Why is it so easy for them to go NC?

[Depression = 72% of members]

Just curious - I know a number of us have had difficulties going NC or in my case LC due to kids.  So I was curious - why is it so easy for BPD individuals to go NC when we seem to suffer in wanting to contact them - but they never seem to want to contact us.  I should take that back - in the last 4 months I have received a few text - I'm sorry for everything past and present, I've got such low self esteeme, I don't trust anyone at all.  Weird out of the blue texts - but they never want to work on things and just push you out of their lives so easily (in my case after 19 years of marriage). Any ideas?

[cal644]

Just curious - I know a number of us have had difficulties going NC or in my case LC due to kids.  So I was curious - why is it so easy for BPD individuals to go NC when we seem to suffer in wanting to contact them - but they never seem to want to contact us.  I should take that back - in the last 4 months I have received a few text - I'm sorry for everything past and present, I've got such low self esteeme, I don't trust anyone at all.  Weird out of the blue texts - but they never want to work on things and just push you out of their lives so easily (in my case after 19 years of marriage). Any ideas?

[cska]

You know cal, I wonder the same exact thing! For someone who is afraid of abandonment, wouldn't it make sense for them to want to try extra hard to work things out? But its like they can completely detach and go NC without a second thought. Its like they don't miss us, while we are in agony...

Well, BPD is a mental illness, so pwBPD don't think like us nons. For them, its emotionally easier to detach and forget and go NC rather than face their issues and attempt to work things out.

It hurts a lot cal, I know, I'm in a lot of pain right now...

[Emelie Emelie]

I don't know!  I hear all these stories about recycling and recycling but mine certainly doesn't.  Makes me feel uber rejected... . wow... . he doesn't even want to recycle me .  There may be another woman involved but I don't think so.  

I think this is a behavior some of them have and some of them don't.  

Then again, at the beginning of our relationship when we had issues... . usually due to his rages... . he was almost frantic in his attempt to make it up to me.  So maybe it's when they've just completely devalued you (ouch) that they don't.  

[patientandclear]

I don't think y'all are bearing in mind the degree of trauma and hurt they experience.

My ex is a master of appearing cool and collected on the surface.  When he pulls back the surface and shows me what's going on underneath, he's almost constantly sad.  But you have to remember, they have a lot of experience with this.  It feels normal.  I think they get resigned -- they think this is inevitable, things will always turn out this way, love always fails, loved ones always fail.

When I asked for NC (and maintained it for 10 months) it was excruciating for my ex.  Even now he every once in a while makes a veiled reference to that and it's clear it was beyond painful for him.  Except for one polite "tester" email though, which didn't exactly say "please take me back, I was so wrong, I've come to my senses," he honored my request for NC.  If you just saw what was on the surface, you'd think he had no problem with it.  I know from our discussions since that that wasn't the case.

[whatathing]

I wonder the same thing. Apart from all that´s been said here, which I agree, I think that it also helps to think of it as a dissociation, a disintegrated Self issue. That means that they can fluctuate between different "parts" of their memories, emotions, meaning makings about specific situations or persons, and while they´re in one of these "parts", they can totally not access other parts. It´s not that these other parts aren´t there - I believe the pain, the grieve, missing the memories and the good times they had with us, it´s all there benieth the surface. But they can simply build a wall around it and not feel it at all. It´s a defense mechanism. It would be to painful for them to access all that, and face their behaviour, and accept their vulnerability, etc., etc.

[Perfidy]

So here we are all wondering why the ex don't contact us and we are wanting to contact them and missing them all of the time. They are human. They have dropped all of the game playing and moved on. Sometimes to the next person. This seems to be the case for me. I am no longer convenient. She knows I'm hurt bad.

   Our PROBLEM is detachment. Sometimes I think she is actually sane. She moved on with ease. We both know it was bs. I would have stayed to the death. She has big problems. So do I.

[Emelie Emelie]

Our problem is detachment.  I've had a rough day.  All I've really done is laid around and cried and read/posted on this board.  Just so sad and unmotivated.  I know I've got to detach and take care of myself.  I know it.  I've read volumes on it.  I just can't seem to get there.  I don't even know where to begin.  I know I'm wallowing.  But this has just opened some core wound in me that just continues to ooze pain and insecurity.  This is the first Saturday night I've stayed home since this happened.  Been trying to be busy busy busy all the time.  We had a standing Saturday night date.  And I am torturing myself wondering if he is out with someone else tonight.  I just want it to stop. 

[emotionaholic]

I agree that they experience a constant degree of pain that we do not.  The pain we feel during NC is closer to the pain they feel all the time.  It hurts us more because we are not used to it.  They are also experiencing the same pain or even more through this.  They have through their lives though learned to build thicker walls so it does not show as much.  But I know after NC periods my, apparently ex, does express, and it shows on her face, how hard it is to not be with me.  Then why is she not here well its called BPD for a reason.  I am 5 weeks into NC this time, she initiated it, and I am just in the last couple days starting to see some light in the blackness of my depression.  Now that I think about it I think it is time for another 5 mile power walk before I resort myself to the TV.

[Perfidy]

Cheer up Emelie. You aren't alone. I practically live here now. It has really been a godsend for me. This outlet. This resource. I have been feeling a little better since I have been posting here. Learning things about myself that I didn't know before. Helps me accept. So many are out of balance. Seems to be the norm.

    I have been experiencing small reprieves from the suffering since I have been pouring my guts out here. I sense a certain amount of safety here. I cannot burden the people around me anymore. I am not real happy right now and I drag people down. It gets old for them because they have their own problems and not many people are equipped to deal with the massive emotional trauma that I have been exuding. It sucks to be me and it sucks to be around me. I'm a downer right now. I hate it and I want to change it.

