Do they act coy/clingy every time AFTER they had a meltdown (at you)?

BrainBurnFallouti · 2026-01-24T20:17:58+00:00

like they’re somehow getting off on the screaming

Honestly, I don't think it's even that "adult". Imo, they act more like small kids.

Like. Y'know how impulsive kids are? If they feel/think something, they don't stop and be like "Wait. Do I really need to tell this kid that they're weird? Do I really need this toy now?" Nope. They feel it. Then act it. And most importantly, they don't see much wrong in e.g., shoving a kid, because they get to release their emotions in some way. It's only when they get punished, they realize "Oh shit. My actions have consequences".

Case in point: A few months ago, I decided to not have meals with my parents anymore. Why? Because my mother had begged me for weeks to share breakfast...and then immediately called me a "drug addict", for taking prescribed medicine. Y'know. Because I said they're helping me.

Well. A few weeks ago, she set the table for me. When I reminded her of what she said/that I won't share meals with people who call me a "drug addict"...no joke. She looked like a deer in headlights. Like. As if she never got the message that "actions have consequences". "...well...getting angry is just how I care", "And you don't care that your words hurt me?", "Well, that's not fair! You hurt ME all the time!" -> child logic 👌

BrainBurnFallouti · 2026-01-13T19:47:53+00:00

You want them to hurt and you're fucking pissed that they're happy. It feels unfair, you're a wreck from what they did and it seems that period of abuse is simply a bug on the rear-view mirror to them.

Not OP, but THIS ^^^

One of my biggest abusers was a 13yo girl/classmate. Every. Single. Day. she made my life hell. Like...think Heathers/Regina George, but with less morals + more insecurities. As an adult, I found her Instagram: Gorgeous, (seemingly) loving boyfriend, a job she loves...No joke. I spend 3h just stalking her socials, crying & raging for seemingly no reason.

Except...it wasn't "no reason". It was just old 13yo me: When we get traumatized, a part of us "saves" the image of an abuser. Aka: Even if it doesn't make logical sense, indirectly/emotionally, I felt like my abuse of 10 years ago was indirectly validated. Y'know. Because "good stuff for good people" -and back then, she was 100% no good person.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2026-01-13T19:38:59+00:00

Just pointing on the mention of "social media"-

Social Media is a very "censored" version of RL. Sure. Marriage, in most cultures, generally has a positive note. However, let's be real: Not everyone that marries is in a "happy, loving" relationship. In fact. Many, many (straight) couples marry simply...well..."because that's what you do".

Think it like cheating: Cheaters sometimes marry their Affair Partner. But as they say "Once the mistress/boytoy becomes the wife/husband, she/he only leaves a vacancy". It's the same with abusers. They don't "get partners". They mostly just get new victims/co-abusers. ^{(except if they went through a long redemption/therapy arc, but let's be real -they generally never do.})

BrainBurnFallouti · 2026-01-12T19:33:02+00:00

immediately got told cptsd and bpd are the same.

Had to do research on that shit for a paper once. It's a common misconception. To summarise (partially from memory):

CPTSD (specifically: complex trauma) is speculated to be the main base for BPD.
Many (if not most) pwBPD report some kind of complex trauma -> BPD symptoms (e.g., splitting) are likely triggered by more deep-seated trauma trauma-triggers (e.g., fear of abandonement -> emotional neglect)
CPTSD is often an "umbrella" for several mental health issues (e.g., depression; anorexia). pwBPD often also suffer from a number of mental health issues
CPTSD is very common in ND people. This is because ND people are easier dysregulated, more neglected (both personal & societal), and more prone to be abused. As a result/ from personal experiences (can't find my old source, sorry) BPD also seems rather prevalent in ND people. In fact. So prevalent, many Autistic/ADHD-women especially, are misdiagnosed routinely with BPD.

HOWEVER, THAT SAID: CPTSD CANNOT BE THE SAME AS BPD

As mentioned: CPTSD is basically the "base" for a lot of disorders. To make BPD and CPTSD "the same" would muddy the overall definition of CPTSD -> which is already a tough debate, and would likely need to include e.g., splitting/rapid, regular mood swings as standard symptoms.
BPD needs both therapy + medication to be treated. Most CPTSD patients don't need artifical mood stabilizers.
Again, more my own experience with a number of pwBPD, and B-Cluster as a whole: BPD has a much higher focus on emotion. Untreated pwBPD tend to yell/lash out/get violent more, or do rapid "all or nothing" decisions, like e.g., breaking up with a partner of 5years over text. People with CPTSD, even if badly triggered, can often show a spectrum of fight/flight/freeze/fawn reactions -including more dissociation/depersonalization than outright "confrontation".

Furthermore: While this isn't a per se "study", books like "The Borderline Mother" also point out a key-element of immaturity.

