How long did it take?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hi all,

I am about two YEARS and three months from having talked to/communicated with/or set eyes on the BPD person.  There are days and days where he does not enter my head at all.  I have never looked back in the sense of wanting to talk to him of thinking there may be a different outcome.

Yes, I still have times where i feel sick about the whole thing.  Not about it ending, about it even having begun.  And I do still get anxiety/ptsd and have that 'looking over my shoulder waiting for him to stir trouble' quite a bit.  Even before he emailed me a couple months ago (I didn't open it). 

I still have times where I hate myself. 

How long did it take you to stop looking over your shoulder?  To stop hating yourself and your part in the whole craptastic thing?  To move on without wondering when they were going to pop up and not let go?

Please make note - in NO way do I want him to come around again.  I am scared of that happening.

So how long did it tae for you?  Or do we ever get there?

[sheepdog]

Hi all,

I am about two YEARS and three months from having talked to/communicated with/or set eyes on the BPD person.  There are days and days where he does not enter my head at all.  I have never looked back in the sense of wanting to talk to him of thinking there may be a different outcome.

Yes, I still have times where i feel sick about the whole thing.  Not about it ending, about it even having begun.  And I do still get anxiety/ptsd and have that 'looking over my shoulder waiting for him to stir trouble' quite a bit.  Even before he emailed me a couple months ago (I didn't open it). 

I still have times where I hate myself. 

How long did it take you to stop looking over your shoulder?  To stop hating yourself and your part in the whole craptastic thing?  To move on without wondering when they were going to pop up and not let go?

Please make note - in NO way do I want him to come around again.  I am scared of that happening.

So how long did it tae for you?  Or do we ever get there?

[clljhns]

Hi sheepdog,

I can tell you that when I decided to go NC with my uBPDmom and uNPDdad, I was terrified that they would come and kill me for outing them to everyone. I went into therapy, but there were days that I would panic when I would hear a sound in the house late at night. I would sit straight up in my bed, heart pounding, and terrified that they had broken in and were coming to shut me up. I also would freeze when I saw a vehicle that looked like theirs or saw a man or woman that looked like either one of them. It finally subsided after about a year. I realized that I had been afraid of them my entire life, but once I was able to regain my confidence with the help of my therapist, this subsided.

Was there any abuse in the relationship? Has he made any threats toward you?

You might want to read this article on surviving the break up from a pwBPD. https://bpdfamily.com/content/surviving-break-when-your-partner-has-borderline-personality

Wishing you all the best. Glad you are here! You will find many supportive people on this site.

Peace and blessings. 

[fromheeltoheal]

It's been a little over two years for me too, and although I remember everything, the emotional energy is totally gone.  She lives 1700 miles away, or at least did, and hasn't tried to contact me in a year and a half, so I don't think I'll ever see or hear from her again, which is fine with me.

To stop hating yourself and your part in the whole craptastic thing?

Gotta work on that one, hating yourself is a choice, and in general it's not very empowering, yes?  Choosing what to believe and what things mean can go a long way with that.  I hadn't been in a relationship in a while when I got with her, and I made a lot of rookie mistakes, but I choose to believe that was something I needed to go through on the way to the relationship of my dreams; it was all a learning experience, and boy did I learn a lot.  Not a good choice for relationship training, but I was lonely and susceptible when she showed up, and went all in.  And now, two years later, I look at the relationship as a gift, since the pain motivated a growth spurt that has put me in a very different place, a much better place, I feel like I grew a lot of years in the last two, and for that I'm grateful.

What if everything happens for a reason, and it serves us? 

How 'bout asking 'what's good about this?' or 'how can I use this?' or 'what can I learn from this?'

Or do we ever get there?

I don't think I'll ever go back to the way I was before he relationship, wouldn't want to.  My naivete died during and after, long time coming, and I feel much more able to have a healthy relationship now, and certainly a lot better at figuring out who I'm getting close to quickly.  Plus, I show up more and better in the rest of my life, because I crossed a line with her and after her: I am who I am, I'm great with that, and if someone isn't going to be accepting and supportive, they gotta go.  Right now.  I will no longer be who I think you'll like.

Little windy, but hope there's something you can use, and take care of you!

[Lucky Jim]

Hey sheepdog,

Take heart, and don't beat yourself up for having gotten into a r/s with a pwBPD.  Who knew?  I would guess that the majority of us on this site had no concept of BPD before getting into a r/s (or marriage) with a pwBPD.  So we're all learning on the fly, so to speak.

