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sorry to just keep posting/ blurting as i process this stuff. (i think it's doing me the world of good tho - i'm really getting to a space where i'm truly blurting out the emotions that arise and am getting to a space of equanimity, where i'm okay with whatever happens)   (feels like i'm vomitting out all the toxins and hence feeling less ill). i've still not had an email, so we'll see what tomorrow brings (or doesn't bring). right now i'm super tired (only 5 hours sleep last night and i had a 16 hour work day today, which is a bit ridiculous, but never mind, i guess it means i'll sleep like a log tonight). thank you again, for this space. x

i'm so tempted to end this relationship and stay single for the rest of my life. : ). that would be so peaceful and soothing!

yuck. i feel like there's no feeling i've not yet had about this dumb relationship. i've gone through the whole gamut of emotions. and will probably continue to do so for a while. it feels soo undignified to grieve like this. ugh. yuck

Don't worry about the emotional vomiting, we all do that here!

Which also means that experiencing the full spectrum of emotions happens to all of us as well.

hmmmmm, I hope you're able to get some sleep soon. I've been in the same boat--the sleeplessness and the inability to eat aren't helping right now. I also tend to work a long day--somewhere in the ten to sixteen hour zone, so I think I have some sense of what you're feeling.

I went to see a counsellor yesterday and also have spoken with my two best buddies and my brother. Still, I find this forum really helpful.

I managed a few more hours of sleep last night and did not need to get up in the wee hours to pace the sidewalks. I hope you find something similar soon.

I will say that my relationship is long distance also. Yesterday I got a phone call from the city where my ex or partner (still can't tell whether we're together or split forever) lives. It was someone from the local hospital's psyc ward. She is a patient there now and is apparently under good care. Privacy obligations would not allow the staff person to say much, but I got the call because my ex or partner asked if the staff member would call to find out if I am okay.

I don't know how to decode this information, but it gave me some peace: she is at least not in some form of danger from self harm right now. I am trying to resist the urge to engage in amateur diagnosis, but I do think my partner has a combination of bipolar syndrome and BPD. She was diagnosed with the former some years back, and this most recent awful nightmare looks like a combination of the two--a kind of dysphoric manic time that triggered sleeplessness that triggered a full blooming of some terrible BPD behaviour (or so the amateur wonders).

The phone call yesterday doesn't do much to change things but to know she is not lost and alone in the crazy rage and paranoia and splitting really helps. I'm blathering, I know, but it helps to type all this out.

Hmmmmm, may you find some peace and rest soon.

hmmmmm, I don't know if this is of any help, but in reference to my last post, it meant so much to tell someone (the counsellor and the staff member from the psyc ward) that my ex/partner is my beloved.

I know that self-care matters greatly in these times and relationships and that ultimate disengagement may be the only road to health, but it is so good amidst the confusion to know one's own principles and heart: I love my ex/partner, no matter what.

@renard. awww, that's beautiful   : ). i am glad that she's no longer having psychotic symptoms - if she's asked someone to ring to check you are okay, she remembers that you are a decent person, who is worth caring about. (whether she is able to maintain that sense of care in an adequate way is another question, but at least she is not experiencing the extreme symptoms of last week). it's also good to hear that she's receiving some care. try and take it one day at a time . and know that there will be ups and downs, no matter what happens. and people here who understand your situation with her. and will support you on your joint or your separate journey. (many thanks for your kind thoughts!)

