FOO, Detaching from R/S, and therapy for me

[Elsegundo]

Looking at Gina Louise's post a few days back and reading what others' said about FOO's really resonates with me.  In fact, I'm finding that the past few months, I am not only recalling memories of abuse that go waaaay back, but somehow in the process of dating and detaching from my exdBPD GF (gay couple), so many things that I just plowed through for survival back then and since to deal w/my family I've realized are more nuts than I thought!  

Like someone else said on a post about FOO's, I went straight to the acceptance stage and never really processed the other aspects.  I think I am now.  

I left my house at 17 bc I couldn't take it (in addition to a dad that wasn't do much around, like GLs, my mom married a physically and emotionally abusive man who one family therapist at that time said was BPD.  He never sought treatment.).  The abuse was in the form of fights, so I never really called it abuse, and the fights often included more than one of us at a time. I lived in a rented room and finished high school.  Honestly, I went to really good academically selective magnet school, and it was THE reason I stayed in my city and plowed through it all; it, and my friends, were my safe and validating spaces, one where I learned that logic, which I could always trust, ruled rather than emotions, which I couldn't always rely on, got me far.  I went to therapy, put myself through college while working, and figured my best "revenge" was a healthy successful life.  After graduating college with highest honors, I got a scholarship for a free Master's program, and then got a good job.

Stopped talking to mom, would come home to other family house during college, and they emotionally supported me.  Mom is still unhappily and unhealthily married to same man.  

Incidentally one thing I loved about my dBPDex is that she seemed solid (employed, owned apt., had good friends) and a loving, healthy family nearby.  In fact, I bonded with her mom--she always asked about me, which never happened before w her other GFs, and when we broke up the first time, her mom kept bringing me up, asking what happened (GF would never say).  :)espite having been in longer, healthier r/s before, this one was the first where I really thought we could be married and have a family.  She was always talking about this, and since it was important to both of us to have balance between seeing each other and friends/time alone (her first time trying this), it seemed healthy.  And then a stressful change happened and I got gaslighting, push-pull (which I experienced in my FOO, so I at least "knew" it), withdrawl from communication, and then silent treatments--the latter opened the abandonment stuff that I thought was healed in me.  Nope!  We seemed to trigger each other from then on.

Healing from this current r/s, I have reopened old wounds, which I thought I'd already healed, but I can see I have lots of rebuilding to do.  I'm also having a hard time talking to my FOO right now.  For years, whenever I see my family, I have strong boundaries in place and always my own mode of transport.  Now I feel like my internal walls were leveled and behind them was MUSH!  It feels like I'm taking care if me by not so much engaging w them, though I feel guilty too.  Somehow choosing not to be there for them despite their constant letdowns in making me feel bad!  I struggle knowing they, esp my mom, do/did the best they can BUT ALSO they've chosen to live in dysfunction.  At one point, being w/ex made me feel like I did back then with FOO, amidst all that FOG and it made me SUPER ANXIOUS!  Constantly stressed over every little thing as though my body was living back with my FOO.

I know this is why I tried so hard when ex wanted to be friends.  I still go back and forth missing my ex though I accept we shouldn't talk.  I'm trying to become a better communicator by working the tools here, connecting with/communicating my feelings and needs in the moment (which I did somehow while with ex in the beginning, and at first she seemed to love), and starting schema therapy.  

Not sure where that lands me, but here I am.