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Was thinking about this issue today.  Why do these breakups hurt so much?  When my ex broke up with me, the pain was so intense, and has lasted so long, that I assumed that it must be because of my tremendous love for her, the loss of my soulmate, etc.  What else could explain such pain in the aftermath of a breakup?

But then I was thinking.  I had a long-term high-school/college girlfriend to whom I was engaged.  As is often the case in college, we grew apart, and we ended up breaking up before the wedding.  I left.  This was my first love, a person I cared about very deeply and who knew everything about me.  The break-up conversation was difficult. But, after that... .everything was fine.  We didn't talk after, because we knew we were no longer part of each other's lives, that we were different people now.  The loss hurt, but I got past it quickly.  She's married now and I see pictures of her online with her spouse, and I feel something between nothing and happiness for her. 

I DEFINITELY thought this woman was my soulmate at one time.  I was wrong.  We both realized that and moved on.  Not all breakups are this painful, even if they involve deep, long-lasting bonds. 

So then: this must not be about the "relationship" or about my ex.  There is something about this break-up that has made me hurt this way, and it is not what I lost in her.  There must be something about ME that this relationship exposed, and that's what I have to figure out if this is ever going to end. 

If I see a picture online of my college girlfriend kissing  another man, I feel no pain.  And this didn't take years.  If I see my current ex, searing pain, even though I have moved on in my life.  She represents something, some flaw I see in myself.  It's not about her.  It's about me.  Until I resolve the problem in myself, the pain will persist. 

Yes, this is it. Trauma bonding.

This is the holy grail I have been seeking -- that is, what is this excruciating pain teaching me about myself?

Intellectually, I know it is psychological pain, or emotional pain.   And, like you, I know that the source of the pain is "within" me because my relationship was over more than 6 months ago   It is likely (or probably) unconscious in origin - or, at least, the pain's energy is sustained in my unconscious.

A fellow member, charred, wrote a very insightful statement here that resonated with me, especially how we attach and enmesh in the idealization period and how the crash hurts so badly:  https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=228781.msg12460714#msg12460714 (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=228781.msg12460714#msg12460714)

I have a vague sense that my pain here is so intense because what I most value about myself was mirrored and then rejected and abandoned. 

It pierced something deep... .something core. 

I don't think it's that complicated and I don't think it's because of something strange in you. Other relationships end for a reason you can mentally touch and understand.

No matter whether we leave or they do however, these BPD relationships end for no apparent reason, for reasons that make no sense, for reasons the pwBPD is disavowing weeks later ... .There is an incredible loss and it is arbitrary and crazy. And yes as Charred wrote, that comes on the heels of the formation of what felt like the bond of a primary relationship where we are safe and seen and accepted and held. This destabilizes one's expectation of the world and the rest of life and human interactions; it is traumatic; it causes us to have trauma reactions including trying to stop or heal the trauma, the opposite of acceptance.

The difficulty dealing with this is normal and healthy ... .:)

I agree.  However, there is something doubly painful about seeing her with someone else, even if I know the image of bliss that is conveyed is not real, or if it is it is temporary.  I feel like I could deal with the pain if she were not with someone else, but that fact doubles the pain.  Why should that be?  Is it that I feel that was what was mirrored in myself and ultimately rejected must have been improved upon in the new object of desire?

Rejection is one thing but it usually came with some form of devaluation which is one of the main differences between a normal and a BPD breakup. The belittlement, humiliation, rewriting of history.

I don't buy that the pain we feel during and after these relationships is because we are flawed in some way, in fact believing that doesn't do us any good.

A "normal" relationship, one where two autonomous individuals form a partnership together, is easier to get over because we never completely lose our autonomy or independence, so those things are easier to reestablish when we part.  With a borderline, someone who has an incomplete, not-fully-formed 'self', and therefore must attach to someone to feel whole, feel like they exist at all, there is no autonomy, they can't be 'independent', no more than a two year old can.  Speaking for myself, in my naivety what I thought I was in was an intensely intimate relationship with someone who adored me, so I let my boundaries down completely, little did I know that I was being subjected to nothing but attachment tools, used by someone who must attach to survive, parasitic when you think about it, and the 'intimacy' was actually the fusing of two psyches to create one.  It didn't last long for me, the escalating pain drove me away, but detaching from that kind of attachment is like pulling hooks out once they're in deep; sht gets torn.

