Recycled: It's been a long time since I've visited this message board

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

I haven't been to the bpdfamily site for about five years, mostly because I'd found a way to put the failed relationship with a pwBPD in a bit of a box and on a shelf.  I felt I understood his issues, why it failed, how I'd been victimized (and my own part in that odd, strange, fascinating, addictive dance) after spending MONTHS on here sorting it all out.

He married someone else, I'd occasional Facebook stalk (don't!) and see that he looked so happy, it all looked so perfect and I thought, 'okay, maybe not BPD, maybe I just wasn't the right girl.'

I worked on myself, I got better, my current relationship is healthy and has normal boundaries (took me a little while to remember "normal" and what it felt like to not be smothered, pushed away, subject to jealous rages and crazed declarations of devotion).

I actually had convinced myself I was wrong about the BPD.  I thought maybe I'd just brought out the worst in him.  After all, everything was looking so healthy, so NORMAL with him and his new wife ... .

Then this morning, out of the clear blue, an email.  Not quite an apology, but an obvious fishing expedition, telling me he thought of me often, that I had been so right and courageous for telling him about how selfish he was (long story about a mis-sent email which resulted in our final contact), and how he's changed and how my words were the motivator for that.

It was a twelve sentence email with the words "me" and "I" repeated 21 times. 

As always it was all about him.

He closed by telling me he "didn't expect me to reply."

Five years of hard work on myself later, I won't.

Thanks to all those who helped me so long ago (I see familiar "handles" even now) and who told me, some day, when I least expected it, he'd be back again.  You were right, and now I'm ready for it.  I took the box off the shelf a little, shook it, and will put it back on that shelf without so much as a backwards glance.  I'm so grateful he took so long to reach out; I needed the time to heal and detach.

There is good, healthy life after the emotional trauma of a pwBPD and I felt compelled to stop by to let you know that it's true.



Be well, each and every one of you.  I know how it is.

VanessaG

[VanessaG]

I haven't been to the bpdfamily site for about five years, mostly because I'd found a way to put the failed relationship with a pwBPD in a bit of a box and on a shelf.  I felt I understood his issues, why it failed, how I'd been victimized (and my own part in that odd, strange, fascinating, addictive dance) after spending MONTHS on here sorting it all out.

He married someone else, I'd occasional Facebook stalk (don't!) and see that he looked so happy, it all looked so perfect and I thought, 'okay, maybe not BPD, maybe I just wasn't the right girl.'

I worked on myself, I got better, my current relationship is healthy and has normal boundaries (took me a little while to remember "normal" and what it felt like to not be smothered, pushed away, subject to jealous rages and crazed declarations of devotion).

I actually had convinced myself I was wrong about the BPD.  I thought maybe I'd just brought out the worst in him.  After all, everything was looking so healthy, so NORMAL with him and his new wife ... .

Then this morning, out of the clear blue, an email.  Not quite an apology, but an obvious fishing expedition, telling me he thought of me often, that I had been so right and courageous for telling him about how selfish he was (long story about a mis-sent email which resulted in our final contact), and how he's changed and how my words were the motivator for that.

It was a twelve sentence email with the words "me" and "I" repeated 21 times. 

As always it was all about him.

He closed by telling me he "didn't expect me to reply."

Five years of hard work on myself later, I won't.

Thanks to all those who helped me so long ago (I see familiar "handles" even now) and who told me, some day, when I least expected it, he'd be back again.  You were right, and now I'm ready for it.  I took the box off the shelf a little, shook it, and will put it back on that shelf without so much as a backwards glance.  I'm so grateful he took so long to reach out; I needed the time to heal and detach.

There is good, healthy life after the emotional trauma of a pwBPD and I felt compelled to stop by to let you know that it's true.



Be well, each and every one of you.  I know how it is.

VanessaG

[Trog]

I recognise you Vanessa as I was here at that time under another name. Sadly, recycled and ended up back here after getting married to my exBPD.

Things are not working in his relationship and he is lining up past partners, as well as talking to new, this would be my educated guess knowing what I know now about how my BPD reaches out to everyone she's ever known the minute things were failing in our relationship (well, they were always failing but when it looked like o would abandon).

Good on you for staying strong, what's insulting is that until they get dis regulated they are not thinking of us at all as long as they have a replacement. Good luck

[Perdita]

I agree with Trog.  His marriage is failing.  They don't reach out like that unless something is going on.  Mine is suddenly reaching out to his old friend that he hasn't bothered communicating with in years. 

Thank you for reminding us that it can get better.  I wish more people would come back and tell us how happy they are without their BPD person. 

