Heavy price to pay, while they rejoice

[stop2think]

Hi all,

My heavy research on NPD and BPD is ongoing, as this makes me understand the personality disorder and decode my exbf behavior slice by slice. The readings have been helping me detach from him slowly, but i has not been my calming inner chaos. I always feel like i am carrying this heavy load of emotions post breakup and constant restlessness. I just feel numb and innately lost... . cannot perfectly express what exactly is going on... .

A few days ago, I deactivated my FB account to stay away from anything that causes me pain. But i feel bad i did that, bc i have been such a socially active person. Now i rarely step outside my house be it on weekdays for work (work from home for weeks now) and weekends as well. I want to avoid drinking as it pulls me back talking about him and our breakup to every friend or sometimes strangers i meet... .   and i end up regretting doing so.

Although my exbf was very silent and made no noise on FB about his engagement, he had changed his FB profile pic and status now that he is married. Flaunting the new bling in his life. Which goes to show that irrespective of whether i was/wasnt in his life he went to fulfill his dreams (having a pretty, smart wife). I struggled for weeks but removed him from other travel sites we were connected at (that i recomm. he joined). At times i feel like i made him so much more 'cooler' as a person, as it was LDR i always encouraged him to FB more, be more socially active, to go out clubbing, to travel when he got time, to meet his friends more regularly... . All which i gave up somewhere along the lines for him... . and now i feel like HIM more than what i was... .

To add to it, most of my guy friends are suddenly more intersted to meet me now that they know i am single... .  makes me sick... . including my best friend... . Hav been ignoring each one of them... .

I feel so isolated and lonely now that i practically have no friends left apart from a few who do not live in the same city as me... . My life's meaning is dwindling and turning out to be a mess each day... .

Just hoping for some positivity and good times... . He may be suffering from NPD/BPD but i seem to be paying the price even now... .

[leftbehind]

Sometimes, it seems like they get the better end of the deal because they can just turn off the switch and move on. I liken it to a parasite feeding on a host. Can only do this so long before the life is sucked out or the effect isn't the same. Then, it is time to move on to new new host that might fill the void.

damn so true.

[stop2think]

I wish I never gave into his emotional drama and walked out of this r/s when I first brokeup with him.

I let him control my wants and life... . changed to please him so... . I travelled so many times just to be with him... . on Christmas,  new years... . his bday... . as he was feeling low and lonely... . just to discarded with no remorse.

I remember he told me I loge you but love is not important for marriage... . and he won't wait for marrying when the girl wants to... . so basically it was his needs and wants... . never mine?

He surely proved it... . by marrying some other girl in just 5 months after the breakup... .

[bpdspell]

It's understandable to have some cognitive distortion going on in our minds about their "happiness", "luckiness" "good fortune" "getting away with murder one" but I assure that they're lives are quite the opposite and that appearances can be quite deceptive.

It will take time but the more you learn about BPD and other forms of narcissism you will see that they live in an emotional pit of insecurity and emptiness that is soul destroying. And even though we have hearts of gold and compassion many of us also got involved because of our own issues... . addiction approval, lack of boundaries, low esteem, low self worth... . or in my case running away from the pain of my devastating childhood.

When we are abandoned by them the scabs of our deeper issues are ripped off and it feels like we are being punished by the Gods. But in reality... . and in time... . you will see that a borderline relationship is a tremendous gift if we choose to learn the gift wrapped lessons that come with being entangled in this toxic dance. It took time for the cobwebs to clear but my BPDexbf was a bonafide carbon copy replica of mommy dearest! So the BPD experience gave me a chance to heal what was really BROKEN inside of me... . it was like having an emotional root canal without anesthesia. I tried to fix others because the child in me always wanted to fix my mom. And I wanted to fix my mom so that she could love me, validate me, support me and finally make me feel lovable.

That was my strongest lesson.

A person with BPD can have fleeting moments of happiness but I can assure you that they live in a toxic soup of anxiety, shame, rage, bitterness, pretzel logic and even worse... . the lack insight. This means that no experience, no material thing and no person could ever fill up their bottomless pit of need. Not kids, not marriage. Just more practice at being fake happy and more practice at living in delusion and denial.

Yes. We pay a price but we aren't mentally ill and that's something to rejoice about. Mourn them, grieve them but also know... . they live a truly miserable existence of disconnection.

[recoil]

And I wanted to fix my mom so that she could love me, validate me, support me and finally make me feel lovable.

This really hit home. 

Amazing how this applies to my Mother and my ex.

[schwing]

Hi Stop2think and  

My heavy research on NPD and BPD is ongoing, as this makes me understand the personality disorder and decode my exbf behavior slice by slice. The readings have been helping me detach from him slowly, but i has not been my calming inner chaos. I always feel like i am carrying this heavy load of emotions post breakup and constant restlessness. I just feel numb and innately lost... . cannot perfectly express what exactly is going on... .

