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Author Topic: General question. Paranoia or projection?  (Read 585 times)
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« on: November 08, 2014, 08:42:07 AM »

Other's thoughts on this please for my own information, here are a few scenarios I encountered with my ex who has a horrible sexual past filled with many many men as well as cheating. It is hard enough to put up with the typical things like going to a restaurant and when you look over towards the waitress to see if it is your food that is coming but she serves another table because it was not your food you have to listen to, why can you just focus on me? Do you have ADD? Why are you interested in that old ___?  But I found these things really weird.

Is this paranoia or projection?

(1) She had the scenario she said she knows of and accused me of, it is that people go online and plan to walk by each other in a public place so they can at least look at each other and see if they want to have sex!

(2) we needed some things for her house so we went to the local Walmart together, walked in the store and turned to head towards the other end, in the other entrance walked woman that I did not notice because it was about 70 yards away but she did, and then she turned and quickly started walking away. When she did That I looked up and saw a woman wearing tall winter type boots and went after my ex, she was obviously having a anxiety attack so I grabbed her hand and told her to breathe and asked her what the problem was. She said-- I knew you planned to meet your ___ here!  And left the store!

(3)- on the road we stopped at a rest area on The highway to get something to eat and go to the bathroom, we walked in and headed to the bathroom firstand she said no just wait here for me quick while I go, I said okay I can wait a minute, she came out of the bathroom and I headed to the men's room and she stopped me and said what's the hurry? Is your ___ in there? And to make herself comfortable she checked the single stall handicapped bathroom to make sure it was empty and asked me to go in there!  I did want to tell her How crazy this is but I had to go to the bathroom and did not want an argument!

(4)- needless to say always being accused of cheating!

(5)- we took my children clothes shopping for school and when we went in the store she was actually in a great mood with a big smile on her face to be able to help my daughter pick out close like women love to do. As we were standing at the rack going through clothes, laughing smiling and joking, A woman was about 3 racks away and wearing a harley hat and jacket.  I knew I was in trouble and cringed as to what was about to happen!  Yup., when she turned and noticed the woman for herself , she dropped the shirt she was showing my daughterand quickly walked out of the store saying  I KNEW IT!

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« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2014, 09:33:44 AM »

Is this paranoia or projection?

It's really difficult to know for sure. The reason I say that is because much of what you describe sounds so much like the crap my mother spews about my father. Yes, my father has cheated on her but she has taken her paranoia to the level of ridiculous. Any time my dad doesn't answer his phone, it is because he is talking to his ___s. Any time my dad goes anywhere, he is accused of seeing his ___s. Even before he cheated this last time, my mother would make all sorts of accusations about him. He told me at one point, "If I am going to be accused of crap, I might as well do it." My parents have been together for 47 years and my mother has always been so unbelievably insecure and paranoid. Projection would mean that she was doing these things herself. My mother has never done anything like the stuff that she accused my dad of. However, she did grow up in a home with alcoholic parents where here mother had a different guy ever night. If it is projection, it is her projecting her childhood fears and experiences onto my dad.

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« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2014, 10:11:50 AM »

That's why it's weird,  with her past I wonder if she may have done these things.

I know hookers exist but never heard of mutual public sex screening?
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« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2014, 10:15:24 AM »

Even stranger is I never cheated on her either,she actually liked the fact that I was married since high school and she was my second relationship!  Never cheated in my marriage either,  go figure.
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« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2014, 01:26:29 PM »

 

Paranoia is tough.

That is the primary issue I deal with in my r/s.

It seems to come from the core of my wife's soul.  I think there was a big letdown... or something when she was younger... .and she is worried about something like that happening again. 

Very important to not "feed" paranoia.  I did for a while.

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« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2014, 02:11:12 PM »

    I have seen this before. My brother dated a woman like this. As soon as she met me, she made him cut off all contact because, you guessed it, she accused him of wanting to have sex... .with his own sister! Sick, sick, sick.

She was accusatory and incredibly violent. Once he finally left her, YEARS later, he told me horror stories. He had to quit jobs if they hired a female. He couldn't order his own food from a waitress, but a waiter was ok. He had to keep his eyes down at all times when out in public with her. She wouldn't let him have a cell phone so he would hide coins in his baseball cap liner to make phone calls. That stopped when she started noticing change missing. She also unplugged the home phones and took them with her when she went out, if he stayed home. She even got angry at him for reading the Bible, declaring he was in love with God and not her. It gets way worse, but I don't want to scare you.

