PERSPECTIVES: The dysfunctional dance - self inflicted wounds

[Aurylian]

The Natural Reaction to Pain in all living things is to withdraw from it.
Choosing to accept pain from another person in order to survive is one thing but I'm beginning to feel standing there and taking verbal abuse is nothing less than Masochism.

But certainly it is our choice to stand there, right?  We can choose to run permanently (leave) or we can choose to run temporarily (until things regulate).  But, as you say, we must not stand and take it.

My dodge ball example is not entirely accurate.  In P.E. I did have to stay and participate.  Translating this to my situation now I would say "I don't feel safe dodging balls thrown by bigger kids.  I'm going to my next class."

A big part of the reason I struggle with wanting to leave permanently is that I don't leave temporarily when I should.

[HardDaysNight]

,,,

The question to ask yourself is why?  Why do we as non's choose to accept the treatment we do?  
Why would any healthy human being choose to remain with a borderline?

I accept that they have little or no control over themselves and that they can't be held totally accountable for that.  

So, Like the Animal Planet show "Fatal Attractions" is it our fault because we choose to live with "Dangerous Animals?"

Sir5r

I first asked myself what I could live with and accept.  The extremity of the BPD/NPD behavior varies.  I have an idea of where my limit is and luckily there has been some improvement from there.  There are certain behaviors I don’t accept anymore and that hopefully will continue working.

However as to “accepting the treatment” I don’t.  The first step for me was not to and to stop internalizing the verbal abuse.  I try not to internalize it or give credence to it.  It is not always easy.  I slip and give the pwBPD intermittent reinforcement by taking the bait or responding to the chaos creation attempts.

I would never have chosen a relationship with a BPD had I known about BPD all those years ago. In fact that is part of the problem.  In the beginning, first year, none of the rage, verbal abuse, etc. happened.

The reason I remained so long with the pwBPD in my life is I thought these were just bad days and the problems could be solved by talking, open discussion, reason, and increased attention and affection for the pwBPD.  It took me a long time to realize despite my best efforts no level or attention or communication was going to stop the chaos.  By the time I recognized and faced the facts, however, other factors had come into play.  

To wit, three children.  The children did not choose this.  As the only emotional adult it becomes up to me to make the best of a bad situation.  I could certainly bail tomorrow if I didn’t care about them.

[Skip]

Her main motivation for getting me back is only to abuse me more.  

I think Margaret Paul  is telling us not to say things like this to ourselves... that this is were we self inflict our own wounds.

However as to “accepting the treatment” I don’t.  The first step for me was not to and to stop internalizing the verbal abuse.  I try not to internalize it or give credence to it.  It is not always easy.  

This is well said.  We can stop being a victim by not letting some of this conflict get to our hearts.   Its not alsways about leaving the room.

As an aside, I have a friend who is an artist at this.  He tells himself (and me) "I'm not going to get upset about that" when the relationship problems start coming down.  He says it nicely... but he really means it.  And you soon learn from dealing with him that drama just fall on the floor when he is around.

I slip and give the pwBPD intermittent reinforcement by taking the bait or responding to the chaos creation attempts.

Even if you are only 50% successful - that is a big improvement.  It's like learned  skill.

In a lot of areas in life we don't take bad behavior to heart... we brush it off.  I think the part of the issue is that we have much higher expectations of the spouse.  And we feel very compromised when we lower those expectations.  It is not our image of a relationship.

Given the options before us - it may be an important compromise to make.  Something to radically accept.

[oceanblue]

The example to me doesn't seem so irrational.  If your SO is angry at you, particularly if they misunderstood something you did, doesn't it make rational sense to want to explain the misunderstanding and dissolve the anger?  My biggest difficulty with my BPDbf is that he makes irrational claims that I am hurting him.  For example, he claims that my facial expressions hurt him.  My natural response is to try to work on this conflict and explain perhaps he is misinterpreting my facial expressions.  Of course, this just ramps him up into a rage.  His reaction is abnormal - not mine.  What I am learning in therapy is that some of his positions are no-win situations for me and I have to learn to walk away.  Now I can do this with some success but it goes against my nature to want to comfort him and help him see I am really on his side.  The healthy person in a BPD relationship is still learning to adapt to the BPD's disorder - that takes a lot of education and a deep well of patience.

[Sir5r]

J What we tolerate before we leave is what we will get the next time. I had to leave last night after things got ugly.  Lesson learned, now I will leave if I think there is a small chance there going to get ugly.  I will be out for two days again then returning tomorrow night. I failed and gave her the intermittent re-enforcement she wanted. Two steps forward one step back.

BTW Everyone thinks I'm crazy to return to her again.
Sir5r

[daydreambeliever]

Paul uses the following to exemplify her point...

When I asked Don why he sits and listens to Joyce, he stated that he hoped if he listened to her she would listen to him. I asked if she ever does listen during these conflicts, and he answered "No."

"Why do you need her to listen to you?"
"I want to explain to her why I did what I did with the children."

