I'm genuinely curious if anyone has seen any success stories or cases where a BPD person has recovered to the point of being able to control their emotional behaviours. Can anyone here shed any light on their failures or successes where the pwBPD underwent DBT or medication and made some or markable improvement?
Posted Mar 4, 2020, 7:27 AM UTC
Let’s be honest, some (many) persons suffering from BPD are young attractive women and there’s always a backup guy to get validation. And to them that’s better than working on themselves. I’ve seen them manipulate therapists, try and seduce therapist, miss appointments, no call no show. The extreme forms of BPD traits are like being possessed. My ex would tell me often she just hoped she would die young anyways. It’s sad. My buddy and his s/o BPD would go to therapy and right after she would lash out and split. It’s rough.
You hit the nail on the head. If there’s always someone else willing to jump in to a relationship with them they will not get better.
I suspect this is why some improve with age. As their relationship prospects dwindle they have to learn more restraint.
I literally thought my wife was demon possessed sometimes.
The extreme forms of BPD traits are like being possessed.
OMG this.
My ex had a lot of success getting the most extreme symptoms under control. She stopped being violent with me, toned down the rages, no more suicide threats etc. She went from a scary, uncontrollable mess into a "normal" conflict-seeking and generally unpleasant person. A big improvement but not enough to have a healthy relationship.
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It is generally said that there is not a medication that will help with BPD. There are some medications that may improve symptoms by treated related issues (depression, anxiety, etc), but not the BPD specifically.
It was DBT
That is a really useful, insight, thank you. So you saw improvement but still held your boundaries that it wasn't enough to have a functional relationship? I can see how that may have felt like a hard decision.
It was hard. Leaving someone who had improved a lot and committed to therapy made me feel like an asshole. But I knew I had to do it; my love for her was already long gone, and even though living with her was finally manageable it was still a lot worse than being alone.
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This is inspiring. I am dealing with my BPD daughter and she is not currently getting any treatment. But it’s good to know there is hope.
The problem is getting them on treatment and getting them to stick to it. I really wish mine had tried therapy and had a psych review when medicated as I think he could have really made progress.
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My ex friend has taken over ten years of therapy and she’s still lying, manipulating, triangulating and getting attached to anything and anyone that pays her attention. What therapy has done for her is teach her how to mask her symptoms for longer than 3 months!
Mine was in therapy, had been for years, was taking multiple different psychiatric medications (which he regularly abused or stopped taking), saw a psychiatrist once a week, and was only getting worse. He had these care providers wrapped around his finger and he really didn't "try" to get better. It was like the sicker he was, the more he thought other people should do for him or give to him.
Maybe if he admitted there was a problem with "him" and not blame everything on everyone else, he would have had a chance at getting better.
And a lot of those medicines can cause some very terrible reactions if stopped cold turkey. Put that on top of the already awful nature of some of these traits and you’ve got the very definition of the devil.
Add severe untreated alcoholism to that fun combo too. It was hell.
My dbpd son in law was in therapy for over a year using DBT but it didn't help him at all, he actually got worse. My daughter finally told him to leave. I think his problem was that he was just going through the motions and not doing the hard work necessary to make any changes.
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IMO medication can only alleviate some of the worst symptoms like anxiety or depression. There is no "medication" to treat BPD itself. That only comes with therapy. But thank you for starting a thread to look for positives.
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Thanks for asking this question. I am new and have not had much time to explore but, from what I have seen, this forum seems to be more about escaping pwBPD than living with them, ie remaining their “loved ones.”
Yea major success working on my own. BPD’s don’t get better.
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I think it’s because BPD is more subtle, harder to pin down. The successes are in learning survival skills, holding boundaries, and strengthening yourself to withstand the bombardments to levels “regular” people can’t begin to understand. The idea of being whole, enough, and happy/content all on your own. Any relationship can only add to your existing well being. BPD’s force you to be stronger, whether you move on from your pwBPD or not,
Personally, I think it is because pwBPD can much more easily hide their issues behind closed doors. If a person with Bipolar or Schizophrenia is having an episode, the time or place doesn't really matter. For BPD, however, think carefully about your experience - has your SO ever said awful things to you when alone? Would they say those same things in front of another person in public?
By it's nature, BPD is hallmarked by instability in relationships. I feel it is resistant to treatment because the person has to want to change, and very few pwBPD reach that point.
I think also because it's so multi-faceted, too. There's many components to someone w BPD. Fear, little sense of self, anger, extreme emotions, insecurity, etc. Changing how someone relates to someone else (which is most of BPD) is extremely difficult.
Because the worst part about the disorder is the fact that they either don’t think they have it, or think they have it under control and lose the battle to the symptoms.
I haven’t heard of any cases where a pwBPD stopped and recognized what they were doing until after they’ve gone through the emotions and destroyed something. I’ve never heard of a pwBPD saying something like, “You know, I am splitting right now and that’s why I believe you are the devil and feel like I want to fuck you up because of it. My bad.” or, “You know, cutting myself right now is a bad thing for me to do and I should just stop it.”.