What's normal anymore?

[Cant breathe]

Do you ever wonder how you got to the point where you don't know normal versus abnormal behavior?

For instance, my ex once just stopped speaking to me while I was on the phone with him standing in the parking lot of a hospital where my mother was having heart surgery. That was all I got. silence. Six weeks later, he was engaged to his ex.

But... I took him back. And this time is was all good right (no disagreements, mutual care -- always is) until the evening I was pulling up to his house for a trip we had planned and I got a text saying the ex was inside and wouldn't be leaving because they were back together. A four line text. Nothing more. No care for me, even though he knew I had noplace to go that night.

It's so confusing to me. Do normal people do this?

[grumpydonut]

May not work for everyone, but I have a new guide.

- if it bores me, it's normal
- if it causes super excitement, fear, anxiety or attraction, it's not normal

Resetting a nervous system takes time. If you didn't grow up in a stable home, your nervous system doesn't even know what normal is.

[Sappho11]

Do you ever wonder how you got to the point where you don't know normal versus abnormal behavior?

For instance, my ex once just stopped speaking to me while I was on the phone with him standing in the parking lot of a hospital where my mother was having heart surgery. That was all I got. silence. Six weeks later, he was engaged to his ex.

But... I took him back. And this time is was all good right (no disagreements, mutual care -- always is) until the evening I was pulling up to his house for a trip we had planned and I got a text saying the ex was inside and wouldn't be leaving because they were back together. A four line text. Nothing more. No care for me, even though he knew I had noplace to go that night.

It's so confusing to me. Do normal people do this?

No. No, they don't. It's cold comfort now, but I think your ex was an extreme case. There are situations when I find it difficult to excuse hurtful behaviour with the diagnosis of BPD. It would NOT have been difficult for him to say something, anything while you were on the phone to him while your mother was in hospital – but he chose not to. A healthy person would have consoled you or even been there with you.

It would have been the LEAST of him to come out of the house and tell you about everything in person – and even that would have been a low move. He could EASILY have told you about the situation well in advance. It wouldn't have cost him anything in mental or emotional resources. Again, he chose not to.

A healthy person would never have raved about a holiday with you only to drop you like a hot potato when you showed up. These things don't happen in normal, stable relationships. Healthy people don't act that way.

I think on top of his illness, your ex acted like a rotten human being towards you, period.

May not work for everyone, but I have a new guide.

- if it bores me, it's normal
- if it causes super excitement, fear, anxiety or attraction, it's not normal

Resetting a nervous system takes time. If you didn't grow up in a stable home, your nervous system doesn't even know what normal is.

That's a gold nugget of advice right there, in my humble opinion.

[MeandThee29]

It's so confusing to me. Do normal people do this?

The short answer is NO, they don't. Normal people don't act this way. Our mutual therapist diagnosed my ex and told me after he left and chose to live far away. I still didn't completely believe it and kept my hopes up for some time while thinking that it had to end too. Such mixed thoughts!

Mine was a "gray" divorce after a long-term marriage. My attorney was older too and actually retired the day after it was final. My ex promised it would be straightforward, and it immediately went all kinds of wrong just as our marriage had gone all kinds of wrong.

So more than once I sat at the firm's big long conference table with a full wall of legal books behind my attorney, and I asked, "Why?"

He would smile, and in his kindly, Southern way say, "Because they can. Because they are not whole, healthy people. Your job as a whole, healthy person is to stay that way through this mess and come out a better person because of this divorce."

After signing, he asked me if he could hug me. Of course! He whispered in my ear, "Be brave and make good of this."

It took me a long time to untangle it all, indeed. I do a lot of volunteer work with disadvantaged and abused women, trying to help them work through their situations. In many ways, their stories help me. I always tell them that they have to learn to face the denial in their lives. There are some people we just cannot be around, period. We have to learn who we can trust. Trust is earned, not given. And in time, we all do indeed find clarity and hope.

[Ad Meliora]

Normal is such a loaded term it's hard to really answer that other than you know what normal is (for you) and you shouldn't lose that just because you had a partner with BPD.  I think we're all going to be extra sensitized and vigilant looking for signs of BPD in others now, and I think that's probably "Normal".  Given the stress, trauma, abuse we all went through.  We'll probably have to do some recalibration as time goes on.  I think the red flags will be triggered on a hairpin now, we'll just have to reset them, and see if they keep going off when meeting someone.  If they do, then we're best to avoid getting entangled with them.

I think this is a good question and I'll say for my own part I disabled my "Red-Flag Meter" with my BPDex.  I was like, 'this can't be right, my intuition is telling me something is wrong, but look at her, she's beautiful, she has friends and family, and a house--she must have her crap together!'  I was wrong about that.  I kept seeing the red flags but that beeping (cognitive dissonance?) was annoying so I completely disabled it and that's how she ran roughshod over me and my emotional well-being.

After we were split I turned my meter back "on" and reviewed the data, there were not 5, but 500 red flags.  I knew things weren't "normal" the whole time but kept plowing forward anyway hoping it would get better.  It never did.

