Borderline personality disorder patients are extremely sensitive individuals, so do borderlines come back after discard? How to get back with my ex-borderline? To understand this let’s first understand what is borderline personality disorder.
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A brief overview of Borderline Personality Disorder
Even the smallest of things can trigger extreme reactions in BPD (borderline personality disorder) patients. Once agitated they will have trouble calming down. This type of emotional volatility and inability to pacify oneself leads to relationship disasters and even reckless behaviors. Do borderlines come back after breakups? People with borderline personality disorder cannot tolerate being abandoned and thus generate crisis by making self-injurious gestures (mostly suicidal) in such a way that invites someone to rescue and give attention and care for them.
Seventy-five percent of patients diagnosed with this disorder are females. About 8-10 percent of BPD patients commit suicide.
So how do people describe BPD?
Loved ones of the people suffering from BPD describe it as “walking on eggshells” while the BPD patients describe it as feeling like a “live wire” with everything affecting them acutely.
Symptoms of Borderline personality disorder
- The constant fear of abandonment, taking extreme measures to avoid real or perceived separation and rejections.
- Emotional instability-frequent mood swings
- Identity Problems and affective instability
- Insecurity
- Feeling worthless
- Suffused with anger, fear, and guilt
- Impulsive Behavior
- Occasional psychotic decompensation
- Relationship troubles -Intense but unstable relationship
- Self-injurious behavior (suicidal thoughts are a serious problem)
- A high drug abuse rate
- There is extensive overlap with other diagnostic categories, particularly mood disorders and Post-traumatic stress disorder.
How does borderline personality disorder affect relationships?
People having borderline personalities fear rejection, disaffection, and indifference which makes it difficult to have a relationship with them. Do borderlines come back after breakups? According to the Journal of Personality Disorders, Borderline Personality Disorder patients need to feel close but at the same time fear rejection. This can be quite troublesome in maintaining romantic, platonic, or professional relationships. The people close to borderline personality disorder patients like husbands, wives, friends, family members, and other loved ones find it hard to have close relationships.
Do borderlines come back after discard?
Does your partner want to be “saved” repeatedly or feel entitled to being saved? If yes then each time you give in to their demands, you reinforce their opinion of being right.
How long before BPD comes back?
Borderline personality disorder individuals see things in black and white. If they feel hurt, abandoned, or perceived as being left out by someone in some way. They will view that person as “All Bad” and it becomes hard for them to maintain close bonds with them. This often leads to impulsively ending the relationship with their partners or family members. Now you’re wondering, the ex ignored me and now sends me mass emails. So how long before BPD comes back? The answer is, that they may quickly swing back when they start feeling lonely or miss you and then they start believing you are “All Good”.But what if the ex left and never looked back? Sometimes they may find your “replacement” and they will not need you. Wondering why BPD’s ex-girlfriend has a new boyfriend? They will say goodbye due to fear of “engulfment” and at other times when they feel “abandoned,” they will come back.
Read More about Borderline Personality Disorder Mirroring
Factors affecting BPD behavior of discarding someone
Do borderlines come back after discard? Below are two factors affecting this type of behavior in BPD patients.
Past childhood experiences
Borderline personality disorder patients mostly come from a very unstable childhood, where they rarely believe and cannot depend on their caregivers to be loving, caring, and understanding of them. Mostly they are left by those caregivers. They subconsciously repeat this type of behavior in their adult relationships. Thus BPD too discards their loved ones. Reports suggest that 70 percent of BPD patients were abused in their childhood.
Avoidance of feeling “ALONE”
Their biggest fear is being abandoned even if they were the first ones to leave their loved ones. Do borderlines come back? Borderline personality disorder patients can sometimes come back and start getting clingy to their partners as they fear being forsaken and it will thus trigger past painful experiences from their childhood or they might fight and then cut you off only to cling to someone new to avoid feeling lonely and empty.
Helping someone with Borderline Personality Disorder
- Take care of yourself
You want to help him/her but first, you need to take care of yourself. When a family member spouse or partner has BPD, it’s too easy to give in to all his/her demands. This need to please them is downright exhausting. Why do you need to always put their demands above your own emotional needs? This leads to resentment, burnout, depression, anxiety, regrets, and even physical illness.
- Don’t Isolate yourself
Even if your family member or significant other with BPD forbids you to contact other people for help. Stay in touch with family and friends. They are the people who listen to you, support you, and make you feel good no matter what. They also offer reality checks whenever you need them.
- You can have fun in life too
Have a life outside of your relationship with a person with a borderline personality disorder. You are not being selfish for having some fun in life too. If you are healthy it will be beneficial for your relationship with the person having BPD.
- Join a support group
Through a support group, you will get to know other people going through similar situations in life and how they are dealing with them. The need to be understood is oftentimes underrated but is very important for human beings. If it is not possible to join a support group in your area then join an online BPD community.
The relationship chaos can cause you to neglect yourself. You need to avoid this and eat healthily, exercise daily, and get quality sleep at night so that you can handle all the emotional ups and downs.
- Manage your stress
Don’t blame yourself or feel guilty for the self-injury of the BPD patient. It is very easy to judge yourself, think their abusive behavior is justified, or feel responsible for them or any failure or relapse in treatment. You must always remember that the person with BPD is responsible for their actions and behavior. Do borderlines come back after discard? You didn’t cause it or can control or can cure it.
