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I’ve been with my bf for 3 years now. He had a problematic childhood and he grew up completely alone without love and scared. Someone told him that he might have BPD and the more I read the symptoms the more I believe he does. Since he cannot see a psychiatrist right now, please give me some opinions of what you think. Below, I have written some examples of behaviors I've seen on him. It's kind of hard to write them down so if you have any questions feel free to ask.


Anger (overview)- He can get mad for the most slight things especially when he doesn’t sleep or is very hungry (symptoms: bad mood, blame others for the situation that brought him to be mad, physical aggression, yelling, scare others with his really strong attitude, very high stress). He gets mad for no reason when he is stressed and things are not working out how he planned them. He also loves blaming me for anything I do wrong, even if it’s something small, even if it was not my fault he’s so good on connecting things so it ends up being my fault, this is so unbelievable to hear.

Sleeping problem – He wakes up really easily. If he knows he did not sleep over 8 hrs, in the morning he wakes up very mad and screaming horribly at everyone. If it was my fault that he didn’t sleep because I woke him up in the middle of the night (eg. if I turned and the mattress moved, if I accidentally woke him up while him while I was sleeping, I pulled the sheets, etc) he wakes up screaming at me completely crazy and it scares me how he acts. His mother told me that he brought a lot of stress to her and his dad since he wouldn’t sleep much and cried a lot. As a baby, the doctors didn’t find any sleeping disorder, later on at the age of like 25 he was studied and again no sleeping problem was found. For example, one time I told him in the middle of the night to move over since he was sleeping in the middle of the bed and I had no space so he woke up mad, yelled at me saying why I woke him up when he has an important day coming, I got scared of him and laid down on the floor and tried to sleep. He went to me and grabbed me by the hair and pushing my head against the pillow without him noticing I had hit my head on the metallic border of the bed. I just laid there scared of his next reaction. I knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore and felt the apartment at 4 am scared of what he would do to me when it was time to get up in the morning.

Possible epilepsy? - Makes weird faces because of stress- Everyday and many times throughout the day, he makes really weird faces and makes his hands stiff, this behavior looks like if all of a sudden he was all of a sudden going crazy. He says he does this to release stress. If he is extremely stressed, he does that more often and puts his hands on his back and scratches his back while he makes faces he then puts his hands together like if he couldn’t control them and repeat the whole sequence again and again. I have a feeling this is some kind of epilepsy because it really looks like it. He also gets like this when he’s extremely happy and excited. His hands are very slightly shaking, sometimes more but most of the time so little that it’s hard to notice. Another thing he has is that he always feels that he has to balance 2 sides of his body equally. Like if he touches something or something touches him, he has to touch or get touched on the other side of his body. He says it is to balance the other side, this is something we both laugh at least.


Confusion - He can tell me I’m the greatest girl he could ever had found and things like that, kisses me and stuff like that. Other times when he’s mad at me he tells to get out of his life, how bad I am for him and that he can find someone better. Also, he can criticize me and make me feel really bad for things he doesn’t like about me and doesn’t know how he hurts me with words until later on he tells me why he says those things. Many times he had told me to pack my stuff leave him right at that moment even if it’s the middle of the night. He has never actually let me go he just says it but he has left me outside and locked himself inside for like an hour.

Physical Abuse- This started happening only 2 months ago when I was mad and slightly scratched his face when he wasn’t letting me sleep since he couldn’t sleep and thought it wasn’t fare I did. In the beginning he started by just pinching me, then pulling me hard on my arm, he then started to push me and they became harder, last week he then hit my arm very hard with his hand and slightly hit me on my throat, and 3 days ago he hit me very hard on my head twice and spitted on me. And like always he then feel really bad and told me he can be with me because of how he acted, is scared of himself because he says he feels he can’t control himself and is looking for someone to help him. If he doesn’t hit me he just raises his hand like if he was going to hit me, he does this very often. He tells me he wants to punch me really hard on my face and once he told me that he wishes he could kill me.

