BPDFamily.com

Hello.

Today the pain has caught up with me again. I have been busy working and being creative. I have felt good in the company of strangers and of friends. I have been sorting out my life and started to feel like myself again. However, after my visit to the therapist this Friday things have surfaced. I see my ex and me together in springtime (the spring before last that is, the spring of 2016 was a disaster), having good times, being kind to and curious of eachother. I know this was during the (in)famous idealization period but still it hurts. The person she was back then defies all comparison to the one she became during the winter of 2016.

We have had no further contact since the last few e-mails we sent to eachother before Christmas.
Glad that she kept back her anger although she could not stop herself from putting some blame on me + questioning my personality in weird ways.

I have been reluctant to say this, it sounds so dramatic - but it is like she is dead to me now. It's not the kind of memories I have had after more or less normal relationships.

/Keef

Hi Keef,

I feel quite similar to you with the 'dead to me' feeling. And not in a dramatic, angry way, I think I know what you mean. The person I see now is so different to the person I thought I was with. I try to remember the good times in a positive way but know that they could never be again. I can't imagine I would feel the same if we were to be together, it would take a huge amount of work from her part to make me feel those things again, and if I am absolutely honest I think she and I both know that she is not capable of that. This is the sadness that I feel the most at the moment, that after everything we couldn't move forward and that is more about the disorder than what she really wants. But that might be my way of coping.

It sounds like you have been doing really good though - what do you mean by being creative? And I think that is a huge step if you feel good in the company of strangers and friends, it feels like it took me forever to even be able to hold a conversation that was not about my ex, I feel so positive just about that. If I could skip the next six months that would be my ideal!

LW

Hi Keef, I don't think what you are saying is dramatic at all.  This is part of the "lifting of the curtain" effect that many of us go through.  We think we are in relation with a person that loves us as and has some hang ups or perhaps that we have a couple of hang ups.  Then we find out that; though the person loved us, there were many other variables included in their ideas of love that we could not comprehend or see.  Once these awareness's permeate our memories of the r/s, the originating memory begins to change, and as you say, dies. 

For me, I have had to re-catalog reams of information about the years we spent together.  What I had previously interpreted as loving gestures, became in a more informed way, a knowing that she could not get too close and always needed to be in control.  The memories of, being pushed to be a better person so that we can have a better life together, became, this woman was pushing me so that I would not get too close (hard-stop).  Not to say that she didn't love me, just that she couldn't have an intimate r/s with me in the way I imagined that we were having.

Of course, this creates a sense of dull lifelessness about our memories and even our selves.  A feeling of depression and at some level a sense of catastrophic failure to see/acknowledge what was right in front of me.

Recovery from a r/s with a pwBPD is a process.  Understanding where they were coming from, re-cataloging memories, recasting truths, and refining this as many times as needed.  It is hard.  Yet, we could not live the misconceptions that we wished were true, no matter how much we desired them to be so.

All I can say is, you are not alone; take the time to grieve and heal.  You don't have to ever repeat this again...

JRB

Nothing grand but connected to my profession as a musician. Writing some music etc.

I know what you mean, wanting to fast forward... tiring isn't it? But you made it eventually  :)

Thanks LW!

joeramabeme, thanks :)


These are bitter pills to swallow even though I know it's true! I think I've made some progress but it's not easy to accept

Truer words haven't been said.  The acceptance really does take time.  June marks my 2-year anniversary on this site and I am still learning the acceptance part. 

Give yourself time and especially permission to grieve and heal.  I know that I am my worst critic and it can be stifling!