BPDFamily.com

Keeping this thread alive as it has helped me a bunch:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=288864.0

I'm almost two weeks NC (except for cordial hellos at work). Haven't reached out to her via text or any other way in that time.

I've had some moments where I really wanted to but thankfully didn't. The members on here have been very helpful with advice and just sharing and being open. Thank you all for that.

Why not make this a detachment pep talk?

What does it take to detach?  NC is one tool. What are others?

Two weeks is great.  BPD fears abandonment so much they quickly take over your life so you are theirs and won't leave.  But then they leave you and you are left feeling empty and without a life - while they have moved on to their next victim. NC frees you up so you can detach and begin rebuilding your life. Keep faith with NC and you will heal.

That's a great idea, skip. Always enjoy reading your posts. Very thoughtful and helpful.

Some things that I find hard while detaching are triggers - a song that reminds me of her, a place we used to go together, etc. they are small but they pop up at random times and can really put me in a tough spot emotionally.

How do others deal with triggers?

In your case, specifically, the best way to look at this is that both reviving this relationship or exiting are all about you standing tall and separate of her and growing forward.

Don't immerse yourself in loss right now, Anez. Too soon for that. A week ago you were trying to recover this.

Try not to look back in misery, but to reach for hope. Look back at what has happened (dissect this thing) to learn from it, and make adjustments. Make yourself a better you for you right now.

Cue the Rocky theme.

Thanks, skip. I've been working with a T every Thursday for the past few months and really working on myself and being really open with him about everything.

I'm starting a class this week about something that I've always wanted to try. I think that experience will help me become a better person for me.

The hard part for me, tho, is that I see my ex every day at work, so it kind of reopens the scab each day. Tho I know my brain will eventually move past her and time will help. I just need to keep doing things for myself.

That's hard. No way to avoid  it?

Not really. We don't see each other a lot at work. Maybe a few minutes each day but it's enough to open the wound.

Why do I feel like contacting her (I'm not going to) even tho she hasn't initiated contact since early October? A few weeks ago she'd respond to my texts in a nice way but she would never initiate.

And yet I still sometimes feel like reaching out. Why?

Well, this isn't directly related but maybe has parallels in what happened to me last night.

After 3 weeks of NC, I broke down and messaged my exBPD.  I kept it light, I said I saw a movie that reminded me of something he would like and I wished he was around to discuss it.  I told him I missed our friendship that we had before we got too involved, and I wished him and his boyfriend well.

He never responded, and that's okay.  Also, surprisingly ... .I feel better contacting him.  I have no regrets.

The reason?

I went no contact for me, not him.  I reflected on everything and I contacted him when I felt I had gone through most of my grief, and now feel I have regained the power to set firm boundaries.  I am comfortable enough to engage with him now, but I am also equally comfortable with the fact that he has still decided not to respond, and that he has discarded me.

I have gathered strength within myself during no contact, and that has helped me detach.  Contacting him with no regrets and without any expectations of either outcome, has made me FURTHER detached.  It has made it easier to move on.

So although NC is still insanely important ,  there's more going on than just no contact to make detachment work.  Mostly, I have gotten help from a therapist, and I have educated myself about personality disorders.  This growth and understanding has also made me further detached.

I'm a very loving and caring person, but I also had solid boundaries before this relationship.  Now I've learned how to gain those boundaries back, and next relationship, they will be firm and will not budge. 

I'm not sure how you guys will feel about this opinion or series of events, but today I feel good, and have no regrets.  I think maybe that's true progress, but we will all do this differently.

Today is the first day I've stopped wondering what if and why and how.   The fact that he still will not speak to me and give me closure after I gave him a large break of time is further proof I am doing the right thing moving on.

I will always care for him and probably love him (I carry love for all my past partners), but he is not capable of ACTIVE love and commitment.  He's not even capable of a worthy friendship. That's too bad, but I have many others who love me and there are many other men who would like to date me.

Now I'm thinking about hitting up that gym membership so I can get myself back together and be healthier for myself and maybe attract some new guys lol.

Although no serious dating, just self improvement and preparing for the next relationship

Much love. 

Attempted contact afforded you some empowerment and feelings of detachment.

I'm not suggesting that everyone make contact and that "contact" is the magic pill, but if we make detachment the goal and look for ways to do it, we are often surprised where that takes us.

I like the term "do not resuscitate", when we have been left behind.  Keep saying it to yourself - see if it fits.  Once we let go of the idea of resuscitating, there is a move up the detachment ladder.

I also apologize if I made it seem NC wasn't important or that we should all at some point contact our exBPD.

