I'm feeling tense and need support, learning, and growth to support my daughter

[kndogi]

Hello ,

I'm grateful to have found this community. I feel relief and surprise. It meets my needs for community, learning, growth, support, and hope.

I feel overwhelmed and need easy. I'm going to try and condense my situation down.

My partner and I met 2 years ago. We started dating, things were difficult quickly. The day after a big fight as I was going to ask her to move out she told me she was pregnant. From there out I tried asking to be platonic and received the response that I would not be allowed at my childs birth if we were "ex" partners. Since then I chose to stay present to the relationship in order to support my presence at my daughters birth. Over this course of time we tried visiting a therapist to work out our issues. We dropped out of that. Our daughter is just over 6 months old as I write this.

I discovered last Monday this entire community BPD and the Walking on Eggshells book. I cried as I read page after page of almost identical correlations to the last 2 years of my life with my partner. I tried bringing my therapist's awareness to this book and that this may have played out. Tried bringing her awareness to that her approach may have sustained and supported the pain between my partner and I.We tried another therapist after the birth and here I stand as that therapist seems to be withdrawing her support for my situation. My partner and I are currently separated. I have started applying many of the tools with much success in healing our past wounds and where my approach to communicating with my partner supported her pain. I am working to show her my learning and growth around how to communicate with her. I have not shared the BPD book or that I believe much of what it discusses may have played out for us with her. I understand that sharing this may support her pain and I'm working to take care and think out a helpful, useful, and compassionate approach.

Currently I'm at a position where my partner and I have a daughter and we are working out how to sustain our relationship in health even if we are separate. Our daughter needs support in her health and general well being. I'm finding that I need my partners support and understanding around how Her communication may support and grow emotional pain in our daughter. I'm imagining that if I can reach out to our therapist in a helpful way to get her awareness and support that she may be able to help communicate with my partner to this affect.

I'm also imagining that if my partner understands that our therapist who she trusts may have been inadvertently supported and contributed to the pain in our relationship that she may understand and find peace and trust in restoring health to our relationship. Whether that means we are together intimately or not. I'm needing her awareness of how subtle the linguistics are behind language that may support pain. I'm needing her awareness that gaps of understanding exist and that if we move in any direction without our awareness of the gaps that we may support pain. I'm need this to matter to support the health and well being of our daughter.

I'm grateful for your time reading this post. I feel hope and relief. It meets my need for community and consideration.

I feel hope and relief as I share. It meets my need for transparency and community. Is anyone willing to help me by sharing their perspective? I'm new to the concept of Borderline personality disorder and needing support from someone with experience that I'm imagining I could support my family's health.

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Turkish]

Hello kndogi,



There's a lot going in here, and I'm glad that you've reached out to us for support. 

It's great that you have already started educating yourself about BPD. What would you say are your greatest challenges so far given the situation? Is there something like a custody schedule, or are you still living together?

Turkish

[kndogi]

Hello Turkish, I'm grateful for your reply and what I am sensing as curiosity and interest in helping me. I feel relief. It meets my need for support and community.

I feel intrigue and sense a need for clarity. I need her awareness and understanding of where we are and how we got here. Our 2 year relationship so far clarified almost page by page the Eggshells book. I'm imagining that her awareness of this will bring closeness, empathy, compassion, and love.

We are communicating directly with eachother. There is no custody schedule. We are agreeing to it as we go so far. We were living together until we had a disagreement about 2 weeks ago that sparked our separation. As I have been learning through reading and researching the psychology of our situation and learning about compassionate communication our communication has softened a hundred miles since the disagreement. We are still living separately.

I'm needing equal presence with my daughter. I'm needing my partner's support in this. I imagine if we make any further decisions on how to move forward separately, for example a commitment on a 1-year lease for her to live somewhere else, without her understanding of the above that it will support pain in many ways, for example in separation between my daughter and I. I'm needing my partner's awareness of the depth of how closely our life mirrored the Eggshells book, before I support her need for movement on "where do i rent and move to now?".

[kndogi]

I imagine to word it concisely as possible:

I need empathy and compassion from my partner and therapist. I need their support and participation to support connection with my partner and daughter.

[Turkish]

I imagine to word it concisely as possible:

I need empathy and compassion from my partner and therapist. I need their support and participation to support connection with my partner and daughter.

Are you prepared to gift the empathy and compassion to yourself, and reach out in real life elsewhere? Take some time to go through these lessons, particularly the communication tools in lesson 3:

Lessons for Members who are in a Relationship

It may be that what you want is something you may not get from the mother of your baby if you keep asking. Focusing too much on you may be invalidating to whatever emotions she is feeling. You have every right to feel the way you do, but attempting to obtain validation from someone with unstable emotions and likely a fragmented sense of self may only contribute to further frustration.

