Cleaning and got bugged.

[Think About It...]

I read another post that was asking about "their" mindset, the BPD.  Mine would talk about the big ex before me.  Now I was to find out that there were a couple of guys between myself and the original ex, but it was the original ex that she would talk about.  She would not even refer to him (father of her two children), by his name.  She would constantly mention him as "the unmentionable".  The only time she used his name was when she called me BY his name to be insulting to me.  It was a total black and white thing.  The only way I can express the way that she views me is as Hitler.  And by that, I mean if not the most, one of the most, despicable people to ever walk the planet.  Originally, I was called "perfect" and "a perfect angel", but at the end, I was a nameless evil to her.  And that's how it exists right now. We are on good/evil switches to them.  For the most part, when it's done, it stays on evil.  Mine flipped to good for one day back in December, after two months of ill occasional contact, then it was back to evil again.  I honestly think they re-write their memory.  Seriously.  We had a business together.  She quit doing it and started her own.  She mails my friends and tells them that I stole the whole business from her and her children and left her penniless.  I have a rather large cancelled check that says otherwise.  In her mind, I really believe she thinks she never received and deposited it.  Why am I here reading and writing right this second?  Because I was cleaning my own home and I found the one thing that I DID steal from her: a box of bullets that I took from her house without her permission the umpteenth time she said she wished she were dead.  And that's why I'm actually here, because I felt alone and wounded again, experiencing the cravings.

[nparade]

I read another post that was asking about "their" mindset, the BPD.  Mine would talk about the big ex before me.  Now I was to find out that there were a couple of guys between myself and the original ex, but it was the original ex that she would talk about.  She would not even refer to him (father of her two children), by his name.  She would constantly mention him as "the unmentionable".  The only time she used his name was when she called me BY his name to be insulting to me.  It was a total black and white thing.  The only way I can express the way that she views me is as Hitler.  And by that, I mean if not the most, one of the most, despicable people to ever walk the planet.  Originally, I was called "perfect" and "a perfect angel", but at the end, I was a nameless evil to her.  And that's how it exists right now. We are on good/evil switches to them.  For the most part, when it's done, it stays on evil.  Mine flipped to good for one day back in December, after two months of ill occasional contact, then it was back to evil again.  I honestly think they re-write their memory.  Seriously.  We had a business together.  She quit doing it and started her own.  She mails my friends and tells them that I stole the whole business from her and her children and left her penniless.  I have a rather large cancelled check that says otherwise.  In her mind, I really believe she thinks she never received and deposited it.  Why am I here reading and writing right this second?  Because I was cleaning my own home and I found the one thing that I DID steal from her: a box of bullets that I took from her house without her permission the umpteenth time she said she wished she were dead.  And that's why I'm actually here, because I felt alone and wounded again, experiencing the cravings.

[diotima]

What a terrible thing for you to go through. Yes, they do rewrite history. History is whatever happened in the past that can be used to justify and interpret however they feel in the present, so the present emotions dictate their version of history. I think they do believe (or try to convince themselves that they believe) the things they make up. Other times I think they might have a fleeting awareness that they are making things up--at least this was true of my ex. I started keeping a little book where I wrote things down that I knew he would distort. It is crazy making for those of us on the outside. It is understandable that you would feel wounded: you did so much and none of it was appreciated and you were lied to. That said: what exactly is it that you are craving?
Diotima

[nparade]

The craving is for contact.  I very simply won't make contact, and I do not expect to receive any contact.  But I know if I were to get a call right now, that I couldn't stop myself from going to her.  It's sort of a shameful feeling.

[diotima]

I don't know how long you have been NC, but I can tell you from my experience (and what others have gone through) that the longer you remain NC the better. It is the only way you can heal. Contact=pain. I sympathize with you. It took me quite a few months to stop craving contact with my ex. Now and then there would be a little contact and every single time I was hurt. Do you want to prolong the start of your healing process? Keep posting rather than allowing contact is what I would advise. I know how hard this is.
Diotima

[GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Are you on the right board?]

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Are you on the right board? This board is for members with failed or failing relationships that want to detach from their relationship and relationship wounds. If you are still analyzing the decision to stay, please post on Undecided: Staying or Leaving All members living with a pwBPD should learn to use the Stop the Bleeding tools - boundaries, timeouts and other basic tools - to better manage the day to day interactions with your partner. If you have questions on any of the tools, feel free to go over to Staying: Improving a Relationship with a Borderline Partner and ask for help. :-)

[PDQuick]

Nparade, follow me along in this analogy, and lets see if we can help you understand this. You will have to depersonalize this, and come at it from a different angle.

