Why do we need to suffer?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Do we really need to suffer?

Pain is important for us to navigate our world. Without it we would burn our mouths when the coffee is too hot. Without it we may go in for the same painful remationships. So in these cases I see its use.

The kind of pain I have experienced being part of a BPD relationship, and having a BPD mother is excruciating.

I've numbed it out for most of my life. Suppressed it, ignored it, but I feel its full brunt now.

I have put in boundaries to protect me from people who hurt me, including my mother and my ex, but the pain of 40 years of abuse is coming out. I'm healthier in my habits, but do I really need to feel this pain now? Why is it still there? Whats the message its trying to teach me? Its not useful anymore.

I'm ready to live without this pain. Any suggestions?

[Moselle]

Do we really need to suffer?

Pain is important for us to navigate our world. Without it we would burn our mouths when the coffee is too hot. Without it we may go in for the same painful remationships. So in these cases I see its use.

The kind of pain I have experienced being part of a BPD relationship, and having a BPD mother is excruciating.

I've numbed it out for most of my life. Suppressed it, ignored it, but I feel its full brunt now.

I have put in boundaries to protect me from people who hurt me, including my mother and my ex, but the pain of 40 years of abuse is coming out. I'm healthier in my habits, but do I really need to feel this pain now? Why is it still there? Whats the message its trying to teach me? Its not useful anymore.

I'm ready to live without this pain. Any suggestions?

[woundedPhoenix]

Pain is part a of physical and emotional feedback system.

It works well in animals, but with a consciously thinking human mind evolution kind of added the ability to get "stuck" in pain, and loop through it until our brains think we learned a lesson.

We also have developped defenses that can store pain away into the subconscious - suppress it - which can be triggered at a later time, when seemingly similar circumstances create similar emotions.

Since the subconscious doesn't really remember the source of the original pain, you could re-experience painfully repressed childhood emotions, and think they are ONLY generated by "current events".


If our bodies get infected, puss spots can develop and ussually towards the end of the infection, the puss needs to come out.

With our minds i think it works a bit similar, we have a lot of emotional puss stored away, for much of our lifetime, and unless we treat that wound or keep ourselves at a safe distance from a current source of re-infection, we will never heal.

And while we heal we also have to spend some time fighting a cognitive auto-immune disease. Our minds often attack ourselves, we blame ourself for our past and other failures, even though we did the best we could.

[Moselle]

Pain is part a of physical and emotional feedback system.

It works well in animals, but with a consciously thinking human mind evolution kind of added the ability to get "stuck" in pain, and loop through it until our brains think we learned a lesson.

We also have developped defenses that can store pain away into the subconscious - suppress it - which can be triggered at a later time, when seemingly similar circumstances create similar emotions.

Great response.  Thanks WP.

This explains why I was numb to feeling anything, including pain for the majority of my 15 year marriage, but that it came out after the breakup in a kind of purge of the poison. 

OK lesson learned, I don't want the pain to continue. What role am I playing in the suffering? I can't see its value any more.

[Sunfl0wer]

OK lesson learned, I don't want the pain to continue. What role am I playing in the suffering? I can't see its value any more.

Assuming that pain may be an opportunity for healing, not just in the moment, but also pain that has been suppressed and denied healing... .

Advice I have gotted here is to turn towards the pain.
Spend some time with it.
Learn to be kind to yourself, apply self care.

I have had lots of positive outcomes applying a IFS (internal family systmes) perspective.  Meaning, what ever I am longing for, instead of turning towards another for it, I turn inwards.  So if I am wishing for a loving motherly figure to soothe me through the pain, hold my hand and tell me nice things about me, well, then that is what I give myself, in my head. 

It has helped me to drown out all the negative self talk of berating myself for having emotional needs.
It has helped me to look inwards for inner resources, strengthening those vs seeking others to soothe me.
I has helped me to give myself general permission to be kind, gentle with myself and opened up the door to focus on more self care.

[Moselle]

I have had lots of positive outcomes applying a IFS (internal family systmes) perspective.  Meaning, what ever I am longing for, instead of turning towards another for it, I turn inwards.  So if I am wishing for a loving motherly figure to soothe me through the pain, hold my hand and tell me nice things about me, well, then that is what I give myself, in my head. 

