How to rebuild self-esteem after being discarded for someone else?

[Feeling Foggy]

Hi, everyone,

I want to make a post about a topic I see referenced here and there, but which I haven’t seen stickied as a stand-alone post: how to rebuild self-esteem after being discarded by a pwBPD.

I’m really struggling with this. It’s not just that I miss *her* dearly, but also that I feel like I’m not good enough pretty much across the board–exactly the opposite of how I felt during idealization. A few days after she broke up with me, she sent me an e-mail in which she stated, among other things, that (paraphrasing) we probably could have learned each other and worked out whatever communication issues we had. And yet despite acknowledging that, she didn’t feel like putting in the work. Like I wasn’t even worth the effort. At the time I thought it was because she was emotionally exhausted–that’s what she said–but now I know that she had monkey-branched into a new relationship. She couldn’t be bothered because she found someone who was better to her and was too busy sowing her oats with him–or them. 7 months later, and she still hasn't reached out to me or responded to me on the handful of occasions when I reached out. I've been erased.

On another post I saw the statement “Happiness is an inside job.” I’ve been working hard on recognizing my own lack of self-worth and codependency issues over the past 7 months, and sorting all of that out will take time. On the surface I’m a confident guy, but just below that is all of this stuff from childhood that I know is there and have been ignoring for years. I understand the idea that if we can fill our own cups, so to speak, we will at least feel “OK enough” being on our own without the need for another person to “complete” us. But being in a loving, fulfilling relationship is one of the most important goals in life for most people, and when it comes to feeling good enough to be loved by another person–well, that’s a relational judgment. Loving yourself doesn’t mean that someone else is going to find you worthy of investing in or “good enough” for them to choose above others.

I understand that I am worthy of being loved better than she loved me, that I gave and gave, and she mostly took. And I believe this cognitively. But being worthy of being loved by another person isn’t the same thing as being worthy of being loved by *her*, and she’s already decided that I’m not. I don’t just want to be loved by a person; I want *her* to love me. Barring that, which I know is an unfortunate impossibility, I want to be loved by someone as amazing as she is, to know that I have that worth. Yes, this is seeking external validation. But it’s hard not to seek that after your self-esteem has been demolished. After getting back online I found her profile on a dating site, where she talks about wanting to make “meaningful and deep connections” with people, and I think to myself “I thought *we* had a meaningful and deep connection.” Certainly she said that we did, time and again. Just 24 hours before the final discard, she talked about wanting to spend the rest of her life with me.

And then the physical aspect. I wrote a crazy-long account of all that on another post (for the gluttons for punishment out there who might want to read), but long story short, she is like many women with BPD (as I understand it) and is extremely intense and hypersexual. She built me up over the idealization phase, made me feel more like a man than any other woman ever had, made me feel like an amazing lover. I’ve received good feedback before, but not like this–this was over-the-top. But the specific guy she left me for is one about whom I had a few insecurities, insecurities which I (mistakenly) shared with her thinking that we could have genuine emotional intimacy. Her choosing him for the monkey-branch was at best callously indifferent to my feelings and at worst deliberately cruel, especially knowing in retrospect that she was almost certainly carrying on with him while we were still together and lying to me about it/manipulating me. And then she decided that she’s polyamorous and needs multiple partners, put a NSFW profile up on a fetish site. All of it makes me feel grossly inadequate, like she just got bored of me and decided that I wasn’t meeting her sexual needs–despite how good I thought our physical relationship was and how good she told me it was. This is particularly difficult as a man, because so many of us derive identity and a sense of value from being able to "keep our woman satisfied" (for any women reading, please pardon my use of possessive language).

The issue isn’t that I can’t find other women who are interested in me. I’ve started dating again. But my head isn’t really in the game, because no one I’ve met is like her. Not as attractive. Not as charming, funny, or effervescent. Certainly not as intense physically. I feel like I’ve been judged as “not being on her level,” like I wasn’t selected in the major-league draft and got knocked to the AAA league. Like she’s out there living this amazing and very exciting life, and I’m back in boring-land where I started. It doesn’t help that she is really attractive, so she can pretty much choose whichever guy she wants. On this Website she’s on, she has all of these male followers, many of whom are good-looking and fit. It’s hard not to compare yourself. (I’ve since stopped checking her account and am doing my best to stay away, although it’s really hard some days. I don’t know why I want to check…it always makes me feel terrible. But I keep poking myself in the eye.)

