Redefining "Normal"

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

I caught up with a friend this week who I hadn't seen in awhile. During the conversation I mentioned I'd broken up with my ex in January, and he asked why, and I made a reference to Borderline. His eyes lit up, and he told me his wife had a mother who was Borderline, and a sister who's Borderline. He understood immediately what I'd been through - and we exchanged some stories of what we've both experienced.

It made me reflect on what I considered normal during the 4.5 year relationship: the drama, the bulimia, the constant push and pull, the constant projection, the cheating (but then being called crazy when I called her on it), the constantly having to live in her altered reality of things. The saying one thing but doing another. The way she always had problems with everyone, then I'd go to her defense, then she suddenly would chastise me because she liked those people now. The drunken lashing out, the ridiculous drinking problem, the way she'd be a victim of her guilt for treating me so horribly. The constant feeling of my feelings and emotions didn't matter - and completely losing myself in her world. All of her lies. Constant lies. Constant.

7 months out - and I see now how absolutely not normal any of it was. I appreciate how calm my life is now, and how different it is without her in it - and recognize that she's out there somewhere still living that abnormality and chaos.

My T always reminds me to remember all the bad, and don't just think back on the good. I think it's a very helpful and accurate point. There was a glorious honeymoon phase - but after that it was a constant roller coaster, and it was destroying me.

I think it's important we all remember that we're survivors. Whether we chose to leave, or we were suddenly split and discarded - we survived.

Looking back at what I had come to think of as "normal," it's so clear to me what I somehow managed to survive through. I think we need to remember that - it certainly helps me a lot.

Hope everyone here is having a good day, and healing. We all deserve to heal.

[gizmo7247]

I caught up with a friend this week who I hadn't seen in awhile. During the conversation I mentioned I'd broken up with my ex in January, and he asked why, and I made a reference to Borderline. His eyes lit up, and he told me his wife had a mother who was Borderline, and a sister who's Borderline. He understood immediately what I'd been through - and we exchanged some stories of what we've both experienced.

It made me reflect on what I considered normal during the 4.5 year relationship: the drama, the bulimia, the constant push and pull, the constant projection, the cheating (but then being called crazy when I called her on it), the constantly having to live in her altered reality of things. The saying one thing but doing another. The way she always had problems with everyone, then I'd go to her defense, then she suddenly would chastise me because she liked those people now. The drunken lashing out, the ridiculous drinking problem, the way she'd be a victim of her guilt for treating me so horribly. The constant feeling of my feelings and emotions didn't matter - and completely losing myself in her world. All of her lies. Constant lies. Constant.

7 months out - and I see now how absolutely not normal any of it was. I appreciate how calm my life is now, and how different it is without her in it - and recognize that she's out there somewhere still living that abnormality and chaos.

My T always reminds me to remember all the bad, and don't just think back on the good. I think it's a very helpful and accurate point. There was a glorious honeymoon phase - but after that it was a constant roller coaster, and it was destroying me.

I think it's important we all remember that we're survivors. Whether we chose to leave, or we were suddenly split and discarded - we survived.

Looking back at what I had come to think of as "normal," it's so clear to me what I somehow managed to survive through. I think we need to remember that - it certainly helps me a lot.

Hope everyone here is having a good day, and healing. We all deserve to heal.

[Turkish]

I wrote this yesterday on PSI. https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=338377.msg13067670#msg13067670

It can be hard to see what's normal when abnormal is all you knew. I don't know if that's you, but it is for a lot of us here. 

I left out the parts where my ex tried to send me to a couples' communicating class by myself.  Or when she "sent" me to two types of therapy where she was supposed to take part, but abandoned me... just as my mother did when I was 13. None of that was normal. 

[JNChell]

gizmo7247.

What you say rings very true to me and many of us here. I’m sorry. I know it’s hell. However, it has to be reassuring to know someone that you can relate this stuff to.

The honeymoon phase was indeed glorious. We got pregnant during this time. I wouldn’t trade my Son for anything. His mother and I are perpetually tied. I could do without that for sure.

You bring up a very valid point. Normal. That word has gained a very elastic meaning for me.

[gizmo7247]

Thank you Turkish and JNChell,

I agree 100% with you both - I saw this as normal because of abnormality in my past (which I'm now working through in therapy.) And it is SO incredibly helpful to have this place, and find so many, who can relate to all of this.

Trying to talk to friends and family has been hard - the behavior, and inside workings of the relationship, are just too bizarre for them to fully grasp. Made worse by the fact that while she was triangulating the whole time, I was mostly keeping secret about it all because I didn't want friends and family to think worse of her.

