BPDFamily.com

... .They say they did not say something that you quoted them on? Verbatim!

Are they lying when... .

They open their mouth and speak?   YES!

A pwBPD makes up their own reality to fit their current emotion of the moment, gas lighting included; lying is part of their defence mechanisms. They feel shame if they know they have done something to hurt you, problem is the shame is too great for them to bear so they justify their words/actions by believing you did something to hurt them. So sad that our love and acceptance only makes things worse.

Near the end of the relationship I was being gaslit a bit. Her best friend mysteriously sent me a friend request after she unfriended me about a year earlier. For some reason she never liked me, even though we'd never met or even spoke to each other. I ignored it because I suspected something beneath the surface. A week later my ex texted me saying "she's sad that you won't accept her friend request, also that you unfriended her." I said, "No, she unfriended ME." She said, "She says YOU did." I said, "NOPE."

Are they lying? Y-e-s.

hi janestorm 

i think the answer to this requires specifics. a person with BPD is as capable of lying as anyone else. people lie for any number of reasons. what was your experience like with your ex? you say you quoted something verbatim and he lied?

Yes. Specifically, I made the mistake of sharing a problem I have been experiencing at work with this contractor that comes in once a week. He leers at me to the point where I have to close my door, worry which direction I have to walk to avoid him, etc.

Last week, this guy crossed the line of annoying to creepy when he (according to my coworkers) ran after me only to wait for me to come out of a room so he could follow me. It sucked.

I handled it yesterday by telling a guy in that particular department that can discreetly observe this in the next couple of weeks and report it. I don't want drama and a harassment case opened.

The BPDex of course said I handled it wrong... .blah blah blah and when it doesn't work out, I can talk to him and he will "tell" me what to do. I know the HR manual, I don't want the drama. He also blamed me for suffering in silence for months. 

He then recalled several months ago when I tried to share this and he shut me down. I reminded him how during one of his melt downs, he screamed at me, "just admit it, you love attention from men, ADMIT IT! Stop lying to yourself. ... "

He never said that! I am nutty. I should talk to my therapist about that (as he refuses to see one anymore).

I asked, "at what point should I have jumped in to tell you again what I was going through at work? I was not suffering alone, I have a support network."

Ha! Then he whined that he was a terrible BF and on and on.

I just told him it was not about him and I did not need anything from him around the issue because I am a professional. I handled it. He hung up on me.

I live for the day that I meet a man that is capable of being a real partner. 

Hi JaneStorm,

Dissociation is a pretty common experience for someone with BPD.   Dissociations can include amnesia.   This is a mental illness after all.

Have you ever had the experience of being under a pretty decent stress load ?   Like having a bad cold, a difficult experience to get through and realizing afterwards that you 'zoned out'.  That your memory of the difficult experience is fuzzy or confused?  That is a mild experience of dissociation.

He may be lying, he may have dissociated if he was in the middle of a melt down.  Most likely its a little of both.

'ducks

I know you are right, Ducks. Intellectually,  I do understand but I can't keep surrounding myself with versions of my mother! I hate the self-hatred he feels because as we all know, I am the one that gets the flaming bag of crap at my door!  :'(

Ducks is on the money. It took me a long time to understand this.

I also understand the "intellectually, I understand this... ." The most painful thing in the world is the disconnect between the intellect and the heart.

If you are surrounding yourself with versions of your mother, then the focus needs to shift to you and the reasons you choose the partners you do. You know better, but you still do it. That's the disconnect, and that's where your work lies.

When my r/s with my ex first ended, I used to read that the blessing of these r/s's was that they expose your core wounds and open you up the possibility of healing them, if you are willing to take the sometimes difficult, sometimes painful journey towards healing.

Trust me, it's a worthwhile journey.

Most of the bad stuff that happened in my relationship is like that.   Fuzzy details without clear recollection.

For example my ex once said to me "I don't see a ring on my finger".  I can't for the life of me remember what led to her saying that, but I do remember it pushed me over the edge.

Most of us end up here in a tremendous amount of pain, and find out that our relationship has ripped the scabs off our core wounds.   Whatever they are.  