It has helped me to drown out all the negative self talk of berating myself for having emotional needs.
It has helped me to look inwards for inner resources, strengthening those vs seeking others to soothe me.
I has helped me to give myself general permission to be kind, gentle with myself and opened up the door to focus on more self care.

That's amazing Sunflower. I will follow that when I am next in it. I do yearn for external soothing. Do you just visualise yourself soothing or is it more of an emotional soothing?

My pain can come for two days sometimes. It seems to come and go. I can't predict it.

I am also learning to challenge the assumptions I am making with the painful thoughts/ emotions. Mostly they are not logical. Almost like childlike responses that I leaned as a boy and still adhere to.

[Sunfl0wer]

Reading up on IFS has indeed been indeed dramatically powerful to me.  Another benefit that I recalled is it helps me not deny uncomfortable feelings I have. (Or maybe I said that, idk)

I have tried those techniques where you put a thought in a bubble, let it float away.  That didn't do it for me.  Yet IFS did.

You do it however you feel comfortable.  I happen to not be very visually oriented, way less than the average person.  I cannot create visual representations in my mind.  Yet, I do notice my negative self talk at times, or feel it.  So then I actually soeak back to it.  If I am having a really rough day I will go on in my head such... .
It's ok, I think we will get you home dear.  I can take a half day off for you and make you a sandwich and get you in bed.  I know you are tired.  Let's just get these three tasks done together, then we will be headed off ok?

So I actually listen and kind of negotiate my feelings.
It helps me get a little more done.
When I want to just work all day but know I don't have the stamina... .know I am mad at myself for feeling too distracted or such, I often want to just call it quits and head home.  I find if I am gentle with myself, I can actually comfortably do more sometimes and feel soothed during it.  I actually imagine a loving mom, she helps me cook, and I also imagine myself responding back expressing how I feel sad or such and she listens perfectly!

I suppose challenge thoughts is more a CBT approach than IFS one.
For IFS, I would allow myself to think my mad thoughts, pouty thoughts like:
Im so sick of having to cook and no one cares
Then I reply back: I know cooking is frustrating, and not your favorite thing, lets divide the work.

[Grey Kitty]

I've numbed it out for most of my life. Suppressed it, ignored it, but I feel its full brunt now.

[... .]

I'm healthier in my habits, but do I really need to feel this pain now? Why is it still there?

You needed the pain then to tell you you should be doing something different to protect yourself from it.

I'm not sure I'd say you NEED it now... .but there seems to be a natural consequence of what you did when you stuffed it and didn't let yourself feel it... .and that is that you get to feel it now anyways! (As they say... .ask me how I know... .)

There are lots of things you can do to address and work on it, but one that has never helped is trying to talk yourself out of whatever it is you are feeling right now. Far better to acknowledge and accept that it *IS* what you are feeling now, let yourself feel it, and the feeling will pass. (Perhaps to return again and pass again)

[Moselle]

Thanks GK,

It's been quite a week and I think I know what the pain was all about.

I think its as you say. There's something we need to know, and the art is figuring out what it is. Its knows why its there, and if we listen and feel it instead of stuffing it, it will guide us.

This was quite an interesting one. I knew she was diagnised N and B, and I focussed mainly on the B. My strategy with her was based on the B and wasnt working at all.

This week I took on the N (I had never really researched it becuase she had told me that she was BPD) and learned some strategies most particularly :

“Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”  George Bernhard Shaw.

I learend that she is primarily narcisstic, and BPD secondarily. My guess is 80:20 split.

Emotionally I finally detached this week and moved on. No more wrestling with pigs! no matter what she does.

Bizarrely this one thing has had a profound impact on the pain, but also put me in a really optimistic place. Its been three years! and this is overdue - thanks to the pain.

She is still keepking the kids from me, by turning them against me, but I have peace - the courts can take care of it. I dont have to fight

[Moselle]

You needed the pain then to tell you you should be doing something different to protect yourself from it.