I was just saying that I think NC, combined with educating myself, therapy, and some soul searching (facing my own abandonment issues), made it so that I felt confident to contact.

I didn't contact him to get him back or try to start the relationship up.  I contacted him just to see where he was at and how he was doing.  That's it.  It felt good to be able to do that and not be anxious or worry about the outcome.  Where he's at now is he doesn't want interaction, and he may never.  That's okay.

I hope that I didn't mean to play down NC.  In fact, I have reset my NC today, and I plan to go 6 weeks NC instead of 3 weeks.  My hope is I will be much further detached by that time and not thinking of him much at all.

Much love.

I like the "do not resuscitate" phrase, skip. Can you tell me more about it? I stopped reaching out to her partly because she never initiates so I was following her lead in communication.

RMBrworst:

Good for you and where you're at. I think you gotta do you and make decisions for yourself and it sounds like you did that and are comfortable with the results. Looks like you're heading in the right direction.

Good stuff.

Oh I like the idea of this being a detachment thread.

Focused detachment day 3 which for me means no contacting her, and no checking social media about her.

Also, going to yoga (heading there right now!)

On the thinking about her rating, I think today was a 6.7, down from yesterday's 7.0 which is good. On the bad side, I found myself thinking/ruminating a bit about my replacement today-- his face in my head, thinking about when they'd see each other etc. That's not good.

No contact is fraught with anxiety. I want to, I won't today, I went 4 days, I want to, etc.

Do not resuscitate is a much lower level, less anxiety ridden place. Its simply, I'm not going to force a a square peg in a round hole. If the other person doesn't want to be with me, I'm not going to jump through hoops to try to change their mind. I give up.

I don't have to "not think about them", I don't have to worry if they send me a text.  I just do let go of trying to hope I can command them back. I let nature take its course.

You guys have been my rock through this.  

It's so hard to describe this to "real life" family and friends.  I don't think they understand how traumatic it is to be discarded.  It's not a "break up",  it's like ... .being emotionally violated.  It's not just missing someone ... .it's an ache and a hurt that goes deeper.  At some points I lost my grip.  I lost who I was and what I was worth.  My self esteem stripped from me and my value completely degraded.

It's the first breakup that brought me to my knees.

It's the first breakup that made me feel thoughts of suicide ... .

It's bigger than most can realize.

To have you guys around to just understand and know how big this is, has healed me so much.  I am giving you all so much love.  

I'm feeling good about resetting NC and pushing further.

Much love

This train of thought is so nice to hear.  Less anxiety, more relaxed ... .truly detach.  I understand what you're saying.

What will be will be ... .

This is a great way to think about the situation, skip. Thank you very much for that.

When you are not so attached to the outcome, if frees up space to start doing the postmortem and figure out what can be learned.

I'm not suggesting that this will come easily - but even if you start by just agreeing to give yourself 3 hours of DNR - its a place to start.

I'm gonna work on that mindset, skip. It's already helping. Thank you.

I love that thought of DNR Skip. No contact has been an incredibly anxiety place for me (and not sustainable in the face of her contact). What I don't understand is the relationship of NC to detachment (and a DNR mindset). So many people here say its the only way (or at least the best way).

Rmbrworst: I totally know what you mean. This breakup/discard has taken me to a place of suicidal ideation too (which I hadn't experienced before) . Also brooding, and more likely to get angry at other people I love . Sometimes I wonder if it is some BPD rub-off.

That song "you can't hurry love" has been in mind... .I changed the words to "you can't hurry detachment" to give myself a break today.

I can relate to "BPD rub-off".  I feel like this relationship has literally made me go crazy.  I've gone into a deep depression, I've had suicidal thoughts (although I feel strongly I would not act on them), I've distanced myself from my friends, I've had obsessive thoughts, etc etc etc. 

I feel these things happened because I allowed them to.  I moved my boundaries and sacrificed myself and my self worth, to "love" someone else.  However, catering to someone else's every need, and giving up yourself just to make them happy . . . is not sustainable for a loving relationship.  The man I was before this relationship would NEVER put up with this stuff!  In fact, I had a conversation today with my friends about everything that happened, and they said "We cannot believe you put up with as much as you did.  You have never put up things like this."

That shows me, it takes two to tango.  I made bad decisions, and I take full responsibility.

Slowly . . . day by day . . . I'm feeling better.  Sometimes I go back to square one . ... but when I do it becomes less intense, and when I do cry . . . instead of hours of heavy weeping . . . I am not just wiping away a couple of tears, and moving on.  

Wishing you the best.  So many people here can relate.  I feel like it's called "BPD Family" because this trauma can almost bring us together as one.  We can all relate to each others stories.  Sometimes it's scary how similar they all are.  It's amazing.  