The emotions and pain you are dealing with are probably going to be the worst you will have to deal with until you face the death of a family member or close loved one.  It may be worse than that.  It probably feels slightly different.  I remember that pain, the degree to which it affected me, and it's been over a decade for me.

Just hoping for some positivity and good times... . He may be suffering from NPD/BPD but i seem to be paying the price even now... .

Try this perspective on and see if it fits or helps: you may have suffered a kind of abandonment and betrayal.  The absolute manner in which he emotionally disconnected from you and his mercurial ability to attach to another person, at least these two qualities may be registering in your mind as some kind of abandonment and betrayal trauma.  And my understanding of BPD, is that it is a abandonment-betrayal trauma which causes the development of this disorder.  So in a sense, the pain that you are dealing with now, is similar to the pain your BPD loved one may have suffered early in his development.  A key difference being that you have the emotional resources and wherewithal of an adult, while he did not.  

That he cannot (or has not) come to terms with this early trauma and pain has doomed him to living a life where his fear of abandonment will eventually dominate the way he relates to everyone who gets close to him, becomes familial to him.  That's what happened to you.  And granted, he didn't stop him from marrying someone new, it will stop him from staying married to that someone new.  It is only a matter of time.

You, on the other hand, can start processing and working through this pain.  If you don't, you might find that the pain can get so out of hand that you might start exhibiting behaviors your BPD loved one exhibited when he was overwhelmed by his disordered feelings.  At some point, you will get past this pain and you will have learned valuable lessons from this pain -- for example, you are now far less likely to repeat a similar experience.  While he is doomed to repeat his experiences... . because he has yet to come to terms with his pain.

I remember he told me I loge you but love is not important for marriage... . and he won't wait for marrying when the girl wants to... . so basically it was his needs and wants... . never mine? He surely proved it... . by marrying some other girl in just 5 months after the breakup... .

For him "love" cannot play a role because it affects his disordered feelings so much.  He believes he can have a successful marriage without love.  I'm certain that she was given a completely different impression by him.  He wants to believe he can avoid his disordered feelings/behaviors this way, but he is wrong.  He can only delay the inevitable.

I feel so isolated and lonely now that i practically have no friends left apart from a few who do not live in the same city as me... . My life's meaning is dwindling and turning out to be a mess each day... .

This is a crucial time for you.  You have been left a shell of the person you once were.  And now you are left to rebuild your life as you see fit.  It does feel like a mess now.  But it won't always.  And now you can focus on just taking care of yourself.  And there will always be those of us who have been there, and we can help how ever we can.  But you need to do the work yourself.  And you deserve the effort.

Best wishes, Schwing

[Lucky Jim]

Thanks, BPDspell and schwing, for your articulate comments and thanks, stop2think, for raising this important issue.  Agree, I don't think a pwBPD can be happy for long.  In fact, my experience was that no matter what I did, it was "never enough" for my BPDexW, because of that bottomless pit of insecurity and need, and fear of abandonment, which never goes away for long for a pwBPD.  You're right, BPDspell, that it forces one to heal what is really broken inside, though I don't care to repeat the emotional root canal without anesthesia!  I really did a number on myself physically, emotionally and financially in the throes of a BPD marriage, which fortunately is over.  I was lost in a dark wood for a while there, but now I'm back on my path.

Thanks to all,

LuckyJim

[Bananas]

The emotions and pain you are dealing with are probably going to be the worst you will have to deal with until you face the death of a family member or close loved one.  It may be worse than that.  It probably feels slightly different.  I remember that pain, the degree to which it affected me, and it's been over a decade for me.

For me the emotions and pain are worse.  I was married before and my husband died over 10 years ago.  Death I can understand.  This I cannot make sense of. 

[Grace58]

At the end, I was begging my ex to come with me to therapy, anything, I kept saying "let's not let it end this way" - with no closure, sexual anorexia, rage, bitterness, her affair, a stew of lies and shame.  And she said "it always ends this way".

A rare moment of truth.  It does always end this way for her.  Every relationship. Always. it is an unchanging story because she does not change.  During the good times, they are acting out a performance of hope, hoping that it will be as good as they are pretending.  It is a mental illness that confers profound loneliness and suffering.  We are just the road kill on the journey, but they suffer in a way I would not wish on anyone. 

[LetItBe]

Their emotions are strong -- and fleeting -- from what I understand.

I ran into my uBPDxbf yesterday, and he did NOT look like the "peaceful," "empowered" guy he claimed to be at the end of our r/s about 10 weeks ago when he took zero responsibility for betraying me.  He managed a smile yesterday, but it looked like a sad and ashamed one.  I see his pattern clearly, and I know it's up to me to continue to protect myself with NC.

