Facts or Feelings - what helps you recover?

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Hey Leaving Board!

So, we read here to feel your feelings and then in the next sentence someone may say focus on the facts... . do you sometimes wonder what the heck does that even mean? 

It helped me when I was able to get clear on what each of these things were, it gave me a bit of a recovery and detachment roadmap.  Depending on the day, facts may help me process or feelings help me process... . both were important.

My FACTS are:

1. BPD facts - from the DSM

2. standard cause/effect facts (example:  emailing my ex = more pain for me)

3. false beliefs keeping us stuck (article 9)

4. anger is a mask for hurt... . I had heard this from my T and it was true

5. grief takes as long as it takes

6. life changes, how I handle it is up to me

My FEELINGS are:

1. emotions  - anger, sad, hurt, lonely, depressed, relative relief, hope, happiness

2. not something I act on, or react to - but something I let flow

3. fluid - they do pass, even the good ones

4. the hard emotions - they are deep hurts and sometimes I just have to go there and cry it out... . yuck, but necessary.

What about you as you are recovering - what FACTS help you?  How are you at figuring out your Feelings?

Peace,

SB

[seeking balance]

Hey Leaving Board!

So, we read here to feel your feelings and then in the next sentence someone may say focus on the facts... . do you sometimes wonder what the heck does that even mean? 

It helped me when I was able to get clear on what each of these things were, it gave me a bit of a recovery and detachment roadmap.  Depending on the day, facts may help me process or feelings help me process... . both were important.

My FACTS are:

1. BPD facts - from the DSM

2. standard cause/effect facts (example:  emailing my ex = more pain for me)

3. false beliefs keeping us stuck (article 9)

4. anger is a mask for hurt... . I had heard this from my T and it was true

5. grief takes as long as it takes

6. life changes, how I handle it is up to me

My FEELINGS are:

1. emotions  - anger, sad, hurt, lonely, depressed, relative relief, hope, happiness

2. not something I act on, or react to - but something I let flow

3. fluid - they do pass, even the good ones

4. the hard emotions - they are deep hurts and sometimes I just have to go there and cry it out... . yuck, but necessary.

What about you as you are recovering - what FACTS help you?  How are you at figuring out your Feelings?

Peace,

SB

[MatOfTheDoor]

Well for me focusing on the Facts of my behavior and my wife's has led me to a more rational course of action. Instead of being lost at sea I now have a beacon of hope. The BPD facts - from DSM gave me the understanding that I longed for. Further research into personality disorders has enlightened me and now I am making changes in my life. For example, after 7 years of marriage I have filed for divorce and will be moving away to start a new job. My feelings of anger, hurt, sadness, depression over her affairs and detachment from me never caused me to divorce my wife in the past but after learning the facts that her behavior may never change I was able to move on. Now I know that my behavior is the only thing that I can change. I've learned that I am a rescuer type personality that loves to be needed so I am working on my issues. I get confused and a little lost when it comes to my Feelings though. Most of my life I have buried my feelings and never really thought about them. Acknowledging my feelings and understanding I have the right to have them has helped me heal but is still a work in progress. Slowly I have been able to identify what I'm feeling and reasons for it. Sounds stupid but instead of just being depressed or angry etc. now I am trying to identify the causes and really just experience the feeling until it passes. I have a right to be angry at my wife for her cruel treatment and now I know it is just a mask for hurt. Instead of acting out on my anger I am expressing it through words to my wife. Not angry or abusive words but words of clarity. So basically the Facts have led me down the road of Detachment and my Feelings are still pulling me in a million different directions. My wife keeps giving so many mixed messages about loving me, wanting to salvage marriage yet continues on with her nightly phone calls to other man and ignoring me except to ask for money. Damn, why did I stay so long? I love to be needed.

[twester65]

My ex did a bad thing to me. The fact is that I personalized it and became "the sick one" (at least in his eyes). I did, indeed, say some harsh things to him. Most of those things were said when I called him on the manipulation and attempts to minimize what he had done.

Recently, I've had contact. I moved to another state and have made a new start at a new position. I promised him that I would let him know where I ended up. I really shouldn't have done that, but I did it before I fully understood what his deal was.

