Reflecting on my end of the dysfuntion

[Vatz]

I'm starting to see where *I* went wrong. Really starting to wake up. This is probably the most agonizing part of my process. I'm not sure what the end result is, whether I heal or not. I might get over it, move on and be okay. I'm coming face to face with myself and what I refused to admit.

Lately I've been having nightmares. I would do something terrible to someone (usually murder.) No one would catch me but I always knew, and throughout the dream (what would feel like weeks) I would hold on to that guilt. First I'd rationalize it, tell the story in my head. Then I would start to fear being caught. Then I would finally start to think about the horror that person felt in their last moments. In these dreams I become paralyzed with remorse and fear. Every time I wake up, for minutes I forget that it none of it happened, that I was "safe." I could get up, get dressed and still not realize that it was all a dream.

Problem is, the dreams are just a more twisted version of how I feel on a day-to-day basis. Every day I recall something I did, the way I may have acted. Ways I was unfair, unfeeling and unloving. I realize that I hurt her. That I left her feeling alone, maybe even unwanted as I often felt. I may have made her feel the way I felt and that's just terrifying. I'm not angry anymore and now that I'm not looking at what she did, I'm looking at who I am and what I've done.

Today, it hit me. She wanted to go to the store, and said she didn't feel right going without me. By this time I was so angry and resentful that I would just tell her to go by herself. I was so effing lazy that I couldn't be bothered to get off my fat ___ to go with her to the store. But worst of all, is this realization. It wasn't about helping her at all. It was about spending time together, and I simply said "no." As if I had better things to do (I didn't.) This is just an example and every day I'm facing another little event, another time where I should have shown compassion and empathy, but instead was stubborn and selfish.

Besides that, I realize that I should have let her go before the relationship even began. At first she didn't want to date me (not a second time, but that's a different story.) I'll never know why she decided to ask me out, and I don't think I want to know. But I was an idiot for even taking the call that day. It was the start of me going back on boundaries and it was downhill from there. I don't know who I am anymore, that's sort of the end result of this whole thing. Now I can either remake myself, or die.

Did anyone else go through this stage? Where you started to see your own errors, and look at your own actions and behaviors. How did it feel, how long did it last and did you come out better for it?

[PrettyPlease]

Did anyone else go through this stage? Where you started to see your own errors, and look at your own actions and behaviors.

Yes. You're on the right board. 

How did it feel, how long did it last and did you come out better for it?

Partly invigorating (aha! moments), partly disconcerting and distressing (I can be self-centered and insensitive), partly Zen (Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water).

It's lasted about a year, maybe a year and a half; showing no signs of ending.

Come out better for it... .? From my point of view, from the point of view of pwBPD (that I no longer talk to), from the point of view of neighbours, friends, relatives... .-- I guess the answers might differ. But I don't think going back is an option, so I hope I've come out better for it in some global sense. Anyway I believe that I have, which I think is the question you're asking. 

[fromheeltoheal]

Did anyone else go through this stage? Where you started to see your own errors, and look at your own actions and behaviors. How did it feel, how long did it last and did you come out better for it?

Oh yes.  I wasn't perfect in the relationship, not by a long stretch, and since I've left her and healed I've learned about attachment styles, I have an anxious one, and I use what's called 'protest behavior' when things aren't right, and I used plenty of that with her, giving her back the same sht she gave me, ignoring her, saying shtty things to her about her appearance, dress, occupation, whatever.  That stuff is petty really, and a result of not mustering the courage to sit down and have an adult conversation about what's really going on with me; she was the wrong person to do that with, never would have worked, but it was genuinely enlightening when I learned what I'd been doing forever had a name and better ways of doing things, starting with picking better partners.  

The other piece is I thought my way through life full time for a long time, instead of feel my way through, and ignored my gut feel pretty much full time.  Note to self: don't do that anymore.  Living in a way that I'm in touch with my gut feel full time and feeling instead of thinking, making feeling a priority anyway, is waking up, living all the way, and had I been in that place when I met her our relationship wouldn't have lasted two weeks, although I don't regret being stupid and hanging around far longer than I should have, since the pain motivated me to get to where I am today, and that's a good thing.  Being fully alive is scary though, takes lots of courage, which is why I spent so much time not going there.  Whatever, live and learn, but there's no going back now.

