[SaraSkyblue]

Ok, so I wasn't really sure if I should post this in the BPD forum or here. But I think this would be the most helpful because I know BPD backwards, forwards, and inside out. The problem I'm having is not understanding Bipolar AT ALL.

So I've been with my boyfriend for a couple months now, and it's been wonderful. But it's also been the hardest couple of months I've ever had in a relationship. When things are going good they are better and easier than I ever thought a relationship could be. But there is one major thing that I feel is the reason things are hard. He's Bipolar, and I have Borderline Personality Disorder. At first when he told me he was Bipolar I didn't real think it would be an issue at all. They do after all say professionals have a really hard time separating the two disorders because they are so similar. So we should understand each other right? If our disorders are so similar it should be really easy right?

WRONG.

I COULDN'T BE MORE WRONG.

I guess I can see how they are similar, but oh my goodness. The only real issue is when we are fighting, and I'll tell you why, ME. So if you know nothing about BPD...I can't really explain it in short form. Like it LITERALLY makes NO sense to someone who doesn't have a BPD brain. BP is a chemical thing and BPD is like....not. OK I TRIED. I can't think of a short way to explain it. I'll post the Google definition for those who don't know what it is, only because I think it's important for the story. So here's the part that makes our fights so bad.
"Borderline personality disorder is ultimately characterized by the emotional turmoil it causes. People who have it feel emotions intensely and for long periods of time, and it is harder for them to return to a stable baseline after an emotionally intense event."

...This post is a train wreck...

I'M SORRY.

Basically I'm CRAZY emotional. He can just change the tone in his voice and I'll pick up on it and think I did something wrong and ask over and over and over if he's ok. He says nothing is wrong and he gets that tone when he's tired or not feeling anything. (which having BPD I literally have NO IDEA how someone can not be feeling anything, like is this a thing???) But I can't make myself listen...and I'll keep asking. Then he DOES get mad. And we will fight. BAD. Then he needs a lot of time to cool down and he goes back to that "unemotional" place. Someone please help me understand Bipolar. Being BPD I can go 0-100 in zero seconds flat, then go to 20, 80, -30, 200, and back in under a minute. I'm up and down and all over the place, my emotions run my life. And for some reason him just being chill and doing nothing triggers me really bad and sends me UP THE WALL. It makes me so anxious. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And his emotions change out of nowhere, not like what people stereotype BP to be like, in all honesty BPD is MUCH closer to the stereotype of BP if you ask me. But I mean like he can just get that blank emotionless feel out of nowhere, then he can also get depressed out of nowhere. The only reason it's an issue is because I want to fix it, I want to make him happy again. But that blank feeling is not a bad thing right? Normal people feel like that too don't they? Is there anything I can even do? Or does he just have to ride it out? I really hope I'm not offending anyone. I'm 100% not educated about this.

I guess the main reason I'm writing this is I want someone to explain BP to me better, I want to be able to UNDERSTAND what he's going through. What things help? What makes things worse? What things do I just need to let him work through? I know you might say "just ask him" but we tried that. We can't talk on the same level. Like we can't get each other to understand each other. I'm pushing him to the edge. Like he had very good control of his BP until me. We trigger the worst in each other. I'm starting therapy again next month, so things should get better. Thank you for reading down this far, I'm sorry this was so....badly put together. Like I know what I want, but I can't get the right words.....

Any help would be amazing. I also think I might post something about this in the BPD forum too. I don't know.....I'm falling apart here. Sorry.

[Cavegirl]

Hello there...I saw your other thread.
This post is a lot more in depth...and don't worry, it reads just fine.
I'm diagnosed with both BPD and Bipolar. Co-existing and intermingling...ugh.
I identify with your thought process. No middle ground/grey area.
Breathe...take a step back.
Both are pretty complex, and sometimes overthinking can lead to utter frustration. That for me is unbearable.
There are so many areas of bi-polar and I'm not sure which symptoms are most dominant in your boyfriend. I read a really great article recently in psych central. I am going to try and find it. I'll be back with it and post the link.
For now... understand...maybe he doesn't want your help...maybe he needs to ride an episode out and has his own methods of doing so. I have no coping skills whatsoever. He may have good coping skills, and that's a really good thing.

[SaraSkyblue]

Thanks. That really helps. I also don't know what symptoms are dominant in him because I don't know anything about it. And I'm sure he doesn't want my help....But I don't know how to not try to give it...

[Cavegirl]

Hi.
Took me a little while to track that down.
For me...this article broke it down in layman's terms.
Again...this is not black and white by any means. So...trying to "understand" in those terms will be very difficult.

Diagnosis | PsychEducation,

[Trippin2.0]

Have you tried DBT?


It helped me immensely, I now have a tiny window between emotion and reaction, which is an absolute Godsend.


I am on my second round of DBT to make that tiny window even bigger, because it has literally saved my relationship and my sanity.


