest, BPD males aren’t “strong” masculine figures. They are emotionally out-of-control, selfish… and not stand-up dudes. The tragedy is that they want to be a knight in shining armor, but run away when the damsel is in distress… they need to be saved… they can’t do the saving… even if they want to… and this causes the self-hatred and self-loating which, at some point, is deflected onto “her.”
Having been around more people than I like with BPD, they’re destructive people and I would advise anyone to steer clear of them if they can. It’s not because I think they are innately evil or bad… but they’re not “safe” people… not to themselves… and certainly not to anyone they’re intimately involved with. I think, even with a lot of therapy and treatment, it’s a painful road. I already have to deal with my mother, but I can decide to become very conscious of the friends and lovers I let into my life. Even my friend who called me in crisis recently… no matter how much I want to help him… He will just hurt me… It’s the scorpion and the frog story… It’s just in his nature (or disease).
When I first read about borderline personality disorder I realized that I could be one, but then you commented about the fascination that the rejection has on these people definitely concluded that I can not be one. Not that I I was extremely upset about it, is that when I am rejected, definitely not run after.
I have tried to ”diagnose” me, because when I was a teenager I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but I know can not have because do not have large and PROLONGED mood swings. As seen on wikipedia (a source unreliable I believe), people with borderline personality disorder have sudden changes in mood throughout the day, something happens to me.
I think I have ”comorbidity” with borderline personality puts me on track and gives me awareness of my actions. Also I identified a lot with schizoid personality, although I think these” disorders” are culturally loaded. I think the idea of neurodiversity fantastic and definitely would not want to live in a highly collectivist society that erases your individual expression.
From there, we got to the point that you used in your text.
Being poor is not just a sign of ignorance. I believe that there is a wisdom that is found in the masses and relies especially on their instinctive abilities. The poor white people (or not) in the U.S., making racist remarks or anti-Semites, first, are simply stating their opinions (divergent) in relation to established opinion by the mainstream. Until then I hope you do not have anything against, after all, being in a supposedly democratic society, you should not because you want to, but because they must accept opinions that differ from yours. Yes, you can try to establish reasons to understand why people think that way.
but I will advise that before entering the world of psychological reasons for a particular action, investigate before the environmental reasons for this state of affairs.
I think that more education does not result in greater intelligence and greater wisdom. As I said, there are extremely poor or who have never learned to read that are so extremely wise and intelligent.
If you came HBD blogs should know that most people who belong to this community do not believe that education has a role as well as powerful, able to modify the biological cognitive people. I’m kind extremist do not believe that education has the power to change almost paranormal people’s behavior. Any change that happens in people not given from out to outside but from the inside to out.
This is pure Lamarckism and definitely now seems that this theory has been proven false as predominantly. We can take chunks of it, but the whole is wrong, people do not evolve by repetitive action, because there are people, who in life evolve, they only vary according to their predispositions, from the inside out.
So let’s get right to the point now, on people’s actions. If you read HBD blogs, you’ll know that there are biological differences between human races and of course, there are also cognitive differences between them. Whole story of equality and tolerance are actually emotional abstractions that do not match with reality.
From this knowledge, you begin to infer new explanations for the behavior of people, so if you have not unconsciously imagined it to be so.
Men tend to be more tribalist than women, so that the communities hbd, over 70% of the readers are men and more than 80-90% of men participating communities, called right-wing extremists, are men . This is part of the principle of masculine nature.
If you are reading about the theory of clanishness, you know that people tend to inherit a combination of traits that result and more or less tribalism.
I would like to live in a world where most people were like Swedish, intelligent and less tribalist, but this is simply not possible, because much of the world’s population is composed of people tribalists.
I declare as” racist”, first because accepted racial differences in biology and all it represents, and second, because I have racial preferences, where the white people are first and Asians and Indians (I know very few Asians and no Indian, I speak for all the knowledge and racialist mainly by my perception, I acquired) in second place. I live in a country where much of the population is mulatto and black and definitely not like it here.
I declare myself as an” anti-Semitic” because I can not condone the religion that is highly intolerant Islam (after all, the Muslim Arabs are also Semites) and because I am seeing clearly that the Jews were largely responsible for all socialist nonsense, like multiculturalism, mass immigration and brainwashed white people adopt self-destructive behaviors.
But I’m much more a socialist than anything else and definitely not like the way that Western societies are moving, to become again those societies that oppress and pathologize, behavioral minorities. I’m part of the group weird, as Staffan already mentioned, I have a strong artistic side, and all the features that usually come along.
Well, you’re talking to a person who understands the behavior KKK, the Nazis and who else comes.
The people who you define as” educated” are strongly selected for liberals, you know that the majority of American teachers or here, are liberal. White people with lower education (many of them may have chosen not to enter a college, by personal choice) are living daily with the” minority” in your country. Many of the white people with higher education, living in neighborhoods with predominantly white or Asian or Indian minorities, or even blacks or Hispanics intelligent.
These people, for reasons epigenetic, eventually becoming extremely alienated from the true reality that the U.S. has become in recent years.
As you may know, following the hbd, less smart people are more impressionable, more time watching television and are more committed to social events. (Not only the less intelligent people but people with average IQ too). Thanks to Marxist indoctrination (I’ll admit that introduces hot spots, very valuable in our society as a reinterpretation of human behavior, giving it the shape intellectual he truly has, removing the dualistic idea that was prevalent in our societies in the past)
white people were convinced that they are bad people who have committed many crimes in the past (admit that no people or race was saint), the famous white guilt, which is only pushed for whites. Through this central thought, the media is largely in the hands of Ashkenazi Americans began to push any sort of behavior that validate this idea of guilt. As you may have in mind, in your country, there are several holidays and even organizations fighting for the rights of minorities. But note that it is not necessary to be poor to have an organization like this, since the Jews have many organizations that deal with their interests. Less white people.
