boundaries and mixed emotions in post-r/s friendship

[Depression = 72% of members]

Setting aside what I'm going to do with my ex going forward, I am going to take more seriously that I am suffering from PTSD symptoms and try to get a therapist to take that seriously.  

Wise choice - this takes courage and strength to get to this point... .you have shown both.   

Peace,

SB

[seeking balance]

Setting aside what I'm going to do with my ex going forward, I am going to take more seriously that I am suffering from PTSD symptoms and try to get a therapist to take that seriously.  

Wise choice - this takes courage and strength to get to this point... .you have shown both.   

Peace,

SB

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[KateCat]

Good work, P&C.

I think a therapist would take this experience you've had very seriously. Perhaps, judging by the number of posters here who've had similar dramatic experiences, it could be the basis of a "syndrome," even. 

Is it so very different than "Stockholm Syndrome," perhaps experienced in chronological reverse? As I lazily recollect it, some women tellers in Stockholm were held for roughly a week in a bank vault by bank robbers. The initial act of "terror" by the hostage-takers then morphed into repeated acts of "kindness," which so subjugated the women psychologically that they defended the men for days, weeks, months, years after. I believe at least one even married one of the hostage-takers after he completed his prison term.

You experienced initial acts of great kindness/reciprocity/identification, followed by abrupt and bizarre acts of psychological terror. (The opening salvo regarding you and your daughter is a telling example. Especially since you subsequently heard that confounding break-ups with quick soul mates was a pattern of your guy.)

It's not too likely that the Stockholm women were an unusually mentally unhealthy lot, is it? Or that you and other women here who've come to accept and endure things you probably thought you would not, are especially sick puppies either.

I personally have never experienced anything quite like what you've described. On the part of any human being. It's got to be a sort of "limit experience" in the human realm. Crazy as any war, and maybe crazier, as you can't know who or what your enemy is.

(If you are ever looking for ways to exercise your formidable writing talents in a journalistic format, exploring this particular type of trauma bond might be an interesting project. I mean like, way later in time, when all this is far in the rear-view mirror.)

[Grey Kitty]

  P&C I just want to say that I'm very glad to hear of your progress, and add simply: Helping you find something like your need to work through PTSD is exactly why I'm posting here on the PI board. No apology required. 

I hope you are able to find a T who helps you work through this, or get your T on track with it.

[patientandclear]

Thanks so much for all the kind words & warmth, you guys.

I am not doing very well.  I think it is coming to terms with a reoccurring pattern that I had managed not to discern until now: he breaks everything we start to build.  A romantic, sexual relationship.  Then, a friendship while he worked on being alone (because he didn't do that).  Then, our initial reconnection as friends (by hammering me out of the blue with distancing and a pronouncement about how he only wanted to be friends -- a completely unnecessary (to me) repeat of his earlier rejection of me).  Then, our growing closeness as "friends" (when he suddenly up & moved).  Then, my effort to extend my trust in our r/s past his move (when he stopped communicating with me for 10 weeks when I gently raised the question of why he was ditching his entire existing life so impulsively).  Now, our increasingly intimate r/s after making up after that rift, by seemingly shifting his attention to someone else as a primary reference point.

I keep telling you guys I am practicing radical acceptance because I have scrambled onto new ground with this guy and it is worth it to me to be on that ground.  But the piece that is doing me a lot of damage is that no matter was ground we are on, it crumbles.  All that I know for sure I can expect from him is that he will leave -- leave whatever we are doing.

It is super painful.  As I wrote above, I am clear I need to explore my own traumatic injuries in this r/s no matter what our future holds in connection with one another.

As to him, and us, though: I don't know how I'd say to him, as Maybe So suggested, "step up to the plate if you want to be in my life."  What even is the plate?  You know?  "Be consistent?"  "Stop changing?"  "Find a way to take care of and continuously prioritize this thing with me if you want to keep it?"

As far as I can tell, if I am brutally honest, he wants me now as a security blanket.  I keep him warm & from feeling alone when there is nothing else compelling going on.  AND he has decided I am too potentially hurtful or problematic as a real partner, so no matter how good our thing is, he is not going there.  That's a hard cocktail to accept.

A member who occasionally posts on one of the other boards, Conundrum, has written in the past few months a few posts about how we go wrong when we attempt to have a "possessory interest" in someone wBPD.  This really rings true to me.  You can love them but you have to set them free.  Utterly free.  Not free in order to earn their uncompromised loyalty, which may have been the trap Maybe So & I both recently fell into ... .just, free.  Knowing we will not be their only significant points of reference.

