Does your BPD hijack (what should be) your emotional responses?

[empath]

We need to be their extensions for them to feel safe loving us and giving their love to us. Hence we need to be 'them' and not 'us'. Sounds like yours does the same as mine including being punitive and shaming me if necessary in order to gain back his control.

In our most intense argument/difficulty, the central issue was that my partner could not grasp the idea that I was separate from him, and I had a different understanding of things than he did. He tried a number of different tactics to try to get me to back down and do things his way. It took a couple of months of very intense arguments, but eventually, he wasn't willing to do something that I couldn't do. As we were processing through that time, he mentioned that I had never told him that I disagreed or saw things differently. I was dumbfounded. During that time, I had become healthy enough to know that I had to have outside support from people who knew me and so I leaned on them which helped.

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[Lilibeth]

You know empath, i went through the same process - having a different take on things from my husband or having a different viewpoint would bring on the cold, hard, verbal shredding treatment. So i just kept quiet, no matter how i felt about things that he was talking about or what he said. That really didn't help because i found myself becoming harder and harder in my heart and sadder and sadder that i couldn't talk with him. Finally, i hit upon this method - to just look away when he said something i didn't agree with. By and by he realized that i looked away when i didn't agree - then, leave it be for some days - and then get back to it and put my point across. The thing is his final statement used to be - if we can't think the same way we cannot live together - and that was devastating... . it would finish me. Now, whenever i can in his good moments, and all the time bracing myself for the bad ones to come, i try to tell him that i too have my own points of view, but that doesn't mean i don't accept what he is saying... . sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Being in this family has taught me that when it doesn't, i can just walk away and not trash myself... .

[hergestridge]

Ever driven a car with your BPD SO in the passenger seat, trying to keep calm as your partner is raging over how other people drive, as if trying to encourage or provoke road rage?

[Surrender]

Ever driven a car with your BPD SO in the passenger seat, trying to keep calm as your partner is raging over how other people drive, as if trying to encourage or provoke road rage?

Yes my partner would do that and utterly deny it. There were times when he was screaming that he was going to drive the car into the other vehicle that cut him off as he sped up. When I tried to talk to him about this afterwards he denied it saying that he was just upset because he was cut off and that I was delusional and couldn't keep my facts straight.

Do they do it to provoke us for their rage? That is a good question as I don't understand how a response like that would make anything better but worse but I think they run on extreme feelings, drama and a form of triggered trauma or at least re-inventing that state. We are just there for the ride but God forbid if you get in the way or argue back. I find with my partner when he is triggered and starts even mildly raging that the worst thing I can do is argue back, defend myself or 'go against' him in how he perceives things. I feel helpless during all of his episodes but I also feel mad because I feel like my right to speak what I feel is shunted and buried to make room for only his feelings. It feels very one sided and that aspect of it all worries me because I don't know what the long term implications are of constantly putting our feelings aside and not being able to vent ourselves. When he is lucid and regulated he is the most on the ball, rational person I know but the second he is triggered I at that very moment know I'm with someone who is for all intensive purposes not sane and living in an upside down reality much like Alice in Wonderland which btw is written about BPD.

Not only do I realize that at that moment I am not with a sane person but a very sick and distorted mind but I also recognize that they revert to their arrested development 3 year old self. At that moment I need to remind myself that I am the grown up and that as grown ups do they step aside and wait for their child to calm down before they explain step by step the error of their way.

I keep asking myself what am I getting out of loving someone like this who is in a constant emotional crisis and am I co-dependent? Do they hijack all our emotional responses including everything we have a right to? Yes and they don't realize it because for them they demand to have their own needs met in a very specific way that meets their 'idealization' of what it should look like loving them. They can't empathize but only sympathize so they are not and don't want to be cogniscent of our feelings that are being hijacked to constantly placate and put them at ease. They feel what they perceive as a righteous anger that is fully justified when it comes to us not giving them what they feel they should automatically have from us at all times. So when something we do disappointments them even minutely, it becomes a huge rejection and deal. They don't see it as something so minor that it isn't anything to even take time out to worry about like a healthier person. Instead it confirms all their fears that they constantly perseverate about on a daily basis. I know with my partner it is like he sits in wait for just the one tiny thing that tells him he is right about all his fears with regards to me and love.

In the end do they hijack even the possibility of Loving them and they loving us? Do we ultimately become automatons because we have learned to deny all our own emotions and expression until one day we are looking in the mirror and we don't even know who we are or what we feel anymore? I ask these questions and more but I can't help but feel that no matter how much I love him he is going to destroy all possibility of having a real life together, if not right away then somewhere down the road. I want to believe (sound like Mulder here) and God knows I want to be with this man but I can't let him destroy me and any chance I have at happiness.

A friend of mine said to me:

"here is your answer - you have a right to come home without feeling like you are entering a field of land mines. You have a right to not feel that fear and trepidation when you go to see your partner. It isn't okay for you to live a life of fear with your partner because you don't know the next moment he will be triggered by things you are not even guilty of and have not even committed but in his sick mind he lies in wait for the slightest error that he perceives.

