Thank you changingman for the encouraging words... .
Blimblam, I wish I could you right now. I have known about BPD for years and years now, and even though I understand it (as much as I logically can) and have lived through so many experiences with a BPD person, I am at rock bottom right now. I think my posts might convey that I am far into the healing process, but I must admit, I am in shambles.
Some part of me is healing, I know that, and can sense it, very very quiet, like a little whisper. But everyday is a fight to survive, a fight to not wish I were dead. I relate so much to your pain and disillusionment--so much. I relate to how you felt your current ex, although so unbearably cruel in the end, was like no other to you. She was different, you felt that---you adored her, truly and wholly, without any hidden motives, without any pretense, without any mask that you could switch out at a moment's notice if things got "too intense."
The process of detaching from a person we have loved this intensely will never come in one step---it is a thousand steps, a thousand heart-wrenching realisationss, and re-realisations... .an exhausting tumult of having to keep fighting back the urge to hold on to the beautiful words and gestures as the "reality." Trying to convince the heart that the reality was something incomprehensibly different---is nearly impossible in the early stages of grief. Time has to intervene---and we have to surrender to time's invisible healing hand, even though that hand moves things along so painstakingly slow.
I am walking this treacherous path with you, stumbling, falling, bruising my legs, skinning my hands, crying and crying. I will say right now that even the death of my boyfriend of 5 years--a very sudden an unexpected death when he was just 28---even that was not as painful as this. And I cannot believe I would ever say anything like that--could never imagine anything worse than that experience, but somehow THIS IS. It really is. I am shocked and terrified that it is.
And the myriad of reasons why---are echoed in all the stories and heartache I read on this forum, crying and nodding, feeling like I am reading my own words, my own pain---that my voice is echoed in your voice, your hurt, and your wounds, and vice versa.
It is so very hard for others who have not been through this kind of relationship to truly understand the depths of the agony experienced when we are forced to detach--either by walking away, or by being sent away.
I try to remember that my PD was sending me away every single day. Not just once, but a hundred times over. From the big to the small, she was dismissing me, devaluing me, discarding me, in a repeated process that sometimes was so subtle, I didn't even notice it. Maybe it appeared to be a little humorous "jab." Maybe it took the form of dangling all of her past exploits in front of me, stories of wild nights, and people who made passes at her, people who called her "sex on a stick" and on and on. Maybe it was disguised as "sharing" her art with me, women models posing in Kama Sutra positions---her renditions of them, and how she called them "boring" and "soulless" when I knew deep down she was relishing the sexual charge she got drawing them, relishing how small and uncertain I might feel seeing all of that, and the special status she got as an artist. She demeaned every single model as "empty"----I will always think it was to hide that she really was aroused by them, and had to pretend they were nothing so as not to let me into her secret world, make me feel "special" that I was "loved" by her, and they were nothing but empty husks.
I am rambling a little here, but trying to get to the heart of this pain. I think of a PD as a collection of well-worn habits---devastatingly harmful ones---that have worked for them time and again, with vulnerable people, people with empathy, people willing to turn the other cheek until there really is no cheek left to turn----replaced what feels like what we feel now---just a ghost, or a skeleton---something sucked completely dry of our life force... .Nothing left to give... .after so much has felt violated and betrayed and abused.
A PD will not enmesh with someone unwilling to put up with their abuse--if a person denies them after one
flies, the PD will dismiss them, and continue the pursuit to find a willing host. It always ends up being people who identify so much with being the giver, the compassionate, willing, patient, loving, tender, understanding soft-hearted soul that the PD is both drawn to and repelled by.
It is sobering and shattering to wake up each day and have that harsh reality slam us in the face---we were not so much as loved, as we were just NEEDED... .we could provide something for them when they needed it, when it suited them, when it served them. And when that need evaporated for whatever reason (justified by them in countless creative, cruel or confusing ways) they cut and run. When the need resurfaced and they remembered we had once filled that need, they came back----selfishly, disregarding how it would rip our hearts open again after we had been trying so hard to pick up the pieces on our own---with no help or remorse on their part, no ownership of their part in the dissolution of the bond that felt so incredibly alive and real when we were being idealised.
I think so much of what happens in a PD relationship, as in any abusive relationship, is that the abuse becomes "normalised" over time. It is an unconscious process on our part, but I think for the PD, there is a level of awareness there. I am not sure how much, but I know there must be some. They push a boundary, test our reaction, and when we allow it, they push a little more. Pretty soon we know something is horribly awry, we can even have blazing moments of clarity when we see the abuse for what it is, but it has become so "normal" that we find ways to justify it, or blame ourselves, or overlook it when we get presented with the loving "mask" once again---charming often weakens our resolve, cuts straight to our hearts, and makes us feel like we have a chance to once again regain that sacred, special status we once held for them, way back in the honeymoon, lovebombing phase.