Not a single word of congratulation did I receive on gaining a position in a career that he helped nearly destroy. That is a big fact for me. I've received congrats from 20 or so friends and family via email and text. Nothing from him. Simply, "Are you in your same career?" "Are you with family?"

[talithacumi]

Good question ... . and good answers all of them!

For me, there a couple of other things I try to remember to help myself work toward recovering:

Feelings aren't facts.

- Facts are things that happened in the past - feelings are the way we perceive and understand what happened in the past (even if it's just a few seconds in the past!) that can survive and/or be recalled til the day we die.

- Facts exist independent of feelings - feelings do not exist independent of facts.

- Facts are actions - feelings are reactions.

- Facts are external/distant - feelings are internal/immediate.

- Facts don't change - feelings change all the time.

- Facts can be recorded, documented, and otherwise physically proven to be what they are claimed to be - feelings cannot.

Feelings are self-generated.

Analyzing my perceptions, understanding of, and emotional reactions (feelings) to something that happened - and comparing that to what actually happened (facts) - has really helped me pinpoint the needs, desires, hopes, wishes, insecurities, and fears I have (was taught, learned, and have habituated as part of my core identity) that make those two things so different from each other sometimes.

For example, I, like a lot of people on these boards, have always been a massive caretaker/fixer/rescuer all my life - and have even taken a great deal of secret pride/satisfaction, on occasion, in how well I've actually been able to do that under some of the circumstances I've been presented with.

But I've also always felt like I'm barely keeping up with all the things in my life that have always somehow seemed to need so much constant taking care of, fixing, and rescuing. Like I've mostly done it all on the fly, made a lot of mistakes that have left me even more to do, and have gotten really lucky that most of the people I surround myself with are so patient, understanding, and forgiving of my repeated failures to make everything work the way they need/want so they can be truly happy.

At my core, I've always felt like I really just don't measure up. Like I'm not someone anyone should actually trust, rely on, respect, admire, approve of, or like very much at all - and certainly not as much as so many people actually seem to do! - because I'm ever so keenly aware of just how often I don't get the job done - either the way it should be done, the way someone else would do it, or even just at all.

I've always carried about a huge amount of guilt, shame, self-deprecation, lack of confidence, and fear of being found unacceptable, unwanted, and unloveable because of it ... . and I've always looked for, been attracted to, and needed partners who had the interest/ability to make up for the validation I didn't have/wasn't able to give myself under the circumstances ... . which is one of the biggest reasons I ended up with, and have had the hardest time getting over the upwBPD with whom I shared my life for over 12 years.

But, when I looked at the facts of my life - all the things I've actually done/accomplished in my life - it was obvious that I've never had any reason to feel that way about myself at all - well, except in so far as it somehow was necessary/accomodated the distinctly disordered, highly abusive, and dysfunctionally self-serving emotional needs of my uNPD/BPD mom and thus allowed me to survive my childhood as the oldest of her six children.

The facts. Kid who made straight A's through high school while simultaneously being responsible for cleaning, shopping, cooking, feeding, babysitting all of my siblings, and making sure all of us got all of our FARM chores done before she got home from work - when she got home - as well. Kid who added a part-time PAYING job to that list as soon as I was legally able to work. Kid who then added performing lead roles on stage freshman year of high school. Kid selected from a pool of over 300 candidates to be a foreign exchange student my junior year. Kid awarded a full-ride academic scholarship to three different colleges before Christmas of my senior year.

Kid who went on to move to New York and get an undergraduate degree while working full-time in the administration of a major non-profit AND raising the first of my five boys. Moving back to my hometown, buying a house, having/raising the rest of my kids, and working as an administrator of another major non-profit while subsidizing my income after hours babysitting for friends BEFORE I started/operated three highly-successful business of my own, each overlapping the other for at least six months, and one of which involved buying/renovating/flipping four different houses for profit. My skill set is enormous: graphic design, non-profit administration, development, long-range planning, federal/corporate grantswriting, grant reporting/administration, writing for television/film/magazines/newspapers, financing/buying/selling property, interior design, demolition, renovation, framing, sheetrock, painting, floor installation/refinishing, tile, glass, plumbing, electrical, landscaping. And that's just what I've done for MONEY. Does NOT include being mom, housekeeper, shopper, cook, party-planner and giver, homework supervisor, trip provider, career/college counselor, bank, supporter, confidante, and (now - finally) friend to all of my kids. Does NOT include the "selfish" stuff I've learned to do/done just for myself like fixing my truck, crocheting, build/refinish furniture, sew, tat, and learn how to navigate/use/love all the technology that's come out in the 54 years since I was born.

