BPDFamily.com

This is a continuation of a previous thread: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=334485.0

There's a jigsaw piece you don't have yet, something I have never told you, the whole time I've been here... Something I can't face talking about... I am scared to do this but probably need to...

In October 2017, we were involved in an horrific incident that has left both of us with PTSD.

One night, one totally normal ordinary night... We'd been out for the day, had a lovely time. We came back and got a takeaway and settled down to watch a comedy together. Everything was totally normal, totally ordinary...

Then, suddenly, there was a banging on the back door. I can't explain this banging. I can't explain how much was communicated in it, how it spoke that life was never ever going to be the same again...

We jumped up. I went to answer it. My neighbour from the house behind (not my new "friend") was standing there, black with soot, screaming "Help me! Help me! I can't find my mom! I can't find my mom!"

My psyche split. I cannot describe this. There were suddenly two "me"s. One was thinking "Oh A, and her dramas, she's done something to the wood burner and got herself in a mess!". Thinking it was trivial. I said to S "Go and help A." (Will never forgive myself for this.)

And, while part of me really truly believed it was something and nothing... The other part of me went to the phone, called the fire brigade and told them that there was a wheelchair bound woman trapped in a house fire.

Then I went outside. I stood outside a burning building with the love of my life inside. And... I couldn't move. The thought of my daughter was like a glass wall preventing me from taking a step towards that house. He was in there. He was in danger. And I did NOTHING. I didn't go to him. I didn't try and get him out. I just STOOD THERE.

He came to the door. Called me over. Shouted "Come here and tell me if this is a body!". I couldn't move.

The fire  brigade arrived. My house became the base of operations, fire, ambulance, police, in and out. More police than you could possibly imagine, one division after another coming to talk to us...

At first, they wouldn't let him wash. He had just pulled a body from a burning building and they wouldn't let him wash.

I called my landlord, because he is this neighbour's uncle. He turned up. We were all outside at this point (it's so hazy, who was where when, how we got from one place to another). He spoke to the fireman. A screamed "Is it mam, P? Is it mam?" And he nodded. And her legs went out from under her and another neighbour caught her.

S said his psyche split too. Part of him was telling himself that what he had pulled from that house was a doll, a mannequin... Another part knew it was a human body charred beyond recognition.

They asked him to be pallbearer. On the way to the funeral he said "This is YOUR fault. I had too much trauma already and, now, because I met YOU, I am on my way to carry a body in a box. You did this to me. YOU."

When we got back... He pinned me to the wall by my throat, threw me to the ground. Nothing like this ever happened before or since, but it did THEN.

And I have been lying to myself. I have been telling myself that I don't *really* believe he is back on heroin, that it's just something I am telling myself to make all this make sense. But that's BS. I know he's back on heroin. And I know why.

For a long time, I thought this was their trauma alone. I hadn't gone in there. I hadn't pulled out a body so disfigured that it didn't look human. It wasn't my home, wasn't my mom... I had thought I was nothing but a bystander.

It took over a year before it became apparent this was a self-deception. A couple of months ago, we were watching a program with a scene where a man's wife is trapped in a house-fire and people are holding him back, stopping him going to her... No one held me back. Nothing but my own psyche held me back. (That is so hard to deal with!). But it had felt like I was being held back, I had felt like that man...

I started shaking uncontrollably. I suddenly wasn't there in my living room anymore, I was outside that house, and he was inside and I couldn't go to him... I was every bit as powerless as if I were being held back physically, but without that excuse... I was there, reliving it, not a memory, a full on flashback where I was there and it was happening again... And...

Is it any wonder that I need to believe that I love this man? Because I have doubted it. Because I have asked myself over and over "How can you claim to love someone and yet you just STOOD THERE while he was in danger, while his LIFE was in danger?"

It comes back to the fire. Everything. Always. Comes backs to the fire... The depression I was sinking into, the way my psyche is fragmenting... It comes back to the fire. And the fire is the ONE thing I don't think about, don't talk about...

Have called my mom and asked her to come over.

I think I'm quite clearly not well. I'm better than I was the first week, but... I can see myself as though from outside, and I can see that I'm not well.

Will try to get to the doctor's asap too.

My mom is an angel, an absolute star. She knows all the right things to say. "Whatever this is about and whatever happens now, don't doubt it was real. I've seen you together. People I know have seen you together. People have seen how you were together. What you had was evident to everyone. It wasn't all in your head. It was real. You don't need to doubt that."

and

"You are not going mad. You are reacting in a normal human way to something that is deeply traumatic. I think there would be more cause for concern if you weren't reacting like this."

I am so lucky to have this and I know it.