I myself, despite having a predominantly Caucasoid appearance, I’m not white, because I have racial mixing with blacks and Native Americans, like most people in my country. I’m not fighting for my interests, but for justice and truth, and say that there are no human races or the fault of black criminality is white racism is not the truth….
So now I conclude that, for a good part of those angry white men, there are very valid reasons for their behavior, and the first of all, it is the democratic right to disagree. The second is environmental explanations that are making their lives and their and their families, more dangerous and insecure. Yes, there are subgroups of men within this socio-political category for sentimental reasons, eventually entering this configuration, but I’m sure they do not represent the majority and that their other reasons are completely valid.
There is no subliminal psychological explanation that explains their behavior, now, they are slowly being exterminated in their own countries. It is not a question only of civilization, high mindedness, but also of the animal behavior to which we are subject. Males should protect their spaces.
SORRY by my ”WORRRSTEST” english!!!
LOL
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Well I’m male, have BPD and I’ve never been violent to anyone. Neither are my actions viewed by others as pathetic. You’re making us all out to be domestic violent rapists and pathetic little boys that can’t stop bitching about their imaginary problems. I think you’re confusing BPD males with assholes
You’re one single individual so you don’t change the big picture. There are documented cases of law-abiding psychopaths. But we can still agree that psychopaths as a group are problematic, right? By the same logic men with BPD are problematic (and women of course but they are much less violent).
it’s really not our “faults” — we have no sense of self. our parents/guardians raised us improperly; the only way around it is to take the self-hatred and use it as a chisel, chip away the excess, and break through the concrete that our care-givers paved over our heads as infants. we are starving, emotionally, picking at whatever looks edible to satiate our malnutrition. we are scrambling, mentally, to climb out from the bottomless pit into which we were once carelessly tossed. the BPD males you need to avoid are the ones who are blind/apathetic to the state of their being; there are more than a few of us who are aware of what we look like to everyone else. we are complicated humans. we ARE “projects for improvement”, not for anyone else but ourselves (and our therapists) to take on. if you are interested in reading something a little less biased to better understand the mechanism of such a disorder, consider the following page:
https://sites.google.com/site/cognitivetherapycenterofli/self-help-materials/borderline-personality-disorder
Thanks for your comment.
I understand that this is a big problem for you and others with BPD, but it’s a big problem for others too. The stats on intimate partner violence tell a story and there isn’t much debate about this so that’s why I wrote the article.
I have read about BPD and seen it up close too, but people will inevitably come to different conclusions. To me it’s not about parents but a matter of personality.
Yes, but you’re different, Evan. Many BPD men (and women) think that everyone ELSE has the problem, not them.
I dated a BPD who was very very good at hiding it for the first few months, or maybe just good at hiding it from ME, but I left when he exploded at me the first time and threw a gift he’d bought for me that I hadn’t even unwrapped yet at my head.
He needs therapy he’ll never get. Because he doesn’t see the need. Everyone ELSE are a bunch of jerks who don’t understand him.
I wish you the best, and I wish more BPD sufferers could be like you.
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In the vast majority of cases of BPD sexual, physical, psychological abuse is a contributing factor to the disease. Gay men and women are more likely to experience abuse during their formative years as are heterosexual women. This is why the majority of patients who are diagnosed with BPD tend to be women with a smaller percentage being male of whom many are gay.
There is nothing about being ‘gay’ itself that makes you more prone to mental illness. It’s the abuse and crap you get growing up that turns you into a mental case and probably a genetic disposition too which comes into play when you are systematically abused by society and family.
That may be true, but for most personality traits as well as psychopathology it has been found that heritabilities are often around 70 percent and shared environment (including family) is a minor factor, often very close to zero. I can’t say I have the data on BPD but the pattern tends to be similar for all behavioral traits. For this reason I’m skeptical of the idea that gay people would be prone to this due to abuse. But if shared environment turns out to be substantial in this particular case, I’d be willing to reconsider.
Do you think borderline males suffer from the so called “nice guy syndrome”? Im curious.
Btw I am a male who suffers from bpd and have been accused of having nice guy syndrome.
JJ,
I think this is part of it. BPDs are so sensitive they tend to use niceness to appease others. It’s not just romantically, it seems to hold for all kinds of relationships. They can’t have a casual acquaintance, everything needs to be emotionally intense. If the other person doesn’t respond with equal intensity they feel hurt and betrayed and often turn nasty. Even though no one asked for them to be nice in the first place.
For the record, I don’t hate male (or female) BPDs. I imagine a lot of musicians, writers and artists have BPD and put their intensity to good use in their work. I just don’t think the bad aspects of BPD should be hushed up.
I have bpd, and it is really disappointing to be vilified like this. I’ve never done violence to anyone, not even been in a fight, my criminal history is entirely clean, I’m not an emo, I’m not frail, and my outward appearance has been described as intimidating. you cant lump people into boxes like this because it misinforms the general population about a group of people who are suffering. 90 percent of therapist or other mental health workers are not qualified to deal with borderline patients,we assette notoriously difficult to manage and yes, understand. please don’t form any opinions about me or people like me from this article, it would certainly appear that this person was hurt by a borderline, I feel sorry for you because iknow the damage we can cause, but many of us are just as scared of ourselves as you are.
Nathan,
I’m talking about BPDs as a group with the understanding that there is individual variation. As there is for conservatives, women, geeks, racists, Norwegians, kite surfers and so on.
