Taking back power

[kc sunshine]

Hi!

I've read the phrase "taking back your power" from the PD a few times-- can you all explain what it means?
Thanks!

[anothercasualty]

I suspect people have different interpretations of this phrase. For me, it meant stopping the analyzing and hoping that something could be different. I effectively put my life on hold to wait out her BPD tendencies. Once I started living life without her, I started to "take back the power" from her PD. I was now in control of my life and not allowing her PD to be center.

I can't wait to read what others have to add.

[FallBack!Monster]

After countless hours of reading, taking back power to me means getting a grip on reality.  No wondering what's happening, If he is or is he not cheating on you. If he loves you. In general educating yourself well enough to clear up your own confusion.  Your own self doubt which made you stay in a r/s where you questioned everything about the r/s and your partner. It takes a series of steps. First is
Accepting my reality. This was the hardest. But I feel I cannot move forward if I don't.  Then, accept that it's still going to hurt/bother me sometimes for a while. OK! done.  Now I take it day by day. Only difference is that there's no doubts (I'm sure) or hateful thoughts. I tell myself if I see/hear from him or not HE DOESN'T control my feelings either way. that's how.

[kc sunshine]

That is so helpful. I guess taking back our power is different for each one of us, and depends on where we let our power go. I will think about that for me.

[Butterflies free]

For me, taking back my power encompasses "the truth shall set you free"
Once the truth of my exBPDbf's illness was defined for me, I was able to discern without a shadow of a doubt the legitimacy of my concerns and received the answers to all of my questions regarding the rollercoaster ride of the 3yr relationship.

Taking my power back consisted of removing my self doubt, guilt, fear in order to reinforce my self confidence, my innocence and my courage in the face of a mental illness I could not control, understand, rationalize.

NC allowed me to remember whom I was before I fell into the quicksand of BPD with someone I loved deeply, but also know I can live without.

Sometimes, love just isn't enough... .

[woundedPhoenix]

Taking back power in my case meant several things:

First of all, gaining power back over myself, in retrospect i was under her spell more then i realised. I refused to see through her manipulations for too long and had covered up all the lies and selfish behaviour even for myself, i was in denial. I had supressed my very own intuition, my built in virus scanner was offline, allowing her to mess with my systems freely.

Getting power back over my own angels and demons... .my hopes, dreams, self-doubts and fears by which she was able to remote control me. Becoming aware of the inner game that got me stuck in the fog and subsequently fighting my way out.

Getting power back over the power play dynamic, mostly by not playing the game at all and just set my own hard limits.

And most of all... .realising that you are powerless against someone that chooses to self destruct relationships, who gets anxious or bored when loves isn't mixed with pain and conflict, who needs to vibrate heavily between fears of abandonment and fears of intimacy to be able to feel, and can't handle a stable loving relationship because of it.

Letting go of any attempt to change it or wish that it was different ironically puts the power back to you... .it frees up your energy to change your own life and walk a different path.

[stimpy]

I think we all interpret it differently, but for me it wasn't one action or event, it has been a gradual process of detachment, and as I detach I get closer to being me again, and being me again means I am in control of who I am and my destiny. What this  means in practical terms is that I am now thinking more and more about what I want in life, what matters to me, who I like, who I don't like, where I want to live, what I want to do with my career... .etc... .etc... .

It is all about me!

When I was in the FOG it was all about her. Trying to keep her happy, trying to show my love for her, trying to help her, trying to meet her (ever changing) expectations, trying not to get upset when she was hurtful or uncaring.

[fromheeltoheal]

Hi kc-

I've read the phrase "taking back your power" from the PD a few times-- can you all explain what it means?
Thanks!

It's normal among humans, who are social animals, to help one another, and when we help someone we focus on their needs and ask how can we help?  So we help.  Although in relationships with some people, turns out they always need help, so the relationship dynamic is such that we're always helping, always focusing on their needs, maybe to the exclusion of our own.  And not only that, if we take on the identity of "helper" or "rescuer", then not only are we no longer considering our needs, we're gaining a sense of identity and a role based upon someone else's needs.  That's called codependency.

And then, it may be the case where we are subjected to abuse and/or disrespect by the person we're "helping", and continuing to tolerate it by using justifications like "well, that's just the way they are, they have a rough life after all, they're always in pain, always struggling", or even worse "well, I deserve to be treated like that." 

And add to it the accepting of blame for someone else's emotions, like really, are we really responsible for someone else's feelings?  But we could get to a place where our partner is in a bad mood but won't take responsibility for it, and will say something like "well, it's because you... ."; always us to blame, so then we may scamper around trying to "fix" everything to make our partner feel better, when feeling better is their responsibility.

So taking our power back is to say NO!.  I will no longer put someone else's needs ahead of my own, I will no longer tolerate abuse and disrespect, I will no longer take responsibility for how someone else feels, I'm done with that.

And there's another level.  We are responsible for our behaviors, always, so if we do something that hurt someone else and we decide that it was wrong, we screwed up, then we need to apologize.  Then again, sometimes we do things and someone gets hurt, because of what they make it mean, and it wasn't our intent to hurt them and we don't feel like we did anything wrong, in which case the response can be "I'm sorry you feel like that".  And also, taking our power back includes setting and enforcing boundaries, meaning that if someone is abusive or disrespectful, that's a problem, and we either talk about it and resolve it to our satisfaction, nobody's perfect after all and we all make mistakes, so we resolve it, or we remove that person from our lives.  And another part of enforcing boundaries is we don't take responsibility for how someone else feels, and if someone tries to "blame" us for their bad mood, we have that conversation to our satisfaction and it gets resolved, or again we remove that person from our lives.

Does that make sense kc?  I certainly gave away a lot of my power in my relationship, can you relate?

