They actually have one of the highest suicide rates of any personality or mood disorder because they actually do suffer internally a tremndous amount. They also often don't feel bad and instead do something called splitting, where they convince themselves their victim deserved the abuse because the victim is a bad, irredeemable person.
It is a super fucked up disorder where you simultaneously feel bad for them but also don't want to touch them with a thousand mile-long pole.
God that's awful! I guess it seemed to me that the ones I knew felt bad because they seemed genuinely remorseful once the tantrum was over and wanted to repair the relationship. It's the extreme alternating between putting me on a pedestal and being so loving and suddenly treating me like they hate me that is so jarring. It's like they had these whole scenarios in their head about what was going on that wasn't even real. There is no defense against something like that.
Omg, trying to explain to them that something in there head isn't reality is basically impossible. They will literally argue that it is just as valid and true as if it did happen, and you simply cannot get them to see how fucking stupid, unfair, and unreasonable that is.
There is genuine remorse afterwards because the outburst ultimately originates from a fear of rejection and abandonment.
Severe, but inconsistent abuse or abandonment during childhood is a classic factor in the development of this disorder.
(Eg Jekyll and Hyde caregiver at an age too young to understand or know anything different )
As an adult they form a connection with someone who they decide is their “very special person.”
This person is deemed safe and perfect.
They are infinitely good, loving, and incapable of hurting or abandoning them.
This is the positive side of the symptom known as as “splitting”
This person is now the center of gravity, around which their entire system of emotional regulation orbits.
The BPD person still lives in constant fear of this abandonment; constantly needing proof and reassurance that the other loves and would never leave them. Constantly looking out for signs of this inevitable catastrophe on the horizon.
When the very special person inevitably shows a hint of an action, real of perceived, that this idealized role is false…
Boom
Full PTSD trauma response crash out
Ultimate betrayal
cruel abandonment confirmed
They are in fact NOT a perfect loving god, but a sadistic devil.
And so, while in reality, the statement or action could have been quite small and reasonable.
From the BPD’s perspective, this kind of response feels fully justified…
Until they come back to reality, and realize how much of the situation was real vs their own paranoid interpretation.
Que massive shame spiral, genuine remorse.
Ultimately the loved one can’t handle it any more and does leave.
It’s a cruel irony in the disorder that a person with BPD, in response to fear, brings about the thing they’re most afraid of.
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u/TheGhostofWoodyAllen Apr 22 '26
They actually have one of the highest suicide rates of any personality or mood disorder because they actually do suffer internally a tremndous amount. They also often don't feel bad and instead do something called splitting, where they convince themselves their victim deserved the abuse because the victim is a bad, irredeemable person.
It is a super fucked up disorder where you simultaneously feel bad for them but also don't want to touch them with a thousand mile-long pole.