My grief is evolving...

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Yesterday I sat down and had a long chat with my grandparents about my whole situation.  They met and and enjoyed my BPDexgf when I brought her home the two or three times that I did, and I have filled them in on the whole story of what happened between us (including all the cheating, the unabashed version).  It turns out my Aunt (who i really do not know), who my grandmother adopted when she was 4.5 years old, is likely BPD.  As i discussed it more and more with my Grandma and read off the DSM-V criteria she counted 7/9 traits.  So though I did not know it, this disorder is much closer to home than I thought.  Hearing about some of the struggles that my aunt has been through in the past 60 years tore the hole in my heart back open because they so closely mirrored the ones that have plagued my dBPDexgf her entire life.  I broke down again, which I haven't done in about 2 weeks and just cried again.  While I was doing it I realized something;  I wasn't crying because of what my BPDex did to me, or because she hurt me.  I was crying FOR her, that she has had to deal with everything that she has in her life, and that she is on the same path to have to deal with more of it. I wasn't sad for me, I wasn't feeling jealousy over her being with someone new already, it was purely me hurting because I know she is hurting.

Today, it took another turn.  I realized that I am not grieving that I am no longer dating my BPDex... .  I had the opportunity to go back and I am the one who finally said enough.  In a lot of ways it seems that I am grieving as though my BPDex has died.  I may very well see her next year back at school, but the part that I was involved with is dead to me.  I also think I am grieving that I have no one to love anymore and have them love me back (I have family, but I mean in terms of a SO).  These are bizarre feelings to be having.  I have more feelings of loss than feelings of hurt or betrayal.

I hope I made the distinctions clear here... . I don't know if anyone else has an idea of where I am coming from or not.

[Octoberfest]

Yesterday I sat down and had a long chat with my grandparents about my whole situation.  They met and and enjoyed my BPDexgf when I brought her home the two or three times that I did, and I have filled them in on the whole story of what happened between us (including all the cheating, the unabashed version).  It turns out my Aunt (who i really do not know), who my grandmother adopted when she was 4.5 years old, is likely BPD.  As i discussed it more and more with my Grandma and read off the DSM-V criteria she counted 7/9 traits.  So though I did not know it, this disorder is much closer to home than I thought.  Hearing about some of the struggles that my aunt has been through in the past 60 years tore the hole in my heart back open because they so closely mirrored the ones that have plagued my dBPDexgf her entire life.  I broke down again, which I haven't done in about 2 weeks and just cried again.  While I was doing it I realized something;  I wasn't crying because of what my BPDex did to me, or because she hurt me.  I was crying FOR her, that she has had to deal with everything that she has in her life, and that she is on the same path to have to deal with more of it. I wasn't sad for me, I wasn't feeling jealousy over her being with someone new already, it was purely me hurting because I know she is hurting.

Today, it took another turn.  I realized that I am not grieving that I am no longer dating my BPDex... .  I had the opportunity to go back and I am the one who finally said enough.  In a lot of ways it seems that I am grieving as though my BPDex has died.  I may very well see her next year back at school, but the part that I was involved with is dead to me.  I also think I am grieving that I have no one to love anymore and have them love me back (I have family, but I mean in terms of a SO).  These are bizarre feelings to be having.  I have more feelings of loss than feelings of hurt or betrayal.

I hope I made the distinctions clear here... . I don't know if anyone else has an idea of where I am coming from or not.

[confetti]

Octoberfest,

This is what NC healing is all about though, silly! Going through the pain as a loss and not accepting a new love to get over it. The further along you get, the more acceptable it'll be, most of us have not been through this coping process, part of the reason we got into a BPD relationship to begin with.

In a sense, you are dealing with your core self now, in the same way they do but they will only continue to pick someone else to heal them; in order to not face how difficult abandonment feels.

I hope this helps  

edit// i know it seems like the term "healing" means quick and full over, but its a means of regenerating your emotional wall to grow thicker and fuller. healing, physical or emotional wounds takes time. this was a very groundbreaking trauma for your core. you are important; take time to nurture you inner child. be nice to little Octoberfest.

this first step to accepting it as a loss means you are serious, and now have at least one boundary: not letting anyone walk all over you.

