Guys - Have you ever wondered if your ex had a Personality Disorder?

[NG85]

I haven't been on this particular section for a while now, because I've worked on getting past my ex and moving on and trying to get new dates and start new relationships. For a while I had wondered why I was so obsessed with getting my ex back, especially since she had treated me so horribly during almost the last year of our relationship.

 

A friend of mine who has been studying psychology in school and has been dealing with a gf with severe depression forwarded me some links regarding Borderline Personality Disorder, which is what he believes his girlfriend had. Suddenly the pieces fit together, and I realized that my ex fit pretty much every criteria for BPD.

 

Symptoms include loss of self, heavy attachment, pushing you away yet having a feeling of abandonment, quick stormy relationships, victim complex, making up past events to make you question your history together, etc. Then when you break up, they have a tendency to jump into rebound relationships to keep from being alone, but still reach out to you, giving you false hope that they'll come back. If you're a stereotypical "nice guy", you've usually experienced this, as well, since people with PD's are generally attracted to people who are nice, emotionally strong, and willing to fix things.

 

Here's the link my friend sent to me. You can also find other articles about PD's in the "Articles" link: link removed

[Tryptophan]

Those criteria are just a guide. It usually takes hours upon hours to do personality testing, and there's rarely a personality diagnosis just because it could be a disorder but it could also just be a development phase. We like to label them because then maybe we'll understand their behavior. Regardless, it is still just a label. I was pretty sure my ex had Dependent Personality Disorder but then I just realized it was just traits and even with a diagnosis, it still hurt.

 

Don't focus on this stuff, it won't explain stuff any better. Focus on healing!

[Brownstone322]

While I don't doubt that borderline personality disorder exists, few on a site like this are qualified to discuss it in any level of detail (I'm not), and no one can diagnose that kinda thing outside a clinical environment. Not only that, I've seen lots of people here allege that their exes were "unstable" in some way. ("Bi-polar disorder" is a popular choice, but, again, moodiness is a far cry from manic-depression.)

 

I wouldn't give this topic too much thought. I think most jilted people would drop all talk of psychological disorders if their ex were to call them back and offer to start over.

[Edmund Exley]

While I don't doubt that borderline personality disorder exists, few on a site like this are qualified to discuss it in any level of detail (I'm not), and no one can diagnose that kinda thing outside a clinical environment. Not only that, I've seen lots of people here allege that their exes were "unstable" in some way. ("Bi-polar disorder" is a popular choice, but, again, moodiness is a far cry from manic-depression.)

 

I wouldn't give this topic too much thought. I think most jilted people would drop all talk of psychological disorders if their ex were to call them back and offer to start over.

 

Couldn't agree more. Its all part of the "bargaining" and "denial" phases.

 

Denial - My ex is just confused because they (fill in the blank)"

Bargaining - "He/She has (insert affliction) and if I could just help him/her we would be happy again"

[Cheetarah]

While I don't doubt that borderline personality disorder exists, few on a site like this are qualified to discuss it in any level of detail (I'm not), and no one can diagnose that kinda thing outside a clinical environment. Not only that, I've seen lots of people here allege that their exes were "unstable" in some way. ("Bi-polar disorder" is a popular choice, but, again, moodiness is a far cry from manic-depression.)

 

I wouldn't give this topic too much thought. I think most jilted people would drop all talk of psychological disorders if their ex were to call them back and offer to start over.

 

Totally. Have seen it on this forum a few times, already - Talk of BPD, NPD, HPD, ABC, XYZ, ex calls, and all is well and there was never a problem.

 

 

Oh, I could have a field day with this one.

 

OP - If your ex had a personality disorder or other serious mental illness, you wouldn't JUST NOW be noticing all the crazy-making, abusiveness, tantrums, black and white thinking, splitting, blah blah blah. Trust me - This stuff is not hard to miss. You would know something was way the hell wrong looooooong ago.

 

making up past events to make you question your history together, etc

 

What? Is this a new symptom of BPD? I don't see this listed on the DSM-IV

 

Remember that your own cognition is distorted while you try to sort through the feelings of a break-up.

[Brownstone322]

Totally. Have seen it on this forum a few times, already - Talk of BPD, NPD, HPD, ABC, XYZ, ex calls, and all is well and there was never a problem.

Not to make light of a serious topic ... but that's hilarious.

 

Remember that your own cognition is distorted while you try to sort through the feelings of a break-up.

This is a great point, and the ramifications go way beyond this thread. Every conflict we read about here (including my own) is filtered through the perspective of one side. I'd love to see the other side of some of these break-up stories. It'd probably be eye-opening.

[NG85]

Totally. Have seen it on this forum a few times, already - Talk of BPD, NPD, HPD, ABC, XYZ, ex calls, and all is well and there was never a problem.

 

 

Oh, I could have a field day with this one.

 

OP - If your ex had a personality disorder or other serious mental illness, you wouldn't JUST NOW be noticing all the crazy-making, abusiveness, tantrums, black and white thinking, splitting, blah blah blah. Trust me - This stuff is not hard to miss. You would know something was way the hell wrong looooooong ago.

 

Remember that your own cognition is distorted while you try to sort through the feelings of a break-up.

 

This is true, but many times hindsight is 20/20. I tried to ignore many issues in the relationship in order to make it work, but looking back I can see how unhealthy it really was. Maybe she doesn't have a PD, but in that link I posted she continuously displayed all of those behaviors, more and more so as the relationship went on. I stuck around because she seemed so sweet and amazing in the beginning, but once we were official things began to turn sour. I'm not a doctor (I just play one on TV), and even if mine or anyone else's exes didn't actually have a PD, these symptoms should be red flags no matter the situation. And a psychiatrist can't officially diagnose a person with a disorder unless they comply....And many times people who do have PD's will vehemently deny it and refuse to go to therapy because they feel the problem is with everyone else.