Should we not talk about any groups, or talk about them but leave out things that make them look bad?
Stereotyping isn’t the best way to approach a conversation about mental illness.
I agree with Nathan, the way that you came across in this article, was sensationalistic. Painting men with BPD as “a hidden threat” is just… It’s over the top, and does a disservice to the men with this condition who ARE getting help, and aware of the problem.
Sure, abusive men don’t always fit the stereotype. (Would you believe it: http://www.dailydot.com/fandom/tom-milsom-underage-sex-scandal/) But if you are in that situation, I’m pretty sure you can tell the dude is an asshole.
My boyfriend has BPD and has NEVER been violent to me in ANY way. If he ever was, I’d remove myself from the relationship immediately. That shit doesn’t go down with me.
And apparently, as you state in a comment below, you think that people can’t recover from BPD? That’s ridiculous, man. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, maybe you should do some more research before spouting this kind of stigmatizing untruth publicly. People with BPD CAN recover much of their stability and happiness, with the right guidance and support. (That’s right, I’m not gonna support that statement with links. If you care enough, search yourself. There are plenty of personal stories, and stories from therapists online, which support this view.)
So please… Stop the stigma. Stop the fear. And do a little more fucking research.
Thanks for your comment.
If you find any research on BPD recovery feel free to share it with me or anyone else who might be interested. Online stories are always interesting but they can’t replace actual research.
Regarding the stigma and the fear: I don’t think there is a stigma in the sense that the violence appears to be real and substantial. So there is good reason for, if not fear, at least concern.
I wish you the best…
Stop this. You may not be hurting anyone, or think so, or have a wrong diagnosis, but those hurt by BPD do exist. The post is a warning, and I finally, for the 1st time could finally work out something very important, despite me having no trouble whatsoever to spot right away 6 people from the cluster B. I am glad I finally found this site…you stigmatised? Ha, what about those PTSDesed!!
Is there any hope for a relationship with a BPD male who exhibits narcissistic traits, avoidance and is mother enmeshed?
Like I said in a previous comment, there is individual variation; there are even non-criminal psychopaths and schizophrenics who go to work every day. But the odds are certainly against it. People don’t recover from personality disorders; probably because they’re not disorders at all, only extreme and rigid personality types. Some of it wears off with age though and that could tip the scales if you’re lucky. Or he could be one of those exceptions.
Hello my name is David and i suffer very much from BPD and have tried several times to get help with this problem ,i started with nova/trillium Matt Reagan quit on me ,Akron behavioral quit no one will help me all because of my lack in funds and insurance wow state provided community health quit on me it might be because it has reached an explosive level ive been this way about 35 years now ,well im irritated now because someone in my head told me im wasting my time if u feel as though you might be able to help some advise would be nice…Thanks for your time have a nice day.
Sorry to hear about your problem. We have a similar problem with psychiatric care here. As far as I now, they can’t dismiss you at Akron, or any other hospital, because of lack of insurance if you have a medical emergency. Perhaps hearing voices is an emergency? So that’s something to consider. Or if you’re religious you could ask a priest in your congregation for help.
I’m not a mental health worker so I can’t give you any professional advice. In my personal experience though, alcohol, sugar, nicotine and coffein (probably other drugs too) tend to make emotional instability worse, while sleep and aerobic exercise can help. Not saying that you should change anything drastically – that could backfire – but you may want to tweak things a little in the right direction.
And even if you can’t get any professional help, try to find someone to talk to – family, friends, a forum about these things on the web. My guess (again, as a nonprofessional) is that you’re better off talking to someone than being alone with your thoughts.
I hope this helps, and I’m sorry I don’t have much more to offer.
Most of what you’re saying about violence would tip the scales over to anti-social PD, unless they saw the patient cry. That’s just the way this is diagnosed. What you wrote doesn’t apply to actual borderline diagnosed men as much as you think it does. You’re merging borderline PD with anti-social PD in order to play up the “secretly dangerous” angle.
They’re really two very different disorders, borderlines feel emotions more intensely than everyone else while anti-social is the politically correct sociopath. The problem is they’re commonly mistaken for each other in diagnosis and you’re just completely perpetuating that. There’s an anti-socialish subtype of borderline PD that is more impulsive than hysterical and can be violent, but you don’t clarify that you’re talking about a subtype and you fit borderlines as a whole under that subtype.
My ex-partner has BPD (narcissism/avoidant/sex addiction/mother enmeshment) and he has slapped me once, choked me once, shoved me once and can’t seem to rage without at least punching a table. I left him because I knew it was only time before he would take it out on me all the time. At first it scared him that he hit and choked me and he didn’t do anything for 2 years until that is he shoved me. When he is regulated he is the most sensitive and wonderfully compassionate man I know blah blah blah….you have all heard it before. When he is dysregulated he is a monster and would in a rage do something horrible to me if he felt I did something bad enough to warrant it. He is too sick and sadly there is no cure except for me to walk away, even he has accepted that for my own sake. He knows and is afraid of what he will do to me and feels he can’t change enough or stop himself from doing something that one day will be too terrible to ever turn back from. He has accepted that the best thing he could ever do for me is allow me to go and I have as well regardless of how much I love the nice version. It’s tragic beyond belief and I’m angry that there are no options with such a horrible illness. I didn’t want to admit it but I see the capacity of a killer in him when he rages and a terrible abuser and hater of women when he feels justified in his paranoid fears. I have heard misogynist comments from him that leave me feeling cold and naked in fear for what he is truly capable of if pushed.