[Octoberfest]

I did some massive soul searching and I think I have come to the root of some of my problems.

I asked myself "why do I have such a hard time with letting my walls down? Showing people the real 'me'.  Taking off the face."

A little background, for the first 2.5 months of my relationship with my dBPDexgf, I broke up with her every 4-6 days and would come back a day or two later.  85% of the time that I did this it was for ZERO good reason.  I just "didnt feel right".  As everyone here knows, that is unadulterated hell for a pwBPD (I didn't realize it at the time of course). This went on and on and on until I finally decided I loved her, and at that point I was totally committed.  I always blamed this on the fact that I had never dated anyone before her, and that whereas most people had dated and learned about this stuff in high school, I had not, so I was taking a crash course and figuring it all out as I went.

I thought about this a little more, and after imagining what it would be like to date another person, I realized that I forsee the same thing happening with the next person I date.  Which means the "it's my first time" excuse is invalid.  I had to do a lot of digging and thinking to figure out what it was then.  Obviously I am scared of emotional intimacy.

Many times I have seen suggested on this board that the reason we NON's stay in relationships (or even get in them) with BPD's is because we lacked something in our childhood.  I looked at this idea and scoffed, because looking back at how I grew up, there was no real trauma to be had.  My parents never divorced, they argued some maybe, but no more than usual.  There wasn't anything that screamed "this should have messed you up".  We were "normal".

I then started thinking about the big picture and it hit me.  My parents NEVER trusted me.  My dad would often independently verify the things I told him.  When I said I was going to a friends house he would show up there to make sure I really was there.  My word (even though it was good) meant nothing to him.  I also never really got the chance to learn by trial and error.  Whenever I did something I was taught the "right way" to do it, and that was the end of it... . I liken it to the analogy about the important part not being what you get at the end, but the journey you took to get there.  My parents instilled in me some very very good morals, principals, and practices don't get me wrong.  And they also saved me a lot of grief by circumventing the trial and error process.  But there was something major lost in that move... . I don't think I ever built self-confidence. I have also always had tunnel vision.  I get focused on ONE thing and throw myself 110% into it.  But as a rule I really don't like trying new things.  Putting myself out there.  Because I am afraid I will fail, and failing for some reason is one of my worst fears. 

I was always very reclusive as a kid.  I put myself in my own little corner and stayed there. I shut the world out.  It was only later in high school and in college that I ever started to come out.  And my BPDex is the first time I ever really tried a relationship with someone.

I realized that when I was coming and going like I did with my BPDex during the first 2.5 months it was because I was TERRIFIED to let someone in.  Much like how pwBPD are scared to let people see the "real them", I was petrified that I would let down my defenses and take off my "fratty face" (a term my BPDex coined.  I am in a fraternity and my "fratty face" is when I act super confident and have a Idon'tgiveaflyingF attitude and am generally kind of a "cool guy" jerk) and be rejected for who I really am.

It all comes full circle.  I was so afraid of failure growing up that I solved the problem but just not trying new things.  You can't fail if you don't try.  It transfers to my relationships.  I hesitated to let my BPDex in and see me for who I really was because I was afraid she wouldn't like it.  She has told me since that THAT was the part she loved, not my "cool guy" persona I put on around other people.  And I did; How I was around her in private was TOTALLY different than how I was around other people... . I guess I thought I had an image to maintain.

I also think it is half the reason I stayed in the relationship for as long as I did.  I finally let someone in and they actually liked me for who I was, and I didn't want to lose that because god knows if I'll ever find someone again who does.  The other half was that I wanted to "save" her.


This may have all seem very random, but I am FLOORED by this discovery.  I broke down and cried HARD today as I put it all together... . acknowledging that there could actually be something wrong with me was hard.  I just thought I would share with you all.  Maybe something I have said will spark a thought in someone else.

[Murbay]

OctoberFest, you have nailed it and found your core issue.