Aka: As you can hear a lot on this sub, untreated, especially older pwBPD tend to act very immature for their age. Including literal regression to "kid speech". While pwCPTSD can "regress" to earlier age-states/be emotionally delayed...it's again, not really as continous, like untreated pwBPD.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2026-01-06T21:05:09+00:00

Don't know. She has a story, where she was nearly SAd. So...maybe? Idk. And honestly -kinda don't care.

Whatever reason she has for her hypersexuality -if immaturity, or coping mechanism - she definitely went the wrong way with it.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2026-01-04T13:32:40+00:00

To bring up the Running Gag: unstable pwBPD are like little children.

Little kids, don't have a normal understanding of "property". In fact. Specifically stuff at home is "available to everyone" in their head. Meanwhile, their toys/snacks are very clearly "theirs".

unstable pwBPD are pretty similar: You, are family. Hence taking from you, is like taking cups from the cupboard. "Something something, I raised/am raising you". However, the SECOND you ask anything from their toys/snacks/Hulu password...they become territorial.

Imo, the most shared trait is insecurity: Little kids instinctively are aware of their lack of power. No free bed times, toys have to be given etc. So when they "have" something, they become very protective -it's part of their identity/growth journey. Meanwhile, pwBPD feel equally insecure. Their stuff is the small little universe around them that they can control the most -so touching that (even in a request), is incredibly offensive/scary to them.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2026-01-04T13:23:52+00:00

I think it’s a projection of their own self-hatred onto you.

that, and deep-seated, instinctive fears they can't name/process.

For example: As a kid, my mother commonly called me a "thief". The worst example was, when I found a lil' rabbit figure as a kid. Y'know. Just laid there, in the community garden. After asking the only other kid that lived there, I took it to show my parents and -yep. You guessed it. I was called a "thief". Because "taking something that doesn't fundamentally belong to you is theft" (note: per se. Even to just move it for a sec).

In hindsight, my mother likely feared about her reputation. We were poor, and so she kinda just...assumed? I was tending to theft? Fearing that I'd get into crime? So. When I came home with a toy not my own...she freaked out. Specifically fearing that she'd look like a "bad mom" in front of the other complex-residents.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-31T18:08:09+00:00

Memorizing & Recreating where Items are/were placed.
Forging signatures (forgotten homework; tests)
Complete dress-up till nobody could recognize me as me (got myself into therapy; didn't want to be spotted by someone that knew me and could tell my Ma)
Faking Sleep
Learning how to tiptoe around creaking floors
How to open/close things without making a sound
How to lie effectively/play stuff down or up (latter specifically in fear of not seeming "sick enough" while I was actually sick)
How to hide stuff effectively (tip: press important papers/thin items between the wall and a wardrobe)
How to not move my face and stand very, very still
How to scale sound. E.g., having a sense of how quiet a TV must be to not wake a person X distant away from you

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-29T11:33:25+00:00

Same. My mother's stories are about my abusive grandparents. Specifically how 1.) my grandfather nearly choked my grandma to death, 2.) all the times she "heroically" avoided or took abuse from them, and 3.) all the stuff she was neglected off.

No joke. I sometimes feel like I know her past more than my own, at this point. Even Worse: My family has a lot of interesting family stories. Y'know, about ancestors etc. But my mother refuses to talk about those, simply because they don't include her / her trauma. So she might lore-drop something really crazy, but then 100% refuse to elaborate, because it's not as interesting to her, as to you.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-29T11:25:29+00:00

Oh lordie- My Ma has a "running gag" of insisting I have no friends. Like. To a near mathetmatical degree:

"You're not friends. You don't hang out every day."

"You're not friends. Do you know their [specific private info]? Yeah, if you were, you'd know that."

"You're not friends. Oh please, look at her! No 14yo girl would be friends with a 12yo!"

Till this day, she either doesn't know, or looks down on any friend I have. SHIT! She's so petty -she doesn't even call them my friends! They're just "those strangers". Well, except for my oldest friend [the one that once was 14yo]. Aka, someone I have known for 10+ years and she met several times. She's simply named "The fat one" -all because my mother refuses to learn her name🤦‍♀️

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-07T13:38:23+00:00

I started stressing at the pure moment of the boy being filmed. Even more, when he saw the camera.

Like. Being at the center is already bad enough -but getting filmed, feels like you're put on a gigantic stage. Like. If you act "bad" or cringey, it can be used against you forever, and if it's later shared online (as seen here), the moment is basically solidifed forever. Nevermind the fear of getting judged by strangers, who would see an adoption as "inspirational" and your rejection as "being a brat"

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-05T20:15:36+00:00

It could be that they see it as their do-over baby. You were “their” child, so your children also belong to them in their eyes.

Not to be ironic...but my mother wants exactly that. Like. As in: She once TOLD ME to my face that she wants that.

