After 6 months I found the mirror

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

  Greetings ,
   
       I am so grateful to be on this board and share feeling of hope and healing. I have not posted for a very long time, I needed to go into a cocoon and get to know who I really am!
     I was so confused when my relationship crumpled, I felt so victimized by my husband and this mental illness. I blamed all of my pain and unhappiness on him and his problems. Little did I know that a magnitude of pain was required for the task at hand. I had to go through the pain to get over it    .
    I view my situation with a softer filter today. When I landed at this site, I identified all the ways his behavior damaged my soul. I knew my husband crossed boundaries, lied to me, and lacked empathy. I was sure if he had been a better mate, we could have been very happy. That's where I dropped anchor, staying stuck blaming him. As luck would have it divine intervention did not let me stay in these murky waters.
    As I moved toward healing, I realized he was the the mirror that I looked into. I thought I was a people pleaser when I quit sharing my true feelings and thoughts. I now see how I hoped lying would keep the peace so I did not have to face the truth about our relationship. He crossed my boundaries because they were undefined and fluctuated with my emotions. I did not enforce what was best for me because I was afraid he would leave. I abandon myself every time I chose staying in the relationship. I decide to stay in the chaos and wait for him to treat me better then I did myself... .  I did this for validation and called it LOVE.
   It's really pretty basic, I get in touch with what I really want. I let them know and if they agree that is a boundary. If they can't respect this and it is hurting me, I must remove myself.
  If I would have done this, I would have left the first month we were dating. I didn't but through this experienced I gained knowledge, I will never be able to be a victim again  

[confused4now]

  Greetings ,
   
       I am so grateful to be on this board and share feeling of hope and healing. I have not posted for a very long time, I needed to go into a cocoon and get to know who I really am!
     I was so confused when my relationship crumpled, I felt so victimized by my husband and this mental illness. I blamed all of my pain and unhappiness on him and his problems. Little did I know that a magnitude of pain was required for the task at hand. I had to go through the pain to get over it    .
    I view my situation with a softer filter today. When I landed at this site, I identified all the ways his behavior damaged my soul. I knew my husband crossed boundaries, lied to me, and lacked empathy. I was sure if he had been a better mate, we could have been very happy. That's where I dropped anchor, staying stuck blaming him. As luck would have it divine intervention did not let me stay in these murky waters.
    As I moved toward healing, I realized he was the the mirror that I looked into. I thought I was a people pleaser when I quit sharing my true feelings and thoughts. I now see how I hoped lying would keep the peace so I did not have to face the truth about our relationship. He crossed my boundaries because they were undefined and fluctuated with my emotions. I did not enforce what was best for me because I was afraid he would leave. I abandon myself every time I chose staying in the relationship. I decide to stay in the chaos and wait for him to treat me better then I did myself... .  I did this for validation and called it LOVE.
   It's really pretty basic, I get in touch with what I really want. I let them know and if they agree that is a boundary. If they can't respect this and it is hurting me, I must remove myself.
  If I would have done this, I would have left the first month we were dating. I didn't but through this experienced I gained knowledge, I will never be able to be a victim again  

[Insom]

Hi, confused4now!

Congratulations on the healing you've accomplished so far!  It sounds like you've made some great progress, especially with understanding where your boundaries are. 

How did this healing evolve for you?  Did you get help?  Was there something you read that you found especially helpful?  What's that path you took to go from feeling like a victim and a people pleaser to where you are now?

[confused4now]

  Hi  ,
     Thanks for your reply! It's been such a long journey that will never end. On this site I found relief and support for the turmoil I was in. I had been in a relationship with someone who has BPD for 6 years. After identifying with everyone that posted, I beating myself up for the demise of my marriage.
   I read stop walking on egg shells, stop care taking the borderline and every other book I could get my hands on. I got the work books and started a journal. I had so much anxiety that I had to write like a mad woman. I started to detox from the relationship.
   My head began to clear so the information could take root. I started reading books about letting go and healing after toxic relationships (switched from problem to solution).
   Don't get me wrong, I would end up talking to him and instant SPIN... .Luckily I had just enough strength (recovery) to not get sucked back into the mess. Sometimes communicating with him actually worked in my favor, I cold see both of us were in a better space. I then let go of anger, embraced sadness and grieved what would never be. Most of the time I regretted talking to him. I wanted him to make me feel better by validating my perspective of the relationship. Can you say TRAP... .( still thinking I had the power to change his mind).
   Every interaction had a purpose, I got to accept responsibility for the hurt I caused him. Back to the therapist I would go (crying and cussing), uncovering and discovering what works and what causes more pain. I was banging my head against the ground, letting go by hanging on is miserable  
   I started reading The Four Agreements, changed my LIFE... .so that's the path. I am grateful I survived and learning to thrive. I love my ex husband and I wish it could have worked out, but it didn't. I do know I will be okay and I think he will too, thanks to a power greater then me    
 

[gotbushels]

confused4now  

Thank you for sharing your post.  

After identifying with everyone that posted, I beating myself up for the demise of my marriage.

A lot of us here didn't know what we were getting into. So why beat ourselves up?  

... .I had to write like a mad woman. I started to detox from the relationship.

Yes! Me too, I went through heaps of writing. It does have a curative effect, even if the writing is just for ourselves.