i slept very little last night too (3 hours) and had a 10 hour work day, so combined with yesterday's sleep/work hours, i'm close to being in a coma right now, so i will keep this post brief and write more when i've caught up on some sleep. who would believe it, but my BPD bf and i have made up - properly, calmly, in tiny steps. it's not a false compromise, it's not dumb BPD behaviour promising that things will be fine. it's a genuine, calm, mature reconciliation, knowing we have lots of work to do. the most important factor in this is what i wrote in my post in the thread "good qualities" about genuinely accepting and respecting BPD patterns (being childish as opposed to "being grown-up" as a pattern that has served humanity well for many millenia, but does not fit well into our modern western societies. we have agreed that we have very different patterns - sometimes opposite patterns and that we need to work on getting those patterns to work together. in my post in the "good qualities" thread, i likened it to BPD and non-BPD having two entirely separate "languages" and that our non-language makes no sense to BPD's either - just as their language makes no sense to us. (i think it helps that my bf has mild BPD and does not cheat on me, has no drug/ alcohol issues, is financially responsible, is not physically abusive/ threatening etc). we have decided to view it as one of us being right-handed and the other being left-handed and we want to play doubles tennis - it means we really need to put a big amount of effort into making it work together, while respecting that each of us has a totally valid approach and one that we're going to always have . i finally feel at peace again - i feel connected to him and i feel safe and i feel we are working together, not against each other. we're no longer doubting each other, worrying that the other person doesn't love us anymore, no longer confused as heck (he was just as confused with what i was saying as vice-versa). i know that by learning to lessen the severity of his patterns, by being calm, validating, understanding, supportive, i will be able to genuinely accept his patterns with love and kindness and patience - as a partner, not as someone i am a carer or substitute-therapist for. and i know him and his abilities well enough that he will be patient with me, when i seem "confusing" to him and that he will genuinely work hard to try and understand me, now that he knows we truly are right-handed vs left-handed and that it doesn't mean i'm being weird or mean or unloving - it just means i have less childlike patterns than him and sometimes my putting grown-up boundaries in place will be there to look after us both and to keep our relationship healthy, even if he finds that annoying or boring or odd. i will try and write more about this in the days ahead, in case anyone is interested. and i will continue to write here about the ups and downs in our journey and i will no doubt be seeking support here, for the challenging bits. i do find it hard to remind myself that BPD patterns are a different language. that i CAN'T work with my "assumptions" of what is normal/ predictable/ right/ etc. i think the major thing for us is truly respecting each other's patterns. he has childlike patterns, but he is not a child. i have grown-up patterns, but i am not the parent in our relationship. by making sure our different patterns do not lead to conflict, i think we will stay out of the really challenging territory, most of the time. it was when we were in conflict (conflicts that arose from loving and wanting/ needing to be loved) that our different ways of dealing with that conflict really made things get super messy and painful. he would react hyper-emotionally and try to make things "emotionally okay", which drove me nuts. i would try and talk about stuff seriously and analytically, which hurt him because he thought i was criticising him and saying he was "crap". this pushed both of us into territory where we were not at our best . : P. we really got to the point where we both thought the other person was nuts, because we literally could not understand each other's mechanisms for coping with pain or for solving problems. and that just kept making the hurt of not being heard worse for both of us. it really was a downward spiral for us both. because he has childlike, hyper-emotional patterns, his negative behaviour was more obvious than mine. my negative behaviour is much more controlled/ rational and hence much more condoned by society, so it's easy for me to feel i am "in the right". i think this applies to us, because my partner's BPD is mild and because we "caught" this stuff very, very early. i started yelling "stop" as soon as it happened, as soon as stuff started getting weird. if we had a history of years of emotional abuse and situations where neither of us felt loved and safe, i don't think it would be possible for us to have this stance (or then only if we did massive, massive work). i feel deeply blessed for having been able to "catch it so soon" before any serious damage was done. i am so relieved to feel exactly as loving, caring and in love with him as ever. i was really, really, really worried we had damaged our relationship permanently and that there would now always be some respect and trust missing. in fact, i love him more deeply, for having gone through this together. even while we've been fighting these past months, i have regularly said to him "thank you for both of us trying as hard as we possibly can. i am so grateful neither of us has the pain of feeling like the other person is not trying or is not acting out of love". i think that kept our relationship alive, as we struggled like crazy with the difficult and painful stuff we were going through. i feel like we have now both truly seen each other "at our worst". which is an incredibly deep, touching, intimate thing to have gone through together. maybe, in a way, it was what was needed, after the idealization phase. i feel like we have now seen each other stripped naked, in an emotional sense. it feels like there is nothing to hide now - we've seen each other really suffering totally. and all the while, we both tried to be as compassionate and as constructive as our different right-handed/ left-handed patterns would allow us to. even when it felt like we couldn't fix the relationship anymore, we always knew that both of us were truly trying our best

hmmmmm,

Wow and thank you for writing with good news! I'm very happy for you and your partner. :'''''

oof. baby-baby-baby-baby steps... sigh. after the harrowing past six months it's taking a super-human effort to stay constructive, calm and polite, with the issues still facing us. november and december are my bf's most hectic months at work - especially december is super strenuous for him. so we've agreed to not discuss difficult BPD relationship stuff til january. it's the only sensible option, because there's no way he has the engery/ strength for it at the moment (especially as he's been through a few hard months too). it does NOT feel ideal tho - to spend the next 8 weeks being "polite" and waiting to talk, when soo much needs to be resolved. it can't be helped tho. so i will try and use the next 8 weeks to keep learning BPD tools here etc. being "polite" in a partnership feels so retarded . (i've certainly never wished for a "polite" relationship). but given how bad the past 6 months were, "polite" is progress. (which is kinda depressing - how low did we fall, so that "polite" feels "good" in comparison?). right now, i can't say whether the work we'll invest in this relationship will be worth it. it will need to be so much work. sigh. currently, i'd be just as happy to just walk away from the relationship in a non-painful way, i think. the reason i came to this site was to stop the horrific (BPD) situation we'd gotten ourselves into. if we'd ended the relationship in that traumatic state, i think the relationship and it's ending would have haunted me for decades . so i'm not sure... i don't need this relationship - i'm quite happy being single. and i'm undecided whether the relationship is worth the huge amount of work he and i will need to invest in it. walking away from the relationship in a non-traumatic, non-hurtful way is definitely an option for me. if we are able to agree that we're not as compatible as we'd hoped and that it'd better for both of us to gently let the relationship go, i think that would be a good and healthy option, and that it's worth considering.

Just sounds like more deflection and procrastination to address uncomfortable issues.  Many people work and it causes them stress.  You're giving much more than you are receiving.  I'm only making observations based on the information provided.  I do not know your situation and of course the personality behind it but I can't fathom that someone with any amount of empathy would be okay making their SO wait 8 weeks to address an issue that's present now.   Especially one of this magnitude.

. yup, in non-BPD "language", i agree with you. but i think that's our non-BPD perspective on it. i think my BPD partner's perspective is something more like this:. ". i try my best all the time, i'm often in pain, hmmm has been mean to me ("criticising me" instead of loving me to help me be in less pain, how am i gonna cope with all this work, please hmmm can you wait til january to keep criticising me, i just can't bear it right now, i don't even know why you would want to criticise me in the first place, but seeing as i love you and you say you need to criticise me, i'll let you do it, cos i think it makes you feel better, but can we please do it when work isn't making me really miserable, i love you.". i think by viewing it solely through the non-BPD lense, it's so easy to get angry because of the disappointment. but by viewing it through that lense, i'm making assumptions that my BPD partner functions internally, in a similar way to how i do - and that seems to simply not be true. he does "see" that i am in pain and he does want to help me with it. he assumes that "criticising" is how people deal with pain (ie blaming those around them for the pain, to get some emotional relief) and he assumes i'm doing that too. so he's letting me "vent" (while ignoring the content of what i say - cos in BPD logic, the content is not what it's about, it's about the venting itself). so, viewed through the non-BPD lens, he's being selfish . viewed through a BPD lens, he actually is trying to help me and is trying to soothe me. (it's just not in a way that makes sense to a non-BPD person)

