What helps to get over the lies?

[Depression = 72% of members]

Looking back, I keep piecing things together.  A word here.  A phrase there.

In the end the most hurtful thing she said was, "You'll never find the answers you're looking for."

It was as if she loved taunting me with knowledge of "what-if's"

How do I let this go?

It's killing me.

I keep thinking.  Maybe she isn't as bad as I remember... .Maybe she was innocent some of the times.

I guess in the end it doesn't matter.  I really will never find the answers I'm looking for.

But how do I tell myself this?  What helps?  Anyone?

:'(

[PhoenixRising15]

Looking back, I keep piecing things together.  A word here.  A phrase there.

In the end the most hurtful thing she said was, "You'll never find the answers you're looking for."

It was as if she loved taunting me with knowledge of "what-if's"

How do I let this go?

It's killing me.

I keep thinking.  Maybe she isn't as bad as I remember... .Maybe she was innocent some of the times.

I guess in the end it doesn't matter.  I really will never find the answers I'm looking for.

But how do I tell myself this?  What helps?  Anyone?

:'(

[Oliolioxenfree]

When she said "You'll never find the answers you're looking for." that may have been the one and only time you got a real straight answer from her.  But she is correct,  You will not get the "closure" you are expecting from them.  You have to create your own closure.

You can achieve this by first digging deep, look within and address your own reasons for staying in a relationship that had so many red flags.  That reason, will be what sets you free, because once your eyes are opened to your own subconscious you cannot no longer close them.  And you can heal. Really truly heal.

Afterwards, mourn the relationship and its ending, and know that no matter what the person you thought they were or actually were... disordered or not, did not treat you with love, care, kindness, trust and respect. And you deserve better.  Bottom line.

Tell yourself this everyday. EVERY SINGLE DAY

[Ironmanrises]

Question... .


Those hurtful words... .

She was saying to you... .

Were originating... .

From her other side.

The side that was nice... .

Would not have said such words.

It doesnt make the pain... .

Any less... .

I know.

I heard many hurtful words too... .

From my ex.

Those hurtful words... .

Are how she really feels... .

About herself.

Your ex... .

Due to her disorder... .

Doesnt have a self... .

Doesnt know who she is... .

Thus... .

"You'll never find the answers you're looking for... ."

Becomes... .

"I'll never find the answers i am looking for... ."

Confusing... .?

Yes... .

Beyond.

Hurtful... .

Beyond words... .

I know.

You know... .

Within you... .

That you did nothing wrong... .

To illicit... .

That god awful... .

Other side to your ex.

None of us did.

You did nothing wrong Question.

Hang in there.

We are here with you... .

Brother.

[Learning2Thrive]

QF... .I feel your pain.  Agony, isn't it?

I still have a long way to go in my recovery and healing process.  But I have noticed significant progress the last 10 days. What I have done is allow my self to focus on one memory (LIE) at a time and truly feel it. FEEL the betrayal and hurt and feel the pain of the childhood wounds.  When her mask slipped, she was very much like my mother.  I buried so much pain and neglect from my childhood.

As I face more and more of these lies I have begun to feel in earnest her complete betrayal. I have come to understand that she is not someone I used to know. She is someone I thought I used to know... .but really, she is a complete stranger. 

Do I really love her? I believed I did.  I would have died for her... .truly would have, and she knows it.  But even that wasn't enough for her to want to stay. Sometimes I feel like I miss her so much and just wish I could know how she is.  But I'm not so sure I love *HER* the person she really is because I never knew her... .she never let me know the truth of her until she disappeared (that is the biggest betrayal).  I loved who she portrayed herself to be.  I loved caring for her and holding her and watching her face light up when she was happy.  She was beautiful and so talented but also tormented beyond belief.  BUT... .the whole of our relationship was built on smoke and mirrors and lies. She knew about the lies, I saw red flags that I ignored, and WE BOTH had a part in that.  We both had something the other needed and wanted, but now I understand it could never last or be healthy because one of us didn't have her *SELF*.

No amount of love from one person (or many) can give another person a sense of self.  EACH person in an adult relationship must OWN their own self... .that is what each brings to the table.  A person with no sense of self genuinely can not give themselves to any relationship if they don't have a self to begin with.

Did she love me?  Yes, I believe she did... .in the way that she was able, in the way a 3 year old loves a caretaker. 

Reflecting on this as I process the memories and feel the pain seems to provide me the most relief.

[schwing]

Hi QF.

Looking back, I keep piecing things together.  A word here.  A phrase there.

I think it makes sense to work towards "piecing things together."  You are in pain and you're trying to understand why this happened to you.

