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Lets say you went camping at a local campsite for the weekend. With your family, with your fiends... .   doesn't matter. Lets say you drove your car there and your car's a convertible with a rag top. You wake up the next morning and walk outside your tent and there's your cars rag top all ripped up. What kind of emotions would you feel? Likely you'd feel angry, that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach... .   maybe even a little hurt. Why would someone do that? It must be those damn kids at the campsite across the way. Little punks you say to yourself. Then as you inspect it a little more you realize the watch you left in your car is still there... .   as are all your cd's and even your brand new ipod? this doesn't mane sense? Your puzzled. Why would someone break into your car and not steal anything? Then you realize the extra food supplies you left in the back seat are either gone or rummaged through. Then it hits you -- no one broke into your car, this was a bear! Suddenly you feel yourself calming down... .   you might even have a little giggle. Sure you might still be a little disappointed... .   after all, your rag top is ripped up. But you certainly don't feel betrayed or hurt anymore, right?

Where am I going with all this? Well, think of it like this... .   the bear was just doing what it does. It was simply doing the only thing it's ever known. It was certainly nothing personal -- and you know this. Now, replace  the bear as your ex BPD and the food as us nons. Our ex's were simply doing what they do, they were doing the only thing they've known their whole life. The only way they've known how to live and how to survive. Just like that bear taking advantage of that easy grab of food from your back seat -- it needs food to survive... .   its a matter of life or death for the bear. Just like for our ex's the constant search for love/attachment is life or death. It's nothing personal. The bear, just like our ex's simply does not know any better.

I came to this realization after a conversation with yet ANOTHER man who was involved with my ex. Once again solidifying that my ex really has behaved like this her entire adult life. It hit me -- her actions, while certainly not excusable were nothing personal. It says nothing about me as a person, she's done this to every man she's been with and If it wasn't me, it would have been someone else. Does it make it all better? Hell no! It hurts like crazy but putting it in perspective like this does make me feel a little better. It was nothing personal.

I hope you can take something from this -- even if it only lightens your day for only the duration it takes you to read it.

Thanks, Dave44! Very helpful. Glad, too, that you are feeling a bit better about everything.

Thanks for that Dave - what did the other guy say? I would give my right arm to have a conversation with my ex's ex's lol

I met my one of exBPDgf's exhusbands... . at her son's football game. He seemed normal, and like he felt sorry for me. She had painted him so black... . said he was retarded and she didn't know it, etc... . yet another lie.

I understand the "perspective"... .   but pwBPD are still capable of making decisions and it may help to think of them as automatons to their disorder, but they are people, adult ... . and responsible for their actions.

Here's a link to my thread regarding the latest (and 3rd) guy I've spoken to who's had experiance with her. I've posted threads regarding the other 2 guys too - just search through my posts and you'll see them. They all share almost the exact same stories... .  


https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=198735.msg12233726#msg12233726

Hi Dave

This is a wonderful story! And great, that you had the awareness to "listen" what the bear told you!  :)

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I don't live in a place that has bears - they don't pretend to be cute and cuddly do they? And you would normally know if you were camping where bears were? A good analogy might be a koala - cute as all get out but as one Australian tourism minister once pointed out - they actually stink, will piss all over you if you try to hold one & can tear your eyes out with those massive claws!

I get the perspective - mine was a bit more self aware than the "average bear" so I'm still upset about my ragtop  lol

Dave44, yes you are very right it’s not personal. We take it personally because we feel a sense of fear, obligation and guilt.

Love your take on this.  :)  Will keep this one for my notebook.

Love this analogy Dave44  :)

So like... .   now that you know there are bears and what bears do... .   how can you prepare for the next camping trip to have a different outcome?  Btw... .   gotta watch for those masked bandits... .   racoons as well... .   they can open doors. :)

Since bears will be bears... .   and you can't change that, what can you do?

Take things slow! Listen to my gut instincts and pay attention to those red flags. Red flags are red flags - don't avoid them!

I like analogies, so this made sense to me - thank you!

