recycle #eleventybillion-- preparing

[whitebackatcha]

I reactivated my Facebook account Monday of last week, and she almost immediately blocked me. I didn't react.

Today, I discover I'm unblocked. It's been 4 weeks tomorrow since she said she was done, four weeks Monday since she talked to me.

So, goals for the inevitable commencement of communication. Let her go if she wants to go. Work on not invalidating and JADEing. Two goals I can't figure out how to accomplish:

1. When I don't act interested enough, or respond enough, she can get upset and say I don't want to talk, then usually pulls out of the conversation. How do I be present when I'm still raw, and don't want to be open yet? I want to think big picture, preserving the relationship stuff.

2. I still don't get what I'm supposed to do when she is crabby. Not taking it personally is one thing, but if I'm going to be snapped at, I don't really want to chat anymore.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[shatra]

She said she was done with the relationship---what were her reasons?

1----You can show interest by listening, and not having to be more open than you wish right now. Practice the tools now, in advance

2-----You can try validating when she's crabby (You sound upset---want to talk about it?... .That sounds like it's really difficult to deal with... .Sure, anyone would feel upset over that... .

Shatra

[whitebackatcha]

She said she was done with the relationship---what were her reasons?

1----You can show interest by listening, and not having to be more open than you wish right now. Practice the tools now, in advance

2-----You can try validating when she's crabby (You sound upset---want to talk about it?... .That sounds like it's really difficult to deal with... .Sure, anyone would feel upset over that... .

Shatra

She said I keep hurting her, as evidenced by my misinterpreting a link she sent me about narcissism. In hindsight, I did stay calm, but I could have tried validation more. She also threw in the difficulties of a long distance relationship, which are valid, and something she has to decide for herself.

She can always tell when I'm holding back, is the thing.

Mentioning her being upset, or anything similar, makes her irrate. Normal validation phrases make her irrate. I understand that it has to sound natural, but she is very sensitive to perceived psych-speak. She is the type who is just frequently somewhat irritable. I do think she makes an effort not to be a jerk to me. I'm just not sure where my line even should be.

[babyducks]

Hi White,

Here are a couple of thoughts to mull over.   

1. When I don't act interested enough, or respond enough, she can get upset and say I don't want to talk, then usually pulls out of the conversation. How do I be present when I'm still raw, and don't want to be open yet? I want to think big picture, preserving the relationship stuff.

2. I still don't get what I'm supposed to do when she is crabby. Not taking it personally is one thing, but if I'm going to be snapped at, I don't really want to chat anymore.

It sounds like to me that you have some pretty good insights into what is going on and how you feel.  You are still raw and don't want to engage in any deep emotional stuff right now but want to leave the door open.   Do I have that right?

Which sounds pretty smart to me.   If that's what you want your boundary to be for now,  you may not even have  to express it to her.   Draw the boundary in your head.   Until I feel more emotionally prepared I will curtail conversations that might lead to hurt feelings.   If you are in a conversation with her express something like, I don't feel like I can talk about (difficult topic) right now, let's talk about something else for a while.   If she ends the conversation she ends the conversations.    Enforcing mini boundaries or micro boundaries has been effective for me.   I do it all the time. 

waverider said something over on another thread that I thought applied here as well so I cut and pasted it.   here is the complete thread.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?action=post;quote=12656700;topic=280909.10;sesc=6abf5a80b36ae1e3ec07f718562068a8

People with BPD (pwBPD) undermine those around them, causing those close to them to loose confidence and be wishy washy trying to avoid conflict. pwBPD cannot respect wishy washy people as they are relying on others to provide the strength and consistency they dont have. In short they create the very type of people who infuriate them.

The answer is to be strong and consistent in yourself without trying to constantly appease. They will storm against you and test you. But until you know who you are and can clearly demonstrate it, they will not know who you are and will paint you whatever colour suits them in the moment.

This is what we work on here, finding who we are, learning to believe in who we are. It is then up to our partners to decide if they want to fit with us or not, we cannot make anyone else do or believe anything.

