exit stage left

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

Hi guys,
 I had to see the xBPD at work today when I was just getting off my shift. It was just a glance, and I was able to run out a side door while he entered in the front... He wasn't on the schedule, so this was unexpected. Seeing his arrogance, I became enraged, shaky, and filled with hatred. I'm just learning in the section for emotions, tools for ruminating, and naming "files". haven't been able to put it to use yet though. N/C works best for me! but this keeps opening up the wound. I feel like a fool. The anger is because of the "use". I loved with an open heart.
When I was discarded, I didn't know quite what was going on. I tried my best to love him unconditionally, as he said he was depressed. He asked to borrow cigarette money from me when he was having sex with someone else.( I didn't know that at the time) Whatever I could be of "use" for. All I have to do is remember this, and I am brought to the bare bones of what this is. a long time coming, healing from this.

[panhead67]

Hi guys,
 I had to see the xBPD at work today when I was just getting off my shift. It was just a glance, and I was able to run out a side door while he entered in the front... He wasn't on the schedule, so this was unexpected. Seeing his arrogance, I became enraged, shaky, and filled with hatred. I'm just learning in the section for emotions, tools for ruminating, and naming "files". haven't been able to put it to use yet though. N/C works best for me! but this keeps opening up the wound. I feel like a fool. The anger is because of the "use". I loved with an open heart.
When I was discarded, I didn't know quite what was going on. I tried my best to love him unconditionally, as he said he was depressed. He asked to borrow cigarette money from me when he was having sex with someone else.( I didn't know that at the time) Whatever I could be of "use" for. All I have to do is remember this, and I am brought to the bare bones of what this is. a long time coming, healing from this.

[Mutt]

Hi panhead67,

Are you glad that you got through it? I understand that angry feeling where you feel like you're shaking, my knees would shake at the sight of my ex. Another member suggested to let yourself feel the emotions, feel everything and use wisemind to re-center your thoughts, do that when you feel anxious when you see your ex, you'll get conditioned to it eventually. I had to see my ex once a week, I wanted a method where I didn't feel triggered for a half an hour after I saw her at switch on / switch off days. Now switch on and switch off is at daycare, so we don't see each other.

Your feeling angry because he used you as an ends to means - objectification. Did you have more examples? You don't have to talk about if you don't want to.

[panhead67]

Hi Mutt,

Thanks for what you shared. It's a good thing that you have the switch on/switch off days at the daycare now. That's a good thing. Thanks for reminding me I got through it! and some tools I can use for future sightings!        

I am in a place of discovery or trying to understand my part, will try not to run on with this. hoping to create positivity and peace in my life for future.
I haven't experienced a successful relationship, and wonder about it's possibility. This past  relationship brought me to this board, where I learned what BPD is, that my mom was uBPD. And recently, a concern that I have BPD traits, what part they have played, or if they are normal, jus being with a partner with a pd. I am a recovering person for 24 years in aa.  I took like a ten year break from any close relationship, after I had my son 11 years ago, with a man I met in aa, who abruptly discarded me, after finding out I was pregnant with his child.
I poured my love into my kids, my pets, and church, and trying to become whole. I was really in the best place I had been for my entire life, when I met my now ex. I guess I felt my own love when I poured my love into him, and it was amazing! Maybe this is why for the first time in my life I thought I had met my soulmate, because of mirroring... .I had never experienced this before, and I felt he was the one I would be with for the rest of my life. Til life with him unraveled, and reminded me of a low budget horror film, with a few tender moments.
 I am trying to come to terms that I exchanged about eight years of abstinence, 2 of those of purity, for a man that triangulated me with his room mate. I feel betrayed, as he is not capable of empathy or honesty, and now trying to cope with the fallout, addiction to who I perceived him to be, umm which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist in reality, and sexual addiction to him, which is painful and too real.
I am practicing mindfulness of the moment. I need to discover some additional outlets for these very difficult feelings. What did you discover that helped you... .

[Mutt]

Do you feel disappointed? Where you waiting for the right moment to dip your toe back into the dating pool? Sure, I'll give a little background. My adoptive mom died of cancer 35 years ago, I didn't realize the impact that had on me because I didn't work through the grief, I turned inward and later I became depressive and anxious.

I had a lot of anger directed towards my dad because he remarried quickly after my mom died and some of trauma that was caused by him, he had kicked me out of the house at 15, for a short period I spent time in foster homes and group homes. It's like that saying, wherever you go there you are, you can't run away from your problems.

My early to mid twenties were horrible because of my anxiety was full blown, panic attacks, depression, anxiety I tried to take my life because I felt like nobody cared, it was a cry for help. I hated my dad because he was so self centered and invalidating, for awhile I thought that he was narcissistic, my biological mom has met him, she doesn't think that he is and I believe, he's undiagnosed with an anxiety disorder and ADHD. Doing the self work from grieving the loss of my marriage with an ex wife with BPD traits answered questions in the past and in the present.

My biological mom helped me with looking at my dad from a different perspective, his actually. I never stepped out and tried to look at it from his point of view, my biological mom said I'm aggressive towards my dad. He lost his brother and father in an airplane crash when he was young, he comes from a time were men didn't grieve or went to therapy, it was looked upon as a sign of weakness. He lost his wife too to cancer, he had a lot of loss and he was a single dad.

I can understand why he has an anxiety disorder and why he's self centered because he can't see beyond himself, he has a lot going on inside that he doesn't put on display for the world. I liked how said that the mirroring felt like you were experiencing what you put out there in the world, it's a neat and rare experience, I felt like my exuBPDw was down to earth, easy going which is really me.

I feel sorry for my dad and my ex because they're both not taking care of themselves, they may very well live out their lives suffering from undiagnosed mental illnesses, where I have the chance to take care of myself, feel better about myself and the world around, the most important that both showed me as what is important life and that is relationships, something I struggled too all of my life.

A break-up with a pwBPD made me look at my schemas why I struggled with r/s's, I don't want my kids to develop BPD, depression or anxiety, they may but I can help them with their esteem, I've gone through a similar experience with an undiagnosed mentally ill parent and I want to prevent the same pitfalls for them, it's not say that there are things are going crop up that I didn't think about, we all have different paths in life. I just make sure that they feel like their father is present for them, something absent in my life.

The intense idealization that I got from my exuBPDw was because I was seeking a validation and attention that I didn't get from my father, I was hurt for a long time from being abandoned as a child three times and I just like my exuBPDw got me, understand where I came from. Both my father and my ex have unresolved childhood trauma.