Have YOU been involved with a man who made you doubt yourself or feel crazy? (Book excerpt, hoping to get published before year's end.)
COMMON BPD MYTHS
Borderline Personality Disorder was first recognized and brought to light in reference to females, so many still believe this is a gender-specific disorder, which is grossly inaccurate. It's not that there are actually more women than men with BPD, it's that we’ve failed to identify the less-than overt ways in which this disorder often manifests in males, as pathological.
We may have climbed on-board with the ‘male bashing’ some women have historically engaged in, and assumed this gender had innate defects when they've acted like “jerks,” but what has spawned our pejorative view, is aberrant behavior patterns we’ve observed in men with BPD features. Might this help you reorganize a few of your mental files?
Male BPD traits include; impulsivity, love-bombing, lying, passive aggression, stalking, lack of empathy, poor self-worth, drug and/or alcohol abuse, extramarital affairs, rageful outbursts, depression and suicidal ideation, inability to tolerate difficult emotions or self-soothe, self-harming behaviors (or accident prone), cognitive distortion and projections, splitting (“I love you/I hate you!”), physical volatility or violence (spousal abuse), rebound relationships, Anxiety Disorder and/or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder traits, self-sabotage in personal and professional arenas, failure to achieve financial stability or success, an inability to want you unless they can't have you, extreme or irrational jealousy, narcissistic grandiosity or bravado, selective memory or recall, black or white thinking, verbal exhibitionism (or incessant talking), codependency and numerous other behavior-based addictions, sarcasm, control issues, eating disorders, emotional blackmail (like suicide threats), gaslighting (making you doubt your perceptions and think you’re the crazy one) childhood molestation, sex and/or porn addiction, pedophilia, dissociation from feelings or “black-outs,” rigid, perfectionistic thinking or highly opinionated, religious fanaticism, insatiable need for attention, and attraction to long-distance romances or inaccessible women, as the greater their seduction challenge is with you, the more they fantasize about and want you! For all Borderlines, it’s the pursuit or chase that makes you exciting and desirable to them~ not the capture.
A colleague who works almost exclusively with male borderlines stated years before I’d begun writing about this topic, that they generally present as “commitment-phobes and sex addicts.” This seemed logical, for at the very core of borderline pathology resides serious attachment difficulties with Mother, that began when they were newborns. Primal wounding to a baby’s ability to sense he’s adored and wanted by his maternal object, forms the crux of this disorder. The outcome of a mother’s limited capacity to attach to and convey love for her child is addressed in my chapter, “THE WIZARD OF ODDS.”
It's not been my intent to neglect or overlook gay or bi-sexual men in this literature. Throughout my work with borderline disordered males and those trying to surmount their trauma of having loved one however, the accuracy of this text applies, regardless of sexual gender preference.
Borderline Personality Disorder in men may be harder to recognize than in women, because their seductions tend to be emotional in nature, rather than overtly sexual. The Male Borderline may appear ‘normal’ in contrast to other men you’ve met, who seem so afraid of closeness, they're back-peddling before your second date! BPD males tend to come on strong while pursuing you~ and if you're elusive or hard to entice, they come on even stronger.
For simplicity's sake, I’ve named the borderline disordered male, “Casanova.” Seducing women satisfies his need for continuous narcissistic supply, and temporarily fills his core emptiness~ it's literally his addiction. Since he lacks the capacity to form solid, healthy attachments, he takes hostages. Let’s help you learn to avoid becoming his next prisoner!
HE SEEMS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!
The BPD male appears so wonderful at first, you can hardly believe it! It's like you've been wishing for this kind of connection forever, and now it's finally here. As this relationship progresses however, you’ll feel increasingly frustrated, anxious, confused and tormented. That fantastically “open guy” you first met keeps shutting you out, and you end up painfully longing and yearning for the way it was with him, at the start.