He was a reflection of my past trauma and limiting beliefs

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Hi inventory people!   

I haven't been on BPD Family for a long time but came in to ask for advice on my uBPDexbf's current ST and as I was responding to a question of what it is I want to tell him I felt I for once have something to share on this board.

When I first came here years ago I felt that I had been through a train wreck. The other thing I felt was that I was a victim. Of course I was in the sense that we are victims of circumstances that without warning seem to pull the rug from under us. But I felt that what had happened to me had nothing to do with me as a person, but only with him. He had a disorder and I had got pulled in. I couldn't even accept that I was co-dependent. Because to not be what I was with him felt like loneliness, heartlessness and detachment. And I couldn't bear it. It felt like I was coming apart. The truth of it was that I was in fact coming apart but not to break but to heal. And I couldn't have done without him.

Throughout this process I have changed my world view totally and multiple times. It wasn't one epiphany but many. I have had all my walls of false protection brought down and it has been the scariest thing I have ever lived through. I had to face what I had spent years protecting myself from seeing.

I come from a family of high achievers. I have always been a strong independent person and I excel at almost everything I try. A perfectionist. And with determined concepts of what and who I am. I felt I had a very strong sense of my own self. When my ex in T said that intimacy scared him because he didn't know where he ended and I began, I had no idea what that might feel like, though I understood that it must be a very unsettling feeling. I could understand his rejections fears, abandonment issues, because I have them also, though I don't act them out like he does. But this not knowing the boundaries of your own self, I had no framework to conceptualise this through.

Though I was emotionally severely neglected as a child, this was never acknowledged and it took T for me to be able to say and feel that it was true that I had been traumatised, starting from infancy or even utero. In fact, to authentically talk about anything from my childhood was hard for me. I had been conditioned and disciplined to disregard all (negative) feelings as a child so whatever I had to now address in my past was just an analytical exercise and I couldn't feel any emotions attached to almost anything. That I had developed a very avoidant attachment style I had had revealed to me in CBT just months prior to meeting my ex years earlier. Before then I had been through some shorter r/s that all ended with my walking away from behaviour that was unacceptable to me. A very healthy reaction to let go, but it actually kept this pattern in place. “Wherever you go, there you are” started to make sense.

My ex was different from all of the men I had ever been with before. And he really loved me and I really loved him. But of course it became the worst r/s of all. But I refused to give up and he kept coming back. But each break was harder and more devastating than the one before. I found a great T and with her help I started to be able to look at everything from a different angle. From the inside out. I could see my own self reflected in him. He became a voice of my own subconscious, of my own limiting beliefs about the world and about my own self. I saw that considering what I brought into the r/s it had been doomed from the start. This at first triggered immense self-blame but I also started to feel compassion for my own self. I started practising self-validation. But just like with him, it became a mine-field of triggers, of things I had no idea were there. As I tore down these protective walls I had to deal with my own poor sense of self. I had spent the greater part of my life and gone to great lengths to capsule in the self that was so shameful and ugly it could not be allowed to be seen. I almost cannot put words to it. To remove all the attributes and accomplishments and skills I had acquired, and whatever else, to form a presentable idea of who I am, to ensure acceptance from others, opened up the abyss, the most frightening place ever and no wonder I had done what I could as a child to hide that from the world, and much much deeper than my ex. His 'shame' was visible, mine was not, even to myself. But in the end it was his that helped me see my own.