In the end the most hurtful thing she said was, "You'll never find the answers you're looking for."

I think you will get the answers that you are looking for, just not from her.   And that was her taunt, that what she did will never make any sense to you, nor her for that matter.

It was as if she loved taunting me with knowledge of "what-if's"

That cake is a lie.  There was no other alternative.  It was either hurt you now, or hurt you later.  Painful now, or more painful later.  She was never going to spontaneously recover from her disorder.  Maybe she might one day choose to work on her disorder, but while she was with you, she did not choose this.  And that was never your responsibility.

How do I let this go?

It's killing me.

Letting go is a very important skill.  Skills take practice.

One approach you might consider is accept that what you are going through is a painful trauma.  You can't "let go" of a trauma at will.  But you can try to manage it such that you are not overwhelmed.  Going over, over again, in your mind, the history of a trauma, in the effort to answer "what-if" isn't the best approach to "letting go."  Granted you must make some effort towards coming to terms with your trauma, bite, but not more than you can chew.

Don't forget to take care of yourself.  Letting go is a process.  

I keep thinking.  Maybe she isn't as bad as I remember... .Maybe she was innocent some of the times.

This is a little like "splitting."  It's too painful to consider how awful she was, so you start to consider maybe "she isn't as bad as [you] remember."  I don't know if she was "innocent."  I don't know if she was "guilty."  She was/is mentally ill.  Is mental illness "innocent" or "guilty"?  If her mental illness drove her to take actions that caused you pain, is she still responsible for her actions?

I guess in the end it doesn't matter.  I really will never find the answers I'm looking for.

Maybe, you might consider changing your questions?  What question are you asking?  That she wasn't as bad as you remember?  Is that consideration a little self-invalidating?

But how do I tell myself this?  What helps?  Anyone?

You don't tell yourself you will never understand.  One day you will understand.  But right now you don't.  And so long as you don't, you should stop putting your hand into the fire.

What helps is to take care of yourself.  When your feelings become more manageable, then you take another bite.

Best wishes, Schwing

[rags_and_feathers]

So much wisdom in this thread!  Thank you all! 

I am realizing I never actually knew my BPD -- I thought I did, but it was all a big illusion.  She doesn't know herself, and no one else could ever know her, either.  It is so disorienting to realize that the person I lived with for 5 years is actually a total stranger to me.

[Changingman]

You will/have found the answer, that they have a personality disorder. This is what is amazing about these sites and science. We need to extract the sense from the nonsense, the confusion they create to cloud their crazy, the drama, the crying, the anger, the triangulation, the drinking, the sex, the projection and profound lies, it all seems like ways to confuse everyone that their life is a bit crazy, interesting and normal. We have found out! Now it is processing this information. That look like humans but they aren'th. I look at old photos of her when calm and I question myself and BPD symptoms, I also have photos when she was drunk an couldn't false front me... .they are amazing, madness in a image revealed. Everyone should look at 'crying woman' by Picasso, it's amazing, fractured crazy, it's the best image of BPD I've seen

Good Luck everyone x

[PhoenixRising15]

Thank you schwing,

You really gave me a good bonk back towards sanity.  I did some work on this tonight and here's what I came up with:  It's my same old life script.

Never got my emotional needs met by mom.  Not enough attention and love from parents. Sexual abuse.  Disclosure of sexual abuse to parents - no action.  Questioned my entire life, what did I do to bring this on myself?  Why did this person do this?  I must have done something wrong.  I made myself out to be the perpetrator of crimes committed against me and I've carried this legacy with me for too long.

In walks xBPDgf.

Gives me love like mom never did.  hung on every word. gave me the "understanding" i always craved.  Treated me like my narcissistic mother - which to everyone else looked like crap, but to me felt like home.

So I am again left with burning questions?  What did I do?  Why did she do it? I must have done something wrong.

And the answer is:

Other people (mentally ill or not) have sentience.  They do things on their own.  I did not force her to cheat on me despite what she told me.  I did not act controlling despite what she told me.  Shoot, even the times I "abandoned her", she in actuality abandoned me and gaslighted me enough to question my own reality.

So the real questions I'm asking myself now are:

-How do I give the love and understanding to my wounded inner child?

-How do I tell him that sometimes people just don't do the "nice" thing, sometimes they are downright mean?

It's a tough inner conversation to have.  I know hurt people hurt people.  I once was one that acted out my pain and wreaked havoc on those that tried to get close to me.  Perhaps I'm recovering BPD.

I got another answer tonight:

1.) They were all lies - either due to her addiction or lack of sense of self.

