BPD and abuse

[Willy]

This is a very touchy subject for me, but it keeps me occupied. My farther also used to be physical abusive towards my mother. I always got upset when somebody would claim a person was 'asking' for abuse or rape. It was my firm believe that NOBODY asks to be abused. My xBPDgf said somethings that triggered me. For example "I wouldn't mind getting raped", or when a gf of hers was physical abused, she said "she can be a real b!tch, she was asking for it". Afterwards, we met the guy who assualted her gf (he hit her face on the sink and pushed her on the stairs). I couldn't stand the face for him after knowing what he did. A very strange thing happened. My ex just stood besides him in a very submissive way (head half down), without saying a word (I might be way off, but it looked like she was mirroring her dogs behaviour). She just stood there like this for minutes (!). I was sitting alone all the time. After 5 to 10 minutes I went to her, signalling me wondering if she was going to come to me or not. She came with me, but stated she was disappointed some how.

More or less the same thing happened when we drove through to town, and she saw an ex (who she claimed was abusive). She got out of the car and stood besides him in a similar submissive way, this time they exchanged a few words.

After our final b/u I saw pictures of her getting very cosy and close to another man whom a gf of my ex claimed he raped her (the gf of my ex).

Now, for months she is in an abuve r/s. I have seen pictures of them, and guess what, in many she has this very submissive posture towards him.

I wanted to post about this for some time. Today after many months I had a look at the psychforum (Is it ok to refer to other forums?), and was really triggered by this quote:

Borderlines, however, feel like they deserve to be victims (at least this is my problem). They associate themselves with damaged people who will abuse them because they are convinced inside they deserve to be abused.

It sort of put my believe system upside down, I am very weary to write it, but there are people who are asking for it, in a very distorted way! I never abused her. I in no way want her back, but the thought that I wasn’t good enough for her, because I was NOT abusive is putting knots in my stomach. I know I am dealing with crazy here, but I just cannot put my head around it.

I am not sure what I am asking for, but I needed it to get it off my chest I guess.  Also this seems something 180 degrees different than other experiences where the non is abused by the pwBPD. My ex was a real waif by the way.  This is something, besides my own issues, I am still struggling with, how can she or anybody want to be abused. It upsets me, and I apologize if I upset anybody by writing this.

[shocked]

My psychiatrist told me once... .do you want her back?  Just treat her like sh**... .that is what she wants.

I do not have 100% proof my exBPDgf was abused... .but it seems quite likely she was sexually abused as a child based on many, many things.  She doesn't like "nice" guys; that is obvious; she wants someone that will "challenge" her... .BPD translator would says "challenges" means someone that will be abusive towards her that will give her what she expected and learned from childhood.

It is a tough issue for sure.  I think self-worth becomes a major factor once someone has been abused and so on a sub-conscious level they think this is attractive and what they deserve.  

I'm still trying to make sense of it all each day.  Good luck.

[findingmyselfagain]

Willy,

Mine was also a waif (maybe hermit... .haven't read as much about that but she was very fearful of a lot of things). I do believe she was sexually abused, at least by her first husband (I know... .red flag!) b/c she mentioned it and mentioned that she went without it for six months many times b/c he said she wasn't good enough. Sadly abuse and drama is what feels normal to them. I remember once mine told me, "I'm EVIL". I was just thinking, how can a girl who is 5'2", 130lb be evil? She liked her future rebound b/c "he's mean to me." ? What kind of person thinks they are evil? None of us are perfect and do wrong sometimes, but EVIL? All of those statements went to the pit of my stomach but I kept chugging along. Like many here, her family is very dysfunctional, verbally abusive parents, depressed/enmeshed mom, depressed brother... .and she lives with them. At one time she seeemed to want to break the cycle, but in the end she ran back to her sad comfort zone. She never could take compliments without finding a negative twist to them. We seemed to have some of our best weekends going into our wedding shower, but that week she hung out with "a friend" for the first time in the relationship. She never recovered from that... .one minute it was that she knew I was marriage material early on... .the next it was "it takes more than nice to make a marriage". I was thinking, yea if your last name is *****.

Abuse/drama/chaos is just what they're used and what they NEED to feel alive. If there's no push/pull it doesn't seem "normal" to them. It's a tragedy and tragic that they end up with abusers but it is their choice, like we chose them. Toward the end I started seeing the patterns and stopped reacting to her tantrums. I don't think she liked that she lost that control. And I was a frog prince, too, when she found me, but once she "rescued" me, it was harder for her to relate to me b/c my confidence had come back b/c I had her in my life and a future...