btw, i'm not as "calm" about this stuff, as it sounds from my last post : ). i find his "allowing me to vent" (BPD logic) pretty upsetting. he ignores the content of what i'm saying, when i try to address an important issue constructively. he just focusses on the emotion and tries to somehow "soothe my upset emotion". i feel very patronised by this. i feel like he's treating me like i'm some kind of emotional idiot, who whinges about random stuff when she's in a crappy mood. (which is him assuming that i function internally in the same way as he does). sigh. that's something i'll need to do quite a bit of work on - i hate it when people are patronising (which is what his BPD-way-of-soothing feels like to me). but in his logic he is being super, super gentle and soothing to me and giving me the kindness and understanding he'd like me to give to him when he is in his hyper-emotional states and randomly blaming me for stuff. he doesn't want me to listen to the content of that - he wants me to calmly allow him to vent, as this is the only thing that will help soften and soothe his emotions

hmmmmm, thanks for writing out your thoughts and feelings. You said something that makes good sense: if you had some kind of good closure you could "walk away" but to end in trauma would be haunting. I think that says a lot about your decency and your regard for your partner.

I don't know that it amounts to anything except a bit of of consensus, but as I think through all the scenarios with my partner, I would also take some kind of good closure as a huge win for both of us.

She left in some of the most traumatic ways I can imagine (and before they occurred I would never, ever, have been able to imagine them). Now that I've learned she's in a psyc ward, I hold some hope she might stabilize enough so that we might talk and find a way to either break off with some sense of reasonable closure or try again with all caution and love and forgiveness and commitment and newly found insights and behaviours.

I do agree that it's tough to imagine a future where there's strain and irritation and eggshells. Still, I think that there's no easy road in any relationship and goodness knows where road ahead lies at any given moment in these very confusing ones involving BPD.

@renard. maybe that would be a good initial aim? that you seek a less traumatic ending, as the first step. and then from that less traumatic basis, maybe you can slowly, gently see if any more positive steps are an option. it would probably be good to get advice from really knowledgeable people on this forum - i know too little about this stuff, to be able to give you advice on how you could achieve a "less traumatic situtation" / "closure" from the current situation your gf is in. i think it sounds like a healing thing to aim for tho - anything that is less traumatic for both of you, is a good situation to move forward from

If you find yourself obsessing about the dynamics of this relationship (which it appears that you are), it's definitely not healthy for YOU.  Your psychological and physical makeup are going to take a tremendous hit.  I think we as human beings really over complicate things.  Our tenacious need to know why about everything in life causes us to distract ourselves from the life we are living here and now; especially when it comes to analyzing other peoples feelings.  Those feelings aren't testable, measurable, or predictable (in most cases).  The bottom line is that regardless of what people say, their words are meaningless unless they are backed by actions that mimic those words.  Body language tells you everything you need to know about the true feelings of someone.

I will tell you a little story about how my perceived fairytale came to an end:

It was over a week ago that she was having one of her crisis modes where she absolutely needed me.  This was a day to day / hour to hour thing with her. She was at work at the time and was texting me throughout the day about how she was "struggling"  I never knew exactly what that mean't but regardless, I was always there to console, comfort and try to fix.  She asked me to meet that evening so I could "cheer her up." (another common theme in this relationship).  We met, she was happier than a pig in (you know what), we were talking, having a good time, hugging, kissing and things seemed good for her.  Well at that point, I was having a difficult time with something that had no effect on her.  I revealed this piece of information and before I could finish my exchange, her body language showed me everything I needed to know about how she truly felt.  The words she spoke were absolutely meaningless to me at that point in time.  Her demeanor went from friendly, happy, content to withdrawn, upset and only god knows what else.  I thought it was best we end the outing because I felt absolutely no empathy from her and she immediately shifted my concern about something in my life to how it was going to affect her.  We had a lengthy conversation in the car before departing when she revealed to me that she thinks she needs time alone.  Mind you, this topic never came up prior to me needing something for her, and all that I needed was an ear and some compassion for my issue.  So to make a long story short, it was a turning point for me.  She said she needed time to "think and decide about whether she needed to be alone for a while."  Well the following day is when I decided that I cannot live this way anymore and I was going to make up her mind for her.  That's when I decided to end it and I am not looking back.  My day to day feelings were largely dictated by what kind of mood she was going to be in that day.  In retrospect, not good for me, and I don't want that.

Hmmm,

What you are doing right now is agreeing to put yourself through 2 months of anguish to appease him.  So in 2 months, you will be back to the same point you are today.  Fine, its a stressful time in his life, he's preoccupied with work.  What about your needs and happiness? You may try to downplay the psychological toll that it is having on you but it's clear (at least to me) it's affecting you deeply.  I believe this is a critical juncture for you when the best decision may not be the easiest one. 

hmmmmm, I suppose I could call it an aim, but it's not one that I have any say in at this point. The prospect of ending with some kind of decent closure is merely me wishing for something other than what happened.

The psychosis and paranoia that were gripping my partner at the end made talk impossible and made things end with her convinced that we could never talk again (I was slandering someone I had never met, so I was a bad man she would never contact or love again).

As Warcleods says, actions need to be part of the message. If my partner reached out for me then I would hope for enough stability to end things well, and, yes, I would still try again if she wanted to do so.

That's me speaking, however, in what is truly a hypothetical way. I need to hear from her, and at this point I don't believe she is stable enough for me to reach for her. Indeed, I am pretty sure that to reach would destabilize any footing she may have gained just now. I am trusting that she is in good care right now, and waiting and, yes, hoping. I also think my situation is a complicated one: my ex/partner is almost assuredly within the bipolar spectrum also, so she needs to cycle down a bit and stabilize before there's any hope of dealing with any of BPD stuff.