When my girlfriend calls me I feel excited to talk to her and when I go to see her I have that same good feeling. When you go to see your partner or he calls you are immediately flooded with anxiety, dread and worry of what his response will be. This is life for you because the landmines are going off several times a day and there isn't any stability or a normal base line that you can depend on. It is literally like you are living in a war zone and you are suffering from PTSD because of what he subjects you to. It is a traumatized life and you deserve to be loved and not abused so get out and don't look back. You deserve to come home and not worry and feel sick to your stomach because you have no idea how he is going to respond or what mood he will be in".

Consequently this is a friend of mine who was in two BPD relationships and knows what he is talking about. I walked away feeling as usual sad, heart broken and scared because I don't want to give up on my partner like the rest of us but I don't want to live a hijacked life either. It's not just our emotions that are getting hijacked but I actually believe it is our entire lives, hearts, happiness, minds and spiritual happiness. Somehow through my partner I feel more broken and more traumatized than I did having gone through all my traumas in my life prior.

[hergestridge]

It's not just our emotions that are getting hijacked but I actually believe it is our entire lives, hearts, happiness, minds and spiritual happiness.

As many people on site as testified, the only way of having a life on your own is to keep as much of it as possible away from your BPD SO. I really envy those who manage that. I never really built a support system. I have a very high integrity and realied on my BPDw as my closest friend for many years, which is why it hurt so much when I started to realize that the bonds between us were less than solid.

[Surrender]

It's not just our emotions that are getting hijacked but I actually believe it is our entire lives, hearts, happiness, minds and spiritual happiness.

As many people on site as testified, the only way of having a life on your own is to keep as much of it as possible away from your BPD SO. I really envy those who manage that. I never really built a support system. I have a very high integrity and realied on my BPDw as my closest friend for many years, which is why it hurt so much when I started to realize that the bonds between us were less than solid.

Yes it sounds like we are in the same boat as I did and continue to do the same. I, like you have little support systems and fused myself with my partner in what I believed was as you said, a solid unifying connection. We always said we were each others family, best friends, lovers, confidantes and partners through life. When I am not in his life he is overcome by the overwhelming feeling of life being hollow and a void... . he lives in a state of emptiness trying to find meaning and something to cling to. When I am with him this feeling for the most part disappears but not entirely. I guess we are left trying to figure out what our bonds are in actuality with our partners because maybe just maybe we have been wrong about it all? Is anything ever solid with them and are we always just an object to either cling to in order to evade their pain and truth or to condemn in order to justify their core fears? Are we just an escape either way for everything to them in need and denial and consequently not truly loved or even truly seen or heard?

Are we just an object for them to project all their needs and fears onto?

[Lilibeth]

Surrender, reading what you have written is like reading my life... . it is just amazing how he psychs himself into believing what he is saying, which is only negative, as he sees only the negative in things and people. I cannot even escape into another room as he simply follows me around, and i feel my heard is going to burst with the amount of negative words pouring in. In fact am going through that right now... . Don't give up, Surrender... . we're all here for you, caring for you... . I've only recently joined this site - i badly needed healing... . and that is what i am working towards with help from people here... . Concentrate on healing yourself - do things for yourself that will slowly let you reaffirm what a wonderful person you are. Like you, leaving my husband is not an option i could take and live with... . so now am concentrating on myself - a few tiny victories have happened, and now i am seeing the relationship in a whole new light - not as a victim, but as something more... . someone more independent... .

I don't think we can always find the kind of support we are looking for, Surrender, for it is only someone who is in the same situation who will understand what we go through day after day... . but having someone to just sit and have a coffee with, or do a little something just for yourself also helps. I have a couple of well-meaning friends, but i know i cannot share this with them because i will only end up being more frustrated... . so most times i'm just on my own - of course i find great comfort on this site... . but yes, i do enjoy a few just-girlie times with them when we don't talk about anything personal. Plus, of course we are all here, Surrender as your support system... . You need to give your heart and soul the oxygen it is using up in dealing with your situation... .

[panchito]

Ever driven a car with your BPD SO in the passenger seat, trying to keep calm as your partner is raging over how other people drive, as if trying to encourage or provoke road rage?

Funny thing you mention it. And althogh it seems we are getting out topic, I reminded me my pwBPD wife on the car.

When she is driving and I'm on the side seat, she is contantly raging against everyone. And poor me if I do not agree with her. Not to mention if I invalidate her driving... . So I feel compeled to agree with her, althogh I'm actually quite disturbed on the inside. Moreover If I think or her attitue when its me driving... .

Because when she is the one at the passengers seat I suddently see myself on a no win situation here. If I say something about any other driver she rages at me and invalidates me. If I do not rage at the other drivers she rages at me for not raging at the other drivers ("it is on this situations you should use your claxon". And besides that she constantly criticises and evaluates my driving itself. Sometimes I just cannot stand any mor critics and end up stopping the car and saying:"Please, drive yourself because I just can´t stand it anymore". She ends up not accepting mi invitation and criticizing me for being too sensitive to her fair criticizing... .

It drives me nuts!

[montanesa]

This is why I love this forum. Things are all starting to make more sense.

I hate that every time I get sick, uBPDh gets depressed/angry. I have to put on a happy face despite feeling like crud to avoid having two problems (1. sick 2. depressed hubby). When my Dad got sick, H was too sad and didn't want to hear anything about it. It's hard.