[spiralthorns]

My partner was sexually abused as a child and she would do things like encourage me to have sex with her and then just lay there dead and not move (without saying "no". I'd end up stopping, but realizing I was just DOING stuff to someone rather than having a mutual experience. It made me feel HORRIBLE, but she didn't care. When we broke up, she accused me of being abusive and of raping her (which I didn't do). The whole time we were dating, she was still in love with a woman who raped her. It wouldn't have bothered me if she had actually been WORKING THROUGH these feelings, but she wasn't. She'd just lay there and invite in flashbacks while I pretty much just had to watch helplessly.

[2010]

Borderlines, however, feel like they deserve to be victims (at least this is my problem). They associate themselves with damaged people who will abuse them because they are convinced inside they deserve to be abused.

"At least this is my problem." ~ What you're reading is the punitive parent hypercritical superego of Borderline self-flagellation.

Inside this person is a trapped child who doesn't understand their "learned helplessness"- and a punishing parental adult voice-over inside their head that chastises them for their child-like failings to be "whole" in the World without the need of others. The detached self protector in them can step outside of this and look inwardly for relief, but it requires an external focus- that is, blaming others.

Borderlines are afraid of attachments- yet they yearn for them. The yearning for love is the driving force- but the actuality of the love involves an idea of engulfment (bondage.) The helpless, child-like manner in which they live is unlikely to change unless they become self sufficient and self-responsible. To get out of this child-like state involves abandonment depression- a self concept that allows for separation/individuation from the external locus of controlling "objects"- and that depression is something they cannot allow themselves to feel. Instead, they impulsively move about in yearning for objects to adhere to while subsequently fleeing from them. They project and appear to others as helpless beings who are deserving of their fate and spend allot of time ruminating on their bad luck about their attempts to attach- which always fail because of Borderline fears and bring about more distorted perceptions that they are deserving of failure. It's a cycle that repeats and it's called Borderline personality disorder.

You have to understand that your self image was used as a way to cycle the disorder. People who feel a sense of "self" project upon the Borderline the ability to have a sense of self and the Borderline mirrors this back in a form of dual projective identification.  Unfortunately, the sense of self mirrored by the Borderline was not authentically felt- because the Borderline is a part time object and needs to attach to feel whole.  That part time self splits the attachment according to how it makes her feel- and feelings are facts to a Borderline. Therefore, feelings can distort the facts and create splits in the borrowed "self." This is where the Borderline splits off an wanted aspect of the self, and puts it on the borrowed self. That's when you feel pretty ___ty about things because your sense of self was once "whole" with the attachment and it is now taken by the Borderline and used in the distorted belief that you are persecutory and abusive.

Borderlines, however, feel like they deserve to be victims (at least this is my problem). They associate themselves with damaged people who will abuse them because they are convinced inside they deserve to be abused.

So, There it is right there in the above quote.

A Borderline has never been taught the ability to separate/individuate from a primary object. Each time they tried to separate, they suffered too much pain from the abandonment depression, so they chose to stay in ways that are similar to "learned helplessness."  "Learned helplessness" is a very sad outcome of conditioning- easily illustrated in animal training when a dog who has been collared for years suddenly loses the collar and yet never leaves outside of the 15ft radius of the doghouse. (You might say he's been trained.) You might want to rescue the dog and help him regain his happiness, but a thousand walks through the park later and *you may still find* the dog in the backyard by the doghouse, scared, lonely and helpless- without the ability to move.  Until something changes in the brain of the Dog, he's not going to have a sense of trust in you as anything other than an external locus of control and perhaps, the cause of his predicament.

Sad to say, but the same is true of BPD.

[findingmyselfagain]

My waif told me one of the most frustrating things is that I don't get her... .i.e. "I like people, am content with my lot in life, and don't care what other people think"

In other words... .She doesn't like people, isn't content, and is too concious of what other people think.

How could that kind of person stay with a stable person long-term?

[gettingoverit]

Ok so if they tend to attract abusive peope into their lives, what does that say about us then? Did we abuse our exes? I don't think I abused my ex in anyway. I would yell at her when she would push my buttons or we would fight, but that was the extent of anything. I know my ex complained that all of her exes abused her in some way, which turned out to be a lie in both cases. She has also told her "fiance" that I was emotionally and pychologically abusive to her. None of which I believe to be true. She had told me that her father had sexually abused her when she was a kid but does not remember all the details (which he denies), and I remember very early on in our relationship she started crying because she felt like she was "used goods". I found that so shocking and sad because I never saw her that way. If anything, my ex abused all of her exes including myself in some form or other; emotionally, pychologically, and financially. I find it interesting that the very things they accuse others of doing to them, they do to others. Just saying... .