[Cromwell]

I agree with what the other members are alluding to. Its one of these questions {"is this normal"} that if you have to ask it, it might have alot of connection to your own past family of origin dynamics. Its something worth considering.

Many of us here got stuck in disordered relationships even attracted to them, because the dynamics that played out that would lead people used to functional relationships run to the hills and reject it where as we saw it as not that big a deal.

[Dad50]

Thje problem is we know it isn't normal, but we keep going back. Why?

[Cromwell]

Its a tricky question {aren't they all?}

Im led to believe I don't know why i want back, these things are complex and apparently in the subconscious realm. I can only theorise why and it doesn't help, too much bias on my part to have any real accuracy.

Sex was likely a big factor, there is an association though of the more i realised she was cheating and there was no apparent end to it, it made me value her less and lost interest. I want a reliable and trustworthy safe sex partner. I have no STDs and won't play with fire. 'the one' in all their brilliance would expect to be free from disease. Not so, only in dreamland.

It helps to get real so to speak, start appraising the insults and true expenses of business no falseifying or veneering.

Pretend you are selling your partner at auction and must be 100% clear to the buyer on what they are going to get.

Things like this worked, its near impossible to go back when the rose tinted glasses are knocked off.

Best of luck to you all. I know its not always easy

[poppy2]

It's so confusing to me. Do normal people do this?

I read your story Can't breathe and the answer is no - normal people don't do this. I agree with Sappho and what your ex did to you is just rotten, no excuses. You didn't deserve it at the time, and you deserve much better in the future. But I can also relate to this flicker of doubt, because I think that such experiences mess with your self-esteem really badly. At least that is what happened to me. It is also very difficult, as a functioning member of the human race, to understand how some people can be so callous, can treat you as if you don't matter. The questions and doubt of self-worth originate here I think, and that is why it's important to reflect responsibility for the callous actions *solely* onto the one performing them. Here is what I read, either on this forum or somewhere else: functioning people believe that they are a part of the universe, that is, something larger than themselves (family, cosmos, friendship, art, work, etc.) People with PD's think that the universe is a part of them... you play a role in the theatre of their mind, and that is they can discard you once you no longer fit this role, or somebody else comes along. It is crushing to be on the receiving end of a worldview like that (believe me, I know!), but looking at it in these terms did help me somewhat to put a box around their behaviour, as well as to find the worth and esteem in my own worldview. 

I'm sorry for what you went through.

I'd also like to say that your story, MeandThee, really touched me. Staying a whole human being throughout a damaging experience is really important (I managed it with only one slip up, where I was driven by the FOG myself.) It's important for self-respect and not to be dragged down. I think on some fundamental level I am struggling with denial myself, denial of the way my ex treated me, and it is blocking my progress to accept and move on and sustaining the fantasy of returning to an abusive situation. Can I please ask you to share a story or impressions of the abused women you worked with? Only if you feel up to it, of course. I think it would really help me.

[MeandThee29]

I'd also like to say that your story, MeandThee, really touched me. Staying a whole human being throughout a damaging experience is really important (I managed it with only one slip up, where I was driven by the FOG myself.) It's important for self-respect and not to be dragged down. I think on some fundamental level I am struggling with denial myself, denial of the way my ex treated me, and it is blocking my progress to accept and move on and sustaining the fantasy of returning to an abusive situation. Can I please ask you to share a story or impressions of the abused women you worked with? Only if you feel up to it, of course. I think it would really help me.

I help with a 12-step group and a divorce group. The 12-step group is what really helped me most. I did a step study (more study than the meetings) after the divorce was final, and it was intense. There's academic debate about codependence, but I definitely had aspects of it along with family of origin stuff that I had to work through. LOTS AND LOTS of denial. I am an expert in squashing my feelings and not seeing things for what they are. I had journaled a lot and had therapy, but the the 12-step group took me to a whole 'nother level. Through that, I got very angry at what happened, which was new to me, but it was productive anger.

I really struggled with having almost no feelings during the divorce process, which meant that my attorney had to prod me along. I was just frozen at times. He would pound the table and swear and tell me, "That's how it hits me. This is awful." It did help to see him so angry but I wasn't there. He wasn't angry at me, he was angry at my ex and his attorney. Rightfully!

I don't feel that I can share detailed stories because of confidentiality in both groups, but there is no one type of abused woman. And yes, emotional, spiritual, and/or financial abuse counts. Some of the women are very educated, and some are not. Most learned to squash feelings and deny reality in childhood. It can take a long time. Look up "Power and Control Wheel." I also recommend the "Mosaic Threat Assessment." That can be very eye-opening.

[Goosey]

He would smile, and in his kindly, Southern way say, "Because they can. Because they are not whole, healthy people. Your job as a whole, healthy person is to stay that way through this mess and come out a better person because of this divorce."

     That was good advice.