I’d try to console myself with all of the amazing things she used to tell me about myself, but knowing now that it was just idealization and mirroring, I can’t even hold onto those good memories. It all feels like a sham. I sometimes receive compliments from other women, but it doesn’t matter. None of it lands. Her discarding of me feels existentially invalidating, like it's seeped into the very fiber of my being.

I’ve been meditating, trying to observe my thoughts and detach. Doing EMDR therapy. Doing IFS therapy and dialogue with “my inner child” (that bit feels weird, but I’m going with it…) I just don’t know what else to do. I’m 7 months on from the breakup–although a lot of the really hurtful info has come to light in the past two months–and am having trouble moving on. And while I fiercely miss her as a person, I also know that some of the difficulty I am having is because my self-esteem has tanked and I feel like I’m never going to meet anyone as good as her again, like I had my one shot at someone this amazing and blew it, now just having to accept that life is going to be flat and boring, and that I've been sent back to the dealership in favor of a newer, better model.

Can anyone out there relate to how I am feeling? Can you offer advice? How do we rebuild self-esteem after something like this? 

[Biggus]

Can anyone out there relate to how I am feeling? Can you offer advice? How do we rebuild self-esteem after something like this? 

Hi Foggy!

Yes I felt very much the similar way over ten years ago. I didn't really know where to start from after the break up. I had earlier experiences with BPDs, those never lasted long because I don't tolerate hostility, but with my ex the break up was really tough, because she was kind and respective, and she respectively destroyed me with her evasive and manipulative splitting tactics. I started to work with myself, and initially it made things much harder.

But 18 months after the break up I was travelling abroad for six months and having the best time. I started to meet totally different women. Fast forward to early last year, I got back together with my ex, she convinced me that she had changed. We tried, but broke up again by December. This time I'm not broken, I get sad about it sometimes as I know now for sure that it is just impossible. But I have my focus on me, 99% of the time I'm feeling great and living my life. Only thing which worries me is meeting another who would be really hard to recognize as one.

Loving yourself doesn’t mean that someone else is going to find you worthy of investing in or “good enough” for them to choose above others.

That's just bull. I don't think you realize what you're saying here. Think about a sad sack sitting on a table looking at his feet mumbling. Think about a player, who does magic tricks and all kinds of bs desperate to score, so he doesn't have to spend another night alone. Then think about another person, who is open, energetic, present, friendly, laughs a lot, radiates joy etc. Which one you think appears more worthy of investing in?

You desperately try to avoid facing your own issues. That keeps you in the world of pain in two ways:

1. You obsess about her and her current lovers, you measure your self worth through her rejecting you, you keep feeling hurt, devalued and jealous. You have put her on a pedestal, given her the key to your happiness. Long after break up you still continue thinking like she's the best woman ever.
 
2. You're directing your focus from yourself to her, instead of facing the pain all the time. That's a defence mechanism of your psyche, it sort of channels your focus from a really bad place to just a bad place.

You're coming to a conclusion that all the nice things she said was just a sham. Maybe she felt like that at the time, but she certainly doesn't anymore. They just see things differently, in black and white, and you're not really in her world anymore.

You could just hard core accept that she's gone forever without a chance to reconcile in any way. Or you can start to force your focus on other things and activities. Doing anything else is better than giving her another minute of your time.

The goal should be you. Not the relationship. Relationships are very important, but when you're feeling this way your next one would be a band-aid relationship, and when that ends you might feel as bad or worse about yourself as you do now. If you can survive solo for a while, you can survive the next relationship better. Build yourself. Do things you like. Work. Excercise. Travel. There's a whole wide world, look at the map. She's smaller than a fly stain on that map.
 

[nerves]

Firstly, I'm sorry that you're going through this and feeling it as deeply as you are.

I'm feeling something similar myself following a break up that happened a week ago. I believed in the picture she painted of me, she seemed to understand me on this deeper level than anyone else ever has and I felt that I understood her on a deeper level. I recognise a lot of my own experience in your post.