So now I see my part differently. I see that I can forgive him, and I have forgiven him, and I see that our past doesn't define me, or him, or how I feel about him, or he about me. I see that without this experience I would never have had any r/s different from the ones before the one I had with him. I would have kept playing out the same patterns to avoid being seen for what I thought I was, so 'flawed' that I couldn't really exist. It took a man that loved me so much that it was worth everything to me to not leave so that I would finally dare to look at my own issues. He and I have a similar misperceived idea of our own selves but I do not exhibit typical BPD behaviours because I formed different copying mechanisms and other protection in my rigid walls of being perfect and high achieving. He doesn't have those walls so everything becomes an instant threat to him. I appear fully functioning and he does not, but on the inside we are very similar, with similar core issues. I see BPD as a behavioural copying mechanism and not as a personality disorder. I do not see him as sick and me as a non. I see that it could not have played out differently. Perhaps, had I not so rigidly protected myself from the painful revelation of self-loathing, I/we could have healed faster but that is it. I used to say that he is the man that hurt me the most of all crappy r/s I have been through. But now I can also say that he is the man that helped me heal, and also he is the only man, almost the only person in my life, to never reject me for reacting and showing my emotions. He rejected me for other things, for his own fears, but never for that.

The one phrase that set this whole healing process in motion was when my T first suggested to me that my ex reflected my inner reality and I felt bewildered and asked how. He was so push and pull with me but I never behaved that way towards him, on the contrary. And she responded “no, not to him but towards your own self”.

Continued next post... .

[mitti]

Hi inventory people!   

I haven't been on BPD Family for a long time but came in to ask for advice on my uBPDexbf's current ST and as I was responding to a question of what it is I want to tell him I felt I for once have something to share on this board.

When I first came here years ago I felt that I had been through a train wreck. The other thing I felt was that I was a victim. Of course I was in the sense that we are victims of circumstances that without warning seem to pull the rug from under us. But I felt that what had happened to me had nothing to do with me as a person, but only with him. He had a disorder and I had got pulled in. I couldn't even accept that I was co-dependent. Because to not be what I was with him felt like loneliness, heartlessness and detachment. And I couldn't bear it. It felt like I was coming apart. The truth of it was that I was in fact coming apart but not to break but to heal. And I couldn't have done without him.

Throughout this process I have changed my world view totally and multiple times. It wasn't one epiphany but many. I have had all my walls of false protection brought down and it has been the scariest thing I have ever lived through. I had to face what I had spent years protecting myself from seeing.

I come from a family of high achievers. I have always been a strong independent person and I excel at almost everything I try. A perfectionist. And with determined concepts of what and who I am. I felt I had a very strong sense of my own self. When my ex in T said that intimacy scared him because he didn't know where he ended and I began, I had no idea what that might feel like, though I understood that it must be a very unsettling feeling. I could understand his rejections fears, abandonment issues, because I have them also, though I don't act them out like he does. But this not knowing the boundaries of your own self, I had no framework to conceptualise this through.

Though I was emotionally severely neglected as a child, this was never acknowledged and it took T for me to be able to say and feel that it was true that I had been traumatised, starting from infancy or even utero. In fact, to authentically talk about anything from my childhood was hard for me. I had been conditioned and disciplined to disregard all (negative) feelings as a child so whatever I had to now address in my past was just an analytical exercise and I couldn't feel any emotions attached to almost anything. That I had developed a very avoidant attachment style I had had revealed to me in CBT just months prior to meeting my ex years earlier. Before then I had been through some shorter r/s that all ended with my walking away from behaviour that was unacceptable to me. A very healthy reaction to let go, but it actually kept this pattern in place. “Wherever you go, there you are” started to make sense.

My ex was different from all of the men I had ever been with before. And he really loved me and I really loved him. But of course it became the worst r/s of all. But I refused to give up and he kept coming back. But each break was harder and more devastating than the one before. I found a great T and with her help I started to be able to look at everything from a different angle. From the inside out. I could see my own self reflected in him. He became a voice of my own subconscious, of my own limiting beliefs about the world and about my own self. I saw that considering what I brought into the r/s it had been doomed from the start. This at first triggered immense self-blame but I also started to feel compassion for my own self. I started practising self-validation. But just like with him, it became a mine-field of triggers, of things I had no idea were there. As I tore down these protective walls I had to deal with my own poor sense of self. I had spent the greater part of my life and gone to great lengths to capsule in the self that was so shameful and ugly it could not be allowed to be seen. I almost cannot put words to it. To remove all the attributes and accomplishments and skills I had acquired, and whatever else, to form a presentable idea of who I am, to ensure acceptance from others, opened up the abyss, the most frightening place ever and no wonder I had done what I could as a child to hide that from the world, and much much deeper than my ex. His 'shame' was visible, mine was not, even to myself. But in the end it was his that helped me see my own.

