Moving to my "core" ? (the inner lonely child)

[Nicco]

I always had the sansation our r/s was a fake …the kind of romantic epic Disney love we were pretending to share doesn’t exists,it’s just an immature fantasy….too early,too strong,too addictive…i feel shame for how I’ve let myself go inside this story…cause the rational me is absolutely not like this…on the contrary,is pretty cynic and disenchanted.

So who was the man who had this r/s with this woman?The answer is…he was not a man,was a child.

My inner lonely child.

It was not me the crying begging powerless one,was my inner child…she betrayed his dreams,his needs…and like every child who is left he cries and feels condemned…he doesn’t want to see the truth: that everything was a fake... .and for children is hard to look the truth in the eyes sometimes.In the back of my mind i always knew that things were different from what they seemed…I danced the dysfunctional tango with her and it’s been terribly sweet….i’ve chosen to don’t listen my rational voice whispering me the truth.

It’s so hard to let her go cause she’s my emotional nemesis.

She gave him what he always strongly desidered,what he always considered the most important thing to obtain and keep.

She fed the lonely child with candies and cookies. But the inner child wants more. The inner child is greedy.

The inner child doesn’t want to stay alone.

The inner child is scared.

The inner child is being left. He feels punished…”Please don’t go,I’ll be a good child but please stay here”

As soon as the inner child met this dream-woman,he was f****d.

As soon as she claimed her love for him the child was hooked without without hope to escape.

The problem is that my cynical adult and rational side is not reflected by a cynical and rational adult affectivity.

So how could be the child stronger than the man?

I begin to think that I never REALLY had choice inside this story... .the child  did.

And I can’t let a scared lonely child be my guide through life.

[Calm Waters]

Hi Nicco, I think I can relate to what you are saying. I have only recently realised that I fell prey to a BPD gf because of my inner child wounds. She promised me everything both explicitly, and implicitly we hooked in to eachothers childhood traumas, so for a while at least there was balance and what felt like true love. It was of course destined to fail as I expect most relationships that start this way will. I realise no i was hooked in because she  'completed' me for a while as i think i did her, this is where the core trauma from childhood unconsciously drives our sense of emptiness and our need to find the missing piece, the mother that was able to meet our needs in a way that our real mother could not; in my case because my mother was a suicidal BPD basket case when i was young and i was forced to look after her. So I realise now it wasn't about me and my ex BPD gf it was about my mother and her mother and to a lesser extent both fathers. Now that I a have been forced to bring my unconscious issues to the surface due to the relationship with her i am starting to heal, she tried to commit suicide, completely floored and broke me, but gave me a gift that another 20 years of therpy probably couldn't have

[charred]

I have said for a while that the pwBPD seems to give unconditional love, the kind many of us didn't get as little kids, and we accept the pwBPD deep down as the primary r/s we never had... .kind of the Freudian going for your mother thing. But the BPD... they are anything but givers of unconditional love, they get clingy, then hateful... and we revert to dealing with them as a child... trying to appease an angry parent... .taking blame for irrational behavior on their part, and accepting unquestioningly much of what they say. The whole r/s seems off and phony a bit, as it is. My pwBPD seemed stuck in a loop, she would be sweet, then clingy then hateful, breakup, miss me, and start over, each time the nice part was shorter, and the hateful part scarier.

The effect of having a poor parent can be that you don't securely attach... .which leaves you feeling nervous, insecure and needy in many ways. I believe we are mass producing insecurely attached people and have been for some time. The only time I felt the world was right was when I was with my pwBPD ... would wake from a nap and feel like things are wonderful... but it wasn't a sex thing, it wasn't a normal r/s thing... .it was a kid comfortable with the world because of a secure base thing. My pwBPD was the worst possible person to put in that kind of position relative to me... .she was very Jodi Arias like, I felt our r/s was going to end in my murder... but it didn't.

Many of us have concluded that while the pwBPD seems like the start of our problems... our FOO is really the start, and the pwBPD just made the issues horribly apparent. I have been in T for about a year, and have lost most the stress I was overwhelmed with, have realized I am the only one that I can always count on to always be there (obviously... I am me) and that the BPD r/s is not love, its trauma for all involved. My FOO issues have led me to keep people at a distance so I don't get hurt as bad, leaving me lacking intimacy. The pwBPD ignored boundaries and seemed to provide that intimacy, then turned out to be much worse than my FOO.

Learning to trust, forgive, and be vulnerable enough to have people that are close friends and intimate enough to fill that hole we have inside is what we need to do. I am sure that a pwBPD does not do that at all. At best some good sex at first... .but the hangover from the rest of the r/s makes it a fool's bargain. We have all our FOO issues brought to light and set ablaze... and it is traumatic. After the breakup there is depression like losing a parent, or worse... .like losing the dreams you had of a wonderful world where you had great parents... a porn star loving GF and hope for the future. Waking up to fully accept reality, with  bills, work and living with normal people, takes more strength than  I thought possible... .but after the BPD r/s, I can't accept anything less than the truth from that one person that is always there for me... .me.

[Turkish]

Hi,

Have you come across this yet? It seems to be a favorite thing to post for perspective, when your very questions come up here.