One thing that is (in part) causing the fragmentation is that the right way to react to this very much depends on a future that no one can predict. The way I need to react to this if he is going to come back is very different from the way I need to react to it if he isn't. But no one can possibly know whether he's going to come back or not. People can make guesses, even informed predictions, but nobody knows. And that is a very hard thing to deal with.

When enough time has passed to be able to be fairly sure that either a/ he isn't coming back, or b/ I wouldn't accept him back anyway, because it's too late, then I will be able to get a grip and some kind of idea of how to go forward. Until then, there's no map.

And, yes, I could decide to make right now the cut-off point, to make it all easier on myself by deciding "I'm not going to have him back now anyway, so it doesn't matter whether he tries to come back or not. I need to move on now." But I think this would constitute a cowardly inauthenticity, because I would take him back at this point. The scales still balance in favour of that; they haven't tipped yet. They will soon, I think. But they haven't yet.

Cripes, this has been A Grief Journal...

This is going to sound silly, but, with the whole autistic thing, I couldn't have written this privately to myself - because I would have felt dishonest in telling someone (me) things they already knew. Like, when people ask kids "How do you spell Mississippi?" or "What colour does blue and yellow make?", there's always part of me thinking this is dishonest because it's using the form of asking for information when the questioner clearly already knows the information they're pretending to request. I have lots of autistic "things" like that. I can usually "mask" it - I can usually translate between how I think and how NTs think and adjust accordingly. But I simply haven't the energy for that at the moment.

So, yeah... I'm "journalling" here. Thank you for letting me. I've needed to get all this stuff out. Especially about the fire.

I was a wreck yesterday morning. By late afternoon, it had calmed again. Stayed calm all through till this morning (and still feel calm now). I actually cooked. And I watched an entire film on Netflix. Think I might be able to start reading again today (I do hope so!). I've noticed that it seems to be the case now that each big storm is followed by a deeper and longer lasting calm than the one before. I hope I'm coming out of this - I know there'll be more storms to come, but I hope they're going to get less "violent" and further apart.

I don't actually want to hear from him now. I imagine it and I just... Can't be doing with it. I really can't. Though I'm under no illusions that I'll continue to feel like this consistently from now on. I think there'll be hours of desperately wanting to hear from him and hours of being glad not to. And my hope is that, eventually, the hours of being glad not to will predominate until the wanting to times become just the occasional wistful minute here and there.

(Still 'journalling,' thinking aloud...)

You know what I was saying about how his love for was something I was certain about to my core? And how it was very similar to how I feel about God?

Well, something occurred to me last night... What if it was a kind of projection? What if what I was feeling was simply being surrounded by love for him? And Him?

So I felt surrounded by love whenever I thought of him or was with him (and there in the background while I was getting on with other things), simply because I loved him? And I feel surrounded by the love of God in the same way? Because I love God?

What if I don't actually have to give up anything or accept that anything wasn't real, but, instead, see it that it was inside me?

What if reciprocation is immaterial when it comes to that certainty? What if what I was really certain of was my own mind and heart?

Because then... My world doesn't have to be rocked by this. Because, if that's the case, then what I felt so secure in and surrounded by was completely real. And, if he doesn't love me, all that means is that the relationship is finished - it doesn't mean that any of my certainties have to be abandoned.

Thinking about this... I think it's right when it comes to him. But wrong when it comes to Him.

I don't find God in a church or a Book. I am like John Walton. I find God in creation. To me, the beauty of the natural world and the beauty of human-beings is a borrowed beauty, an echoed beauty... Like how the moon does not have its own light but merely reflects that of the sun. I think the world reflects the light of God.

So... My certainty when it comes to God and the sense of being surrounded by love... It's not because God loves me, but neither is it because I love God. It's because I love full-stop. Because that love comes from God. That loves flows from God. All love, all real love, is borrowed from Him; it flows through us but its source is Him.

I can be certain of God simply because love itself exists. And I feel it and experience it flow through me. It doesn't matter who does or doesn't love me - all that matters is that love exists. That is how I know there is a God.

And now...

I have to do something which terrifies me. It may be Too Soon, but I feel I have to do it. I have to go to the woods we walked in and see for myself that they are still there and I am still here. It's a scary prospect, but I feel I need to do this now.

What leads you to think it might not be there?

Enabler

It was a turn of phrase more than anything. Do you know the song from My Fair Lady "Without You"? ("without you pulling it / the tide comes in / without you twirling it / the world will spin") Just that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3mC4485Ue0

So...

That was different to what I was expecting. I was expecting to "reclaim" the place, start filling it with memories that are mine alone, memories of something other than him...