I have a dual dx too (BP + BPD) my bf's calm manner used to set me off as well, now he barely triggers me and when he does, it doesn't become a whole big thing and turn into an argument.


It's just something I have to process, and sometimes he helps me to do so.


Seriously, you'll have more control and more luck working on yourself than working on him, think about it.

Wow, SaraSkyBlue. You speak some serious truth!!! I'm also in a "mixed" relationship, but gender-reversed. (Or disorder reversed!) I'm the one with BP and BF's the BPD one.

I could not POSSIBLY relate more than to your experience of (early on) not understanding his deal AT ALL! And a giant YES to calling out this (nonsense) idea of them being "so" similar. So NOT similar! Otherwise, why would either of us find our SO's behavior so foreign??!!!

Thank you so much!
I want to write more, but trying to break it out on a phone (computer's completely wonky and unreliable) is beyond my concentration ability (compounded by the additional spacecase-edness of waking up too early). But I will try later. The computer will decide, lol. But in the meanwhile, I just HAD to comment and thank you.

P.s. We've been together 6 years. It's been the wildest ride of my life (numerous decades). It's not exaggeration to say I've been both to heaven and through soul-ripping hell.
Yup, I'm stubborn. (But let's call it dedicated. Or devoted. Or loyal. Or stupid, lol. )

P.P.S. Trippin gives very wise advice.

[SaraSkyblue]

You're reply literally is the only thing keeping me hanging on right now. I'm at my edge, and knowing that this relationship is possible gives me hope. Thank you for the reply....I feel like I annoy people with my posts more than anything....

[Victoria'smom]

I know very little about BPD accept I was wrongly dx. ones with it. If your boyfriend is "blank" at times sounds like his meds are to high unless you mean calm. Yes moods hit us out of nowhere that's part of why it's so hard. I don't know what his symptoms are but I can say it's not your fault and just try to ride the wave with him.

[Icare dixit]

Some with BP might be far more like you and some less so. Some have difficulty withstanding a borderline personality attack, so to speak, some are great at it (either because they have at least some aspects of a borderline personality or because they have some more SZ abilities).

It's important to establish what is the reason behind his passivity, if that's what it is. If he's in great pain, you might think you pick up on emotions, but you don't. It's not uncommon with a borderline personality. When reacting, it's likely you distance/detach yourself from your emotions, which means you cannot pick up on his emotions. You should stop. You have no idea how much you hurt him.

If it's more SZ-like, emotional detachment, distancing, very similar to borderline personality but also unlike it, far more under control, you can't hurt him. So don't try to (which you do, if a borderline personality causes your reaction). It's useless. You might be the (only) one with a problem.

Do know which it is. The first possibility can traumatise someone further. Depression is something you can make worse. Not just a current depression, but any future ones.

You may not think so, but (I believe and experience) that it may not appear like it, but a borderline personality is very much unemotional, as well as emotional. BP can be very much the opposite: it looks like there's emotional detachment, but there are extreme emotions instead.

I don't believe anyone who says they know all there is to know about borderline personalities. If that were true, you wouldn't have one.

Be careful with others and with yourself.

[Icare dixit]

Really get this (of course, having a borderline personality, I'm not sure, but I believe it, having BP, actually schizomania): a borderline personality is a extremely powerful defence mechanism, extremely powerful, and it can be extremely destructive for some people, still far more so than it is for you. I strongly believe it can literally make someone schizophrenic, if they have a/the vulnerability, but it can "kill" people with severe depression.

I traumatised (our BP mother didn't help) my sister severely. Luckily, she doesn't have much of a vulnerability for severe depression, but she's nevertheless in therapy.

Just out of curiosity, but it may help with assessing what's "wrong" with your boyfriend, do you have any siblings? Do they, or does he/she, act similarly to your boyfriend?

Hi SaraSkyBlue! Sorry to take so long getting back. I don't mean to be flakey. Computer has not been cooperative, so the phone it is. Unfortunately, that means no tidy layout with multiple quotation zones. Warning: very long.

I had to smile a bit when you remembered thinking his BP wouldn't be an issue at all. Neither did my BF! Until he actually saw episodes. It was pretty obvious it was not what he had figured on.

I can relate to the fighting issue. He fans that fire for sure. I can get pretty emotional, but it is often a case of him knowing exactly where my buttons are. He's tuned into that kind of thing. He thinks that I can't feel/understand his pain, so if he's going to hit emotional overload, by God, he's going to try to make me go there too. So I can "understand" his pain. But it doesn't accomplish that. I want to problem solve. Work as a team. Figure out a win/win. But that's hard to do when an emotional tsunami hits. He wants to explode with some kind of proclamation -- very black/white stuff. In one stroke, I am villianized, and the of all problems. The hit-and-run style. There is no need to hear "my side", because he already "knows" it. But it's based on a lot of assumption and misinterpretation. Too much reading into. It's something to be careful of. The danger in feeling so attuned (like what you mention about the slightest change of tone) is that meaning gets ascribed where none is intended. You're frustrated because he won't acknowledge/admit this interpretation, and he's frustrated because he suddenly has to respond to something that didn't exist to him. Maybe his head is spinning trying to figure out where the dots are, let alone how they got connected. But it's been pushed into responding. And like you say, then he DOES get mad.

