I have been thinking about my BPD b/u from 100 different angles.
I came across this TED talk by nobel laureate psychologist Daniel Kahneman on his theory of what we experience versus what we remember.
One thing he mentioned that I thought may explain why BPD breakups are so difficult is because our memories are more powerful than our experiences and memories require a story. When there are hard endings, the story lingers as a bad memory.
Most of us in BPD r/s's have abrupt, difficult endings.
Kahneman used an example of patients who went through colonoscopies. One group had short, painful procedures that ended within a few minutes, but had pain up to the end. Another group had longer procedures that were as painful in the beginning as the other group, but the pain lessened toward the end of the procedure.
Both groups experienced the same amount of pain, but the second group, with the longer procedure that was less painful toward the end,
remembered the procedure to be a less painful experience than the first group, even though the first group had a shorter procedure.
So what I took away is that my BPD breakup is like the shorter colonoscopy group. It's so difficult because it was so painful and abrupt at the end. The lasting memory is bad. No "closure" or at least no pain tapering off.
I could be wrong, but it's something I've been thinking about. And I don't yet know how that solves my pain problem processing the b/u. Maybe it's why going NC is so difficult? Our memories of the r/s are so strong.
Here's a link to the talk:
www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html