I get where you're coming from Warcleods, but I don't know if it's all that black and white.

hmmmmm could use the next two months to work on herself, learn and practice tools like being mindful/wiseminded, ending conflict, and learning not to take her SO's BPD actions personally. Doing these things will mean that no matter what happens in the next two months, she will not be in the same position that she is now at the end.

@hmmmmm

Yes, pwBPD do tend to focus on their emotions, because their emotions are facts to them. Based on what you wrote, he is missing the content because he's focusing on the emotions. Do you think that it's possible that he's not actually focusing on your emotions, but his own instead?

By this I mean that you tell him that X bothers you. When you say that, he feels Y. He conveys to you that he heard you say Y. Y then becomes the focus rather than X.

Does that make sense and seem to fit?

hey : ). thank you for your thoughts and your concern, Warcleods. i do understand that you are looking out for my wellbeing and i really appreciate it. i agree with Meili, that by using these 2 months constructively, i will be making progress for myself (and also for the relationship, if it continues existing). also, i am making a conscious choice as to what to invest in this relationship, now knowing fully what BPD is and what the risks and difficulties are. i am only investing as much as i feel i have the strength to give freely. will i be frustrated/ upset/ resentful if it all ends up going pear-shaped? yup . will i be traumatised, feeling guilt/ shame, feeling like a victim, feeling regret and despair? nope. @Meili. yeah, the confusing of facts/ feelings is definitely what is going on. re the X / Y pattern you describe:. i think when my partner is upset/ dysregulating, then YES that is definitely what goes on. when he is calm and not dysregulating, i think he is very much able to hear my emotions and not confuse them with his. . BUT he still doesn't focus on the facts so much, rather he then focusses on my emotions, which i find "patronising". i think when we talk about topics that are zero-stress to him - i.e. talking about art, literature, film, music, politics, philosophy - he is able to hear me and my opinons well. but when we start talking bout stuff that stresses him - like what relationship issues need dealing with - he gets deeper into BPD patterns and finds it incredibly hard to focus/ concentrate on the content of what i'm saying... it's like the stress turns the volume of his emotions up "loud" and that drowns out the content.? if he's only a bit stressed, he's able to hear my emotions, but just tries to "soothe" them, without listening to the content (patronising). if he's really stressed, he only hears his emotions (BPD patterns, victimhood and blaming). thanks for helping me think through this pattern Meili  : ). for me the result is that if/ when i want to talk about relationship issues with him, i need to make it really gentle and as minimal-stress as i can, so that he has a chance of hearing my content, cos else it will be drowned out by the noise of the emotions.

@warcleods. i do volunteer work with traumatised stray dogs (rescue dogs/ street dogs). in the past i have done volunteer work with people with disabilities and people with addictions/ substance abuse issues. i also work as a teacher (teaching young adults - 17 to 21 years old) and focus on helping the students at my school who are struggling (due to family difficulties, poverty, mental health, stress, etc). to me, dealing with challenging stuff is a normal part of life and provided i look after myself and i have a good support network it's work that i really enjoy and find deeply rewarding. it's beautiful to see people grow and blossom and thrive, especially when they've been struggling intensely and have been neglected and uncared about. although this kind of work can be draining - especially during difficult phases - overall i don't find it draining. overall i find it an incredibly rich experience and i am grateful to be able to have something to give. hence, the idea of investing in the relationship with the guy i love and adore does not seem daunting to me. currently, i don't feel i'm obsessing about the relationship - currently i'm just giving very detailed, careful thought to the issues - which is what i do for my students, the rescue dogs, etc too. during the past 6 months, when i was going through BPD madness and pain, not knowing what it was - during that time i did obsess about it - my mind constantly went round in circles trying to figure out what the HECK was going on... that kind of obsessing felt very uncomfortable and unhealthy and i am glad it is over, because it was driving me nuts

This is probably exactly what is going on.

There are actually ways to more effectively communicate what is going on with you that might help reduce the "volume" for him.

You can use techniques like D.E.A.R.M.A.N. (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=160566.0) and S.E.T. (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=143695.0) to help you convey your message more clearly.

A hard thing for me to really see and accept is that my ex was not actually someone who had not been cared for and loved before me. He told me I was the first in ever so long, maybe ever. With the awareness I now have, I know that not to be true. Actually many people have tried to care about him, including quite wonderful women before and after me. He doesn't seem to know how to receive and process the caring. When retold later, the his story is that person didn't really care for him after all. But I know enough about some of those people and his effect on them to know that isn't true.

I say this just to caution that the fact that you care for and love him might not be as much of a game-changer as you'd hope. He is likely to act like he has been acting.

. yeah. my theory on BPD is that as babies/ toddlers, people with BPD were not able to form that first deep bond to a carer (possibly because their carer had a personality disorder themselves and refused to bond with the infant) hence leading to an un-bonded child, who develops into a pwBPD. not being bonded to the carer is fundamentally threatening to the infant's existance, because in an evolutionary sense only infants with caring carers will survive. not being bonded is literally life-threatening and hence will cause massive, deep stress with life-long scars. so, i don't think it's about the BPD person receiving "love" or "care". what they need is a bond. no amount of love or care is going to fill the void that only a bond can fill. i think that either. a) my partner does not manage to deeply bond with me -> our relationship will only be about "managing" the BPD. b) my partner does manage to deeply bond, hence filling that un-bonded void. i realise that b) will take a huuuuuuuuge amount of work and trust and patience, but i think it is possible. given that this is my theory on BPD, i think it makes perfect sense that people have tried to "care for" and "love" your ex in the past, but that he has found this unsatisfactory and to be "not the love he needs". dunno if that makes sense/ helps? i agree that if my partner and i don't manage to deeply address his bonding issue, then i can pour all the love i want at him, it'll be like pouring water into a bucket with a giant hole in it. it'll all just pour out the bottom and the bucket will never fill - my partner will never feel full of love

. yup : ). it'll be a busy 8 weeks : ).