But now really, don't you guys look at the world very differently now?  I've gotten very selfish lately, not in a negative connotation way, but in a if I don't take care of myself no one else will kind of way, and that in itself is boundary creation and reinforcement.  Plus, if we aren't selfish and take care of ourselves first, we have nothing to give, and we're all givers here, methinks.  And part of all of that is I don't take sht from anyone anymore, grew some balls with borderline fertilizer, and being wide open and naive before I really know someone is not an option anymore, although still a goal, the open part anyway, but closeness and true intimacy take time, something a borderline doesn't have the patience for, so there's boundary there too.

The only useless pain is the pain we don't use, the pain we don't learn from.  The best I could do in the beginning was burn it up in the gym, but hey, I got a rockin' body out of the deal, ready for the lessons that follow.  What if everything happens for a reason and it serves us?

Yes, I see this. I think it is the rewriting of history that's particularly painful. In my case: "I was never serious about you, I never real wanted to be with you," etc. I feel like, yes, that's doesn't happen in a normal relationship. And it ties into my other question: she never meant it with me, but she does with some new guy. But of course she doesn't.

She is the same person with the "new guy" as she was with you, and (importantly) before you.  I think it behooves us all to understand that while we were in the r/s we were the "new guy/new girl" and there was someone before us wondering why suddenly what had been so important was being shelved or denied or forgotten or moved past.

When I say she is the same person, I mean we are all fundamentally the same person as we were before unless we make serious efforts to change.  There is a line I used to see quoted here a lot but haven't recently, about "don't think that someone reserves their behavior just for you."

BackntheSaddle, I wish I knew why the pain is so deep after these interactions. As you stated, endings of other r/s don't come close to the traumatic scars we are left to deal with.  It's like literally being dropped on your head.

Yes, they sure do attach deeply to us, they truly make us believe with absolutely blissful sincerity that we are "the one" they have waited for their entire life.  And they work it so deeply enmeshing and bonding with us that we do become one.  Have you ever been in any other r/s where your partner put that degree of effort, passion, and constant attention into making you feel you were their absolute epitome of their dream come true?  I know I had not. 

It would be hard enough to end a r/s that strong in any respect but to be bought to that depth of emotional bonding, love, whatever you want to call it, and then just left. Add on the massive amounts of unexplainable devaluation. Then replaced.  It is like being dropped on your head. I agree that it became a primary r/s for sure. How could it not?

One foot in illusion, one foot in reality. That's where many of us have been.

Being in a r/s with a pwBPD = SNAFU. For anyone who gets involved.

Rejection cuts very deep. Facing it, being honest, we're on our way through.

The pwBPD basically idealizes and love bombs us till we put them on a pedestal and idealize them right back... wrongly accepting them as a primary r/s... it seems like they are giving us the unconditional love we have wanted since we were infants. The attachment is strong enough to regress us to feeling like a kid again, the world is new, everything is wonderful, we are secure in the world. Then when it is over, it is just like a parent died... perhaps worse because we wouldn't have had that hole they filled if we had been blessed with better parenting. The pain is what goes along with a death of someone that meant the world to you. If that wasn't bad enough, our pwBPD is still alive, having abandoned us, and is now with another... and the reaction is like taking away a kids mommy... then having her play and be happy with some other kid... while still in sight.

So... that is the pain. It sucks... and it is all a big ego driven illusion... for the pwBPD it may well not have the same meaning as it did to us. Most the ongoing pain we give ourselves by ruminating... by replaying the good parts, blaming ourselves for the bad parts and imagining what the future will be like with them gone or with someone else... it isn't reality, its self-torture.

Mindfulness is not ruminating, or imagining a bleak future... its getting grounded in the present... Now. Doing mindfulness exercises was the only thing that really stopped the pain and killed off the ego driven self torture.  Hard to believe, but the pwBPD did just mirror us, and much of what was done/said was play acting... like a kid would do. The sex... was far more performance for our benefit ... .than expression of love. The pwBPD was needy and we were available... they told us we were special... and wonderful and the only one and a soul mate... and we believed it all... .because we were needing to hear it, and wanted to believe it. Its what made it possible to ignore the  red-flag , to rationalize the bad stuff away and to take abuse when they were abusive... just as we would from a tyrannical parent.  We are grown up... but with some core issues from way back... and so are they... and the sparks are a warning of bad things... not signs of love at first sight.