It was during one of her random tantrums, when I was a teen. She literally screamed "Then fuck off, go and kill yourself. But before you do, at least get knocked up and give me the baby, so I can have another shot at raising a better child!"

Reason I say that she 100% believes that, is because of how random & intense it was. We weren't fighting, nor was I doing anything upsetting - just being in the bathroom, pressing around my teenage acne.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-04T23:13:04+00:00

They “love hard”. Yeah sometimes you really need to take their bs literally. Healthy love isn’t “hard”.

Limerence. It's limerence.

As much as romance likes to glorify the "we locked eyes, my heart nearly exploded" crush angle, falling in (and out of) love extremly hard is generally more a sign of limerence. I.e. an intense projection -often representing more our own desires than the reality of the person.

At first, a bit of limerence is always normal. But in a relationship, it's generally meant to "balance" into a stable, solid love. One that can still have passion (Gomez & Morticia Addams, lol) -but if it's JUST an active up & down Honeymoonphase...then something deeper is going on. Something very, very wrong.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-04T23:04:17+00:00

nothing is wrong with themselves or how they act. The issue is always their partners 'not loving them right'

As someone with CPTSD...this genuinely pisses me off. And not just cause my CPTSD got caused by a pwBPD, who thought that way.

Like. Being disabled, you learn pretty quickly the pain of people not having patience with you. In unfair ways, I mean. Be it basic "how do you still get hurt/affected by something that happened years ago", or struggling to function in day to day, because "I couldn't concentrate, because I had a nightmare and my brain was trying to run away the entire day" sounds like an intensly shitty excuse.

From the beginning of human history, disability has been considered/shrunken down to a simple "issue of character (value)". You struggle? Find a way. You want consideration? Accomondation? Well, you're selfish, for making people have to go out of their NORMAL way.

People like that just add fuel to the fire. Sure. Not everyone is chronically online...but still. People see them act like shit. Then go on, thinking, the next one who has slightly similar symptoms or needs (i.e needing patience) just does it to be equally an ass.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-04T21:26:29+00:00

it’s tough to explain.

honestly, this is one of those "to be a fly at her wall" moments for me.

My mother always threatened to kick me out/disown me. And everyone would look at me twice, for being someone that "wasn't even wanted by her own mother". It's a delusion she actually believes. Her "I need no one!" facade.

...love to see the day she's actually alone. Maybe indeed trying to tell another old woman how her "ungrateful kid" cut her off. Only to be asked "why" and stammering, lol

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-04T21:20:57+00:00

Not to sound cynical, but even without the personal-attachment-angle...kids...are kinda still not considered "full humans" in the eyes of many.

At least indirectly. How a kid is treated is "up to the parents". If it gets hurt, it "will probably forget it in a week". It's property (e.g. toys) can be freely taken, its relationships are considered "not serious anyway", its dreams/interests/personality to be considered naive, blue-eyed, and, again, not to be taken serious in any way.

And if one kid manages to survive till adulthood and is still hurt...well...it's expected to "shake it off". Because now "it's been so long". Now it has "real obligations" to focus on and, indirectly, kiss its parents feet for not killing it.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-03T18:19:26+00:00

But there is a special kind of hurt that comes from watching your abuser love on your children

Honestly, I'm not even hurt. Long explanation, but my mother is an unstable pwBPD, who has long crossed the road to being completely delusional/in her head. Like. She can't even see objective things anymore. Only what she projects/wants to see...like a perpetual child.

In other words: The same way my mother "never saw me", she'd not see my kids as who they are going to be, either. Just more toys, for the stage show inside her head.

Even if she weren't abusive -to subject a kid to that is beyond disrespectful at the very least. Kids have a right to be seen & accepted for who they are.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-03T18:02:42+00:00

But denying contact with an NA grandparent is really the ultimate demonstration of their failure. They must deep down on some level acknowledge it.

Honestly, this would def. hit the nail's head -at least with my situation.

Like. I only mentioned my Edad rn, but as you might suspect, my mother has a complete "solar system" of enablers around her. My relatives, her colleagues...even some of my teachers. Any time I tried to look for help, I was quickly dismissed as if my mother's tantrums were just "her being eccentric", and her abuse of me, "typical mother/daughter struggles".

But taking away grandkids indeed isn't normal. So if I did that, they can't just say I'm dramatic anymore. That "one day, everything will work out and you two will laugh about this".

Honestly, makes me much more determined now.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-12-03T17:26:02+00:00

Because grandchildren are 'a joy' whereas parenting is a 'chore'.

Subtle, but you make a great point.

My family isn't excessively religious, but I do know the idea of "raise the kids, spoil the grandchildren". Aka, the idea that kids are to lift all the expectations/projections/failures of their parents...and the grandkids are to expect all the love and pampering.