Well.... yeah. (I *think* DBT might be a help with that. Would part of distress tolerance be the not getting so worked up and feeling compelled to push things(?)) Takes me quite awhile to get back to calm too. Fair to say that's pretty common with BP. (Is that not also so with BPD? Are you able to calm down quickly afterwards? I get the whole being "so angry or sad, then something nice happens and suddenly it's all good again" BPD thing, but... In the absence of that "change-maker" (ie., because he is still upset), can you still?)

You said your emotions run your life. DBT is all about that for sure -- getting those emotions out of the driver's seat! One time, I remember my BF exclaiming, "I am NOT going to let my emotions rule my life anymore!!" (Can I get that in writing? ) To be fair, he'd like banishment of some of my dealiwogs in writing too.

You said, "And his emotions change out of nowhere, not like what people stereotype BP to be like. In all honesty, BPD is MUCH closer to the stereotype of BP..."
I very much agree with this. BPD switches appear to be out of nowhere, but BP switches actually can be out of nowhere. No trigger required. This baffles my BF too. But there it is. The stereotype is frustrating, because so often the level of chaos attributed to BP actually describes BPD. I've always felt bad for the level of chaos in BPD folk's emotional lives. It must be exhausting. (Insert plug for DBT here )

Blank out of nowhere. Depressed out of nowhere. Yes. And there really isn't anything you can do about it. Pushing, as in the fighting situation, will not help. It can even make it worse. Why? Because BP folks are forever being told if they just did this that or the other, it'd all be good. A) If it were that simple, we'd have done it long ago and B) it can be guilt-producing. And depression is Guilt Land as it is. Yes, he just has to ride it out. You can't fix it.

Sorry. This is ridiculously long!! I'm going to do a separate post in response to the rest. Because if I hit something wrong and the whole thing disappeared, I'd

P.s. And especially in regards to conflict. I can powder keg explode with the best if 'em. I am no saint! I do believe in fighting fair, and try to follow it. But ye gawds I can be rageful too. (Not all BPs are though! I want to put in a word for the ones who don't rage, because Too many people assume otherwise.)

Ok, where were we?
What helps, what doesn't, do's, don'ts and sundry miscellanea.

Re: Feeling nothing. Yes, that's a thing. Sometimes it's anhedonia. I had a bad spell of it one time where I tried to figure out how to describe it. Here it is... That something I'd normally feel very strongly towards had all the emotional impact of a paper towel.
I've found that feeling nothing can also be from overload. It's pretty common with BP to become more easily overwhelmed than the average bear. For me anyway, this can result in just going blank. Like my brain has shorted out. You can't fix a short out. It'll pass.

Re: triggering the worst in each other. Ooooooh, yes. This can be a thing. A minefield thing. It's not like things are going to sync up. They won't. If I had to name the #1 difficulty in having a BP and BPD relationship, this would be it. Stress can be a big factor in setting off or exacerbating BP mood episodes. Chaos is stressful. BPD is chaotic. This is why it's important for each to do their best in managing their condition. So, for example, the person with BPD would be diligent in working with their DBT, therapist, etc. The BP person would be diligent in taking their meds (or alternative approach, but for most we'd be talking meds), getting good regular sleep etc. Everyone would benefit from healthy eating, exercise etc.
I won't lie. It is a HARD combo.

In terms if overall do's and don'ts... There have been threads on this where people say what they consider helpful and unhelpful. There's not as much consensus as you might think. For example, what one person finds caring, another may find overbearing. Whatever you do, avoid infantilizing. We don't like someone saying, "are you taking your meds?" whenever we get justifiably upset about something (or happy!). We are entitled to have emotions like everybody else. The corollary of this is that every little thing we do is NOT attributable to BP! We've all got different personalities, strengths, weaknesses. We're not one size fits all. We're regular people. We've just got some stuff that can cause problems for us.

When you say "asking him", has not been terribly helpful, that's not totally shocking. Sometimes it's hard to articulate what we need. Sometimes we just don't know(!) (This is true of non-BPs too, of course.) Especially for anyone not accustomed to having a support network. Some people are comfortable accepting help from others. Others are not. Respect where he's at with that. People with BP have a range of insight (awareness and understanding of what's going on with themselves). Sometimes others need to step in if it's gone wonky, but no one's going to like someone being overzealous in that (see infantilizing).

Main thing: Respect where he's at with these things. Respect and patience. I think we can all get behind those.

Hope that was helpful.