Hello everyone!
I didn't give you many details there but my question is do any of you have experiences of the BPD person's smear campaign failing? What happens with the BPD person when she realises that her lies and misinformation didn't really work, not in the long run at least?
Hi LuckyTown. I'm also new here, and have had some of the experiences you mentioned. I"m also gay and female, though I'm in the US, and yes I have had to suffer more than one smear campaign.
To answer your questions, the first smear campaign failed miserably. Our mutual friends, who knew me very well, refused to give it any credence - and the resulting confrontation over it caused my BPD-ex a great deal of shame. I'm not sure she every really got over it, to be honest. She's no longer friends with those she tried to involve in that first effort, she left them because she wasn't in control of the image they had of her.
So she formed new friendships, from which I was 100% excluded, where she was free to paint herself as the innocent victim of all manner of undeserved things. For her, those campaigns have worked splendidly - because none of those people know me. But she knows I know about it, and that causes her a lot of internal angst - because she knows I hold her accountable for the lies she chooses to tell.
I know she does it to garner sympathy and compassion, making herself a victim of some sort, because she doesn't see herself as a good person so feels compelled to manufacture the image of one. It is sad, and it is heartbreaking, but above all it is one of the biggest reasons I chose to go no-contact with her.
She may not be capable of seeing me as a human being, treating me like I have intrinsic value, or have any interest in raising me up instead of tearing me down - but I am not her, and I choose a healthier path. Whatever she is, as a person, I know she is toxic for me in my life. A part of me will always love her, so I do understand exactly what it is like to hope for some level of good-terms at some point.
The problem is, someone who is pre-recovery isn't capable of caring about you for
you, they are only capable of pretending until they cannot pretend any longer. It is close to Narcissism, that sometimes I really do think they might as well be the same disorder. Pre-recovery BPDs cannot see beyond their own needs - mentally they may or may not even be aware of it. Those who are aware may even try to have something mutually meaningful, but they are so captive to their own chaotic emotions that they will never take the actions that bring about the ending they say they wanted because that requires impulse control and the ability to override emotions. It is as if they have zero control. The hard part is not knowing whether or not they even had the actual desire, or if it was a charade in its entirety.
My ex was more afraid of being revealed as a horrible person than she was horrified of the consequences others suffered by her actions. And that's what I mean. It's never about us. It isn't possible. It is always about them - and only them. Their love is not about us, it's about them. Their detachment isn't about us, it's about them. It is all about them all the time, and never
can be about the other person.
It's heartbreaking to realize that we don't even register on their radars, but it is an unfortunate, painful, and undeniable fact. So if you do choose to re-engage with her, remember that while you actually care about her and her well-being, and will make choices to that end - any interest she has in you will be because it serves an interest for herself. When her emotions make it so you cannot be someone she's able to use for her own self-interest, she will mistreat you to punish you for being useless to her.
The big question here is - if you would never allow a perfect stranger to treat you this way, and if you would dislike someone who treated your friends or loved ones this way, why would you want it for yourself? I know I ask this question of myself a lot - because I struggled with it, too, and for me the answer has to do with trying to combat why it was the relationship left me feeling so completely violated.
