Trying to explain to others...

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

My mother and I have a really healthy relationship. Always have. Sometimes we go weeks or a month or more without talking and it's all good. She knows I'm going through something, but while with my exBPDgf she didn't pry. She knew I was trying to make something she would never understand work and just trusted me to do it or leave it. I went through some gnarly stuff with my father,her exhusband, and she knows I'm tough. She thinks she knows that nothing could compare to the stuff that man put me through. Tonight we were talking over FB Messenger and she finally asked me "So how are you? Can you tell me about it? I've been in a few bad relationships and might be able to identify. Want to talk about it? What have you been up to?"

Here was my reply:

"Since you asked... .it's the greatest tragedy I've ever faced. I can't even discuss it with people who haven't been through it. My online support crew is the only thing keeping me on the rails right now. If you haven't been with someone with BPD that you loved and wanted to see get better then you just don't even get an opinion on it. The other disorders? Treatable. Mood disorders? Medicate. Alcoholism? Intervene. Scizophrenia? Medicate.

But the Cluster B personality disorders? They will make you feel like you're in the middle of a tornado of broken glass and barbed wire trying to pull someone out while they scream "help me!" yet cling to the ground and kick at you while they yell ":)on't leave me!"

There really are no words. The words are wasted on people who don't know and my time is wasted on people who think they understand. If one more person who doesn't have a clue tries to identify or empathize with me by drawing parallels to some bad relationship they had in the past I'll just throw down and gut them.

So yeah. We (those of us who've been through it and tried to last) develop our own spectacular form of PTSD. Did you know "normal" women look dead to me? Their eyes are empty, their voices bland, their kind words sound like lies and every sentence sounds like three more under the surface before I throw that idea away because normal women aren't smart enough or sharp enough or deep enough to properly use subtext or innuendo or hide a meaning or a veiled threat. They're worthless and they bore me because I know they won't try to destroy me, and if they do I'll see it coming from a block away and they will fail. Or they'll be kind and genuine and sweet and perfect and none of it will land on me because they are emotionally incapable of loving me anywhere near as hard as someone who's emotions start at 150 and go to 5000 because normal people can only feel on a scale of 1 to 10, me and you included.

And I try to explain this to people who haven't been there and they nod and think they're special and that they know what I'm trying to say. Some think they have some sort of special grasp, or that they might be unique enough to understand 150 to 5000... .but no. They don't. If they did I'd see it all over them.

This is what I fight with. The volume and brightness have been turned down halfway on the whole world, and it was always like that but now I notice. You? The people we know? None of it. No one gets it. So I talk to others who've stared into the burning star and touched it and had it engulf them in flames, loving every second of their destruction... .and somehow managed to pull back before we were turned to powder and ash and lost dreams.

So there's your answer, that's what I've been up to lately.

How have you been?"

I know most people would be like "you said that s**t to your mother?" But her and I are cool like that. She wasn't upset at me. She just said "Holy, wow. I know there's nothing I can do but let me know if there is."

I know you all get it. Thanks for being alive crew of bpdfamily.com

[Shale]

My mother and I have a really healthy relationship. Always have. Sometimes we go weeks or a month or more without talking and it's all good. She knows I'm going through something, but while with my exBPDgf she didn't pry. She knew I was trying to make something she would never understand work and just trusted me to do it or leave it. I went through some gnarly stuff with my father,her exhusband, and she knows I'm tough. She thinks she knows that nothing could compare to the stuff that man put me through. Tonight we were talking over FB Messenger and she finally asked me "So how are you? Can you tell me about it? I've been in a few bad relationships and might be able to identify. Want to talk about it? What have you been up to?"

Here was my reply:

"Since you asked... .it's the greatest tragedy I've ever faced. I can't even discuss it with people who haven't been through it. My online support crew is the only thing keeping me on the rails right now. If you haven't been with someone with BPD that you loved and wanted to see get better then you just don't even get an opinion on it. The other disorders? Treatable. Mood disorders? Medicate. Alcoholism? Intervene. Scizophrenia? Medicate.

But the Cluster B personality disorders? They will make you feel like you're in the middle of a tornado of broken glass and barbed wire trying to pull someone out while they scream "help me!" yet cling to the ground and kick at you while they yell ":)on't leave me!"

There really are no words. The words are wasted on people who don't know and my time is wasted on people who think they understand. If one more person who doesn't have a clue tries to identify or empathize with me by drawing parallels to some bad relationship they had in the past I'll just throw down and gut them.

