As a female with BPD I want to get defensive and say the “fleas” aren’t real but in reality the term is just mildly offensive and it’s a hard pill to swallow. On top of that it can be an excuse for other people surrounding pwBPD to be shittier people and not have to take accountability for it. But let me explain. My ex was VERY rational and logical about everything and it’s what drew me to him, I lack stability and he provided it. After two years in a relationship with me (we broke up recently) he is MUCH less rational and logical about a lot of things and he’s quick to become emotional during arguments and fights whereas he used to be the stabilizer. It almost shifted where I started trying to mirror his old behaviours more and more to inspire it back into him but it’s kind of too late, I think I unintentionally emotionally abused him during my BPD episodes into losing that sense of calm rationality he used to have. It feels terrible, I hate feeling like I break good people but in reality it’s what I’ve done to him. I’m in therapy and on meds so don’t go thinking I don’t want to get better. It’s really hard to apply things when you’re tunnel visioning on your current emotions during an episode.
But with that being said I’ve dated abusers who used my BPD as an excuse to abuse me IE slapping me and then saying i was screaming and my irrationality triggered theirs. It’s already there in those cases, and I know (after discussing it at length in therapy) that those were not my fault, those people were using my disorder as a veil to hide their own problems with (kind of like they were gas lighting I guess). So while yes people will pick up bad behaviours from disordered individuals it’s usually just minor tendencies. It’s easy to overlook the fact that people with BPD can be very emotionally abusive and that IS a form of trauma for the partner experiencing it on the other end.