Stop2think, I wonder if there are any support groups where you live?  Or Meetup groups?  It might be a good time to try some new things, meet some new friends.

[bewildered2]

he will not be rejoicing for long. you will see. he suffers from a severe mental illness that will guarantee extreme unhappiness until he gets into and completes treatment.

yes, you have paid a heavy price. like the rest of us. but you will recover, and one day look back and shudder.

the mindf__k that a borderline inflicts on others is probably a good measure of the pain that they feel every day.

just be glad that you will recover and go on to feel very happy. and have some compassion for your ex, who won't.

you are the lucky one. not him.

stay strong,

b2

[Lucky Jim]

Well said, B2.  Agree that those w/BPD suffer constantly, so much so that their emotions boil over and are projected onto others.  Yet I'm no longer there to catch the boilovers.  Yay!  I did pay a heavy price but am recovering.  She's not, which is sad but no longer my problem.  Thanks to all, LuckyJim

[wanttoknowmore]

Stop2think,

your conclusion is not accurate. They are not rejoicing.... . they are trying everything possible to distract from their pain and misery .

pwBPD seems happy but inside she feels anxious, sad ,lost and frightened.

They deserve kindness just like any one else who suffers from a serious illness.  Their actions are not intentional... . although Nons get hurt badly when

pwBPD goes into her primitive defense mode with splitting and projection as their emotional survival strategy.

[maxen]

this thread beings up so many issues i'm facing - the isolation (perhaps the worst element of all i've suffered), the knowledge about BPD not being enough to cure the emotional victimization, the extreme pain (this is worse than when my father died), her seeming happiness (she made sure to have someone lined up before she left and to tell me that 'i'm happy with what i have' and 'it's not a fling', her possible continued misery (not unlikely, based on past performance; and there should be compensation for the wreckage she's caused).

i admit i want what she's in now to fail. why do i want this, i wonder. if we had ended mutually i'd wish her the best, as i wish all my old gfs. really i'm not hateful, she had legitimate issues with me, and some mutual issues may not have been resolvable. we'll never know though, because she pre-emptively solved them by deceit and abandonment (and being vicious about it afterwards). (during our last hour together she said "i always thought you would be the one to leave," which was pure BPD projection as i am, if i am anything, reliable in my commitments.) i don't want her to be in pain, but i do really badly want the scales of justice to be balanced. i want that lying and slandering and infidelity not be rewarded. i want the world to be a just place and me, in particular, not to be demeaned with impunity. i think that's at the root of it.

[RecycledNoMore]

And I wanted to fix my mom so that she could love me, validate me, support me and finally make me feel lovable.

This really hit home. 

Amazing how this applies to my Mother and my ex.

I Omg, I just realised he is so much like her, I used to say that to him, I never really connected the dots till now, I am in shock.

[HarmKrakow]

And I wanted to fix my mom so that she could love me, validate me, support me and finally make me feel lovable.

This really hit home. 

Amazing how this applies to my Mother and my ex.

I Omg, I just realised he is so much like her, I used to say that to him, I never really connected the dots till now, I am in shock.

I wouldn't be surprised there are a few 'NON's' here who unconsciously met the same BPD

[Lao Tzu]

Dear Family,

     You have found the key to understanding and beating this attachment.  You loved this pwBPD quickly and more deeply than anyone else, ever.  Wrong.  It was exactly that parent (usually mother) to child link that was recreated deep in our minds.  That need for complete unconditional love that wasn't there fully has likely been a driving force behind much of what you've done in your lives, but it represents a deep need that these people figured out how to give you. You had to discover this yourselves; no amount of preaching this stuff really gets through to people, I think.  It's the key to the door out and you have found it.  Congratulations.

LT

[BuildingFromScratch]

At the end, I was begging my ex to come with me to therapy, anything, I kept saying "let's not let it end this way" - with no closure, sexual anorexia, rage, bitterness, her affair, a stew of lies and shame.  And she said "it always ends this way".

A rare moment of truth.  It does always end this way for her.  Every relationship. Always. it is an unchanging story because she does not change.  During the good times, they are acting out a performance of hope, hoping that it will be as good as they are pretending.  It is a mental illness that confers profound loneliness and suffering.  We are just the road kill on the journey, but they suffer in a way I would not wish on anyone. 

God, this makes me so sad and helpless. I don't want her to suffer forever. No matter how much abuse I tolerated from her. I poured every ounce of understanding and love into her, so much so that I had nothing left for myself, my friends, my family, my pets. I know it's time to put myself first, and I know I can't control her. But god, to love someone with every ounce of yourself and then have it not make a difference makes me so sad.

