BPDFamily.com

i have noticed while browsing the boards for the last couple of days that members are re-wondering if their exs are not who they think they are and that they have "became better" or "healed". i can understand that the trauma bond, gaslighting, FOG can control us for some time even after NC for a couple of months but let me shake you back with some reality :

1- BPD is a serious disorder and can not be cured. it can get better with yearsof professional therapy.

2- remember that when you were the replacement during the idealization phase, his\her ex might have seen both of you and wondered how "happy" he\she is and ruminated over the illusion of "he\she has lost their soul mate"

3- staying with his \her replacement longer than when they stayed with you does not say anything about you. actually if he\she stayed short with that means that you were really good and truly loving that you triggered him\her quickly. that says that you can be rapidly loved.

4- being happy is not about being with a new partner or else this board would have not existed and we would go on match.com for fixes. but we know that these fixes are so quick and temporary. it just helps us to bury the unresolved issues (as we did with all our unresolved issues before the life awakening experience of our interaction with our BPDs). he\she are just adding to the pile of unresolved issues starting from his\her childhood trauma to the current moment. the denial is really the monopoly dealer in their own world. we were awakened do not lose this opportunity to change and resolve your issues and become a healthier person.

5- you can doubt that "you might not be good enough for your ex". but you can not doubt that you were in an abusive relationship. in my humbled opinion, there is no single reason in this world to abuse someone emotionally or in any other form. just try to imagine what would a healthy person do if he\she is dating or in a r\s with a not good enough partner for them. they would say "we have to talk" and then they would inform you that they do not want to see you anymore and they will give you closure. no healthy person would continue in a r\s with a person and cruelly abuse them just because "they are not good enough". they are abusive. and once abusive always abusive.

6- change does not happen over night. most of us here have issues. issues not a disorder. a disorder that its first line of defense is denial. and you can see for yourself first hand how change is so hard and not so nice though it is promising for a better you for a better future. we do not have this gigantic defense mechanism of denial and we find change so hard. imagine how hard change for BPD would be ? before changing something you have to acknowledge its presence and they are not even there yet at acknowledging it so stop trying to think so.

7- "but my case is different. she did not rage. she just crawls in the corner and cry." no your case is not different. you have read your story here over and over written by other members. i read here every single day for 4 months now and let me tell you that i am still struck by the same attitude they use. the same phrases. the same dissociation. the nothing face. your ex is not different than mine or his or hers. the disorder wins and take over the body. think of it as a physical illness. a physical illness manifests its same symptoms in thousand of different people.

Thank you for this. 

It is very frustrating, almost 7 months since the break up, how I struggle every single day to try and learn, grow and make sense of what happen while she is on her second boyfriend.  I do often think many of the things you pointed out especially the "how can I have tried and given all that I could to this woman yet she is happier now in the arms of someone else?"

Your words help put everything into perspective.

Thank you

Please try to learn more about the disorder. It is science. Facts. No what ifs with facts. Read posts by a member called 2010. His understanding of the disorder and the way he puts it is very profound.

Thanks for this Aj.  

I guess I am still clinging to the hope that I was special to her but really it's me doubting my own IDEa of myself as special.  And she is nice to everyone untill she is triggered

I like how you are able to express your ideas so clearly.

Blimblam i wrote this post in response to reading some posts here which have the same idea. One of these posts was titled "what if she accepted herself?"  :)

I did want you specifically to read this post blimblam. Thanks for reading it. 

Yeah this post helped me.  I realize she is trying to be a good person and kind even though she is struggling against her deep seated belief that she is a bad person.  I felt anger until I found compassion. I was bitter until I could accept that under my anger and confusion compassion for myself for her is underneath.  But I've been conditioned to feel love and compassion as fear pain shame guilt and anger

Let go blimblam. She has always survived before meeting you and she will continue doing so without you. You know you can not change her. Its already hard for us to change ourselves with issues though we have the will. How much do you think its hard to change someone else with a disorder (not an issue. And it has a lot of defense mechanisms against its own host) who are not willing to change for their own sake ? She is not going to get help for anyone. If she is doing it she is doing to save herself. Theoretically speaking if she is "cured" there will be no more idealization. She would feel to you just like any ex you have. Let go

I am seeking forgiveness for myself by forgiving people that can't forgive themselves to reclaim my empathy and sense of compassion

This is my pattern stemming from my foo issues.

