Dealing with the Loss of God

[jrx]

Hello,

I'm dealing with an unexpected issue. During the course of my BPD relationship, I've become convinced that my trust in a loving and all-powerful God is unfounded. I actually found myself going through the 5 steps of loss.

At first, I went through denial. I was brought up to believe in one, and when I prayed hard enough, sometimes what I asked for happened. Everyone here is familiar with the details of BPD, so suffice it to say, praying didn't help.

I was angry and I began to pray harder. I'd rage and curse. I broke my cross and flushed my St. Jude medallion down the toilet --- St. Jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes. I would pass the local church and consider stopping the car to spit on it. I'd been forsaken, so I felt.

Resilience, I thought. I would muster the courage and go to that church to pray. If I prayed even harder, my faith would carry me through the darkness. That was the bargain, right? Faith for salvation. I wasn't faithful enough. I didn't donate enough. I wasn't a good enough person to deserve good things. After all, that's what my BPD had always violently reminded me of.

At that point, I began to look with clear eyes. I'd never questioned before. Why would I? I was raised in an environment where God was an absolute certainty. Certainties are good. But I came to realize that, even though I can't prove or disprove existence either way, I was better off without a God.

I stopped questioning why or what I did to be in the situation, and started focusing on what I could (or couldn't) control. I'm certainly not perfect, but I feel a sense of hope that I hadn't had before. But I'm very sad about the loss. It was my security blanket, a feeling that even when I was alone in the world, I wasn't alone in the universe.

I don't have that anymore. I see that while I have friends, they have their own problems. My family thought the interaction with my BPD was normal. So with my loss, I was truly alone. I suppose I'm in the depression phase moving along to acceptance.

I'm wondering if anyone here has felt the same way, and wanted to see how they dealt with the grieving. I'd consider it a great kindness if believers could refrain from discussing the merits of faith. I'm not trying to impose my worldview. It could be wrong or right. I am, though, trying to move forward, and acceptance is hard to come by.

Thanks.

[seeking balance]

jrandom,

Yes, I completely became pissed at God at one point during all of this - I totally know what you mean about the loss of faith. 

So much of what you wrote I can relate too - what I can share with you is that getting to that ultimate aloneness is important - feeling it is difficult, but in going through it, I was able to let go of my anger.  Nothing is certain and becoming comfortable in uncertainty has been a process.

I did things that I didn't feel like doing to get through it.  I cried, a lot.  I also started a gratitude list - some days, I swear, my list was my dog, it was sun-shining and I had a job... .   I didn't "feel" it, but I did it.  I exercised and I leaned into the pain.

The book The Shack helped me open up my heart and I see faith in a different way now.

Hang in there.  Thank you for the courage to post something this honest.

Peace,

SB

[Lady31]

jrandom,

Well - a tough one this is... .  

You have requested believers not "discuss the merits of faith."  I of course, will respect your request. 

I would simply ask you a few questions to ponder for yourself.

- If you don't get the answer or response from God that you want or think you should get, does that really mean God does not love you, does not care, did not answer you or any combination of these?

- Perhaps God heard every prayer you prayed?

- Perhaps God ANSWERED your prayers?

- Perhaps God, who can see the end from the beginning, gave you the most loving outcome possible for this season until you get to the other side?

- Perhaps God saved you from your own self?

I ask the last question because I have realized this to be true for me in certain circumstances. 

I pray you find a peace inside yourself as having lost faith is life shaking.  By seeing another angle - you may be able to reconcile what is going on here.

[ScotisGone74]

I can honestly and completely understand questioning your faith and everything you have believed in following a BPD relationship.  I am actually on the other end of the sprectrum, I was religious when I was very young, had been away from it for several years for many reasons, now after the loss of a expwBPD find myself going back to it for a few reasons.

I think each of us Nons will react differently when a BPD has crumbled our world.  We reach out to/for things that we Believe will give us comfort, and depression can severly cloud our views shortly after the ending of a BPD relationship.  If our expwBPD has shaken our world enough, such as in my instance, we really have to question everything in our life, everything we do, everything we are associated with, our future. 

No one can tell you what path to take on your life after a BPD. If what we've been doing hasn't been working maybe change isn't necessarily a bad thing. 