[maxen]

It was exactly that parent (usually mother) to child link that was recreated deep in our minds.  That need for complete unconditional love that wasn't there fully has likely been a driving force behind much of what you've done in your lives, but it represents a deep need that these people figured out how to give you.

or, not give. i was recreating the childhood pattern: grasping for understanding from someone who is incapable of giving it, and then continuing the grasping instead of really absorbing that she was incapable of giving it. the m is paranoiac, the w is BPD, not the same thing at all, but both have the quality of being incapable of meeting the other party on the other's terms, ever, no matter how small the issue (and, to clinch my self-diagnosis, the previous serious gf has NPD).

[DownandOut]

Great thread! I, too, believe that my issues with my uBPDexgf stem from my relationship with my mother. BPDspell, right on! Although my relationship with my mother was overall positive, she had aspects of her personality (the BPD traits) that I hated to my core and I would ALWAYS try to change it! I did everything in my power to try to change it but it was like talking to a wall. A stubborn woman that just couldn't be moved. The kicker... .my ex loved my mother!

Maxen - I feel the same way about my ex's rebound. He was waiting in the wings and she ran right to him when I left. Now, supposedly, they're happy ever after.   I want it to fail too. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. There is no justice, unfortunately. Ignorance is bliss and a pwBPD is able to live in that world of ignorance no matter how enlightened they are. They are emotionally ignorant and it's a blissful exterior shown to the world. I'd like to believe that it is all fake, but either way, if my uBPDexgf really ends up happy ever after with this guy, I guess it was meant to be and I'd have to truly accept this relationship as a lesson in my own life because it was meant to be as well.

[Turkish]

Great thread! I, too, believe that my issues with my uBPDexgf stem from my relationship with my mother. BPDspell, right on! Although my relationship with my mother was overall positive, she had aspects of her personality (the BPD traits) that I hated to my core and I would ALWAYS try to change it! I did everything in my power to try to change it but it was like talking to a wall. A stubborn woman that just couldn't be moved. The kicker... .my ex loved my mother!

Mine loves our children, but she is hurting them. And the guy she thinks is soo great, is hurting our children too. I never thought of it from that point of view until the other day. I will tell her that, too. I have no problem laying the FOG on her. It drives her co-dependent tendencies (which she denies having, but she is all wrapped up in "taking care of" her family... .out of O and G).

Maxen - I feel the same way about my ex's rebound. He was waiting in the wings and she ran right to him when I left. Now, supposedly, they're happy ever after.   I want it to fail too. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

It will, but it won't change anything with you, will it.

There is no justice, unfortunately. Ignorance is bliss and a pwBPD is able to live in that world of ignorance no matter how enlightened they are. They are emotionally ignorant and it's a blissful exterior shown to the world. I'd like to believe that it is all fake, but either way, if my uBPDexgf really ends up happy ever after with this guy, I guess it was meant to be and I'd have to truly accept this relationship as a lesson in my own life because it was meant to be as well.

There is nothing that is meant to be, only that which is meant to be done.

With BPDs, there are things they are compelled to do. It is inevitable.

[Ironmanrises]

I ran into my uBPDxbf yesterday, and he did NOT look like the "peaceful," "empowered" guy he claimed to be at the end of our r/s about 10 weeks ago when he took zero responsibility for betraying me. He managed a smile yesterday, but it looked like a sad and ashamed one.  I see his pattern clearly, and I know it's up to me to continue to protect myself with NC.

A very telling observation. Somehow i wouldnt doubt that if i ran into my exUBPDgf now, after 4+ months NC, that same "calm" and "personally developing" person she portrayed at the end of round 2 would not be present. Why? Well, the receiver of all her inner shame/turmoil, which was me, since i was the person most intimate with her(assuming she didnt cheat on me),  has not been around to receive that dosage of garbage anymore. I am no longer in her firing range. That sad and ashamed smile you speak of, would probably greet me in a similar manner as yours. A pattern of goddamn awful hell.

[Pretty Woman]

StoptoThink

First of all: 

Second, Again I agree with BPDSpell... .

It is not all you think it is.  Yes he is "happy" remember the times he was "happy" with you and how fleeting it would be?

It does not change.

I have been replaced and it's my insecurities that this person is magically going to make things better. My ex called me names and treated me like hit. Her past history would make Days of Our Lives storylines look "normal". All of her relationships turbulant and none lasting very long. Always forming emotional connections to others.

I know what it is like to have others show interest. Before this relationship I would have been elated but all I can think about it this woman who totally changed me and crippled my perception of self.

Why do you want someone who treated you poorly? Why do I want that? Look at these awesome guys that are probably stable and healthy.

You have become addicted to the drama. My ex told me I caused too much drama. Now I see she thrived on it to "feel".

You need to break the addiction. One day at a time. Date. Don't sit at home. I have been sleeping for weeks. Our exes are living. We need to do so too. We are better than this.