I can't speak to the therapist issue. It might be good to find another just for yourself.

Babies are tough with a pwBPD (person with BPD), I had two myself.

We have a Co-Parenting Board, and also a Legal Board, where members can support you if needed. But let's turn it back to your r/s: what kind of argument precipitated this separation?

[kndogi]

I am grateful for your reply. I feel relief and appreciation. It meets my need for communication, to matter, and support.

I have been working hard on my "empathy" muscle. I have a coach in compassionate communication at the moment helping me through this. I will explore the link you shared in order to support finding understanding and awareness of more tools and nuances in my communication. I've started looking at it and feel hopeful.

I understand that I can only request support and her awareness. I understand that I need to support her emotional stability and emotional safety before space may exist for understanding around this.

I'm understanding the argument was because she was feeling scared that I was going to leave her. I had expressed the day before in therapy that I was going to face my fear of losing our daughter. I meant this as in claiming my voice for my half of the relationship. I unconsciously gave away my power through most of our relationship in order to support my presence with my daughter. I did this as I was still needing awareness of tools to support compassionate communication with my partner in order to support growth, peace, and harmony until about a month ago. Including awareness of the tools in books around BPD. I was consciously "giving in" in order to support presence until recently as I was ignorant of what was happening. I was attempting to seek clarity from my partner and needing support and understanding in how to do this. I was feeling stuck and hopeless in my attempts to communicate with her.

Can you clarify "reach out in real life elsewhere?" ?

[kndogi]

I realize that a major topic in Eggshells is to normalize the persons thoughts and experience. So I suppose one way I could describe it is: I'm needing her awareness of how normal everything that happened between us was. Sigh. I'm feeling relief as I think about wording it that way. I'm imagining it will meet my need to peacefully support her awareness.

I imagine she may still think "what we went through is not normal! It was horrible". I need support and understanding in how to peacefully disarm this response as I share the Eggshells book with her.

[Turkish]

Reach out to family, friends, another therapist.

Though we have members here who manage to discuss BPD with their loved one's, it's rare that it results in something positive, and in most cases, the opposite.

PERSPECTIVES: Telling someone that you think they have BPD

it usually isn't received well.

I do hear your frustration. My therapist said that he observed that a lot of my anger stemmed from expecting the mother of my children to be someone who she was not. What can you influence or control? You... and your r/s with your baby. How you interact with her mom to reduce conflict and be a good father, together, or apart from her mom. I get along well with my Ex now as a co parent. It's possible. I know that it's hard, maybe feeling in flux, the r/s still unsure. However it turns out, know that you're not alone here.

[kndogi]

Turkish, Wow! I am grateful for your continued support around this for me. I feel amazement and engaged. It meets my need for community, support, and consideration.

I am considering and agree with the helpfulness in reaching out to another therapist. Especially one with experience around BPD.

I'm hearing you that sharing this kind of information may not be received well.

I'm feeling excited and intrigued to hear your perspective on my perspective around this. I'm needing understanding, awareness, and needing shared reality. I feel disconnected from the idea that this is a "disease" beyond what I would call a "dis-ease" as in an uneasyness of the mind. I am finding hope and trust in learning compassionate communication. I am sensing the dis-ease comes from psychological trauma brought from a lack of access to empathy from community to support the emotional growth of an affected individual. Currently I'm sensing BPD is a result of that. I'm also seeing connection back to "perfection" in the person, as in they are perfect and it is perfectly normal for them to react this way in relation to what they have learned and experienced throughout their life.

I'm feeling curious on your take on the above and needing awareness and understanding around it, especially in relation to this article... in relation to your experience in BPD:

www.wakeup-world.com/2016/01/30/the-other-side-the-spiritual-gift-of-borderline-personality-disorder/

I feel connected with the conclusion at the end of the article: "They are the ones who understand life and the connections at a deeper level. Instead of validating them for who they are, we place a stronger mask on them to ensure they are never allowed to use the gift we don’t understand."

With all that said, I am still imagining how supporting my partners awareness around how normal and well documented what we went through was may lead to her awareness and healing of the pain that happened during our relationship

[livednlearned]

Hi kndogi,

I wanted to join Turkish in welcoming you 

It sounds like you are discovering both the emotional difficulties of loving someone who is BPD, and at the same time discovering some of the communication skills that can mitigate problems. It's encouraging that your child's mother was willing to see a therapist.

Why do you think the second therapist withdrew her support?

LnL

[kndogi]

Hello LnL, I'm grateful to receive your communication and support. I'm feeling relief and hope. It meets my need for consideration, community, learning, and support.