It ended up, instead, being a saying goodbye to him in my head thing. I wandered round, letting myself remember, letting myself think... It was lovely. Very gentle and soothing.

I felt close to him and realised some things. I don't think he meant to be cruel sharing my texts with the other woman - I think he had had enough of secrets and deceptions and just threw the baby (privacy/confidentiality) out with the bathwater (deception), in his typical all-or-nothing fashion.

I think he's generally doing his limited best, as we all are. He tries to be good. Just like I try to be good. Just like the vast majority of human-beings try to be good. We balls it up spectacularly most of the time, but we try - and, at the end of the day, that's what matters most.

I felt very peaceful, very loving, very accepting... He must do what he must do. As we all must. Whatever that is and wherever it takes him, and whether we ever speak again or not, I recognise and respect that. And nothing can ever take away the past. It is what it is and cannot be changed. Every step we take on life's journey leads us to where we stand right now - not one of them ever ceases to count. It was and it was beautiful as far as it went.

I will grieve. I will miss him terribly. But everything is okay. All the biggest things are okay. All the certainties are still certainties. And all that was was.

Everything is okay. Whatever happens now, everything is okay. God's in his heaven and all's right with the world. I feel that now.

I have some incredible dreams. It comes from being a writer - my subconscious creates metaphors even while I'm sleeping.

I had an online friend some years ago. She had a huge influence on me and helped me become the person I am today. Life pulled us in different directions and I rarely hear from her now, but the time and thoughts we shared together will always be part of me - it was a period of great growth.

Anyway...

Last night, I dreamed that she was dying. I dreamed she called me and I went to her. She was suddenly very very old, her hair was white, her frame was frail. As we walked round her home, I'd keep seeing things I sent her, books I gave her, poems we both liked pinned on the wall, things like that. And she was (as the real her is) unwaveringly pragmatic and down-to-earth and no-nonsense about everything, totally took dying in her stride as just one of those things, can't be helped, no use grumbling about it style.

Do I need to interpret that dream for people here or is it as clear to outsiders as it is to me? It was my mind telling me that nothing ever really ends, that things are what they are, whatever will be will be, and whatever has been can't be undone. And... Also giving me a bit of a kick up the arse about now wallowing.

Having that dream last night helped me to wake up and confront today with the attitude that I have.

This is a conclusion I have also come to... it's a matter of finding a place and space which allows me to rationalise how on earth my W can be trying to do her best in the face of such moral obviousness (made that term up).

I think BPD joins these seemingly random dots of hurt together. It's a thought process I never ever thought I would be able to empathise with.

Glad you got something from the walk in the woods... next time will be different... and the next time... and the next time.

Enabler

I love it! Wish I'd coined it myself. ;-)


Thanks. It had to be done. I was very scared that the memories would overwhelm me and I'd just feel his absence so acutely it would be agony. But it wasn't like that at all and I'm really glad I did it.

(Just changed my profile so 'person in your life' section now shows 'ex-romantic partner'. Very very hard and makes me feel a bit tearful, but today was the right day to do it.)

A few days before this happened, he pawned his engagement ring. He has done this before out of desperation for money. Last time he did it was around Christmas. He bought it back and had to pay phenomenal interest to do so. I said to him "If you feel that desperate again, pawn it to me - give it to me and I will give you the money that the pawn shop would have given you, but then a/ it's safe with one of us, and b/ I won't charge interest when you want it back".

A few days before all this happened, he texted and said he might have to pawn the ring. All I said in reply was "Thanks for letting me know". I think this probably hurt him and made him feel I didn't care. Reality was that I knew he was seeing someone else and lying to me about it and (at the time) I felt bitter, I felt "What does the ring matter if what it symbolises doesn't?"

Now... I want that ring back. I really want that ring back. He has a week or two yet to reclaim it before the pawnshop consider it their property and sell it on.

What can I do? Can I do anything? Can I ask him to get it back for me if I give him the money? If not, can I call the pawnshop and explain the situation and ask them to hold it for me once the time runs out (even though I'll have to pay full price)? If I do this, then I will need to find someone to go and pick it up for me, as I can't set foot in his town at the moment (for my own mental health, because he would find it invasive, and... because I think she would be violent if she saw me).

Sorry if I'm confusing people - I am aware that I said a while ago that we both accepted it was unlikely we'd marry and/or live together. This is something we accepted later, after the engagement. When we did accept it, our engagement rings took on a different (but just as deep) meaning to us: they became symbols of our love and commitment and our feeling that (as we both said) we were married in our hearts.

