BPDFamily.com

Member 2010, 9-8-10:

You will be admired, adored and then clung to and when you attempt to peel them off and expect them to be self sufficient- they will use the only thing they were taught - sadistic SCAPEGOATING.  It's a hard pill to swallow- but you replaced the Parent. You will never *not* be scapegoated. The good news is: you actually got in there close enough to replicate the parent bond. The bad news is... .The scapegoating helps protect them. It's what they know. It's what they've been taught. There's nothing you can do to escape it- and every conversation you have after you've been split will only appear to them as sadistically motivated. To persuade them that you don't deserve the enemy behavior is pointless. They just don't understand it. In their minds, the conflict is with your behavior- not theirs. They may be confused- and admit they are confused- but they wont hear a word you are saying.


Man.  It's like an onion, peel a layer and more is revealed.  I feel better.

Reading that, almost wonder if I didn't have two run in's with BPD's. 

Think I am magnetized for attracting PD's.

Yeah, I've met a few too, or more accurately they've met me, in that predatory role that a BPD seeking attachment inhabits.  Intoxicating when susceptible, and I have been, more than once.  Maybe that's a key to my own growth and evolution: borderlines no longer consider me an easy mark.  Health is on the other end of that, so it's a good goal.

In bold.

I got a flashback reading that.

Hell on earth.

That it is pointless... .

Would be an understatement.

It was futile.

Scapegoating is a part of the devaluation period but you're not a scapegoat unless your actively participating in the dance. After all... .it's not what they call you... .it's what you answer to.

I accepted many of my ex's blames and projections because I believed his lies even though I didn't trust them. As our relationship spiraled into that dark toxic place his scapegoating became erroneously distorted and quite baffling on my receiving end.    

With hindsight... .it really does feel like their punishing you the way they'd like to punish their primary caregivers.

My ex hated his mother and when I reminded him of her he hated me. Makes total sense now. Everything about our relationship was about him trying to get me to be the mother he always dreamed of having. And in my own sick and twisted way I wanted him to be my redemptive chance at fixing my parents.

Clash city.

These two narratives are bound to crash and burn due to BPD and our inability (its our blind-spot) to see how they lack the capacity to receive and be reciprocal with us.

Spell

This is also what I learned in T. My side of the equation as well. Makes sense, but doesn't do much about the pain.

Now I know a bit about BPDs, I can look back and see two different friendships over the years, with women my age who behaved in confusing, hurtful ways until eventually, in each case, I just stopped replying to anything, stopped seeing them. I now think they were PBD as well.

When it's a social friend, it's a lot easier to break it off and escape. But it followed that same pattern, getting on incredibly well as soon as we met, thinking I'd never had such a great friend... .until they started demanding more and more and more of my time and attention, being hurtful and cold and distant, then coming back and being so nice to me once more... .

I think I am "magnetized for attracting PD's." - but not for much longer, with the therapy I'm doing :)

I think BPDs are so desperate for approval and love that they fling it out all round them all the time.

Most people will quite like them but at a level of "oh yeah, Jane's a great laugh, but you can't take her seriously haha" and that's as close as they bother getting.

A few people get closer, get drawn in initially, but the very first displays of bad behaviour, and they walk, whether as friend or lover - because they know that friends and lovers have no right to treat anyone this way.

Then there are those of us who stay. Because we believe what we're told, that this is 'meant' to be, that we've met our soulmate/ bestest-friend-ever, because we justify and make allowances for the BPD's bad treatment of us. And we get mangled.

And I think what I want to gain from therapy is the ability to value myself highly enough that if anyone ever starts treating me badly in the future, as friend or lover, I have the self-esteem, self-awareness and self-protection to just walk, at that early stage.

Because this is not my *fault* - but I do see that I went along with it all, I allowed him to treat me that badly, and I kept on allowing it. My craving for approval and love was pathological, just as his is. And his craving damaged me, but my own craving allowed him to damage me.

So yeah, I think a person who is what my therapist calls "chronically under-loved" can keep on finding themselves in these destructive damaging relationships... .where a more healthy-minded person would walk away far earlier without hurt.

mine exBPDgf towards the end told me she just wanted peace. That she needed peace from our relationship. I didnt know if I wanted to laugh in her face or cry. She is a walking mess of drama. Her own famly calls her Drama queen. whats funny about I got balmed for everything but it never occurred to her if i was the blame why did she stay into it with so many other peopel on her job. I didnt work there, so how could that be my fault.

When she said she wanted peace I wanted to scream, stop your BS. But it wouldnt of matter so why waste my breath.

I'd bet that after 10 years of living with a BPD spouse, you might be the one wanting Peace. That's where I find myself these days and have for the last 3 years.

Much like yourself, for everything that went wrong, I was to blame somehow. No matter how insane, somehow it must have been mine or someone else's doing.

Dead on Spell, dead on.  My uBPDw has been constantly placing me in the father role - our entire relationship has been about her trying to get me to be the father she always dreamed of having!  Which is funny because no matter what I do, it's never enough.  The trips, the constant spending, the new gadgets, the nice house, the brand new car... .it's never enough.  I'm always just the "selfish a-hole" that only cares about himself and is "exactly" like her dad... .creepy.  You could go through my entire group of family and friends (you can throw my ex-wife into this mix as well) and not one of them would even come close to describing me as a "selfish a-hole"; not one.  

Amazing how she's the one person on the planet to figure out that I'm a selfish jerk that is out to ruin her life by giving her everything she ever wanted... .:)