You probably made the right decision. A lot of women think of men as fixer-uppers when most of them are what-you-see-is-what-you-getters, especially if they have a personality disorder. Still, I can see how hard it might be to leave a man with BPD because they seem to have a nice side that, unlike with psychopaths and similar types, is completely genuine.
I don’t think I’m merging it with anti-social PD because I refer to research that finds men with BPD overrepsented in prisons and, by their own admission, largely due to intimate partner violence. I only mention psychopathy and anti-social PD for comparison.
I’m well aware that they feel emotions intensely, to quote myself,
“They fall head over heels in love with people they don’t know the first thing about and then become disillusioned and deeply resentful when the other person fails to match their fantasies. They are emotionally unstable and vulnerable and they feel very hurt and betrayed when people, as they see it, let them down.”
“but you don’t clarify that you’re talking about a subtype and you fit borderlines as a whole under that subtype.”
That wasn’t the scope of this post. I wanted to inform people about the fact that men with BPD are often violent – as shown by the research. So I’m not fitting all of them under of subtype, I’m just not looking at specific subtypes.
But if you have information showing that this subtype is small and distinct regarding violent behavior, then I’ll be glad to hear about that and update this post accordingly.
I agree with what you said Staffan about BPD men having a completely genuine side and that is why women stay so long until they too realize that the evil half take up more than 50% of the person and time will make you recognize that the punisher is here to stay and if anything get worse with time especially with more disappointments and disillusionment which are the natural course of any relationship and in life. Glad Mr. X left and could see the potential for a terrible type of horror being played out.
All BPD men may not be psychopaths but the Hyde persona in them which I believe is actually the more real one is a sick, demented, shaming, insulting, verbally abusive, violent, cruel, volatile and angry abuser who does make your life a living hell to the point of sickness even and breakdowns.
I don’t care what anyone says I think when that Hyde is out he takes glee in how he punishes his victim. I know when my ex would rage and use any excuse to shame and demoralize me I could see his ego thriving and the fact that he kept revisiting the same issue or kitchen sinking the same issue time after time after time while he perseverated over it over months even years that he enjoyed its cruelty and enjoyed those aspects of controlling the woman. I saw in him that if he kept me under his complete authority and control it didn’t make him feel like such a loser – it may be even equivalent to self soothing in a strange way.
I just know it got to the point where he wanted to control even my interactions with people out in public. God forbid if I so much as touched another man or they touched me. There was hell to pay literally! You did well Mr. X in escaping psychopath or not they are still monsters in the way they have to take out their rage, control and abuse on us. I too left my guy with a “Wish you the best” after he wrote me a long blah blah nothing letter. In the end their words mean nothing if their actions can’t back them up. They will carry on and find another victim and as they feed off them in the ocean of their sea the victim will be fighting for life as they drown.
This will happen over and over and over again without an end ever in sight. I’m done with vampires even with all their spell binding charisma and powers of attraction – in the end they will use their irresistible gifts to kill you. It is only when you are being deeply fed on do you realize that you are with a devil regardless of the angel that visits occasionally to relieve you for a while.
Staffan I love your blog and I feel it is essential. When I found it everything made sense to me……….was living deep in the fog of his manipulations. Now I’m no longer in his grip but I know he will try and pull me in, it’s only a matter of time. Keep me strong because you have a great gift that way! No matter how much the nice version is (which is spectacular and I could literally lose myself inside him, the asshole is severe, punishing and an absolute abuser. I can’t lose sight of that so please help me maintain my strength as I’ve only just left him. Much love to you!
On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 6:30 PM, Staffan’s Personality Blog wrote:
> surrealsurrender commented: “I agree with what you said Staffan about > BPD men having a completely genuine side and that is why women stay so long > until they too realize that the evil half take up more than 50% of the > person and time will make you recognize that the punisher is here t” >
I love you Staffan….out of everything I’ve seen written on BPD’s and narcissists you are the only one that is being honestly truthful…………thank you! As hard as it is to admit when you are enslaved with one of these toxic vampires………….Staffan has a very acute understanding. I’d love for there to be another version of the truth so that I could go back to my Mr. Nice version but the reality is the complete asshole abuser is the real version. Staffan nails it on the head. I look forward to what more you have to write about it because you are my way of venting……..he screwed me up so much that I feel like I’ll be venting for a long time.
@Ms X and surrealsurrender,
Thank you, it means a lot, it really does. My ambition is to look at things as they are. This is easy in theory, but people usually go for the comforting lie rather than the unpleasant truth. I’ve done it plenty myself, and even as I write this I’m sure I’ll do it again. But if comforting lies becomes the default choice they also end up much more unpleasant than the truth. It’s like addiction. It catches up with you sooner or later.
I don’t mean to vilify these men. But some of them do have a big problem with interacting with others, and it’s better for them too if they understand that it’s their problem – not their girlfriend’s problem, or their mother’s problem or whoever’s problem. Being one hundred percent clear on that point is probably the best help you can give them.
LOving my borderline man: Somedays I just can’t. With every word he breaks my heart. I am resentful; for the time, the hours, the energy I have invested in him… In us. Always him. Always what we wants or needs. It it endless, relentless and thankless. So why am I still here, why can’t I love myself enough to leave something that no longer sustains or enriches me; the very opposite in fact. Is it the turmoil that brings me near, the martyr complex perhaps. I can’t fix him… He’s not a broken. He can’t not and will never be able to truly love me. He himself has admitted he can loathe me and love me in the very same day. I am always living on a kinfe’s edge. Which Borderline I get today? Or even by the hour? I can’t even bask in the happy moments. Fearing my guard left down leaving me open to heartbreak. I am heartbroken. Loving a borderline brings the highest highs and the lowest of all lows. I support him to the determent of myself and why, to have it thrown back in my face. To accuse me of smothering him. Yet, if I leave I’m abandoning him. I lose my cool once, once in the last 3 months…. 3 months of his Downward spiral and now he loathes me again. Shouldn’t it be easier to leave him now while he hates and resents my very presence? Somehow, on some absurd level these lows are feeling ever more comfortable.