Tread carefully with this one. Start setting limits now or it will only get worse.
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« Reply #6 on: November 09, 2014, 01:39:16 AM »

The problem is you start doing whatever it takes to keep the peace, walking on eggshells. This leads you into dysfunctional isolation. From there it is a hard road back.

If you keep complying to avoid the drama then the behavior in itself takes on a life of its own to exert control over you. Even if she doesn't feel it, she will have learned how to make you jump.

Paranoia and obsession definitely, projection possible, but not necessarily.
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« Reply #7 on: November 09, 2014, 04:11:13 PM »

Jessica,  you are dead on!  We were at my grandmothers for a family birthday party and having a good time in the pool swimming and she had to,  " sorry for the too much info "

Check to see if I had a erection because my 14 year old niece was swimming with my daughter!  She checked me physically right in front of my family,  I also got laid off from work for a while and found a job but was told I can't work there because there was  a female that worked there that we both knew.

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« Reply #8 on: November 09, 2014, 04:16:32 PM »

Jessica,  you are dead on!  We were at my grandmothers for a family birthday party and having a good time in the pool swimming and she had to,  " sorry for the too much info "

Check to see if I had a erection because my 14 year old niece was swimming with my daughter!  She checked me physically right in front of my family,  I also got laid off from work for a while and found a job but was told I can't work there because there was  a female that worked there that we both knew.

What was your response to being checked?
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« Reply #9 on: November 09, 2014, 04:18:56 PM »

Could this be all about control?  She is manipulating your behavior and training you to go into a shell where you cannot even look at other women.

I predict, that if she succeeds in controlling you, your sex life will come to an end with her.
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« Reply #10 on: November 09, 2014, 07:04:15 PM »

My response was in the beginning because this was weird to say see your wrong,

Then when she needed to go around the corner and check again and talk about it I told her that her thoughts and behavior does not belong in a family setting,    So she left.
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« Reply #11 on: November 10, 2014, 08:05:15 AM »

My response was in the beginning because this was weird to say see your wrong,

Then when she needed to go around the corner and check again and talk about it I told her that her thoughts and behavior does not belong in a family setting,    So she left.

Have you read the lessons about validation... .and "invalidating".

I would challenge you to focus on that... .then come back and post about how you think your responses were "received" by her.

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« Reply #12 on: November 10, 2014, 10:13:24 AM »

Yes formflier,

I see how she perceived that as invalidating.  In hindsight I probably could have said something like,  you're going to have to help me understand why you feel that way but everything is okay and we can talk about it later, let's try and have a good rest of the day and we will talk when we are alone.

I just don't understand that sick thinking and it gets stressing at times, this was also before I discovered this site and this information, it's more of a hindsight question to help in the future, thank you for your help and I am still learning too.
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« Reply #13 on: November 10, 2014, 11:41:01 AM »

This level of possessiveness is about fear of losing someone so much to the point of dominating them. I don't know where it comes from or why anyone would want to control a partner like this. How would she ever know you are with her because you CHOOSE to be? Enough humiliating experiences like the ones you mentioned, and she could slowly isolate you from everyone and everything in your life, except for her. And it still may not be enough. Validate her for sure, but practice some self-love and self-validation as well to help you set boundaries. There are ways to lovingly stop this kind of abuse.

If only my brother had the right tools at the time. He just went with it and ended up becoming her hostage. She was bipolar with BPD traits. He had done whatever it took to keep the peace for so long that her illogical behavior began to make sense to him. He took physical beatings and verbal abuse on a regular basis. I wanted to shake him and tell him this isn't love. This is self-imposed slavery!

You are at an advantage here with lots of help and guidance so you can avoid this extreme example. There is hope. You can learn how to give her what she needs without losing yourself in the process.
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« Reply #14 on: November 10, 2014, 12:38:27 PM »

Jessica,

Sounds like your brother Dated this woman, you are right on about everything except for physical abuse. I am still separated from her for that reason, i'm trying to gain as much knowledge as I can in case someday she wants to get help for herself, I am not going back to her unless she realises she has a problem and wants to fix it which I guess is a Catch-22 here.