So I like waverider's answer, the answer is to be strong and consistent in yourself without trying to constantly appease. 

When my partner snaps at me,  the mechanism I use it to just stop, whatever it is I am doing, saying, whatever it is that is going on I stop.   And just catch her eye and look at her.   and sigh.   I pause long enough to interrupt whatever is happening.   I don't say anything.   I am not going to debate things with her.   and then I return whatever was happening.   When I did it the other day.  She looked at me and said "what?  you absolutely deserved that."   and I just sighed again and stood there long with my head tilted at an angle like the RCA dog.   and then I walked out of the room.   I don't need to explain this to her.    It may not be the most healthiest thing in the world to do but it's about 9 million times better than what we were doing so... .

I understand what you mean when you say normal validation phrases make her irate.   Some of my most practiced virtuoso validation lines that I had crafted like White House speeches fell flat because they weren't sincere, they weren't my words.   Some of the validations I snatched desperately out of the air did have an impact because I truly meant them.  I wasn't saying them to appease her I truly freaking thought it must be horrible to feel that way.   

I guess this is the bottom line for me, and this is my experience so it may not work for you.   It took me a long dang time to get a hold of the fact that my partner will always have very intense emotional reactions to everything.  That is the way she is.   I'm a witness to that not a participant in that.   Doesn't have anything to do with me.   

You can't stop a river from draining water by adding more water you just create a bigger river.

What waverider said really clicked with me.   I probably can't explain it well, but for a long time I was adding water to the river.   Now I am working on not.   And that makes me feel much better about me.

'ducks

[rotiroti]

Hey white,

Could you provide an example of how you would try to validate her feelings? What's the language you use?

And you are right about pwBPD being very intuitive with other people's feelings, are these interactions face to face? phone?

Excellent advice from shatra and babyducks, thanks for posting that waverider post, really resonated with me!

[whitebackatcha]

Hi White,

Here are a couple of thoughts to mull over.   

1. When I don't act interested enough, or respond enough, she can get upset and say I don't want to talk, then usually pulls out of the conversation. How do I be present when I'm still raw, and don't want to be open yet? I want to think big picture, preserving the relationship stuff.

2. I still don't get what I'm supposed to do when she is crabby. Not taking it personally is one thing, but if I'm going to be snapped at, I don't really want to chat anymore.

It sounds like to me that you have some pretty good insights into what is going on and how you feel.  You are still raw and don't want to engage in any deep emotional stuff right now but want to leave the door open.   :)o I have that right?

Which sounds pretty smart to me.   If that's what you want your boundary to be for now,  you may not even have  to express it to her.   :)raw the boundary in your head.   Until I feel more emotionally prepared I will curtail conversations that might lead to hurt feelings.   If you are in a conversation with her express something like, I don't feel like I can talk about (difficult topic) right now, let's talk about something else for a while.   If she ends the conversation she ends the conversations.    Enforcing mini boundaries or micro boundaries has been effective for me.   I do it all the time. 

waverider said something over on another thread that I thought applied here as well so I cut and pasted it.   here is the complete thread.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?action=post;quote=12656700;topic=280909.10;sesc=6abf5a80b36ae1e3ec07f718562068a8

People with BPD (pwBPD) undermine those around them, causing those close to them to loose confidence and be wishy washy trying to avoid conflict. pwBPD cannot respect wishy washy people as they are relying on others to provide the strength and consistency they dont have. In short they create the very type of people who infuriate them.

The answer is to be strong and consistent in yourself without trying to constantly appease. They will storm against you and test you. But until you know who you are and can clearly demonstrate it, they will not know who you are and will paint you whatever colour suits them in the moment.

This is what we work on here, finding who we are, learning to believe in who we are. It is then up to our partners to decide if they want to fit with us or not, we cannot make anyone else do or believe anything.

So I like waverider's answer, the answer is to be strong and consistent in yourself without trying to constantly appease. 