[jp254958]

I completely understand this.  I have answers to every key question--who, what, where, when, and how.  Except WHY.  Why did God put this girl in my life if she was only going to tear herself away?  WHY did I love her--and WHY DO I STILL love her--when she treated me so poorly sometimes?  WHY did I put up with this and accept her behavior?  Why haven't I figured out what I'm supposed to learn or achieved the healing I need after 1) deep, extensive self-reflection, 2) an intensive 8 week mindfulness based stress reduction course, 3) reading about 20 books about BPD, mindfulness, abandonment/healing, cognitive behavioral therapy,early childhood therapy, etc., 4) months of therapy and medication, 5) exercising 5 times per week and eating better; 6) praying every day to learn, grow, or some kind of healing; 7) getting re-involved with charity work; 8) joining co-dependents anonymous an going to weekly meetings; 9) etc., etc., etc.

I've done the hard work.  I've been open to every possibility.  But no matter what I look at, I keep returning to the reality of how badly I was screwed by my ex through a vicious smear campaign, emotional abuse, getting me banned and threatened with police action based on accusations of abuse that I NEVER committed, complete and total aloofness / painting me black / cutting me out without so much as an explanation or apology.  I gave this girl so much love, affection, time, and support.   

WHY.  WHY WHY WHY.  I understand your feelings and anger.  Why would God do all this or let this happen?  Is the lesson here that life can be completely unfair?  I already knew that.  Or is the lesson that this world is meant to be miserable so we yearn for the next life?   That we need to learn to forgive the "unforgivable"?  That pain makes us stronger people? 

I am feeling better today than I was 3 months ago.  Maybe I'll be better in  in 3 months from now than I am today.  One thing I have learned is that our assumptions set us up for a lot more pain than we deserve.  We often assume that if we're good people, then bad things won't happen to us.  That's not true.  If we assume that, then we set ourselves up for these moments when we ask why and don't arrive at any answers.

My best advice for you is to try enrolling in a meditation / mindfulness course.  It really does help.  While I still struggle with moments like I'm feeling today, on other days I am able to try to move past my thoughts of an unfair past and appreciate the present moment that I'm in.  It takes A LOT of time and hard work.

I'm sorry for your loss and for what you're going through.  My thoughts are with you. 

[jrx]

All the different perspectives here are really helping me see. I have more appreciation than I can communicate. I've been stuck on "why" for the longest time. Meditation isn't something I've tried yet. But I do try (try) to tell myself to "let go" of my feelings and to some extent my set beliefs. I think my psychologist used "lenses" to describe them.

I knew what it's like to have faith and I respect people who do. Believing in something takes conviction. For me, I agree that I need to believe in myself more --- to feel whole in being alone. To feel gratitude again, though I don't think I'll be thanking God in the future as I have before. It's quite possible I (and I only speak for myself) placed myself in a co-dependent relationship with God. But in my own little way, I can thank everyone here. The advice, opinions and support helped me get through today, and as I work through perspectives, maybe the tomorrows will be better too.

[Whatwasthat]

 jrandom

Have you read the work of Karen Armstrong? She explains my own instinctive position on this well.

She talks about how recent the idea of God as an interventionist, personal 'security blanket' is - and how 'belief' is really a mistranslation of 'love'  and that a religious life is (and for most of history has been) about action, love and active re-invention - and not a following of 'belief'.

If you wish to re-discover 'God' in a different way this might be a good route to that. Armstrong started out early in life as a Catholic nun - and is now a leading thinker on many aspects of different religions. You can find her Ted talk here:

www.ted.com/talks/karen_armstrong_makes_her_ted_prize_wish_the_charter_for_compassion.html


Of course many people seem to live quite happy lives with other central concepts to sustain them. But in my own personal opinion these might all equate with a more fuller understanding of what it is we mean by 'God'.

Wishing you very well on your journey. WWT.

[LMNO]

I don't feel I can offer you any guidance on your feelings, as I am deal with all of the same. I wish you the best on your quest for answers, and in your recover process.

I did just want to mention that I found all of the responses quite insightful, and some what mind opening.

[jrx]

I really like understanding philosophy behind how people believe. I'm not down on the concept and it's a very important part of people's lives and culture. For me personally, I'm at a stage where I believe I was given the concept of God by people who had no doubts.

For me only, I'm at the point where that's not a good enough reason to keep enduring the guilt, disappointment, and (honestly) resentment I have towards the concept. I've not yet watched the Ted talk. I did read an NPR transcript of Karen Armstrong's conversation with Terry Gross:

www.npr.org/2009/09/21/112968197/karen-armstrong-builds-a-case-for-god

I'm not qualified to talk about religion as a whole. But like most others, I have a moral compass and believe in treating others well, to the best of my capability. This compassion has caused me problems in my BPD relationship, but I'm working on it based on feedback I got in this forum: that compassion can sometimes be a form of perfectionism.

