a visit to the therapist

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

things ended last march after 6 weeks of interaction with my ex (i did not tolerate her behavior for long though i was over the clouds during the idealization and felt like really needing it more than wanting it). i went to the therapist and joined this board in april. i have been in therapy till i was dismissed by my therapist in the end of may. i was diagnosed with ptsd and quarter life crisis. he denied any codependency or foo unresolved issues. my therapist said that i will be ok and its normal to feel and act that way after a traumatic event with a BPD partner. i have been doing better. i believe that i have detached. i took my responsibility in the part of the dance. i have learned a lot from this interaction. i have learned that i have low confidence, fix tendencies, trying to control what was out of my control, weak boundaries, uneasiness to be alone and face myself, numbing my feelings during the last couple of years that resulted in my quarter life crisis, depending on friends and alcohol to false soothe myself etc etc in short this interaction was a wake up call for me. my healing process was going well except for one thing that lead me to a visit to the therapist again last monday. i still sometimes get panic attacks.


i informed my therapist that i have known a lot about BPD (thanks to 2010's posts), that i have detached and depersonalized the interaction. i informed him that i have been in the introspection journey. i told him that i think its not normal to mourn that long if i did not have unresolved issues. i told him that i still think think about the interaction every second of every day though i am detached. i told him that i am not sure what is wrong with me if its only quarter life crisis or\also childhood emotional neglect. he said maybe. i told him you earlier denied anything with childhood. he told me that i am overwhelmed because i read a lot about BPD (he claimed that i know about BPD more than him). he said i should dissociate for some time before introspection because i am abusing my body and psyche with too much emotional pressure and tension over a short time (getting over a BPD was enough pain for this period). he advised me to get more busy and dissociate. he also added "whether it is childhood emotional neglect or not. you learned your lessons. you will listen to your gut from now on. you will try to build your confidence\be kind to yourself\ try to always connect with your true self\ not rush things with a new date\ establish boundaries and know what you can and can not control in your life without blaming yourself on what you can not change. it is of no use to try to figure out the reason that led to so when you have the result to change to the better. look forward not back. knowing the cause is not as important as changing the result. you are overwhelmed. you remind me when i started going to psychology school. i used to feel that i have every disorder or issue i have been studying. dissociate. go out and do something that makes you happy. the panic attacks that you still get is your body telling you please enough with stressing yourself. do not think that a break up with a BPD is not that powerful to give you bad days for that long. even healthy people can get into a r\s with a BPD for a short time and end it like you did yet the traumatic bond is so intense and thats why you are still stuck because of the traumatic bond and not trying to dissociate. you have mourned enough and got over her. get yourself some break. its not necessarily that you clicked with her because she is the ideal parent that you did not have. she is very beautiful, charming, seductive, appearing vulnerable, appearing to supply unconditional love and her attention and gaze was always upon you. who on earth would not like to engage in this ? yes there was red flags and you learned your lessons but anyone who was not aware of the red flags of an abusive relationship but healthy would definitely engage and take your role. get busy and report to me in a month about the progress or regress of your panic attacks."


I really need some thoughts of yours please. The only thing i am sure of is that i am overwhelmed with what is wrong with me since i can not be sure of the cause ? is it emotional childhood neglect ? it does not matter the cause as the therapist said ? should i just look forward on improving without pointing out the real cause ?

[antjs]

things ended last march after 6 weeks of interaction with my ex (i did not tolerate her behavior for long though i was over the clouds during the idealization and felt like really needing it more than wanting it). i went to the therapist and joined this board in april. i have been in therapy till i was dismissed by my therapist in the end of may. i was diagnosed with ptsd and quarter life crisis. he denied any codependency or foo unresolved issues. my therapist said that i will be ok and its normal to feel and act that way after a traumatic event with a BPD partner. i have been doing better. i believe that i have detached. i took my responsibility in the part of the dance. i have learned a lot from this interaction. i have learned that i have low confidence, fix tendencies, trying to control what was out of my control, weak boundaries, uneasiness to be alone and face myself, numbing my feelings during the last couple of years that resulted in my quarter life crisis, depending on friends and alcohol to false soothe myself etc etc in short this interaction was a wake up call for me. my healing process was going well except for one thing that lead me to a visit to the therapist again last monday. i still sometimes get panic attacks.