"Why do you need to explain it to her?"
"So she won't be mad at me."

According to Dr. Paul, Don allows himself to be yelled at by Joyce as his way of trying to control Joyce, hoping to get her to approve of him. Then he tried to explain to further control how she feels about him. When she won't listen, he feels victimized by her yelling, blaming her for being such an angry, controlling person.


Taking responsibility for our own feelings of worth and lovability, instead of giving that job to others, moves us out from being victims.

Ahhhhhh so true. You know, I read somewhere once, that 'help is the sunny side of control'. I believe that. That makes me wonder how I was controlling or trying to be controlling in the r/s by being sooooo helpful and always there. I must say, I was not aware I had intentions of being controlling  to my ex BPDbf, yet I can see now this is the case. Passive aggressive controlling perhaps. Trying to control something so out of control. I knew that if I accepted enough, forgave enough, listened enough, was there enough, that I would 'outshine' any other girl and would be the one he would always come back to. When I look at that behaviour of mine, sure it was partly 'survival' to 'keep' bf but it was also control. Lack of control, for my own actions/behaviours, that were rooted in seeking validation from him, and passive aggressive control over him disguised as 'help'.


I gave him control over me and tried to regain my control over myself by being loved validated etc by controlling him through help. 

My analytical mind can see all this and own it, my emotional mind is still very hurt and wants to cry out that my heart is sore and I didn't mean to bring this on myself.  Then none of us meant to but did. 
 

[SOOOdone]

It's possible we stay because their hostility is STILL passion, albeit negative.

Therefore it is a way of staying attached.

Think of grade school...the little boy behind you that punched you in the arm because he liked you...but you'd never have guessed by his actions!

We know on some level that complete neutrality is the sign of non-involvement. Hostility and abuse at least shows, well, interest...

[susiebird]

After  some individual counseling, my uBPDh of 17 years no longer rages, but still repeatedly brings up the same issues as to why I am flawed.  The words are the same, just delivered in a calmer tone and still accompanied by withholding.  I am trying so hard to keep boundaries I set for myself but still let himself disorder occupy space in my brain.

I sometimes think it may help for me to tell him I will no longer accept him telling me lies about myself, and that I will walk away, go out, etc. when he tells me how awful I am.  I wonder if this is something that would temporarily make me feel better but not alter his behavior.  Just do it, or tell him how I am setting boundaries and why?

[catsprt]

"Funny" how it took me sooo long to get there, but there I am; hopefully there will not be too many relapses...

[SmileAnyway]

I like UfN's therapists formula:

pain + non-acceptance = suffering
-----------------------------------------------------------

It seems to me that since we are human, since we have fallen in love with our SO, pain is inevitable when their behavior surfaces. 

I for one am a little weary of being told that I am somewhat defective because I hurt when my u/pwBPD/w acts out her condition. 

It is a robot not a human that can isolate themselves from being affected by their environment. And how healthy would it actually be to get to a state whereby we are totally self-sufficient, not requiring the stimuli of those around us... the human, if nothing else is the supreme social animal!  No I think pain is inevitable in a healthy person undergoing such an experience.

Where the formula is profound is in the next stage 'non acceptance.'  If we can practice radical acceptance we severely limit the suffering, even though the pain still hurts.  For example:

  I scold myself on a saucepan - (no amount of mind over matter or clever psychology will remove the pain)
  I have two choices, do nothing (non acceptance) and the pain increases, the effects worsen, consequences = suffering OR
  I rinse my hand under the cold water tap and take first aid (radical acceptance) and the pain decreases and suffering is limited

As for 'accepting the treatment' I am not sure I understand what is being suggested here.  I believe we only 'accept' it as acceptable if we allow our boundary to fall.  If we maintain our boundary, aren't we voting with our feet that we consider the treatment unacceptable?

[HardDaysNight]

After  some individual counseling, my uBPDh of 17 years no longer rages, but still repeatedly brings up the same issues as to why I am flawed.  The words are the same, just delivered in a calmer tone and still accompanied by withholding.  I am trying so hard to keep boundaries I set for myself but still let himself disorder occupy space in my brain.

I sometimes think it may help for me to tell him I will no longer accept him telling me lies about myself, and that I will walk away, go out, etc. when he tells me how awful I am.  I wonder if this is something that would temporarily make me feel better but not alter his behavior.  Just do it, or tell him how I am setting boundaries and why?

Replace husband with wife and I understand your situation.  In my case it is blatant only about 30% of the time the remainder is passive-agresssive blaming and belittling.

I would not mention the word "boundaries" but would let him know you are not going to sit there and be belittled.  If you need to walk away that is OK, even if to just another room to do your own thing. 

In my case I did the explaining, yet she still continues with such behavior.  I non-longer explain why I am not engaging, I just do not engage.  That is, I do not respond to such comments any more.  I may just ignore it and move on or try to changethe topipc if feeling friendly.

The behavior is no less frequent but the indvidual epsodes have gotten shorter and I feel much better about myself refusing to enter the Karpman drama triangle.