BOARD: Relationship Ended - Breakup Crises

Stand back and look at your feelings and the situation - what do they tell you about yourself.

SELF-INQUIRY [Stage 2]: Once you've felt your feelings, you'll need to learn to understand them and the loss you are suffering through self-inquiry. To begin the self-inquiry part of the process, bring yourself into contact with your inner witness.

In any process for working with feelings, it's important to find a way to explore your feelings that allows you both to be present with them (engage the emotion) at times and to stand aside from them (be impartial) and to know when each is appropriate. It sometimes helps to take little time to care for the part of you that needs comforting before you start this journey.

Breakdown the loss (the situation) to understand it in a clear and balanced way - your part, your partner's part; what is normal relationship "stuff", what was abnormal; what was malicious, what was weakness, or what was ignorance. It's very important to detach from your emotions for this and look at things in an analytical way (use your inner witness). The best location for these discussions is [L3] Leaving: Detaching from the Wounds of a failed BPD Relationship. There are excellent reference articles and workshops discussions located in suggested reading.

Breakdown your feelings - try to unmask them. Our anger may really be fear. Feelings of disrespect may really be a fragile ego. Start by probing the feelings and the thoughts that drive the desire or grief or hopelessness in your consciousness, perhaps naming it to yourself (e..g., fear, weakness, disappointment, false hope, etc), and gradually come to understand who you are, who you have been. Explore the energy in the feelings. As you go deeper into this energy, its knotty, sticky quality will start to dissolve—for the time being. The best location for these discussions is [L5] Taking Personal Inventory. In addition to discussin with members, there is a clinical depression test, a personality test, and a style test which may prove helpful.

As you work through this process be patient. BPD is a very complex disorder to understand as the thought process is very different than our own. Self analysis is also a very complex process as we are encombered by our own self image and feelings. Remind yourself that you do have resources to help (BPDFamily, your clinicain, your clergy), recall helpful teachings in your life, or pray for help and guidance.