Thanks Blimbam and Seeking Balance for sharing your advice.
"We don't choose where we come from and we are all at different points on our journey".
I think this very true. I'm trying not judge myself or impose a rigid timeline for my healing. Instead I try to focus on doing the right things as consistently as I can and let go of the outcome.
Seeking Balance.
I was seeing a schema therapist last year. It definitely helped but for various reasons which don't necessarily reflect on her professional abilities she wasn't the right fit for me.
I've been exploring other therapists but I recognise that I need to start again.
Schema did help me to begin to talk to my inner child and I found it very helpful.
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Renewing trust in others and ourselves takes time - a good T can help you develop a trusting relationship - everyone needs to have a trusting relationship to heal. Sometimes support groups can serve this purpose too."
I don't think I distrust everyone else - though this may very well only emerge in intimacy which I'm not ready for yet. I do think learning to trust myself and love myself is definitely a core issue.
"Abandonment & lack of boundaries - these are common themes to accepting a lonely or unfulfilled relationship... .fear is why we accept this as ok and it is breaking down the fear that we free ourselves."
I realise that I was recreating a foundational relationship with my udBPDex. Trying to have a relationship with someone who was essentially emotionally unavailable (like my father) and trying to rescue (like my mother).
I think Schema can help me address these life traps and learn healthier boundaries.
Thanks for your suggestion Lucky Jim.
"In his book, Iron John, Robert Bly talks a lot about the hunger for a father. He doesn't suggest, however, trying to be your own father. Instead, he discusses the need for a male mentor."
I realise that unconsciously for most of my life I've been seeking father figures but I've focussed on the wrong people - not their fault - and then acted out and pushed boundaries to try and force them to fulfil that role
I came across this book online
www.amazon.co.uk/The-Father-Factor-Fathers-Impacts/dp/1591024102 which looks interesting.
Ziggiddy
Thanks for the support.
My father can be affectionate and kind though he is so profoundly avoidant that he's almost emotionally autistic.
My mother recently discovered that he'd had affairs in the past and she is struggling to deal with this. He's elderly and though I feel anger towards him I've tried to forgive. He's damaged in his own way and I want to make the best of what time I have left with him and my mother.
It's funny for many years I blamed our family dysfunction on my mother but I now realise that though she made mistakes she tried her best to mother us. He just ran away.
I do have a support network, a couple of close friends and siblings and I have rebuilt my relationship with both my parents since the end of my relationship with my udBPDexgf.
But I've also accepted that due to my own rescuing / narcissistic tendencies and poor self esteem I was drawn to unhealthy relationships in general
Shortly after breaking up with my udBPDexgf and old friend moved in with me.
He needed somewhere to stay for a while and I thought the company would be healthy. But he's had mental health problems of his own and six months after moving in he tried to commit suicide in my apartment (I was away for the weekend).
I have discussed this with a therapist and after trying to maintain LC with him I decided it was healthier to end our friendship.
I know that I need to work at building a bigger and stronger network of healthier friends.
Many thanks for all your advice and help
Reforming