BPDFamily.com

Hi Everyone,

  If only I could go back in time five years, and undo everything that followed my initiation into the world of personality disorders; it’s a knowledge that I could have happily lived without.  However, I’m am now tainted, my whole world view forever altered and distorted by virtue of five years of futile effort.  Five years devoted to an individual who lacked the ability to sustain any degree of intimacy in a relationship. 

  Five years later, and I am now done.  I can’t begin to describe to you how harrowing, and how exhausting, the whole process has been for me.  I followed all the tenets devoted to sustaining the relationship (“delusion” is probably a better description), but no amount of patience, radical acceptance, or understanding was sufficient to maintain equilibrium in the relationship for any period of time.  She always left at a certain point once triggered, and I’d have to live with that gaping hole in my life time and time again  After a while, I could see patterns emerging, and could anticipate her departures to an accuracy measured in days/hours.  It was a knowledge hard won. 

  I’m writing in the first person, because I’m reasonably certain that more than a few of you will identify with this dismal game, and the havoc it brings to one’s life.

  To those of you just taking those tentative steps in this dispiriting process, I have a few things to say:

-   If they depart from your life, and never return, you can thank your lucky stars; the quicker you can escape, the quicker your return to a normal life of tranquility.

-   If you choose to stay in this psychological melee, don’t idealize your future together to be anything other than what it has already shown itself to be.

-   As difficult as this might be to accept, don’t personalize their disruptive behaviour.  All of it is a pathological defense, and is entirely unconscious, much as our reptilian brain reacts to the sudden sight of a snake or a spider.

-   If you choose to stay, expect to be a very changed person at the end of it all.  I bear little resemblance to the person who started down this BPD path years ago.   

-   Attachment theory posits that there is a very good reason why you initially found your partner so appealing, and why you chose to stay with them despite their glaring deficiencies.  In the end, you will discover more about your own problems and issues than you ever dreamt were imaginable, so that your tireless investigation of all things BPD eventually takes second billing to trying to understand yourself. 

  For me, the catalyst was seeing some recent photographs of her two boys.  Two boys whom I never had the pleasure of knowing.  When she first entered my life, they were both quite young, so to now see them so tall and almost fully grown was a shock, as I truly wanted to be a part of their lives. 

  As well, her neighbour has more access to her and her children that I ever did, and there is more than enough evidence to support the notion that this neighbour is all too ready to dump his present girlfriend for her. She is not spurning his advances, and I no longer have the energy to sustain this dismal game any longer.

  So, at the end of it all, what do I have?  No one is ever going to be pinning a medal to my chest for my devotion to a cause that was a fait accompli from the start.  My friends think I’m an idiot, as the opportunity cost far outstripped the meagre rewards.  In order to sustain the deceit, I had to normalize behaviours that any right-thinking person would find absurd and objectionable, and I now have to un-learn all of this nonsense.  Due to all of this psychological retooling, there is no possible way that I will be able to initiate or sustain a normal, healthy, relationship with another woman for some time to come.

I implore you to learn from my example.  They do not change, and they have no incentive to change provided that you are there to sustain them.  You undermine your own physical and mental health by remaining with them.  The best way to think about all of this is in seeing them as the alcoholic, and you as a cheap bottle of cooking wine.  It truly is as simple as that.

  Anyway, my friends, I hope that your own struggles aren’t too painful today.  You’re not alone in this, and I know that this sounds trite and hollow at the present moment, but you will survive all of this to become a better and stronger person.  You truly will be happy again one day.   

I feel with you I have spent five years with my ex too .

But let me tell you this , she was never able to change the person I am I stayed strong through out my relation looks like I was wearing one of those metal outfit that they wore in the old wars , everything  threw at me bounced back .

I remain confident that I could do better than that I want my next to appreciate what I have to offer for her not that crazy ill person never appreciated anything .

I just feel the urge sometimes for her to listen and seek treatment if she does good if not it's no longer my problem as of now I still think about her but I am in my last phase 4 month  after the spit , I am now in detaching mode may you find happiness and tranquility soon