I don't think that you're too far off about the bonding. We generally talk about it in terms of abandonment though. pwBPD live in constant fear of being abandoned.

The pwBPD may indeed form a bond with the non, but that bond will probably never feel true and strong. The pwBPD will likely distrust the bond and love that the non shows.

You are correct, it does take a lot of patience and work from both parties. The non can work as hard as possible and be completely dedicated, but if the pwBPD is not willing to reciprocate, then the relationship will remain unstable and unsustainable.

. yeah. psychology historically has focussed on "what is wrong" and "what isn't working".  (mental illness). -> fear of abandoment. i think it's more useful to focus on what happens when things work (mental health). so infants need a strong deep bond. when that doesn't happen (eg Romanian orphanages) the results are horrific. so my instinct would be to focus on how do you get that bond to happen, 30 or 40 years down the track (despite the many traumatic un-bonded experiences the person has had in the meantime). from working with traumatised stray dogs, i know it's the bonding that finally heals them. it takes a gigantic amount of work and tiny baby steps. but it's easy, because with a traumatised stray dog it never feels like it's about you when they are scared of you/ reject you etc - it's so easy to respond with total compassion and calmness and equanimity. with a romantic partner, it's harder to keep that stuff clear. and so you often do end up reacting from personal hurt, when they lash out  : /

I completely agree with that!

It takes a lot of time and consistency in words and actions to start to "prove" to the pwBPD that you aren't going to abandon them.

. : ). yeah, and my experiences with traumatised animals proves to me that it can be done. see how i go with a BPD human, hey?  : )

I'm hurting so bad tonight. It's been a bit more than a week, and I'm really fighting tonight: I've been feeling just on edge of nausea and panic all day. I can't get past a couple of thoughts: she was all the beauty in my life. I meant everything I said about our love and commitment to one another, but she didn't or couldn't because of the disorder. I have never felt so alone and so broken in my life.

aw, renard, i'm sorry you're feeling terrible. i guess there will be good days and bad days as you go through this - on the good days, you feel strong enough to handle things - on the bad days it can feel overwhelming. is there anything we here can do to help you through this? feel free to talk about her - about all her good qualities. if you miss her to the point where you think you'll get in touch - maybe you can try getting some advice here as to how to do it in the least damaging manner in terms of her BPD? thinking of your pain and i hope it eases soon.

(renard, i hope it's not painful for you, to have me post some positive news about my situation, while you are in pain - please ignore my posts, while you are struggling to cope with the pain of what you've gone through and what you are going through and know that we all know what it's like - it really hurts you to your core).

. my partner and i are making beautiful progress at the moment, with gentle baby steps, rebuilding trust, although things are still a bit eggshelly for both of us, of course. all the fear and angst and worry and grieving is starting to ease up and all the tender, caring love is starting to seep back in and to fill our relationship. knowing what patterns to expect now and knowing which gentle-but-firm tools i can use to keep things safe and to keep me from reacting (over)emotionally to any BPD stuff gives me a deep sense of safety and calmness. i know there will be hiccups and setbacks and trials and tribulations and frustrating and challenging phases and i'll no doubt run into BPD challenges that really stump me, but i no longer feel unprepared. i no longer feel lost and overwhelmed . i'm so grateful and relieved and just plain happy that our tender, genuine love has survived this intense 6 month BPD experience. and i'm relieved that even when i identify all the clinging-needy BPD behaviour for what it is, there's still tons and tons and tons of good, real, healthy love in addition to the clingy-needy BPD stuff. (while things had been really rough, i started wondering if he was just clinging onto me as a security blanket, whether i was just being used as a BPD emotional attachment object - i felt quite anxious and even slightly paranoid about that for a while!). so as things return to non-dysregulated, calmer waters, i'm infinitely glad to say that there is plenty of beautiful, healthy love there. i know that during the dysregulated phases, the clingy-needy-BPD-attachment stuff will dominate - but that's okay. i think my partner's BPD is mild enough for us to be able to manage it well, so that we're not spending the bulk / majority of our time in BPD/ dysregulated modes... i think BPD will be something that always affects us - during difficult times massively so - but it will not be what our relationship is about. i feel like his partner (not his carer). i feel like i've gotten to know the most difficult sides of him now - gotten to know his deepest pain, his most scarred and bruised bits - and cos i've struggled so massively and messily in coming to terms with them, he's seen me "at my worst" too. we've come through that, still loving each other to bits. (infinite thanks to this website and to everyone here for their insight, their care, their compassion, their understanding, their sharing - i know i'd have completely failed at dealing with BPD and at loving someone with BPD adequately, without this site and the wonderful, amazing, strong, insightful people here). much love. x.

hmmmmm, you're very considerate, yet it's wonderful to know you and your partner are mending. I also think that it's incredibly good for everyone on this site to read about good news. Yours is so so so good!
Blessings and all my prayers and good wishes go to you and your partner.

hmmmmm, that's good counsel: thank you for it. Last night was dark for me. So dark and so painful.

 Somehow I made it, and today feels like things are more manageable.