I agree with fromHtoH: it helps to look back at how one has grown as a result of being exposed to BPD.  I lost my naivite, too, yet the experience made me deeper as a person, for which I'm grateful.  I know myself better and celebrate who I am.  If someone or something is not OK with me, so what?  Now I strive to be authentic, which is what it's all about, in my view.

Maybe some of this sounds "new age-y" but I'm here to confirm that it does get better.  So hang in there.

LuckyJim

[Shankz]

hi!

just what they said, don't try to blame or beat yourself up. Just, keep good care of yourself, i know you can past all of this troubles you have now.

[laelle]

Hey Sheeps, 

Its been a while since I have spoken to you.  How are you feeling these days? 

It has been almost two years since I have spoken to the guy who came into my life and helped me to make a mess of everything.  There is not one day that goes by that I dont think either about him, what lead me to get with him, or the havoc we both created in our lives.  It doesnt hurt like it use to, and I have forgiven myself for my part in it.  Forgiving him is a slower process, but if I can forgive me for being ill, then by right, I have to also extend that forgiveness to him.  I do not have to EVER repeat it, but I do eventually have to let go of it.

As I know a bit about your history, do you think that your fear of him popping up is due to the fact that there are still issues that you feel need to be dealt with?  Who wouldnt get spastic at the thought of chaos knocking on the door after they had spent so much time putting themselves and their lives back together?  I think you are a very kind and gentle person and guilt is not something that you live well with.

You know you only have two choices... .  tell your H or change how you perceive the situation.

 

If you feel you need to be forgiven for your part, then only one person can do that in this case. 

If you feel that you made a bad choice (due to the manipulation of a sick, sick man), then forgive yourself for it, and move forward with the lessons learned.

I know the thought about having to rehash all the pain you went through at each of his attempts to contact you is not pleasant, but that really is a consequence of the past.  Forgive yourself, ignore the attempts to contact you and move forward.  You played the part of victim once, dont do it again.


 

[Caredverymuch]

Hi all,

I am about two YEARS and three months from having talked to/communicated with/or set eyes on the BPD person.  There are days and days where he does not enter my head at all.  I have never looked back in the sense of wanting to talk to him of thinking there may be a different outcome.

Yes, I still have times where i feel sick about the whole thing.  Not about it ending, about it even having begun.  And I do still get anxiety/ptsd and have that 'looking over my shoulder waiting for him to stir trouble' quite a bit.  Even before he emailed me a couple months ago (I didn't open it). 

I still have times where I hate myself. 

How long did it take you to stop looking over your shoulder?  To stop hating yourself and your part in the whole craptastic thing?  To move on without wondering when they were going to pop up and not let go?

Please make note - in NO way do I want him to come around again.  I am scared of that happening.

So how long did it tae for you?  Or do we ever get there?

Hi sheepdog,

We read a lot about forgiveness of self here.  Thats something I don't quite apply bc I do not hate myself.  I never have.  In fact, I liked the person I was very much when I met my exBPD. I realize the chaos of the r/s bought out codependency that I never knew I had.  And although this is not a blaming statement, pBPDs WANT you to be codependent on them and the r/s in greater than life ways.  So, despite the fact we have codependent traits in whatever form they lie active or dormant, a pBPD will defy all boundaries and love bomb and idealize and cling like hell to gain that full codependancy from you.  This is where I wish I used my logic rather than my heart. So, if forgiveness needs to be self applied thats the area I wish I threw the brakes on. I've always been able to care for myself and handle a great deal but it was like being pulled and pulled and pulled further from the shore and instead of keeping my footings, I let go and went far too deep in what I believed to be great truth. 

I dont think one ever fully returns to their former self after these r/s.  Part of that is the gift.  A larger part of that is the trauma.  The trauma for me is very basic: someone I knew and cared a great deal for literally disappeared over night.  So all the lessons we take from this experience aside, thats one trauma I will never fully heal.  I liken it to someone being abducted while you sleep. There a moment before , then ... .just gone. And no one knows what or why or how while you deeply die inside w immense shock and immense grief.  Thats how it felt to me to be in such a deeply loving r/s w such a gentle needy caring man and to just close my eyes for a moment and he was gone.