When things were going well id find myself even more depressed. Waiting with baited breath. This; the loathing and the anger; this I know. This I live, could it also be… This I love?
I have been through a lot in a relatively short life, so much so that written down it appears almost too Bold and the Beautufil to be true. So upon reflection maybe I am the missing link.. Thriving on trying to save or being needed. My olive branch gets broken into a thousand tiny bitter pieces.
I don’t know where to from here…all I do know is I do love my borderline. Somedays I wish I had never meet him, others I can picture our lives together; blissfully happy. .
Which one will play out only time will tell, but from where I sit right now, the picture is fading; and quickly.
Thanks,
Comments like yours and others definitely add something to this post since I obviously can’t understand the situation from your perspective. Feel free to check out the other comments, there is a lot of interesting stuff there.
“This; the loathing and the anger; this I know. This I live, could it also be… This I love?”
I think emotional intensity can be addictive. Whether it’s love or hate, it’s something that makes you feel alive. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he is good for you or vice versa. Have you tried counseling? That could be a way to get a different perspective on your situation. If he doesn’t agree to at least give that a try then I think you have reason to suspect that things won’t get much better in the future.
Thanks for the reply Staffan,
He’s actually informed me today he is ceasing all forms of help (meds, drs, counselling) he wouldn’t elaborate on his decision only that he is a grown man and can make his own decisions.
I don’t know him anymore. I see the borderline more than the man anymore.
If he can’t look after himself and want to get better then I’m lost, if I leave I reaffirm his position that ill eventually abandon him but staying with him is truly heartbreaking. I’ve lost weight, get sick more easily and generally lost my spark.
I love him so much, but I need to love me more. Maybe he will catch up one day…
I’m sad to hear that he won’t get help, but I think you are making the right decision. Like I and others have mentioned above, it’s hard to leave someone who has genuine and strong feelings for you, like any BPD has, but it doesn’t help to stay when he won’t change. It’s only going to hurt you and it won’t help him either.
Sometimes doing the right thing can feel like crap, but it’s still the right thing. So I hope you stand firm in your decision.
This explains SO much!
Glad you liked it : )
No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t explain anything at all. When she ends the article with “But they are not victims of anything but their own shaky grip on reality,” that’s not understanding the psychological foundation of Borderline Personality Disorder at all. That’s dismissing everything we know about it.
I’m a man, straight even : )
But I guess it depends on who “we” are. I think most experts would agree that a lot of the BPD symptoms relate to lack of realism, about themselves and about the people around them. The way the idolize or demonize people for instance.
I was referring to what I have dealt with for the past 15 years .
U ppl r so narrow minded that u believe the shit this idiot is regurgitating. It is clear most of u have no idea about Bpd. Read a few facts before u generalise a gender suffering an illness based on the actions of a few. FUCKING CLOWNS
Shayno, you have the facts that this post is based on in the links – just click and read. You may also want to consider the possibility that people here speak from their own experience.
And I won’t approve further comments unless you can keep a civil tone.
Staffan, there is no article that could persuade me of the mindless ideals this article was based upon. Only 8% of Bpd “sufferers” are male, many others who do not fit into that 8% may have been diagnosed as having Bpd as the underbelly of the psych profession whose degree’s isn’t worth the paper it is written on diagnose the difficult, narcissistic, sociopaths & psychopaths as having Bpd because they don’t have the brains to recognise the behavioural traits of the twisted minds of society, so it is easier and a modern trend to diagnose them as Bpd or schizophrenic.
Read the papers written by the upper echelon of the profession not the hacks who write un-factual articles based on opinion not real statistics & evidence.
Yes, but this post is about male BPDs, it’s about the 8 percent or whatever the exact amount is. Some are misdiagnosed but that comes with the territory. The way I see it is that we can only evaluate the research on its own merits – not by appeal to authority. After all, the “upper echelon” in psychiatry used to be the Freudians and they were dead wrong. Is there something wrong with the research I refer to? Is it contradicted by clearly superior research? That’s the sort of argument that would convince me.
I have a little problem understanding your skepticism. If we agree that BPD involves emotional instability, interpersonal conflicts and impulsive behavior, it seems really odd if men with this condition would not engage in partner violence more than other men.
I am highly regarded by my profession, my community & my family yet I have suffered with Bpd for many years. I am married with 3 children & have never ever partaken in domestic or family violence & I have only been medicated for the last 6 years. Yes I am easily irritated, frustrated & emotionally vulnerable. I am black n white & dont have much room for the grey areas or subjectivity with most details. So when you & the rest of the know it all’s generalise my gender with my illness my views are more relevant than any other persons on this thread who is not living with Bpd & it’s challenges.
Hello Shayno;
I’m curious about how you manage….I’ve been with my partner for 3 years now who has BPD and experienced one event where he had a psychotic even 2 years ago where he slapped me. He is doing everything that he can to manage his symptoms but is tremendously jealous still yet tolerant of when men approach me which he found really difficult before. He refuses to e medicated however and suffers from severe mood swings and he can turn in an instant literally without much provocation.
He has never hit me again and was mortified when he had that psychotic break when he thought I had fooled around on him. I love him a lot and have stuck by him through a lot and if I didn’t see him working so hard I’d have left a long time ago. He has this weird programming that women are all liars and sluts because that is how he views the world on account of his experiences and he is very loyal and has very ‘straight’ morals that are very important to him but that is what makes him distrustful of the world at large and causes misunderstandings when I’m friendly to other men.