The more I think about it, I don't equate God with compassion. In fact, it's quite the opposite for me. The results from an interventionist God are diametrically opposed to compassion. A laissez-faire God is not compassionate by definition. And God as a conceptualization of the universe, benevolent and compassionate behavior, or a unified set of values just feels (only speaking for myself) arbitrary. Why credit God with something I worked hard to be a part of, do or abide by? That's antithetical to one of the first things you learn in therapy.

And as a former Catholic, the concept or existence of God, depending on your point of view, only has power when it's glorified. Thinking about the number of times I've repeated the words "grace", "hallowed", "glory" and "holy" right now makes me ill. If I had spent those thousands of hours (not kidding!) working on my own self-esteem instead of glorifying something that just makes me miserable and resentful, I would NEVER have been in an emotional situation where I'd get into a BPD relationship in the first place.

This isn't me blaming religion. I am responsible for my own actions. But I do feel that when I was younger --- as a person who's been characterized as kind, patient, mature, and good-natured --- some person who thinks they're on the moral high ground could have let me know that I'd be better off focusing on my own needs, rather than paying tribute to a concept that gives it and other people power.

That's compassion.

The guy who lives next door to me is a pastor. And as I've written elsewhere on this board, he's been listening to me getting the third degree for years now, to the point where I am debilitated and shaking on the ground at times. Nothing. But the moment I started my best verbal defense is a good offense strategy (I'm working on better tools), he calls the cops. And you know what, they arrested her.

These are the people some believers in God give power to. That's a fact. My opinion is, the more I think about it, what I have learned is "God" transfers your energy and time towards a concept. When I say concept, I don't mean to invalidate belief in the existence of God. I mean to say something closer to personification of positive emotions and an associated value system. My own belief at this point is that this is wonderful for many other people. I still respect believers because it takes conviction.

For me, though, I'm taking my own brand of control and I'm not giving my power to anyone else anymore. I'm not perfect --- I will never be perfect --- but I'm going to learn as much as I can about myself so I have the personal strength to make better decisions.

Acceptance.

Thank you for your kindness, generosity, opinions and personal stories.

I truly and deeply owe all of you a genuine debt of gratitude.

[trevjim]

I questioned this too, then I thought of the long term goals.

Maybe god wanted me to help this girl get over her abuse and support her.

Maybe god wanted me to learn lessons from it.

Maybe god opened my eyes to what I really want in life.

Maybe god closed that door to open another one for me.

Etc

[Vegasskydiver]

This whole experience has caused me to lose faith 100%.  My exBPDbf said that God is an imaginary friend.  I believe him now.

[jrx]

Vegas, my heart goes out to you. I hope your road to recovery leads you to a conscious choice of faith or no faith. I don't know your situation, but I hear your feeling of resignation. I'm only sharing my hard fought experience. Others have different experiences and viewpoints.

I worry for you and hope I am misreading an underlying subtext, one where you may believe things your ex said to or about you. Most people here are far more qualified than I am to help you.

But I can say that choice is empowering. Some choose to believe that God's greatest gift is free will. Some choose to see the world more as "I think, therefore I am". And if you choose, they don't have to be mutually exclusive.

It took me so long to make a choice, or even realize I had one. I was even sad about it. In my own naive experience, I stumbled and muddled my way through the darkness of resignation, and eventually decided to refocus my energy on my own foundation, through removing an element of dependence from my life. (There are others who believe faith is a foundation in and of itself.)

While I am only at its beginning, and may walk the path successfully or not at times, I can see there are many ways to becoming whole again after a BPD relationship. I'm new at this, and would never say that I know best for someone else. My wish for you, however, is the strength to overcome resignation. Especially after enduring a continual abuser.

[Vegasskydiver]

I just feel so completely beaten down right now.  I have prayed and prayer and asked for a sign that someone out thee was listening and it never came.  I am left feeling like a hollow shell.  With the end of my r/s with my exBPDbf, a large part of me died too.  I will never completely understand what happened.  I was kicked in the guts by my best friend,  my lover , without warning, discarded... .  

[jrx]

It sounds like a lot of yourself was deeply intertwined with your ex, and it was swiftly and unexpectedly taken from you. Your world is probably so much different than before, without the foundation you invested so much in.