[Waifed]

Good for you Vanessa!  I am almost 16 months out and thought I was "cured".  The holidays brought it all back unfortunately.  I will get through this bump and persevere.  I'm glad you have reached indifference!  BTW, Vanessa is my exes name, but I won't hold that against you   Much luck to you in the future and thanks for coming back and sharing.

[WhyMe?]

Hi Vanessa!    I too came back after 5 years (joined in early 2009 but my then-bf had dumped me in March 2010). I'm in a great r/s now and like you, it took awhile to know what "normal" was. I'm not sure I ever had "normal" before this!

What triggered me to come back is that my exBPDbf was recently convicted of child molestation and well be sentenced in a few weeks. A few days after the conviction his mother sent me a friend request on FB, which I felt was odd as she had deleted me 2 years earlier. Those events brought back a flood of memories which I thought I had repressed pretty well.

I have quite the box on my shelf. As each month goes by and I see things that remind me of him, I toss them. A few years ago I couldn't do that. I know without a doubt that if HE ever contacted me I would not want to even meet him. He hasn't reached out in 3 years, and even then it was odd. I saw him around town over the summer and held my breath for a few days wondering if he'd reach out but he didn't <whew>

Here's my thing... .and I'm actually considering going to see my old T to hash this out. Why can't I put him out of my mind? I am almost 50 and to be fair, I do think of my past exes occasionally, but this just seems obsessive to me. I mean, I came back here to post an update around Thanksgiving and I'm still here. I shouldn't be, I have a million other things going on in my life.

I think I still have fleas!

[Perdita]

Here's my thing... .and I'm actually considering going to see my old T to hash this out. Why can't I put him out of my mind? I am almost 50 and to be fair, I do think of my past exes occasionally, but this just seems obsessive to me. I mean, I came back here to post an update around Thanksgiving and I'm still here. I shouldn't be, I have a million other things going on in my life.

I think I still have fleas!

I think you should go see your old T so you can put the last of this behind you.  If I could afford it I'd be in T too.

[Trog]

Maybe you just need a top-up why me? We were attracted to them because of our own issues, them to us because of theirs. We have issues, in my case it's codependency and issues from childhood but I'm sure they will raise their head again if I stop doing the work, old habits die hard, maybe it's like going to the vet for your booster? I would go see the T for a few sessions, at least also by being pro-active you are doing something and that alone will help. Try not to worry

[Hazelrah]

I wish more people would come back and tell us how happy they are without their BPD person. 

We are out here, Perdita.  I took about a year away from this site, but recently came back during the holidays.  Perhaps it was just a simple reminder to myself of where I’d come since last visiting.

This site was (and continues to be) invaluable.  There are some vital things to be gleaned here…and life really can get better after all of this. 

[VanessaG]

Thanks for the "welcome back." (The good news is that my real name is not Vanessa!)

I've just spent the last hour going back through my old posts, almost all of them, starting from the first "WOW -- did I finally find some answers?  is this person someone with BPD?" to all of the speculation and self-exploration and then, finally, starting to get a little better and lending what I hoped was a kind word or a hand up to others whose stories were so much like my own.

There was a period of time where I was a little addicted to this forum.  Truly.  I'm not sure how I weaned myself but apparently I did because when I came back here today it had been a couple of years since I posted and nearly as long since I'd visited.

I'm in no way a poster child.  There are things I've done 'wrong' or I'm even still doing that are in no way textbook and while I understand why, I think we all have to do things our own way.  

For example, even just this past weekend, I looked at my exUBPD's Facebook page.  It's like an itch I have to scratch.  Other than him looking so "normal" and his wife seeming so normal and them appearing to be so happy, it just seems like a way for me to just sort of know he's 'out there' and think, ho hum, that's fine.  Look at the dog, he's cute.  Oh look, his daughter must be speaking to him, she "liked" that photo.  It was like looking in on someone I used to know.  Eventually.

The things that I will say did and do work:

1.)  Therapy.  My T was and is the best.  When I got the email this morning, I printed it and looked skyward and thought -- how lucky am I that I just happen to have a T appointment this morning?   Took it with me, handed it to her and said "look who got in touch ... .?"   She has helped me work through so many of my co-dependent issues, get so much healthier.

2.)  I have been blessed with the best, most patient and laugh-til-I-cry friends.  I don't think I can overstate how powerful they were in my healing and disengaging process.

3.)  Staying busy.  Just plain scheduling lots of stuff to do.  I served on the BoD of a non-profit in the middle of all of this and while I found politics maddening, it was also really demanding of my time and energy and when I say it provided plenty of the missing DRAMA in my life in droves, well, that would be a massive understatement.  It also made me realize how much I really do hate drama.  I opted not to run for the BoD after my two year term.  Find a project that will consume you.  You won't have time for a lot of this and by the time you do again, I'll bet you'll find tincture of time has helped a great deal.