There are so many similarities in your story that I can relate to. At the very beginning of this relationship, I acted very similar to you. It wasn't that I broke up the relationship, only asked for a little space because it was too full on and I was the one who was afraid. Something didn't feel right but I also had friends and family saying the same thing so I shut myself out from the world to figure things out. 2 weeks in to being holed up, my ex flew out to my country because she was heartbroken. Again, I hadn't ended things, only asked for it to be slowed down. We had only been dating 2 months and she was already planning the wedding. There were so many red flags but I chose to ignore them because I loved her.

The trust issue is a very valid point too. In my case too much trust was put upon me but then it was constantly verified and from a young age I was treated like an adult but then straight after, treated like a child and reprimanded if anything was out of line. That is where we developed our fear of failure and also why we throw ourselves into a task 110% I also believe, that's what kept us attached to or pwBPD, because we knew something was wrong and instead of seeing it for what it was, we treated it like a project, to help fix them but even knowing that wasn't possible, our fear of failure is what kept us tied.

Your talk on being in the corner and shutting the world out is also something I relate to, it's what puts us in the lonely child category. It was something I never quite understood because I quite enjoyed that time alone and always found ways to soothe myself so never associated it with my own faults as an adult. From my own relationship with my exBPDw, I can see exactly where it played on her abandonment fears, simply because if I have an issue I deal with it myself, if I have a need, I take care of that need myself. It makes them feel quite alone, isolated and in some sense abandoned so our personalities incite those fears within them even if we have no intention whatsoever about running or abandoning them.

The face you refer to, makes perfect sense too, although my ex used to refer to it as being a narcissist when she was angry which I later discovered through my T, it was because it was the part of me that mirrored the narcissist in her. I know now that it isn't but can see where that assumption can be made. It is a false self to hide our real self but it is also the person we want to be, it is our confidence and the things we sometimes wish we were. The issues I had was that my ex preferred the mask to my true self because it was more confident and outgoing. What we have to work on is our inner child and healing those wounds so that the child can be happy and that false self can gradually move back to meet the child and be in balance. We wear that mask because we have yet to work on our inner child and once we do that, there is no requirement to be anybody else but ourselves.

[Octoberfest]

Thanks Murbay. Nice to hear someone else thinks I got it

[MarcinN7]

OctoberFest

Same here, that`s what i was talking about in the other thread

My father also never trusted me to do anything right. When i was supposed to "help" him with something it all boiled down to watching him work and do things. I could never hold a soldering iron or a drill or anything because i would not get it right or i would hurt myself.

As for hurting myself, both my parents see dangers everywhere. I could not get a motorcycle license because i would "kill myself". Now i`m doing it out of my own accord.

Idea -> think if you didn`t spend some part of your childhood trying to earn the respect/love/trust of your parents but never getting there. For me this also meant being perfect in every project i do, if i could not be perfect for the first time i would procrastinate.

This devaluation of our cores in childhood makes us feel inadequate and not ideally capable of being loved. We constantly have to prove ourselves. This is why we work 110% in a relationship and try to fix things. Also this is probably the reason we choose needy partners that need saving etc. because then we can prove our worth all the time by fixing them and giving.

[Octoberfest]

OctoberFest

Same here, that`s what i was talking about in the other thread

My father also never trusted me to do anything right. When i was supposed to "help" him with something it all boiled down to watching him work and do things. I could never hold a soldering iron or a drill or anything because i would not get it right or i would hurt myself.

As for hurting myself, both my parents see dangers everywhere. I could not get a motorcycle license because i would "kill myself". Now i`m doing it out of my own accord.

Idea -> think if you didn`t spend some part of your childhood trying to earn the respect/love/trust of your parents but never getting there. For me this also meant being perfect in every project i do, if i could not be perfect for the first time i would procrastinate.

This devaluation of our cores in childhood makes us feel inadequate and not ideally capable of being loved. We constantly have to prove ourselves. This is why we work 110% in a relationship and try to fix things. Also this is probably the reason we choose needy partners that need saving etc. because then we can prove our worth all the time by fixing them and giving.

WOW.  Just WOW.

Thank you so much for that.  It makes SO much sense.