BPDFamily.com

As the memories of my BPD relationship pass by one by one, and i take distance while letting all the emotions flow, i do realize one thing:

I am a good person.

(The following may be a bit of a metaphorical description towards that conclusion, but i think it describes best my deepest experience.
I have learned all this can never be understood rationally, but the intuitive mind i found can.)

I am not as great a man i assumed myself to be at the start of my BPD relationship, in fact i myself may have gone through life with a limited set of narcissistic defenses to protect myself against my own past. I call them my TOWER, safeguarding my "wounded since childhood" person so i could still assault the world with the necessary power. It gave me a slightly grandiose type of confidence, on the other hand i would never qualify to be a true narcissist. I care for people and i can't hurt anyone, especially not my children or the people who i hold dear. I don't find pleasure in aggrandizing my accomplishments or bring other people down so i can inflate my own ego. Yet still, i had this Tower built around me, that allowed me to detach from the world and myself, so i could survive for several decades. This tower was also meticulously surrounded by thorny bushes, providing it with an slightly edgy appearance that would keep anyone with the wrong intentions at a distance. one lives as one can.

And then I meet someone. A person that is as wounded as me, who seems to have lived an alternative reality of my brokenness, who instantly gains my trust, who without any effort withers down those thorny bushes and finds the carefully hidden door that provides access to my Tower... and to my Heart.
She brought light into the darkness of my tower, and redecorated it initially in a dreamlike place that i would never have desired to leave.

Yet, even though the relationship was seemingly about the saving she needed, it ended up being a rescue operation of me, the relationship slowly but surely destroyed my Tower, assault after assault, every brick in that Tower was tested and triangulated till it shattered. In between there were moments of love for sure, short-lived time outs of healing, but the destruction immediately continued again when that love was withdrawn and the degrading resumed. I hid out  to not get hit by all the debris that was flying around. Until the very last brick gave in.

Until i just stood there unprotected, fragile and hopeless, but also forced to finally face myself. Realizing i had been taunted to fight back, to respond to abuse with abuse, to become the monster dragon my BPD saw in me, but i didn't give in to that. Not on any fundamental level. Also, while i could never prove to her that i loved her, i had proven that i stayed true to my values, to what it meant to me to love. Amidst the debris of the tower i finally discovered my True Self. A soul that perhaps was to good and caring for this world, hence it once needed this Tower.

Now i know i don't need the tower anymore, i don't have to appear anything different than what i am, i have all my strength inside me now, it is in my heart. I just have to become more selective about who deserves it and who i will grant access to my life. Cause what i have to offer is too good and genuine to be wasted.

In the end, suffering comes to all of us, but you discover who you are in the way you face it and hold up to it.

Love this - it contains all that anyone really needs to be able to learn, heal, try again.

Rev

I resonate with this and many of the sentiments you have shared here.
Thank you.

So much of what you wrote feels familiar. Painfully familiar to be precise. I still feel similar thankfulness for understanding the weakness and narcissism I had in my person.

You seem like a very intelligent creative person, as you think and feel visually, you probably have a mysteriously working connection with your subconscious. So I imagine your experience might have been similar to mine in more than one way. Maybe at first she was the perfect mirror to your talent, your best audience. Moreover, at first she shone on you so much, that you were filled with the most beautiful dreams about the heights you could reach together. She was the perfect Josephine to your Napoleon. And then it changed, you probably didn't do anything to really hurt her, but it felt like you had failed her terribly, as you were punished in so many ways.

She loves me, she loves me not. Mine appeared nice, never said anything directly hurtful to me, never mocked me, which made listening to her worries feel reasonable. Talking to her seemed like a smart thing to do, and I was feeling like we were advancing together, working through "our problems" as one is supposed to. So, it felt like I was respected, yet somehow respectfully destroyed at the same time. I learned, that everything I say or do can and will be used against me in the court of law. The shame which follows after you've been rejected in so many ways... it's almost unbearable. She loves me, she loves me not.

I remember this image from 11 years ago, when she showed me the door. I'm all wounded and exhausted, barely and painfully standing on burned steppe, which is still smoldering. I just knew no matter how far I would walk, there would be this flat ash covered ground only. No trees, no living plants whatsoever, no structures, no hills, or other shapes. That was what my world had turned into. I knew the whole world had to be built again.

Now, I rarely look at my world this way anymore, but if I do, I can see it is colorful, lush, lively and strong.