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We all have talked about it and remember it. The period of time when the relationship seemed good and healthy. The time when we felt in love and in a trusting mutual adult relationship... .

I never think highly of these times. The reason being, in my restraining order hearing where she was trying to fight the restraining order I filled against her, she brought something she tried to show as evidence.

It was a note she had written an ex boyfriend in month 2 of our relationship. It was so early on. Everything seemed perfect. All romantic and lovely times, no fighting... .

Yet even back so early in the idealization stage, she was already triangulating. 2 months into the relationship, while visititing me at my house in FL, she sent an ex boyfriend a note via email saying - "I feel really strange here. Spark2 punched me when we got into a fight. I might fly home early. I don't feel right". Painting a picture to the ex over a thousand miles away that I was abusing her... .

I was taken back to see that note in her evidence pile. For starters showing an email you wrote to someone saying you were hit doesn't prove anything, but I was shocked to learn she would say such awful lies about me so early on in what felt like a perfect and romantic phase. Being there at my house with her, I never could have guessed she could have written such a note. By the way- the judge laughed her out of the courtroom and I got to keep my restraining order and she fled in shame.

So there were no good times EVER even back then. All of it was a lie. All of it.

It was like having a stranger in my house having sex with me, sleeping in the same bed at night with me - a dangerous ticking time bomb that would ultimately try to kill me a year later.

Yep, a testament to how good a borderline is at mirroring, and a peek into what's it's like to have the disorder, where there is never complete openness and honesty even though we think there is.  

The VERY sobering part for be was realizing what I fell for, more and more details revealed themselves as the fog cleared, and honestly, the relationship wouldn't have gotten very far if I hadn't denied all of the things she did and said that were inappropriate, unacceptable, mean, and just plain wrong, especially towards someone she was allegedly in love with.

Such is the nature of the disorder.  But moving forward, what is my nature?  Why did I get in so deep and tolerate so much?  Why did I deny and ignore so many completely unacceptable things?  Which directions do I need to grow to make sure it doesn't happen again?  What can I learn from all this?  

Detachment, recovery, healing, growing have become a very exciting project, the most important one I can embark on, and in a sense I thank my borderline ex for that pain, oh yes that pain, for being strong enough to get through my thick skull and inspire some real growth.

You said it so well it was all a lie.

Thats what I struggle with the most

It was all a lie

8 years

Sadly enough this is how some people choose to survive. I felt like it was a lie the whole time it was happening. It was a lie that I wanted to believe. The end revealed the truth. She was a monster.

Perfidy

I was exactly the same. I was ignoring my gut because I didn't want the lie to end.  I just kept thinking she was immature and was going to come around. Finally it was too much and I started putting it all together. Game Over. I was totally shocked when the mask came off.

What a monster he was when he took his mask off! How could I be soo naive? Yes I was and still am.

This is what I am struggling with too... .my mind does not want to believe that it was all a charade and a facade... its devastating to accept that

Then the mask is back on and the smoke and mirrors come out. NEXT!

I saw this firsthand. I am still creeped out. Unbelievable. This is human behavior. I think I'm still in shock or something. PTSD for sure.

Perfidy-

My therapist has recommended that I begin intensive CBT therapy next week.

It is outpatient, 2x a week for 8 weeks.

She says that CBT in conjunction with the antidepressants I am taking will finally help me kick this depression / PTSD.

It's been seven months now, and my body is giving out.

Spark-

Yes, I have long accepted that our courtship was a lie. And our wedding as well. It was not love, it was need. Survival for him.

My parasite has been removed. My wounds are healing.

L

I'll go along with CBT. I can't accept the chemical therapy. I told one shrink where he could stuff them. First time I saw him he immediatly wanted to roll the pills. He didn't even get to know me first. Kind of insulting.

L4MNU:

I hope that helps.  I will say that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is what it says it is -- it works at the level of thinking.  Trauma is often not resolvable at the level of conscious choice and thought stopping and file-renaming etc.

After 24 months of CBT and similar cognitive talk therapy, I started working with two somatic (body-based) therapy approached specifically geared for clearing trauma: sensorimotor psychotherapy, and lifespan integration therapy.  If you google both you'll find a good description of the approach from the originators or home site of the approach.

They are fairly similar in that they take the current bad feeling, associate it with a feeling in your body, and allow that feeling to take you to an image or memory and then you work with that, often bringing your current self into the picture to resolve that situation in some fashion.  In the few short months I've been working with therapists using these techniques, I've had so much more progress than I'd seen in the preceding two years (!) of CBT/talk therapy.

Not trying to argue with your therapist -- and I am not one, just an increasingly educator consumer -- but if that doesn't give you the relief you're hoping to find, you might check out these approaches.