"closure"? considering final, nice gesture to uBPDex

[Discovery]

Unhooking... .

I doubt it was about interest that they didn't open it.  They probably didn't open it because they knew or feared what was in it: words of love, hurt and letting go from someone they care about. All these things are what they spend their lives getting wrong. It cuts to their core, and not opening that letter avoids them experiencing that pain, something they go to immeasurable lengths to avoid in fact.

I totally agree. AVOIDING, RUNNING, HIDING, PRETENDING, DENYING, MASKING.

Exposure to emotional truths is too painful, so the only strategy is to act is if nothing is wrong.

This has got to create a huge amount of internal unreleased tension and pain. It's invisible for the most part, but it's got to be there. That's where karma comes in for me... .what you do to others will come back on you sooner or later.

[Bananas]

Bananas, you are lucky that he is still there, and you can look at him and see him for the way that he is.  Perhaps that is what is so difficult about NC... .we are left with nothing, except our memories of them when we were hopelessly attached, enmeshed.  Imagine, if we were to work on detaching, but also have limited contact with them... .where we can really and truly start to see them for who and what they are: lost and sad.  I may be wrong, but sometimes I did find NC so much more difficult than if I had to see him on a regular basis. While I was with him I think I started moving down the path of detachment... .but he disappeared into a void of nothingness before I could really get to a point where I wasn't totally sucked up by his energy.   But perhaps making contact is just a way for us to feel our way through the dark... .and simply getting the validation that yes indeed, it is impossible to "be" with them. 

I so badly wanted to get to that "neutral" point... .neutralize it. But no matter what happened, the energy was so frenzied and anxious. It was so tough for me to swing from amazing and passionate, to dreadfully tragic, to frightening, to heart wrenching.   What I think we simply need to understand is that with a pwBPD, that middle ground - perhaps the ground where a healthy adult relationship can grow because it is a foundation of stability - simply does not exist.

What is that saying, you always want what you don't have.  I wish I could have NC.  I find it impossible to get to that neutral point!  Being in a position where I may or may not have to run in to my ex and feel that frenzied and anxious energy you speak of... .  eight months out and still have those feelings.  My ex disappered into a void of nothingness, but I can see him.  It is like seeing a ghost. 

I make a lot of progress on the weekends because I have NC.  Then it's back to work, and when I see him my heart breaks a little more each time.  And I can't say a word because we are in public.  I have to stuff everything inside just to keep in together so I don't turn into a mess in an environment where I must remain professional.  No easy task.   

[patientandclear]

What is that saying, you always want what you don't have.  I wish I could have NC.  I find it impossible to get to that neutral point!  Being in a position where I may or may not have to run in to my ex and feel that frenzied and anxious energy you speak of... .  eight months out and still have those feelings.  My ex disappered into a void of nothingness, but I can see him.  It is like seeing a ghost. 

And I, in a sustained, reasonably functional post r/s friendship with my ex, also find it like being with a ghost.  All the connections between us are still there, but not allowed to mean what they once meant.  It is exactly like having a r/s with a ghost.  Bananas is right, all the options are very hard.

[fromheeltoheal]

I make a lot of progress on the weekends because I have NC.  Then it's back to work, and when I see him my heart breaks a little more each time.  And I can't say a word because we are in public.  I have to stuff everything inside just to keep in together so I don't turn into a mess in an environment where I must remain professional.  No easy task.   

I did that for a while Bananas, and it was extremely difficult.  The day she got fired came with a massive sense of relief, I felt my whole body relax for the first time in months, it surprised me just how much I'd repressed just to keep it together.  I hope you are able to make some peace with yours.

[ucmeicu2]

here's the reality:

as i held the letter, having all those thoughts, i turned it over in my hand and i'll be d*amned if it wasn't even opened!  she hadn't even read it!  she hadn't even had the interest, or decency, to open it!   :'(

just a thought, but I doubt it was about interest that they didn't open it.  They probably didn't open it because they knew or feared what was in it: words of love, hurt and letting go from someone they care about.  All these things are what they spend their lives getting wrong. It cuts to their core, and not opening that letter avoids them experiencing that pain, something they go to immeasurable lengths to avoid in fact.

unhooking, yeah <nod nod> i said almost the same thing verbatim, at the bottom of my post you quoted from, maybe you missed it:

oh, PS:  she told me the reason she hadn't opened it was b/c she knew basically what it said and it was too painful for her to have me say goodbye and leave her.   huh  i didn't know it at the time but now i do:  that's classic BPD behavior... .ostrich head in the sand.

*but*  i also found (here and there, not like all in a box together) other letters/cards including from her parents, an exBF, and the exGFfiancee that she had failed to tell me about(!).  so there was something else going on inside her head b/c i seriously doubt she thought there was "abandonment" inside that christmas card from her parents or birthday card from exBF. <shrug>

[caughtnreleased]

ucmeicu. Yeah... .strange.  Perhaps through letters people can express vulnerability, more so than in person, and pwBPD just can't handle it.  But mostly, some of their behaviour just makes no sense whatsoever.  It's amazing the trail of chaos and hurt they leave behind them.  I've heard that sometimes pwBPD actually hold on to tokens of people.  My ex had articles of clothing, jewelery from others that he liked to wear sometimes, people he hadn't spoken to in years but who had supposedly been his BFFs... .

Bananas and heal, thanks for sharing your stories.  It's true. We always want what we don't have.  That sounds really hard what you went through... .and yeah, I probably would have struggled immensely with having to work with him.  I feel that I've made some really big steps and perhaps NC has allowed me to get to the point that I am at now.  I did experience moments of weakness when I would hear from friends about what he was doing, and those moments would set me back.  Maybe I hoped low contact would dispel the fantasies that I wove in my head about him... .but in the end, good ol' self discipline, getting my mind off him, onto my own, and other, more interesting issues was probably the best medicine.   

