Great article about grieving the person he/she used to be

[bananas2]

I found this excellent article about "Grieving Someone Alive." I'm sure many of you can relate to feeling a sense of grief/loss over the pwBPD and the way they used to be (or the way you thought they were) before the BPD reared its ugly head.
I know, personally, I've been dealing with a feeling of tremendous loss about the life I thought I would have with my husband, and even more so, the loss of the person I thought he was when we first met and were dating. It wasn't until we were married that he showed his true colors. I'm starting to accept it now, but there are days I walk down my hallway and have to make a point to not look at the collage of our photos from when were dating & had first gotten married. If I look at the man in those pictures, I get overwhelmed with sadness that he doesn't seem to exist anymore.
This article really explains it well & gives some very good suggestions for coping.

www.thebereavementacademy.com/unconventional-grief-grieving-someone-alive/

[waverider]

The difference there is it is alluding to grieving for someone who is actually different for some reason/affliction. With BPD what you are grieving is the role a person was playing, a delusion. The BPD was already there, the defective thought processes were already there. The pwBPD simply wanted to be the person you thought they were. They tried to match your ideal. But it came from a reflection of your ideals, rather from any deep sense of who they were. You gave them a sense of being.

Obviously as this was externally generated rather than internally it had no means of self perpetuation and slowly runs out steam. The pwBPD also feels the loss of this persona slipping away as well as you. This increases the resentment, this ideal person they leached from you starts to feel like a dud. Things spiral.

Once you fully understand BPD you start to realise there is nothing real or substantial to grieve for except loss of ideals. The previous persona looses its value as you realise it was not real either. You are not grieving another person, you are grieving loss of persona created by your own shadow.

[Grey Kitty]

Waverider, I agree with all you said--with a pwBPD, the "person" from the beginning of the relationship wasn't real and didn't go away, because he/she didn't ever really exist.

But I think it misses an important point--the grieving is still real, even if the person you were grieving never was real. (You can grieve a fictional character in a book or movie! I've known a few people who did.)

[waverider]

But I think it misses an important point--the grieving is still real, even if the person you were grieving never was real. (You can grieve a fictional character in a book or movie! I've known a few people who did.)

Agree grieving is the emotional readjusting to loss, regardless of what the loss is.

Being aware that what you grieve was more of an ideal than a reality makes the readjustment different as it is tainted with disappointment, often with yourself.

[bananas2]

Thought-provoking comments. Thanks.

the grieving is still real, even if the person you were grieving never was real. (You can grieve a fictional character in a book or movie! I've known a few people who did.)

Absolutely. It's all in the grieving person's perception. We believed the pwBPD's false persona to be real, so it makes sense to grieve the loss of that "fictional character."

Being aware that what you grieve was more of an ideal than a reality makes the readjustment different as it is tainted with disappointment, often with yourself.

Excellent point. Makes me realize I need to work on dealing with my disappointment and trying to not feel like a fool for falling for his con-job.