"2010:

In some relationships, the idealization phase is the partner being in lonely child stance and the Borderline being in abandoned child stance.*Both need saving* Both need attachment to stave off the pain of being alone.  This is one type of bonding seen in this community." Continued... .

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=161524.5;wap2

[charred]

Turkish,

I have seen it, in fact I really appreciated a lot of 2010's posts... .they seem to have disappeared for the most part. The "lonely child" is from schema therapy... and I identified with the idea of it, then dug in to schema therapy and found it no longer had a "lonely child"... it had all kinds of newer schema's. Can highly recommend "Reinventing your Life"... for identifying and coming up with a plan to fix your minor fleas... it is a diy diagnose your FOO issues, find the schemas you are using and learn to cope with life as an adult book.

Have concluded that the lonely child resonates... .because early on I didn't get along well with people, and that is largely a result of my impoverished early upbringing. After being dissapointed/hurt time and time again, came to keep people at a distance, which results in being lonely. What we need is intimacy with people, to have people that care and are close to us, but we are skittish and keep a barrier to keep others from hurting us. The BPD person ignores those boundaries and showers us with compliments, what seems like unconditional love and sex... and we are so desperate for closeness, we ignore the   , and drink up the poison cool-aid. Later we breakup or are dumped by them and because of how tightly we bonded (secure attachment we always wanted but didnt have)... the loss is like losing a parent, intense, crippling and global in its effect, we can be depressed for years, as the loss wasn't just of a GF and wasn't just in the present, but was a culmination of childhood issues brought to the surface, the pain made fresh again.

I was dumped by my pwBPD about 28 yrs ago, then she came back in my life about 5 yrs ago and we dated 3 1/2 yrs... .the interesting thing, I thought I was over her, she chatted with me on FB... felt nothing, she begged me to talk to her so she could tell me the truth about why she dumped me (offered closure... .which I didn't feel mattered after all that time... but what the heck) so I got on the phone... and hearing her voice... had 100% of the emotion/feelings back, instantly. Talked to and even seen other girls I dated ... .none of them had any real effect, but my pwBPD had a devastating effect on me years ago, and again more recently. The weird 100% feelings back thing... is what kept me digging for an answer as to why the r/s with a pwBPD was so painful, and attachment theory finally explained it... .we deeply craved unconditional love as a small kid, but got something short of it, leaving us needy and desperate for that mothering unconditional love an infant should get. The pwBPD ignores our protests (boundaries really) and gets close to us, is intimate, complimentary, almost magical in how they relate to us, so much so we put them on a pedestal ... .the way a small child sees parents... .we think "soul mate"... .but its more Freudian than that, we put them in the position our ideal parent would have been in... .then the push-pull and drama of the BPD r/s keeps us on our toes and prevents much reflection. In fact we don't want to understand the r/s... we want the technicolor dream world we seem to be in to continue forever, finally feeling like the world is right. When the pwBPD flips and turns hater, we appease and plead and act like a small child dealing with an unapproving parent. The dynamic gives us weird chills down our spine at times... .you know something is weird/off but can't put your finger on it. Eventually the irrational arguments lead you to question your sanity, and your PBD partner's words and actions. It takes quite a bit to become aware of the situation... .that you are in a drama triangle r/s with a disordered person... .that the "dream girl" you tossed aside friends and family for is a nightmare ... .in fact your ego makes it hard to accept that idea, until reality finally pounds it in to your head. Once you fully accept reality... and refuse to be push-pulled off balance by the pwBPD, challenge their assertions and denials of culpability for their actions... you start to heal. When you forgive them, release yourself from the torture of trying to make it work "somehow"... forgive yourself for all the bad decisions involved in being with them... you continue healing and realize they were not the devil that about did you in, that your issues go back farther and are responsible for making it possible for the devastation to be like it was. A healthy psyche wouldn't accept a pwBPD as a mother substitute... .would heed  , notice the phoniness of their flattery and mirroring... .and cope with a breakup like it was a normal breakup.

Seeing all that is what made me update my inventory, and realize I could either keep recycling and accept the role of caretaker for a very hateful full grown brat that was pretty nearly a sociopath (and was quite scary)... or I could forgive and process the hurt and stay in the moment more, and take back my life and live it.

[Turkish]

Thanks charred. You gave me some stuff to think about. I also grew up impoverished (my mom still lives like this due to her choices). I also know the only person I can coun on is me. MyX, in one of our last arguments, said I needed to rely on people. I said who? Not her obviously (cheated and abandoned me before I could her). Said i took care of her (she argued this point, but she was wrong), our two kids, my mom to a certain extent, and even her family by proxy through her.So who the heck was left to take care of me? Probably she sensed my attitude, which was one of many triggers which activated her lack of self worth. I think I own some of that, but its hard in a BPD r/s to sort through such things logically... .

[charred]

Its not that I am only person I can count on... .its that I need to be in my corner all the time. I took abuse from my pwBPD, and before that cutting comments and dissapointments from my FOO to heart. Put all my hopes in a r/s with someone... and when it crashed... so did I. Need to be healthy happy with myself, comfortable in own skin. For years was uncomfortable being alone, I enjoy it now, have a different view. I am going to have a nice time ... .whether I am alone or in an r/s.

[Changingman]

Yes Nicco,

And

'I can save us all'

Let the games begin.

X