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Three plus months out, two plus months NC, terrible divorce proceedings, and I find myself sometimes staring off into space having mental arguments with my BPDw who is, of course, not there. Subject could be anything. I'll make a statement and then she'll respond, and back and forth for what is probably only a few seconds but seems like old times. Distressing and weird. Makes me wonder if I'm cracking up or something. Then I force visualization elsewhere and it all goes away. Does anyone else have this happen?

I've been there. Some of the most honest and productive "talks" I've had with my ex took place w/out her. The best part was they helped me work some stuff out. You're not cracking up, you're putting the pieces together.

I know exactly what you mean , yes, I do that too, usually around a pretend conversation I would have if I ever ran into her again.  Sometimes it helps to vent on her but the effect is not long lasting.

Totally normal. I do/did the same thing. It is about trying to make sense out of the non sensical. Your brain tries to make sense of it.

What worked for me is this one little trick. Instead of having a conversation with her in your head, or if you find yourself doing it, have the conversation with yourself.

For example, if I was like: "Ex name" I don't like it when you say 'don't be mean to me' all the time because it implies that I was mean and in fact I am not.

I would try to change the conversation and say my name instead of hers. Like: Willy, I don't like it I don't like it when you say 'don't be mean to me' all the time because it implies that I was mean and in fact I am not.

And then I would respond this as myself and usually it would be something like: Yeah. That doesn't make any sense. You are right.

And that is how that would go. It's weird but what it does it take away power from my ex and it shows me that the conversation I am having is actually with myself and I'm trying to find another resolution to something that was very difficult and didn't make any sense. And then it makes sense... .my ex is disordered. And that is why everything was constantly nonsense.

Try that. It's weird, but it really worked for me when the 'talking to her' in my head was at its worst.

Yep.  Don't make it a bad thing, you're rewiring your brain, trying to make since of things, and you will probably notice that the conversations change with time and your comfort level increases.  All part of taking your self back.  If you write some of them down and then read old ones after a while, you'll probably notice progress.

A fun thing I've done is to pretend to talk to her like I would talk to a 5 year old. My ex was so totally a little girl in so many ways so for me this is appropriate. When I started viewing her a person with the emotional maturity of a 5 year old, everything started to make sense.

yes I do the same thing

How does that "rewiring" the brain work in this context?

The arguments I had with an imaginary her after I left her were unresolved issues that came up during the relationship.  And of course arguing with a borderline, who is using every possible defense mechanism, is not based on rational thought or logic, so by definition it's nonsensical.  As I argue with her, both in the relationship and after, my beliefs about her, myself, and the relationship are active, and with time those beliefs will change, I 'win' arguments, and in the process I begin to see things differently, reframe situations, find my own reality again, all of which is rewiring my brain to make sense of things.  She's doing the same thing mind you, we all do, as we resolve old issues and move forward in our lives, since the option is to stay mired in unresolved crap.  Of course her version of what went down is probably entirely different than mine, she's got very different motivations; we have the ability to sift through and determine what we were responsible for and what our partners were and grow from it, where everything is probably still my fault in her head, since taking responsibility is not an option.  In that sense what the relationship was to each of us diverges with time, as we 'rewire' ourselves.  Take care of you!

Hell, I do it too. For me it's more like intense practice for all the lies, manipulation, and "alternate" truths that they believe. If I didn't talk to myself like a crazy person, then I wouldn't stand a chance in a conversation. Most of the time it's almost like I'm memorizing a  script or somerhing, lol.