. thinking of you renard. i'm glad feeling in pain has eased up a little for you - it's a relief, when the intensity lessens a little, huh? i have a friend who used to say something really lovely about nightmares... whenever i would have a nightmare and say "ugh, i just woke up from a nightmare that felt really horrible" she would say "it's out now. you dreamed it out of you - now it's no longer in your subconscious". i liked that way of looking at it - that feeling the pain is a way of processing it - and once that particular bit of pain is processed, it is gone, it has been faced, it has been dealt with. yes, of course there will be more painful things to deal with as time moves on - but this particular thing is now a bit more processed. i like this point of view, because it means that feeling the pain is a step in healing - it isn't senseless suffering - but rather, it's valuable work that you are doing and it's contributing to you feeling whole and well again. i hope you can use the weekend to do some comforting things and to recover from the emotional ordeal you went through yesterday - that kind of stuff is exhausting

as expected, by taking baby-steps to repair our relationship, my BPD partner and i are bumping into challenges, that need to be addressed. the challenge i am currently facing is this:. as we start spending more time together again, he will no doubt become more demanding and needy, as was the case before we started fighting, because things couldn't go on like that anymore. when he is majorly dysregulating, he basically tells me "you do everything wrong". (which, fair enough, in his logic i guess that's true). when he is in milder BPD patterns, he basically tells me "you don't do . enough". (again,  in his logic, that's true). . during those times, nothing i do is "enough". i don't care about him enough, i'm not gentle enough, i don't pay him enough attention, i don't spend enough time with him, i'm not available enough, and so on and so forth. given that he is feeling (mildly) BPD miserable during these phases, this is said in a whining, reproachful, needy voice. when i didn't know it was BPD, i took him seriously / more or less at face value. my reaction was partly to try and be there even more for him, but partly i also just plain felt pressured, guilt-tripped and whinged at, which actually made me want to spend less time with him, not more... now that i know it's BPD, i want to deal with it more adequately, more successfully, more appropriately. i'm getting the impression there's kinda two approaches (or maybe even two schools of thought?) here. one is a gentle approach of working out what would help him to feel less dysregulated, while also putting in place gentle-but-firm boundaries. the other approach is more "strict" and harsh and focusses more on "not tolerating" the poor behaviour. i'd like to work with the first approach - partly because i care about him and therefore want to opt for the compassionate option - partly because i think it just sounds like the more effective option, because it actively assists him in lowering the degree of his dysregulation. so i'd like to say / do something soothing and reassuring that reminds him that i really love him (whether he's dysregulating or not) and that i love being bonded to him and that i want to deepen that bond and that i want him to feel that bond and to gradually begin to feel more secure in our bond. i'd also like to put in place a gentle-but-firm boundary. not so much a verbal one - (not a drawling-a-line-in-the-sand boundary that i demand that he needs to respect). more an inner boundary that i feel confident and secure in. i don't want to feel rattled when he whinges needily that i don't care enough about him and that i don't spend enough time with him - i don't want to feel pressured by that and then respond negatively. i want to feel an inner warmth and strength that i am helping him develop a deep, secure, loving bond and thereby i am giving him what he needs and i am giving him enough of it. i want to be able to hear "i'm not feeling very well" when he complains "you don't care about me enough" so that i can respond with gentle compassion, instead of with defensiveness and resentment. i guess when he says to me "you don't care about me enough, you don't spend enough time with me" what he's doing is saying "when i was an infant, my parent/ carergiver didn't care about me enough and my parent/ caregiver didn't spend enough time with me". by treating me as his substitute mum during his BPD phases, he is really directing those complaints at his mum/ dad back then - he's just re-creating the situation/ dynamic with me... but in contrast to his parents, i do spend enough time with him and i care about him hugely, so hearing things which are really directed at his parents, said to me instead, gets my defenses and my heckles up. i know it won't be long before this behaviour starts up again, so i really need to set up a strong, kind, warmly loving inner boundary, where his re-enactment behaviour doesn't rattle me .

hmmmmm, thanks for your message. I have news that I want you and others to know. I got e-mail today from my partner. She remains in the psyc ward, but it is plain she has stabilized a bit. She does not want to talk about the hell of the last two weeks, but she is clear that we can remain friends and conversation partners and that there may be some kind of future for us beyond those things, even if that means finding our way from square one.

I don't think I have been split "white" now. I think she is simply a bit more stable and able to communicate without getting lost in delusions. I believe there is bipolar mixed in with the BPD, yet it seems the mania has cycled down right now, which means everything is less confusing and complicated.

I feel so much better to have heard from her. She will be in the hospital for another week or so, yet I know she is safe and stabilizing. I am simply glad to know that and will take our relationship's future in whatever baby steps are best.

stable with communication sounds like a good starting point. i'm glad you're no longer left wondering and no longer painted black. i guess from here on in, it will be a huge amount of work, with no guarantees it will work out. given how traumatic the past couple of weeks have been and that you've only just heard back from her, you've been on quite an emotional rollercoaster. i would try and find some inner calm and stability first, so that you can react calmly when she behaves oddly, as she is bound to. prepare yourself for painful, confusing situations and work out how you want to approach them. it will be a long road and challenging. be wary of being painted white - although it feels "good" - it is  a sign of mental illness for someone to paint you white and it is not sustainable or healthy. sorry to sound negative . i am very relieved for you and i am glad you are feeling better. but this is where the really hard work begins

i am not in the mood to deal with my partner's BPD today, or with his moods or needs. i've had an incredibly stressful fortnight and have no time off this weekend (will be working both days) and huge amounts of work next week. in addition to this, i'm doing relationship work and researching BPD and learning techniques. i'm not sure anyone cares how i feel or how i am coping  (feeling a bit sorry for myself, haha). my partner is having fun with his life today, pretending that everything is fine. i am happy for him, but i also feel drained and a bit resentful. i am relieved that things are better between me and my partner than they were recently. but now i feel drained and like i'm the one doing all the work. i guess i should try and work out what i like(d) about our relationship, other than having been idealised/ painted white.  : P. ah well, i'm just in a grumpy mood. but i'm feeling resentful that no-one cares about my moods, while i'm looking after other people's moods. (this may be something i should change. maybe spending more time with people who care about my stuff too). sigh