I think the mythical sirens that lured sailors to their fate... .were pwBPD... if you listen and believe and get enmeshed with them, you will suffer like you never have before.  Keeping in the present (especially if dealing with them)... and working on yourself... filling that hole they used against you... is the way to move ahead and away  from it for good.

It does help me to remember this. Indeed, I was the problem for several exs before me. It's my own narcissism that makes me think I'm somehow different. No one is above the disorder.

Yes charred,

I love all the symbolism through the ages, this needs poetry to describe it Judas, medusa, zombies, vampires, demons, mr Hyde, picture of Dorian grey, evil step mothers, witches, hungry ghosts, sirens.

Dark, zero empathy souls.

We have seen the root of evil, watered by lack of love, fertilised by mental illness, blinded by denial and ego.

This is why it hurt for me, the nature of evil revealed in the loved ones around me.

This is a pain like no other.  I'm afraid of it sometimes.  It overwhelms me and leaves me unable to function.  I get angry about it.  I've wasted so much of my life on him already.  I just want to "get over it" and move on.  But I can't.  It's also complicated by this intense longing for someone who doesn't want you; and someone you realize you can no longer be with even if they did.  The worst of it for me, too, is thinking of him with someone else.  Being replaced.  It makes me want to run to him and throw myself at his feet and beg him to take me back.  Before it's too late.  But it may already be too late.  It was too late to begin with.  I know they won't be miraculously healed in the next relationship.  But that doesn't help very much.  I want him to be miraculously cured and want this relationship.  I sound like a child, don't I?  That's how I feel sometimes.  Like a little child left out in the cold.  I just want him to come and get me and make everything okay again.  I miss him so much.  The fact that there's no hope is beyond heartbreaking.

Emile your post makes me cry. Of course, thats exactly how we feel. To have them miraculously cured and want this relationship.  The one we gave our heart to. Even with understanding of the d/o, its a terrible heartbreaking loss. Its funny, prior to this experience I was a person who didn't cry much. If and when I did, it was in private.  Now I am sitting in a public place reading your post and crying. I think I've cried more the last year than my entire life.  And the tears come no matter where I am.

BackintheSaddle, thank you for posting this subject. I've thought about this many times. I was married for 17 years to a non BPD husband. When we decided to separate and eventually divorce, we discussed it, comforted each other, spoke to each, and weighed the pros and cons. We were there for each other when we needed support at weak moments... and in a timely manner, and with the support and comfort of each other, were able to separate and move on, while continuing to co-parent our child as close friends. We've remained each other's biggest fans, regardless of the changes in feeling or relationship status…Our history was not erased based on present day decisions. Unlike the N's/BPD's/Cluster B's, where everyday is like "Groundhogs day". I had the distinct feeling with my BPDexbf that I was starting over very single day. I thought I was building a relationship. Investing in a future, earning credits if you will. No, everyday, it was as if, he was being introduced to me all over again. He forgot everything I did positive for him, and everything bad that he did to me. I spent so much time trying to educate him and try to make him see the insanity because I didn't want to see that I was throwing everything I had down an empty well. A bottomless pit that was never ever going to even start to be filled. I think part of the trauma that I experienced, we experience, is realizing this earlier on then we bail, and trying to deny it by giving more and more. Some of the deep grief for me, at least, came from having a sense of this before I left him, and allowing myself to be destroyed to the point of continuing to try until he left me in a heap of spineless flesh, when I could've stopped it all, but didn't. The connection with this man, got me to betray myself. My narcissism told me I was powerful enough to change another human being, because he most probably was like my parents, and there was meaning for me in getting someone who could not love me to love me. When he could not, I lost my parents again, all over again... I was not just unlovable to this guy, but everyone he represented in my history that drew me to repeat the pattern of finding such a creature to try and change. And we all know how that goes…Ty again… SMH :)

Wow this thread really resonates with me today. I feel much like Emelie Emelie and Caredverymuch as I work through the despair of ST from my recently enraged uBPD BF.  I was always a stoic before I met my BF.  Now, I have definitely learned how to cry.  The struggle to accept that my idealized future is just a conjuring in my head and not reality. Ugh. The pain. Realizing I duped myself. 