The part of me that I have lost the most as a result of this experience is that truly soft heart I always knew was so natural and effortless.  As well as trust. When you open yourself up so fully and grow so deeply w your partner as so many of us did, that in itself requires great trust.  To have that all defied, discarded, and coldly devalued and then to be fully erased, all in one stroke,   is something I dont think I can ever fully understand.  Thats a great wound.

I think largely we can all say the further we get away from the r/s, the more introspection we can continue to apply.  Much about my own situation still confuses me at times. One thing I am sure of is that I know love. I do know that love is not based on need of another.  Its not an addiction.  Genuine love is the complete opposite of both.  Thats the love I had for my expBPD.  And of course a great reason why it still hurts bc my love was that love. 

In that, I could never hate myself.  I just need to always trust myself and to apply that very same love to me, first, foremost and without waiver. Which I have absolutely gained from this experience.  I will only share that gift to an emotionally available and equally valued other moving forward. 

[Reforming]

Hi Sheepdog,

It's over two years since I last saw my udBPDexgf.

I have good periods, where I feel I'm moving forward and healing, but for me at least it's still a frustratingly slow and intermittent process.

We were together a long time - almost sixteen years and at times I still really miss her and I get flooded by grief and anger at what happened.

Some of that anger is directed at her, but most of it is directed at myself.

Why did I accept her behaviour?

Why wasn't I stronger?

Why didn't I walk away sooner?

Why did I not take better care of myself and my own life?

Most of the time I find forgiving myself very hard - I think I always did and I realise that I carried a lot of my own shame into the relationship.

I think this is why the relationship and my exes behaviour was so devastating.

It reinforced that nasty punitive voice in my own head that told me that I'm no good.

And that voice is so ingrained and insidious that I often don't even notice it, but for years it's been stabbing away at me.

After breaking I've been working on myself first in CBT and then Schema Therapy. I've been working to recognise that voice, confront it, shut it up and replace it with the healthy adult or parent who unconditionally loves and cherishes the vulnerable child part of me.

I think I'm making progress though at times it feels frustratingly slow.

I've found that guided imagery and written dialogues between my healthy adult and my vulnerable child have helped.

As well as forgiving myself I've got to learn to trust myself again.

I wonder whether this is something you're struggling with as well.

I know that you don't have any desire to reconcile, but it's natural and probably healthy to be afraid of being drawn in again just like one did in the past.

It takes time and more importantly work to rebuild yourself, to forgive yourself and begin to trust yourself again.

I think it has less to do with time and more to do with doing the work on yourself and getting the right help

Good luck

Reforming

[1989]

Hi, Sheepdog,

I think I stopped hating myself when (as heeltoheal points out often and correctly) I was no longer the person I was before the relationship woke me up the final time.  I understand far more about myself than I ever did before.  The person I am today would not get involved with someone like my ex w/BPD.  I don't hate myself or my actions/responses from then because I didn't know better back then.  The craziness didn't even seem crazy because I grew up in chaos.

I will never respond to him again.  I would never answer a call, email, text, knock on the door, because I know better now.  There are times that I suspect it could be him calling with blocked numbers, but it doesn't upset me anymore because I know that I am done. It's over for good when we're done, and that makes me feel a lot better.   

(I hated myself for 22 years.  I was ashamed of what I had put up with.  It took about 12 months after he ditched me the last time to stop hating myself because that's when my therapist told me about borderline personality disorder and I discovered co-dependency.)

[Grey Kitty]

Hi sheepdog!

I still have times where I hate myself. 

I think I see the progress buried in that statement. Are you finding that you feel that way less often than you used to?

Are those feelings changing or shifting when they come back?

 GK

[sheepdog]

Thank you so much, everyone.  I am sitting here crying, thinking about all that you wrote.

I don't think I hate myself less.  I think I am just maybe more so tired of hating myself that sometimes I push it to the back burner.

My shame over what I did is pretty intense - to the point where if someone acts in a way that isn't friendly toward me, forgets something, etc. - I think it is because they *know* and they can see the person that I am and what I did.  More than likely, it may not have anything to do with ME but I feel that it does and it's all because of that. 

Reforming, I don't think I'm afraid of getting sucked back in.  Actually, I know I'm not.  I never want to speak to him ever again and I see 1000% percent how toxic and dangerous he is to me mentally.  I am afraid, though, of blackmail and him telling what he knows of me to everyone.  Terrified.