The Other Side of BPD
A.J. Mahari's Ebooks
Non Borderline Confusion – Why Does The Borderline Do What He or She Does?
© A.J. Mahari, September 7, 2007
Are you a non borderline in a significant other relationship with someone who you suspect or know has Borderline Personality Disorder?
Are you confused and hurting because you don’t know whether you are coming or going? Are you hurt and/or upset often? Are you experiencing this boy/girlfriend or spouse or partner as loving one minute, angry, raging, and/or abusive the next minute? Are you walking on egg shells?
The question I am asked most often in email, and there are many, relates to what I think is the confusion of many non borderlines. Whether or not the question is asked in these words or not, most emails include the question, “Why Does The Borderline Do What He or She Does?”
- Purchase all 3 of ebooks for NON BORDERLINES packaged together with or without audio.
- Non Borderlines - You can purchase 6 ebooks packaged together with or without audio.
- Those with BPD and/or Non Borderlines can purchase A.J. Mahari's 3 "Core Wound of Abandonment" series ebooks packaged together with or without audio.
And usually after that part of the many emails I get each week from non borderlines who are seeking deeper understanding of what is going on their relationships non borderlines go on to describe very painful and often tragic experiences with those with BPD. And even in the face of all that many borderlines do to nons – including all forms of abuse – even physical abuse – non borderlines continue to wonder what they can do to create change or help the borderline and to make the relationship better.
One non borderline writes:
“I have a girlfriend who really acts in ways that I find strange and very hurtful. Ways that leave me feeling crazy actually. Is it me? She can be very loving one minute and then suddenly fly into these very frightening rages. I really don’t understand what she’s raging about. It really seems to me that much of what she rages about is from whatever is in her head and not really from anything actually going on – does that make sense? I feel like I am always walking on eggshells. Often, in fact, usually, after each rage, and I have been physically assaulted now 6 times during her rages, she will cry and say that she didn’t know what she was thinking or why she did what she just did. She says she loves me a lot. She can be so sweet. Then she accuses me almost daily of cheating on her. I am so confused. She often disappears for hours at a time with no explanation whatsoever.
If I want to go out or go home, when I leave she cries and if I decide to stay when she cries because I think that is what she wants me to do she says I am crowding her. Then he put Next thing you know she will tell me how wonderful I am and how handsome I am only to turn around seconds later and tell me I am full of myself, rude, uncaring, and ugly.
How do I make sense out of this? Is it about her abandonment issues? She also is drinking and using drugs and most often lies about both.
Help me, please, I am really suffering here.”
Bob W – Ottawa, Canada
Another non borderline writes:
”I think I am married to a man who likely has BPD. I have been in this roller coaster marriage for 30 years. He can be a very decent and caring man on the one hand. On the other hand he often will just fly into a rage over what seem like endless triggers. There aren’t even enough egg shells for me to walk on anymore. He is very moody. His moods are dark and dangerous.
I have tried and tried to get him to go to therapy. He went a couple of times but really only gave it lip service and refused to go back. Finally, a few years later he did go to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for a while but absolutely nothing changed. He told me that he was sexually abused as child. I really feel for him. I know he’s in a lot of pain.
He only rages and gets abusive with my, my children (now adults) and no one else. Everyone I have tried over the years to talk to about him listens but doesn’t seem to believe me really.
The really weird thing to me is that if I try to talk about how I feel, scared, or anxious, and those kinds of things he goes nuts. It seems like if I am okay – he is okay. I don’t understand this. This life I’ve been leading is really taking a toll on my health now. I am 66 years old and left to wonder, there must be more to life than this right?”
Mary Armstrong, U.K.
People with Borderline Personality Disorder are, even when they don’t realize it, in a great deal of pain. However, each one of us can only address our own pain. We cannot influence or make someone else want to heal their pain. If the borderline you are with refused to go to therapy and really work at it then you have to rationally know that nothing is going to change. At this point any hope you are holding onto is false hope
.Non borderlines who put most, if not all, of their focus on the borderline risk losing themselves and living very unhappy, unfulfilled and stressful lives.
Non borderlines often justify the behaviour of the borderline in their life. One non borderline wrote to me describing many similar things as the two nons above did but she made a point to say that although the borderline in her life – her husband – raged at her and verbally and emotionally was doing a lot of damage to her, at least, he didn’t hit her.
What happens to people who get involved with those with BPD that they can rationalize verbal and emotional abuse and think that it is okay or choose to “take it” thinking it isn’t important or something because they haven’t been hit? And how is it that so many nons stay with borderlines who have hit them, verbally and emotionally also abused them and who will do this time and time again?
Are you one of those non borderlines? Are you putting up with unspeakable pain, misery, unpredictability and unhappiness? If so, why? I can’t tell you why you are making the choices that you are making or what you "should" do, but, I can tell you that you deserve much better and challenge you to really think about the choices that you are making.
In my newest audio program, “Breaking Free From The Maze of BPD – Recovery For Non Borderlines” I address these issues in the hope that it will really give non borderlines the food for thought and the understanding they may need to hear from someone else to know that they aren’t alone and that they aren’t crazy. If you are a non borderline and living in the kind of situations and relationships that the nons above are I hope that you will think about purchasing this audio program and take the journey that I present for you in it to go deeper and to think about what it is that you really want and need in your life.
This audio program is 1 hour and 25 minutes of Mahari's must hear insight and experience. In the audio program, "Breaking Free of The Borderline Maze - Recovery For Non Borderlines" A.J. Mahari speaks from the heart and from experience to those Non Borderlines who need to end their relationship with someone with BPD. She also speaks directly to those who may have ended a relationship but are still having trouble letting go and who may still be more focused on the borderline to the point that it is not good for their own mental health.
As someone who has recovered from BPD, and who then was in a relationship with someone who has BPD, I can tell you that doing the same things, living the same life, putting up with the excuses, the borderline behaviour and lack of personal responsibility cannot be changed by you = no matter how hard or how long you try.
I ended the relationship with the borderline I was with because it was crazy-making, painful and unhealthy. I was not prepared to, in any way, settle for that. I did try to rescue my borderline ex and so I speak from experience when I say that as non borderlines it simply cannot be done. If you can believe that, if you know that, at least, intellectually, then you must ask yourself, today, what am I doing and why?
My question to you today is if you are still stuck in the painful circles of worrying about or wondering why borderlines do what they do, what about you? What about you? I could actually, as I do in many of my articles and ebooks, explain most everything to you about Borderline Personality Disorder and why borderlines do what they do - and if you want to understand more please do check out those articles and ebooks, but the truth is this - no matter how much you know about, or understand BPD you cannot rescue, save, or change the borderline in your life.
I had BPD for 33 years of my life. I know it inside and out. I write about it. I have these web sites, and guess what, I still ended up, not only in a relationship with someone with BPD, but trying to rescue, help, and save them, and humbly, I say to you, that in spite of all that I do know about both sides of BPD I could not save my borderline ex at all - I had to save myself. Each and every one of us can only effect change in our own lives - we cannot do this in the lives of others, no matter how much we may love them or care about them - and not even when we NEED that change to save a relationship - not even then.
My audio program might be a very helpful and supportive exploration for you of what might still have you confused or even in denial. I hope that you will find a way to stop negating the reality of your situation. Haven't you suffered enough?
- Purchase all 3 of ebooks for NON BORDERLINES packaged together with or without audio.
- Non Borderlines - You can purchase 6 ebooks packaged together with or without audio.
- Those with BPD and/or Non Borderlines can purchase A.J. Mahari's 3 "Core Wound of Abandonment" series ebooks packaged together with or without audio.