Some important points for setting boundaries with BPD patients
It is the most misunderstood mental illness of all and is often confused with bipolar disorder. An estimated 2 percent of the population has BPD. The emotional outbursts and risky behaviors often displayed by one with BPD are worrisome to many families. Thus learning to help and support the person suffering from BPD would require a firm set of boundaries and adhering to them strictly. This helps in resolving many conflicts and arguments quickly. For setting these boundaries certain points are necessary to keep in mind.
Don’t feed into the need for attention
Some people with BPD may seek validation from others. They often use triangulation which is bringing three or more people into an argument to validate or get attention. Seeking validation from people you trust is ok but it becomes a problem when they want to support and validation for doing things that aren’t ok.
Don’t let them create drama
The BPD individuals don’t want to solve problems with the person the problem started with but rather gossip with others who will then feel compelled to get involved thus causing huge chaos. To avoid this kind of triangulation don’t discuss your problems with those who have nothing to do with it.
Don’t give them power over you
Do borderlines come back after discard? Well BPD people struggle with their explosive anger. They are unable to manage their impulsivity. If you are feeling not valued or respected enough. Then you need to show your displeasure to them even if they threaten to leave you. You need to create boundaries to make it clear that they are not allowed to be abusive to you. If they still don’t agree, gradually distance yourself until they agree for boundaries to be set.
Set a routine and habits
Set certain rules such as calls after set hours will not be entertained. Unannounced visits or borrowing your possessions and never returning them, driving your car, and then keeping it, etc will not be tolerated.
Be a 2 AM person but with some rules
Being the “go-to person” or “2 AM friend” can be quite flattering. It makes you feel loved and respected. It will also make you the most easily available person to be manipulated by individuals with BPD. It’s wonderful to be needed but with certain boundaries.
Try to be a stoic
You shouldn’t behave as they expect you to rather don’t give any strong reactions to them. Don’t let anything manipulate, control, or dominate you.
Avoid the chaos cycle
If there is a pattern to the chaotic cycles that is if they happen during festive seasons or anniversaries then disrupt the cycle by deterring it, blocking it, or switching the plans.
Don’t normalize sexually promiscuous behavior
Some people with BPD can engage in risky behaviors or behave inappropriately to make matters worse. For example, if a person indulges in frequent drinking of alcohol or has multiple intimate affairs despite being married. Then instead of thinking do borderlines discard their family? You shouldn’t be scared and insecure and normalize this behavior in an effort that the BPD patient doesn’t feel negative or bad about himself/herself.
Don’t underestimate your intuition
If you feel something is wrong then most probably something is wrong with your loved one. Everyone gets angry and overreacts at some point in life but if these are repeated, intense explosive episodes then attention must be paid to this behavior. You are not being helpful by thinking of it as an insignificant thing.
Unsubstantiated fears of abandonment
Most BPD patients have an intolerance to loneliness. This leads to unhealthy patterns in their behaviors. There are many manipulative things BPD says. So be careful while responding to these fears. Comfort them without reinforcing these fears or enabling their behavior.
Two ways of treating BPD patients are
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
In this therapy, the individuals learn to manage their emotions and how to cope with them healthily when they turn intense.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
this therapy helps the individuals to recognize their negative thought patterns and cycles that make them emotionally distressed and replace these negative thoughts with positive ones.
In addition to these therapies support from close friends and family work wonders in helping BPD patients.
Conclusion about “do borderlines come back after discard ?”
So, do borderlines come back after discard? It is important to remember that just because there is some shared diagnosis of borderline personality disorder patients, it does not mean they will behave similarly, have the same personality, and temperament, and would do similar things in a given situation. You cannot generalize from a diagnosis to form a theory about specific behavior in specific people.
Do BPD come back after discard? BPD patients are more likely to return than narcissistic people. Borderline patients may discard someone permanently if they find a new person to replace and attach to avoid negative feelings of loneliness and emptiness triggered in them.
Borderline personality disorder people are more likely to come back than narcissistic people because they know the pain of being abandoned through their childhood experiences.
The best way to predict how a borderline personality disorder patient would behave is to notice how they behaved in the past. If they have a pattern of leaving and devaluing their partners then there are very high chances of that happening again. Despite challenges recovering from BPD is still possible but it requires a lot of hard work and a will to change.
Common FAQs on Do borderlines come back after discard?
- Do borderlines come back after breakups?
This depends on your dynamics with your ex-partner, how severe is their BPD, and whether are they willing to give this relationship a chance. Are they ready to do the hard work required for it to work?
2. Does a borderline want to stay friends after they discard you?
They may not rekindle romance with you but they may give you a chance at becoming friends once they have overcome their sense of shame.
3. Do BPD come back after discard?
Yes, they do return and may discard you again due to their fears of abandonment and engulfment.
4. After the discard does a person with BPD crave for you?
Yes, they will crave but not for you but for the missing identity they projected towards you a part of their inner self.
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Dr Amit Sharma is a Doctor and writer with a particular interest in mental health. He helps individuals by combining practical advice with emotional support.