i informed my therapist that i have known a lot about BPD (thanks to 2010's posts), that i have detached and depersonalized the interaction. i informed him that i have been in the introspection journey. i told him that i think its not normal to mourn that long if i did not have unresolved issues. i told him that i still think think about the interaction every second of every day though i am detached. i told him that i am not sure what is wrong with me if its only quarter life crisis or\also childhood emotional neglect. he said maybe. i told him you earlier denied anything with childhood. he told me that i am overwhelmed because i read a lot about BPD (he claimed that i know about BPD more than him). he said i should dissociate for some time before introspection because i am abusing my body and psyche with too much emotional pressure and tension over a short time (getting over a BPD was enough pain for this period). he advised me to get more busy and dissociate. he also added "whether it is childhood emotional neglect or not. you learned your lessons. you will listen to your gut from now on. you will try to build your confidence\be kind to yourself\ try to always connect with your true self\ not rush things with a new date\ establish boundaries and know what you can and can not control in your life without blaming yourself on what you can not change. it is of no use to try to figure out the reason that led to so when you have the result to change to the better. look forward not back. knowing the cause is not as important as changing the result. you are overwhelmed. you remind me when i started going to psychology school. i used to feel that i have every disorder or issue i have been studying. dissociate. go out and do something that makes you happy. the panic attacks that you still get is your body telling you please enough with stressing yourself. do not think that a break up with a BPD is not that powerful to give you bad days for that long. even healthy people can get into a r\s with a BPD for a short time and end it like you did yet the traumatic bond is so intense and thats why you are still stuck because of the traumatic bond and not trying to dissociate. you have mourned enough and got over her. get yourself some break. its not necessarily that you clicked with her because she is the ideal parent that you did not have. she is very beautiful, charming, seductive, appearing vulnerable, appearing to supply unconditional love and her attention and gaze was always upon you. who on earth would not like to engage in this ? yes there was red flags and you learned your lessons but anyone who was not aware of the red flags of an abusive relationship but healthy would definitely engage and take your role. get busy and report to me in a month about the progress or regress of your panic attacks."


I really need some thoughts of yours please. The only thing i am sure of is that i am overwhelmed with what is wrong with me since i can not be sure of the cause ? is it emotional childhood neglect ? it does not matter the cause as the therapist said ? should i just look forward on improving without pointing out the real cause ?

[Ihope2]

Hello Antony_James

If I may be direct, when I read your posts, I get the impression that you are very impatient with yourself to get to the bottom of it all and to quickly find out what is wrong and to quickly find something to make it better.  Slow down!  Do not try to proceed at such a super-fast pace.  Do not burn yourself out with anxiety to get to the answer of every open question.

The answers come slowly.  We all need time to think, time to reflect, time to heal, time to move on.  It does not happen at a fast pace.

Things take time to sink in to the psyche and for new realisations to dawn on us.  I don't think it is in our design as feeling, thinking humans to go through life at a lightening pace and switch on an off like a machine.  We are all a work in progress.  Easy does it.

[Blimblam]

Antony James

I suggest you take the Meyers Briggs personality test. And read as many profiles as you can on your personality type. It is very validating as to how Amd why each person processes things.  Then be true to yourself and create the space for yourself to cultivate aspects of who you are that you have denied for various reasons. 

[LettingGo14]

I really need some thoughts of yours please. The only thing i am sure of is that i am overwhelmed with what is wrong with me since i can not be sure of the cause ? is it emotional childhood neglect ? it does not matter the cause as the therapist said ? should i just look forward on improving without pointing out the real cause ?

Hello AJ -- I am someone with a brain that rarely shuts off.  This is sometimes helpful, and sometimes not so much.  Interestingly, as I look back over the past several months, my biggest insights have not come from cognitive thinking.   The two things that have helped me the most are:

1. Meditation

2. Feeling feelings without a story

Meditation is simply awareness [mindfulness] of the present moment.   A good introduction is provided by Jon Kabat-Zinn in a book called "Whereever You Go, There You Are." 

In meditation, I watch how my mind drags me around.   And, I've started to feel emotions without trying to understand them.  For instance, I hold a ton of emotion in my chest, in the solar plexus.  Realizing it, I can work with it.

This -- more than anything, including therapy -- has opened up a world of understanding of who I am. 

Everyone has a different journey, and we each find different tools that work.   Just my 2 cents.

[Aussie JJ]

AJ,

I think your therapist is both wrong on so many levels and is also speaking the truth in such a raw form that you don't want to accept it.  What LettingGo14 has said below is so powerful once you start to accept that you cant control these things only understand them and understand yourself. 

I find when being 'selfish' and working on myself and self care, I get better.  Little steps, then I feel obligated to help me ex, feel guilt that I am not helping her and a great fear for her because I have an understanding of her pain and her issues.  FOG. 

I have made commitments to myself now that are so hard for me to keep because I have been conditioned to not care for myself by this relationship.   

I ask myself instead of what can I do for her, swap it around, what can I do for myself... . 

Answer these two questions for YOURSELF... .

1)  Are you very analytical?   Like to have a complete understanding so that you can fix problems, resolve them for other people ?   