In true BPD fashion she emails and says I am the one who is in need of psychiatric care,  I know coming right out and telling her that checking for erections in my grandmothers pool, as well as any time a woman is on the television or we are served by a waitress in stead of a waiter is not normal is only going to create another argument, I cannot prove to her in any way that she has a problem, I learned here that to her in her mind this is all normal, sometimes I wish I could just write down all the things she told me about her life, A list of men that I know about, all of her actions and behaviours as well as failed relationships, and prove to her that she has a problem. But I know that will work either and only make things worse. I can do is stay away and work on myself,  Sharing some of my questions and stories helps me a lot as well as everybody's feedback.  I learned here in part what was going on with this relationship by reading other peoples stories Ansar how closely they related to mine,  if I never see her again because she never goes to get help at least I got educated and maybe a new non in the fog sees what I wrote and says to himself, yeah me too and this has to stop one way or another.  Thank you so much for continuing to write.
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« Reply #15 on: November 10, 2014, 01:32:59 PM »

This was my theory about my brother's ex - since she had blurred the lines of how people behave around opposite sex relatives, there might have been some kind of incest or molestation in her life. BPD can be triggered by a childhood trauma. I'm not saying this is the case in all situations, but it certainly is a possibility to explain the behavior of some wildly accusatory jealous women. My family has none of this. Hugging my father, brother, uncle or male cousin is obviously not sexual! This warped thinking is sad, and yes, they need help. But suggesting therapy for someone in denial can be tricky.

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« Reply #16 on: November 10, 2014, 01:45:22 PM »

This was my theory about my brother's ex - since she had blurred the lines of how people behave around opposite sex relatives, there might have been some kind of incest or molestation in her life. BPD can be triggered by a childhood trauma. I'm not saying this is the case in all situations, but it certainly is a possibility to explain the behavior of some wildly accusatory jealous women. My family has none of this. Hugging my father, brother, uncle or male cousin is obviously not sexual! This warped thinking is sad, and yes, they need help. But suggesting therapy for someone in denial can be tricky.

This reminds me of some of the readings that I have done on sexual addiction. My husband is a sex addict and has a very distorted view of sex. Everything they do seems to be sexualized. There wasn't any molestation or incest in my husband's family but there was in mine. I was never overly sexual until being with my husband for a while. In past relationships, I had no problems with my fiance going to a strip club with his buddies. I was not jealous in the least. However, with my husband, his thinking is so warped and twisted that everything is filtered through a sexual lens. He has admitted to me that there was a time when he couldn't look at a woman without his mind going places it shouldn't.
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« Reply #17 on: November 10, 2014, 02:04:24 PM »

This was my theory about my brother's ex - since she had blurred the lines of how people behave around opposite sex relatives, there might have been some kind of incest or molestation in her life. BPD can be triggered by a childhood trauma. I'm not saying this is the case in all situations, but it certainly is a possibility to explain the behavior of some wildly accusatory jealous women. My family has none of this. Hugging my father, brother, uncle or male cousin is obviously not sexual! This warped thinking is sad, and yes, they need help. But suggesting therapy for someone in denial can be tricky.

This reminds me of some of the readings that I have done on sexual addiction. My husband is a sex addict and has a very distorted view of sex. Everything they do seems to be sexualized. There wasn't any molestation or incest in my husband's family but there was in mine. I was never overly sexual until being with my husband for a while. In past relationships, I had no problems with my fiance going to a strip club with his buddies. I was not jealous in the least. However, with my husband, his thinking is so warped and twisted that everything is filtered through a sexual lens. He has admitted to me that there was a time when he couldn't look at a woman without his mind going places it shouldn't.

Interesting. My pwBPD (uexbf) was sexually abused as a child, by a male. When I first met him he was overly flirtatious with other women and admired men who had sex with a lot of different women. He didn't cheat, but he was quite a gawker and wannabe "ladies man". He also has ED problems. I wondered if this was his way of overcompensating, like proving to himself he wasn't gay or him wanting to feel like a "real" man? His depression has tamped that down in a big way. Maybe he's finally coming to terms with what happened to him and it's causing him to feel depressed. More likely, he's depressed because of all the things he's done in life to escape the pain that have now left him broke and alone. Sad.
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« Reply #18 on: November 10, 2014, 02:14:04 PM »

About the sex addict thing,

I have good reason to believe she is a sex addict, when we were together which was at least every other day and every other weekend at minimum she would initiate sex at least two or three times a day, she did tell me that she was raped at age 16 by a ex boyfriend that she trusted was still just a friend, it came out in conversation once or twice that she remembers when she was younger that her mother had asked her if she remembered what happened when she was three?  She said she has no memory of anything happening when she was three but my question is why would her mother ask that question? Throughout the years her parents have very limited contact with her which was pretty much just dropping off Christmas presents and not many of them to the house within a few days of Christmas, over the years that whittled down to them just sending a check in a card in the mail, The few times I met her parents her father would not even look her in the eye while talking but when he raised his voice at her in conversation the mother would always smile. Her parents really do not want anything to do with her, I remember working on her son's car and asked her to call her father to borrow a tool, he had her brother get back to her five days later to ask what she needed.
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