He is tolerant and very insightful as to his own behaviors afterwards and always does what he has to but I am wondering if life will always be dodging his bullets and being ever mindful of everything I say and do? He seems to believe that the more he is with me and knows he can trust me that he will overcome his fears and lack of trust. That he will break through much of his paralyzing triggering fears that have made him so punitive and judgmental.
He is my best friend, lover and everything…I’m just wondering if we can honestly have a successful enough marriage together and maintain some kind of normalcy or is life going to be getting through one hellish punishment and volatile raging fit after another for minor reasons that are so exaggerated just to keep chaos and conflict the central theme of our lives? Why the constant need to create conflict over ‘nothing’, over things that no one would care about or would barely notice?
He seems to be great when we are in our long distance but when we live together he is triggered a hundred more fold and even he realizes this. I seem to push every button he was ever born with.
Really just need to know this from the mind of a man who suffers from BPD.
Hiya Surreal,
In my opinion, if you have enough red flags at this stage and he won’t take medication or get some form of cognitive behaviour therapy, there is a high risk that his possessiveness will become unbearable. Men with unmanaged BPD are prone to being highly impulsive and this can lead to domestic violence. The management of his illness should be his highest priority and if this is not the case then he is being reckless and this is an indicator of his need to be controlling, which I would urge you to be cautious moving forward. A jealous possessive controlling male that has clear issues with women with unmanaged BPD is not a person I would want my daughters to interact with. He sounds like an intelligent and dangerous person with women issues and add unmanaged BPD on top of that and that makes him a serious threat to women in general.
Sorry for the bad news, but remember these are just my opinions. TRUST YOUR OWN INSTINCTS AND DONT FEEL OBLIGATED.
Hiya Surreal,
From the information you have given me I can see 3 option
1, He manages his illness with medication
2, He manages his illness with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
3, Leave
An intelligent possesive controlling male with issues with women is dangerous enough when you combine that with a male with unmanaged BPD who is volatile and erratic when in the company of a partner yet he is the complete opposite when the partner is at a distance, is not someone I would want my daughters to be involved with. TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS AND DONT FEEL OBLLIGATED.
Thank you for responding and for your advice.
As a male with BPD, this is one of the most insulting things that I’ve ever read. I am not violent, am intensely emotional, find it horrendously difficult to connect with people emotionally, and apparently I am someone to ‘watch out for’…
One of the defining factors of BPD is an intense fear of rejection. And this blog just told people to reject me as a person like some manipulative sociopath.
I’ve already said this doesn’t apply to all so there is no reason to take it personally. But it does apply to a lot of BPDers so I don’t see the point of keeping quiet about it.
You’re a bully. You think just because YOU’VE seen borderline people act this way, we’re all like this? What if you switched “borderline people” with “black people”, would you change your negative attitudes on borderline people? What if, hypothetically, you’ve only been around women who were cruel to you, would you generalize that all women are cruel and should be avoided? Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to judge and call us names and instead realize that we’re all just human. I’m sorry that we’re suffering from such a devastating illness. I didn’t fucking realize how much of an inconvenience that was to YOUR life. And I do take it fucking personally. How dare you write an insulting article that you have no understanding about. Not all borderline people are crazy stalkers hell bent on trying to find love. Not all borderline people are like Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction. Stop buying Hollywood’s idea of what BPD people are like and actually meet people who are trying their hardest to overcome this illness from destroying their lives and be fucking respectful. What if I had lung cancer? Would you an article about how everyone should always avoid people with lung cancer? My illness does not give you the right to say I don’t deserve relationships, friendships. Do you know even know how many BPD people kill themselves? You think it’s a “pathetic way” to get attention or just a display of behavior to win people? You are so fucking wrong and fucked up to say that. Ugh. People like you are the reason why lobotomy is still practiced in this world. You are the reason why people with mental illnesses are faced with discrimination on all fields of their lives.
To summarize what I’ve said before: I’m not generalizing; I’ve pointed out that not all male BPDs are violent, but I think people should be warned when a group contains so many individuals convicted of intimate partner violence. If loads of Black people had this tendency I wouldn’t mind warning about that either. I’m not politically correct. I try to call it the way I see it. And BPD isn’t an inconvenience to my life, but it is to plenty of victims of violent crime that were never warned about the risks they were exposing themselves to.
You take it personally but if you read more carefully you’ll see that the post gives you no reason to do so (unless you actually engage in this type of violence) since I’m not actually generalizing.
My partner has an intense fear of rejection so much so that he feels justified in punishing me with abusive behaviors because in his mind I did something to warrant him lashing out on me. In his deranged BPD thinking it is me that is at fault for disappointing him or not filling his ‘need’. He feels that everyone has a right to be angry and mad if they are being hurt by someone they love. I’ve learned that it is near impossible to truly portray reality to someone with this illness. Even when I think I’ve reached him he does the exact same thing that he led me to believe he learned not to. I love him but I’ve never in all my life known anyone as mentally and emotionally sick. I’m not exactly clear on how he loves even…..I mean when he gets close to me he has to find a reason to create conflict so that he can justify a detachment and round and round and round we go. What worries me is that I’ve learned to not take anything he says to me personally or seriously and the problem with that is that what if one day he will actually mean what he says and shockingly leave me? Out of all the studying I have done I still don’t know WTF is real or even if he knows? He says he loves me and that there is no one in the entire world that will do….it’s been a few years we have been together but I still don’t know if that is just his BPD speaking or if there is anything actually real there or with how he loves me?????
