Individuals with symptoms of borderline personality disorder may experience great pain when their romantic partners leave them. If you are breaking up with someone with BPD, being compassionate and gentle will benefit both you and your loved one. Blame and defensiveness is best avoided when breaking up a relationship.
In many of these cases, some couples choose not to stay together. The reasons for splitting up can vary. For the partners of people with BPD, making the decision to end a relationship can be agonizing. On the other hand, circumstances may make continuing in the relationship impossible.
Impact of BPD Abandonment Fears
People with BPD may simultaneously fear abandonment and have symptoms that create conflicts with others. For instance, they might display volatile moods, distress intolerance, extremes of anger and withdrawal, and impulsivity. People with BPD often engage in self-sabotaging behavior.
It is essential that you remain calm and respectful at all times. Individuals who struggle with symptoms of BPD tend to lash out when feeling attacked or frustrated. This is almost certain to happen when you reject them. While it might seem natural to mirror their hurt and anger, this will only escalate the situation.
Pulling someone into a close relationship and then pushing that person away repeatedly is one of the most well-known symptoms of BPD. It causes the person in question to be confused about where they stand in the relationship.
The individual with BPD tends to blame themselves for the breakup and may experience an increase in depression, anxiety, anger and self-harming behaviors.
Maintaining a relationship with a friend or family member with BPD can be difficult. However, it's important to understand that people with BPD often engage in destructive behaviors not because they intend to hurt you but because their suffering is so intense that they feel they have no other way to survive.
Because people with BPD have an intense fear of abandonment, a breakup can leave them feeling desperate and devastated. This is why it's a good idea to have a support network for you and partner, especially if a breakup may occur. This network often includes a mental health professional.
Even though a BP/NP may say he or she is sorry, there may be something lacking. The BP/NP may regret an action, but it is hard to see true remorse in their response.
Although BPD personalities initiate a break-up as a way of seeking validation, because of the intense anxiety at play, they'll often express intense regret because of their abandonment wounding, especially if they're not met with the response they desire.
Separations, disagreements, and rejections—real or perceived—are the most common triggers for symptoms. A person with BPD is highly sensitive to abandonment and being alone, which brings about intense feelings of anger, fear, suicidal thoughts and self-harm, and very impulsive decisions.
BPD splitting episodes do not have a time limit. They can last anywhere from a few hours to a few months. In some cases, the person with BPD may split on a person, situation, or item forever and never back away from their extreme view.
Loneliness may be common with BPD, but it's not impossible to overcome. There are many strategies you can use to feel less alone, such as joining a support group, taking classes, caring for an animal, and finding new ways to communicate with your loved ones. You may also want to consider engaging in therapy.
BPD Triggers Loneliness and Isolation
It may spring from your fear of being rejected or abandoned. This fear can make you feel lonely, even when you have a partner or loving family. Also typical with borderline personality is co-occurring mental illness. One of the most common is depression.
One of the key features of BPD is the push-pull dynamics, which occur when individuals have a strong urge for intimacy and deep connection with someone, but their fear of rejection and abandonment leads them to push the person away.
BPD splitting is characterized by a rapid, extreme change in how a person or situation is perceived. The perception may go back and forth between "good" and "bad" or remain static once the altered perception is declared. In the first situation, the switch is often referenced by the action of the other person.
Dating someone with borderline personality disorder can be challenging. Your partner may have major difficulties with strong emotions, drastic mood swings, chronic fear of abandonment, and impulsive behaviors that can strain your relationship with chaos and instability.
Shifting Self-Image
A person with borderline personality disorder is often unable to trust their own feelings or reactions. Lacking a strong sense of self leads to a sense of emptiness and sometimes a sense of being non-existent, which is another reason BPD hurts so much.
“People with BPD lie often, but it is not because they are pathological liars,” says Nikki Instone, Ph. D. “Lying is not a symptom of the disorder so much as a consequence of their internal battle.” Lying is really rooted in emotional dysregulation, which is one of the main symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder.
This can be tremendously frustrating for friends and family members. It's important to understand that the person with BPD isn't consciously lying—he truly believes his viewpoint is correct even when it's blatantly false.
The actions of people who have BPD can indeed feel manipulative. However, the word 'manipulative', with its pejorative suggestions of malicious scheming, does not capture the true nature of BPD-spurred behavior.
However, it is important to note that some couples may stay together for over 20 years, whereas other anecdotal evidence from personal experiences suggests that relationships lasting between 2-4 years are more common.
However, if the favorite person does something that the individual perceives as abandonment or rejection, they may feel overwhelmed by negative emotions, such as anger, sadness, or anxiety. These emotions can be all-consuming, leading to suicidal ideation, self-harm, or impulsive behavior.