Ditto,

I had the fortunate opportunity to know her ex.  Although he has not found a psych eval like i had and thus did not know she was BPD.  He did suspect Bi-Polar; but remember very few people even know what BPD is.  Because I married her I had access to more info and more insanity and more punishment.  She also left behind a diary.  From the diary I could tell a few things.  1) in her mind she was in total denial about her BPD even though she had a diagnois.  2)  She would call it anything else:  depression, bulimia, body dismorphia, a person who has never communicated, an adoptee, etc.  And what I gathered was this is what she does.  It felt awful knowing that what I thought was real, was not in any sustainable way.  Marriage to her was like an idea that sounded good: like little children play make believe when they are young.  I got caught up in it.   I unconsciously started to believe what felt unreal was real.  How did this happen?  I grew up in a highly tramatic, intense, environment when i was younger.  It was very high functioning from the outside looking in, there was no physical abuse.  But plenty of verbal and emotional abuse all under the guise of a mother trying to mother her son perfectly.  And anything less that perfect was punishable by words, withholding of approval, giving a little child the perception that he was unloveable.    My mother's mother, (My grammother) was Borderline. 

Bottom Line:  When a BPD ran into me and knocked with her invitation of seduction;  I could not say no and she could not stop from coming in.

Needed that perspective and thank you! Sometimes it takes something like a simple story from the other side to get us out of our heads and confusion. It's hard not to take it all personally but that is the point to learning about this illness... .   it's NOT personal. I have a hard time getting used to that and a lot of things associated with this heaven and hell experience. I think it's a crash course in the end for us all.  :light:

Although I do agree that we take it personally because we feel FOG I also think that we take it personally because the rages, the mirroring, the projection, the splitting, passive agressiveness and so on and so on is all very, well personal. Try telling me after a BPD rage fit that it's not personal, yeah they might be the problem personality but god do they have a way of making you feel like the worst person on earth!

Nice analogy, but still feel like the food: been aten by a druling munster with no remorse for this sandwich.

Nice to know that the bear doesn't mean it personally, but from inside his body I can't hardly be grateful about that.

In my r/s we had a lot of conversations like this. She didn't take any responsibility for her behaviour. She would say: if I had a broken leg, you wouldn't mind that I didn't walk on that one.

No, I would say, but if you kept stepping on my feet with that leg I would say something about it.

Interesting you say this because my ex-UBPD would always gloat about how he never hung onto anything no matter how mad he would be at someone. What he didn't realize were the things he would say, scream, the impact he would have on the 'other' and just how cruel and threatening he was.

In his head he was all forgiving and white again after each blaring attack. It didn't seem to dawn on him that he would rage again over the same issues or include them into his new set of rages as mounting evidence. I recall listening to one of his rages from the house next door clearly hearing him yelling and screaming at his mother that she was the devil all because she asked him a question that he deemed personal. I think the neighborhood could hear him.

Yet in his mind, he was forgiving, never hung onto a thing and truly feels love for people. In effect I watched him go from cruel and abusive rages to acting like nothing happened afterwards (splitting). His rages against me always made his mother out to be the most benevolent and perfect example of what a woman should be and none are except for her. He would often say no woman can ever compare to the perfection and sacrificial nature of his mother who did nothing but sacrifice and serve her family asking nothing in return.

These are all distorted versions of reality because I only ever saw him avoid people, close himself off for the most part from society and avoid everything and everyone at all costs. What he clearly didn't see was the 'affect' he was having on everyone he was close to because in his brain he saw himself as loving and forgiving us of the things we made him rage about. He was forgiving us. Very very strange.  

Now looking back I remember his attitude was that I should be greatfull that he has such a forgiving and willing to let go nature because he saw himself as the benevolent one seeing things righteously through his clouded vision of black and white splitting where one moment you were all good and then suddenly when triggered by seeing something 'normal' that he interpreted as threatening or 'black' you were instantly now the representative of evil (black).

This has taught me a great deal more than I realize because I am only now beginning to unravel it all and in so doing I am unraveling the things about myself that have remained also hidden from my understanding.

We can all post war stories of how wrong or distorted their perceptions of themselves and others are.

The origin of this thread is "what can I the non do to help myself now and in the future?"

Not personalizing is one way. 

Any other skills that might help?

Love the story!  Absolutly love it!  Another way to add onto this is the bear took all her could (the food we provide) and realized that hey - there is new food supply over there - I guess we just ran out our food supply!  Love the story!

Some open doors, but so hard to do:

Realizing that you are responsible for your own happiness.

Realizing that happiness comes from within.

Realizing that to be happy (again) means that you probably will have to go on another road, than the one you've traveled untill now.

Don't forget the past and don't be afraid of the future.