When my partner snaps at me,  the mechanism I use it to just stop, whatever it is I am doing, saying, whatever it is that is going on I stop.   And just catch her eye and look at her.   and sigh.   I pause long enough to interrupt whatever is happening.   I don't say anything.   I am not going to debate things with her.   and then I return whatever was happening.   When I did it the other day.  She looked at me and said "what?  you absolutely deserved that."   and I just sighed again and stood there long with my head tilted at an angle like the RCA dog.   and then I walked out of the room.   I don't need to explain this to her.    It may not be the most healthiest thing in the world to do but it's about 9 million times better than what we were doing so... .

I understand what you mean when you say normal validation phrases make her irate.   Some of my most practiced virtuoso validation lines that I had crafted like White House speeches fell flat because they weren't sincere, they weren't my words.   Some of the validations I snatched desperately out of the air did have an impact because I truly meant them.  I wasn't saying them to appease her I truly freaking thought it must be horrible to feel that way.   

I guess this is the bottom line for me, and this is my experience so it may not work for you.   It took me a long dang time to get a hold of the fact that my partner will always have very intense emotional reactions to everything.  That is the way she is.   I'm a witness to that not a participant in that.   :)oesn't have anything to do with me.   

You can't stop a river from draining water by adding more water you just create a bigger river.

What waverider said really clicked with me.   I probably can't explain it well, but for a long time I was adding water to the river.   Now I am working on not.   And that makes me feel much better about me.

'ducks

The quotes make a lot of sense to me, too. I do try to appease too much. It's so scary when you are with someone who is willing to end the relationship because you used the wrong word. Yes, I don't feel safe with her yet. The more things continue, the less safe I feel with her EVER. She keeps tearing everything down when it's gotten built up, and I'm just tired of it. I used to be so grateful and relieved when she would come back, I would just jump in with enthusiasm. I'm just not feeling it this time. I love her more than I've ever loved anyone before. I'm glad she's warming back up. I also think she's a jerk who doesn't appreciate me in the way I deserve. But I also know that, when she tries, she really does try.

I can't keep trying to do her work because I'm scared she can't or won't.

I'm just getting my thoughts out, trying to process all this.

[whitebackatcha]

Hey white,

Could you provide an example of how you would try to validate her feelings? What's the language you use?

And you are right about pwBPD being very intuitive with other people's feelings, are these interactions face to face? phone?

Excellent advice from shatra and babyducks, thanks for posting that waverider post, really resonated with me!

If I give something generic like "that makes sense," it's not so bad. But if I say, "and that's frustrating," when it's obvious that is the feeling underneath her statement, she is insulted. "So you feel xyz, is that right?" And she'll shut down because I used the wrong word. Basically anything that highlights feelings underneath. "I respect that you feel that way." She says "I'm not talking about feelings, I'm talking about reality." Asking how she feels gets a restatement of her opinion.

This is a long distance relationship, so it's over Messenger usually, but sometimes phone. Things go better on the phone and in person.

[whitebackatcha]

As a side note, does it seem reasonable to respond to her if she addresses me directly, but otherwise not worry about it? She is starting her "respond where I'll see it, respond to the same comment I made of someone else but not to mine" stuff. I don't want to play games. I don't want to mind read, nor do I want to give her the ST.

[babyducks]

It's so scary when you are with someone who is willing to end the relationship because you used the wrong word. Yes, I don't feel safe with her yet.

Yeah it is scary.   Felt a little weird to me too.    Here's the thing that helped me.   I would encourage you to look at it as effective/not effective word as opposed to right/wrong word.

validation and communication skills are hard to learn.  it takes some time.   I found it easier to practice with people other than my partner at first.   (I didn't tell them I was practicing on them of course.  I used people at work all the time.)   if you want to practice here, find a thread with a newcomer and validate their experience and emotion. 

You know white, you've had this pretty intense r/s with a lot of ups/downs and unexplained volatility,  there are probably lots of good reasons for you to not to feel emotionally safe, trusting your gut, honoring your intuition is a perfectly reasonably thing to do.   I would also encourage you to not blow by that emotion.   If you are not ready to feel safe you're not ready.