Have you ever gone and bought a lawnmower? You need to cut the grass, and you have nothing, so what do you do? You buy one.

You get it home, put some gas in it, and pull the cord. VROOM! It starts on the first pull! And man, it cuts the grass great. WHAT A WONDERFUL LAWNMOWER!

Now, once you figure out that you like this lawnmower, you build up faith in it, and before you know it, you're running over pine cones, and that stump on the side of the property. You have the best lawnmower, and you can do anything with it.

As the season continues, and the time accrues on the mower, you notice that the grass isn't being cut as easily, or as evenly. But you still just run the crap out of it. Pretty soon, it starts to give you problems. It wont start on the first pull. It vibrates really bad. It doesn't cut good. And then one day, it quits, and doesn't start.

Now, here is where the disconnect is. the person cutting the grass has a list of priorities. These lists are different for each individual. They may differ from person to person, and no-one's list is wrong, because it is right for that particular individual. We cannot judge what should be someone's priorities, but we can allow the list to serve as a sort of compatibility litmus test to our own.

In this particular analogy, the owners priorities are to simply get the grass cut. This person cares nothing about maintenance, nor the mower. Money to buy a mower isn't a priority either. So, using these priorities, this mower is now a complete piece of junk. This owner will not take the time to fix it, or bother with it any way. This person will go out and buy another one, and upon first pull, the new mower is the best mower in the world, if it starts.

Now, I think that is pretty self explanatory.

You talk of her being resentful of her ex. Think of the ex as a super mower that did more than any other mower has done. Once it failed her, she replaced it, but misses the life that was so convenient because of all of that mowers capability. She hasn't let go of the emotions and dynamics that has happened with him. She has yet to derive the lessons she needed to learn in the dissolution of that relationship, so her mind keeps going back, thinking that she got ripped off by that "mower".

I'm sure that if you look back at your relationship with this woman, you will see that her list of priorities were vastly different than yours. It is in that incompatibility that the unrest occurs, and the answer lays.

If you are a mower, you want an owner that takes care of you, and will treat you with respect. You want an owner that it is in it for the long haul, to work together with you. That way, you can both keep a well manicured yard for years.

It isn't your fault that your owner was like she was. But, you do owe it to yourself to seek out the reasonings that you feel like you were unworthy, and you felt comfortable in this type of relationship. By unworthy, I mean, why you still want to run, and mow for someone who couldn't care less if you ran out of oil, and locked up your engine, or not.

[saxon747]

Brilliant analogy PD! Thank you!

[bengaltropicat]

Excellent explanation PD.
My UBPDexH used to do this with cars, boats, motorcycles, etc.
After more than 30 years he did it with me, believing I was on the path to leave him.  So disordered!

[mscj]

I am bookmarking this analogy because it is the best simple explanation for me to keep reading and reminding myself about why I am getting out.  It will keep reminding me to stay out after I get out the door!
Thanks so much for writing it.

[nparade]

It's an absolutely appropriate analogy. 

I won't make contact.  I am absolutely confident I won't.

The odd thing is, I understand the analogy.  I understand perfectly that the analogy was my relationship.  I still don't understand a damn thing about it, nor why I reacted and behaved in such a way as to accept terrible behaviors, to linger on "good" things, and to so utterly tune out the "bad" things.  It's been maybe almost 6 months since break up, maybe three since NC.  The last encounter was an intimate contact that came out of NOWHERE. 

True story:  Once when I was maybe 12 years old, I was walking through the woods with my dad and we stopped and stood for a moment.  He calmly said, "Look down at your feet".  I did, and I was straddling a coiled up snake. It was scary, I jumped away of course.   I feel like I have been standing over that snake for five years, KNOWING it was there, but never really registering the fear or the danger.  After the fact now, I can't believe myself, everything that was laid out before me, that I didn't register.  I have never before felt so betrayed by my own sense of perception. 

Thank you.  Thank you all.  I typed what I typed to try to release the pressure.  It felt  better to see those responses.

[nparade]

I feel in a way that she stated her priorities.  But, that maybe she was really just reading my priorities and parroting them back to me.  Our priorities were very different, but I sure feel like she went to a great effort to tell and convince me they were actually the same.  That's a TOUGH concept to grasp or even to try to explain in a way that makes sense.  I don't know if I did/said it in a way that does.

[mscj]

Isn't it great having this board to process instead of doing something we know won't help?
I think it is difficult to understand why because there are many why's to it.  I know that I have done the same thing of ignoring the bad but I get better and better at it even though in weak moments I can fall back to old patterns.
mscj