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BPD tends to come with extremely reactive behaviors. We can be very volatile and downright manipulative, abusive, and cruel, but more often than not it isn't our intention to shift blame and manipulate. There is usually some underlying reason known and understood only by us and our twisted view on the world around us. I'm glad he wants help and I'm doubly glad he wants you there with him. That shows a level of trust that he otherwise has been denying and hasn't been acknowledging. You can take some small comfort in that, and knowing that when he manipulates and verbally abuses you he is lashing out, almost like a childish temper tantrum. It is so difficult for many of us to say we are sorry, to even force the words out of our mouths, and I believe it's because it means admitting weakness and admitting that we lost control, which we do often. For some reason when somebody slights us we feel like we are the victim and will conveniently forget that we may have started it.

I'm currently not speaking to my brother or my sister in law. Due to a housing situation we were all a part of feelings escalated and turned into an argument with my brother and then a complete nuclear meltdown with my sister in law. I said some awful, awful things to her and cannot force myself to accept that I shouldn't have. Intellectually I know it was wrong, but emotionally I still feel entirely justified even though I think she is blissfully unaware of what led up to my final meltdown. Perhaps it's because I'm still angry about the whole situation, even though it's been months. I like to think that I don't often hold grudges, but in this case I do. As my feelings begin to subside I know I'll find it easier to accept my share of the blame and perhaps to even apologize.

I've never played the manipulation game, at least not deliberately. When I've caught myself in a manipulative pattern it's never been to the extent that others may experience. Usually it's from an inability to recognize my own part in events that have happened, where the feelings are still fresh and I still feel like I was the victim. After it's over and I finally am able to analyze and accept my hand in it I generally feel awful and can get very sulky.

I think your boyfriend may demand that you come to him and love him when he acts out because he acts out from pain, depression, and paranoia. He probably needs somebody to tell him it will be okay, whether or not he believes you when you say it. He is clearly having major problems coping with some of his symptoms. Idealization and devaluation are a very, very common characteristic among BPDs. Idealization is the thought that somebody is beyond reproach, perfect, they are everything you want them to be. Devaluation is more or less the opposite, and BPD tends to flip flop between the two at the drop of a hat. We're so emotionally sensitive and read so far into things that we can love somebody like they've never been loved before one minute and the next, something they do without even realizing it can injure our pride and distort our view of them into something negative. He may also have intense abandonment issues. He knows you need to be able to get away now and then, to do your own thing, go out with the girls and all that, but once you're gone he begins to feel lonely, and that begins to warp and twist and spiral down into feelings of being abandoned, left behind, and when you come home he's angry that you left him all alone. He can't cope with loneliness or the threat of losing a loved one.

He insults you, your parenting skills, and your worth as a lover and partner for reasons likely only known to him. It may be a deliberate attempt to hurt you, to make you suffer like he feels he suffers. It may be an attempt to manipulate you, to make you feel vulnerable as he does. It may simply be something has triggered an episode of rage and he is merely lashing out at you in anger. When it's over he may feel remorse, intense pangs of guilt, that may cause him to withdraw or sulk, and he may even be genuinely convinced that you caused it.

Therapy is something he most certainly needs. Medication is something he really should consider. I took Zoloft for a while, but it stopped working. I upped the dosage, then stopped taking it altogether because I just didn't feel like me. My doctor put me on Pristiq for a week right before I got pregnant. It gave me major jitters but it started to kick in within a few days and made me feel genuinely happy and good without the surreal sense of well being that Zoloft can give. When I got pregnant I switched to Welbutrin but I didn't notice any change and have since stopped taking it.