So yeah. We (those of us who've been through it and tried to last) develop our own spectacular form of PTSD. Did you know "normal" women look dead to me? Their eyes are empty, their voices bland, their kind words sound like lies and every sentence sounds like three more under the surface before I throw that idea away because normal women aren't smart enough or sharp enough or deep enough to properly use subtext or innuendo or hide a meaning or a veiled threat. They're worthless and they bore me because I know they won't try to destroy me, and if they do I'll see it coming from a block away and they will fail. Or they'll be kind and genuine and sweet and perfect and none of it will land on me because they are emotionally incapable of loving me anywhere near as hard as someone who's emotions start at 150 and go to 5000 because normal people can only feel on a scale of 1 to 10, me and you included.

And I try to explain this to people who haven't been there and they nod and think they're special and that they know what I'm trying to say. Some think they have some sort of special grasp, or that they might be unique enough to understand 150 to 5000... .but no. They don't. If they did I'd see it all over them.

This is what I fight with. The volume and brightness have been turned down halfway on the whole world, and it was always like that but now I notice. You? The people we know? None of it. No one gets it. So I talk to others who've stared into the burning star and touched it and had it engulf them in flames, loving every second of their destruction... .and somehow managed to pull back before we were turned to powder and ash and lost dreams.

So there's your answer, that's what I've been up to lately.

How have you been?"

I know most people would be like "you said that s**t to your mother?" But her and I are cool like that. She wasn't upset at me. She just said "Holy, wow. I know there's nothing I can do but let me know if there is."

I know you all get it. Thanks for being alive crew of bpdfamily.com

[Turkish]

I think it's great that you are that comfortable with you mother to be able to communicate like that. She validated you. How did you feel after she answered?

[khibomsis]

wow Shale, that was an amazing description of BPD place. I could never have put it into words like that.Years later and very happily married, I have learnt to appreciate the silence and the ash (good fertilizer) . But I remember that feeling you evoke.

[C.Stein]

Did you know "normal" women look dead to me? Their eyes are empty, their voices bland, their kind words sound like lies and every sentence sounds like three more under the surface before I throw that idea away because normal women aren't smart enough or sharp enough or deep enough to properly use subtext or innuendo or hide a meaning or a veiled threat. They're worthless and they bore me because I know they won't try to destroy me, and if they do I'll see it coming from a block away and they will fail. Or they'll be kind and genuine and sweet and perfect and none of it will land on me because they are emotionally incapable of loving me anywhere near as hard as someone who's emotions start at 150 and go to 5000 because normal people can only feel on a scale of 1 to 10, me and you included.

This is a very bleak outlook for you.  As long as you keep thinking like this you will be stuck in these types of relationships and will suffer the consequences of them (mental and physical). 

Have you asked yourself why you would willingly trade safety and contentment with fear and anxiety?   You know as well as anyone here the BPD wild and careless energy, burning as bright as 10,000 suns, is not sustainable or stable and will eventually explode in your face. 

Also consider you provided some of that spark and energy in your relationship, it was not a one way exchange nor is it unachievable in a "normal" relationship.  Why can't you bring some of that to a "normal" relationship in a healthy way?    What is it exactly you are looking for in a healthy relationship?  Do you even want a healthy relationship?

[Shale]

This is a very bleak outlook for you.  As long as you keep thinking like this you will be stuck in these types of relationships and will suffer the consequences of them (mental and physical). 

Have you asked yourself why you would willingly trade safety and contentment with fear and anxiety?   You know as well as anyone here the BPD wild and careless energy, burning as bright as 10,000 suns, is not sustainable or stable and will eventually explode in your face. 

Also consider you provided some of that spark and energy in your relationship, it was not a one way exchange nor is it unachievable in a "normal" relationship.  Why can't you bring some of that to a "normal" relationship in a healthy way?    What is it exactly you are looking for in a healthy relationship?  Do you even want a healthy relationship

Yes, it is pretty bleak. I know I won't always feel that way, but it is the reality of my current situation. I wasn't like this before, won't be like this later, but for the present I am exactly that bleak. LOL.

