I personally know of two men who’ve shot themselves. Nobody sees death as a way outta their pain, unless they haven’t been able to envision living with any other option. Seldom can the rest of us comprehend why someone’s felt the need to escape their pain and/or torment by cashing in their chips, but it happens far more often than we might think.
One such man was the husband of a former friend of years ago. His wife had Borderline Personality Disorder features, and I presume she broke his balls by nagging and haranguing him on a daily basis. After one of their verbal battles, she threatened that if he even thought of leaving her, she’d make sure he never saw his infant son again. He believed her. For decades his widow couched his death as an accident, while he was cleaning his rifle. Nobody “accidently” shoots himself with a long-barreled gun, as it requires deliberate maneuvering. He was in his 30’s.
More recently, an elderly man killed himself with a pistol. He’d endured many difficult years with a wife who made constant demands, routinely criticised, and emotionally whittled him down to where he wanted to exit their marriage with the least amount of fallout to his psyche and nervous system. Toxic females torture their ex’s long after they leave them. “Closure” to a Borderline, is like Kryptonite to Superman. I’ve always said in reference to BPD females, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings!
During the years I’ve worked with and written about people with Borderline Personality Disorder, many aspects of this developmental arrest issue have come to light. I’ve learned volumes about BPD, and meticulously recorded the knowledge I’ve garnered over the past few decades. I remain open to revising my perspectives and stance on this topic, if ever my data starts to feel lacking in substance. Should this occur, you can expect honest and thoughtful revisions to my written materials. No responsible writer ever rests on his/her laurels.
[As we continue to develop, we may see that a formerly published paragraph can more closely match the detailed picture in our mind’s eye and better enlighten our reading audience, if we tweak it a bit. At least, such is the case for me.]
I have witnessed strong, physically mighty men become shadows of their former self after only six months in an emotionally toxic relationship with a borderline disordered female. The incessant barrage of nagging, sarcasm, critical, guilting and shaming comments the Borderline dishes out once they feel secure in your commitment to ‘em, is beyond anything the average human can endure.
[Everything’s peachy, up until the time you move in together, get engaged, marry ‘em or have a child together. Disruptive acting-out behaviors always follow any symbolic deepening of your bond with a Borderline.]
Depression, listlessness, loss of enthusiasm for work, anxiety, bodily aches/pains, sleeplessness, lack of sexual desire, and costly/crucial business setbacks one incurs when there’s no tranquil home life, undermine all personal strivings and professional endeavors. The truth is, nobody with genuinely healthy self-esteem ever remains in a relationship that even “sometimes” feels abusive. Emotionally healthy, whole people have stellar self-preservation instincts! They never ‘settle’ for less than what they need and want out of life, no matter how much they might bitch about their current condition.
When a man’s health dramatically deteriorates in the midst of his relationship with a Borderline, he chalks it up to coincidence. Never is he willing to acknowledge, much less blame his partner for the decline in his sense of vibrancy or well-being. Fact is, he cannot even fathom her being responsible for his health or financial setbacks, ‘cause he’s “in love,” or the very least, relatively comfortable living with dissatisfaction.
Ya can’t convince a man who has grown up without maternal nurturance, warmth and adoration that his days with a toxic lover are numbered. They literally won’t hear of it! Their relationship offers just enough chaos, drama and pain to spawn in them feelings of aliveness, otherwise they wrestle with sensations of emptiness and boredom.
Core-damaged humans crave stimulation~ whether it arrives in a box that’s positive OR negative. This is the crux of why Borderlines pick fights with you, just when life starts feeling calm and serene for a moment or two (haven’t you figured this out by now?).
Dead people do not experience pain. Pain is reserved only for the living. Regardless of whether a male has endured five or fifty years of torment within his confusing, pain-producing dance with a BPD woman, we understand that it’s replicating bad feelings about himself around Mother, he had to endure from infancy onward. In short, there’s a familiar early template in his life for tolerating an unusually high threshold for PAIN. Not much else in fact, actually gets thru his self-protective dissociative bubble, and captures his attention!