Completely agree, caredverymuch. I have never, ever cried over someone this much, not even at a funeral. The uncontrollable sobbing from way down deep says this connection represents something much more than the obvious.And as crazy as it sounds, and embarrassed to say, he physically represents my teenage idols combined. I was so in love with Stephen Stills as a high schooler, and as a pre-teen, David Cassidy.  And yes, his profile is a dead ringer for Stephen Stills and his smile is David Cassidy.  I said, oh no, I have made this jerk somehow bigger than life with my unrealized childhood fantasies. I have never connected with anyone intimately as I did with him. I loved everything - his voice, his laugh, his arms around me while we slept. To think those good things will never be a part of my life again will make me just stop cleaning the

house and start sobbing. Yes, guilty completely... .

I actually catch myself at times wishing she would die and thats not right.

I think the very fabric of how I perceive a cohesive reality was torn apart and every hidden repressed emotion of my entire life has come into my present consciousness and will not be ignored. It is felt as a physical feeling in my chest and gut and has been in control of my life for months now.

I think during the devaluing they push you further and further down the hole of the core truamas though which we filter reality and at the bottom is the threshold beyond that breaking point you are litteraly hallucinating and your world becomes the repressed emotions. 

I agree with patientandclear and would like to add from my own experience most of the pain has come from being lied to and betrayed. I've never had anyone in my life before do that to me. I wouldn't contemplate lying and betraying anyone. My core values were shat on. And for most of the relationship he professed to share my values. To discover that was not the case and that he thought so little of me to behave in this way rocked me to my core.

It was wonderful to adore someone and be equally, if not more so, adored back. None of my relationships have been like that.

And the suddenness of the split without reason is very much like a death. Death of him and the relationship and I think the shock of it takes a long time to move past before we even begin the grieving process. And then it gets hindered if there's any contact it's like they've come back from the dead and all those loss emotions hit us again. Every time they reach out it sets back our grieving and detaching process.

I agree.  And I feel like I know why for myself.  For 1, she was my first love and a 11/10 in the looks department. I have always been on the superficial side, extremely picky and do not develop relationships or feeling with anyone easily.  I'm an introvert and although definitely a rescuer when it comes to women I have an extreme lack of empathy and emotions in general.  This women made me feel alive for the first time ever, made me feel the highs and lows of life, before her I was even keel never getting very happy but never really being depressed.

Number 2, after the honey moon phase I was the one mirroring her.  I really lacked my own identity and I ended up mirroring hers, which was easy because we did have a lot of similar interests and ideas.  Now that we have broken up all my habits/interests/lifestyle is one that she had taught me whether it be through scolding me, insulting me, or hobbies I generally found interest in.  This makes it hard because everything I do in my daily life reminds me of her from how i brew coffe in the morning, to what I eat, watch, and think.  Remembering who I was is hard, and who I was, was not a very interesting, passionate, curious, or fun person. 

So in short, I learned a lot from her and am a much better person because of the relationship.  She taught me how to live and feel alive.  She taught me anxiety, fear, happiness, and PAIN.  When I finally get over her I believe I will be able to look back and say she was the best thing that ever happened to me.

There is a lot of truth to this in my case.  From the beginning, I recognized that my ex was not particularly healthy and not someone with whom things could ever really "work."  I tried to end things on my terms a couple of times and felt good about it, only to get sucked back in.  Ultimately I convinced myself that even though in most circumstances it would fail miserably that I could make it work.  When she finally did pull away, the fact that I had invested so foolishly in this thing made me more desperate, made me just go deeper and deeper in, which she let me.  She let me pour emotion and support into that bottomless pit.  But, of course, I had also shown my hand as to how much I cared about her, and so at this point, rather than just ending abruptly, the long process of devaluation began. 

I often think about how if I had used my judgment and ended things much sooner, the pain would have been much less.  It wasn't just the rejection but also the failure, and the unwillingness to accept the failure, to accept reality, that made the split ultimately much more painful than it had to be. 

If she would have been your soul mate she would still be there bud.

We will violate our values, or let them be violated, to meet our needs.  I wondered why I put up with so much crap, for so long, when it clearly wasn't working and couldn't ever work, and it boiled down to me trying to get back to that place, that thing we had in the beginning, yes, but also because somewhere in there I started confusing the longing for love with real love.  That obsession, that addiction, of trying to be someone that she would come back to, replaced any kind of healthy functionality in the relationship.  And of course she just allowed me to go deeper, malicious on the surface, but now I know why she did it, the needs of her pathology trumping everything.