The way I am thinking about things and dealing with them is:

1) Booked myself an appointment with a therapist
2) Talking to my friends about what's happened and how I feel (they quickly tell me she clearly isn't so great and I deserve better)
3) Focusing on accepting the reality that I was never as great as she made out when she was building me up and never as bad as she made out when she was tearing me down. She could access my own fantasy version of myself and my most critical version of myself.

I'm also trying to understand that idealisation/devaluation cycle because that's what drove my shifting self image. She could hold different beliefs, at different extremes, at different points in time and neither were calibrated accurately. My actual self is likely located somewhere in the middle of these points.

The reason I know I have an issue to resolve: I'm not yet OK on my own. So much of my relationship was putting her/us before me and that feels almost like an indicator of my own esteem. So, I've got to the point where I feel I need to find and get comfortable with that middle-ground me.

[Feeling Foggy]

Thanks to you both for your replies. And yes, there is an element of needing a "kick in the a**." I agree, Biggus, that I need to focus on myself. I'm doing my best, have gone fully NC, and have been attending weekly therapy sessions since August. Plus what I do at home in terms of meditation and other exercises. I guess what I'm having trouble with is making the pivot to not being constantly preoccupied with her. It's a real drag. Specifically, I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has successfully navigated the following:

1. How to stop thinking about them. It's been 6 weeks since I last reached out to her, and I have no intentions of doing so again. (The last two times were a mistake, but we can't undo the past...) I haven't heard from her in almost 6 months, and there is NC instituted. For the most part I can avoid places that are triggering--though this isn't 100% possible. But I still find myself thinking about her pretty much constantly, and it's extremely difficult not to. It is interfering with my ability to work and otherwise be present in the moment. Are there any tricks to get her out of my system more quickly, or do I just need to give it time?

2. Depersonalizing. I understand in my rational brain that it's not about me. Not about how well I loved her. Not about whether I was unreasonable in my expectations. Not about how desirable I am. Nonetheless understanding all this at a cognitive level hasn't yet translated to feeling it emotionally. Still feels like I'm just not good enough for her. Other than therapy and meditation, I'm not sure what else I can do to "transmit" the beliefs into my emotional state. The emotions are where it needs to be felt. I need...confidence, optimism, and inner peace. They are in extremely short supply right now.

3. Fear that I won't find someone else as good: maybe part of this is that I've gotten accustomed to the emotional drama of these kinds of relationships and need to recalibrate to something more serene. But TBH I'm having a lot of trouble moving on from the physical aspect. I worry that I won't find anyone else as beautiful or dynamic, which makes me fixate on her even more. And it's not an entirely unreasonable worry, yeah?

4. Feeling like an idiot and really embarrassed and ashamed. How did I not see it all earlier? Why did I put up with as much as I did? How did I let her gaslight me? What should I have done differently? Why did I chase after her for months when she finally left--for the fourth time--further debasing myself? I know the intellectual answer to this, but thinking about it all makes me cringe. Hard. Especially how I behaved after the final discard. Knowing that nothing I could have done differently would have been likely to save the relationship--if anything, being more perfect would probably have caused her to leave even earlier--the least I could have done was to retain my dignity and power when she dropped me in the end. But I didn't, and I can't undo any of that now. But the feelings about myself associated with it are not good...

Any advice on healing relating to these specific items would be appreciated. There is a lot of collective experience on these boards...

[once removed]

rebuilding your self esteem is, frankly, relatively simple. you do things that make you feel good. you do things that renew your interests. you surround yourself with people that reflect the best in you.

it doesnt happen over night, necessarily. building, or rebuilding, are processes.

1. How to stop thinking about them.

i dont know that this is the answer for everyone, but it helped me to accept my thoughts and feelings as they came and went. i celebrated the successes but i didnt judge myself for what i thought or felt. in some ways, it helped me to lean into it, but in a focused way; i put it in writing. for me, it had a way of finding answers and finding resolve in a way that venting to loved ones might not, or even might get me riled up.

