Internal Dialogue/dissociation,,which is it?

[Peterpan]

I've read a lot about dissociation on these boards, and have often seen face to face what I think it means, however, I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced thier PWBPD    using 'internal dialogue' a lot.

As I've said on another board... .   I have often been amidst a conversation with my expwuBPD,, where he has kind of switched off so to speak,,gone quiet,, come out with a sentence, which at the time felt like he was regressing to another time... .   another person/situation.

He would be talking about something in particular, but then it would kind of remind him of another person, event, etc... .   and he would verbally express it... .   sometimes being very graphic in detail, as though it was not me sat with him, but the person he was referring to.

'Thinking of someone else'... .   it was always really hurtful to me, and he did it as though he really was with someone else at the time,(oblivious to the fact that it was me sat with him)

I always felt he was on and off (according to his needs) with someone else as well as me... .   but it really was like he 'merged' us both into one being.

He would say things like "I told you didn't I"          "aren't i"   as though he thought he had already told me things.

It happened a lot and I never quite knew if he was thinking of a conversation he'd had with someone else... .   or trying to convince himself of what he was saying.

And then of course, I would also wonder if he just 'wanted' me to think he's had a conversation with someone else, such was the nature of the mind games.

On the times that it happened I would come away totally convinced that I was right in my suspicions of infidelity.

Is this a normal thing with BPD? or just a general mix up with 'players'

Anyone else experienced this at all?

[tailspin]

Peterpan,

Yes, I'm familiar with this form of dissociation.  What we are seeing is our partner revisiting the original traumatic experience/memory.  My ex would be triggered by something I said or did... .   but he could also be triggered by a movie, a song, a smell, or a sound.  When this happened he would travel back in time to the original experience and actually relive it again.  During dissociation, the persona of the person associated with this memory is projected onto us. We become the "fill in" and most often we take the brunt of the anger they were unable to express during the original experience.

Small children cannot stand up for themselves to their parent.  They cannot demand kind and consistent treatment from the person who is supposed to love and protect them.  They have no idea why they are being treated so poorly and the resulting anger and feelings of worthlessness stay unresolved and always with them. Now as adults, these same children whose emotional development has been arrested, struggle with this unresolved anger.  But instead of going back to the source of their original pain (parent) they take it out on us. Going back to the source of their original pain would mean splitting this parent black... .   and this cannot happen because acknowledging their parent was "bad" would alter the universe as they see it.

There is always an original wound with mental illness and sometimes it's a series of wounds that compound an already broken mind.  Sometimes they use us to try and resolve issues from their past but most of the time we become the trigger that pulls them back down the rabbit hole and into the madness. 

tailspin

[Peterpan]

Thank you for such an easy to understand explanation Tailspin.

Is it possible that the original source of their pain may not be a parent, but some other trauma in their life?

I think I read somewhere that traumas during puberty could result in NPD if not BPD ?

I know that my ex 's mother was a drinker and his father was absent (because of his work) until the age of thriteen.

I also know that there was another trauma which supposedly happened at that age, adn another a little older?

[Blessed0329]

Sometimes they use us to try and resolve issues from their past but most of the time we become the trigger that pulls them back down the rabbit hole and into the madness. 

Tailspin, can you elaborate on this? Are you saying that, for whatever reason, we trigger our exes into losing control over their illness? If so, this sounds like something that can never be a successful relationship.

[tailspin]

Peterpan,

Yes, the original pain isn't always due to a parent and sometimes heredity plays a part.  There isn't one common reason for BPD, but the resulting traits almost always follow the same abandonment trauma patterns and include the push/pull dynamics.  Some people are born more sensitive to emotional upheaval and may develop a mental illness while others have the emotional capacity to survive the trauma.

Blessed,

We become the trigger because we eventually represent the source of their original pain.  I don't know if we trigger them to "lose control of their illness" because their illness is characterized by unstable emotions to begin with.  We didn't cause their illness.  However, sometimes we trigger the memories and pain associated with their illness.

We may never fully understand the original wound our ex's experienced, and in some cases, the original wound cannot be determined if the illness is genetically linked.  However, it's important to understand that we didn't cause the original pain and we cannot make this pain go away. 

I thought my love would heal him.  I learned from all of this that my love will only heal myself.

tailspin