But to your point Turkish - I think the great gift to come out of this is that I've begun looking inside myself, and working on my own wounds, as a result of the trauma from the relationship. And because of that I will grow, and become healthier internally, because of the path the traumatic ending sent me on.

[PretentiousBread]

Although I'm no where near close to being 'healed' from my ex, one of the biggest steps in my progress so far was getting with a nice, normal girl one night (one who had a great relationship with her Dad and loved him). I was only in town for the night yet we've maintained contact because we connected that well. It was an important reminder of just how easy romance and intimacy can be when the person isn't a nut-job, and also a timely reminder that you're ok. It was like a mini reset on my mind, where I started waking up to the concept again that I'm not completely worthless as my ex made me feel I was.

[gizmocasci]

Or being told on how if we went to therapy together it'd be a rude awakening for me. Wait, what? I've been in realtional therapy for 2 and 1/2 years due to a prior breakup. I'm well on my way to healing and recovering. As deep as we connected, there was a lot that was abnormal. The more I detach, the more clearly I begin to see.

[gizmo7247]

@Pretentiousbread - I'm not quite there yet. I did date someone for three or so weeks, and I remember how good it felt to be with someone who was "normal" - as in no games, no push/pull, no oversharing - but actual affection and normalcy. But I realized, I'm still too hurt.

I'm really focused on healing before I start in with anyone seriously. Otherwise I'll just carry the pain over to the next relationship, and even worse, potentially attract another pwBPD.

But I 100% relate to your experience of dating someone normal and contrasting that to what we've been through.

@gizmocaci - I can relate to this as well. I think one of the biggest things I'm "seeing" as I get farther and farther removed (and detached) from the relationship, is how much she'd tricked me into thinking everything was my fault. All the ups and downs, the push and pull - it was all projected on to me, and because of my wounds, I believed them - and blamed myself.

A big "step" in the healing (so far), and only happened because of my T - was admitting, and accepting, that I'd been emotionally abused. It was subtle, persistent and manipulative - but it completely broke me down. My T talked about projective identification - and looking back I could start to piece together moments she was projecting the worst parts of herself on me. Of course I didn't recognize it at the time, it was subtle and persistent. But finally coming to terms, and admitting out loud, that I was emotionally abused has been a huge step.

[gizmocasci]

I can relate to this as well. I think one of the biggest things I'm "seeing" as I get farther and farther removed (and detached) from the relationship, is how much she'd tricked me into thinking everything was my fault. All the ups and downs, the push and pull - it was all projected on to me, and because of my wounds, I believed them - and blamed myself.

there was a short time i was beginning to go down this route as well. i was beginning to question a lot of the therapy work i had done prior, a lot of the books i read, the people i had chatted with. i was thinking, "maybe it is me." i was cracking, but i never did break. i had a very nice therapy session yesterday, and although we couldn't diagnose her as having bpd, she is definitely fragmented in her mind. i was seeing two different people, it was something i've never expericed before. i was witnessing this hurt little girl, as well as the person who was slowly healing. she was allowing me to trigger her in ways that was making her revert back to that younger, hurt version of herself. there were other aspects of the relationship that at the end of the day just wasn't gonna make this work, but i'd be lying if i said she wasn't the closest person to date i wanted to spend the rest of my life with, all the craziness aside.

[Cromwell]

I knew it was not normal, but that was via compare and contrast to relationships prior. What I experienced was residual heightened awareness and triggers, I put this down mostly to a mix of having to get over moments of ptsd as much as what I learned this jadeness feeling is a form of inbuilt self-protection as an after effect of what has just happened. It wears off, and as pretentiousbread alludes to is the biggest thing that helped was new connections, new relationships, my life had very much narrowed in to intensity between her and me in a bubble, it skewed perspective over years. If any of this would be normal, and paralleled into the average household, can you actually imagine what society would look like or resemble? Try to, then wince before quickly intake of breath and follow up sigh of relief that it is not so.

There has been correlation between the increase of new friendships, dating experiences, connections ive made since going no contact with her, and getting better. It just validates that in the main, what I went through was an unfortunate anomaly and it helped with healing by increasing compassion for her. Learning about this as best I can (it is not easy stuff) has mitigated the emotional hurt from it. BPD is 2 out of 50 approx, im not sure if that includes those in prison or mental hospital inpatients, but that aside, it was a relateively rare pheonomena and experience to have to go through. Congrats gizmo for how far you have got to 7 months on and the changes you are feeling.