[Turkish]

Vatz,

Mine would sometimes tell me what to do to calm her with with anger or depression. I often blew it, I know. These things weren't specifically responsible fir the breakup, but I do own that I did some things wrong. At the end, I asked myself, "how much should I own since these things can't be processed within the context of a relatively healthy r/s?"

The sad thing is that I sought out this type of r/s in the first place. That I own 100%, and in a way, I feel sorry that I wasted 6 years of her life.

[Ihope2]

I acknowledge that I have some deep developmental backlogs when it comes to relating to a partner in a healthy, close relationship.

Not so much with friendships with other friends (mostly women), but in an exclusive, intimate relationship where the same issues are  constantly replayed, as in early childhood.  Closeness versus distance, holding on versus letting go, trust versus mistrust, wanting touch versus wanting to be in my own space, etc.

This is quite painful, I mean, it is me admitting to the world that I am developmentally behind, but that's ok for now.  I will try to catch up as best I can.

In reality, nobody is really 100% developmentally healthy and completely self-actualised.  Some of us have just had a worse childhood than others. Not our fault.

I agree that I need to pick better partners, I have been aligning myself with very psychologically unwell partners, but I know that I was avoiding healthy partners, because secretly I didn't think that I was that healthy myself and I was afraid to be found lacking.  Well guess what, I have been found out now!  I know now what I am lacking, and it's ok.  I can work on it.  I think it is a lifelong mission as we move from the dysfunctional end of the scale to the more functional side!

[PrettyPlease]

This is quite painful, I mean, it is me admitting to the world that I am developmentally behind, but that's ok for now.  I will try to catch up as best I can.

In reality, nobody is really 100% developmentally healthy and completely self-actualised.  Some of us have just had a worse childhood than others. Not our fault.

+1   

I agree that I need to pick better partners, I have been aligning myself with very psychologically unwell partners ... .

 

+1 

but I know that I was avoiding healthy partners because secretly I didn't think that I was that healthy myself and I was afraid to be found lacking... .

This I'm not sure of, in myself, though it might be true. How did you know that you secretly thought this? It could happen a different way: what I mean is, my poor early training and experiences led me to feel a need to 'fix' other people, and do what they wanted (I had a hard time saying no) -- which together led me directly into relationships with people who were unhealthy. Yet I didn't have a sense, AFAIK, that I was unhealthy -- this was just what I knew how to do; it was the way life was (I didn't know any different), and so I did it. I even felt relatively purposeful; an 'vulnerable narcissist' might be a good label for it. I was unhealthy, since I didn't have a good grasp of the inability of people to fix each other, or of boundaries -- but I didn't know I was. (When the fixing didn't work, it was easy to explain in terms of how badly broken the other person was; and they were. So I didn't need to look at myself -- at least for the first few years.)

So, to return to the original post, where Vatz says near the end:

This is just an example and every day I'm facing another little event, another time where I should have shown compassion and empathy, but instead was stubborn and selfish.

Besides that, I realize that I should have let her go before the relationship even began... .

I can relate to this directly: my SOs were broken in a serious way, and I was stubborn and selfish like Vatz, and certainly compassion and empathy is good almost always, but still it wouldn't have helped; Vatz is right to say "I should have let her go before the relationship even began... ."

I guess what I'm coming to is that, in the end, it matters which way we got ourselves into the dysfunction with the BPD SO (secretly thinking we're unhealthy or assuming we're healthy) only in that knowing the details will help us figure out what our own personal pattern is. But either one is a mistake, relative to a healthy one -- or so I've been told. Maybe even the 'healthy' people are actually on the same yellow brick road and we'll end up together again back in Kansas.    

(This is a distressing thought, at times, and at other times strangely comforting; leading me to a kind of devil's advocate stance: How do we know whether we're doing better or worse than anyone else? Hours of happiness? (Is there an app to measure that?) Years (not) incarcerated in a federal penitentiary? Children propagated?    .  I often remember the great scene in "As good as it gets" when Jack Nicholson delivers the title line in the shrink's waiting room: 'Maybe this is as good as it gets". And he seemed to enjoy delivering the line, didn't he? His cup was half full, not half empty -- even though we learn in the movie that he had come from a bad early life and was quite f--ed up, by traditional standards.)

Forgive the ramble, if you got this far. It's nice to have a sandbox to make mud pies with these things.