Hi snappafcw,
I know we only need to validate ourselves but just like a few others here i wish she knew what she had done to me or at the very least appreciated how kind and giving i was to her. I know final acceptance is accepting these things wont happen but its still hard.
This is a hard one to get past. Part of the reason why it is so difficult is that early on our "recovery" process, we're still dealing with a big cognitive dissonance: the person we thought they were/that we fell in love with, versus, the disordered person they actually are/the disorder we're still trying to understand.
If she knew what she had done to you, and was in a position to apologize for her actions, then she wouldn't be disordered in the first place. But because she is disordered, she has blotted out of her mind and distorted what she had done, and what you had done for that matter. This is exactly why she will keep making the same kinds of mistakes and go through the same patterns in her relationships over and over again: because you can't learn from experience if you can't recall your experience accurately.
And this is their paradox that they have to live with: they just want to get away from the pain of abandonment and betrayal, and want to "finally meet" someone who won't abandon and betray them. But because they have yet to face this pain from their past, they will keep finding it over and over in all their current and future (and past) relationships. Some kinds of pains and injury (perhaps all kinds) we cannot run away from try as we might. Our minds (unconsciously) find a way to dish it out until we stare it square in the face and work through it. This is true whether or not you have BPD.
If we don't find a way to come to terms with our own pain from this experience, then it will haunt us in the same way (for as long as it needs to). Some times coming to terms with pain (particularly emotional pain) means giving yourself the chance to *feel* it. And allowing it to pass. Because it will pass, it always does (unless we get in the way); and everything else is only a distraction. Only bite as much as you can chew, but keep on biting until there's nothing left.
Eventually your cognitive dissonance will resolve. And hopefully you will accept (more) that she is really the disordered person you've come to understand -- and you will feel indifference or slight sympathy for this person. And you will mourn the loss of the person you once fell in with. And you'll still feel that loss, but it won't be too much of a weight.
Best wishes, Schwing