He needs to understand that quitting meds can be catastrophic. I found this out when I abruptly quit taking my zoloft. Once he starts feeling good he has to realize that it's partly due to the medication and he cannot just quit taking it. If he does, the chemical imabalance caused by quitting meds abruptly can cause a massive relapse in his symptoms. The beauty of medication is that it helps stabilize your moods and emotional outbursts, making it easier to analyze a situation before reacting violently. Eventually these healthier reactions can become habit, but it is of utmost importance that he stays on his medication. If his medication stops working (which is unfortunately not uncommon with BPDs) he needs to consider switching to a new one. Somewhere out there is the right medication or combination of meds for him, but it may take some trial and error to find it. Zoloft and abilify are often prescribed to treat depression. My doctor considered it to help me with my BPD and PTSD. An antidepressant and a mood stabilizer may be what he needs. Since BPD is psychological more than chemical ones thought process may be what renders medication ineffective in many BPDs. A mood stabilizer may be able to help curb some of the more powerful emotional outbursts that can overcome medication. Make sure you both talk to his doctor about it.

As for treatment I highly recommend finding a DBT class. DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) is the only proven course of treatment for BPD and is very effective largely because it's often done in a group setting with other people he can relate with and who understand him.

Feeling rejected, especially after a sexual advance is turned down, is a normal human behavior. However, he is experiencing the feeling way, way, way out of proportion to the situation. You obviously had plenty of reason to decline. You were tired and busy and just plain not in the mood. Bummer, but he should move on.

Which is precisely why he needs therapy. Therapy is infinitely more important than medication. Medication just makes it easier for him to deal with daily life. Therapy is the ONLY thing that will help him overcome these problems. Just being on meds is not enough. He will still have his problems, they'll just be less severe after the meds kick in, and perhaps a little less frequent, but they most assuredly will still be there and he'll just grow more and more miserable until he's convinced his meds have stopped working and goes off them. He can up the medication all he wants, but once he's shuffling around like a drooling zombie because the amount of zoloft, abilify, tranquilizers, and other mood stabilizers it can take to completely eliminate his symptoms will dull out ALL emotion then he'll "stop feeling like himself" on meds and stop taking them completely, leading to emotional and psychiatric breakdown from the massive and potentially dangerous chemical imbalance left behind when one quits psych meds abruptly. Knowing that his condition is called Borderline Personality Disorder won't help him at all, but a proper diagnosis will help determine the proper course of treatment that he most assuredly needs. He may not even be BPD, it's possible he's got a combination of other problems going on that share many similarities to BPD. His reluctance is normal. A lot of people hesitate to go to therapy for the exact same reasons, the belief that a doctor will just throw them a diagnosis, thereby labeling them another statistic and putting them in a little, neatly labeled box instead of actually being able to help.

Borderline Personality Disorder gets its name from mental institutions decades ago. They took in patients that didn't fit any known diagnosis, that seemed more to have parts of one disorder and parts of another. They were observed to "exist at the borderline of psychosis." There is some opinion from the psychiatric community that the name ought to be changed to "Emotional Dysregulation Disorder" because that is, in effect, what BPD is. Emotional Dysregulation is clinically defined as an emotional response that does not fall within the normal range. Emotional dysregulation can manifest due to early psychological trauma, brain injury, or ongoing abuse. It's a learned pattern of behavior brought on by extreme duress or due to chemical or physical abnormalities or injuries to the brain. Bipolar, BPD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Asperger's Syndrome often exhibit emotional dysregulation as a symptom. Not one of these disorders is anything to laugh at, they are all very serious and have very heavy impacts on one's life, and he needs to understand this. BPD does not just "go away" and he will not get better because of meds. He has to change his pattern of thinking and reacting. He has to relearn basic human behavior that he was denied the correct and healthy opportunity to learn.

One on one therapy likely isn't going to help him much. It'll help him get to the root of a lot of his frustration, though. I went to anger management and wound up diagnosed BPD. Anger management didn't help me with most of my symptoms but it did go a long way toward helping me get my violent rage under control. The only approved, proven course of treatment for BPD is a group program called Dialectical Behavioral Treatment (DBT). The concept of DBT is reteaching healthy human reactions and behaviors and teaching how to substitute improper reactions, thought processes, and behaviors with more constructive, healthy choices. DBT is designed to treat emotional dysregulation, specifically in Borderline Personality Disorder. It's often done in a group which he will find is a remarkable support base. The group will contain others who are there for the same reasons, some of them may not have BPD at all, but all of them are there due to emotional dysregulation and he will be able to relate to many of them.