I wouldn't willingly do it again, but I certainly did for almost 4 years. And I'm pretty sure I know why too... .no one has ever loved me that hard and it was intoxicating and addictive. I'm a danger junkie, I always have been since I was a little kid. My own adrenaline is my first drug of choice. So even once BPD started rearing its ugly head at me through my ex I wasn't exactly as terrified or appalled as most people would be. And I'm desensitized because I had an explosively violent father, so next to him she didn't look nearly that dangerous. Until she was, but it wasn't anything totally unfamiliar to me. Sustainable? Nope, not at all. Which is why she's the ex.

I certainly do bring that spark to any other relationship I've ever had, and probably will again. All that scares me is being bored with that person. It's going to be hard to compare to the intensity of the good times. Once you taste that, if you're me, I'm afraid everything else is going to taste like hamburger helper.

Obviously I want a healthy relationship. I've had a couple. I'm just brutally realistic with myself about how far off that is in my future. This is going to take a long time to settle the needle back to the middle. Meanwhile, as bleak as it is, this is real. Eventually her influence on my outlook and how she dovetailed nicely with my weakness for danger will fade.

[Shale]

I think it's great that you are that comfortable with you mother to be able to communicate like that. She validated you. How did you feel after she answered?

About exactly as empty as I did before.

[kc sunshine]

Wow, Shale, you describe it absolutely perfectly. I wish we could all be in a room somewhere, sharing our stories. Online is good but I want to ask questions, hear you describe it as well as read it.

These things:

"Since you asked... .it's the greatest tragedy I've ever faced. I can't even discuss it with people who haven't been through it. My online support crew is the only thing keeping me on the rails right now. If you haven't been with someone with BPD that you loved and wanted to see get better then you just don't even get an opinion on it. The other disorders? Treatable. Mood disorders? Medicate. Alcoholism? Intervene. Scizophrenia? Medicate.

The volume and brightness have been turned down halfway on the whole world, and it was always like that but now I notice. You? The people we know? None of it. No one gets it. So I talk to others who've stared into the burning star and touched it and had it engulf them in flames, loving every second of their destruction... .and somehow managed to pull back before we were turned to powder and ash and lost dreams.

[kc sunshine]

You know what's been interesting on my journey of understanding lately? My ex's daughter and I are close, and she's wanted to maintain a relationship with me after the breakup. So we've been meeting once a week to talk and lift weights and she's talked a lot to me about her difficulties at home (I've stayed neutral in hearing about them, and she doesn't ask me for confirmation or anything). She journals a lot, so it is a combination of her talking to me and reading me her journal entries. She told me that she feels emotionally unsafe at home, and then read me a description of trying to talk to her mom about it. Her description was totally dead on. She talked about how she eventually had to apologize and take it all back and how devastating that was to her. Her trying to explain it to me has made the danger more clear (yet still so enticing... .I wish it wasn't, but hopefully I will get there).

[C.Stein]

I certainly do bring that spark to any other relationship I've ever had, and probably will again. All that scares me is being bored with that person. It's going to be hard to compare to the intensity of the good times. Once you taste that, if you're me, I'm afraid everything else is going to taste like hamburger helper.

Being bored is a controllable thought process.  If you continue to think you will be bored in anything other than a BPD type relationship you will be.  That brings me to the comparison ... .DON'T EVER COMPARE.  Find other healthy ways to fulfil your desire for "danger", I am certain you know this.  You should never be faced with danger in an intimate relationship.

[C.Stein]

The volume and brightness have been turned down halfway on the whole world, and it was always like that but now I notice.

I was there too ... .until I wasn't.  I loved it, craved it, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before.  As my relationship progressed that insane intensity diminished ... .and it always will, normal relationship or not.  Eventually the over bright colors dulled to gray then to black as the FOG and anxiety filling my mind and heart.  This is the inevitable conclusion of relationships like this.

[whiplashed_mom]

Thanks for sharing this, Shale. I was fascinated by your description, and could see it being made into a beautiful and terrifying animation, with the different sides of the personality flashing in and out of the light.

Selfishly, can I ask you what do you think my son might be going through? He seems to have Stockholm syndrome, and has officially alienated himself from our very close and loving family, and perhaps all his friends in order to, he said, "protect" his new family, his uBPD wife. He is no longer there in his words or actions. It's been a year since I last saw/spoke/ communicated with him, and 6 months since my only grandchild was born. Will he have a nervous breakdown, or further dissolve some other way? He's probably still very committed to marriage. He'd always been a reliable, quiet serving-giver. She got a great catch.