2)  Do you write out all of these thoughts and feelings?  Do you reflect on where you are at now compared to where you were at a month ago, 6 months ago?





For me, understanding myself has been the most enlightening thing that I have got out of this, I have been operated on 'automatic' mode in so many facets of my life for so long and I can now look back and understand MY patterns.  My interactions through my life. 

I am no longer analyzing BPD and my ex to help her but UNDERSTANDING that I can only help myself, I can also only help people that ask for my help.  I understand what is happening and understand how I choose to interact. 

What is YOUR pattern, their are things I have done that are unhealthy and have hurt me.  I understand these things, I am changing these aspects, I am learning about new things in my life by looking back through the journals and identifying patterns in my thinking and my actions.  I am analyzing myself, my god it is painful for me.  I have an understanding of how I haven't looked after myself in the past and how I am still doing it today. 

'Feeling' what is going on in your body and accepting that you can only change yourself is so so painful.  Doing this for me is finding faults in my actions in the past and identifying them in the present.  I am analzing myself and working on myself.  It isn't pleasant as it is so foreign to me knowing not how the BPDex has hurt me but how I have allowed myself to be hurt. 

I have to accept this and work on this.  LettingGo14 has said feeling things without a story.  I am not quite at this point yet, I am feeling things and linking the stories I have in my life and feeling the pain from MY maladaptive patterns of behaviour.  I am accepting my faults.  I am still analyzing them after they happen  and not at the point where I can analyze myself in the present and understand what is happening in the present. 

I will get to that point I will falter and I will stumble and make mistakes.  I will embrace these and learn from them and I will be 'gentle' to myself.  Problem for me is I dont want to be gentle I want to fix it now! 

Can you relate to this?

I think both yourself and myself are in the same situation in many respects.  Understanding ourselves and struggling with that understanding.   

[antjs]

1)  Are you very analytical?   Like to have a complete understanding so that you can fix problems, resolve them for other people ?   

2)  Do you write out all of these thoughts and feelings?  Do you reflect on where you are at now compared to where you were at a month ago, 6 months ago?

1) I am very analytical and a very detailed curious person. i am the best one to give advises to people around me. i always find the right choice to be obvious if my friend is asking my advice for his dilemma. I am the best one to help others but not myself. It takes me long time to be decisive.

2) unfortunately i do not write my journal and i want to start doing so. on a small scale, i can see how much i have progressed and detached regarding the BPD experience.

For me, understanding myself has been the most enlightening thing that I have got out of this, I have been operated on 'automatic' mode in so many facets of my life for so long and I can now look back and understand MY patterns.  My interactions through my life. 

i used to live my life on automatic mode too. I always felt something is wrong, bad or missing even during the happy times. This experience with the ex was a slap on my face to reality. I can really feel there are life changing lessons from this experience. I can't grasp all the lessons right now. it takes time and realizations that are not consciously forced like lettinggo14 said. but i am not letting go off these lessons. i will give it time to reveal itself but i am not gonna abandon seeking it. i can see the changes being implemented in my life right now. i sense like my whole thinking is being rewired concerning life in general. i can see my different attitude concerning family, friends and even strangers. i can see how much i am beginning to talk, love and care to myself now. i used to avoid talking with myself in the past. i did not love myself. i ran away from being with myself.

What is YOUR pattern

I can see a pattern that is not good in general. Not loving yourself... .blaming yourself for issues or events out of your hands... .avoiding to sit by yourself and resolve and acknowledge that these issues are not within your hands... .hating yourself more for not "fixing" these issues... .running away from yourself by distraction... .hating yourself more and so on.

'Feeling' what is going on in your body and accepting that you can only change yourself is so so painful.  Doing this for me is finding faults in my actions in the past and identifying them in the present.  I am analzing myself and working on myself.  It isn't pleasant as it is so foreign to me knowing not how the BPDex has hurt me but how I have allowed myself to be hurt.

I have been running from myself for couple of years now. after the BPD crash, i sat with myself and knew that there were unresolved issues that made me so desperate and sad and thats why i dived into a r\s with my ex hands and legs. i was amazed at how much i was hard on myself, blaming myself for issues that were out of my hands (unemployment, physically sick dad, friends immigrating,... etc) and hating myself for it. I gave myself a pat on the back and said why did you do so to yourself ? most of these things you do not have control over. why did you want to control things that were out of your hands and when you failed doing so (duh!) you hated yourself and ran away from it. I forgave myself, my ex and my parents if they have brought me up in a wrong way. they really did not mean it. they want me to be the best person but due to their ignorance about parenting they have brought me up to be hard on myself and to neglect my emotions as they used to neglect me emotionally i think !   we tend to treat ourselves the same way our parents treated us during childhood


I can totally relate to what you have said.

[Aussie JJ]