Recovering from someone else's hidden fears

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

Right now, I'm in the deeper stages of healing.  It's been almost a year since I filed for separation leading to divorce, and over 3 months since my BPD ex moved out.  I have to move out in a few weeks because the landlord for my apartment wants to do some renovations.  As a result, I'm going through my stuff and trying to figure out what I'm going to keep moving forward and what I'm going to dispose of.  It doesn't make sense to hold on to stuff I'm not going to use wherever I head off to next.

In the process, I had to move out one chest of drawers because it had gotten too beat up from regular use.  Now, when we were together, my ex would refuse to clean and would put up a major fight if I tried to clean, especially the master bedroom where she set up shop.  As a result, I've put in a lot of work trying to clean out the house and try to make it as presentable as possible before moving out.  As I broke down the chest of drawers, I saw that a colony of roaches had sadly made their home there, and I had to do a major cleanup with the move to put it in the trash.  I was going to keep the other two, but I saw that the impact of the neglect had encouraged pests to make their homes in those chest of drawers as well.

It made me think of the BPD rages that indirectly are making me move.  Long story short, not too long after we moved into this apartment, a hole in the roof formed, damaging one of the walls of the house and dripping water over one side.  When I went to tell the landlord, the ex refused, not wanting the landlord to see how poor the house was being kept up.  It ended up being a bunch of fights and stopgap measures, because she didn't want anyone to see how bad off she was.  Eventually, over several months, I was able to get the ex to relent, but the damage was done.  While I wouldn't be in immediate danger (and it's safe for me to live there), long term, any structural damage in the place needs to be fixed.

It made me think of all the rage that was hidden by neglect.  Of how a house can be trashed without it being obvious that the house is being trashed.  After all, the person with BPD can just say that they are tired or busy or stressed while their belongings and surroundings decay all around them.  It's but a form of rage which is ultimately backed up by some fear.  That they aren't good enough.  That they are going to be abused and neglected.  That the world is out to get them.  That their needs are never going to be met.

The problem is that people with BPD never develop the communication skills to express their needs.  I know that there are psychiatrists and psychologists who understand the fundamentals behind this.  That isn't our particular battle.  The problem is when we have to deal with anger over fears never expressed.  My ex wanted me to save her from her poor situation, place her in some tony suburb and keep her safe from want and the threats of the menacing hustlers and hoodrats of the ghetto she grew in.  She wanted me to take care of her needs, because she thought they would rape and abuse and neglect her like the ones she grew up around.  The problem was that I never heard that.  All I heard was the rages about gourmet food and the demands to live somewhere or pay for certain things or complaints about living in a neighborhood that doesn't have cute boutiques and cafes that sell $12 sandwiches or have a job that paid well but allowed me to leave on time so I could take care of the place she never wanted in the first place.

I eventually figured out her demands due to working on myself.  My time on Staying, my therapy sessions, my meditation and reconnecting with a frayed social network (due to the fact my friends and family didn't meet her needs) have helped the healing.  I am not healed, and I don't think I'll ever be exactly the same.  But I am healing.  I had to deal with the issues that made me vulnerable to such a situation in the first place.  And now, I have to deal with the aftermath of such fears that were expressed through rages about subjects 5 or 6 steps away. 

I was asked to deal with someone else's issues, much like all of us here.  What's worse is that we didn't even know what they were.  Many of us still don't know what the core problems were, because our exes left instead of communicating.  It just sucks to have to deal with the burdens of someone else's conscious.  Sadly, we have been tasked with picking up the damage, and it's our job to realize that not only shouldn't it have been our job, it was never our work to do in the first place.

[iluminati]

Right now, I'm in the deeper stages of healing.  It's been almost a year since I filed for separation leading to divorce, and over 3 months since my BPD ex moved out.  I have to move out in a few weeks because the landlord for my apartment wants to do some renovations.  As a result, I'm going through my stuff and trying to figure out what I'm going to keep moving forward and what I'm going to dispose of.  It doesn't make sense to hold on to stuff I'm not going to use wherever I head off to next.

In the process, I had to move out one chest of drawers because it had gotten too beat up from regular use.  Now, when we were together, my ex would refuse to clean and would put up a major fight if I tried to clean, especially the master bedroom where she set up shop.  As a result, I've put in a lot of work trying to clean out the house and try to make it as presentable as possible before moving out.  As I broke down the chest of drawers, I saw that a colony of roaches had sadly made their home there, and I had to do a major cleanup with the move to put it in the trash.  I was going to keep the other two, but I saw that the impact of the neglect had encouraged pests to make their homes in those chest of drawers as well.

It made me think of the BPD rages that indirectly are making me move.  Long story short, not too long after we moved into this apartment, a hole in the roof formed, damaging one of the walls of the house and dripping water over one side.  When I went to tell the landlord, the ex refused, not wanting the landlord to see how poor the house was being kept up.  It ended up being a bunch of fights and stopgap measures, because she didn't want anyone to see how bad off she was.  Eventually, over several months, I was able to get the ex to relent, but the damage was done.  While I wouldn't be in immediate danger (and it's safe for me to live there), long term, any structural damage in the place needs to be fixed.

It made me think of all the rage that was hidden by neglect.  Of how a house can be trashed without it being obvious that the house is being trashed.  After all, the person with BPD can just say that they are tired or busy or stressed while their belongings and surroundings decay all around them.  It's but a form of rage which is ultimately backed up by some fear.  That they aren't good enough.  That they are going to be abused and neglected.  That the world is out to get them.  That their needs are never going to be met.

The problem is that people with BPD never develop the communication skills to express their needs.  I know that there are psychiatrists and psychologists who understand the fundamentals behind this.  That isn't our particular battle.  The problem is when we have to deal with anger over fears never expressed.  My ex wanted me to save her from her poor situation, place her in some tony suburb and keep her safe from want and the threats of the menacing hustlers and hoodrats of the ghetto she grew in.  She wanted me to take care of her needs, because she thought they would rape and abuse and neglect her like the ones she grew up around.  The problem was that I never heard that.  All I heard was the rages about gourmet food and the demands to live somewhere or pay for certain things or complaints about living in a neighborhood that doesn't have cute boutiques and cafes that sell $12 sandwiches or have a job that paid well but allowed me to leave on time so I could take care of the place she never wanted in the first place.

I eventually figured out her demands due to working on myself.  My time on Staying, my therapy sessions, my meditation and reconnecting with a frayed social network (due to the fact my friends and family didn't meet her needs) have helped the healing.  I am not healed, and I don't think I'll ever be exactly the same.  But I am healing.  I had to deal with the issues that made me vulnerable to such a situation in the first place.  And now, I have to deal with the aftermath of such fears that were expressed through rages about subjects 5 or 6 steps away. 

I was asked to deal with someone else's issues, much like all of us here.  What's worse is that we didn't even know what they were.  Many of us still don't know what the core problems were, because our exes left instead of communicating.  It just sucks to have to deal with the burdens of someone else's conscious.  Sadly, we have been tasked with picking up the damage, and it's our job to realize that not only shouldn't it have been our job, it was never our work to do in the first place.