The desperate need to return to that status---no matter how much we are being slayed emotionally--is what keeps us in some of these connections so long. It is SO HUMAN to want to be loved, cherished, comforted, adored---to belong, to feel important. Normal, healthy people provide this for us on a CONSISTENT basis. The allure of a PD is that it is ever-changing. We never know which mask we will get, but we end up settling for crumbs, waiting for the day when the crumbs become the beautiful, enchanting cake we thought we once were sharing---delighting in---together.
At the root of this is, as I have read here, is that lost little child inside all of us---seeking that unconditional love and adoration we either had received fully as children, or maybe terribly inconsistently, or not at all. In any of these cases, the mirroring of a PD activates that "coda" deep within--that feeling we once had as little children when were bonding with a parent at a very primordial, deep level----a bonding that our very survival depended on, even if that bonding was uncertain, chaotic, unsafe, or damaging. We had no other choice but to depend on this adult---and seeking to be in favour with them, seeking love and protection from them, was instinctual.
I think many of us here have had difficult and painful childhood experiences that primed us to attach to lover who would activate all those old feelings of shame, rejection, loneliness, dismissal, devaluation---that we may have suffered as tender young souls.
A BPD, with the same wounds and hurts, sees them within us, and bonds hard and fierce with us as a result. It seems that this bonding would be intensely healing, as both people recognise they share a similar background, and finding love and protection in a love relationship would be a way to face those demons together, side-by-side. But whereas our wounds steered us toward the direction of empathy, the wounds of the BPD steered them toward the direction of empathy-shut-down. No empathy at all, only the ability to fake it when needed. It is all so very confusing when we see the BPD crying and shaking, so small and vulnerable----doesn't this mean they feel like we do, feel all that pain, and can therefore relate to ours?
Sadly, and tragically, no. They truly can only feel at the level of a toddler--You will notice that toddlers are raging or crying on minute, then the next, they are laughing and cooing as if nothing happened. They release the emotion and move on. They do not yet have the ability to control their emotions, self-soothe, analyse why they react the way they do. They just react. And then move on. It is a normal step in human development---for a toddler, but when that stage gets stuck inside an adult body, there is never any chance for self-reflection and growth, for being able to relate to grown-up emotions and emotional reasoning. There is no chance for empathy to flourish, because the world of a toddler is self-centred until s/he begins to understand that the people around them also have needs and feelings of their own.
A BPD can pretend to understand, can pretend very well for often astonishing periods of time, but when you seek the proof and validation that they understand, you get the void. The smirk. The blank looks. The rages. The projection. You get knocked down from the pedestal, and replaced. A child gets bored with a toy that no longer interests him. He throws it aside and demands a new one. He needs something outside of himself to be amused and entertained, as his mind is learning how to think and feel and relate.
A BPD will forever be looking for the next "high"---the next new person to provide that magical world where everything is passion, and the "boring" day to day expectations and demands of a relationship are yet to solidify. If and when they do decide to maintain a long-term connection, they seek thrills outside of it to help satisfy that constant craving for the "high" of the beginning stages of love. Love for them can never move past the idealisation phase. Once you are "promoted" to the primary position, they begin to demote you little by little by little in a hundred different ways. And always, it is "your fault" for failing them.
I am typing so much here---just so much on my mind. I know every BPD is different--some are more high functioning than others. Some of the traits I wrote about will not be exhibited, or may be exhibited in small bouts, or in huge ugly rages---or just quiet, slow mental and emotional abuse that eats away at you until you have no idea who you are, what you are, what has happened.
I am sorry to write so much here! Just tremendous pain, and tremendous understanding for this grueling process of recovery.
Blimblam, I felt like you---"B" was like no other. She really was. Despite all the painful, painful things that happened, and the lack of empathy or care that I had to face in the end----she had so many beautiful, beautiful qualities.
Part of that is the truth of them---but it lies side by side with the dark, unfeeling, abusive sides of them---and because things are so severely split at times, it is so very hard to reconcile all the sides.
Naturally, we are rooting for their beautiful side. That is the side we love. That is the side we wish they could always be. But they cannot. Having to come to that understanding takes so much courage... .
This is truly like facing a death---a death that keeps happening over and over and over. To me, I imagine it like this: knowing this person is dead, working so hard to get through the grief, and then suddenly having that person knock on your door one day, saying, "I didn't really die. I am still alive."
And then the uncontrollable joy and relief that they are back! They are not dead! Oh, how the heart sings at this miracle that they are back in our arms!
But within days, months---that person dies again. And we have to bury them all over again, grieve all over again. We look to the door, hoping they will come knocking again---it was all a cruel joke, they are not really dead.
The cycle can go on for years. Death, hope, death. This IS like facing death. It truly, truly is, but on a much deeper and more insidious level that I cannot even describe now... .
Praying so hard that time will be on all of our sides---and that hope will, too.
A special, tender person living and breathing right now, waiting to be received into our hearts, and waiting to receive us into their hearts... .without the slings and arrows, the poisons, the damage and the tears-----
Just beauty, honour, and devotion, growing stronger by the day. And yes, childlike joy and wonder mixed in---laughter and passion---that STAYS and strengthens----Love that is reciprocal----what a joy that will be.