4.)  Focusing on memememe.  When I first got here and lamented my plight and people told me to look at my own issues, I said all of the right things.  I said I was and I did, but the fact is that that took some long hard work with my T.  I remember telling Schwing way back then that I was "unafraid of a little hard work" and in the end that turned out to be true.  I'm making some really good healthful changes right now.  I told my T that it all suddenly seems so easy.  She told me that the people she works with who make real change do it in one of two ways.  One, a crisis comes along that makes them throw all of the boulders that are obstacles out of their way to make the change (and they have to come back and deal with the boulders later).  The other way is the path I chose (and we are talking FIVE YEARS!) -- they pick up each boulder, work on it, and set it to the side, slowly and painstakingly, until one day the path is clear. I feel like 2015 is the year of me.

5.)  My husband (not the pwBPD) has made his own changes, certainly not in a vacuum relative to mine, but boy, has my interaction with him changed, and for the better.  He is still a duck rather than a snuggly puppy as a pet, but I'm okay with a slightly exotic companion.  He's a good man, flawed, not the source of all of my happiness (I can get that in other places, largely from focusing on the things that bring me true JOY and SENSE of accomplishment) but he's a damned good partner and if you'd told me five years ago he'd be capable of that, I'd have shook my head in disbelief.  He moved a lot of his own boulders, to be sure.

I wish the same for all of you.  I know you can be there. I can almost feel it for you.  Keep on keeping on on your own slightly warped and twisted path to health.  You will get there.  You'll hit a lot of speed bumps on the way.  

But as someone wise here said, the only way to the other side was STRAIGHT THROUGH.

I suppose the exBPDp is having marital troubles.  But I admit, I'm not as curious as I thought I'd be about that. It feels, in a lot of ways, like none of my business about someone that I used to know and who 'didn't make the cut' to stay in my life.

This box, I am confident, is going to be easier to stuff back on the shelf than I would have guessed.  If I'd been this healthy five years ago, I never would have been down this road ... .

Is there anything I can do to help?

VanessaG

[Trog]

Thanks for the "welcome back." (The good news is that my real name is not Vanessa!)

I've just spent the last hour going back through my old posts, almost all of them, starting from the first "WOW -- did I finally find some answers?  is this person someone with BPD?" to all of the speculation and self-exploration and then, finally, starting to get a little better and lending what I hoped was a kind word or a hand up to others whose stories were so much like my own.

There was a period of time where I was a little addicted to this forum.  Truly.  I'm not sure how I weaned myself but apparently I did because when I came back here today it had been a couple of years since I posted and nearly as long since I'd visited.

I'm in no way a poster child.  There are things I've done 'wrong' or I'm even still doing that are in no way textbook and while I understand why, I think we all have to do things our own way.  

For example, even just this past weekend, I looked at my exUBPD's Facebook page.  It's like an itch I have to scratch.  Other than him looking so "normal" and his wife seeming so normal and them appearing to be so happy, it just seems like a way for me to just sort of know he's 'out there' and think, ho hum, that's fine.  Look at the dog, he's cute.  Oh look, his daughter must be speaking to him, she "liked" that photo.  It was like looking in on someone I used to know.  Eventually.

The things that I will say did and do work:

1.)  Therapy.  My T was and is the best.  When I got the email this morning, I printed it and looked skyward and thought -- how lucky am I that I just happen to have a T appointment this morning?   Took it with me, handed it to her and said "look who got in touch ... .?"   She has helped me work through so many of my co-dependent issues, get so much healthier.

2.)  I have been blessed with the best, most patient and laugh-til-I-cry friends.  I don't think I can overstate how powerful they were in my healing and disengaging process.

3.)  Staying busy.  Just plain scheduling lots of stuff to do.  I served on the BoD of a non-profit in the middle of all of this and while I found politics maddening, it was also really demanding of my time and energy and when I say it provided plenty of the missing DRAMA in my life in droves, well, that would be a massive understatement.  It also made me realize how much I really do hate drama.  I opted not to run for the BoD after my two year term.  Find a project that will consume you.  You won't have time for a lot of this and by the time you do again, I'll bet you'll find tincture of time has helped a great deal.

4.)  Focusing on memememe.  When I first got here and lamented my plight and people told me to look at my own issues, I said all of the right things.  I said I was and I did, but the fact is that that took some long hard work with my T.  I remember telling Schwing way back then that I was "unafraid of a little hard work" and in the end that turned out to be true.  I'm making some really good healthful changes right now.  I told my T that it all suddenly seems so easy.  She told me that the people she works with who make real change do it in one of two ways.  One, a crisis comes along that makes them throw all of the boulders that are obstacles out of their way to make the change (and they have to come back and deal with the boulders later).  The other way is the path I chose (and we are talking FIVE YEARS!) -- they pick up each boulder, work on it, and set it to the side, slowly and painstakingly, until one day the path is clear. I feel like 2015 is the year of me.