Now I get that it feels that she is always ready to end the r/s because emotions are still running very high, still as you have noticed yourself she always seems to end up drifting back.   So that should tell you something.   

It's very hard to feel calm and centered in a BPD r/s.   In my experience, my partner and I went through a bad patch where we were pinging back and forth off each other and neither one of us could center and calm for a while.   It felt very insecure and unstable.   Took a while to work through that.   Eventually we did.   The trick for me was to be very calm and centered and sure within myself.  To know exactly who I was and for what I would stand.   Sounds like meaningless mumbo jumbo but really isn't.   I had to know I would be fine if she left, I would be fine if she stayed and I would be fine if she had an episode of her bipolar disorder.   Most days I feel that way, every once and a while I don't.   

Upstream you said you still feel raw, from what you've written she still feels pretty churned up too.   Go slow, continue to let emotions settle.   

Hang in there, you are doing fine.

'ducks

[babyducks]

If I give something generic like "that makes sense," it's not so bad. But if I say, "and that's frustrating," when it's obvious that is the feeling underneath her statement, she is insulted. "So you feel xyz, is that right?" And she'll shut down because I used the wrong word. Basically anything that highlights feelings underneath. "I respect that you feel that way." She says "I'm not talking about feelings, I'm talking about reality." Asking how she feels gets a restatement of her opinion.

This is a long distance relationship, so it's over Messenger usually, but sometimes phone. Things go better on the phone and in person.

I've noticed that sometimes my pwBPD attempts to manage her emotions by either refusing to discuss them or refusing to name them.  Took me a while to trip to that.   At first I was kind of insulted by it.   Now I understand it more as her way of putting on the brakes on an emotion that might get out of control.

Yesterday my partner and I were out in the park and I said "I wanted to talk to you about that letter that came in the mail."   And she immediately said " I won't talk about that here, not now."   Which I understand as her way of managing her emotions around the letter which could have sparked a conversation that might have gotten difficult.  I can respect that and we changed the topic.   No big deal.

If staying with generic, 'that makes sense',  'well I can understand that',  'huh, that sounds really different from how I would have initially thought about it' type statements , 'wow that's interesting I would have said XYZ from my perspective', then stay with those for a while.

It sounds like maybe your gf isn't feeling heard.   And wants to be listened to.     Have you reviewed the lessons on validation?

(In-)validate the (In-)Valid

There are four combinations possible and at the beginning it is easy to loose perspective and get stuck. First let's start with priorities - what order should they be considered?

  1) Don't invalidate the valid,

  2) Validate the valid,

  3) Don't validate the invalid,

  4) Selectively  and carefully invalidate the invalid.

1) Don't invalidate the valid

Avoiding invalidation is incredibly important. In a healthy relationship validation dominates invalidation 5:1. Invalidation pushes a pwBPD quickly to an emotional excitement level where reason fails. But when we invalidate the valid it becomes truly toxic - we sabotage sense making and the weak regulation mechanisms that do exist.

It is easy to invalidate the valid: We may dislike our SO crying so we tell them to cheer up. We may believe the reasoning of the pwBPD faulty (life is miserable and there will never be an end to it) and we tell them they should feel different. We usually run the risk of invalidating the valid if we forget that the pwBPD as a totally different perspective - we are tempted to say something that is valid from our perspective but the pwBPD's world may be dominated by very different concerns. The sun may be shining but the a recent trigger brought some sad emotions up that now dominate totally - and we don't even have a clue.

A good anti-dote here is to remember that validation starts with acceptance.

2) Validate the valid

Now this seems obvious. Still reaching out when someone is crying and touching them or saying it's o.k. you cry is not always the easiest move. Validating positive situations is also important - cooling down someone who feels over the top to a level where reason is available can help to stabilize the positive situation before it flips to dispair. Some think validation is like candy and should be given sparingly. I see it more like a piggy bank - try to fill it at any opportunity you can. In the long run you may be rich and in the short run it can save you over unanticipated crisis.

