His childhood trauma/his birthday

[steelwork]

I'm feeling so guilty right now for being the proximate cause (i.e. not intentional cause) of such unendurable feelings for my ex. I am feeling deep regrets for the pain I put him through with my endless fence-sitting.

I'm thinking of it because I accidentally brought up the mail app on my computer that escaped the Great Email Purge of last fall--the place where some of his old emails still survive. I know I should go in there and get rid of that email archive as well, but I've lost everything else from him.

Here is something from an old email that came up today--something he wrote to me a couple of years ago:

"I have been thinking about childhood trauma lately as it relates to feelings of love. I am kind of interested in the idea that childhood trauma is, in a way, a huge gift, because it gives us access to these perfect copies of our younger selves. I guess where I'm going with this is that love seems to put me into a traumatized state -- not that I'm like, feeling awful, just that I'm more prone to magical thinking and all-or-nothing and dissociation. Those are the dangers for me. At the same time, I have access to wonder and tenderness and joy that I can't access in my "adult" life."

Tomorrow is his birthday. It will be the one year mark of the final rupture. I miss him a lot.

[WoundedBibi]

 

[steelwork]

Can I ask your opinion, hive mind? Do you think I should have read what he wrote and thought,   ?

I admit that I read it and it activates all my protective feelings, which are bound up with feelings of longing and destiny. Is this a problem? How do I hold onto my love of vulnerable, complicated people and still protect myself?

[steelwork]

[WoundedBibi]

Personally I wouldn't read it. I would be afraid to have a setback because of it, and having all these feelings again of "why? You seemed so perfect  :'( I loved you so much  :'( "

Ah... .yes... .Good question, right now I'm not sure either    Do I go for someone new that doesn't really do it for me because not vulnerable, do I try to find someone who had minor issues and solved those or, if I have worked on me enough would a less vulnerable man be able to catch my interest too?

Right now, no dating etc for me.

[bdyw8]

Hey Steelwork, sorry you're feeling that way, yes that would spell trouble for me and I too had a "great purge" in the fall.  The only emails I kept were the ones where I was writing her angry things about how she had been abusing me - just as a reminder for me that the "good times" weren't really as good as my brain can con me into thinking.

How do I hold onto my love of vulnerable, complicated people and still protect myself?

This was an interesting comment.  I think this strikes at the heart of why we go for people like those with BPD.  I found it VERY easy to open up about my past and about my crap and be vulnerable to my exBPD.  Sometimes I think this pre-mature vulnerability leads to feelings of need and perhaps that need is mistaken for "love".   I'm starting to re-think my whole process of relating with people, women and men.  Do I just "love" people because they let me be vulnerable?   On the flip side, it also feels good to be "needed" and to be a rescuer for someone that opens up to us too.  So perhaps the "need to be needed" can also be mistaken for "love". 

I'm learning that protecting myself means not being vulnerable to just anyone that comes along - again, the flip side is to have boundaries in place so that people don't come and dump there stuff on me either unless there is trust and a well-grounded relationship in place where I can feel secure in being vulnerable to someone and not being hurt or abused by them.  I've been abused by so many so-called friends just as much as my exBPD, so I can see my pattern now I've laying it all on the line and relying on them to fill that void in me that I have to learn how to fill myself.  Being comfortable alone is my starting point that I'm trying to work towards.   

[steelwork]

Well, I already read it, so... .to late! I'm not sorry, though, really. I feel a lot of compassion for him after reading that. I'm reminded of why the r/s was intolerable to him. He didn't end it honorably or honestly or with compassion for me, but I see in those words how much I triggered his old pain.

Maybe what I wonder is: how true are those words for me? Do I associate love with childhood trauma? Am I unable to fully experience tenderness and joy without the presence of trauma (his or mine)?

And what should I do with my need to be the understanding one?  I feel like there's a danger of overreacting. I don't want to become hard. Then again, I will just never be attracted to people who don't have some wounds. I know that. It's how I'm built.