Anyway Steffan is correct in this article whether people are offended or not. This isn’t everyone but it is unfortunately many dysfunctional men who suffer BPD with concurrent other disorders because it is never just one PD. My guy suffers from BPD, depression, avoidant, narcissism and what ever else you can think of. When he is clear and balanced he is the most amazing person who is very articulate, intelligent and completely intuitive but when he is off………….then he is truly dangerous because he weaves his intelligence, intuition and his justified arguments/reasons into a fine arsenal and I am his target. He collects the information he needs, builds his ammunition and with it builds a case against me at the drop of a disappointment or hurt. Then he unleashes his arsenal against me and even though its all warped logic he manages to create a very dangerous and convincing argument that has me spinning and mind controlled even. Welcome to the world of a non with a BPD. It’s the most fucked up and dangerous thing I’ve ever been involved with and they don’t even realize just how toxic and mind bending it all is.
Help us non’s to understand you better because from what I see most men BPD’s don’t get help and even when they feign that they are getting help they totally find reasons to sabotage it. They are the best at living on a diet of excuses and justifications for sabotaging literally everything that they want to avoid. They hate responsibility, accountability and feel that they are the victims constantly being shunned, rejected or judged hence the reasons why they excuse themselves from everyone and everything and then blame it all on everything and everyone but themselves. It’s a no win situation and a killer of love. I mean is there a chance to be happy with a man who suffers from this horrifying illness? I can’t help but wonder if I will be utterly destroyed by the love of a BPD man. It is utterly ruled by jealousy, control issues and complete insecurity. I feel like I have to be the outer depiction of perfection in order to not provoke his fears.
Seriously we need more people like Steffan to write the truth and paint it as it is for the percentage of people that fall in this catagory. I have to be deaf dumb and blind to not admit that I can see the potential in my man losing it exactly as Steffan wrote it if provoked and given what he would classify as enough reason.
Thanks for sharing.
It’s always good with some first-hand info. Being in a relationship with a BPD must be a unique challenge, especially given how others will excuse them from a comfortable third person perspective.
Regarding the danger of these relationships, I’ll just repeat what I’ve said to others: you may consider anything less than a sincere willingness to seek help as a deal breaker. Hoping for things to improve without any intervention is naive and a risk for you. This goes for any personality disorder by the way.
Feel free to browse the comments here – there is some quality input from others in your situation that you may found useful.
Thank you for the blog. I am tired and sick of male borderlines stating that these sort of blogs are untrue and they have rejection issues and that women should stay with them, blahblah blah. I stayed with my BPD ex for 5 years… never cheated, never did anything for him not to trust me and guess what he did? He manipulated, cheated, lied, controlled me and humiliated me. After 5 years, when I left him finally because he cheated yet again, he made me feel guilty and a week later he “hooked” up with another woman. So, those who suffer from BPD, stop your whining about how people leave you. Normal people don’t act like that and if you do, people will definitely leave you or use you and then leave you.
Thanks for your comment.
Unfortunately they often have an idea that the world owes them, and the fact that other people are reluctant to criticize them probably makes this attitude even worse. If you make excuses for people and imply that they are entitled they will behave badly. That goes for 99 percent of the population.
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I believe it’s all relative. Of course the majority of traits diagnosed in personality disorders are normal human behaviors set on high.
So when does it become a diagnosable condition? Well when it ruins lives and believe me it does!
I’ve lived with 3 borderlines in my life (my mother being one of them) all 3 eventually professionally diagnosed as being such and Yes it’s pretty bad.
In fact saying its pretty bad is a vast understatement.
Until you’ve lived with these people you have no idea how unbelievable cluster B personality types really are. They traumatize people close to them in ways you couldn’t even imagine.
They are dangerous physically, emotionally, psychically… you name it.
They usually don’t change. They just grow out of it to a certain degree. But even then they still aren’t like other people.
I’ve read some of your arguments and please allow me to say this: I’ve met far more “normal” people who are brilliant and productive than I’ve ever met personality disordered people who are brilliant and productive.
That’s a myth.
Most personality disordered people contribute very little beyond heartache and pain to themselves and those around them. This “we’re destroying the free thinking genius world by using psychology upon them” crap .. is just that…crap.
Live with a few of them! You’ll see exactly what I mean and by the way you get to meet many of them when you live with just one because that’s what they’re attracted to.
So no they aren’t usually brilliant in any way other than trying to convince you that they’re brilliant. They’re far better at that than actual brilliance.
So lets just say their brilliance or genius lies in their ability to trick you into believing that they’re brilliant or genius. Stick around for a little while longer and the veil is easily removed to expose the true horror of it all.
Destructive? Oh yes! Ohhh yes! … Brilliant? Rarely.
Thanks,
I fully agree about this being personality rather than illness. In fact, I agree with Thomas Szasz that illness, disorder etc would require some organic failure and this is hard to find in psychiatry.
They are often very destructive (as I’ve elaborated on here), otherwise they wouldn’t turn up in jail on violent crime charges at the rate research indicates. As people who are often excused that is surely the tip of the iceberg.
I’m also not arguing that they are all brilliant, but I do get the impression that people showing signs of BPD are more common among for instance actors, musicians etc. But it would require research to settle the issue. Overall, creative people seem rare and probably make up only a minority in any psychiatric category.
Well put Staffan.
I was raised amongst these people hence my marrying one and living with another. I was the guy who saw the truth in early childhood and then studied psychology for about 20 years in order to heal from the trauma of it all.
Obviously that wasn’t enough.