. if i mention that i have tons of work/ stress to my partner, he will hear that as "i have less time and attention to give to you". which, yeahhhhhhh, is kinda true, but it's a very self-centred interpretation. so do i pretend not to have tons of work/ stress? thereby making him wonder why i have less time/ attention for him? or do i tell him why and then expose myself to reproachfulness? i don't want looking-after-BPD-stuff to become a fulltime job. grrrrr. still feeling sorry for myself, haha. better go and get some work done. : /

i feel kind of tricked. like my partner "used" the idealisation phase to trick me into a relationship that seemed beautiful and now i've found out that actually, i've signed on to be his substitute-mum and his substitute-therapist. i guess that would "work", if i had no stressful days or days where i feel drained and sorry for myself. i think at the moment i'm just struggling to come to terms with the BPD stuff and trying to get our relationship out of the traumatic territory. once that is done, i don't know whether i'll want to continue with the relationship. it will be so much work and so few rewards. i'm not sure whether my journey is about going on this joint journey with him. or whether if i go on a joint (BPD) journey with him, i'm just detracting and distracting from my own journey. maybe i should focus all this energy and thought and care on my life, instead of on his

i'm sorry i'm using this place as a place to vomit right now. i'm not sure where else to do so safely right now (by which i mean without affecting people like my partner negatively, because i worry i would pay a price for it). as part of being in my midlife phase, i ended some long-term relationships and friendships that i felt weren't really contributing to mutual wellbeing. i've made some new friendships since then, but they are not deep or dependable at this stage, so they are not good places to vent. i wasn't looking for a new romantic relationship, but meeting my partner was so sweet and lovely, that i fell for him immediately. ever since then, i've invested all my emotional energy and my time in him and our relationship. until the BPD stuff started, it seemed like a relationship where i could truly be myself and be genuinely loved. now that this has turned out to partly/ largely (?) be a mirage, i feel like i'm left with no one close to me. ugh. all i feel is anger and resentment today.

i am under a ridiculous amount of pressure at work this upcoming week (including this weekend) and need to be really professional and behave very professionally, so i can not afford to be angry or venting or feeling sorry for myself. i will be working super long hours this week and will have no time to myself - no time to rest or to have a cry. just massive expectations and lots of pressure and me needing to deliver/ perform. yuck.

right. i've gotten some of today's work done, read some threads in the "workshops" section here. and am no longer feeling as angry or as sorry for myself as this morning. i do still wonder about this relationship tho. i realise that with BPD it's a vain wish, but i do wish he'd been more honest/ upfront about this stuff when we started courting. i feel like i entered the relationship with one person, and now i'm in the relationship with a different person. i wish i'd been given the conscious choice of whether i want to get into that kind of relationship. but yada yada, if wishes were horses and so on. i just wonder what this relationship is going to "give" me, from here on in. recently, all i've wanted is to make this BPD mess less traumatic and painful and confusing. i think i've achieved that goal - i understand it and it no longer hurts and it doesn't feel traumatic. so now comes the day to day stuff of "managing" the BPD and learning to live with it. because my partner has been dysregulated for 6 months now, i've kind of forgotten what it was like, when he wasn't. it feels like a distant, faded memory. i feel strong enough now, to deal with the BPD. and with the resources here, i feel capable of dealing with it too. i also feel love and attachment for my partner, but that's possibly mainly from the idealisation phase? during that phase, being together with him, spending time with him was all that i wanted to do, for the rest of my life. now, i look at the rest of my life and wonder whether i want to spend it looking after and/ or loving someone with BPD. given that i feel strong and capable enough of doing that if i want to/ choose to, it no longer feels like a traumatic thing. but just cos i feel able to deal with it, that doesn't automatically mean i want to do that.

hmmmmm, thank you for writing. I think you're right about a number of things. The email and stability have helped, yet I really feel the need for my own inner peace and resourcefulness to grow. I don't feel painted white by the emails. I think my partner is both bipolar and BPD. I am only guessing and I don't know if such a scenario is possible, but I think she cycled high into a mania that really unleashed the BPD and painted me black (she even set the police on me--it was only a telephone call from them, but that was pretty unreal). Now she is emailing about being friends. There is no talk of love in the messages, and I even wonder if she remembers all she did while she was painting me black and I wonder whether she is aware of the wreckage caused by the idealization and the love she expressed over the years of our relationship.

hmmmmm, wow. I know what that feels like. My partner has some flexibility in her work and has even been able to step back from it over the last few weeks while in the hospital. My work is utterly demanding and kind of relentless in the hours required. I know I'm whining, but I'm sure depleted right now: I have hardly been able to eat over the last few weeks and sleep has been crummy. I'm trying to manage so much and trying to get my head around the possibility that she never really loved me--that what I thought was love was her expressing the disorder.

hmmmmm, I see your point, and I'm able to get into a very similar position--that I feel tricked--but I have an additional question: what the you know what is wrong with me? How come I couldn't see more clearly and know that the relationship was too good to be true? What's wrong with me in the sense that I ate up the idealization and changed everything in my life to make a future with my BPD partner? I moved cities, quit jobs, sold property, ended relationships . . . moved some heaven and some earth only to discover I may have fallen in love with an illusion. I do wonder about her and her inability to see what she's put and is putting me through, but how did I become such a fool? Worse, I'm so bloody confused I still feel love for her: she is somewhere in all this such a good human being.