Much Love

Back when the breakup happened I was totally lost, just like you guys. And while I spent some time recently trying to test the waters with her - sending texts a few times - I now know the right thing to do is DNR. She's made it clear through her lack of initiating texts and how she acts at work - she treats me like I'm just some random coworker and not like the man she used to open up to, and travel with, and be intimate with - that she's moved on. I feel lame that it has taken me this long to finally accept it but I had real, honest feelings for her. The pain is still there but it's slowly getting better. Granted I'll feel some pain tomorrow when I hear her for the first time in four days at work, but that's ok. Eventually over time that will be gone.

And if I do feel pain at work I can hop on to this board and get some support from some pretty great people who are going through it too.

Somewhere out there are some special women and men who are eventually gonna come into our lives and have a lot of fun with us. Until then we work on ourselves and keep getting better.

Thanks for your help, all.

@Anez

It didn't even happen that long ago man.  You're doing way better. 

Accepting this as reality is one of (if not), the most difficult things I have ever done in my life, and I'm sure you probably feel similar. 

Just the fact that you are realizing this for what it really is . . . is amazing progress. 

You deserve so much better.  I bet you're an amazing guy who deserves a way better gal.  It's funny though, it's like all the crap our friends say that's cliche and lame, is true.  Just takes a while to accept it.

I'm just now coming to terms with the "good times".  They were a facade . . . it was like icing and no cake.  The good times were manufactured . . . the true relationship . . . the part that takes real work . . . was consumed by drama, push/pull, emotional abuse and (the worst for me) discarding.

We dont need that mess man . . . no doubt. 

Much love

Thanks RMBrworst:

It's crazy how emotions can swing during all of this but I know something really good has to be on my horizon even tho sometimes that feels really far away.

While things are tough they could be a whole lot worse in the grand scheme of things.

I'll be thinking of you today, Anez, sending you support! Today started a little rough for me, with a wave of sadness about it all, but I'm going to keep on keeping on with the day. Here's to DNR, releasing with grace, and detachment everyone <3.

Just saw her from a distance and heard her laughing it up. the sound of her voice still makes my anxiety kick in. I know over time by brain will push past this addiction and I won't feel that anxiety when i do see her but right now it's still there.

the anxiety is really kicking in and I just almost snapped and looked at her instagram for the first time in weeks. I don't know why I wanted to do it - i know she's not going to post any pictures of her and another guy because she doesn't do that - but I just suddenly wanted to see what she has been up to.

I didn't look at her Instagram, tho. I'm gonna fight thru the urge.

Do. Not. Resuscitate.

Gotta get my mind right starting right now.

Don't ever hook up with people from work, folks!

also, Do. Not. Act out of Anxiety (at least in this case). im genuinely hard pressed to tell you a time that doing so has worked well for me. when i had those urges (i had difficulty not facebook peaking) i turned that into something of a mantra. its not like youre never allowed to look again. its that whatever you see, your anxiety will get worse. it requires a mindset change, which admittedly takes some time.

You're so right, Once.

It's amazing how my brain and body felt when I initially thought LET'S LOOK AT HER INSTAGRAM RIGHT NOW ... .and then I was able to shake it off and not look. But man, that was a rough moment.

but a month ago or so I would have looked. This showed me that I have improved a little bit.

remember that the feeling passed/s; that is what will get you through such moments. its like rewiring. and every time you do, it gets much easier, the trigger becomes much lighter, then barely noticeable, then gone.

the anxiety can be overwhelming, i know; interesting how it can drive us to do things that we rationally know will make us feel worse. congratulations for overcoming it and the progress youve made in a month  |iiii

Thank you, Once. I appreciate it. I think it's important for me to recognize these small little victories even tho at the moment i was still very overwhelmed with feelings. It's hard to lose sight of the good stuff we do because sometimes all the pain seems like so much.

step by step. the brain will rewire itself.

My T says my brain is used to getting a reward from her, as I used to. It's like a drug addict's brain looking at a drug. And overtime my brain will eventually rewire itself and the feeling of reward won't be there.

This would all be so much easier if I didn't have to see her every day at work but that's where I am at right now. nothing i can do about that. Just gotta keep rewiring.

hi fellow detachers! today got much better (after the wave of sadness in the morning)! I even felt something like radical acceptance ... .here's how it went "since I'm a person that values my freedom and relationships so much, it would probably be better for me to find someone with a really strong sense of self." That thought was very freeing for me for some reason, probably because for the first time it was a thought that was more focused on me than her. And also made me think that our breakup was for the best (for the first time). I don't know how long this feeling will last, but it definitely was there for an instant. And it wasn't just my rational brain trying to talk my feeling brain into it-- it was both sides of the brain together. Such a relief to have them (both sides of the brain) in more harmony with each other.

