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BPDs and Tri-Polars are expert masters at playing the Victim-Persecutor-Rescuer Game.
Therefore, as an officer of the law, be careful not to be inadvertently allow yourself to be cast as the rescuer with the master manipulator casting an innocent party (against whom the BPD manipulator wants to gain revenge) as a persecutor. BPD/Tri-Polars are very adept at making accusations that they were beaten, assaulted, and may actually self-inflict wounds (banging their head against the wall) or hit another person with their shins or arms to create a bruise, then accuse the other person of inflicting the wound.
The BPD/Tri-Polar is very convincing because they are passionate in their statements and seemingly clear in their accusations -- until you compare the evidence to the accusation. Then there is often something that simply doesn’t fit the picture. Maybe the house is not torn up, or there are bottles of medicine in the bathroom for Bi-Polar patients.
Be careful when you ask neighbors what they saw or heard. It doesn’t take two to tangle with a BPD/TP. If the neighbors say they heard fighting, ask if they heard two people fighting, or did they hear just one, and assume it was two.
Determining if the accusations are true can require some insight and good on-the-scene questioning. Ask if either of the parties has been under psychiatric care. Determine if there have been prior calls to police that would indicate a psychiatric problem.
It does no good to put a BPD/TP in jail if they really belong in a mental institution. And worse, sending an innocent victim to jail (which happens far too often), will wreak havoc on the victim and leave the BPD/TP either in a mental state that may result in suicide, or may reinforce the BPD/TP’s arrogant disregard for the law and the rules of fair play.
In Kassandra’s situation (see Case Study), she had been diagnosed and was being treated as a Bi-Polar. When major outbursts occurred or suicide attempts caused the police to be called, she was taken to the mental ward of local hospitals. Sometimes she would later be transferred to a local mental institution. Once there, she would explain to the attending psychiatrist that she was Bi-Polar, and after one or two days of observation, she would be acting completely normal. The psychiatrists, assuming the Bi-Polar episode had ended, would then release her. They had not seen that, as a master manipulator, she had been consciously repressing the BPD part of her disorder, and upon return to home, would immediately begin the rage and manic dysphoria. Her psychiatrist did not believe her husband’s observations about Kassandra, preferring to take Kassandra’s stories about her husband’s alleged abusive behavior at face value. It was not until after the ninth suicide attempt/self mutilation that Kassandra’s husband was able to convince her psychiatrist that the problem not Bi-Polar (see Case Study: Life with a BPD Mate).
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