Hello there,
I'm new to the boards.
A brief summary, 3.5 year rship with uBPD. We don't live together, that didnt work. I'm familiar with the symptoms of BPD and the major ones that have affected me are projection, splitting and her outbursts out of the blue... .
I'm not sure if I want to continue in this relationship, but until I make that decision, I want to learn better communication skills with her, I am a good communicator but it doesnt seem to have much affect with her, as she forgets what I have said and certain words I may say that seem nebulous, she goes crazy over. I want to learn how to validate her appropriately, though, even if I ask her about things, she may not say anything, and then boom, outburst again.
I react to her behaviour at times, this doesnt work. I want to keep my clarity and not continue to second guess and get confused about why something has happened.
I also want to learn to respond appropriately when I feel she is projecting onto me. I have pretty good boundaries in general, and timeout. however, there is no consequences to her inappropriate behaviour, I seem to fall into rescue mode. Then the whole Transactional analysis model plays... . I want to learn when these roles are playing out. For example, she had a major outburst this weekend, we hadnt seen each other for 2 weeks. I had been going through my own issue at work with a situation and felt stressed, plus I'm just over a viral infection. Prior to her coming over, I mentioned that I wanted to have a lovely weekend with her, i'd be taking her out for dinner and a movie. She was also excited about coming over and seeing me. There was absolutely no reason for us to argue, the phone conversation a few day prior was good... . She came over Saturday, quite tired (she works full time). I noticed that she wasnt all together engaging, i put it down to her being tired. We went out for dinner, she was too tired for the movie so we went to the beach, had an icecream, all was good... . she woke up in the middle of the night and although I was asleep at the time I must have put my arm over her to hug her, she pushed it away aggressively, woke me up... . next morning her energy had changed, she told me that I don't let her tell me how she feels (about my behaviour?), and when she does, I bring up all of the times she has hurt me and been in appropriate to me. I validate her feelings everytime, and yes, i have brought up stuff (which I can see now is because im still pissed off about the stuff she has done)... . however, I am aware of this and need to let go of past stuff... . so, we talked about it, and I obviously said the wrong thing, she lost it. She went into my bathroom and screamed so loud that I thought my neighbours were going to call the police, it was embarrassing! and distressful for both of us... . she told me not to come near her and she was going to get cancer from all this stress? what the heck.
So... . I think a normal, well adjusted person would just walk away from this... . its ridiculous... . what happens for me is that I feel guilty (for what, i dont know), secondly im confused because I didnt see it coming. Secondly, its like she loses clarity with the things we have said, the things she has said... . She told me that ive been doing this behaviour (not validating and talking about what she has done to me for 3.5 years), the following day she denied every saying 3.5 years!
I talk to a good friend about this, she validates my experience but its confusing and stressful.
Is it common for uBPD BPDs to lose clarity?
I suspect that this outburst and anger (which is really hard to throw on a behaviour that ive apparently been doing)even though she was soo excited to see me 2 days before it happened... . is due to her own stuff, the feelings come up and im a great target... . maybe i represent her mother, or the perpetrator of childhood issues that she has recently contacted... .
All i know is that i have to look after myself and i want to know that ive done the best i can in this relationship,and if, once i have mastered these skills of
[url=https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-validation]validation[/b][/url], communication, boundaries, timeout etc etc and it still isnt working, i can walk away without regret... . I hope all this makes sense... . ive rambled but I think ive needed too.
thankyou for listening and any suggestions would be appreciated... .
sincerely
scythian