if it hadn't been for the intense courtship and the whirlwind romance, i don't know if i'd have fallen in love with him. he's a lovely guy - but then, heaps of guys are good people. i don't know if i would have chosen him, knowing what i know now. by that, i don't mean that "i know he has BPD" and that i find that annyoing or difficult or whatever. what i mean is that now i question all the beautiful things in our courtship, all the loving things he's done. now i wonder if they were just him acting out his BPD needs. it's like i now see the BPD "lurking" behind every positive or negative thing he does or says. he's spent the last six months solely focussing on how he feels (during dysregulation) and not caring a fig about what i've been going through. i guess maybe in january i'll get some answers to these questions. (january is when we're having our big talk. so i guess i can then calmly ask him whether he even realises how harrowing his dysregulting has been for me and what a superhuman effort it's taken to cope with it (i'm not particularly optimisitc re receiving a positive answer)). i can't believe the number of massive changes i made in my life, so that we could spend the rest of our lives together. now they've all been made, and now i don't know if i want to spend the rest of my life with him after all. i'm not sure what the heck i'm going to do with the rest of my life now. : /. i certainly don't think i want to have a relationship with anyone else! i wasn't even keen to get into this relationship. and after all the disappointments in this one, i feel like i'm kind of done with relationships - either for good, or at least for a loong time . maybe i only love him for the sake of what has been and out of a sense of relief that these horrible past 6 months of BPD stuff are over.

hmmmmm, wow again. Whirlwind romance sounds terribly familiar. My partner and I had such an intense and exquisite romance. There was so much that made us so incredibly good together--intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and so on. Our love making was also so good--from intense to tender and beautiful blends of everything in between. But there was lots of what I might call maintenance (I feel crass even saying that word): I gave a lot to help on anger management, decisions, self worth, emptiness and other things. I thought these were just the stuff of a complex and deep and sensitive person. I think otherwise now, but in truth, I might have admired her and been attracted to her but not fallen for her if I had known that there was something so much more destructive at work.

I confess I have wondered about taking things where they stand now. That is, our email correspondence suggests we could be friends. Perhaps I should leave now and try again. I can't even think about that, however. I also feel so self-pitying. I alluded to the fact that I moved cities and changed jobs to make things work. I now live in a city I don't like. I don't know anyone here. I work and work and work and don't see a way to even meet anyone and I miss my friends from my former city.

I also know that my partner is an incredible person. The thought of finding another relationship feels a bit like gnawing some old crust of bread after knowing what a banquet is like. I mean no disrespect to anyone who has moved on and found better relationships, it's just that my partner is the person who is my banquet (again, crass metaphors but I don't know better ways of letting some of the hurt and confusion out).

First, I'd like to say that you are not alone hmmmmm, we do care and support you.

I think that what you are going through is fairly normal as we all begin to question whether or not a relationship with a person with BPD traits is what we actually want.

As was said to you earlier, the nice stuff that you experienced is just as real as the negative. It's all him. That realization can lead you to radical acceptance of who he is. Once you accept it as a reality, you'll be an a much better position to decide which direction you want to commit to going.

I agree with you that gentle, internal boundaries are a healthy way to approach things. Occasionally, a "line in the sand" boundary must be drawn however. The boundaries are there to protect us. They have little to with our pwBPD, so they are all internal things.

Like you, my x made me believe that we had a wonderful future together, and I changed my entire world to work towards that future. I now understand that if that future is ever to become a possibility, I have to accept that her fears come with that future. Dealing with those fears need not be a full-time job however. It's not my place to "fix" those fears. It's my job to love her the best way that I can and show her kindness, compassion, empathy, and support. If she chooses to allow her fears to be the guiding force, that's on her.

It's good that you realize that his "you're not good enough" or "you don't do enough" comments are not a reflection on you, but rather a projection of how he's feeling. Remembering that will serve you well. It will help you be able to focus on and feel empathetic for he is experiencing inside.

Meili,

Thanks for your phrase "radical acceptance" and for saying that the "nice stuff" was also real. These words help a good deal.

A bit late to this conversation, but hmmm and Renard, you are articulating so well the compelling aspects of falling in love with someone who has BPD.

As a member who has been here two years, I wanted to add my perspective. I've now been with my partner for 12 years, married for 10. I joined this site after I had done couples therapy and had little improvement in my relationship, other than being slightly able to talk with him about things that concerned me.

I was furious. I felt like I had been duped, tricked. Like you, Renard, I completely changed my life to be with him--used all my money to build a big house we could share.

I've learned a lot being here. I now know that I cannot communicate with him the way I would with a normal person. I cannot share some of my frustrations, my hopes, my fears. He personalizes things that have nothing to do with him and then we're off to the races.
So it can be lonely and frustrating and I can only share these deep thoughts and feelings with some of my girlfriends.

He is mildly BPD and mostly functional. However, that beautiful whirlwind romance now seems long ago with no chance of reemerging ever again. I've lost respect for him due to his behavior and also his predilection for using alcohol to soothe his feelings. I wouldn't say that he's necessarily an alcoholic, but he does depend upon it.

So I make the best of my life and there's a lot of good there, just not the beautiful promise of what I thought it would be in the beginning. I, like you, hmmm, am skeptical about some of the kind behaviors and I'm jaded when I see the "painted white" behavior manifesting. I can no longer fall under its spell.

Having learned what I have here, I can manage his moods a lot better. I no longer make things worse, at least most of the time. I can see the dark clouds looming and I either get out of the approaching storm or can say and do something to redirect it away from me.

That said, this is certainly not the relationship I thought it promised to be at the beginning.

I'm pretty sure that I posted the link to the lesson about radical acceptance in this thread before, but if I didn't, here it is: Radical Acceptance For Family Members (DBT skill) (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=89910.0)

Meili, thanks very much. I've not read the post, yet but will. I feel committed to my partner and know that the good was good. I'm also confused and hurt and weary but not ready to give up if ever. Thanks for the resource.

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