2. Depersonalizing. I understand in my rational brain that it's not about me. Not about how well I loved her. Not about whether I was unreasonable in my expectations. Not about how desirable I am. Nonetheless understanding all this at a cognitive level hasn't yet translated to feeling it emotionally. Still feels like I'm just not good enough for her.

a relationship is an interaction between two people. its as personal as it gets. while it doesnt mean youre a bad guy or a bad gal, and certainly doesnt mean youre unloveable, we all have lessons to learn if we want to go on to healthier, happier relationships.

thats the difference between self esteem, vs self confidence or self efficacy. my relationship history involves a lot of coming on too strong, and turning off potential mates, or behaving in a way that makes me cringe after a breakup. if i look at that from a self esteem angle, my only take away is that im unloveable and deserved to be dumped. if i look at it from a self confidence, or self efficacy angle, i was doing a lot of stuff id learned that had nothing, centrally, to do with who i was, but nonetheless caused me a lot of heartache and ended some good relationships. i can do better.

if you want a better relationship, there is no more winning an attitude than "i can do better". the old relationship is dead. our exes were far from perfect, but we cant move on from them by focusing on where they could do better.

self esteem flourishes when we can move from "im a failure" to "i can learn and grow from my failures".

Fear that I won't find someone else as good

this may be self esteem related, and related to the fear that youre not good enough.

youve heard it before: there are 7 billion people in the world. there is someone out there. several someones.

but finding them actually has a lot to do with who we are, how well we know ourselves, and how well we see ourselves (in a balanced way) as it pertains to how others see us.

otherwise, you risk seeking out partners, and relationships, that will only reinforce your own idea that youre not good enough.

it sounds like you want a deep, passionate, exciting relationship. you can have that. the question is can you become the person that will attract the kind of partner you want.

4. Feeling like an idiot and really embarrassed and ashamed.

as someone who has a lot to cringe at in past relationships, you learn from it.

everyone has done things that theyre ashamed or embarrassed about in relationships. everyone. but as it applies to self esteem, the question is whether you internalize it, or project it, or whether you have the fortitude to say "i can see where this isnt serving me" and change gears.

if you can do that, the things that haunt you now will make you laugh a year from now.
 

[finallyout]

The goal should be you. Not the relationship. Relationships are very important, but when you're feeling this way your next one would be a band-aid relationship, and when that ends you might feel as bad or worse about yourself as you do now. If you can survive solo for a while, you can survive the next relationship better. Build yourself. Do things you like. Work. Excercise. Travel. There's a whole wide world, look at the map. She's smaller than a fly stain on that map.
 

This is beautifully said!

Most of us look for a relationship that could "fill" us, as though we are empty shells and the role of the partner is to fill this void inside. That could work for a while, but when the relationship fails, and most of those relationships fail, we are  left alone again to ourselves, which is very frightening if we can't make peace with being alone. 

This applies to any relationship, but it is specially true if the ex-partner has BPD. Because in the idealization phase, you were getting high dosage of attention and "love", which made you feel full and happy. But when this phase ended, it is like life was sucked out of you, and now you don't know where to go or what to do. So you fix your mind on your ex, with some hope that one day they might come back, and you can again get your drug. And even if getting back together was not possible, you are still in your mind focused on them because the other alternative is to focus on you, and you don't like yourself. You want to get away from yourself as much as possible.

I think the key is to start to shift the focus a bit. Step by step, you start building your life again. You start to focus again on other things, like work, sport, hobbies ... etc.  As Biggus said, the world is very big, and the possibilities are endless.

[Biggus]

1. How to stop thinking about them. It's been 6 weeks since I last reached out to her, and I have no intentions of doing so again. (The last two times were a mistake, but we can't undo the past...) I haven't heard from her in almost 6 months, and there is NC instituted. For the most part I can avoid places that are triggering--though this isn't 100% possible. But I still find myself thinking about her pretty much constantly, and it's extremely difficult not to. It is interfering with my ability to work and otherwise be present in the moment. Are there any tricks to get her out of my system more quickly, or do I just need to give it time?

I remember quite well how I worked myself out of it, but to be honest it has been so long since I actually felt the pain that it's sometimes hard to recall how bad it really was in so many ways. Like, didn't remember anymore that my home city had these "no-go zones", which would trigger a lot of pain in me. What was the worst place is actually one of my favorite areas in the city, the old marketplace area, but from there you could see her building and where her apartment used to be.

The trick that worked for me was acceptance. When these thoughts and feelings come don't try fight, instead welcome them. If you accept them you have a better change to recognize what those feelings are about, and to work with them.