So now I see my part differently. I see that I can forgive him, and I have forgiven him, and I see that our past doesn't define me, or him, or how I feel about him, or he about me. I see that without this experience I would never have had any r/s different from the ones before the one I had with him. I would have kept playing out the same patterns to avoid being seen for what I thought I was, so 'flawed' that I couldn't really exist. It took a man that loved me so much that it was worth everything to me to not leave so that I would finally dare to look at my own issues. He and I have a similar misperceived idea of our own selves but I do not exhibit typical BPD behaviours because I formed different copying mechanisms and other protection in my rigid walls of being perfect and high achieving. He doesn't have those walls so everything becomes an instant threat to him. I appear fully functioning and he does not, but on the inside we are very similar, with similar core issues. I see BPD as a behavioural copying mechanism and not as a personality disorder. I do not see him as sick and me as a non. I see that it could not have played out differently. Perhaps, had I not so rigidly protected myself from the painful revelation of self-loathing, I/we could have healed faster but that is it. I used to say that he is the man that hurt me the most of all crappy r/s I have been through. But now I can also say that he is the man that helped me heal, and also he is the only man, almost the only person in my life, to never reject me for reacting and showing my emotions. He rejected me for other things, for his own fears, but never for that.

The one phrase that set this whole healing process in motion was when my T first suggested to me that my ex reflected my inner reality and I felt bewildered and asked how. He was so push and pull with me but I never behaved that way towards him, on the contrary. And she responded “no, not to him but towards your own self”.

Continued next post... .

[mitti]

... .continued from previous post

Our r/s took me to a place in my life where I could finally deal with infant and childhood trauma that has tormented me all my life. He is a reflection of some very deep issues within my own self. I want to tell him he helped me, that I have no regrets. And I think to hear this will help him heal also. I want him to know that I understand now that it isn't, and was never, a question of him being sick and me becoming a co-dependent victim. We both had very similar issues that we reflected in the other but displayed differently. I want him to know that knowing and loving him brought my own issues to the surface so that I could know and deal with them. And I want him to know that regardless of all of this I love him for him.

I am not over him and I don't know that I have to be. I still miss him and I hope we still have a future because I feel that I am now ready to take my fair share of the responsibility.

Thanks for listening.

[anothercasualty]

Holy cow! That was honest, deep and touching. I feel you in what you wrote. And I completely relate.

Thank you for that openness. You have given me areas of myself to explore.

[mitti]

Holy cow! That was honest, deep and touching. I feel you in what you wrote. And I completely relate.

Thank you for that openness. You have given me areas of myself to explore.

Thank you! It fet good to share it and even better if it could help in some way.

[Insom]

Hi, Mitti.  Thanks for sharing.  Although our individual stories, I'm sure, are different, I can relate to much of what you post.  Expecially this:
 

I want to tell him he helped me, that I have no regrets. And I think to hear this will help him heal also.

I, too, have thought about reaching out to thank my BPD-ex, whom I met when I was quite young.  Fear has held me back.  Our relationship was messy.  There were aspects of his personality that frightened me, and and since it's been many years since our last contact I have no idea where he is at in life or who he has become.  A few thoughts . . .

•  Are you considering reaching out to thank your BPD-ex in real life?   Or is this feeling of gratitude you have described a private part of your healing process that stays with you?

•  Have you thought about how he might react to being thanked?  Reaching out has potential to stir up quite a bit.  You may feel ready.  What if he is not?  What are the potential consequences?

FWIW, one of my BPD guy's scarier characteristics was his controlling behavior, his need to be in control of just about all our interactions.  In my own reaching-out fantasy I control the conversation.  I do the thanking.  I create a healing opportunity that he accepts.  However, all my past experiences with this person tell a different story that indicate potential of me losing control of the conversation (and entire situation) almost immediately upon reaching out. 