I know it's just an object. But objects mean a lot to me. Like I said in the empty chair letter, I used to save every receipt and bus and train ticket (I still have them in a box under my bed). I don't want to lose this ring. I have lost too much already and I don't want to lose that too. How about a letter to pawn shop along the lines of:

To Whom It May Concern,

I understand that [name and address] brought a gold ring of celtic design in to you around 14th February.*

This was our engagement ring. Our relationship is over now and so he is unlikely to return to reclaim it. I appreciate that you have to give him the opportunity to do this, but, if he does not, I would appreciate it if you could contact me on [telephone number] before you put it on general sale and offer me the opportunity to buy it from you.

This ring has great sentimental value to me and I do not wish to lose it. If you could contact me as soon as the item becomes your legal property and arrange for me to purchase it, I would really appreciate it.

Yours Sincerely,

[name]


What do you guys think? Then maybe if/when they call me, I could request to pay over the phone by card and have it posted to me recorded delivery?

(*Yes, I do see the irony!)

I don't know if they'd respond, but... Being cynical for a moment, and knowing what pawn shops are like, I reckon there's a fair chance they'd reason "Aaaah, sentimental value, ay? Here's someone who'll be willing to pay over the odds!"

I am hoping that either they'd listen to the request out of humanity or, failing that, they'd listen to it in the mercenary way described above.

If they don't, I've lost nothing by trying. Yes, I may find there comes a time when the ring doesn't mean much to me. But much better to have it and it mean nothing, than to risk not having it if it continues to mean something.

If he threw the thing into the sea or something, I could live with that. But the thought of it being sold and someone else wearing it is something that I just can't live with at the moment.

Even if this later turns out to have just been a pathetic and pointless attempt to hold on to something, I would rather get it back and then later regret having thrown my money away, than let them sell it on and later regret that.

You mention this was PTSD and you describe dissociation.  This is common in very traumatic experiences you describe.  Flashbacks are also common.  It must have been terrifying.   :hug:

Thanks, Askingwhy. I appreciate your reply.

It was. There was definitely dissociation on the night. Also something similar carried on for a while when I was denying the impact it had had on me.

I remember all the emergency service people (mainly the police) warning me that I would probably do that (because this was their experience of what people tend to do in these situations). They all told me to expect that I'd try to minimise it, that I'd tell myself I'd just been a bystander, and they warned me not to - they said that, when you're caught up in something like this, it has huge and ongoing effects and the first step towards recovering from it is to accept that you have been involved in a deeply traumatic incident. In retrospect, I didn't pay this the attention that I should have done.

I still feel that, on balance, the relationship was good for me. He brought a heck of a lot of stress and pain and troubles into my life, but he also brought a lot of romance, adventure, laughter, affection, passion, closeness/intimacy, beauty, joy, and my first ever sense of being at home with someone. But...

Part of me is sitting here and thinking of the caged bird who just sits on the perch when the door is finally left open...

If I wanted to get away, this is the only way it could have happened without danger. If I had wanted to end the relationship and he hadn't had someone else in the wings... There would have been a campaign of harassment and vengeance. He would have caused trouble for me in any and every way he could have come up with. He would almost certainly have hurt himself and he might even have hurt me. The door was locked and breaking it down would have led to serious injury. This is the only "safe" way out of the relationship and I wonder if I ought to be grateful that I've been given it...

But... I know that I would take him back.

I could tell you so many things about this man that would make you think I'm stark raving [expletive deleted] mad to even consider taking him back if I had the chance (hell, I already have told you such things, I know!)

For a start he's a misogynist. He hates women, absolutely despises them, has huge levels of contempt for them... People say (in general) that things like that are cultural. I don't think that's the case here. Politically speaking, he's fairly progressive in general (but there are some culturally imbibed attitudes I'll get to). It's more of a Mommy Issues thing. We're all his mother. The rage he feels towards his late mother is extended and transferred to all of us. (S: Women have no morals and no hearts - they just use their bodies to get what they want - they're disgusting. B: I can't speak for everyone, but I've never done that and nor have the women I know. S: Well, no, you don't, but all the rest do. B: Darling, I am just as much of a woman as any other you have ever known - generalisations do no one any good.)

When he speaks of women, any women, his neighbours, his daughter's mother, his alcohol worker, any of us, he says (spits) "she" and "her" like these are the worst possible swearwords in existence.

He can be very selfish and entitled. He can act spoilt. He is controlling and possessive and jealous. He (in certain moods, not all) will talk over people, shout people down. He will come out with phrases that are certainly culturally influenced "Who do you think you're talking to?", "You want to watch your mouth!", "You'd better pack it in!", "Shut your trap!", "I've had enough of your gob!", "Stop your waffling - I don't want to hear it!"

