Struggling with Abuse

[willy45]

Hi All,

As some of you who have been following my threads know, I am really struggling with the term abuse.

Why? Why do I care about the label? Why is my therapist insistent that I own the label?

I guess owning the label allows me to come to terms with my behavior in the situation. I certainly did a whole bunch of things that I am not proud of. And, ultimately, it was me to who broke up with her. I really miss her. There is so much that I miss in my mind even though when I was around her, I was constantly walking on eggshells.

I guess the trouble with the idea of emotional abuse is that it doesn't seem very concrete. It doesn't seem objective. Physical abuse is easy. If she hit me, I could say she hit me. That is a concrete action. But she didn't. I thought she was going to at one point. And when I told her that I was scared she was going to hit me, she thought I was being completely ridiculous.

Ok. It may sound stupid that I wished she had hit me. That sounds pretty dumb. But all her other behavior towards me is just confusing. There are so many things she would do that just seemed so off. I can remember so many of them. Hiding under the bed from her during one of her late night rages. Sitting in a crowd of people while she berated me for being late and then having her go off and cry for an hour in a park by herself. Yelling at me when we were surfing because I mentioned to her that she should avoid paddling near the rock break because she might get hurt. And on and on and on and on. I literally have 50 or 60 different episodes where she would rage at me for various things. They were always 'my fault'. Except for once. Only once did she look at me and apologize and tell me she didn't understand why she freaked out on me (it was after we went to go see a movie and I told her I liked it but thought the opening was better than the rest of it).

Arg. Why is it important that I label this behavior as abusive? Does anyone have any insights? Am I just not able to let go? Man. I'm not sure what to do.

[hithere]

The reason you, me and many people on this board have trouble admitting we were abused is because it is embarrassing... .  because we let it happen 5, 10, 20, 100 times... .  it is emasculating and it makes us wonder what is wrong with us that we put up with this abuse for so long,

The truth is most of us are just nice people looking for true love and we got hooked in by some really nasty mental illness.  I will probably never know all the reasons I got hooked and stayed through so much abuse but no one is perfect, especially me.

Forgive yourself, get therapy but don't run away from the fact that you were abused, face it and deal with it.

good luck

[willy45]

Yeah. I guess that is sound advice. Thanks for that.

I just keep thinking it was all my fault, that I deserved to be treated that way. I guess that is all part of the cycle. I guess it takes a big man to own up to the fact that it was abusive, that I let it happen repeatedly and that I was not strong enough to resist her beauty, her guilt trips, her sexiness, her neediness, the idealizing. Even after being broken up for so long, I still slip back into it.

I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself. I was at 7 weeks of NC before I agreed to meet with her again. Then we met a couple of times and it threw my life into chaos. That was 6 weeks ago. And it felt like I got pushed back way further than I was a few months ago in terms of my recovery. My behavior around her just doesn't make any sense to me. When I saw her, I didn't even like her. But somehow, I got trapped back into it.

[hithere]

Hahaha, I could be speaking those exact words.  I kept dating my ex BPD for months after I moved out.  I knew 100 percent I could not live with her and we had no future but I still saw her on a regular basis.  I knew she would need a new victim sooner than later and when she started a relationship with someone I went NC for good (I needed that to release me).  I met someone a month later and am now living with her and engaged, she is the opposite of my BPD ex and makes me very happy in a much more healthy way.

You will do OK, it is just a matter of time, just don't let yourself fall back into the trap.