Don't get me wrong, I would end up talking to him and instant SPIN... .Luckily I had just enough strength (recovery) to not get sucked back into the mess.

Yes, you're again not alone on this one. It seems when we help ourselves in this way, the logic part of us has been brought up to speed but the heart and our bodies take time to catch up.

I hope you're enjoying your peace and your increased sense of responsibility for what is really yours. When I got clear on this, it too enhanced my life--with and without the pwBPD.  

[Insom]

It's been such a long journey that will never end.

Yes!  It's like peeling an onion.  Each layer you heal reveals something else underneath.  Early on in my process it was all about the relationship: grieving it, separating from it, overcoming ptsd and so on.  Today I'm working with a therapist on career issues that seem to have resulted from the same family of origin stuff that drew me into my relationship with BPD-ex many years ago.

Seeing how the same pattern has unfolded in slightly different ways in different areas of my life has felt humbling.  I credit my BPD-ex with being the first one to illuminate the pattern.

[Lucky Jim]

   It's really pretty basic, I get in touch with what I really want. I let them know and if they agree that is a boundary. If they can't respect this and it is hurting me, I must remove myself.
  If I would have done this, I would have left the first month we were dating. I didn't but through this experienced I gained knowledge, I will never be able to be a victim again

Hey confused4now, Welcome back!  Like what you're saying.  We Nons tend to stay when others would probably have run for the hills!  Just the way we are built.  It takes a while (quite a while in my case) to gain that knowledge.  Agree, I'll never be the object of anyone's abuse again.  That's my boundary!

LuckyJim

[heartandwhole]

Hi confused4now,

What an inspiring post! Thank you for sharing. I'm happy for you, and resonate with a lot of what you wrote.

He crossed my boundaries because they were undefined and fluctuated with my emotions. I did not enforce what was best for me because I was afraid he would leave. I abandon myself every time I chose staying in the relationship. I decide to stay in the chaos and wait for him to treat me better then I did myself... . I did this for validation and called it LOVE.

I am with you. I did something similar. I've realized that abandoning myself is what hurt the most—much more than anything an SO did "to" me.

I still work on this issue today. It seems I routinely suppress my needs, to the point that I am unaware of them. When I'm unaware, then I think everything's just fine and I can keep "giving" to others, or whatever it is I'm doing, while I ignore what I need.

I learned to push down my needs in favor of other people's needs. They were more important. I've even had family members say as much: "You're okay with everything, heartandwhole, you don't mind if you don't get XYZ." Well, actually I do, but I hardly ever let anyone know, and often, I don't even know. But I'm learning.

Can anyone else relate, and do you have tips to share?  

How do you stay aware your needs, confused4now?

heartandwhole

[gotbushels]

I've realized that abandoning myself is what hurt the most—much more than anything an SO did "to" me.

Wow yes heartandwhole   And I'm with you on this one.   I think when we make constant little compromises on what's basically things that love ourselves (e.g., massages, cheat workout days, etc.   in order to favour things that don't feel right in a relationship, it starts to feel like we betray ourselves over time. You're probably all over this one   and I do think it's important not to let up on our self-care when we get into a given relationship. It's not those big things. I think it's those little things. E.g., like if you had a horrific sleep deprived week at work and want to sleep in on Sunday afternoon rather than do lunch after church or something--that's when you gotta give it to yourself to choose sleep. Anyway, there's comfort in the idea that women (or men) who know what they want are a turn-on. Even if it's not true for your SO/prospect--at least this promotes your own wants anyway. It's good for people that aren't good at listening to their own rights    

I still work on this issue today.

Me too!  

When I'm unaware, then I think everything's just fine and I can keep "giving" to others, or whatever it is I'm doing, while I ignore what I need.

I think something that helps is to treat your self-care just as important as what you "give" to others. I think if you're a people pleaser, approval is important to you, then you could undervalue your wants out of habit.

There's this great interview with Chris Evans where he says something like the brain doesn't speak the same language as the process of "shh" for him. That's similar to my experience when I'm at the end of work, when I think I have a little juice left, I learned that I actually don't. I can go the extra mile, but I often miss the point that I've already gone extra miles at work 4 out of 5 days already. It sucks my energy from other places that are important to me (e.g., intimate relationship, self-lovin' time, etc.) but those things don't come to mind in my environment at work. So that conscious cutting off from my work isn't "accessible" to my brain. It feels like a different language.

So consciously cutting off has to be deliberately emplaced. It helps me be more proud of my time usage in the long term; or if you like--it gives my own needs a voice and action at a time when I really need it. What's more, there's kinda a built-in reciprocal relationship that I like--by tempering yourself to allowing yourself to deny continuity of your work, you also give yourself the right to enforce time you enjoy.

Maybe you're already good at all this--but it helped me a lot to know I wasn't alone with all this struggling and I know a lot of people struggle with this  

[Lucky Jim]

I learned to push down my needs in favor of other people's needs.

h&w: Right, this was a fundamental problem in my marriage to my BPDxW.  I thought that's what a spouse is supposed to do, but I lost myself in the process, which was not fun.

I still work on this issue today. It seems I routinely suppress my needs, to the point that I am unaware of them.

I still work on it, too!  I would say that, for me, it starts with acknowledging my feelings as they come up, rather than ignoring them.  Now I pay attention to my emotions as they arise, then try to process them instead of ignoring or submerging them.  That's my two-step process!

LuckyJim