He has a whole host of double standards - he's an alcoholic and very sympathetic towards males with alcohol problems, but any woman who ever even enters a pub or ever even takes a sip from a glass of wine is despicable in his eyes, the lowest of the low, barely worthy of oxygen. I was pretty close to teetotal the whole time I was with him (I was happy with that). I probably drank two glasses of wine in total during that whole two years. But I was still accused of it, if I ever criticised anything or tried to assert myself, no matter how gently and calmly, he'd decided I must be p*ssed out my head again.I never got drunk once in those years, not once. Yes, I drank in the first few days after this shock blow, but I didn't during the relationship.

He would exploit and weaponise any weakness or vulnerability he could spot. He got a lot of mileage out of my FOO and out of the fact I was raped and (separately) sexually assaulted in my teens. He'd sharpen the knife like a master craftsman and target it with surgical precision.

There was an awful lot that I am lucky to have escaped.

But then there were the ways in which he'd examine and analyse himself with incredible courage and honesty. The ways he'd take responsibility later. I am not talking about fists-and-flowers patterns, but a real genuine desire to improve and transcend himself, a willingness to grow... It's impossible to describe, but it was genuine and genuinely respect-inspiring.

There was his amazing sense of humour, his tenderness and gentleness in the bedroom, his contagious love of nature and enthusiasm for the natural world, his wonderful gift for metaphor, how down-to-earth he could be... But, most of all, how I felt at home and not-autistic when I was with him - that's worth paying pretty much any price for in my eyes.

But, most of all, this is a man who walked into a burning building to try and rescue a stranger. And, what's more, he did it twice - he went in and had to come out when the fumes were overpowering him, he got to the door, gasped, vomited, and... Went back in... To have gone in the first time was an amazing thing, but the second... To have gone back in, knowing what he was walking into...

He often spoke to me as though I were some kind of archetypal fishwife, nagging at him, screeching at him, hysterical... I wasn't and I didn't do those things.

I could rarely cry in front of him, that would unleash worlds of rage and contempt and derision and belittling.

Note: none of this is about denial. None of this is about kidding myself that I am going to get the opportunity to either take him back or not take him back. I think, with every day that passes without contact, it is looking less and less likely that this will happen. And, thinking about his history, I don't think he tends to look back.

He first moved in with a woman when he was 17 (she was in her 30s). This lasted four years. Then he moved in with a different woman; it lasted two. Then two more in immediate succession after that one (each lasting around two years). For three of these, he relocated to a different part of the country to follow them.

Then he was with his daughter's mother for over ten years, though it was an extremely stormy relationship and, in his eyes, she was controlling and domineering and he was just a nodding dog completely subjugated and under the thumb (I take that with a pinch - no, a barrel - of salt).

There were seven years between the end of that relationship and the start of ours. During those years, he had over twenty "serious" relationships, lasting between a few weeks and a few months - he thought he loved every single one of these women. His pattern is not to look back. Whatever I think we had, it probably won't be strong enough to alter that pattern.

I'm not expecting him back now. I'm just questioning myself for my own reasons, for self-knowledge...

There is loss. And there is liberation.

I am assessing both.

What I don't want to do is get myself to a place where I think "I am better off without him" just because it is easier. I do not want to sacrifice parts of myself to lessen the hurt. I do not want to adopt a "party line" absolutist view of any this or allow myself to be cast in the role of Stockholm Syndrome victim, just because it has a script I can follow to feel less lost. I do not want to be untrue to myself.

I have just realised something that has absolutely knocked me for six. I feel SICK thinking about it.

Since this happened, I have been thinking "How is it possible for someone to just instantly and completely cut off a person who was a huge part of their lives for so long?". I have been thinking either he's going to get in touch soon or he's more ill than I realised.

Well...

What's just dawned on me is that he DIDN'T, did he? Because he knew this was coming for several weeks before I did. So he didn't just cut me off instantly and completely. On the contrary, he continued to call and text and visit and hold me and kiss me and make love to me... All the time that he was saying his emotional goodbyes he had that. He took that... He took what he needed to move on and then, when he was ready to do that, vanished without a second thought for what I needed.

He was saying goodbye for ages. He was saying goodbye in the comfort of my presence, my love, and my arms. Without me knowing. Yes, I "knew" something was going on; I kind of "knew" he was seeing someone else. But I hadn't the faintest clue that we were ending.

If he had told me, then I would have had that slow, gentle, comforting period of adjustment right along there with him. But he didn't. He took it for himself and then left me with the body blow of a sudden and total disappearance.

