Pity?

[Depression = 72% of members]

Excuse all the post today, but being consumed today by over whelming feelings today. Thought its best to just get them out.

Is anyone else just over the thought that we should feel sorry for these ill people?

Not sure if its just a bad day for me as I usually have more compassion than I should. Which is pry true of all of us or we would be here. Just that I find it infuriating that with an explanation of why they do these horrid acts that those of us tortured by them should feel sorry for these poor wounded souls. PUKE. Most know what they are and keep repeating with a different name/face the same horrid acts.

[talks to angels]

Excuse all the post today, but being consumed today by over whelming feelings today. Thought its best to just get them out.

Is anyone else just over the thought that we should feel sorry for these ill people?

Not sure if its just a bad day for me as I usually have more compassion than I should. Which is pry true of all of us or we would be here. Just that I find it infuriating that with an explanation of why they do these horrid acts that those of us tortured by them should feel sorry for these poor wounded souls. PUKE. Most know what they are and keep repeating with a different name/face the same horrid acts.

[unsureuncertain]

Mine ended up ruining my life as a way to get revenge for her perceived abandonment and my desire to get on with my life. So no I don't feel pity for her although I used to.

[Duped 1]

I know she is miserable but I do not pity her after how I was treated and blamed for everything

[Larmoyant]

I’ve struggled a lot with this. From one extreme to another. Evil vs poor wounded soul. Learning about BPD helped me to depersonalize some of his terrible behaviours, and with it came a lot of compassion, but I got caught up in it. Feeling sorry for someone who had effectively ruined the life I’d been building. I got too caught up with feeling sorry for him. It was a way for me to stay connected perhaps. I’m still struggling because some days I’m in despair over what’s happened to my life and I detest him, other days I feel I can, not forgive, but let it be. I’m striving to get to a place right in the middle where I no longer care. The place where the thought of him no longer triggers any strong emotion in me. Indifference. I'm not there yet.

[Mutt]

Hi talks to angels,

I think that it can incredibly hard at times to be centered when you're healing, you may feel one way one day and feel the opposite the next. That's what we're all here for, we offer each support and advice, maybe we're not seeing the whole picture, but with the help of others perspective we can, we center each other.

It's also that it's a normal part of the healing process, once you process the grief, you may forget about this though or you may think differently. My ex wife's BPD behaviors is how she survives I'd like to echo Larmoyant, it helps to learn as much as you can about BPD, you can become indifferent to the behaviors, depersonalize it, it's not personal to us it's something that our exes are going through internally.

[Curiously1]

I felt a lot of pity for her at the beginning. I think I became sick and tired of feeling sorry for her the more I dettached and it was pretty draining to stress over everything to do with her so much too. I still have compassion for her though. If she can get better one day then I'll be more than happy for her. Yes she has serious issues but I remind myself that she has chosen not to want to change and get better right now.  Knowing how much she can hurt others and not do a thing about it... that's not a very admirable person to me. I don't think there will ever be a chance for her to change unless she hits rock bottom.

[CooperD]

I switch between multiple positions on a daily basis.

1)  Wanting to pity her and saying to myself she has a really serious mental disorder which explains why she has behaved like she has. 

Just last week when she phoned she told me what a "fooked up mess" she is.  So pitying sometimes does help me as it makes me feel that this is not my fault but the disorder she has.   

However I have found pitying to be dangerous as it opens up feelings in me that everything could be ok if we fixed it and that inevitably makes me more vulnerable to recycling and to reminiscing on positive moments in our relationship.

2) Similar to others I also have real anger towards her and how she has behaved and pushed me so far to the brink with her abuse.

Torturing me for hours telling me she was going to make false rape allegations against me, physically assaulting me, sexually humiliating me etc.  When these things happened she appeared completely in control and aware of what she was doing and so i can only have anger for someone that put me in such extremely stressful situations because they have left real scars on me.