[joeramabeme]

I want him to know that knowing and loving him brought my own issues to the surface so that I could know and deal with them. And I want him to know that regardless of all of this I love him for him.

I feel that I am now ready to take my fair share of the responsibility.

mitti - Sounds like you are really in love with this guy but if he is really a pwBPD it is unlikely he can absorb what you are proposing to say?  And taking responsibility for your fair share, even if that is what you needed to do, is not going to change him or open his eyes.
BPD is a disorder that has a very low incidence of recovery. 
Do you have an indication that he is now recovered or in recovery?  Why now?

[heartandwhole]

Hi mitti,

Thank you for sharing this wonderful inventory. You sound as though you have come to a beautiful place of self-acceptance, and that emanates from your post.

I, too, can relate to a lot of what you wrote. Especially what your T said to you. I have realized that what hurt me the most in this relationship was not that he abandoned me so shockingly and often, but that I was abandoning myself so shockingly and often... .

heartandwhole

[mitti]

Hi, Mitti.  Thanks for sharing.  Although our individual stories, I'm sure, are different, I can relate to much of what you post.  Expecially this:
 
I, too, have thought about reaching out to thank my BPD-ex, whom I met when I was quite young.  Fear has held me back.  Our relationship was messy.  There were aspects of his personality that frightened me, and and since it's been many years since our last contact I have no idea where he is at in life or who he has become.  A few thoughts . . .

•  Are you considering reaching out to thank your BPD-ex in real life?   Or is this feeling of gratitude you have described a private part of your healing process that stays with you?

•  Have you thought about how he might react to being thanked?  Reaching out has potential to stir up quite a bit.  You may feel ready.  What if he is not?  What are the potential consequences?

FWIW, one of my BPD guy's scarier characteristics was his controlling behavior, his need to be in control of just about all our interactions.  In my own reaching-out fantasy I control the conversation.  I do the thanking.  I create a healing opportunity that he accepts.  However, all my past experiences with this person tell a different story that indicate potential of me losing control of the conversation (and entire situation) almost immediately upon reaching out.  

Thank you for your response and sorry to not have answered. I have not been in here to post for a long time.

I did try to reach out to him but he wouldn't have it. I tried to phone him and he put the phone down when he heard it was me. Then I saw him out a couple f times, so I said 'hello' but he blanked me. So I left it altogether and now I just wish him well, from afar, but I have moved on and I feel happy with that. I have realised that he probably will not heal the way I have, and it is his journey and not mine.

I also realised that it is probably for the best what happened. I loved him but I feel certain that had he been willing to have contact with me, we would have reconciled and I don't think that would have been wise. Just the thought of the past with him, tiptoeing around him, his push and pull, my always carefully choosing and contemplating every word before saying it out loud to him, the frequent silent treatment from him... .I started feeling my stomach turning just at the thought of going back to that. So I decided to see if I could just go through the grief and feel all those feelings to completion. I put on music that reminded me of him and our years together, and I dared to feel that abyss of grief and I cried and cried. After an hour or so it left me and it felt like I had walked through a door and I felt free.

I think it is really healthy what you are doing actually with your inner conversations with your ex. I learned through my therapy that all healing actually occur on cellular level and that cell memory is not dependent on actual events, but cannot tell the difference between so called reality and for instance visualisations or re-living a situation in your fantasy. I have had countless conversations and arguments with my ex in my own head, and I won all of them  

Did you reach out to your ex in the end?

I wish you all the best and thank you for sharing  

[mitti]

mitti - Sounds like you are really in love with this guy but if he is really a pwBPD it is unlikely he can absorb what you are proposing to say?  And taking responsibility for your fair share, even if that is what you needed to do, is not going to change him or open his eyes.
BPD is a disorder that has a very low incidence of recovery.  
Do you have an indication that he is now recovered or in recovery?  Why now?

Hi, thanks for your post and sorry for my delay in responding. I have not been on the forum and don't get notifications anymore.

