BPDFamily.com

Hey,

I just need to vent. And help to keep calm, and not do anything stupid.  

Just like in April (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=223897.0), I have an intuitive feeling that something is going on in the life of my uBPDexgf.

Last time I had this feeling, I was proved right the next days (changes to her FB)... . Though I never found out what exactly was going on. And my desire to find out actually subdued over the next days/weeks.

Usually I am right about these feelings, and no matter that I didn't find out what was going on, it calmed me to see that indeed something was up.

I hope that this feeling will again be validated by some sign from her. Though, I don't really know why I care. But why do I continue to get these feelings? Why isn't this metaphysical bond broken?

Hey GuiltHaunted, I know this feeling so well.

It shows you how strong of a bond you had.

Your mind is craving contact and you're clinging to any shred of her presence in your consciousness.

Detaching from her means you'd eventually feel less and less this way. I know I am.  I still feel a basic metaphysical "twin flame" like connection to her but as I detach more I let go and let her live her life leaving my mind in peace. When I feel that my mind is spinning obsessively again thinking about her and her whereabouts I observe it, I let myself miss her for a while and I move on to the rest of my day.

I remind myself about my priorities. What matters to me and what I want to focus on and that helps most of the time. And if not. No biggie. I go easy on myself and I let myself feel the pain. I know it's an important part of the grief process.

Here is what I actually wrote to my therapist and delivered at my last session:

"I feel better being berated than ignored. When she ignores me I feel like I no longer exist. Her hate is better than her indifference. I think this attitude is not healthy for me and when I think about it I get anxious and depressed. I feel like doom is right around the corner and I'm scared."

First I get dozens of phone calls and hundreds of texts... . then nothing for days. The communications start out that I'm the devil   and end with a pleas for reconciliation  red-flag and when that doesn't work I'm the devil   again. Now they're sickening sweet just talking financial matters and telling me to give her more money  lol.

I can actually "feel" things happening behind the scenes, even though we're 45 miles apart now. The "spiritual bond" is so strong that we all "know" what is happening but are helpless to do anything. God we need help.

GH, I've had similar experiences, in the form of dreams.  I'd come to find out later that what I was seeing in my dream had played out in real-time. (My ex lives 500 miles away and we are not in contact.) These dreams used to upset and frustrate me.  One day, I decided to surrender to them, and accept that I was seeing these things for a reason. I trusted that the dreams were for my benefit.  The intuitive feelings you're experiencing are for your benefit.  Try to remove her from the equation, and focus on how those intuitive feelings benefit you.  If you can surrender to that, you will eventually feel no need to look at her FB for confirmation.  Focus on yourself, and your healing. We all have inner bells and warning systems that are meant to keep us safe. Hope this helps.   

I don't really think about what she is doing or up to. I can just "feel" when something important is happening in her life. Even if being NC for 6 months... .

Last time I had this feeling, in April, she deleted the Facebook profile of her father that died last year in January and posted publicly (on her otherwise completely closed FB profile /not even a profile picture) an AA quote about self-pity vs. compassion. More stuff went on in those days, like deactivating/reactivating her FB account/changing her name etc.

I don't know what I am feeling this time, and I am not really interested to know. What bothers me is that i HAVE this feeling. And I am sure that it is correct. Why am I having this feeling?

Speaking metaphysical, does both souls still need to be hanging on to each other for such bond to be maintained? In that case, I would ask her (here only, don't worry) to let go!

BC, it didn't occur to me that it could be for my benefit. I will think about what you said, and see if I can find a out how this is a good thing for me

Your original post back in April, as well as this one, resonate with me a lot.

I've been NC for almost 18 months now - with the previous year's contact being really irregular/sporadic and characterized by a lot of avoidant or otherwise essentially non-responsive interactions with him via text/email - haven't seen, or had a real conversation of any kind with him for over 2 years. And it's been almost 4 since he got caught cheating while I was working out of state to pay our rent, split me black, ended our relationship of 12+ years/moved out before I got back, and literally abandoned everything that had anything to do with the life we'd shared including kids, family, friends, home, business, personal belongings, bills, and debts.

It took me a LONG time to even WANT to try to shift my focus away from him, what he'd said/done, and was continuing to say/do that confused/hurt me so much in order to focus on myself, my part in our dance, identifying/addressing the core issues I had that attracted/made me so attractive to someone with BPD, and developing/acquiring the tools, practice, and expertise (hah!) I needed in order to finally start living a healthier, fuller, and happier life.

That said - even with all the progress I've made, and tools I've acquired to help me recognize/deal with being emotionally triggered by some thought/memory of my ex - there were a LOT of times when I didn't know why or what exactly had triggered that response in the first place.