[Cant breathe]

"functioning people believe that they are a part of the universe, that is, something larger than themselves (family, cosmos, friendship, art, work, etc.) People with PD's think that the universe is a part of them... you play a role in the theatre of their mind, and that is they can discard you once you no longer fit this role, or somebody else comes along. It is crushing to be on the receiving end of a worldview like that (believe me, I know!), but looking at it in these terms did help me somewhat to put a box around their behaviour, as well as to find the worth and esteem in my own worldview."

Poppy2, this is so interesting. And I believe you are right. They don't see us as real people, I suppose. We are actors in their play, their one man show.  The man I was involved with had very few real friends, and frankly only spoke well of one of them. He once told me he didn't even like going to get his mail from the mailbox at the end of his sidewalk if someone was walking nearby. Red flag. Also, shortly before he dumped me for the ex, we were talking on the phone and he said he hadn't spoken to anyone else that day. (he seemed upset about it) He then said something I know to be true: That he always jumped into the lives of the women he was with, taking on their friends and their interests. Red flag, BUT he seemed sad about this and was asking me my opinion for what he should do to better himself. Two days later, when I was about to knock on his door so we could go away on a vacation together, he told me to stay away because he had her inside...

[Cant breathe]

Sorry, hit "post" too soon.
He had her inside. He had reconciled with his ex and his text telling me they were together was his breakup text to me. Nothing more, no empathy. Just that he was with her and they were together now.

[poppy2]

I don't feel that I can share detailed stories because of confidentiality in both groups, but there is no one type of abused woman. And yes, emotional, spiritual, and/or financial abuse counts. Some of the women are very educated, and some are not. Most learned to squash feelings and deny reality in childhood. It can take a long time. Look up "Power and Control Wheel." I also recommend the "Mosaic Threat Assessment." That can be very eye-opening.

Hey, thanks a lot for sharing. I can definitely relate to the denial, which I had thought I had gotten over but is still a part of my life - my therapist says I "cap" negative feelings away, pretend they don't exist basically, and that comes from childhood trauma. Anyway, I know trauma and groups are the best place to discuss those things but I'm grateful anyway for your honesty. Could I please ask if the 12-step program was about co-dependence or something else? The only reason I'm asking is that I had serious doubts about joining such a group, but hearing it helped you so much - also to get in touch with healthy anger, also something I struggle with - might be the push I need.

@can't breathe, I'm glad you found what I said useful. I also think it's a massive red flag if somebody is different with you than they are with other people - this can feel like intimacy, but it's also a kind of "secretive" behaviour that my ex had and I think it exaccerbated the potential for abuse. These are all lessons to take forward into the new world of - who am I, apart from this person and the damage they did, and what do I want? a re-focus on oneself is actually sometimes the hardest and best thing (in terms of our own limitations, as well as our own strengths...when I feel most connected to those two things I also feel least connected to my ex and the story of damage)

[Cromwell]

Normal is very much context dependent. A friend today sent me a vulgar joke i ignored it he texted later 'sorry. Too dark?

It was for me as a college student with other college friends. It most likely is a usual normal joke for law enforcement which he is in or emergency services.

Our normal is our environment and social relationships over time and subject to change. This is why getting out of personality disorder relationship changed normal. Drama cycles were eventually normal. Normal is not equal to 'good' or healthy

[MeandThee29]

Could I please ask if the 12-step program was about co-dependence or something else? The only reason I'm asking is that I had serious doubts about joining such a group, but hearing it helped you so much - also to get in touch with healthy anger, also something I struggle with - might be the push I need.

If you're interested, I would poke around and see what is convenient for you. I tried Al-Anon because there were related aspects that it addresses, but my employment became very irregular (I had three part-time jobs for awhile), and the local daytime meeting became impossible to make. I also tried Codependents Anonymous, but it was too far to go. I ended up at Celebrate Recovery, which is a Christian 12-step group. The particular group is close by and very folksy, so I'm good. Some groups of course moved online during the pandemic and remain so to some extent.

Keep in mind that you never, ever have to talk if you don't want to. You are welcome to just listen as long as you wish.

[Cant breathe]

Good point Cromwell, that a BPD normal is not the same as a healthy normal.
That is what I was trying to get at: Part of me has normalized cruelty in my brain to the point that I actually have to ask if what he did was normal and if I am overreacting.

[Cromwell]

Can't breathe. A bit from my own experience here to illustrate that got pointed out was a childhood upbringing in households of personality disorders. For many years the behaviours are adaptable to, they become 'normal'. In a similar way, stable non disorder becomes equated with something eery. There must be something going on even if its quiet, plotting, backstabbing. Every day and every place is a hype. So that's why being with bpdex did not initially cause me to run for hills and via versa she had attraction to my own drama creation.

The good news is that we have the power to modify our own normal. By staying away from disorder, gravitating to stabler folk and not being disorderly oneself, it indisputably changes what normal was to something new.

[Goosey]

There is no normal.
 

[Sappho11]

There is no normal.
 

What Cant breathe is asking is whether the behaviour she experienced at the hands of her ex was healthy (!) and warranted behaviour. And no, it was neither. I think we can all safely agree on that.