That's great, KC. Way to go. See, you can do this. You are strong.

I had some real weak moments today. It's just tough having to see her everyday at work. I see and hear her having fun and I miss how we used to be that way together. But I need to see her whole picture. She never raged at me, which makes this hard. She just discarded me. And I still have so many questions that will never get answered.

But I had strong moments too and need to focus on those.

Day by day, guys.

These urges of wanting to contact her and see if we can just go out and get some dinner like to normal adults are flooding my brain. I will not reach out tho, I'll post here instead.

Right now it feels like no other woman will provide the spark that she did. I know that's not true but right now I'm just struggling.

I hate this. Being discarded and now pretty much ignored sucks, guys. I need some positive thoughts right now.

Great job posting here instead of contacting her Anez! We're with you!

Wish that you could move your desk out of hearing zone. Dang, that would be so painful. Glad you have earphones. Does she eat lunch there at a regular time? If so, could you leave and eat outside before she gets there?

Nah I can't move my desk because my whole team sits in that area. I just want to get to the point mentally where her presence doesn't affect me and I think the only way to do it is to go through the daily lunch hell until I'm free of it all.

Oh man, so sorry about the daily lunch hell.

Okay, here goes day 5 of detaching. Yesterday was a good one, but I know it is an up and down process, so bracing for today.

Nice work, DC! Keep it up. And when you hit a low point don't reach out to her, reach out to us. I did that yesterday when i had a bunch of low points and it helped. I never reached out to her. That's a victory.

Today was a tough one. It still stings not to see a message from her in my inbox. But hopefully my brain is getting used to it. Day 5, almost over. My thoughts about her, probably a 6 on a scale of 1-10. Today the thoughts were mostly replaying scenes of the relationship, mostly the rough ones, some of the good ones. A few thoughts about the replacement but not SO many.

How'd you guys do?

Well I broke down and sent her a text about something light. And then she and I traded a bunch of nice texts. I don't know why I broke down and did it but I did and it's ok.

I have to give it all some more thought but right now it feels harmless and was nice to chat with her.

Thats just where I am right now.

I'm close to that myself, but I think that I'm not going to do it. Can't see what good would come out of it. What I'm super tempted to do is to check social media, but I'll avoid that too, to try to keep the healing clock ticking. So touch-- today is a hard one after the better one a couple of days ago. I went to a wedding this morning and it was triggering. I do kind of still have a fantasy where we come back together-- the wedding triggered that. Day 6 of do not resuscitate, release with grace, rewire the brain.

Ya, I did the same thing a while back.  He never responded, which is fine.

It's up to you and what you want, but I haven't texted him again and dont plan to.  It's just too much drama and hurt feelings.

The more I've separated myself from this, the more I've found I've been used and abused.

Dont move your boundaries, best wishes to you

Much love

Amen to that.  When I keep hanging on, I'm living in the fantasy, not the reality.

The reality being that this person used me and their good loving words, were no more real than their abusive hurtful words and actions.  Played me like a fiddle.

No contact is the only way I can have some semblance of peace as I try to move on and deal with the heartache and detoxification.  Strength to you all! 

Thanks guys. I had a weak moment as yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the death of my cousin who was like my little brother. it was an emotional day and an emotional week and I partly reached out, i think, because I needed someone who was once close to me just to be there for me - even if it was just a few nice texts.

I work with my ex so i see her briefly each day which makes no contact impossible. but I'm back to not texting and just being cordial.

Oh I'm so sorry to hear about your cousin's death . Emotional triggers have made me reach out to my ex too-- totally understandable (and it looks like no harm done). How did it make you feel afterwards, Anez?

My ex called me yesterday and I called her back. It was short and brief and kind of awkward but I think more or less okay. She kind of was grilling me about my life and we couldn't get into a groove of a conversation but I guess that is to be expected. I texted her something related to our conversation a little bit afterwards (maybe to relieve the awkwardness of our actual conversation?) and she didn't reply which was strange but I'm not gonna sweat it.

I did have pretty intense dreams of her after the phone call though-- one in which we were in each others arms and she asked me what about the other people (my replacement/s?) and I said it is okay. So maybe my unconscious is working stuff out.