Negativity – He is an extremely negative person when it comes to himself. For example when we are in a new country and someone is rude to him, he completely hates the whole country and wants to leave (which is always the case). Later on if he saw something he liked then he likes the country but usually his thought remain very negative towards everything. This is so bad that I have a hard time telling when he is really exaggerating for something that happened to him or an opinion he had making me not believe the things he tells me anymore and I feel very sorry for this because I’m sure there had been times that something bad did happen and I just ignored him. He also always talks about things like if the whole world was against him and when I asked him why there’re all this bad things happening to him and he sometimes says that no one is smart or he says that the world is against him.

All these things above just happened in just the past 8 months.

A little about him:
He is 30 years old. Lived in Germany as a kid (he hates Germany) and then lived in the US from ages 17-29 (He went back to Germany for 3 years in between to study dentistry which he didn't finish). He now has a bachelors degree from the US and is unable to find a job in Germany. He currently does not have a job since he says he's not capable enough to get a good job because of lack of experience and for someone his age (does are his words) He now decided to do a Masters in Australia since it looks better in his country than just a bachelors and hopes he can find a job but he’s not positive about it and he’s thinking about dropping out. Here in Australia he started having his behaviors again (not physical ones or spitting anymore) and hurts me all the time (mentally). I have been thinking about leaving him or not but he always begs me not to and that if I leave he's gonna leave school and go with me to my country. Once I told him I want to leave him, he has been treating me good and even says sorry for everything he does wrong. He’s telling me how he wants to be happy with me, have a job, not go to school anymore (he hates school) and have a family and would do anything to make it like that.

He knows there is something wrong with him, yesterday he told me he thinks he might even be bipolar and he wants to see a Dr.

Maybe all I wrote is confusing but I’m also very confused about all this. I know he has a problem and I feel very proud for him for going to school and succeeding even if he doesn’t realize it after everything he has gone through. But I feel I can’t be with him and live like this and I also know he doesn’t realize how he’s affecting me and I feel bad for him.

Welcome Moshita to BPDR.

Unfortunately, we can't say, "Yes! This is BPD!" Only a pdoc or a T can do that. What I can say is... from your description, he sounds extremely abusive. And no matter the reason, that's not right. How do YOU feel about how he treats you? Do YOU think it's right? Would the BPD label make it all right?

This site is about working on ourselves and I think this site can be very useful to you, whether or not your bf has bpd. Check out the tools over on the left and think about what YOU can do to make your life better. I know you care for him. But you need to care about yourself more.

Moshita,

you say that he doesn't realize how he's affecting you, but the second quote above very clearly shows that he he does- otherwise why would he feel really bad? I am not entirely sure that a diagnosis of BPD or any other diagnosis is the most important thing to focus on right now. Some of the behaviours that you describe are extremely abusive and you need to be clear whether you are happy to tolerate this behaviour.

In my opinion there is no excuse for abusive behaviour - and where there is abusive behaviour that is pretty much what it is. If your partner had BPD and was physically abusive towards you he would be just the same (IMO) as a partner with no diagnosis who was also physically abusive. No diagnosis in the world gives anyone the right to act out abusive feelings against another party.

There is clearly a lot going on for you right now and I would also recommend the tools. I would also contact a support line for victims of domestic violence - they might be able to give you another perspective on what's been going on.

Good luck

P.

Hi Moshita, how are you getting on? I hope you're ok.

I just want to wholely agree with Trinity and P, you have to care about yourself more than anyone.

It can be really difficult to remember that at times, but putting your safety and needs first really isn't in anyway selfish, it is a neccessity, always. If you can't do that for yourself you have to seek support of others (professionals) who can guide you on how to.

Please don't think I'm lecturing you, this is something I completely suck at, and because of that I've set myself down some very painful paths. I'm determined to learn how though, to really take ownership for myself.

Please let us know how you get on,

Miss Kitten x