Why didn't I see this before? Why didn't I realise that he hasn't been going through a sudden loss, he's had a long period of gentle transition?

It really does make me feel sick. It has seriously shaken me up.

Dearest B-

I am so so sorry...
You were going to arrive at this eyes wide open state by yourself.  You needed to get here how you got here.  At the risk of generalizing, many pwBPD cannot be alone.  There’s got to be “another” who’s been groomed and waiting in the wings before they leave...at least for those who are younger (less than my age - early 60’s).

I’ve recently read about fear of abandonment vs fear of enmeshment with pwBPD.  Sounds as if your love experiences fear of enmeshment...he simply (tho’ nothing “simple” about it) cannot stay too long.  Or maybe it’s both.  Before he gets too wrapped up and you leave, he’s got to leave.  I think once they reach a certain age, the pain of relationships becomes too great and they stop.  I think that’s where mine is...if he cannot be with me, it will possibly be no one.  But then, I may be fooling myself.

Your writing is so so beautiful.  I read and re-read what you write.  Will actually print out your posts, because your words are saying so much to me - and the conflicting feelings, tho’ difficult to bear, reflect MY feelings.

There is so much torment in their souls.  It appears at times the hurt is intentional, with a “surgeon’s precision” as you say; and other times where our pwBPD cannot seem to control their devastating behaviors.  So we continue to forgive, really asking nothing in return...but I think, hoping, praying that our acceptance of them WOULD result in a change.  That may have been our downfall.  Empty promises, “willingness” to do better, pleas... just become words that scatter on the floor.

At some point, self-preservation wakes up.  Mine had to wake up, for the thousandth time.  In adult love, there are eventually consequences for our actions.  It was more than just hateful words, there were actions, too.  It doesn’t mean I don’t love him, but it sadly means I likely cannot love him next to me anymore.

I am so deeply sorry for the fact that you realize how conscious our partners can seem in their deception.  I don’t pretend to have any handle, explanation or understanding on what drives them to do what they do...to us, themselves, to anyone.  But I do NOT believe for one second that they spend one billionth of the time second-guessing their actions or feelings the way we do.  Not at all.  Not in any way, shape or form.  

I don’t resent that, or begrudge them that; in fact, in a way, I wish I could BE like that sometimes.  But no... that means I would close my eyes and see darkness.  That’s what he told me once.  I’d much prefer to see the colors I see.

My friend B...you are going to move through this, you are moving through this.

Hugs to you my friend.

Warmly,
Gemsforeyes

Thank you so much for caring and responding. I feel I didn't respond well enough to your previous posts. I am going through a phase of being really self-absorbed - I'd hate for people to think that's who I am all the time - it's just that every last bit of emotional energy is going on this right now.

I drank to get through the first few days. I stopped. I've started again, after this realisation.

Don't want to go into how I know, but... I think he really has changed his SIM/number now. It makes the abandonment feel total.

All this time, he was scared (with no reason or basis) that I would cheat or abandon him... All the time I spent on reassuring him that I would never - could never - do that... All the ways I made sure I was always available to reassure him that he'd never have to go through anything like this...

And now he's turned around and done it to me. Without a backwards glance.

I am struggling. I am really really struggling.

When he knew and I didn't that a goodbye was coming, he would reach out in the night and hold on to me... Now I have to face it, the cowardly man has changed his phone number so I couldn't even contact him if I wanted to. It really does make me feel sick.

But... To put my Pollyanna hat back on briefly, there is also a comfort in him having changed his number. Because now I am free to text and text as much as I like, and know that what I say can't be shared with her, or unleash a storm of abuse from her, now I have my Empty Chair. I can text and text as much as I like to a phone number that is no longer active, can't I? There is no one in the world who could possibly object to me texting a number that isn't receiving the messages. At least there's that...

He's told you who he is in vivid detail. You can choose to remember your love for him by focusing upon a sliver of the canvas or you can view the entire picture he's painted for you.

It's your choice how you want to process this.

I'm a "rip the band-aid off" type of gal. You may not be.

I try to see the whole picture, the good and the bad. I don't want to edit any of it.

Dear B-
I wouldn’t worry about the drinking right now, you know how to keep that in check. 

You may want to be sure to exit your home for periodic walks in the woods, either alone or perhaps with your daughter or your mom?  Those beautiful woods were there long before he entered your world.  Your pwBPD had nothing to do with creating the magic of that place.

As far as sending unfettered texts to his phone, maybe to keep yourself  “safe”, do that here instead.  You can be clear that you’re NOT looking for responses (unless you’d like some), but just want to get things out of your head and heart in this safe place.  I did a post last summer called something like “the delusion of forgive and forget”; and at the time it was immensely therapeutic. 