3) Don't validate the invalid

This is important - we don't want to endorse unhealthy behavior. The real risk here is that we validate the invalid habitually as it is an easy short term way out. Some people take this rule however more important than the first two rules which is sadly mistaken. Fear sets in - fear of making mistakes. Here it is critical to maintain perspective. We are not perfect and wrongly validating once is a while will happen and usually is less damaging than wrongly invalidating.

a) validation is about the moment. We are usually not really in the big decision making game. Yes, we hear that we will be divorced or that dynamite will be ordered to blow themselves up. But we are not dealing with words expressing facts and serious commitments but words expressing emotions. Our words don't need to be meant for long term either - they are for the moment. This is not to say we should be lying but we should be lightweight on commitments/hard facts.

b) we may see the statement by the pwBPD as invalid but isn't that a form of b&w thinking on our side? Is our own emotional excitement strengthening the judgmental part in us? Often there there is truth in what a pwBPD says even when big parts of the statement is way off. We can focus our validation on that valid part strengthening what is right.

c) Often better is taking a step back and not responding directly but responding to e.g. behavior instead of words or earlier valid behavior or words. That way we step out of the ping-pong and take control of the exchange turning it into a more constructive direction.

d) a-c are really critical to stop the fighting. Remember invalid statements by pwBPD are often used by them to elicit an invalidating response from us (to confirm their suspicion that we are hostile). Perspective is everything.

4) Selectively  and carefully invalidate the invalid

Imagine a house on fire and someone is running past you into a dead end corridor. You are a firefighter coming in and know for sure that there is only a brick wall in the direction the person is running and the exit is in the opposite direction and free. It is high time to invalidate that person. You probably yell to make sure you are heard. You probably startle the other person. But what other choice do you have?

Most situations are better handled by using SET or simply validation. This allows the pwBPD to come to own conclusions on which they then can build in the future.

I have to thank anOught for the Clift Notes version and doing all that typing.      Thanks anOught.

If validation looks like rocket science right now stick with SET,  I always found that to be easier.

'ducks

[babyducks]

As a side note, does it seem reasonable to respond to her if she addresses me directly, but otherwise not worry about it? She is starting her "respond where I'll see it, respond to the same comment I made of someone else but not to mine" stuff. I don't want to play games. I don't want to mind read, nor do I want to give her the ST.

Hmmm not being all online savvy I'm not sure what you are describing here.   Can you spell this out with some more detail?

[whitebackatcha]

Babyducks,

My Internet keeps crashing when I try to quote. 

When I said she will end things over a word, I actually meant we can be having a normal conversation, and one small thing will trigger her. She ended it once because she said something about someone making her drink, I asked of she had been at Starbucks, and she flipped. She tried to back out, I tried to explain in one statement, it didn't work, and I realized I should just let her go, and  said if she wanted to end the conversation, that was okay. She said, "No, what we should end is US."  This most recent time, she sent an article about narcissism. I was neutral. She made a comment that led me to believe she was referring to herself. I pointed out how the article didn't apply to her. She said, "Are you calling me a narcissist?" I answered directly, and she said she was done with he relationship. I see now that that probably felt like invalidation, but it felt tricky because it was a direct question.

But at the same time, no, I don't think she feels heard at ALL. I constantly say nice things that I truly mean, but when there is conflict suddenly in the middle of a normal conversation... .I only started reading the lessons this summer, I think, so I was just starting these new methods when she ended it again (twice, actually).

Your example of your gf and the letter really resonated with me. It makes sense that not wanting to discuss feelings can be a way to not become overwhelmed by them.

I'm working at being more centered. I think that was part of the problem too, that I tried to adapt to her behaviors too much. I've been using this time to develop more of a life of my own. I already feel more centered, which is nice.

To be really honest, I can understand now why she suddenly ends conversations, and even why she ends the relationship. I can see how the former, at least, is probably positive for her. On a personal level, it has felt like like a kick in the stomach every single time. It is something that has made me think, "I don't deserve to be treated this way. I deserve someone who actually wants to talk to me, and doesn't discard me because I asked if she was at Starbucks when I know she doesn't normally go there (but she has before)."