Q. Dear Goddess: My new boyfriend, who is driving me crazy, tells me he has Borderline Personality Disorder. What is it, and do I want to stay with him?
A. No, dearest earth girl, I don’t think you do. Borderlines are almost impossible to have relationships with over time, and the fact that you say your new boyfriend is driving you crazy, well, pay attention.
You will know the meaning of Walking on Eggshells. “The essential feature of Borderline Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity that begins by early adulthood,” says the DSMIV, the serious manual of mental disorders. “Individuals with BPD make frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment….”
Now you, as a girlfriend, will want to protect him from this perception of being abandoned….but, I promise you, it will do no good. Which is why I’m writing this.
Everything sets him off. A comment, a slight pulling away when you’re making love; a moment of looking vaguely critical when he’s speaking, an overheard comment to a friend. A phone call to a friend. And he won’t just be sad, he’ll be in a rage. As Jane E. Brody puts it in today’s “Personal Health” column in The New York Times, “”The attacks can be brutal; pushing away those they care about the most.” That would be you.
Borderlines, like narcissists, have been considered difficult if not impossible to treat by most therapists, although cognitive and dialectical behavior therapy are more successful for Borderlines than traditional psychoanalysis and most other modes of treatment. Drugs for the disorder rarely work. Mostlywhat happens is that the families or friends of the person with the disorder has to get a great deal of therapy to withstand the alternating rage and neediness that characterizes a relationship with the Borderline.
But back to you. I don’t know what to say about being in a relationship with one. For me it has proven impossible, and believe me, here in the heavens there are many. They seem to blame you for most of their terrible moods, and to my knowledge, the only women (and goddesses) who have managed to stay in such a demeaning and punishing relationship have been those who, for perhaps religious reasons, have no way out. It is incredibly difficult to love someone who treats you as badly and as bizarrely as a Borderline does.
If you think you’re just getting involved with one–and they are incredibly seductive when they are wooing–think twice. Really. You know me: I’m all for working at relationships–and if you’re already married to one, we’ll talk about it another time. As for dating one, sure, it’s not his fault that he has this disorder. Still, this is your life. And life with him won’t be just work; it will feel more like self-punishment.