Never before had I felt so compelled to journal a relationship the way I did this one...it was so painful and confusing.  I wrote so much to myself; and now I have a record of my pain.  And my love.  There is still so MUCH to say.  And yea...what does it mean that the MOST important things to say we canNOT communicate directly to these men we love so deeply?  The answer is not good.  We should love the answers to our questions.  I think we should.  Sorry, getting lost here...

Anyway B, I know you’re going through it.  You’re not expected to respond to each word that is said to you.

Warmly,
Gemsforeyes

Thanks, Gems.

It's 100% safe to send texts to his phone as I am certain he's changed his number. I will just be talking to myself but with the illusion of the messages going to him, with it following the same channels as when they really did go to him. It's actually safer to send them there as it will be completely private. It will be like leaving answerphone messages for someone deceased.

So... Some more assessing/stock-taking of the things I am lucky to have escaped...

A couple of months ago, I told some people on this board by DM that I couldn't get online much because my pwBPD had recently been threatened at knife-point, we were both very shaken up about it, and I was supporting him through it.

Last time he was here he very casually told me that he'd made the whole thing up.

Not the first time either. Once, many months ago, I got a text from his phone, saying it was his friend, Kate (no privacy issues here, as you'll see in a minute), and that she was taking him to hospital because he had been badly beaten up. Well... It later transpired that, not only had he not been beaten up, but he doesn't even have a friend called Kate - she was a complete fiction and he had actually written the text himself.

And then there's the latest, isn't there? The whole story about this J and her family having got him drugged up and sexually assaulted him while he was unconscious. A story invented for no better reason than to cover his back if she managed to track me down and tell me he was cheating (she had threatened to do that). He knows that I was a victim of sexual assaults. Yet he told me that something like that had just happened to him, without any regard for how it would feel to think a loved one was going through that...

Remember I said something about how he was in court last week as a witness and she was taking him? This wasn't the imaginary knife thing (he'd told me he'd been to the police about that, but that was a fabrication too, fortunately) it was something else, but... I refused to go with him and support him at court.

And the knife fantasy was why I refused. Because, when I had only just seen him come out with a complete fabrication like that, I felt I couldn't trust him and that, for all I knew, his evidence for this other incident could have been fabricated too. For all I knew, he might have been going there to stand up and perjure himself. I can't be sure of that but I had reason enough, on past experience, to suspect it. Thus, it was not something I was prepared to involve myself in.

I think he felt I seriously let him down by refusing to go with him. I think that might have been The Big Betrayal that led him to emotionally cut me off.

But I don't regret it.

Hey...there is a lot going on in this thread. 

I'll start by saying a natural disaster was THE turning point in my life.  Imagine around 20k sandbags around my house, pumps working and then a pipe burst on the inside.  The house flooded even though the sandbags held.  Furthermore I heard this happen but couldn't wake up for a while, I was in a frozen "semi-conscious" state.

We had to move off our property for about 6 months while we rebuilt.

During that time I went "one way" with the mental impact of this even and my wife went the other.  (paranoia and BPDish stuff for her.  Sadly I invalidated her for years)

Things have never been the same and I've accepted they never will be. 

I say all this to let you know I get it how there can be a big event in your life you don't talk about and that "changed everything".  I get it how it can be replayed...how it shows up when you least expect it.

I've done quite a bit of work on this with therapists over the years.  I would certainly encourage you to walk that path as well. 

I've come to accept that even will never be "fixed" in my life, but I can "deal with it" and talk about it when it's appropriate. 

I've also been able to "organize" this in my head to understand the impact on me and as a separate matter the impact on my relationship.  It does help me have empathy for my wife, because I certainly didn't "control" the impact on me, so I try to give her grace for the impact on her life.

When you get a chance...I'd like to know more about how you have dealt with this event and your plans to deal with it going forward.

Best,

FF

There are a lot of things I made myself blind to in the last weeks...

He said several times that he'd contemplated starting heroin again. I took him at his word, contemplated, didn't think he'd done it or would do it. I know how important his recovery was to him, but, then, I also know how an addiction like that never completely lets go. There are many amazing, courageous people who fight that battle and win every day for the rest of their lives. But it never stops being a battle; it never really goes away.

I am thinking now that it can be much easier to tell someone that you're contemplating doing something than that you actually are doing it - it can be a first step in testing the waters to see how the person is likely to react when you reveal you actually are doing the thing you've told them you're considering. Not saying this was the case, but... It may have been.

