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Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

journals.sagepub.com

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Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#91
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say a bit more about the headspace

My wife has it, mainly she is unable to conceptualize that she is wrong and thus never learns from experience. For example she started a lawsuit against the neighbors, that she funnels tens of thousands of dollars toward because she thought the property line was further into their yard than it actually is. She recently told me we own the entire town and made some nonsensical statements to justify that belief. I'm goi…

> mainly she is unable to conceptualize that she is wrong and thus never learns from experience.

Yep. That sounds familiar.

> She acts out in order to gain attention. From ruining the family finances like in the first example to engaging in affairs and luring men from the internet to appear at the house.

Yep.

> She has made false claims against me to the police.

Not exactly but in the neighborhood.

> Refuses to clean up after herself, leaving huge messes, while complaining about a single item I might leave out.

Mine was a hoarder. Otherwise, yep.

> She lies, a lot. She doesn't seem to understand that I don't trust her anymore after all the lies, to her that's in the past even if it was a few minutes ago.

...while she keenly remembers the smallest of slights from decades ago.

> I'm stuck due to my kid and family courts bias in favor of mothers. 14 more years.

By the time mine got thru a paragraph, the judge would be giving me that look. I know that because judges routinely gave that look. Criminal judges, that is.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife has it, mainly she is unable to conceptualize that she is wrong and thus never learns from experience. For example she started a lawsuit against the neighbors, that she funnels tens of thousands of dollars toward because she thought the property line was further into their yard than it actually is. She recently told me we own the entire town and made some nonsensical statements to justify that belief. I'm goi…

Honestly, that sounds a lot different from BPD, like a separate disorder altogether. Sorry, I don't mean to belittle what you go through, it sounds terrible. But I have to "defend" people with BPD against it, because I have people close to me with that affliction. What you describe sounds more like a very narcissistic person instead.

> that sounds a lot different from BPD, like a ... very narcissistic person instead.

Both is more likely. There's tons of overlap between the symptom groups.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am familiar with the symptoms. I still think you deal with an actual narcissist, not with someone with BPD. The symptoms may have some overlap, but it's different. For example, where in that article do you see that people with BPD can be so straight up delusional that they think they "own the town"? Notice that the words "lie" or "lying" do not even appear in the article. In my experience, presenting a BPD-afflicte…

She may have something more, she isnt honest with anyone including therapists so its certainly possible. However, you kinda have to be there but she didn't arrive at owning the town all at once but a series of escalations over years. It all started a few years after we moved in. She started claiming the property line was further back and I corrected her. Unable to admit she was wrong she started going off on me, I le…

> She may have something more, she isnt honest with anyone including therapists so its certainly possible.

When folks would ask me about what disorder she has, I'd answer All of them. When she drifts into psychosis she'll have symptoms common to schizoaffective and maybe dissociative.

I genuinely can't come up with one symptom group that she never dips into.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am familiar with the symptoms. I still think you deal with an actual narcissist, not with someone with BPD. The symptoms may have some overlap, but it's different. For example, where in that article do you see that people with BPD can be so straight up delusional that they think they "own the town"? Notice that the words "lie" or "lying" do not even appear in the article. In my experience, presenting a BPD-afflicte…

She may have something more, she isnt honest with anyone including therapists so its certainly possible. However, you kinda have to be there but she didn't arrive at owning the town all at once but a series of escalations over years. It all started a few years after we moved in. She started claiming the property line was further back and I corrected her. Unable to admit she was wrong she started going off on me, I le…

> She then spent six months looking at pixalated maps and essentially having pareidolia. None of her claims about the maps made any sense but she argues they prove she is right and "Since in 1900 when this was built they forgot to add a line here so we own all of our town". She only has made that claim a few times and I think understands others find it odd, but I'm pretty sure she believes it.

You might win here. Mine didn't have this kind of focus. Early on, maybe but her symptoms were much less pronounced in her 20s. In her 30s, psychosis started showing up along with the rest and with that came some persistent loopiness - which was a bit of a blessing.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife has it, mainly she is unable to conceptualize that she is wrong and thus never learns from experience. For example she started a lawsuit against the neighbors, that she funnels tens of thousands of dollars toward because she thought the property line was further into their yard than it actually is. She recently told me we own the entire town and made some nonsensical statements to justify that belief. I'm goi…

If you ever feel hopeless and want to catch up in a call to let it out, let me know. Been there, and was luckily able to get out because of no kids. The idea of being stuck with that person would have likely killed me, without a social net that could help in the most difficult moments.

> Been there, and was luckily able to get out because of no kids.

We had 5 (all over 18 now). I got out of it because she started hanging with the nearby homeless community and found other guys go glom onto.

Then one night, while I was asleep on the sofa, she came home and emptied out her bedroom (hoarded to the ceiling). I was one door away and never stirred. I just work up and the room was completely empty.

I'm still kind of stunned by that.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#96
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say a bit more about the headspace

My wife has it, mainly she is unable to conceptualize that she is wrong and thus never learns from experience. For example she started a lawsuit against the neighbors, that she funnels tens of thousands of dollars toward because she thought the property line was further into their yard than it actually is. She recently told me we own the entire town and made some nonsensical statements to justify that belief. I'm goi…

>She doesn't seem to understand that I don't trust her anymore after all the lies, to her that's in the past even if it was a few minutes ago.

That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us who had shitty childhoods would agree that filial piety and nurturing caregivers are good things even though we had neither.

Not that not it's not nice to have, but in the particular context of the thread it was presented as a component of how to define what constitutes a functional person. Filial piety, owing respect ones parents, strikes me as quite different from things like being able to clothe and feed oneself, bathe regularly, and do productive work. Do you think that's a reasonable expectation for everyone?

No, I agree. I think it’s unlike the others in that it’s a virtue and not just a basic life skill.

I just disagreed with what I perceived to be a knee-jerk aversion to a virtue because it doesn’t apply in some circumstances.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#98
Yeh this paper is something else - I've never seen one written using a tone like this before.

My ex-GF was textbook BPD. Finding the survivor resources was so helpful - people who have never experienced someone who has BPD simply find it hard to believe what you say happened actually happened and those resources are almost as though someone has been dating your ex-GF as the experiences are so similar.

Either BPD doesn't exist and there's a grouping of consistent traits that many people have seen first hand or it does exist and either way the outcome is the same for those observing it.

Re: Borderline personality disorder: a spurious condition?

#99

I can't find it but Scott Alexander had an essay where he laid out the hypothesis that some of the personality disorders (narcissism and BPD in particular) came about through evolutionary selection. It's notable that the prevalence varies among the sexes.

Was it this one? https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/12/03/book-review-evolutiona...
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