There is a real process to detaching and healing that is embedded in the lessons.   Anger is certainly part of that.  So I think, is blame.   Many of us have been living with a situation where the emotional reactivity has been rising and rising and rising.  When we get here we are pretty churned up.   That is why the lessons suggest that we explore our feeling in ways that allow us to be present with them and to stand a little aside from them.    This space and time allows us to dial down our own emotional reactivity.   Once our own emotional reactivity, hurt, frustration and pain have subsided we can look at FOO (family of origin) issues.

I know when I first got here I was diagnosed with a mild case of PTSD, coming from the stress of what was going on in my life at the time.    It took me about 9 months to deal with that.   First things first.

what do you think?

'ducks

You are all right. This is not my first lesson and I discover more each time. I "know" soo many facts but self-application is a struggle. I will never stop striving to evolve to be better, wiser, and kinder to myself and others.

The lessons repeat until we learn.

I (like many of us I suspect) come from generational dysfunction.  I vowed that it would stop with me. It has. My adult sons have healthy and functional relationships and a strong sense of Self.

I have to keep moving :)

Besides, I can't forget my ex is a man. I know men are 'fixers' and it agitates him to hear of something that he can't control or correct. I have to own my resentment towards him regarding his not creating a safe place for me to share and get compassion; maybe even guidance. It was a war zone and there was never a good time to bring up any of my personal concerns. It was always about him. Always will be.

I agree with you Jane, however I was actually referring to the Lessons in the box that runs down the right hand side of your screen.    The collective wisdom of many senior members and a lot of professional advice is embedded in that box.

I see!  lol

I struggle between #2 and #3 right now.

I have been through them all after the last r/s, years ago. It took about 2 years in order to get to #5. I enjoyed that for 4 years after. Now, after 1.5 years, here I am. I really need to sit with #2 and #3 for a while. I have a great T and will begin EDMR today and next week. I am not sure how that will work out, but it is worth a try.

I just don't want to hurt anyone or be hurt.

This morning's texts:

Me: "I should not have talked to you last night until I stopped feeling anxiety and neediness. Nothing good comes from my weakness."

Him: "You did the right thing in discussing it with me. I know I need to work on a more sensitive approach when sharing my thoughts. It's hard to hear news that someone you love is being mistreated and there is a solution for everything. The laws apply to you and I would have given [his daughter] the exact same advice. You're an educated woman, you're not a cocktail waitress anymore. I know you are a woman with strong boundaries. Boundaries are rooted in your values. It's hard to hear a strong woman not practice the same boundaries for herself as she does for others. It made me sad and then anger started to build. I'm sorry I was struggling to control my secondary emotions and not stay grounded with you in my sadness.

Love you so so much, you are a very big part of me. ❤️"

First off, this kind of crap keeps us stuck.

Secondly, there is a message in "It's hard to hear a strong woman not practice the same boundaries for herself as she does for others. " because he always said he was held to a higher standard than I was and he was a victim. Meaning, he can't slime around old lovers' homes and hang out with them. I don't do that. I always have to read what is NOT being said, in order to know what is being said. Back to #1... .

Hi C.Stein.

I don't want to hijack Jane's thread however let me briefly touch on what you said.

my understanding is that we all have limited bandwidth to handle the signals, both internal and external, that we are processing at any time.    in a high conflict situation where our bandwidth limit is exceeded, signals get dropped.  that's why people who experience catastrophic events remember them either in bits and pieces or not at all.    I suspect that whatever occurred you were so emotionally saturated, the biological processes cut in and re-allocated bandwidth to handle the immediate priorities.

ducks

Ducks, I don't think you are hijacking at all. I welcome all tangential topics. It helps me.  :)

pwBPD process life and information much differently than you and I do.  acceptance of that will help with getting unstuck.

:'(  Thanks.

large complicated books have been written by people with many initials after their names to explain how/why people with  this disorder see things and why they do things.   people way smarter than me.

I can boil it down to, my partner views/feels/processes life through a much different perspective than I do.   Expecting her to walk like a duck, quack like a duck   (bad pun I know) just pisses me off and frankly frustrates the dickens out of her.

I can not take it personally when she reacts from her different perspective as long as she isn't coming across my boundaries or being abusive.    

lying for a BPD is a survival mechanisms and survival reflexes. without highly therapeutic intervention they just can not help themselves. they have learned since childhood to embellish the truth in order to hide their core shame. no matter what! they will always lie and we can not change that, we cannot repair archaic wounds left from childhood abandonment by their mother.

Bleak.