Jeez, I had another dose of this pain yesterday for 24 hours. My goodness, it induces a run response. Run from everything or hide. I really don't understand it, what the message is from the pain. If the message is not to associate with borderlines, I get it. I think the message was to accept the things I cannot change, and focus on the things I can. I'm busy with my list of both. Maybe the pain can stay away for a bit. I hope so. Today I feel strong

It catches me unaware every time. Whew!

I imagine it felt like a BPD dysregulation. Are these periods a compensatory aftershock from the relationship, or an echo from childhood which has come to the surface, triggered by the break up?

[earlyL]

I find the same, the pain definitely hits without any warning and it can last a long time. I also find it really hard to know that the pain will get easier, that I have experienced periods of calmness, but it's like your mind can't quite accept it at that time.

I often think the same - if this is what a BPD person goes through on a regular basis, then I really do feel for them, it doesn't excuse certain behaviour, I don't think I can ever accept some of the cruel things my exBPD did, but perhaps I have more of an inkling of what she goes through on a day to day basis. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

I find if I say how I am feeling out loud it helps with the pain. If I can name it then it feels like it is somehow more acceptable, I don't really know why, i read it on this board somewhere and it seems to work for me.

Hope today is a brighter day for you.

[Moselle]

Thanks EarlyL. I named it, described it, sat with it.

It was still quite rough. The good  news for me is that I had someone to talk to. That helped soothe it.

[Grey Kitty]

Jeez, I had another dose of this pain yesterday for 24 hours. My goodness, it induces a run response. Run from everything or hide. I really don't understand it, what the message is from the pain.

Your primitive brain as a fight/flight response. Actually a fight/flight/freeze response. Some people naturally gravitate toward one of those three over the others, especially in some situations. It sounds like yours is a flight response.

That may or may not be the best choice for you to make when you feel it--That emotional response isn't always right. Often it is, but sometimes it isn't. So if you can, try to think about it and whether the best thing for your situation is what your gut is screaming at you to do... .or whether something else is better, or whether you don't actually have any action you can take which will improve things.

I consider the emotion to be telling you (very accurately!) "Hey, Moselle, you NEED to pay attention to this!" and (less consistently accurately) "Run, Moselle, Run!"

[Moselle]

"Hey, Moselle, you NEED to pay attention to this!" and (less consistently accurately) "Run, Moselle, Run!"

Not sure if i told you, but I can run very fast LOL Maybe its just playing to my strengths.

Thanks GK, that is the impulse for me here. With my ex it is "fight"

[Grey Kitty]

Glad you can run FAST! 

And to be sure--Running away fast CAN be the best solution. Just double-check before you run. Or run just out of shouting distance, THEN think about whether you need to keep running, or perhaps should go back instead. 

[Ironcalves]

I had the suicidal ideation for a few months after I left my wife - the pain was excruciating- I can recall just sobbing on the floor with snot pouring out of my nose - looking back on this now I feel I was actually in withdrawal but I believed at the time that I was broken hearted. I sometimes feel I could have gone thru my life very happily having not met that person and just met and settled down with a regular person but tbh now I can see my pourou boundaries were always going to cause me huge problems - I was massively inauthentic and a people pleaser - I'm much better but have to watch it.

I had to suffer but I wish for sure I was a much MUCH quicker learner

One thing I have relearned recently is to control my thoughts more. This week, 4 days ago, I learnt that my ex had lied to me and found evidence she was cheating to me - it was playing in my head over and over and creating its groove - if you let an experience create that groove it will give pain for months - so I remembered I could choose what to think about - I made a decided interpretation about this cheating and if it pops into my mind now I just close the box and tell my mind to play another song. It does, and I'm happier - I know there is this 'feel the feels' stuff but now believe, from long long intense suffering, that if you don't better control your mind you create these terrrible grooves that replay and send you into depressions.

I prefer instead to watch movies about my favourite pastimes or go hiking or go out with friends - if I have spare time - I fill my head with positive things. This takes dedication and this is how I ended my pain.

[Moselle]

I prefer instead to watch movies about my favourite pastimes or go hiking or go out with friends - if I have spare time - I fill my head with positive things. This takes dedication and this is how I ended my pain.

Thanks Ironcalves. I appreciate the advice. It's true what you say about our thoughts. What we think reflects what we believe and value.

Glad you can run FAST!  

Me too  :-)