BPDFamily.com

Relationship Ended - Detaching

Summary: Detach and grieve a “BPD” relationship breakup, do a post mortem, process abandonment anxiety, and betrayal trauma.  Also divorce recovery and personal inventory.

Audience: Members that have been spurned or have evaluated the emotional health of their relationship and have decided that it is best to detach and move on.

Objective: To get through the stages of detachment and move into learning from our experience:

• Acknowledgment- we begin by acknowledging and working with our feelings.

• Self-Inquiry- we then probe the feelings - it's important to find a way to explore your feelings that allows you both to be present with them and to stand a little aside from them.

• Processing- become aware of what has been useful in the journey you've just taken, regardless of how it all turned out.

• Creative Action- start something new with real enthusiasm for the doing of it, rather than out of the need to prove something.

• Freedom - the stage when thinking about your loss (or the thing you desire) doesn't interfere with your normal feelings of well-being.

General Approach: People with Borderline Personality Disorder have a history of stormy dysfunctional relationships. Members leave Borderline relationships because they are rejected or they need to protect themselves or protect their children from emotional or verbal abuse. But most departing partners struggle to disengage because they are bonded to an unhealthy partner in an unhealthy way.

The Detaching board is for grieving the loss of the relationship, doing the postmortem to understand what really happened, and working together to get in touch with our own feelings and the issues that lead us to the unhealthy bonding to begin with.

Comment:
Grieving is defined by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, MD. as five stages:

• Denial
  
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

Detachment is a multistage process that includes :

• Acknowledgement
• Self-inquiry
• Processing
• Creative Action
• Freedom

We ask all members to review the Lessons as they have time.