Having a bad day... Feels like it's my fault.

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

Hello you lovely bunch!

It's been 8 days since our 4'th and final (I sincerely hope) meltdown with my ex-BPDgf. I know what I have to do, I know I have to detach. We've been LC (we work together so it feels like im required to do this in order to keep things in check), a couple of days ago we had a long and sincere discussion about our r/s. I told her that that's it not going to work anymore, no matter how much we want it to, we'll just keep digging ourselves deeper into this mess, and that we should leave it at that, while we still don't openly recent eachother. She agreed with me, it was like she finally saw the light, that we have to move on with our lives.

Today the love-bombing commenced again, and I was feeling so down that I just couldn't help but responding with how much I miss her aswell. Also, yesterday, I read Melody Beattie's 'Codependent No More', I felt really bad about reading that book. I've recently realized that I didn't have a healthy childhood at all, with a codependent father and a narcissistic mother. But the reason I felt so bad was that I really realized that im so much to blame for the r/s aswell... .It's been so easy for me to put all the blame on her, that she treated me the way she did and she doesn't deserve me etc. But it takes two to tango, I've come to realization how much I enabled this behaviour. It was not all about that SHE made ME feel bad, but that I made HER feel bad aswell.

I know I can't change her, she can only change herself, which I really doubt will happen. I recently suggested that she should talk to someone about her emotional turmoil, but I was shot down immediatly, she would "take care of her own problems herself, never in her life that she'd speak to a T". But a thing that hit hard is the fact that I was in such an emotional turmoil aswell, that I was so "sensitive" to her episodes, that when every time I got back together with her, and she promised that she wouldn't let her present feelings dictate how she would act, I calmly waited for the next outburst.

When this finally happen, I was hypersensitive to every single thing, so when the realy outburst came, that she "wasn't sure she wanted me anymore", "wanted to isolate herself with her cats for the rest of her life", or "don't want me to meet her family and friends" I just decided that this couldn't go on anymore, I have to bee free from these emotions.

Now a week later, it feels like I was overreacting, that she's really "the good person that she's told that she was once, before she met me", and that things will change when I LEARN to not be as sensitive to her outburst... .

I'd really like some advice :/ Thanks

[krax]

Hello you lovely bunch!

It's been 8 days since our 4'th and final (I sincerely hope) meltdown with my ex-BPDgf. I know what I have to do, I know I have to detach. We've been LC (we work together so it feels like im required to do this in order to keep things in check), a couple of days ago we had a long and sincere discussion about our r/s. I told her that that's it not going to work anymore, no matter how much we want it to, we'll just keep digging ourselves deeper into this mess, and that we should leave it at that, while we still don't openly recent eachother. She agreed with me, it was like she finally saw the light, that we have to move on with our lives.

Today the love-bombing commenced again, and I was feeling so down that I just couldn't help but responding with how much I miss her aswell. Also, yesterday, I read Melody Beattie's 'Codependent No More', I felt really bad about reading that book. I've recently realized that I didn't have a healthy childhood at all, with a codependent father and a narcissistic mother. But the reason I felt so bad was that I really realized that im so much to blame for the r/s aswell... .It's been so easy for me to put all the blame on her, that she treated me the way she did and she doesn't deserve me etc. But it takes two to tango, I've come to realization how much I enabled this behaviour. It was not all about that SHE made ME feel bad, but that I made HER feel bad aswell.

I know I can't change her, she can only change herself, which I really doubt will happen. I recently suggested that she should talk to someone about her emotional turmoil, but I was shot down immediatly, she would "take care of her own problems herself, never in her life that she'd speak to a T". But a thing that hit hard is the fact that I was in such an emotional turmoil aswell, that I was so "sensitive" to her episodes, that when every time I got back together with her, and she promised that she wouldn't let her present feelings dictate how she would act, I calmly waited for the next outburst.

When this finally happen, I was hypersensitive to every single thing, so when the realy outburst came, that she "wasn't sure she wanted me anymore", "wanted to isolate herself with her cats for the rest of her life", or "don't want me to meet her family and friends" I just decided that this couldn't go on anymore, I have to bee free from these emotions.

