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I have been reading a Book "Facing Codependence" by Pia Mellody. I am only 1/3 way through the book and I want to focus on several areas with you all that i need some guidance with.

1. "Experiencing appropriate levels of self-esteem"

I did not learn this in my youth, i know its not tied to any accomplishments that i have done. Its a way of thinking about oneself and i need help to learn how to do this for myself. I feed off other peoples validation and not my own. I know that a part of me goes to synagogue, to part of the good guys. I want to feel it as apposed to going through the motions.

2. "Setting functional boundaries"

The Book talks about setting healthy boundaries of ones thoughts, feelings and actions. 

I got it.

I have an analogy using electrical circuit. (i work with electricity so i think about wires)

Imagine that the data coming into your brain comes on three wires. One wire is for thought, the other is for feeling, and the third is action.

In a healthy, balanced person. These wires are strong with good insulation.

What if due to trauma or poor nurturing the insulation became cracked. Now one has two problems.

The first, one is bleeding electricity. To compensate, one is very susceptible to picking up an addiction to try to temporarily insulate the wire.

Second, If one encounters another person with cracked wires that are bleeding electricity too, coming together, you will pick up their electricity and feel like you are getting a full charge.

With time, in a relationship, one ties wires together. The bond becomes very strong. At times, it will feel like you are now operating on full charge, what a great feeling!

The problems with this is.

There electricity is not yours.

Their wires are cracked. When they lack electricity or have a surge in electricity, you now have an irregular voltage too.

Wanting to be balanced, we will try to absorb their electrical surges. We will also try to add voltage to them when they are very low.

Attempting this is futile. How can you know how much voltage to give them? what if their voltage is constantly in flux?

This will never work. Its too unstable.

Constantly monitoring voltage becomes a full time job.

This becomes a living hell when one person denies they have cracked wires and says that all the electrical irregularity is coming from you.

You might believe it at first, and work on your wires in the hope that it will fix the problem. But on a whole, one persons wires cannot repair another persons wires.

Solution: one has to take ownership of their wires and repair them. Spend time to properly insulate them.

my exBPD wife and I both have broken wires. It felt magical to boost each others voltage. But we both need to untangle the wires take  ownership of them and repair them for a healthy relationship.

She is in denial of her broken wires and is looking for someone or something else for voltage.

But I know better, that is doomed. I need to untangle my wires and learn how insulate them.

THIS IS WHAT I NEED HELP WITH.

The following is my therapist response. I hope this helps others

Well said.  Good book.

Here are a few additional thoughts.  Self esteem is “self” esteem.  It refers to the value you have for yourself, not what others have for you.  If you are literally worshipped by others but don’t believe in yourself, the outsiders who value you will not succeed in building your self esteem.

The greatest contributor to self esteem is “success”.  The greatest detractor from self esteem is “failure”.  Your position today is extreme vulnerability.  You look at yourself, and describe your experience in marriage(s) as failure(s).  As long as you see it that way, you will continue to feel awful, and will seek for ways to compensate.  If you apply logic correctly, you will recognize that this last marriage was doomed.  She might want to point to your behaviors as the catalyst for the breakup.  You have learned enough about BPD to recognize that the imperfections that you possess, by virtue of being human, would surface and be detected by someone looking for them.  In her eyes, it would have been your fault anyway.  But that’s her diseased thinking, and you are powerless to change that.

Your electrical analogy makes sense to me. Though I lack understanding of some of the science behind it.  But I did gather that the outside contributions have no curative or truly reparative value.  And the other aspect that rings true is that the vigilance required to monitor all the other stuff is quite draining as well as futile.  Just add the instability of the BPD, whose mood turns around from one extreme to another in a flash.

At this point, you need to completely abandon the matter of her denial of broken wires.  That’s her individual issue for therapy, and it no longer should be granted a role in your life.  thank god you escaped the trap that this meant for you.  Now, to untangle your wires…...

Have a great weekend

P.S.  Please avoid any direct contact with her.   If there are matters that still need to be resolved (a forgotten item in the house, etc.) there should be a third party transmitting the message to her.

Hey sam, it sounds like you've done some reading and some thinking. Good job deciding to take charge of your life.  |iiii

Self-esteem is valuing yourself without dependence on external validation. Over time you can build new patterns of thought that will build up your self-esteem. Did you ever have feelings that you weren't "good enough"? Were you taught that you were only as good as your achievements?

I like your analogy of the broken wires getting entangled, pretty cool. To me, what you want help with its two parts. One part is to achieve detachment, though I prefer to say nonattachment, from your ex-wife. Even though now divorced, your emotions and life in general have been enmeshed with hers, so it'll take a while to get to "new normal". You were probably used to always reacting to her, trying to predict her, if so, I totally understand because that was the dynamic in my relationship. If you can avoid contact with her, that can help break the cycle of reacting and being enmeshed.

The other part is to "insulate your wires" like you said. I think we can learn that feelings are not facts and are not wrong. Stepping back and thinking, we can alter our patterns of emotional responses or work through them to avoid additional anxiety, hurt, or anger. Then we also learn that we don't have to act on feelings if those actions are against our values or our best interests. Cognitive behavioral therapy is one way of addressing this, and it can be useful for everybody to get a handle on their emotions, not just for pwBPD.

Does your therapist have experience with CBT? It is worth asking about it.

We are all on a journey of healing. Best wishes to you.