I'm sitting here crying as I reply. I feel overwhelmed. I need support. I'm supposed to start work tomorrow. I took the last 2.5 weeks off to just take care of myself and work on self-improvement. I've been learning so much during this time. I found out about BPD and read almost 4 books related to the situation I'm in. I tried approaching our second therapist about the Eggshells book on Thursday and the next day she sent an e-mail to both me and my partner suggesting we reach out to another therapist that can help with "co-parenting issues" and our "separation". She left it open to only take one of us as a client going forward. I need her understanding that I'm feeling alienated by her approach and supported in my pain as opposed to my health. I don't know what to do regarding this or say to her.

I've been applying the techniques that I've been learning with my partner and I'm finding miles of movement forward in health. I'm excited about that. I'm still feeling pain and needing the support and understanding from our second therapist to help unlock and heal any pain in myself and my partner. I need my partners awareness that the pain can come from anywhere unconsciously even our therapist and that I need her trust and understanding that I matter and that our understanding of what brought us pain matters.

I'm feeling frustrated as I consider the diagnosis of BPD. I believe in the perfection of everyone and that this is just a result of environment. I am sensing that the trauma and reaction is natural and "normal". I still see the helpfulness and direct relation to the information around BPD as it almost identically parallels what has been going on in my life. I'm feeling confused and hopeless. I'm needing understanding and movement toward health. I'm feeling angry and alienated by our second therapist. I need support and I'm wanting her learning, growth, and support in restoring health. I imagine her approach may support and grow pain in her other clients. I feel sad thinking about that and need their emotional health to matter as well. Would society choose to knowingly support a thief to keep stealing? How about a therapist to keep hurting others? I'll give you one concrete example. The therapist suggested very strongly that I could not say "no" to my partner when she asks me to do something like retrieve an object from the car. When this happened, I had requested communication and understanding before I agree to act and the therapist said that I "should" be "self-less" (lack of sense self a major part of BPD) if I want to support the "whole" -- the relationship. I'm really annoyed by that. I have a need for choice and freedom in my life and by her saying that, she supported my partners belief that I was doing "something wrong". Therefore, as I imagine, supporting my partner's understanding that I am a "bad partner". Essentially if I was completely trusting and followed her direction she may have inadvertently reinforced any potential BPD in myself. This is just one example. And I have many.

To answer your question directly: As I see our second therapist withdrawing support I am noticing a correlation in her showing signs of BPD herself. This happened once in a soft way and a second time in a more pronounced way. The second time was the day after I called her awareness to my new awareness of the Eggshells book. She replied saying that she had not diagnosed my partner as BPD and only that she may have displayed symptoms of it. I'm reading this as either an attempt to protect my partners emotional safety or my therapists own defensive survival instinct to protect herself in the event that she did anything "wrong". Go figure. This definitely rings the "abandonment" and "distortion campaign" bells in my brain.

I'm finding too a paradox in the diagnosis of others as having BPD and the Non-BPD needing to learn the tools to support a healthy relationship. In relation to my awareness/understanding that the BPD is lacking these tools themselves. I'm wondering if this is some sort of joke where we are actually the BPD and not them, or both are. I do acknowledge some of the symptoms from the book in myself. I however believe and trust that I have a much more open capacity to learning and being open to hearing how others feel and think about me without internalizing it and that I have a strong sense of curiosity in figuring out if there is anything I can learn in the feedback of other people.

Things are a hundred miles better with my partner now that I've been applying my tools and understanding. I think my sadness is coming from at the moment my belief story that our therapist "should have known" better and "be proactive and care to restore health when I bring her attention to it". I'm wanting what they call in Nonviolent Communication (NVC) as restorative justice. I'm wanting our therapists learning and growth around this topic of Compassionate Communication (NVC) and her understanding in how her approach may have supported and continues to grow pain in my relationship with my partner as well as with others.

[livednlearned]

Hi kndogi,

I know it can be very painful to experience feelings, and even though you currently feel overwhelmed, I hope the feelings of grief do bring some relief. In a meditation class I took, the teacher shared with us that pain x resistance = suffering. Meaning, sometimes we resist what we need to feel, and that makes it worse. Feeling the pain can (and has for me) been a way to process it, and ultimately feel better.

I can understand how it might feel difficult for you that the 2nd therapist didn't want to work with both you and your partner. That must have felt like a rejection. It sounds, too, like she may be aware of her limitations, and from what I understand, couples counseling can be very challenging for a therapist. Are you able to feel anger and sadness about the rejection while also understanding why she may have had that boundary for herself?

It's good that you are curious and willing to learn. I have found that the communication skills and empathy involved in understanding BPD can help improve many relationships, regardless of whether people are BPD or not.

LnL