Now a week later, it feels like I was overreacting, that she's really "the good person that she's told that she was once, before she met me", and that things will change when I LEARN to not be as sensitive to her outburst... .

I'd really like some advice :/ Thanks

[hope2727]

On my cell at work but I had to reply even if briefly. Go re read co dependant no more. I think you missed some of its main point. Seriously. It is NOT your fault. Period. The end. No one deserves to be treated that way.  Hugs.

[TheCodependent1]

I'm sorry to hear you're going through a difficult time. I myself have just entered a third week of NC with my ex-BPD when she split me 'black'. The desire to contact my ex is intense, it is unlike anything I have ever experienced. I have never been addicted to any hard core drugs, but if I were this is what I imagine it would feel like. I am addicted to my ex-BPD and I will remain addicted, maybe forever.

The key word is 'addicted' and just like any other addiction it will drag you down to the depths of despair and leave you ruined unless you recognize it and spend every waking moment of your life afterward working to heal yourself from it, so you have a chance for true happiness. What you are experiencing right now isn't true happiness, what you are experiencing right now is the result of your addiction and it won't get better.

Focus on yourself, go NC, stay NC and every single time you are wanting to speak with her, realize you are relapsing with your favorite drug and it will destroy you.

[krax]

On my cell at work but I had to reply even if briefly. Go re read co dependant no more. I think you missed some of its main point. Seriously. It is NOT your fault. Period. The end. No one deserves to be treated that way.  Hugs.

Thanks for responding! I know the book is all about taking care of yourself, and I feel miserable being with her when stuff like this happens. It's she who is making me miserable, it's ME making ME miserable for staying with her. Which all in all is very valid reason for leaving someone. I think it's just my codependence talking here... .That I didn't give enough, that I should just let her go on and trying to not care about it... .After all, she makes me feel kind of good in between. But now she proved once again that she is not to be trusted. But I just keep making rationalizations on her behalf... .Which I KNOW is wrong.

[thisworld]

Krax hi

I'm sorry that you are experiencing a lot of inner dilemma. I went LC with my ex after we split-up because he was volatile and did not react well to NC. I also had a lot of anxiety as to what he might do so LC gave me a sense of safety and control, too - at least I knew that he wasn't in my town for instance. But I have also discovered that he understood LC as a one foot in the doorway and I received lots, really lots of love bombing for a while. This truly affects our emotions, triggers a lot of things about the past. We are at a vulnerable stage trying to detach after all. I choose to see this as a normal outcome of this kind of contact at this stage and don't blame myself for slipping in my mind. Neither do I take my thoughts that seriously. They come when I'm exposed to this kind of communication. And I'm less and less affected now. Nowadays, I put more focus on how quickly I can bounce back from the inner turmoil when it hits rather than beating myself over it.

I'd like to share my thoughts about other things in your post but have a couple of things about limited contact in my mind.

1. As another member here shared with me once, LC helps us understand where we are in our own detachment. So, where would you consider yourself in relation to the 5 stages of detachment describes in this lesson? (Maybe, what you are experiencing is both a slip and the beginning of a new stage.)

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=136462.0

2. You say that you are communicating with her for work reasons - like sharing the same workplace, you need a certain level of civility between you two. This is so understandable. I chose LC because my T advised it but called it gray rock, a type of communication where you are being so dull, so so dull that the insistent person loses interest and thinks HE is leaving you. It was of course difficult to stick to this because of my own ego reasons - who wants to be so dull- and the dialogues we had were very strange to me - him very emotional and volatile, me trying to do S.E.T and be boring at the same time. But in the end, I managed something! I see that you are not threatened by your ex in any sense at all and that is very positive. Many people here use the BIFF technique when communicating with their ex partners. I think that helps us practice our boundaries and keeps us emotionally safe. In the end of the day, we don't have control over what we receive, but we have control on how to respond.  


https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=134124.0  

Do you think this could be helpful to you?

As for codependency and owning a lot of things as if they were our own fault, Beattie's line of thinking says that we need to understand the "exact nature of our wrongs" at a certain point. It means taking responsibility for our actions but also not for things that weren't our fault. (we are very prone to do the latter sometimes.) How do you distinguish between the two usually, in your everyday life? What do you look at?

Best,

Best,