The issue I have is that I am a kind and compassionate person (she used to thank me for how patient I was with her - she did it when she read her wedding vows to me)  and so yeah if I was forced to choose despite everything I would probably say I have pity for her - I would still embrace her and tell her everything will be ok.

That's very sad for me to write as it shows how far away I am from recovering from this.

[stimpy]

Any feelings of pity were fleeting at best. Maybe it's an age thing, but she was 50 when I met her, with a lifetime of troubled relationships behind her yet she still took no responsibility for anything bad that had happened. In her mind, she was pretty much blameless, she was always the victim. So even at that age there was very little self awareness. She always blamed her exes for everything that went wrong in her relationships and her parents for everything else. There wasn't an ounce of sympathy or compassion for them and there wasn't an ounce or compassion for me.

She is a dangerous person, leaving a trail of destruction behind her, and even now, is literally still punishing her parents for what happened 35 years ago, or at least what she says happened. In truth, I'm sure her parents have a different story to tell.

So no, not much pity.

[LilMe]

I wish I could completely let go of the pity and move on to hate, but I'm not there yet. It has been 9 months of hell since I left. I am in a much better place now, but still have a long way to go in my recovery. I think it is mostly due life-long feelings of inadequacy that I received from my FOO. So I feel like others matter more than me. It is a core feeling that I hope to get rid of eventually.

[Hisaccount]

I do not pity. Not in the least bit.
She left me, she made her choices.
It was a huge mistake on her part and it destroyed me, but I don't feel sorry for her and I do my best to treat her that way.

I still have light contact. When she asks me for advice I simply tell her, this is your life now and I cannot help you with that.

How can you feel sorry for someone that abused you or manipulated and lied to you? Or maybe you just don't see it clearly yet.
Sure it is the disorder and not "their" fault, but it is their fault if they are in denial and refuse to seek out help.

[ynwa]

Angels, asked if it was ok to pity them, to feel sorry for them?

If it was ok to love them. If it was ok to be hurt by them. If it was ok to be angry with them.  We ask ourselves these questions, and we have reasons for all of them. 

Reasons to ask the questions, but we won't get answers. Not from them.

[stimpy]

Is anyone else just over the thought that we should feel sorry for these ill people?

Hmmm, so if I think about it, my earlier comment was what I actually felt, that being very little pity at all. But reading it again, the original post, talks to angels actually asked a different question, that being "should" we feel sorry for them.

And I'm drawn in two different directions.

Mine was in effect a bully. When she had the upper hand and was in control, she had a staggering ability to treat me badly. But when the tables were turned, when I refused the recycle, she felt sorry for herself, could get distraught and couldn't cope. And really, those are the signs of enormous immaturity, and an inability to deal with people in an adult way. So in a sense, then pity of some sort is due, I think her life has been riddled with pain and disappointment. I wouldn't want that for myself, or for her, or for anyone.

But I have to remember, she is an adult, she has played her part in all her relationships and as an adult, she has responsibility for her actions and behaviour and revelling in "self pity" is a cop out. The fact that her relationships always seem to end in extreme pain, should by all accounts lead her to seek help and make an attempt at understanding herself and what is causing all this pain. This doesn't happen and I think it doesn't happen because her fragile disassembled personality cannot allow for her being at fault. So guilt, the thing that makes most of us look at ourselves and sometimes think about changing ourselves to avoid making mistakes again in the future, just doesn't apply to her. So the pattern of behaviour repeats, and the blaming of others continues and the pain she is in and deals out to others continues. I know that my ex wanted it to work... .in the beginning, but just didn't have the emotional and psychological tools to manage an adult relationship. And couldn't understand why it kept on going wrong. And that must be a terrible feeling and thinking about it, maybe she does deserve pity, and maybe I should feel that pity for her.

But right now, I'm not quite ready to feel it for her. But I think I will, some time in the future, when I have moved on better and detached more fully.

[michel71]

I pity her and then she does or says something that is cruel or hurtful and then I pity myself. And round and round it goes.