Then there were other comments... He was telling me about how one acquaintance of his thought another acquaintance of his was trying to get him (Acquaintance A) hooked on something. S said "When you've got an addiction like that, that's what you do, you try and get someone else hooked on it too so that they'll end up feeding your habit as well as their own. That's what I'd do anyway". When he said this, he was looking at the ground, his voice was very hard and cold, but also incredibly heavy, weight-of-world heavy, loaded...

My neighbour, whose partner is a recovering heroin addict too and who does not know S's history, told me that her partner and others think S is on heroin. She said he knows the signs and he saw them in S.

Then there's the pawning the engagement ring. He only got £25 for that, but, still... He tried pawning his telly the very next day. He'd said he needed the money for cider and food, but it ran out in under a day...

There was a conversation we were having about prescription painkillers, and I said I'd read somewhere that long-term use of these can actually increase pain-receptors in the brain so that you end up on a kind of treadmill where they ease the pain in the short-term and worsen it longer-term. S said "Heroin is like that. I remember when I was on heroin, I'd always be in pain" [he then listed examples of the pain] then said "And I can feel all of that coming back now..."

When he told me the story about J's family having put something in a spliff and got him drugged up and assaulted him while he was unconscious... He kept saying it wasn't a normal spliff. I suggested maybe it could have been spice (synthetic cannabis, nasty stuff).

S: It may have been heroin...

B: Wouldn't you know if it was heroin? [meaning wouldn't a recovering heroin addict recognise if they'd just taken heroin]

S: Not necessarily. You can put it in spliffs. I used to have it off foil, but my mate put it in spliffs. You can do that.

*

You put all of these things together and it looks pretty likely, I think.

Thanks, FF. That was a really thoughtful and empathic post.

I'm sorry you went through something like that.

Am I right in thinking you were in the forces? If so, you will understand the vast difference between horror intruding upon normal everyday life and witnessing it in a warzone. (I've never been in the forces or in a warzone). I say this because all the people in the pub S tried to talk to didn't get it. A lot of them were ex-forces and would actually shout at him about how seeing one body is nothing, they have seen xyz and they don't go around crying about it. Shocking lack of empathy. I'm just saying this because it would be nice to hear that someone gets how the effects can be when something like this intrudes upon ordinary day-to-day life where it feels particularly incongruous and the mind struggles to process the juxtaposition of the ordinary and the horrific.

I guess I haven't dealt with it and will need to deal with this first. S and I did a lot of talking about it, which was a good thing. Then, from time to time, I'd "break" and end up telling the whole story somewhere or to someone (like I did here the other day), that helps too, helps make sure I remember that this happened and had an impact.

I tried seeing my doctor to arrange therapy regarding it, but, here (in UK), there can be a lot of hoops to jump through in order to get therapy on the NHS, and these were too daunting at the time. I may have to consider paying privately. I know it's something that I will have to do and can't put off forever. At the moment though, simply breathing in and out seems Too Much, so it will have to wait at least a little while longer.

You've got me thinking about this now... And I'm thinking something very hard for me...

I love this man. His life was in danger. The thought of my daughter stopped me going to him.

Here, in this (semi-)ordinary space, where there is room for philosophy and psychology and analysis and rationalisations, everything seems very grey and nuanced and complex.

But, there, in that immediate moment, where this is no room for any of that, only action or inaction...

I chose my daughter. And I chose survival.

I think maybe that ought to tell me something.

Perhaps it does.  Perhaps it tells you a number of things.  Very likely your actions/inactions can reveal a lot about you, assuming you get properly guided through exploring this.

I would caution you to figure out "the one thing" it means. I would be shocked if it "only means one thing".

Yes I was a Naval Aviator (flew off carriers) for a bit over 20 years.  There is a big difference, IMO in experiencing stressful things you are "ready" for, versus having you calm safe space intruded on...especially in your home where there is an assumption of safety and calm.

What you will likely understand is this is/was a very complex event and sorting it out is a complex process (many many facets to this).

It's also not a process to rush.  I hadn't really thought about it in a long time but it seemed appropriate to bring up in this post.  Not a great thing for me to think/type about..but it is a really important chapter in my life.  Hopefully someday you can look back on your experiences and share with someone else in need.

FF

Thank you. I understand the weight of these words and the extent of the generosity behind them, and I appreciate it.

Wise words, thanks.

What I was driving at is to take it as a reminder to myself that I value survival and my daughter. Because I need that reminder right now. I need to remember that there was a time when I wanted to survive. Because, honestly, I don't want to right now. I will survive this because I have to, because I have responsibilities. But I want to remember that, once, I wanted to. And that, at some point, I will want to again.

*mod* This thread has reached its maximum length and is now locked. The conversation continues here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=334606.0