And, by the way, do his words seem to say "BPD traits?" What he says about the effects of love, I mean. Does that mean the "traits" are something I brought out? He often told me he hadn't felt like this with other women. He told me after he dumped me that he didn't want to be open like that, and that he didn't have the ague for his new girl, though he loved her. Ague was our adrenaline and shaking and heart pounding, which never went away, even after three years. Maybe what he was telling me was that he'd found healthy love with her.

And now I'm back to feeling like I was the only unhealthy one. Really having a hard time with this. Feeling doomed.

[WoundedBibi]

Nonononono... .  Reread what he wrote: "love brings me in a traumatised state"

Sounds healthy to you? Me thinks not...

[WoundedBibi]

What has helped me a lot was something I read somewhere (don't remember where): intense does not equal intimate.

[steelwork]

Sometimes I think this pre-mature vulnerability leads to feelings of need and perhaps that need is mistaken for "love".   I'm starting to re-think my whole process of relating with people, women and men.  Do I just "love" people because they let me be vulnerable?   On the flip side, it also feels good to be "needed" and to be a rescuer for someone that opens up to us too.  So perhaps the "need to be needed" can also be mistaken for "love". 

Reading this makes me wonder, do I even know what love is? It felt so much like love.

Your words scared me a little, because I have a mother who does not love. Doesn't feel maternal pride or protectiveness, even. Her only way of getting "close" to others is to be of use to them in some way--help them out financially or with home repairs, give them a place to stay, do errands, straighten out their affairs in some way.

Am I some version of this, where I can only love by serving as an emotional pack animal?

I've been abused by so many so-called friends just as much as my exBPD, so I can see my pattern now I've laying it all on the line and relying on them to fill that void in me that I have to learn how to fill myself. 

I guess that's the ticket. It seems like a lonely road, but that just shows how hooked I am on enmeshment.

[WoundedBibi]

Same boat; I need to rethink love.

[bdyw8]

It takes two to tango, one person can't make a relationship dysfunctional so don't beat yourself up.  :)on't forget BPDs have an uncanny ability to make us feel as though we're totally to blame for everything and make us doubt ourselves so don't buy into the propoganda.  Just because he wrote something in an email doesn't make it true.  Walking the walk and talking the talk are two entirely different things.  My exBPD talked a good game as well and on paper to the outside world, probably looked sane and agreeable.  But that was far from the reality that only I knew (and obviously her ex-husband too).  

Your words scared me a little, because I have a mother who does not love. Doesn't feel maternal pride or protectiveness, even. Her only way of getting "close" to others is to be of use to them in some way--help them out financially or with home repairs, give them a place to stay, do errands, straighten out their affairs in some way.

Am I some version of this, where I can only love by serving as an emotional pack animal?

I wonder the same things as you do, so you're not alone in that either!  My parents sound frighteningly similar to your mother as well.  They won't give me empathy or compassion, but they will come over and clean my house.  When I tried to confide in them about my struggles with the break-up with my ex-BPD my dad was frustrated and angry with me and actually said that "if that is how you're going to react to a break-up, you should just pack it in".  I wonder if they knew that I was suicidal on a couple of occasions during the last months of the relationship - perhaps my dad would have chosen his words more carefully!

I'm on a journey to discover just what love and healthy intimacy are as well!   I'm sure I have experienced love but perhaps how I reacted and responded to it weren't healthy.  As you mentioned with the enmeshment... . Yes, the process of discovery can be frustrating and depressing at times but it's all steps in the right direction so don't be too hard on yourself!

[troisette]

Hi steelwork - not sure if this will resonate with you or not.

One line from his email jumped out at me:

" access to these perfect copies of our younger selves." - my ex used to tell me that his life in the here and now was perfect because "my life is perfect because I live in a bubble and I've got my friends and it's just like when I was ten... ."

Maybe there is an idealised vision of childhood, before BPD set in and adult concerns had to be dealt with?

The reality of my ex's friendships was different from his description but his idealised vision was important to him.