That sounds like the most loving & healthy orientation toward someone with BPD, honestly.  But I'm feeling like that approach is playing into a trauma loop for me.  It resonates with a lot of "less than" feelings and betrayal feelings because he does periodically create the impression that we are so special, and I start to feel like surely he won't break this, he'll be more careful  ... .and like Maybe So said at the top of this thread, that is really me thinking maybe he doesn't have an attachment disorder.

Not at all sure where I can or should go from here, with him, as I "stay," which I am still committed to doing in some fashion.  He is just being him -- I think it would be a big deal if I were to re-abandon him, and I don't see that he deserves that, as he hasn't violated any express arrangement we had.  He just continues cyclically to shred the bonds between us, is all.

[myself]

You will not outsmart this disorder.

I'm only halfway through this thread, but this line just jumps right out and can summarize what we are all going through. Could be the motto of this site.

It comes down to: If you really do accept him as he is what he is, there would be no pain involved, would there? This goes beyond compassion and loss, beyond adapting to the (same old same old) variables. Overthinking our own expectations can lead us to put up walls where there didn't use to be so many, and lower our self-protective boundaries. Each of those bring doubt, amongst other detriments.

BPD is a puzzle that can't be solved because it won't allow it to.

[myself]

P&C, hello, sorry to hear you're struggling. You always do seem pretty clear, getting your thoughts across. Opening your eyes as much as possible, reaching out when you feel the need to. Still in the holding pattern of waiting for the love relationship to be back together and solid. That's really been the undercurrent. It's ok in some ways, where you are, you're trying to make the best of it, but you're looking for a place to land, and land with Him. It's who you are! You want to be with him. You care about him, and you feel better when he's showing that he actually cares about you, too. Each of you saying yes you want to be together but no, here's why, but yes, but no, and each gets more confused. Each pulls away and comes closer, repeat, etc. Each keeps the pattern going. Each side very much affected by what is going on, responding in the ways you've grown accustomed to.

The degrees of PTSD, trauma, betrayal, selfdoubt, etc., extend down into the roots of ourselves and this site, as well as the possibilities of positive change, trust, and love. The time to flip a coin on that is long past gone, it's time for all of us to Decide For Ourselves. To live our best lives. That can include standing by people who are troublesome to us, to say the least, but are important pieces in our stories (and we in theirs), and it also should include a healthy sense of when to draw the line. For how others can act with us as well as how we accept ourselves and carry on.

If what you really feel is to BE with him, maybe what will cut this tension and get rid of a lot of these questions is to just say that to him, once and for all, and if he goes for it... .Why go around that? Aren't your intentions good? Prolonged exposure to this IS harmful! As he 'shreds the bonds between you', and the light is coming in, what is it that you REALLY see? Act on that. Believe in that. Sifting through this, where's the gold?

[123Phoebe]

As to him, and us, though: I don't know how I'd say to him, as Maybe So suggested, "step up to the plate if you want to be in my life."  What even is the plate?  You know?  "Be consistent?"  "Stop changing?"  "Find a way to take care of and continuously prioritize this thing with me if you want to keep it?"

What is your plate, P&C?  A place where you're no longer feeling hurt, rejected and betrayed by him?

[eeyore]

As to him, and us, though: I don't know how I'd say to him, as Maybe So suggested, "step up to the plate if you want to be in my life."  What even is the plate?  You know?  "Be consistent?"  "Stop changing?"  "Find a way to take care of and continuously prioritize this thing with me if you want to keep it?"

What is your plate, P&C?  A place where you're no longer feeling hurt, rejected and betrayed by him?

good question... .and what happens if he's not capable of the things on the plate, Then what.  I found it interesting that Maybeso's guy showed up yet again promising the moon.  When does it stop?

[MaybeSo]

I saw a T while going through the worst of my r/s and it was exactly like what you describe P&C, only worse cause I was in so deep with him, and I allowed it to go on so long and have involved myself with so many devestating recycles.

I was suffering some PTSD from it, but I do feel much better and much stronger right now. I do not shake anymore or ruminate about the past anymore, well, not much. I truly feel I went into PTSD and moved through it and out the other side. There is such a thing as "post traumatic growth"; PTSD doesn't have to be an awful thing that never has any good outcome. Hang in there P&C, it will get better, and being in T does help.