BPDFamily.com

As you can tell, I’ve been posting quite a bit, and also reading old posts by user 2010 which have been extremely enlightening. I think I am at a stage where I am ready to ask some difficult questions of myself about why I sought and remained in such a harmful dynamic, what the interaction (not a relationship) represents for me now, and how I can avoid it in the future.

I’ve particularly appreciated 2010’s remarks about a common (especially) western misunderstanding of karma as a law of reward and punishment as opposed to cause and effect. I did not deserve the lies, manipulation or controlling behaviour. Experiencing these things was not a punishment for being ‘bad’. However, there were actions I undertook which contributed to causing or allowing these things to happen and a negative interaction to develop.

These actions were based in beliefs, patterns, narratives and worldviews that I had and probably still have, and which it is now the time to scrutinise. One is quite a grandiose self-perception. For example, I had an idea I could change or influence another person who lacked integrity, to the point where they would have integrity.

Prior to our relationship, uBPDx acted in ways that were extremely contrary to the values we both nominally shared and which were supposedly the cornerstone of our relationship, yet I believed that through the relationship we could transcend these patterns. To be fair to me, uBPDx initially represented themself and their history as being quite different from what it actually was, hiding some aspects that significantly lacked integrity. If I had known this from the start, I would never have entered the relationship.

However, once I learned about the discrepancy/ misrepresentation, my response was first a toxic expression of anger at the perceived betrayal; and then, after we made up (re-idealisation), to believe that together, we could both somehow change things so that uBPDx could really become the person they had misrepresented themself as.

This choice reflected my own denial and neediness. I was lonely and isolated and didn’t want to face the evidence this seemingly perfect person was not all they seemed. It also reflected an unrealistic, ‘love conquers all’ narrative. People cannot change and develop integrity based on an outside influence, integrity is something you develop within yourself.

There is also grandiosity – the idea that *I* was so special that a person who had previously acted without principle would, though knowing me, become someone different. There is a degree of narcissism here (not NPD, just the traits, which can be healthy, but in this case were not).

Letting go involves relinquishing the idealised, all-powerful vision of myself that was mirrored in uBPDx’s eyes during the ‘good’ times. Which was quite an intoxicating vision! And is quite difficult to relinquish, even now. Accepting that the interaction (not relationship) was based on falsities is one thing, accepting that the ideas and hopes it was premised on were also false is another, and quite difficult. I think it is something I need to do so I do not simply go out and replace the uBPDx with a similar relationship.