But you had the courage to reach out to the people next to you. The ones you may have never seen but who have been through the same emotions you have. The people here listened through my ramblings and lent me the strength of their experiences, opinions and stories --- with kindness and without judgment.

It seems like you'll always be heard here. And you're valued, so much that people you don't know will lend you their strength too, just because you showed the courage to share your feelings. I know that's small consolation after losing someone who is the cornerstone of your life, and possibly your identity.

I feel it too: I was proud to be the other half, proud to be Catholic; that was my badge, my tribe. I needed it to feel whole. In a different way, I'm working on what you are. I'm trying to fill out the hollow shell. For me only, my end goal is to realize the shell feels hollow, but is really filled with the sum of my own experiences and my own persona. I want to recognize these things little by little and replace the hollow feeling with self-worth.

It's so easy to describe mentally. But there's a lot of emotional work. Before I can get there, I need to let go of the identity, emotions, and patterns that I used to cherish so dearly. I won't claim this is what you need or where you're at. I'm just trying to articulate one thought process. There are many people listening (with so many different experiences and viewpoints) who can empathize with you.

[Tracy500]

I was reading this last night, but I really wanted to think about my response.  The topic of god really resonates with me.

I came out of an emotionally and verbally abusive marriage.  I found these BPD boards because my boyfriend has a soon to be ex wife who is borderline and I was seeking to understand why she is always, as my therapist puts it, “extraordinarily sadistic.”

I've changed my view of god over the past few years.  Now I believe that when we pray, we aren’t praying to a god but rather to a force that we can tap to give us strength.  I don’t believe that there’s a god out there who’s making good or bad things happen to us.  I don’t believe that there’s a god that’s making sure someone wins a football game or Academy award. 

I believe we can all tap into god’s energy; it just may not be in the form that we’ve all been programmed into thinking.  I find that comforting since I had mourned the loss of my faith as well. 


But I need to back up.

I grew up in the Presbyterian church.  I believed that if you were a good person, good things would happen.  I believed, “Seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness.  And all these things will be given unto you.”  Praying was a comfort to me.   I also believed in karma.

The last five years of my marriage were crumbling and this coincided with the deaths of two women who were sisters and friends of my family of origin.  They both died of breast cancer within two years of each other.  One was 42 and had no children.  The other was 38 and had five children, the youngest being two years old.  I prayed for those women like I had never prayed before.  When I prayed, I almost felt like I was transformed out of myself. 

It didn’t work.  I felt duped. The god that was my security blanket would have never let this happen.  The “god as puppet master” would never let this happen. 

Their mother and father had to watch as their only two daughters died.  First one, then the other.  Their three brothers had to watch their sisters die.  Five children were left without a mother.  Why would god let this happen?  Why didn’t he listen to me when I prayed so hard every day?

I started to have questions about my marriage as well.  Why would god have me end up in a marriage with an emotionally abusive man?  What had I ever done to deserve this?  I am queen of the goody two shoes!  I have always taken the road of kindness and compassion.  I have a job in a helping profession.  So why did god think that I should be matched with a man who would covertly emotionally abuse me for years?  This time, I felt betrayed and felt like all of my goody two shoes decisions were for nothing.  Why bother to be a good person?

I also had problems with my thoughts surrounding god and the role religion played in my staying in my marriage longer.  I knew my husband was abusive, but I felt that I had promised god that I would stay with this man forever.  He wasn’t physically abusing me so that made things murkier.  The guilt associated with that kept me in my marriage for years and now I have bitterness toward the church about it.  How many people live like I did, with my soul crushed on a daily basis, because they don’t want to displease god?  In my case, I read and searched my soul and finally came to the conclusion that god would forgive me for leaving an abusive situation. 

So that leads me to today.  I’m just beginning to accept the concept of god back.  I no longer believe in god the puppet master.  After 10 years of non believing, I’m seeing god differently.  I don’t see god as a “bearded man in the sky.”  I’m just now starting to see god in different places.  I see god in the beauty of nature.  I see god in the good things that people do.  I believe that god is in the goodness in all of us.  I see god in the fact that there is such a thing as love.  I see god more as a force or energy rather than a person.  I believe that religions that operate on guilt or a punishment/reward systems are misguided and quite frankly, they feel superstitious to me.   

Thank you so much for bringing up a discussion of this topic.  I’m getting a lot from reading everyone’s responses.