BPDFamily.com

Hi all who are working hard on themselves. After 5+ tortuous years of living with no boundaries and being eaten alive by a manipulative BPD/bipolar I am experiencing severe mood swings and triggers. Not often enough to be alarmed but enough to know I have some damage and a huge amount of healing. This has been the biggest lesson of my life , now realizing I have never had boundaries. What a way to live life and every step of the way with internal suffering just because I never stood up for myself. Some people learn the hard way and finally realizing I had the power all along, (sounds like Dorothy) but it's a very huge lesson for me almost like an awakening. Here I am after all these years developing mood swings and triggers which I have never had before. It's scary and I am learning to have boundaries the hard way but at least I am on it and know what I need to do with utmost urgency. Severe mood swings are frightening.

Yes, boundaries they are of utmost importance if you want to survive in this world.

Is there anyone else who has developed mood swings from being with a BPD partner or even parent, I have had both.  :'( :sign_attn: red-flag

Hi Eye438,

It sounds like you have been through some very painful experiences, and yet it brought you to a crucial piece of self-awareness about boundaries. 

I did not have mood swings (unlike many people here my relationship with a pwBPD was quite brief, and I had a friendship as well that has now ended) but I feel I did absorb some negative viewpoints about myself from uBPD ex, questioning my own motivations (as selfish or manipulative) that I didn't really notice had happened until I wasn't in contact with him anymore.  I vividly remember "getting my own perspective back".

However, something my therapist said could be a related concept, that may apply to your experience as well.  He said my family of origin used me as a "lightning rod".  This image of people channelling intense energy into someone else so that person can "ground" it for them, reminded me of scapegoating.  He said the technical term was "projective identification".  I don't totally understand how it works, but the way I understand it with respect to my family is that when they were upset about something, experiencing intense unwanted emotions, instead of facing that and asking what was going on with themselves, they criticized me (an example of the criticism would be about a minor etiquette breach, but they treated it as though it caused serious real harm to someone or that I should be scared of causing potential harm). 

I see it as a sort of a "displacement".  They want to freak out, but feel shame or "I shouldn't do that" with respect to the emotions, so they do something that influences me to react, then they can point at me and say "what is she overreacting for?"  It's like criticizing themselves... .outside themselves, so it's a little more comfortable... .for them at least.

Is that what boundaries are about for you, too? Which emotions belong to whom? 

It's taken me a long time, and I still often feel fear and blame myself in the moment, but I can go back and evaluate situations after the fact and really see how the person's emotions were not about me... .or not as much about me as I think they were.  I don't know if you are familiar with Nonviolent Communication, but one of the things that Marshall Rosenberg writes in the book of the same title is that we want to be "responsible to" others, not "responsible for" them.  I love that, because it honours that we are social beings, and do interact with one another, and yet we are separate.

So you're saying you realize "you have the power", what does that look like for you?  What are your next steps in awareness and practice of boundaries?

making same mistakes over and over is craziness in itself. My power is my fortitude and self awareness particularly this last BPD relationship did me in and had some loss of self. Losing oneself in a relationship is very dangerousness in regards to good mental health. I am a painter and make a living doing it, I don't like structure in day to day living my BPD ex required structure. My boundaries are few because I am an artist.

I believe my mother to be BPD, she had rage and was abusive, physically and psychologically. I lived in fear of her and did everything she told me to do. There it is the set up for codependency. I have worked through many situations in my life but the realization that my ex BPD was not really there for five years is really hard to swallow. I am trying to put that in a place once and for all but it will take time like everything else, the main thing is that I have my own life and home.