That I didn't know - and therefore couldn't either anticipate/avoid it or reframe it in some way for myself so it didn't trigger me anymore - made me feel like I was having a LOT more trouble detaching than I/my therapist thought I was, and was probably a LOT more obsessed/crazy than I was maybe willing to admit even to myself.

Schizofrenic was the word that often came to mind.

I'd be fine, toodling along, having a really great day - then - bam! - outta nowhere - this "sense" of tremendous concern about him would suddenly come over me - I'd "feel" like I was being blamed for/accused of causing him some great problem/pain, be really confused/scared, get really defensive, get angry - and it would last for hours, sometimes days before it lifted again.

It scared the crap out of me. I didn't know where it was coming from. I couldn't make it stop. It wasn't consistent. I couldn't predict when/where it would happen or how long it would last. It became the FOCUS of my therapy for about six months, but it never stopped happening and I never got any better at dealing with it when it happened either.

One day, last November, it descends out of nowhere while I'm at work, painting a mural on the wall of a local elementary school. It's really big/really intense. I can't focus. I go out to sit on the curb and try to figure out what, if anything, I can do to tone it down ENOUGH for the next four hours so I can keep working. I'm sitting there. Really PISSED that it's happening/interfering with my ability now to make money/pay my rent. Thinking I should maybe call - make ANOTHER unscheduled appointment to talk to my therapist about it. Thinking what I could tell her THIS time that might give us a new attack/approach to this problem, and I say OUT LOUD to no one in particular, "You know what the real problem is? These aren't MY feelings." And that's when it hit me. They WEREN'T my feelings AT ALL. Or at least not feelings I RECOGNIZED as being mine. What they FELT like were HIS feelings - the way I'd ALWAYS felt/sensed them when we were together as a couple. THAT. How I "knew" he was stressed out, anxious, triggered, dysregulating, dissociating, confused, scared, desperate, unhappy. How I "knew" when he needed caretaking/fixing/rescuing. How I "knew" from a distance of 1000 miles that "something" was happening/he was cheating on me in the first place.

Oh, I say to myself, sitting there on the curb, now you've resorted to magical thinking as a means of explaining away this really disturbing experience you're having. You have this special gift/connection with him where you're like some kind of psychic radio receiver picking up the disordered emotional music he's broadcasting at top volume from station KBPD some thousand miles away? Right.

Only it HELPED. Crazy or not, the idea that it WASN'T me allowed me to simply set the volume on low, have it play as background music while I worked, listen/validate, but otherwise really not pay that much attention to it or let it get in the way of me doing what I needed/wanted to do.

The next time I saw my therapist (regular session!), I jokingly mentioned my crazy little "realization" and how it had "solved" the problem I'd been having/we'd been working on for so long. I was surprised that she didn't laugh or simply dismiss the whole thing out of hand as just another one of the many tricks my brain has played on itself to keep me from really detaching from my ex. Nor did she simply consider it an effective, if somewhat irrational and, therefore, temporary "workaround" for the problem I'd been having. Instead she talked about the very real possibility that I might have been born with a greater capacity to feel empathy, and/or my capacity to feel empathy had been surreptitiously developed in response to my NPD/BPD mother as a means of meeting her needs (i.e. guaranteeing my own emotional survival) from a very early age - that it was "second nature" for me - that I didn't recognize/wasn't aware of how often I used it, or the extent to which it effected the way I related to/with others. She didn't think there was anything "supernatural" about it. She felt what I was REALLY good at was correctly reading all the really small, very intimate/personal/unique ways people communicate their feelings - and responding to them on that basis. That because I'd been so enmeshed with my ex - knew him in that way/on that level so well - I was probably still reading what he was communicating with his ABSENCE just as much (and in much the same way as I'd always read what he was communicating with his presence. That, given how desperate for answers/information I'd always been, there was a really good chance that I'd inadvertently heightened my own sensitivity to that kind of stuff in the wake of being rejected/abandoned by him like I was.

Don't know how real/how much stock to put into the whole idea, but just thought you might want to know there might actually be some scientific basis for you feeling/thinking the way you do about what you're experiencing, guilthaunted.

As for me ... .

Since surrendering myself to the idea that this IS what's happening, I'm not bothered by it all that much anymore at all. Only twice in the last six months has it gotten intense/bad enough to warrant an actual physical check on my ex through FB - and both times I've gotten confirmation that he/the relationship he's having with my replacement is in some kind of major (or at least very public) crisis. Which, both times, has been enough for me to let it go at that - something he's going through/has to deal with (or not) - and nothing I myself have to do anything about at all.

To answer your last question ... .