[steelwork]

It's March 18, the anniversary. One candle in my cake of sadness. Before I ever met him, 318 was my lucky number. For many years I had a 1964 Plymouth with a small-block V8 318, and though I'm not superstitious or anything, it just kind of became my number. It's in a lot of usernames and stuff. I always seem to look at my phone at exactly 3:18. And 3/18 is his birthday, and now it marks The End.

We were still in low contact, still supposedly friends, but he had stymied me in all my efforts to communicate about the end of the r/s and move on to the "friendship" part. He sent me dreams about me, wrote things that indicated that he wanted to meet and talk about our r/s, but then he started saying, "I'm tired, I'm worried about work. I'm feeling avoidant." And then he stopped responding to anything about meeting. I asked him, "You don't have to tell me when but please, for my sake, check yes or no whether you ever intend to meet me to have this talk." Nothing. I'd lost two r/s's, moved into a friend's basement, and had several other shocks in the previous two months. He had not once acknowledged my situation, not one word of empathy. I would tell him about what was going on for me and he would just... .skip over that part. So finally I told him I was concerned about that as well--that he wasn't curious about what was going on in my life.

So one year ago today, I send him a happy birthday email and told him it was weird that we weren't friends after all, when we'd always sworn we would be.

"Aren't we friends?" he replied." I know it's been a few weeks since we emailed but I thought we were friends." He told me he'd finalized his divorce and was relieved, babbled about that for a while, as though that should have no emotional effect on me.

I wrote back that I'd told him a few things I needed to feel like there was a friendship, and he hadn't responded to those, so I felt I had to take his non-response as a response. I congratulated him on his divorce.

He wrote back, "I must have missed that email, because I didn't know about the terms and conditions. Divorce is nice. Very f**king nice."

And that was it. Gone. I replied twice right after and then gave up. No contact for the next seven months, when I wrote to warn him I was taking our blog down. Just a polite BIFFY one-line email, which got a polite BIFFY one-line response.

So technically early October will be one year, but this is the meaningful anniversary.

Thanks for reading.

[steelwork]

Hi steelwork - not sure if this will resonate with you or not.

One line from his email jumped out at me:

" access to these perfect copies of our younger selves." - my ex used to tell me that his life in the here and now was perfect because "my life is perfect because I live in a bubble and I've got my friends and it's just like when I was ten... ."

Maybe there is an idealised vision of childhood, before BPD set in and adult concerns had to be dealt with?

The reality of my ex's friendships was different from his description but his idealised vision was important to him.

Strangely, I think he meant the opposite. The perfect copy he referred to was of a child who was being beaten daily, told he was possessed by satan, made to sleep in an unheated attic, and was dissociating to survive the experience. Though it's true that the perfect copy was still able to feel joy and tenderness--unlike the adult.

[steelwork]

I'm sorry to keep bumping my own thread. I'm just having a hard couple of days with the what-ifs and regrets.

This relationship was pretty much doomed, though, right?

Does he seem like someone with BPD traits? Is that how this reads to you guys, at least  based on what he wrote/what I've said?

[khibomsis]

Steelwork, I think 318 is still your lucky number. It's his birthday and you don't have to spend it with him. From your descriptions of your interactions he sounds like a cold unfeeling so-and-so whose life is all about him.And that to me defines BPD. He is unable to feel the compassion for you that you feel for him. I am glad for you that you can feel compassion. It is healing. But the person who is forcing you to spend his birthday with his selfishness is you. You don't have to do this. This could be the first day of the rest of your life. Go out there and do something nice for yourself! Get yourself a nice big slice of cake, light a candle, blow it out and make a wish. Moving forward may not be easy but it is a heck of a lot better than living in the past. , khib

[steelwork]

Thanks, khibomsis. I went for a jog and now I'm meeting a friend for a beer.

I don't think he's unfeeling... .I think his defenses make him seem that way. But maybe I'm kidding myself. I guess I think he was kind of cruel, but then he probably thinks the same of me.