 

Looked at through a borderline lens, someone who fears abandonment more than anything will make avoiding it a priority, and if a partner (attachment object) can be reduced to minimal self esteem, they won't leave, won't have the confidence.  And as that insecure attachment wears on, and a borderline feels worse and worse about themselves, the captive becomes an ever more valuable place to project crap on.  In aviation we call that a graveyard spiral, a fatal situation created by a pilot that no matter what you do, it will only make it worse.

It's comforting to realize that assigning "normal" thought processes to someone with a mental illness is futile and inappropriate.  An older borderline has learned from experience what works and what doesn't with their attachments, and god knows there have usually been a lot of them so they've had lots of practice, but the underlying motivation, the core needs, are a complete mystery to them, buried in the unconscious.  My ex just does what she does, always has, many, many men have left her, she considers people 'ugly', no wonder, but the way she's wired is unavailable to her. 

But that's her.  Why I got so deep, why I stayed, why I chose to believe what I did about myself while deep in it, fertile field for growth there.  Funny how I went into the relationship with a beautiful, perky girl because I wanted to be 'saved', and turns out there was a lesson lurking: if you are in need of saving, best to save yourself, no one is going to do it for you, and I picked a real doozy to learn that one with.

fromheeltoheel, this may come out totally wrong and sound totally co-dependent, but I still believe there is some truth behind the following imperfect language. I also do not assume you are opposing this adamantly... but I believe although we must "save ourselves" in many ways, sorta speak, in the true sense of the words. In what DW Winnicott calls a "Healthy enough" relationship, 2 healthy people in a loving, giving, reciprocal relationship, can understand, uplift, help heal each other... not react and exacerbate the damage that we find in these sick, obsessive relationships we find ourselves in here. In this way, altho I may be "Playing" with words, I do believe that a healthier love can be healing and "save us" in an even deeper way then we can save ourselves, if we are both open, and healthy enough to that transcendence. I personally do not believe that we as humans can be totally complete on our own, if we yearn for a partner. I have always had a problem when people say that to me, that "I need to be complete on my own, and if I find a partner then that's gravy". I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. I can do all that I can to be emotionally strong, financially independent, physically strong, but, for me, without a mate, a romantic partner, there is an emptiness that I feel that, I alone can not fill. I do not think this is my codependence. I believe I can heal my codependence and the healthiest part of me will continue to feel incomplete without a mate. I believe that we, as humans are "Herd animals", with a pack mentality. We are not suppose to be alone by nature. When I go into a pet store,  I see the Beta fighting fish that they keep each one alone in a bowl because the will kill each other or be killed if put with another fish or beta. When you see the mice they are piled up onto of each other sleeping one on top of each other, surviving off of each other's warmth. I believe biologically we are the former (the mice). Sometimes, I feel like our biology takes precedence for some of us over taste … Warmth over personality, if you will... .a mean mouse is better then no mouse, as a mean mouse's body will still keep us warm…I know this is distorted thinking, but perhaps it's not, when it comes to primitive instinct & survival. It's what some of us learned in childhood, so it becomes our only reference, and our normal. Then as we mature, the feelings get sexualized in adulthood, so we have a way of controlling these feelings as behaviors in action, but we seem to miss finding the "Love". Obviously, we missed that lesson early on. IMHO, the childhood of the N and the co-dependent are not so different, it's our biological predispositions that actually separate us at the fork in the road. But I believe human's are symbiotic mamals. We are born of another body, and we crave the connection of another to complete us. We are not turtles in that we don't lay our eggs on the beach and walk away, letting our young hatch by themselves and find their way to the ocean or not. We are dependent or we die. We need each other or there is a failure to thrive. Humans die of a broken heart... we know better then anyone how possible that can be… hugs, SMH

God, I'm crying too. I know how you feel, Caredverymuch, I never cried in public either, but this past year and a half, I feel drained and used beyond anything I have words for.

Emile, this disorder is horrifying, and I know what you mean by desperately wanting the other person to be cured. I begged and begged for years for my xh to get help. I knew long ago that he had BPD (or some other p/d of a similar type) and when we went for marriage counseling (after I left him), the counselor also noticed some textbook BPD signs, and told him to get evaluated because she could no longer help us if he didn't come to terms with his disorder.

The thing of it is, he took several more months before getting help, and as always, he's made *some* progress, decided it was good enough, and gave up.