5.)  My husband (not the pwBPD) has made his own changes, certainly not in a vacuum relative to mine, but boy, has my interaction with him changed, and for the better.  He is still a duck rather than a snuggly puppy as a pet, but I'm okay with a slightly exotic companion.  He's a good man, flawed, not the source of all of my happiness (I can get that in other places, largely from focusing on the things that bring me true JOY and SENSE of accomplishment) but he's a damned good partner and if you'd told me five years ago he'd be capable of that, I'd have shook my head in disbelief.  He moved a lot of his own boulders, to be sure.

I wish the same for all of you.  I know you can be there. I can almost feel it for you.  Keep on keeping on on your own slightly warped and twisted path to health.  You will get there.  You'll hit a lot of speed bumps on the way.  

But as someone wise here said, the only way to the other side was STRAIGHT THROUGH.

I suppose the exBPDp is having marital troubles.  But I admit, I'm not as curious as I thought I'd be about that. It feels, in a lot of ways, like none of my business about someone that I used to know and who 'didn't make the cut' to stay in my life.

This box, I am confident, is going to be easier to stuff back on the shelf than I would have guessed.  If I'd been this healthy five years ago, I never would have been down this road ... .

Is there anything I can do to help?

VanessaG

You just did! My eyes are a bit glassy reading that! I can really feel that you are so much further on, I hope, like you say, we will all be where you are, as soon as it will be. It takes work, but I can see it's so worth it.

[VanessaG]

Why Me.  (I remember you.  You gave me lots of good wisdom as I recall.)

Yes, definitely go back to the T if they are a good T.

And then find something to obsess about it.  Something healthy. 

Not heroin. 

Maybe The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?



Something, anything.  Go lose yourself if something (relatively) healthy that leaves you wanting to know more, learn more, you get it.

Who was the movie character who said that 'life is about this' and held up their index finger?

And that the secret was in figuring out what that was.

(I remember the concept, forgot the movie character.)

VanessaG

[WhyMe?]

Why Me.  (I remember you.  You gave me lots of good wisdom as I recall.)

Yes, definitely go back to the T if they are a good T.

And then find something to obsess about it.  Something healthy. 

Not heroin. 

Maybe The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?



Something, anything.  Go lose yourself if something (relatively) healthy that leaves you wanting to know more, learn more, you get it.

Who was the movie character who said that 'life is about this' and held up their index finger?

And that the secret was in figuring out what that was.

(I remember the concept, forgot the movie character.)

VanessaG

I really loved my T, have not seen him in over 2 years! I'll have to look up that movie reference

Thing is I am really busy, though I am also battling thyroid issues which were likely brought on by adrenal fatigue brought on by all the stress of the r/s. I do just every now and then take a look at his fb page - it's locked down so all I can see is the profile pic but I wonder why I do that. Hopefully just the same reason why I sometimes look at an old high school boyfriends, idle curiosity. My exBPD and I were fb friends till 2013 when he deleted me (he had two accounts - he still has the other but shut down the one I was on). Honestly the only reason I didn't delete him first was because I didn't want to trigger him into contacting me. When I realized his account was gone I breathed a sigh of relief, but it didn't stop me from looking at whatever profile pic he has every couple of months (which I suspect my T will say is normal). I do not call him, read old emails, drive by his place (we live in the same town) or reach out to anyone in his family.

I think hearing about the child molestation really brought back memories of how sexually aggressive he was with me, and how lucky I feel NOT to have that in my life right now (supporting someone emotionally who has done such a hideous thing).

I hadn't posted since summer 2010 and also went poking around my old posts and thought WOW I went through all this? No wonder my T was amazed I never ended up in the hospital. I remember some of it but had put quite a bit out of my mind.

My current bf is the most relaxed, stable, calm person imaginable. I am so incredibly lucky to have him.

Not heroin? Are you sure? j/k

And apologies, didn't mean to make this all about me! I was going to message you but I do think it's good for others to read that life does get better. 

I'm so glad to hear you are doing well!   

[VanessaG]

I think getting news about someone being involved with molestation would trigger the healthiest person in the world.

Even, say, Oprah!

Definitely go back to the T.  A little tune-up, a little focus on the "right" things (whatever those are) and you'll be right back on track, I bet.

Speed bump.

[myself]

Who was the movie character who said that 'life is about this' and held up their index finger?

E.T.?

[VanessaG]

City Slickers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxY31-FcDVA