2.) It doesn't matter if she was innocent or guilty (and by that I meant was I overreacting and being paranoid as she told me I was)

The fact is I didn't feel loved, cared for, or respected, regardless of anything else.  That alone should be enough for me (when I am healthy-minded) to walk away, even if the girl is not raging, physically abusive, or using copious amounts of drugs and neglecting me!

Tie that in with unresolved projection of my narcissistic mother, and I was prime for the pickin.

The long and the short of it: keep crying it out and turning inward.

Thanks yall!

[jollygreen]

I'm almost 8 months out.  I find what helps me is knowing how wrong she was for me by looking at everything that wasn't loving and hurtful.  Of course I will always remember the good things.  But I know that what I went through was a cycle pattern just like the others.  I do not want that again, I deserve (and we all deserve) someone consistently loving because I give consistent love.

[Accepting]

Questioning Faith,

Annoying, isn't it.

[DragoN]

QF,

Maybe something here will be helpful for the inner child work and a good T.

www.healyourinnerchild.com/Book-Content/inner-child-healing-how-to-begin

[Century2012]

Has anyone thought about the "lies" we tell ourselves?

We see the red flags but rationalize them away. Or minimize them because we want to believe in all the good stuff we feel.

I look at my replacement and think, what the heck are you doing with him? When they married, a mere 4 months after he and I broke up, he was in substance abuse counseling required to get back his drivers license for his more than one DUI. And he didn't have a dime in the bank.

Then I think. Wait a minute. People were looking at me thinking what the heck was I doing with him.

[DragoN]

Has anyone thought about the "lies" we tell ourselves?

We see the red flags but rationalize them away. Or minimize them because we want to believe in all the good stuff we feel.

Yes, that's worse.

[PhoenixRising15]

Thank you for the link on the inner child healing.  I've got a T and been working for years or I would never even have been able to touch this stuff.

I'd literally have written her off, called her a cheating slut, and went out to find another girl.  Yeah, I acted out pretty bad in those days.  Lots of drinking.  Lots of women. 

Had to hit my own bottom to realize I needed to finally talk to someone about what had happened to me as a child.

As far as the lies I told myself, now there is another major piece of work.

1.) Things will get much better after XYZ... .I told myself this literally day after day.

2.) She's got a handle on this whole drugs thing... .After watching her "casually" do lines of blow by a pool/

3.) She could never cheat on me, she told me so! And she's been cheated on! - all i can do is laugh

4.) She's gonna be different this time, she told me so! - again, laugh

5.) It wasn't her fault she hit me, she didn't know what else to do with her rage! She didn't mean it.

6.) She only lies to her mom, "best friend", sister, everyone else, but not me.  I'm different. - LOL

7.) My personal favorite... .She's not lying... .this time... .

The list just goes on.  And I let her do it all.  Constantly rationalizing and wanting to believe the best in her.

The funny thing is... .in a way I think her inner child truly tried to warn me of the dangers that lay ahead.  I  think she felt very bad about how she was acting but didn't know what else to do.

She claimed to idolize certain women as master manipulators of men.  She talked about the pain of her best friend's pathological lying, and realizing she was no different - only at this point did I think whoa, maybe I am that to her... .

At one point, she even claimed to know she'd been scrambling since the beginning of the relationship, trying to figure out how to be normal again.

I offered her space many many times.  I said, hey maybe this isn't working now, you can find someone better suited for you right now.  But she'd never let go.  Ultimately, she just drove the stake into my heart so deep, I can't pull it out even if I wanted to.

I (totally irrationally and illogically) believe she's going to go to therapy and get better (not soon... .but soon enough)... .and the unfortunate fact is that she destroyed every ounce of my trust by the end.

I wish I hadn't let her do that.  It would make it all the easier to grieve, move on, and potentially see a future with her.  To wish her well, and be able to pass her on the street, give her a hug and catch up in 5 years.

I know she's given me a blessing in looking at my core wounds, but the fantasy is nice.

[Turkish]

Question... .



Due to her disorder... .

Doesnt have a self... .

Doesnt know who she is... .

Thus... .

"You'll never find the answers you're looking for... ."

Becomes... .

"I'll never find the answers i am looking for... ."

Confusing... .?

Yes... .

That's exactly what I thought when I read it. Exchanging a word or two in a sentence which changes its entire meaning (either when they talk, or when they repeat back what you just said to them) is so typical. Now that I've stepped back, I am more aware of it. I even called her out on it the other day... .the word switching due to the screwed up wires in her head. She just looked at me and didn't say anything.