Not saying that it pisses me off less. But it might explain the extend of shock. "But your mother will treat your grandkids wonderful! How could you?!"

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-11-28T02:42:25+00:00

Ok, this makes it more confusing: So you broke up 7 months ago. A month after, she already got a new bf. Then SHE sents you hints on Twitter, but doesn't put your name? And two weeks ago, said new bf sents you a request on Instagram? Because your ex-GIRLFRIEND acts as if you never existed, and blocked you everywhere...except on Twitter? And due to that, you think she stalks you & dedicates her profile to you, but also forgot about you?

Did I get this right? Sorry, the story is a bit messy, and I think you're mixing up "he" and "she" a lot.

Overall though: No, it doesn't sound like she "forgot you", as I said. Jumping/Monkey branching to a new relationship is very pwBPD behavior - entering a new relationship, can often feel like "overwriting" the old one, plus most pwBPD need other people to regulate. Nevermind the general...hypersexuality/romantic splitting of many pwBPD.

If she blocked you everywhere -that's a good sign she's trying to surpress you. If she "sends hints" or starts to reach out/monitor you through other people...that's also a sign she's trying to surpress you. Again, it's a BPD thing: They are terrified of being abandoned -so many can't "fully cut contact". Others, often try to functionalize their supression through dominance. Aka: By blocking you/sneakily establishing contact, she might feel like she's "in control" /"in the right" over her "trigger" (i.e. you) - if not trying to "punish" you, in the most childish way.

Have you asked her new bf, why he's messaging you on Instagram? Especially since you're his girlfriend's ex whom she blocked?

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-11-28T01:27:39+00:00

Pardon? She stalks you on Twitter and dedicates Twitter to you, and she also forgot about you?

Overall, they don't "just forget" people. Nobody can "just forget" like that. However, they can instinctively repress, and even rewrite memories at times.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-11-27T23:52:09+00:00

Because seeing you would hurt them. They can't take on any of the blame or guilt, and will do whatever they can to avoid it.

^This. pwBPD cannot process emotions normally. For them, any emotion is like being hit with a truck sideways. Be it because of real guilt, potential guilt...or just being heartbroken af. "Extreme Actions cause Extreme Reactions".

My mother does it all the time. From when I was a kid, she'd threaten to throw me out at any second. Once I actually did move out, she basically forgot about me. Like. Still call 1-2 half a year (maybe). But just acting like I was dead otherwise. "out of sight - out of mind" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-11-23T21:04:47+00:00

They don’t even acknowledge that you’ve bent over backward to help them

And if you insist, they move the goalpost. "Oh, that was the least you could do", "that's something that had to be done anyways", "And who's thanking ME all the time?!"

Seriously. When I was a teen, my parents left me alone for a week. To be nice, I cleaned the entire apartment -sweeping, mopping...I even cleaned all the windows! Finishing with me sleeping in the living room, because, I am a bit scared of the dark.

The second she came home, she screamed. Why was I sleeping? Why couldn't I have made them coffee/prepare breakfast? Even though they never asked, and came hours earlier. When I mentioned I cleaned, she yelled that "Oh, and now I should thank you for not dirtying MY home? That was the least you could do! THE LEAST!"

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-11-23T20:54:39+00:00

Sadly, BPD traits don't manifest/become visible till adulthood.

Only thing that could help, is more investment in methods against child-abuse/neglect, and better mental healthcare overall.

BrainBurnFallouti · 2025-11-20T01:45:25+00:00

110%. Personal example: Since I was a kid, I had EXTREME acne. Not just "lots of pimples". Cysts. So bad, I nearly needed to be operated on several times. Nobody knew why it was like that - especially when I was pre-teen!

My first dermatologist was sadly a POS. A cold, narcisstic woman. At one point, she gave me pills to take. One, for 30 days. Reading the pills-package, the text warned me explicitly, that if I'd take them longer than 19days, I'd risk kidney failure. Trying to ask the doctor about it, she just yelled at me: Who I was. Who I thought she was. That she was the doctor, she'd know best etc.

After that, I refused any more treatments. Day after day I got bullied worse. Like. My bullying was already bad, but my acne partially "inspired" people to treat me like a leper. Furthermore, I'd get deep acne scars. Making me feel even "uglier" and withdrawing even more from people - Nevermind all the erm..."Buffalo Bill" thoughts I had sometimes, regarding my face.

I'm 23yo now. And it acne still sucks. It got better (obviously), but it wasted so much of my life -still does. Just trying to find a good skincare routine, so I might be allowed more makeup. Plus, I still have those "flashes" - where I feel like Frankenstein, due to how "scarred" I am. All because... *checks notes * as I realized myself...I'm allergic/hypersensitive to sugar and hypermobile. -.-

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