[BONO]

It turns out my ex dumped me because she had a Yoga accident.

 

Doctors soon recovered her head, that was up her ass !!!

[BONO]

When they cheer up ? lol

 

While I don't doubt that borderline personality disorder exists, few on a site like this are qualified to discuss it in any level of detail (I'm not), and no one can diagnose that kinda thing outside a clinical environment. Not only that, I've seen lots of people here allege that their exes were "unstable" in some way. ("Bi-polar disorder" is a popular choice, but, again, moodiness is a far cry from manic-depression.)

 

I wouldn't give this topic too much thought. I think most jilted people would drop all talk of psychological disorders if their ex were to call them back and offer to start over.

[Cheetarah]

From your past threads -

 

- Broke up 5 months ago mutually with no hard feelings, distance was really hard on us. We still spoke every once in a while like we were friends following the break-up. There was a possibility of reconciliation

 

I was with my last girlfriend for 2 years. It was my most successful relationship and I was glad to have her. Not only were we bf/gf, we were also best friends, and I really valued that. However, we spent a lot of the relationship as a LDR couple, and it caused a lot of tension.

 

The most successful relationship? A relationship with someone with a personality disorder would not even be remotely close to such a thing.

 

There's no mutual break-up with no hard feelings, with someone who has untreated BPD. I'm no psychologist, I'm not a mental health professional, but I was diagnosed with it 14 years ago and have been in therapy for most of those 14 years. My ex also has BPD(untreated), I have been in skills groups that continuously exposed me to others with the disorder, and there is nothing subtle about it.

 

You mentioned in another thread of yours that she was making life changes and that's when things got rough between the two of you - She also dated someone new several weeks after your break-up and took things at a quick speed(talking about moving in within a week vs. you two taking 2 years to even consider getting to that point).

 

Now, I'm not gonna lie, taking that speed in a relationship is almost always guaranteed to have a fast crash. "Whatever starts in chaos, ends in chaos." Not grounds for a disorder, though.

 

But, my friend, if these things were issues within the relationship, how come they weren't mentioned in your numerous threads?

 

It sounds like she rebounded, kept you on a short leash for awhile, and you need to rationalize things, why she did it and why you let it happen.

 

And just say, that she does have some sort of disorder - Ok, you know what to avoid in the future, great, everyone should watch out for their own welfare - But what does it matter other than that? She's not in your life. Have you stopped to think about your own issues? If she does, in fact, have this disorder or the traits of it - What about you? What are you missing that you'd hang around and deal with an abusive relationship? No two people form an unhealthy attachment/relationship with both of them being healthy. There's dysfunction on both sides.

 

And one last question - Was it a mistake in putting this on the "Getting Back Together" section? Is that ultimately what you wish for?

[roadrunner12]

Not to make light of a serious topic ... but that's hilarious.

 

 

This is a great point, and the ramifications go way beyond this thread. Every conflict we read about here (including my own) is filtered through the perspective of one side. I'd love to see the other side of some of these break-up stories. It'd probably be eye-opening.

 

 

Id love to hear the other side of my break-up story. Im sure it would be eye-opening for me. I was dumped suddenly out of the blue by a text message. You always read on these boards, accept your role and responsibility for the break up. You end up analyzing what you think went wrong and what you did, if anything that contributed to your getting dumped.

 

Learn from the relationship so you can use it to improve your next relationship.

 

Was I too needy, too much of a nice guy, did she think I was possibly BPD or anything else, etc. etc?

 

I know you have to move on but again sometimes you just really try and dig deep to see where you could improve yourself but come up a little empty.

 

Yes there are two sides to every story.

[Edmund Exley]

Id love to hear the other side of my break-up story. Im sure it would be eye-opening for me. I was dumped suddenly out of the blue by a text message. You always read on these boards, accept your role and responsibility for the break up. You end up analyzing what you think went wrong and what you did, if anything that contributed to your getting dumped.

 

Learn from the relationship so you can use it to improve your next relationship.

 

Was I too needy, too much of a nice guy, did she think I was possibly BPD or anything else, etc. etc?

 

I know you have to move on but again sometimes you just really try and dig deep to see where you could improve yourself but come up a little empty.

 

Yes there are two sides to every story.

 

Only once have I received the other persons version of the breakup and it was 10 long years post break up, even though we had remained "friends" throughout.

 

Her version was nothing even remotely close to the version I had in my mind.

[BONO]

[quote

 

Learn from the relationship so you can use it to improve your next relationship.

 

Yes there are two sides to every story.

 

Very true.

[Cheetarah]

Only once have I received the other persons version of the breakup and it was 10 long years post break up, even though we had remained "friends" throughout.

 

Her version was nothing even remotely close to the version I had in my mind.

 

Same here. He thought we broke up due to financial concerns - We broke up because I felt I was dysfunctional and he was temperamental and we were emotionally hurting each other. When I brought those things to light, he was like "Really? That's a big deal? That's normal to me, I thought it was the money thing."

 

 

[lucasky]

Standard breakup behaviour:

Trying to diagnose your ex with a personality disorder(s) in order to better understand or justify the breakup.

 

Reality of this:

You may have known your ex best - but only from your own viewpoint. Only a trained professional that could give an objective analysis could really diagnose someone.

 

While it may be interesting or fun thinking she had or has BPD, your view is probably skewed.

 

Likewise, if your friend is Psychology major in school, I doubt he's really skilled enough to diagnose anything. That stuff is pretty general.