[fromheeltoheal]

ucmeicu. Yeah... .strange.  Perhaps through letters people can express vulnerability, more so than in person, and pwBPD just can't handle it.  But mostly, some of their behaviour just makes no sense whatsoever.  It's amazing the trail of chaos and hurt they leave behind them.  I've heard that sometimes pwBPD actually hold on to tokens of people.  My ex had articles of clothing, jewelery from others that he liked to wear sometimes, people he hadn't spoken to in years but who had supposedly been his BFFs... .

Bananas and heal, thanks for sharing your stories.  It's true. We always want what we don't have.  That sounds really hard what you went through... .and yeah, I probably would have struggled immensely with having to work with him.  I feel that I've made some really big steps and perhaps NC has allowed me to get to the point that I am at now.  I did experience moments of weakness when I would hear from friends about what he was doing, and those moments would set me back.  Maybe I hoped low contact would dispel the fantasies that I wove in my head about him... .but in the end, good ol' self discipline, getting my mind off him, onto my own, and other, more interesting issues was probably the best medicine.   

A component of the disorder is a borderline harbors reunion fantasies with all of their exes, a remnant of the earliest attachments that created the disorder to begin with: never say never.  My borderline and I were together the first time 25 years ago, it ended in chaos per usual, but she contacted me once in a while over the decades, until she found me again on Facebook 2 years ago, and off to the races we went again.  I've never had another girlfriend do that, and the way she showed up when we spoke, as if everything was rosy and not a day had gone by, was just creepy.  But I went there anyway.

Low contact is an option, there is no rule and NC is just a tool.  I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if I had been around her after the relationship ended, and strong enough to detach and observe her objectively.  I'm sure my opinion would have changed, she's a weirdo and I ignored most of it when I was caught up in the emotion.  Would have been interesting.

What I did do was disappear without a trace because I was VERY pissed off, which maybe saved my life.  And then after a while the emotions waned and I could look at it more objectively, and I don't even like her.  Not even close.  She's got the cutesy facade she puts forth, honed to perfection to seduce men after decades of practice, but it doesn't take long to see there's not much under it, and what's there is very unattractive.  NC for me, permanently.

[LivingLearning]

Hm... .

So I've been reading some interesting stuff on "no contact", including the sidebar in an article on this site. It seems like "NC" can sometimes be rigid, just like a BPD. The article in the resource center here pointed that out... .that "NC" can also be iffy. (My words)

    Sometimes I wonder about how I hear people speak of the "mentally Ill". To me, it's a spectrum, and yeah that may conflict with diagnostics or DSM's that help in some ways and can also have it's limitations. We all have out crap, and some more than others.

    I also think it's possible I'm being Pollyanna, but I've been quite a student of psychology for 20 years, and been in many therapeutic settings- allanon, men's groups, yoga retreats, psych courses, workshops galore. I figure no one is beyond hope for change, and it's not for us to judge or guess.

   It's for us to be authentic. Live in our truth as it's evolving. Be kind. Be strong. Heal ourselves. (Also in this sites article center an article recommends to lie when a BPD ex calls and say "someone's at the door". Lie? I don't like to lie. To me there are better solutions whether they're tougher for me or not. I've done enough lying and experienced enough lying.)

[LivingLearning]

And to be more clear, this isn't advocating for re-enmeshing with a BPD ex. It's about the issue of NC and the flavor that takes. The idea that when we are getting over a relationship with someone who is somewhere on the spectrum of mental illness, there might be many choices for how to do that. And maybe none of them are less evolved than others. They're all just different ways and some could result in friendships with ex's, and some could result in NC.

[peas]

Hm... .

So I've been reading some interesting stuff on "no contact", including the sidebar in an article on this site. It seems like "NC" can sometimes be rigid, just like a BPD. The article in the resource center here pointed that out... .that "NC" can also be iffy. (My words)

    Sometimes I wonder about how I hear people speak of the "mentally Ill". To me, it's a spectrum, and yeah that may conflict with diagnostics or DSM's that help in some ways and can also have it's limitations. We all have out crap, and some more than others.

    I also think it's possible I'm being Pollyanna, but I've been quite a student of psychology for 20 years, and been in many therapeutic settings- allanon, men's groups, yoga retreats, psych courses, workshops galore. I figure no one is beyond hope for change, and it's not for us to judge or guess.

   It's for us to be authentic. Live in our truth as it's evolving. Be kind. Be strong. Heal ourselves. (Also in this sites article center an article recommends to lie when a BPD ex calls and say "someone's at the door". Lie? I don't like to lie. To me there are better solutions whether they're tougher for me or not. I've done enough lying and experienced enough lying.)

LivingLearning, exactly. It's about being authentic and we need to express ourselves in a way that doesn't do harm to us or them and it comes from a good place, that's part of the deal.

[LivingLearning]

Thank you peas, "comes from a good place"... .

I suppose that's so much of what I've been figuring out. What is the good place? When am I caretaking? When am I being harsh?

And then there's another place where I relax a bit and I'm like... .hey this is me... .maybe I'm good... .Let me just do as I do. Let me hear any advice, and then just go for it.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I think this is something I struggle with: how much can I trust my "instinct". How much is my "gut feeling" a product of my BPDish mom or dad? How inch can I trust myself? Who do I listen to?

All stuff I figure maybe people in my shoes struggle with on some level.

[Surnia]

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