And rather than return to counseling like we had planned (even if only to co-parent our child in a more respectful, communicative way), he decided it was easier to replace me with someone who, by his very own description, is almost word for word exactly like the person he once described me as. He didn't talk about her accomplishments, her appearance, her life, her work, only her characteristics that best serve his interests. Kind, giving, compassionate, understanding, generous ... .another unsuspecting doormat, essentially.

I don't hate her. I'm not even jealous. I just feel so hurt that giving the best parts of myself, pushing myself, pushing my limits, giving all that I had to give wasn't good enough to even acknowledge or value on even the tiniest level. Even after all this therapy, he can't even face up to what he's put me though, to be man enough to say, "Wow, I never realized just how horrible I was, and all that I put you though. I'll never be able to make up for everything I did, but I do think I should go back to counseling with you so that I never devalue you as the mother of my child, and so that our kid can have better than I was able to give to you."

I'm just collateral damage.

And soon enough, my kid will be, too.

And before long, so will this poor, kind, vulnerable, giving woman he's now being a soul-sucking parasite to as well.

Worst part is, these temporary therapy sessions just allow him to be more cruel and hateful in more creative and manipulative ways. Sometimes I think the therapy has made him worse.

I don't envy her.

As for me and my kid, he's gone into classic splitting and deemed me as "bad" and our child (which he had no interest in until he realized more time with the kid = less child support payments) as "good". God help my little one when he turns on her. And God, give me the strength to fill these massive shoes he's left me to fill, taking care of a child with a BPD parent.

I need to heal, for my little one. I need to sustain my integrity in all it's forms, my compassion, my self respect, and my wisdom about this d/o. I need to fill the gap in that child's soul he'll no doubt leave behind without a second thought the moment it suits him.

Thinking of that ... .it really puts his new relationship in perspective. Right now, all I care about is being a good enough mom to provide well in terms of my child's emotional needs.

Projective identification.


https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=223179.msg12417357#msg12417357

When I first met my ex she was going to school in the city I reside in and she was going to leave in a few weeks. I knew that it was temporary. She left and left me some letters behind. As I was reading the letters I kept thinking "am I making a mistake letting go of her? Is she the one?" I thought she was my soul mate. I really felt that she was exactly like me with my good qualities. We were a perfect match, so I went after her. I don't think I will ever forget that profound moment. I had never felt anything like that before.

I mostly agree SMH, thanks for weighing in.  I say we're social animals, more empowering for me than 'herd', and yes, we define ourselves in relationships, we live and feel most alive in relationships, romantic or otherwise, we are meant to be together, no question; 'no man is an island' is a common phrase for a reason.

My point was though, that going into a romantic relationship with a focus of 'being saved' is the wrong thing to do.  If we have issues to deal with, deal with them, get our own mental, emotional and spiritual selves together and then take that into a relationship, go into a relationship to give, not to get, to focus on the other person's needs, not our own.  And if the other person is doing the same thing, bliss ensues and it's sustainable and momentum builds.  And then, somewhere down the road, we hopefully discover that life is a hell of a lot better, we have indeed been 'saved', which is really a misnomer at that point, we're really just living all the way, as social animals can and should.

I wasn't in that great place when my ex showed up, and I was looking for her to 'fix' me or 'save' me; exactly the wrong way to go into a relationship, especially when our partner has a personality disorder.  :)uring the idealization phase I thought and felt that I had been 'saved', that a dream had come true, little did I know it would turn into a nightmare.  Wanna hear some jacked up reasoning?  I figured since she'd been divorced twice and had a bunch of kids, and many, many exes, that this girl was a relationship 'expert', that she knew how to do relationships right, that she was ideal for saving me.  What an idiot I was.  She's only had a boatload of relationships because many partners have left her, duh.  Now I understand... .

But had I been in that great, healthy place to begin with, her mirroring and idealization just wouldn't have gotten very far, I'm convinced, I would have seen through it and listened to my gut, and we never would have gotten off the ground.  Now a healthy girl?  My gut says this feels right, my head says this feels right, we're in no hurry, it progresses naturally, natural bliss, because my side of the street was clean going in, and so was her's.

So there's my version of saving ourselves... .

Excellent thread.  So many common experiences and feelings we all share.  I'm currently going through giving up hope of ever being with her again, implementing no-contact and imagining she has the best-possible new relationship in spite of the fact she tells him she misses me, and tells me her dream is to come to my house and hear me play guitar for her again.  A cue that she acknowledges means wanting intimacy.