   Just hang in there and remember that grieving is a process. It seems easier to grieve physical death than death of a relationship. With physical death closure comes easier. This relationship death seems to be alive. I feel it as a sort of living death. Lingering. It really sucks but I can feel it easing up.

   

[MammaMia]

PwBPD leaving as well as going NC is all about control.  When THEY make the decision to do so, it empowers them.  It is much easier for them to accept and maintain THEIR choice. 

When pwBPD are left or forced to go NC, this automatically triggers feelings of abandonment with all of the fear, anxiety, and anger associated with it. 

[peas]

PwBPD leaving as well as going NC is all about control.  When THEY make the decision to do so, it empowers them.  It is much easier for them to accept and maintain THEIR choice.

Word! That's exactly what is going on. In our misery as we are left confused, used and abused, it's easy to forget the deeply selfish nature of pwBPD.

[Emelie Emelie]

Exactly.  When I have tried to go NC.  Or to create some distance.  He goes nuts.  When I'm the needy one he's just fine.  It is about control. 

[Aussie0zborn]

Absolutely correct!

[Octoberfest]

I will add that I suspect part of it has to do with how they paint people black.

Think about it- if you genuinely believed that someone was the source of all of your pain and suffering, would you not get as far away from them as possible?

They paint you black, go NC, and find another partner, hoping this one will be the magic one who can make the pain and shame go away.

And so the Flaming Ferris Wheel Spins... .

[delusionalxox]

[quote author=Emelie Emelie

Then again, at the beginning of our relationship when we had issues... . usually due to his rages... . he was almost frantic in his attempt to make it up to me.  So maybe it's when they've just completely devalued you (ouch) that they don't.  [/quote]
Emelie that was also my experience. I tried to dump uBPD ex a few times(20? LOL) and he would frantically recycle. Then as I became devalued, he did a nasty little dance for a while... relegated me to 'friend' while continuing to use me financially and sexually... . then split me white and then black within 3 weeks and dumped me pregnant without a further word other than a whine of self pity about how he had been damaged... .

wow. These people are soo not worth it eh :D

I can really see it all now for what it was. A big waste of time. 3 months on and things do change.

[Jl7723]

Can I ask, who it is that's abnormal? The fact that we can't detach and still have so much pain, or at least we find it difficult to detach, is that normal in normal relationships? Or is it normal that people can detach and move on with little emotion like BPDs do? Obviously I think the latter is very abnormal and occurred in my instance because it was her that dumped me. When I dumped her previously she couldn't move on so quickly, so I also feel it's about control. 

But I guess im wondering (first serious relationship) in a normal relationship, would it be difficult for both people to detach when it's ended? Is that normal, or do we have polar opposite problems to the BPD?

[Jl7723]

Or is it just the toxic push pull relationship with a BPD that causes us to react like this and find it difficult to move on? Maybe we would act differently in a normal relationship?

Is there anyone who has been in a normal relationship as well as a BPD relationship?

[Octoberfest]

The relationship I had with my BPDex is the only relationship that I have ever had... . Sad aint it?

But, I CAN tell you, that normal, healthy people grieve.  Even if a person is the one to instigate the breakup, they still grieve to some degree. pwBPD generally do not.  They bury the pain and move quickly to the next tool.

[Learning_curve74]

Is there anyone who has been in a normal relationship as well as a BPD relationship?

I've been just as devastated after a relationship with a nonBPD ended as at the end of the relationship with BPDex. It is natural to miss your ex in any relationship that comes to an end. I can't just immediately turn off the feelings I have for somebody who I am deeply in love with. Having gone through depression after a previous break up with a nonBPD has made it a little easier to deal with the break up with BPDex, but I'm still depressed, just not feeling as deeply hopeless and sad as before because I know it will get better from previous experience.

I am NC with the nonBPD ex because we were "normal" adults that could talk honestly about why we broke up, and at a certain point we said everything there was to say to one another. If she were to contact me and ask to be friends, then I'd consider it because I feel she is a good person who is honest and trustworthy. But neither of us has any particularly good reason to talk and we don't live in the same city anymore. There are plenty of good people out there that I don't necessarily have to be friends with.

I am trying to go NC with BPDex because I feel there is still so much to say about how I feel but in reality it probably won't change anything, so what is the point. I broke it off with her, so she has gone silent, I'm probably painted black as another person who abandoned her. It is probably too painful for her to talk to me right now too because she feels I rejected her and "proved" she is a person who doesn't deserve love and other good things in her life.

[Aussie0zborn]

When I left her and asked for NC, she stalked my family, my ex-wife, my ex-wife's children and finally me. I caved in and went back.

Now that she sees me as a black person as she has lost the control, she lined up the new guy and I was turfed out onto the street in the middle of the night. She has no need for contact. And neither do I. She did me a favor.

I grieved when I left her back then and that's why I got sucked back in. Now that she has dumped me, I have the death threats, a guy with a baseball bat threatening to kill my daughter and I, my daughter punched in the face by my BPD wife and my daughter and I now face court with restraining orders against US.

If you want to grieve your win, go right ahead. The next time however you will be like me in court.  I know I sound heartless but I too grieved the first  time and all it got me was to see my child assaulted and thrown in court as if she is the culprit.  

Please find the right strategy for you to cope and get through this. I don't think falling in the arms of someone else really helps but if you are a typical BPD victim/enabler then you have reduced your social circle. Reach out to old friends who know you well and you will be surprised how many people actually care and have been waiting to hear from you again. I can't believe the number of people ringing daily to "check in" and see if I'm OK.

Please find a way to get over the grieving as soon as possible. Try thinking about the last time she punched you in the face - that might do it.