A literal inventory

[Depression = 72% of members]

With my tendency to (unconsciously) push aside anything that's difficult to face, I'm going to use this thread as a sort of list of things I need to work on inside myself. If anyone has any advice, ideas, or resources that might help me confront the parts of myself that no longer serve, so I can worth through them and put them behind me, please let me know.

Thanks

[momtario]

With my tendency to (unconsciously) push aside anything that's difficult to face, I'm going to use this thread as a sort of list of things I need to work on inside myself. If anyone has any advice, ideas, or resources that might help me confront the parts of myself that no longer serve, so I can worth through them and put them behind me, please let me know.

Thanks

[momtario]

The biggest one, and likely the most difficult, will be confronting the sense of shame. I'm not even sure I understand most of it. But it's there.
The shame of the things I put up with
The shame of how I don't never left
How "the best I could do with what I had" was still painfully short of successful, when it came to protecting my children
There's more, but I have to go to work.

[momtario]

Another piece I'll have to work on is a long list of resentments. My tendency to not assert myself has led to a lot of quiet resentment.

[gotbushels]

Hi momtario 

I think many us have private shames and it's quite normal. Of course, I think quite a lot of us can identify with some form of disappointment in how we handled certain situations with the pwBPD in our lives. Sometimes we call that "putting up with" someone's behaviours. For many of us we tend to get very involved with the BP and it's often our most intimate relationship. In those cases, I think it's quite natural to feel more hurt by these encounters than our relationships with friends or even family.

Acceptance and self-compassion can help with the work you've set out to do   
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=89910.msg604907#msg604907
I encourage you to have a look and watch the video.

[momtario]

When i have a quiet moment I will. Thanks

[Moselle]

Momtario,

Confronting shame has been the most confronting and transformative thing I have done. And most of it has been someone else's shame that I have carried. Someone once said to me at CODA that "the heart of addiction is shame". It is a toxic thing that sits there, reinforcing the notion that we are inferior or not good enough.

Something else I have been working is self compassion and self love - doing as many things to be kind to myself as I can. The rationale behind it is that I want to have a healthy love relationship one day. And for me to attract a healthy partner who loves herself, and can then love me, I have to do and be the same.

I also have a matrix I use which identifies traits of Victim, Survivor and Thriver. I set goals and track my progress towards thriver every 6 months in my recovery journal. I was very happily surprised last week to identify some key progress in the thriver column. If you want a copy please PM me your email address?

Look forward to hearing what else is on your inventory list

[VitaminC]

That's a really good idea and project, momtario. 

I'm giving meditation a go most recently. Along with my own analysis and articulation, writing, talking to friends both in my physical life and here, meditation is another way to practise gentle self-care. In my case, I would not have got involved once I noticed the red flags, and certainly would not have stayed once the devaluing behaviours kicked in, if I had my own inbuilt sense of value of myself. I wouldn't have wanted to get it from another human - as it turns out, a human who is, of course, completely incapable of giving it to himself, much less anyone else.

So, yes, my main goal is to realise I am ok in a deep enough way, that I can be free to let a significant other in without hoping somewhere in me that he will rescue me from the parts of myself I don't like and have not yet accepted.

I recently tried Loving Kindness meditation, and found this really quite tough. Just sitting there and wishing for myself to "be well and be happy" was very hard. I think I wish this for everyone and generally go through life in a quite optimistic and positive way, but there are very obviously dark forces at work in me. And this relationship is one that I stayed in because some part of me wanted very much to confront those things and not go along in my usual way; intellectualizing things, slipping in and out of awareness of myself, being the life of the party while wilting inside.  I thought this type of meditation might just be a panacea, a blanket to throw over my head - but I do think it can have a powerful effect. Just realising the resistance I had to being nice to myself in the simplest way made me think about this in a new way.

Instead of buying myself something I want or making a roomful of people laugh and getting the feel-good effect that way, or lusting after the idealization by another - I am going to try to give myself some gentleness on a daily basis in a really focused way.

Maybe this is something you'd want to consider?

Also, Moselle, I am interested in your matrix and have sent you PM with my email address

[Moselle]

I'm busy with a 'fearless moral inventory' as part of step 4 at CoDA.

This might very well be the hardest thing I've done. I recognise 'denial' being at the heart of co-dependence. I find it easy to make excuses, or blame my parents or ex spouse. This inventory strips through all of that and lays bare who we really are. Which is the only time we can really start meaningful change.

Here are a few of the topics:
Fear
Resentment
Isolation  (of ourselves)
Approval Seeking
Caretaking
Control
Fear of Abandonment
Fear of People and Authority figures
Frozen Feelings
Low Self Esteem
Over developed sense of responsibility
Sexuality

Can anybody related to any of these?

[gotbushels]

I relate to that Moselle.    My relation to that is that the process takes time but it can give quite a lot of good things.  For example for fear of abandonment, I sought understanding about it because of my ex, and out of it I got a few things. I received gratitude for life; a realisation of how blessed I am to have a superior support network and personal capability to not have a "black hole" myself; and realising that I wasn't alone on a sort of base-level occasional loneliness.

I also noticed parts of this fear in others that helps me to understand them more.

I also found that I was in an easier-to-manage position than a lot of other people--that felt good as it had a validating quality. Being okay with that being quite "normal" was also quite mentally freeing too. I haven't gone through a CoDA program so I'm not sure if this is similar to your experience. Is it?   

[Moselle]

I can definity relate! My core issues are around self esteem rather than abandonment however.

I realised I was just digging a deeper and deeper hole. On so many levels. So I just decided to stop digging until I figured this out.

In 2015 I thought I was safe to enter a new relationship so I tried. I had done alot of work around understanding the issues. Mine and ex's.

When this relationship turned out to be borderline as well, despite my more than adequate rational understanding, I decided enough was enough and joined coda.

Faced with the daunting list of codep traits, I became very rational, and in my head. I have learned since to open my feelings, particularly anger. Examine the deep shame i have carried, and begun to nurture/parent my inner child.

I found a set of criteria to judge where I was on the victim, survivor, thriver continuum and was quite surprised to see myself mostly in the "victim" space. After 6 months of emotional work I've now graduated to "survivor" on most criteria. And this has given me confidence to go for "thriver".

That's really what I'm after. But the move from victim to survivor has been quite groundbreaking. The reality is that my old friendships some of them 30 years old have become frustrating. I see the traits. And they appear frustrated with me. I am trying to heal from it and they are still the same.

So I am connecting with people who are healthier and this transitional phase seems quite daunting. A process indeed! One that seems to take longer than I would like . I am also learning gratitude and acceptance for what I have, and where I am.

Perhaps the greatest lesson from coda has been that I am powerless to change this on my own. Handing it over to a higher power and now facing my inventory, i have no excuses, no rationalisations, no blaming parents or ex. It's just me... .A recovering co-dependent.