Thanks, KC. it was a rough day. Texted a few times yesterday and she was supportive and asked me how i was doing with it all. I felt good after and got to see some things more clearly. She didn't follow up on anything from the night before - i'm taking a new class on wednesday nights and she was excited to hear that wed night. But then thursday she didn't ask me any follow ups on how the class went or etc. I didn't expect any and I'm not mad at her for not following up - it just shows where her head is at. It's not too into what's going on in my world anymore. and that's ok. it will help me distance myself from my feelings.

I think she means well. she's just mentally ill and that has to be tough for her. She's not normal. not in the least. and that has to be hard.

Interesting that your ex reached out to you yesterday. Sounded like she was angry a little bit? hope it doesn't push you back. We need to keep in the front of our minds that these people are f'd up and there's nothing we can really do. Which is hard, because we want to help them. But it's out of our hands.

hope you're doing OK today. keep pushing forward. You're doing great things for yourself and being strong. Pat yourself on the back for that.

Today is 7 days we haven't spoken after my ex dysregulated last Friday and attacked me to which I said I don't deserve this and would not allow her to treat me like she does. I told her that if she continued it I wouldn't be a part of her life again. She wrote me back I'm a chauvinistic pig because I stood up for myself. I find myself constantly hoping that she reaches back out but I set up a boundary and will not break that. We have been split up since the beginning of Oct. She is currently living with her Ex husband 3k miles away and says its not what I think LOL. Everyday is a struggle and I miss her so much but I know my worth and know I don't deserve the abuse I subjected myself to. I was strict NC for 6/7 weeks and broke on Xmas. I wish I never did.

Good for you for standing up for yourself. stay strong and keep up the NC.

I screwed up really badly, and I have only myself to blame.

It's been almost an entire year since we last had contact. But, on about five or six occasions, I checked her blog. I'm trying so, so, so hard to remember that I'm better off without her. But it still hurts that she's changed so much for my replacement. Some of the ways she's changed, I don't like - she's become sarcastic and aggressive in her personality. But she's also gotten more attractive, and her physical attractiveness (and sex skills) are what I miss most about her. I know it's shallow and awful. I'm doing my best to remember her as someone with BPD first, and an attractive person second.

The worst thing about my latest failure to stay off her social media is that she's installed some kind of hit tracking thing on her blog, so she saw that I looked at it. So now she's aware that I still think about her. I felt bad enough knowing she's (ostensibly) so happy and beautiful now, but now she knows that I know, and that makes me feel even worse. This is the closest thing to contact I've had in 11 months and now I have to start from square one again in proving to her and to myself that I'm moving on. I've let myself down in my recovery. I feel such an incredible sense of guilt and disappointment. I should be doing better. I was doing so much better this January too. Everything felt like a fresh start, but now I'm mired in old feelings again. I wish I could just disappear from existence right now.

I'm such a failure.

You're not a failure, Mulder. So you looked at her blog one time. It's OK, don't beat yourself up over . Question about the hit counter: how does she know that you looked? Chances are she has no idea.

You're not a failure. Pretty far from it.

Thanks, Anez.

I know because she made a post about it, gloating about how I'm stuck in the past while she's getting happier and happier moving into the future.

well her post tells you all you need to know about her - she's a child. who else would do something like that?

you're so much better off without someone like that.

One of the biggest reasons I'm so thankful for this site is to see that I'm not alone, and neither are you. Until I started on this site not long ago I thought I was going crazy. I'm guessing at some level we all have felt that way.

Detaching for me is one of the hardest things I've ever done. What screws with me the most is before I decided to leave all I could think about is how crazy and bad this thing relationship is and I can't wait to get out and re-start my life.

And here I am. Here many of us are. For what ever reason each of us has, detaching is painfully hard. It plain hurts. I know and understand it's a process. It takes time, a long time, and it's a challenge. At any given moment each and every day I'm processing multiple emotions and fighting every urge, every reason my mind comes up with to reason away why to contact her.

Now that I left it's a total 180 turn, and it ssoo hard. But it was a decision I stand by. One of the biggest things that hit me short time ago is how sad and pathetic I must have been every time over the last 6 years that she left and I pleaded and pleaded and each and every time she left with out warning and complete silence... .Yet I still chased here.

That alone is giving me a small amount of strength. I don't want to be pathetic. So I'm very slowly using that as fuel for my healing. I know it's a mindset (Easier said then done) and I'm sure were all doing that. Finding ways to create a mindset to get thru each day.

My mom gave me advice on something shortly before her passing. She said when struggling with something take it one day at a time. Take it one hour at a time. And take it one minute at a time. It doesn't matter how, just do it.

N/C or DNR... .what ever it takes, it's now about each one of us, not them... .

Thank everyone for all the support you give everyone here.

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