She's in a fantasy world there and my attempts to bring our shared fantasy to life have almost always been met with resistance since things went really badly for us.

I think we all wish our borderline partners would die... I think that if quite normal,  I often had those thoughts, in my moments of torment and despair, Our problems would all be over... .  But, with my easy going character, I would never act on those thoughts... . 

Nothing to feel guilty about... .     

I don't wish my exBPDgf would die, or anything like that... just wish I had never met her... she brought so much pain and suffering to my life.

This last go round with her a few years ago at least lead to insights about my own issues. BPD and NPD are considered pre-oedipal disorders, they are at the level of the real self developing... and are cases where the real self didn't develop. I now suspect that SPD is even more prevalent and that since SPD (schizoid PD) people tend not to leave the wake of destruction that BPD and NPD can, and SPD people are quiet/withdrawn/introverted ... .that they are pretty much ignored. Also wondering how common a BPD-SPD r/s is, and how many of us are SPD.

The latest I read about how someone gets to be SPD... is so simple to grasp that it is scary. When baby's start venturing out and trying new things... they need positive feedback from their mothers... encouragement to do real self activities... they try something new... it induces what is called abandonment depression and they need encouragement that they did well and to keep at it. As minor/simple as that sounds... it doesn't happen a lot of the time, and if that is combined with treating the baby as an object... like NPD/BPD parents typically will do, the kid learns to act instead of being themselves, finds it very hard to make decisions or act on their own... basically most the co-dependent symptoms. Simple encouragement and being paid attention to is all that is needed apparently. Whole lifetime of indecision, self doubt, lack of creativity, frustration... and from such a simple FOO thing.

I think my pwBPD was the first really encouraging person I was around, and it made me feel like I could do anything... the breakup... regressed to feeling like I could barely do anything. That depth of hurt doesn't happen during a brief r/s... .it goes way back somehow.

Kiwimitch I don't wish my ex would die. I don't have any negative feelings towards him. It would cause me great pain if he died. I'm grateful to have met him, he put me through lots of pain and destruction but I'm better for it. I'd been walking around dead for years before I met him, and he " slapped me awake" I've changed for the better because of knowing him.

He's not a bad/ evil person, and he will always be in far worse pain and torment every day than he ever put me through... .

In Freudian terms, death wish is completely normal, but not to feel guilty about that? Well, that's where pathology comes into play.

Same here... the pwBPD unlocked repressed stuff from long ago... like the demons in Pandora's box.

That the bad stuff... and good too, was repressed... seems to indicate that a lot of what went on in my life (in the mean time ),was not as mature and real-self driven as I thought, but rather a lot of egoic role playing. ... reason I think that is that the intensity of the experience was so great... and unwarranted... that something else was up. I know that I accomplished a lot of things and felt very little joy or pleasure from them over the years, and that it may well have been pursuing some childhood image of what I thought I should be/do... rather than being my real self.

Losing touch with reality from the breaking point you described would be schizophrenia... but everyone has some degree of schizoid behavior... it is required of us ... being nice and agreeable at work (to keep a job)... sociable with relatives (we can't stand)... etc. We act differently than what we believe deep down... play a role instead of express our real self. The r/s with the pwBPD... it is ego driven role playing combined with melodrama and pleasure and horrific abuse.

I am thinking a lot of it is abandonment depression... which... would mean that we are devastated as the pwBPD was like a primary r/s ... and started to give encouragement for our real self (inadvertently ... along with puffing up our ego)... then withdrew the badly needed support ... .leaving us really regressed/devastated. I went from planning my life 10 yrs ahead... to doing my best to make it through the next hour... like some very simple, early abilities were stunted for a while. Even normal depression isn't like that. Suspect that getting past the BPD r/s... then doing real self activities... will bring back some depression and require someone external (the environment or a T, or SO)... to encourage us... to get back to normal.

Sounds weird... but its what I have been experiencing.

That's where I'm at right now.  Just trying to get through the next hour.  God this is hard.

Slapped awake is exactly what happened ... .same thing.

My pwBPD had given up, turned in to a quiet wallflower, let herself go... gained weight. We both were rejuvenated physically... lost weight, looked about 10 yrs younger... became active. It wasn't all bad... the intense emotions... felt alive again. But the bad stuff was horrible and I back slid a bit after the breakup, but regaining ground again... exercising, dieting, seeing a T, and more alive than before the BPD r/s... but less than during it... though much saner I think.

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