No - I don't think both souls still need to be hanging onto each other for such a bond to be maintained. I think only the receiver has to remain attached/interested/open to the signals being put out by the broadcaster. That the messages/feelings/sense you receive seems directed at/involves you directly in any way is only incidental - a product of the way the disordered mind of the broadcaster seizes on whatever works in the moment to justify, explain, defend, and otherwise make themselves feel good enough to keep saying/doing whatever it is that's momentarily come into question for some reason.

talithacumi, thanks for your very long and detailed post. It was really helpful and believe it or not, I feel a lot better!

It makes perfect sense for me. And I don't think it's magic thinking. I have proof that such intuitive sensations/connections exist, like I describe in my post from april, linked in the first post in this thread.

Compared to that experience, I am no way near as close with my uBPDexgf. Which is also the truth - the ex I describe in that experience is a close friend to this day. With my uBPDexgf, these are just feelings that something is up. No details, no "visions".

It also makes perfect sense, that these are HER feelings, and not mine. Nothing dramatic is going on in my life at all. In fact, I have no problems at all. I am pretty sure her life is far from drama-free.

My reaction to those feelings are perhaps fear, that THIS is the point, where I am going to loose her forever. When the truth is that point was with all likelihood a long time ago already (probably 13 months ago, when she broke up with me - she doesn't have a history of recycling exes). Anyway, the fear is irrational, since I have no way of knowing if this is truly "the point" or not. And more importantly, I am not even sure if I would want her to recycle me anymore.

The last half of our almost 4 year R/S was long distance. So I guess I am accustomed to being tuned onto her from afar.

Time to turn the radio off and put on a CD  :)

There's a scientific explanation for it.  An evolutionary psychiatrist once explained to me that these inner notifications, fall into the fight-or-flight response (part of the inner warning system that's meant to protect us). As early man evolved, these skills naturally modified as we used them less and less. 

What I'm suggesting is the message is for you. It can potentially negatively impact your healing if you look for meaning outside of the knowledge that is meant for you, and only you. 

Just because I experience this, doesn't mean that my ex and I will reconcile.  We won't because I don't want to. 

Use your intuition to move forward toward a healthier future. 

Yes, I've had the same things.   Even in no contact, I was aware of what my ex was doing.  I figured out who she was dating (by her adamant claims that she never cheated on me at our last meeting), and how she has progressed without me.  

But I've taken a different approach to why I know what is she doing.  It's not so much an intuitive feeling, or metaphysical connection for me, it's because I've was so totally obsessed with losing myself to my ex.  Her well being was more important to me than my own.  And I do know her better than anyone else in the world.  I could anticipate her behavior.

But that's not a deep connection, or esp, or spiritual energy... . it's obsessive compulsive behavior coupled with my enmeshment in the Disorder.  When I think about how much I think about my ex, and how obsessive I am, I'm going to be correct once in a while.   And when I am correct, it's not because we're connected or because she's directing energy toward me.  It's because I've really serious mental health issues and I would rather focus on her as way to fix my issues, than let go and look at myself.

All my energy focusing on her and thinking there's this connection has been a total fabrication on my part.  It's the Disorder.   It's a fantasy.  Even when we were interacting, it was not a real connection that could last beyond the moment.  Now that we are apart, she barely has the the ability to even remember who I am.  She, doesn't think of me, she doesn't remember, she  can't take responsibility... .

All her memories of past interactions with all people are like a mixed up stack of vacation postcards.  If she looks at them she might recall a fragment of a memory, but she's not connected to me at all.  She never was.  The Disorder precludes adult relating.  

So to think that there's a great connection that I'm able to keep... . for me it's was just delusion.  I have to accept the realities of the Disorder and that means acceptance that there was never a real adult connection... . ever, and that there is no real adult connection now.   I know her.  I understand much of who she is and how she will respond.  But I know that she feels no real adult connection and she has No empathy, No memory of interconnection, no growth and maturity... .

When I was with her, I took narcissistic pride in that fact that she seemed to not have derived anything from her exes, and that I would provide the support and guidance for her to grow.  Because I was special.    But now I know, I'm just filed in the stack of postcards with the nothingness of all her other exes.  No better, no connection, no love, no empathy, no concept of support... . just a pure and complete flight and detachment from an interaction that she can not process.

It's great to fantasize and think that there's this deep bond that pervades all.  And I understand fantasy.  I lived fantasy to survive my messed up childhood.   But that's what it is if I stay in the concept of our bond having some kind of metaphysical, karmic, true love... . connection... . It's just a self delusional, self pitying FANTASY.

To depersonalize and detach from the Disorder, I have to remember that connection was never really special.  I was just there that filled a want/need for a Disordered individual who never did and never will love in the manner that I need.  And that it was projection on my part that the connection and bond and agreement ever existed in the first place.  

I was just the next guy in line at the kissing booth.  My ex might remember me for a momentary flashback, but in all honesty, she's almost totally focused on puckering up for the guy who's just paid his money.