I did try to reach out to him but he was not willing to hear me, he was still very angry. Perhaps he will be for the rest of his life. So I moved on and feel happy with my own recovery. He has his journey and that is his responsibility. I wrote in my response to Insom that I just started feeling sick at the thought of going back to experiencing his disordered behaviour again.

I don't know if he has stuck with his T. He did look for a T specialised in attachment theory and CBT and he kept going for at least 6 months. He was often willing to accept that his problem was BPD, but it takes almost nothing for him to feel that you have betrayed his confidence so if that happened he probably would never go back again.

I think I was feeling so hopeful for him because I could see this pattern between us, and understand my own issues in relation to his and I just wanted something good to come out of that for him also. But I realise now that even that wish had traits of co-dependency to it, because I had reached out to him before and he knew, always knew that he could contact me. It is not my responsibility. It is sad for him that he didn't get in touch, but not for me. I am fine now.  

[mitti]

Hi mitti,

Thank you for sharing this wonderful inventory. You sound as though you have come to a beautiful place of self-acceptance, and that emanates from your post.

I, too, can relate to a lot of what you wrote. Especially what your T said to you. I have realized that what hurt me the most in this relationship was not that he abandoned me so shockingly and often, but that I was abandoning myself so shockingly and often... .

heartandwhole

Hi heartandwhole,

Thank you so much, and I am sorry to have taken so long in responding. I have not been on the forum since then.

Yes I agree, to make that shift to realise that it really was all about how I treated my own self was huge for me. It made me really feel a lot of love and affection for my own self and compassion for what I was going through and had been going through all my life. And then I just had one epiphany after another.

I have finally got over him now and no longer feel the need to contact him. It feels liberating. 

Blessings

[MeandThee29]

I, too, can relate to a lot of what you wrote. Especially what your T said to you. I have realized that what hurt me the most in this relationship was not that he abandoned me so shockingly and often, but that I was abandoning myself so shockingly and often... .

When I married mine, I thought that I was healed from my childhood, but that was a factor in why I chose him. He was high-functioning and liked that I was clingy. I accepted that there were certain conditions to our relationship because I loved him. He would tell me that he was going to heal the past and make me whole.

Over time, I gave up more and more of myself though. Not long ago he said that we would have made it if I had only loved him unconditionally and accepted the verbal abuse as a necessary part of being his wife. Also that I deserved it because that was the only way to get my attention. Now I shudder to think that I took that for so many years.

[mitti]

When I married mine, I thought that I was healed from my childhood, but that was a factor in why I chose him. He was high-functioning and liked that I was clingy. I accepted that there were certain conditions to our relationship because I loved him. He would tell me that he was going to heal the past and make me whole.

Over time, I gave up more and more of myself though. Not long ago he said that we would have made it if I had only loved him unconditionally and accepted the verbal abuse as a necessary part of being his wife. Also that I deserved it because that was the only way to get my attention. Now I shudder to think that I took that for so many years.

Oh, I felt a chill up my spine when I read your response about what your exH said to you. I remember my BPDex telling me similar things making me responsible for the abuse he subjected me to. I am glad to hear that you chose you. I know I am glad I did.

It is a sign of healthy self-preservation that we can finally feel this at the thought of abuse.

[MeandThee29]

Oh, I felt a chill up my spine when I read your response about what your exH said to you. I remember my BPDex telling me similar things making me responsible for the abuse he subjected me to. I am glad to hear that you chose you. I know I am glad I did.

It is a sign of healthy self-preservation that we can finally feel this at the thought of abuse.

Thanks. It was a huge step to tell a friend after we separated that my husband is mentally ill.

A few months later I asked my counsellor if she thought I was emotionally abused. She said, "What do you think?" I outlined it, and she confirmed it.

Then after that I acknowledged that it will take a miracle to get us back together. He stalwartly refuses counselling and continues to put the majority of blame on me along with other cr*p that just isn't 100% true. My young adults knew all of this long before I accepted it, which is far better for them.