Please don’t misunderstand… this doesn’t mean I’m claiming to be the authority on the subject. I’m certainly not an authority on the subject and will be the first to admit that.
I’ve simply lived with them, have loved them and have had plenty of personal experience with them. Too much actually.
They’re “brilliance” is usually surface. It’s read in books, copied down in their memory banks from others personalities and sucked out of the people around them then applied to their own lives like a shoddy patch quilt.
It lacks substance.
Very few possess talent in a heartfelt way. For example:
I dated and lived with one that went to a prestigious school of the arts BUT she wasn’t very talented in the grand scheme of things, showed very little interest in the subjects behind closed doors and neither did the majority of her artist friends who also attended the school.
They more so did it for the attention it brought them than the true love of the art form(s).
A couple of them were truly talented. Yes! The rest seemed to simply ride on their coat tails as if spending time with the truly talented ones somehow made them talented. They wanted what the others had.
They were actually best at:
Loathing themselves secretly or openly, gossiping about each other cruelly and incessantly, refusing to employ real empathy toward others when called for and attempting to garner obscene amounts of attention by just about any shameless means possible.
The initial interaction is stimulating. They are masters of disguise. Hang around for a little while and the veneer wears thin rather quickly.
This has been the case every time in my personal experience.
Now again I’m not an authority on the subject just someone with personal experience. So others may have had different experiences altogether with them.
They’re addictions, fears, anxieties, need for control etc. seem to be most important to them. Their need for instant gratification, some form of power and to be made the center of attention seems to outweigh their need to be a somewhat decent human being.
Let me put it to you this way:
True brilliance has follow through. Doing only half of the job well for vanities sake and then fouling up the other half to an absurd degree isn’t brilliant.
That’s called a self absorbed effort with a destructive ending. These people do only half of the job well most of the time. If that!
Now out in public depending upon the degree that they suffer from the condition and their intelligence level? That’s a different story yes. SOME can be amazing employees, business owners etc. and other can barely keep it together in public at all.
Behind close doors with their families? Watch out.
From my experience many of them have real potential to be a decent human being however there’s a fatal flaw hence them being diagnosed with a personality disorder.
It takes quite a bit of hardcore behavior to be legitimately diagnosed with BPD. I’ve seen it first hand and it’s not pretty. It’s extremely disturbing… Understatement.
They seem to posses no real ability to pursue humanity when the chips are down. Meanwhile they have no issues whatsoever with shamelessly attempting to drag you down to the darkest depths with them.
It can be truly traumatizing.
They may even relish in your pain between bouts of intense shame and self destruction. The truth seems to be their mortal enemy (one of many). Like a crucifix to a vampire literally.
Think I’m exaggerating? Live with one who has been diagnosed or is diagnosable.
No brilliance I know of views the truth as a mortal enemy. Maybe we have a different definition of brilliance and I respect that.
Have you ever seen the character Two Face in those Batman movies? That’s somewhat similar to what they can be like…
Except add intense shame/self loathing/self harm and possibly suicide to that.
Then you have a TRUE diagnosable borderline. It’s not pretty nor brilliant. It’s very sad and extremely toxic. Dangerous even.
Thanks for adding another interesting comment. Feel free to browse other comments btw as there is a lot of personal experience accounts in them. I have a bad feeling they are beginning to outweigh the importance of the original post : )
I see what you say and it probably depends on what kind of art we are talking about. Visual arts contain a lot of nonsense these days. I can see how BPDs may get into the fancier arts with the idea of quick and easy recognition, no doubt by leeching on real talents.
But I still think they have traits that lend themselves to creative expression, especially in performing arts. It’s nothing I can prove, it’s just an impression.
And yes, they can be very devastating, no argument there. I’ve seen this at a safe distance, knowing people who are immediately affected but not having much contact with the BPD herself. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ruin as many lives as psychopaths do or even more. After all, a psychopath typically uses people and moves on. They don’t drag you into their personal darkness the way some BPDs do.
(And not to piss off some people further, yes, I’m aware of the many BPDs who are empathic and who are struggling to solve their personal problems.)
Agree! Was always sceptical of their “special” IQ. Also, interestingly, I too met a whole mob, just because one person.
Brilliant comment.
Hi there,
Who can explain why this happens: when I reply on certain comment, it shows, as a reply to other…..comes up after several comments I don’t mean to reply?
What to do?
Yes, I find that very frustrating. It seems to be a feature of WordPress. I haven’t found any way to fix it.
BPD is often diagnosed in females than males. However, the symptoms tend to be more severe in men since men have the potential to be more aggressive than women. Females with BPD are very complex and delicate features. They tend to engage in self-destructive behavior in response to their inner pain and are usually very sensitive to rejection and isolation. Abuse and neglect experienced within an early invalidating environment makes it difficult to cope with adversity and establish healthy social and intimate relationships. Females with BPD often experience more mental breakdowns. This coupled with chronic emptiness increases the risk of suicide as they tend to engage in self-harm.
Men on the other hand exhibit the symptoms to a different extent. I feel it’s essentially ADHD on steroids. They tend to be more impulsive and disinhibited. Men are likely to externalize their emotions and conflicts which makes them more dangerous. They might physically abuse others even those who are close to them. The male borderline is likely to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol in order to cope with hostile thoughts. Raging testosterone levels often exacerbate aggressive behavior.
Thanks,
Men are definitely more physically dangerous, not only because they can but no doubt, as you say, because of testosterone levels.
“Abuse and neglect experienced within an early invalidating environment makes it difficult to cope with adversity and establish healthy social and intimate relationships.”
This is more doubtful as research on heredity leaves little room for this type of environmental influence (shared environment). If you’re interested, here is Jayman on the subject,
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