While his mental illness is creating a fantasy world around him full of lies, deceit, and harm, it is HIS responsibility to take hold of it, and nobody else's. He only deserves somebody who will stick it out with him if he actively and willingly works on getting better. Meds aren't even half of the solution, so telling you "I'll do meds but not therapy" is unacceptable. He isn't taking full responsibility for his actions, he's relying on medication to do that. Figuring out when he's gone too far is not enough because unless he learns to reign in his temper and control his irrational feelings he'll simply keep hurting you again and again. Hurting somebody over and over and then saying "I'm sorry, I love you, and it's because I love you" is an effective psychological torture and brainwashing technique, and is therefore an unacceptable, improper, cruel, and disturbing pattern of behavior that he needs to get out of ASAP. It is NOT okay just because he feels bad.

He needs therapy. Don't leave this open for discussion or debate. If he chooses one on one therapy over DBT at first then offer to go with him because you'll probably learn to understand him a little more. I don't know what you can do or say to calm him down once he's upset. I spent a large chunk of my life borderlining on psychopathy so while I should have empathy for those who feel the way I do, I don't. I understand what he's going through and feeling, but I have no sympathy and therefore no kind words to offer, and therefore no reliable advice to offer you in regards to his rages. My lack of sympathy for him is further fueled by his reluctance to seek the help he needs in order to hold on to somebody he loves and his insistence on relying on band-aid solutions (medication) to fix his problem for him. I'm also just not good at kind, soothing words in general, at least not when I have to think about it. In the heat of the moment if somebody were raging at me I could probably smooth talk and diffuse the situation, but I can't find words for a hypothetical situation. I'm weird like that. I'm sorry I can't be more help when it comes to finding the right words.

After flipping out on her over the phone I ran (really no joke, I ran two miles) all the way up to her friends house uninvited and introduced myself to her friends guy roommate as her boyfriend, in a really aggressive way.

This made me laugh, because I know so many guys like that!

But yeah, that's the general premise. It's not that our emotion is always illogical, it often times isn't. It's often a logical, normal emotion but we experience it directly out of proportion to the situation. We can blow up over something mildly irritating. We can misunderstand something somebody says and fly off the handle or sulk for hours. At the same time things that should be a crisis can be shrugged off with a "well what're you gonna do". BPD is emotional dysregulation at its finest.

Not everybody who has BPD is an out of control rageaholic, though. There are 9 diagnostic criteria, one only has to meet I believe any combination of 5 of them to be diagnosed. Ever see the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's? Holly Golightly is a textbook case of BPD (whether the director realized that or not) down to the identity disturbance, rocky relationships, and impulsivity, but no rage to speak of. Winona Ryder's character in Girl Interrupted has BPD but the rages and emotional dysregulation aren't very apparent. A google search on borderline personality in movies can bring up some interesting results. I haven't seen it but Vicky Cristina Barcelona apparently sports a very borderline-esque character (Scarlet Johannsen).

My fiance's approach is similar to your own. When I go off on one of my mood swings he just more or less smiles and nods and doesn't really say anything if there isn't anything constructive to say. I'll usually warn him when I'm getting moody, though. On the occasion that I fall into an all out rage he'll try to rationalize with me a bit, but if I'm not listening to reason then he just throws his hands in the air and walks away. Once I've cooled down he'll come find me and we'll carry on like normal. He knows that I'm well aware what just happened, that it was inappropriate, and doesn't push it. Sometimes he'll say something along the lines of trying not to explode next time and offers words of encouragement every now and then along the lines of "you don't get upset over little things as much as you used to", which I don't. This works well for me, but I no longer have a huge problem with devaluation. I've more or less worked that part out by forcing myself to come to terms with the fact that not everybody fits into a black and white, good or evil category.

The important part of living with somebody with BPD is picking your battles and knowing when to just back off and keep your distance.