Some clients have grown beyond being emotionally numb their whole lives, to being hyper-sensitive to stimulation. As they begin healing they prefer their own company, to spending time with others. Just being out in public, feels far too stimulating, overwhelming and uncomfortable. This dramatic shift is not permanent, but it’s the kind of overcorrection that’s indicative of transformative inner change.
An emotionally tortured man knows full-well the brand of shaming, guilting, criticisms and gaslighting he’ll surely face if he even contemplates leaving his lover or spouse. One with Borderline Waif traits is well-practiced in the art of punishing others in ways that make them feel horrifically GUILTY for crimes they’ve never committed. Her fears, tears and hurt puppy facial expressions make you wanna bend over backwards to mitigate the pain you’re convinced you’ve inflicted. Resist the urge. Contrary to what you might think, she’s remarkably resilient and resourceful.
One with BPD Queen characteristics is nothing short of masterful in the art of verbally shaming her victims with thinly-disguised caustic comments, while maintaining unflinching decorum and composure. So skilled is the Queen at her manipulations, she’ll often depart her therapist’s office, leaving him/her with endless self-doubts as to their clinical abilities, and whether or not they should continue their life’s work. Just try to imagine what it must be like sleeping beside someone who possesses these malicious characteristics!
In my late 20’s, I became a certified Suicide Hotline counselor. Aside from having navigated that torturous, death-defying path myself in years prior, this experience gave me broader knowledge about what suicide is and what it isn’t~ and taught me how to accurately assess for imminent threat of demise, with each caller. I devoted both a YouTube video and article to this topic years ago.
Some of us can accept the idea of physician-assisted suicide when someone’s in chronic, excruciating physical pain, and their quality of life has diminished to such an extent, they pray fervently for release from it. Only one who has never felt that kind of daily anguish might balk at the idea, which I consider an acute lack of empathy.
But what of those in unbearable emotional and psychic pain? Don’t they also have the right to escape their daily agony? A man who kills himself can see no other way to flee his dark abyss (which is the nature of suicide, incidentally). Seems reasonable to me, that after enduring mind-numbing pain that’s consumed him like metastatic cancer for as long as he can, he buys a one-way ticket out of it.
Enlightened souls might call this Courage.
I loved reading this article, Shari - thank you for giving suicide victims a voice. In all my life, I've known of two people who took their own lives: a neighbor who lived a few houses down growing up, and a friend's sister (which eerily enough, the day of your posting this article is also her birthday). But there is also a third - the father of a friend I made later in life. But I was shocked to know that his father's burial place (at the church in his village in Mexico) was not allowed to be shared with others who had a more "honorable" death. Hearing that truly aggravated and broke me.
I've been thinking a lot about this recently (not suicide), but just what drives people to take such extreme reactions. I am beginning to realize that we are all beings of truth. In some way we are hardwired to know our own inner selves/authentic truth of who we are, and if that justice is not done to us (due to bad mirroring or so), it turns us and gets us acting out. Eventually, it has some of us take these kinds of actions (or I'd say these kind of actions take us).
I'm also so glad you mention the hyper-sensitivity to stimulation - I feel like this is exactly where I am right now in my healing. I've grown to prefer my own company where I have some say in the quality of my thoughts and experience. At first, I thought it was just a "quarantine hangover" from the 3-year long quarantine we were under due to Covid, but now that I've been returning to work, I find myself avoiding coworkers and office parties. I take the quiet hallway to my desk at work etc, I take the stairwell to the parking lot instead of the elevator. Would you know what this is due to?
I'm sure to others I'm now seen as a recluse. Part of me wonders how long this phase will go on for as I also don't want to lose touch with the outside world, but I am also relieved to know that this is part of the healing process. It feels quite validating that this overcorrection isn't uncommon and maybe is in direct proportion to how much I had derailed from my own inner values.
Thanks again for this piece. I've added it to my list of writings from yours : )
Thank you for your insight to this topic. I would be interested in your voice as to why women also choose suicide. When at my personal darkness nadir I imagined it would be to an end to the endless inner repetitive voices. Seeking a cool place of quiet and comfort - no more "a life of quiet desperation." And people telling you to snap out of it. Thank you for insight. We've lost too many sweet souls. And as you mentioned years ago - the wrong people are in therapy.