[Larmoyant]

This is a really interesting post. I'm not sure if this is taking power back or not, or if it's enough, but for me it looks like this:

I took my power back when I said "no more" and acted on it. When I moved into my new place and didn't tell him where I lived. When I decided he needed to give me something other than manipulation, guilting, and blaming  if he wanted to come back into my life. I require mature conversation, taking of some responsibiity, honesty, no more game playing, no more push/pull. He cannot do that so I have made the decision that he is not allowed back into my life. If by some miracle he steps up then I'll talk with him, but in the meantime, I'm not waiting anymore. I'll take back my power and get on with other things in my life.

I suspect that doesn't sound particularly powerful, but it might be a good start.

Thanks for posting this KC. Made me think.

[kc sunshine]

Yes, I certainly gave away a lot of my power as well.

One main way is that I gave up a lot of my truth (both literal and figurative).

One of my truths is that my relationships with my friends as well as well as maintaining a good solid relationship with my ex-partner are important to me. These both were very threatening to my BPD ex and I ended up not quite hiding them, but certainly minimizing their presence in front of my BPD ex. In the end, this became very threatening to my BPDex as well (she became suspicious of why I didn't check my phone when I was with her, etc), so it wasn't even very effective in maintaining the relationship. And it totally facilitated my giving up my power.

One of the good things about my BPD ex in terms of helping me to both identify and ultimately hopefully heal from my codependent traits or proclivities is that if things like minimizing my life were coping strategies that worked for some of my earlier dysfunctional relationships-- she wouldn't have any of it. Her rages/threats to leave me provoked the coping patterns... .brought them out in the open... .but since she was in the push stage, they totally didn't work (when in other relationships-- my FOO included--they did work). So that is a difficult, but very valuable gift of BPD to me.

How I'm taking my power back: This is slow to happen, but one way is to be more open about my life on Facebook, even though I know my ex is on there. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm getting there. I'll know I have taken my power back when I can post something there and not worry one bit about her reaction.

Hi kc-

I've read the phrase "taking back your power" from the PD a few times-- can you all explain what it means?
Thanks!

It's normal among humans, who are social animals, to help one another, and when we help someone we focus on their needs and ask how can we help?  So we help.  Although in relationships with some people, turns out they always need help, so the relationship dynamic is such that we're always helping, always focusing on their needs, maybe to the exclusion of our own.  And not only that, if we take on the identity of "helper" or "rescuer", then not only are we no longer considering our needs, we're gaining a sense of identity and a role based upon someone else's needs.  That's called codependency.

And then, it may be the case where we are subjected to abuse and/or disrespect by the person we're "helping", and continuing to tolerate it by using justifications like "well, that's just the way they are, they have a rough life after all, they're always in pain, always struggling", or even worse "well, I deserve to be treated like that."

And add to it the accepting of blame for someone else's emotions, like really, are we really responsible for someone else's feelings?  But we could get to a place where our partner is in a bad mood but won't take responsibility for it, and will say something like "well, it's because you... ."; always us to blame, so then we may scamper around trying to "fix" everything to make our partner feel better, when feeling better is their responsibility.

So taking our power back is to say NO!.  I will no longer put someone else's needs ahead of my own, I will no longer tolerate abuse and disrespect, I will no longer take responsibility for how someone else feels, I'm done with that.

And there's another level.  We are responsible for our behaviors, always, so if we do something that hurt someone else and we decide that it was wrong, we screwed up, then we need to apologize.  Then again, sometimes we do things and someone gets hurt, because of what they make it mean, and it wasn't our intent to hurt them and we don't feel like we did anything wrong, in which case the response can be "I'm sorry you feel like that".  And also, taking our power back includes setting and enforcing boundaries, meaning that if someone is abusive or disrespectful, that's a problem, and we either talk about it and resolve it to our satisfaction, nobody's perfect after all and we all make mistakes, so we resolve it, or we remove that person from our lives.  And another part of enforcing boundaries is we don't take responsibility for how someone else feels, and if someone tries to "blame" us for their bad mood, we have that conversation to our satisfaction and it gets resolved, or again we remove that person from our lives.

Does that make sense kc?  I certainly gave away a lot of my power in my relationship, can you relate?

[bus boy]

 In my case I started being more involved in s10's. Xw had total control and power, such as what I was told about his school or events, when I could see him and on and on. I went to s10's school with the court order, so now I had all equal rights as a parent, pic day order form, report card, attendance, parent teacher, the whole works. I started pushing and sticking to the court order, mind you all this made me public enemy number one. Slowly but surly I took back the power I gave Xw. For me it was all a part of the letting go and detaching steps in recovery from the BPD r/s.

[Mr.R.Indignation]

I can't really say all that much since I've recently broken NC, but NC was a big factor for me. I didn't have to care anymore and I was making no more desperate attempts to resuscitate a corpse. You come to accept that in the bad times you were just knocking on the glass of a two-way mirror. Started thinking that even though it's a complex situation, maybe it's all too simple; it's all too complicated. Through acknowledging the hard reality of that lack of power you're given a solid foundation to build a better world for yourself.

In addition, during the course of my r/s I almost always drew a line in the sand and stuck by it. As a life rule I believe in being genuine. No placation and no surrender for an easy way out, because as HeeltoHeal said, either an issue is resolved and you move on or it's not and you move on. What I didn't count on was that despite sticking to my guns theoretically, I was losing myself to passive aggressive conflicts. In an attempt to communicate and get through to T (ex), I'd started taking on her unhealthy habits when she wouldn't let up about something. Detoxifying myself from that was also important.

One of the things that I find most astounding browsing this forum is the diversity of experiences and personalities, and yet so many of us have the same feelings, worries, anger and conclusions. I think that goes to show how vulnerable humans are as a species, but also kinda the strength we all have too, especially communally.