Not trying to toot my own horn, but you get the idea. How I FELT about myself - how I've ALWAYS felt about myself - has absolutely NOTHING to do with the FACTS of who I am/what I've done.

Working now to accept, embrace, and start to see/identify myself at my core with - not what my bats***t crazy mom told/made me feel I was - but with what I really am, and what, surprisingly, I guess I've always really been.

Feelings are not facts.

- TC

[Trick1004]

Tali,

Thanks for posting that. I really identify with what you posted.

At this point feelings have gotten me no where towards recovery. I am a very logical, fact-driven person but once I get deeply involved with someone, whether it is close friends, family, my ex, I feel very strongly and want to do whatever I can to help. However, and this has happened in the past, there is a certain limit to how much I can give and once its crossed the facts take over.

It hurts like hell, but I've cut people I care about very deeply out of my life because the facts of the relationship finally caught up to the feelings.

Facts are static

Feelings come and go depending on the situation

I can't ignore the facts of my r/s with the ex anymore. While I felt some of the highest highs with her, I also felt some of the lowest lows. Regardless of my feelings (ya they hurt and come flooding in randomly) the facts about her are what they are, they haven't changed, and I know I will be better off without her.

Recognizing the facts is what is helping me recover. 

[KellyO]

I find it difficult to answer because I really don't know... . I guess it was facts. I worked with MY feelings, but it was the facts that finally made me understand what is going on, not my feelings.

I felt bad. I was in pain. The facts helped me see why. Then I just had to believe the facts, and I had other feelings that prevented it. So, I had to work with those feelings. After that, facts again. Because I believe in facts, facts never lie. It was like... . I saw the fact, but there was a little voice in my mind that said "But... . ", it was that voice I had to deal with. Occams Razor is my favorite tool. I used it often when I was ruminating about my ex.

Now I have arrived to place where I know I will never have anything to do with that man. Not even if he would get healthy, normal, the most sane person in this world. Because fact is that I still would not trust him.

Facts are left when wishful thinking leaves. Now when I look at facts it is all so clear and understandable. It was just so damn hard road to get in this place.

[laelle]

FACT

To truly change a person has to take a long look in the mirror and realize their is a need for change and follow through.

Someone with BPD can only manage to stare at that mirror for a few moments... . Their immature and incomplete defense mechanism triggers and they block what they see

with a mirrored image (you, me, neighbor down the street)  (they project their bad on to you)  It then becomes your fault.  How can someone change when they cant sustain the need for change?

FEELINGS

This being said, any relationship with someone with BPD will always end in heartache and emotional annihilation for the non BPD.  It is chasing your tail without hope of ever catching it.  It leaves us tired, panicky, depressed, hopeless, and confused.  We just cant understand why we cant seem to catch our tails.  It seems so within reach, but can not be obtained.  My body was telling me that the chase was killing me from the inside out.

[goldylamont]

For me, Feelings are Facts, in the sense that our feelings are always trying to give our minds messages. Problem is we often don't see the message or choose to ignore it. My growth over the past couple of years has been to tune into my emotions and to find out the message they were telling me. I could then use facts to verify how correct my emotions were.

I am the soo thankful for trusting my instincts and emotions. For instance, I did not want to break up with my exBPD at the time, but I had an 'irrational' gut feeling at the time that my ex needed to be with someone else because she wasn't seeing my true integrity; and had lost all respect for my true loving character. And I put "irrational" in quotes because feeling this way at the time, not knowing a thing about PDs, I wasn't being irrational--my emotions were dead on correct. If I let my mind win at that time I would have tried to hang on, only letting her inflict more damage. I really feel like I jumped off the train just before it derailed, because I trusted my feelings instead of facts (I didn't have many back then).