For example, I could remember some mornings when she smiled, looked pretty and was very playful. This as itself is a nice memory, but it would make me feel really bad because it would lead to other thoughts, "I will never have similar moments again with her" and even further "there must be something deeply wrong with me because she rejected me". I learned to change that to "that was a beautiful moment in my life, and I'm grateful of having that".

2. Depersonalizing. I understand in my rational brain that it's not about me. Not about how well I loved her. Not about whether I was unreasonable in my expectations. Not about how desirable I am. Nonetheless understanding all this at a cognitive level hasn't yet translated to feeling it emotionally. Still feels like I'm just not good enough for her. Other than therapy and meditation, I'm not sure what else I can do to "transmit" the beliefs into my emotional state. The emotions are where it needs to be felt. I need...confidence, optimism, and inner peace. They are in extremely short supply right now.

The healing power of love. The very integral part of love is compassion, but when you're heartbroken your capability to feel compassion is in short supply. Compassion comes easier when you have inner peace, but to have that you need components such as confidence and optimism.

Your feelings can surprise you at times. While on the recovery I woke up one saturday morning, went outside for a walk and saw a mother rocking her three year old in a swing. Both were so happy, present and joyful in that moment. I realized that there are people still doing the right thing, and then suddenly felt this enormous compassion and love towards pretty much everything in the world. So this realization got me thinking, I have this positive force inside, so what if I just could turn some of it towards myself? Take care of my neglected inner child, take really good care of myself?

By that moment I had been suffering for months, and neglecting myself. I was smoking a lot, not eating enough or eating junk food, staying inside all the time, playing with my computer too many hours, watching too many movies, also avoiding calls from my friends, and my home was a mess.

I decided to go drill sergeant on myself. Cleaned up my flat, figured out a daily schedule, added some routines, cooked and ate breakfast before the first cigarette of the day etc. I also continued my project. Then thought about what if I would make a dream come true? Planning the trip took time and effort but it was all fun and exciting.

Hopes and prayers won't do much. Action, routines, taking good care yourself, keeping up the faith for tomorrow, doing things you like - these will make you feel better about your life, and then yourself.

3. Fear that I won't find someone else as good: maybe part of this is that I've gotten accustomed to the emotional drama of these kinds of relationships and need to recalibrate to something more serene. But TBH I'm having a lot of trouble moving on from the physical aspect. I worry that I won't find anyone else as beautiful or dynamic, which makes me fixate on her even more. And it's not an entirely unreasonable worry, yeah?

It's not an unreasonable worry at all. I don't know how your childhood was, but because of mine I have a hard time to recognize the red flags as such. That is one thing, but sadly it works against us in other ways as well.

Even if you're dating casually without anything serious in your mind, you can meet women who are really fun and great, and you just know they would be good to be with - but that's exactly when your fears will raise. You were traumatized by the break up and all the rejection involved, it's like you now have the same wound your bpd ex has: You have a more or less subconscious doubt if anyone will really love you enough to be with you, and another fear being rejected by someone meaningful to you. And now it's you who is splitting or friendzoning good people.

I don't think we need to do things perfectly, but it's just wise to put yourself to a better position before dating seriously. When you know for sure you're less needy, but have more to give - that's the moment you'll know you're ready enough.

4. Feeling like an idiot and really embarrassed and ashamed. How did I not see it all earlier? Why did I put up with as much as I did? How did I let her gaslight me? What should I have done differently? Why did I chase after her for months when she finally left--for the fourth time--further debasing myself? I know the intellectual answer to this, but thinking about it all makes me cringe. Hard.

Give yourself some credit, man! You were in love, and you did the best you could in that situation. You kept up hope, and tried your damnest with whatever means you had. Many women would have seen it clearly and loved you back for your effort - just not her.

As I told earlier last year we tried again with my ex. I loved her, and she had changed in some ways, so I tried my best with some more wisdom and with a better version of myself. This time I didn't so much play her game but chose to be myself all the way, and was still outplayed. This is how it will always go with her. She's a master in a field I don't even want to know.

There are plenty of women who can appreciate what you or I have to offer. What is just a lump of coal for one, is a diamond to another.