[findingmyselfagain]

I don't think we did, but it is their warpy thinking/splitting at work. I told mine she looked good, and she'd ask, well I didn't look good yesterday? Not exactly like that, but pretty much. I once told her I hoped she got better... .when things were really tense after the break-up and she seemed to be so depressed and tense and was barely surviving the days. She accused me of being "so condescending" as if I was saying "Poor crazy ******, all of the relationship issues were my fault... .ad nauseum" just from me saying "Hope you get better" most definitely in a kind-hearted tone. How can we possibly deal with someone to whom feelings are facts all the time? I was nothing but kind to her, and may have raised my voice in frustration a few times, but how can you stop "perceived abandonement" that has no basis in reality? The more I'm able to reflect from a distance I realize how impossible my hopes were. I would've stuck with her through treatment but she kicked me to the curb and started pointing fingers at everything else. Her ex-best friend told me she started all the fights with her exhusband though he wasn't exactly normal himself. I don't doubt that a lot of it is their perceptions and the result of the ex's getting horribly frustrated like us.

[MaybeSo]

Ok so if they tend to attract abusive peope into their lives, what does that say about us then? Did we abuse our exes? I don't think I abused my ex in anyway. I would yell at her when she would push my buttons or we would fight, but that was the extent of anything.

The dance we do with them, I think, ends up being always unhealthy if not abusive.  I got my buttons pushed too, more than anyone has ever pushed me in my life... .and there are times I gave him what-for verbally in a way that is really harsh and quite frankly, mean and verbally abusive.  But that was me, being verbally abusive, in response to something he had done to me. It's still abuse.   It's still unhealthy.  He also begged me to be his agent of change and to stay with him because he wanted a traditional, stable monogomous relationship with me and only me ---that he wanted the same things I did, stability, a traditional family life, a partnership that is a two way street... .he said I could teach him how to be those things... .then he felt totally boxed in and controlled when I grew upset with his constant flirting and triangulation (read definition)s and need for provocative attention with other women... .Everything is set up so that you will disappoint or harm them in some manner.  This is what the dance is about... .getting close, being the hero,  and then getting hurt by the one you are closest too... .this is the whole point of the borderline relationship.

The point is, the borderline dance is set up to be a relationship loose-loose.   They loose.  We loose.  If we both won, it's wouldn't be borderline, it would be something closer to 'normal'.  The only thing that is sane, is to refuse to get on the dance floor with them at all.   If you are on the dance floor with them... .there will be an unhealthy, even abusive dynamic going on, and believe me, it will end up at times going two ways... .that's what the whole dance is about, idealization, devaluation, victimization, pain, denial, ... .these are the steps to the dance.  If you are on the dance floor with them, you will be eventually be doing all of those dance steps, whether you intend to or not.  Mother Teresa would have lost her sh** with my ex, but she probably would have gotten off the dance floor a lot sooner than I did. 

[jhan6120]

Ok so if they tend to attract abusive peope into their lives, what does that say about us then? Did we abuse our exes? I don't think I abused my ex in anyway. I would yell at her when she would push my buttons or we would fight, but that was the extent of anything.

The dance we do with them, I think, ends up being always unhealthy if not abusive.  I got my buttons pushed too, more than anyone has ever pushed me in my life... .and there are times I gave him what-for verbally in a way that is really harsh and quite frankly, mean and verbally abusive.  But that was me, being verbally abusive, in response to something he had done to me. It's still abuse.   It's still unhealthy.  He also begged me to be his agent of change and to stay with him because he wanted a traditional, stable monogomous relationship with me and only me ---that he wanted the same things I did, stability, a traditional family life, a partnership that is a two way street... .he said I could teach him how to be those things... .then he felt totally boxed in and controlled when I grew upset with his constant flirting and triangulation (read definition)s and need for provocative attention with other women... .Everything is set up so that you will disappoint or harm them in some manner.  This is what the dance is about... .getting close, being the hero,  and then getting hurt by the one you are closest too... .this is the whole point of the borderline relationship.

The point is, the borderline dance is set up to be a relationship loose-loose.   They loose.  We loose.  If we both won, it's wouldn't be borderline, it would be something closer to 'normal'.  The only thing that is sane, is to refuse to get on the dance floor with them at all.   If you are on the dance floor with them... .there will be an unhealthy, even abusive dynamic going on, and believe me, it will end up at times going two ways... .that's what the whole dance is about, idealization, devaluation, victimization, pain, denial, ... .these are the steps to the dance.  If you are on the dance floor with them, you will be eventually be doing all of those dance steps, whether you intend to or not.  Mother Teresa would have lost her sh** with my ex, but she probably would have gotten off the dance floor a lot sooner than I did. 

One of the best and most informative posts I've reads here.