I just realiZed this and each time I rewrite this part of the story I can let it go 

You can forgive people in your heart without them knowing.

I think your compassion and empathy are there already. I think your problem is not their lack but rather their extra presence.

When I find pity for her I find pity for myself. I am just rediscovering what Pity

Love and compassion really is and realize it is the part of myself I am seeking.

What felt like compassion for her was really resentment. Part of her deept seated internal beliefs I internalized through projective identification.

Can't find "2010" send me a link?

thanks for the post.  :)

I'm only 3 days into the breakup with my wife (we're both women). We were polyamorous and I decided i didn't want to be, but she said I agreed to it when we met. She kept dating guys and since we separated, she's kicking that into high gear. I know for her it's an unhealthy activity, given her trauma history, but still, I have a little twinge thinking "she's having all this fun without even thinking of me". I do NOT want her back and I don't even want to date anyone else for a while, but it's good to remind ourselves that these people are toxic and they are doing the same thing to the next person that they did to us... .lie, manipulate, use.

I am happy to be out of that relationship.

The borderline exists as a two way mirror between two "worlds". They are tormented by it. Sociopaths are completely detached from our sorce energy but the see we are blind to  the thing we are stuck in.  

No one can tell you what it is your have too see it for yourself.

In some cases, the partner probably wasn't seen as very special. More like a temporary distraction from whoever they're avoiding/abandoning. But some of us were special to them. Loved. They just couldn't handle being close/staying close. That saying about learning how the stove is hot by touching it also applies to pwBPD. When it happens to them, the disorder is a combination of things which causes them to deny themselves the learning of the lesson. No change for the better, which keeps them stuck searching for happiness they'll be compelled to refuse if they find it. They not only run away from 'the stove' but frequently set about destroying as much of it as they can. To punish and scapegoat it. These are life long patterns, which most likely haven't disappeared just because someone new is being pushed and pulled with. The best part of the r/s for me was that feeling of being close with someone in such a deep way. How much of it was real though, right? For my ex, no, she can't be feeling very happy now, if ever. When she feels close and deep, with the real friend or committed lover she craves, it's great to her, too, but she also feels/acts out exactly opposite of that. Sabotaging her own life, hurting whoever else is involved. She knows and feels the destruction in her wake. It's what keeps her on the run, unhappily.

I agree myself. I was special to mine but that didn't last it wasn't what I thought it was

I was not special to my ex. She broke up with her ex one month before meeting me. She started to triangulate with him during devaluation. I do not know anything about her as i am maintaining NC but i think she is back to him. I was just used as an emotional pillow and that really sucks.

I thought for some time that maybe my ex is healthy, had a rebound with me and i am just demonizing her. But given her history (3 ex fiances,1 exhusband,3 ex bfs, 2 abortions and she is 29 years old) and her emotional abuse to me thats why i know she is BPD. If it was a rebound she would have broken up with me and started redating her ex without triangulating and getting us in a clash to validate her existence. Anyway her longest r/s with her exhusband was 2 years. She is very dysfunctional. She also splitted her parents black and escaped her country without saying goodbye to them. They woke up one day to find her in america. She is living now on tourist visas between america and the middle east.

Thank you very much Anthony James.

Very wise and very helpful and just on time!    |iiii

Thanks.

This post has triggered me. I am feeling down since i have read it :'(

This is good. Embrace the down and feel the bodily sensations of it it is not you and it will pass. Accept defeat and surrender to it.

The triggers fear and pain is your body trying to tell you something. It is why borderlines are triggered but they refuse to face the nightmare.  They do not listen to their bodies it is why they have so many aches and bodily pains becUse of so much repressed trauma.  Don't run from it like a borderline face this and feel it completely until you find comfort in the emptiness then you will know more of yourself.  The pain is an illusion we feel the truth as pain because we have become conditioned to hide from it our entire lives

I want my ex to suffer. I have fairly strong evidence that she is in bad shape. And yet I still hurt when I think she is happy and blithe. She's been miserable her whole life!

I need to find happiness in the limited knowledge I ave regarding her current situation and move on. But yes, I know she's unhappy.

That makes two of us.

That's pretty much where I am right now.

Still trying to convince myself it wasn't me and rationalize all her behaviours are not from my fact... .

antony_james your post truly helped me today. Thank you.