My rant on boundaries...

[Louise7777]

Hi guys.

Yesterday I had my boundaries tested. Again. This was a long-distance r/s, with an uPAPD and I assume with N traits (controlling type).

I dont want to bother you telling the whole story again, but for some time we are friends and we communicate via phone only. I stopped calling and emailing him since he had established some disrespectful rules for me. There was no respect for my feelings, nothing I said mattered so I established boundaries and detached.

Then we had a fight yesterday cause he complained I didnt write or call while he was sick. This is a person that less than a month ago ignored my birthday (last year too), but apparently Im supposed to treat him way better than he treats me. Im dealing with some serious health problem at home and I dont have patience to deal with emotional 5 year-olds... .He sulked and pouted trying to change ME. Of course never occured to him that this is all a consequence of HIS behaviour. Im a caring and loving person but I just gave up and want to move on to greener pastures.

My rant is mostly cause no matter how much you try to keep superficial conversation, they still have to attack you. Two weeks ago happened when I met my uBPD relative for 5 minutes.

I know they wont change and I practice the radical aceptance (from as far as I can) but still, even in superficial interactions they are out of control... .Maybe they feel they are losing their power... .Im drained from this crazy kindergarten, honestly. Its tough for me to deal with people that think the world revolves abut them.

Thanks for listening.

[Kwamina]

Hello Louise7777

Yesterday I had my boundaries tested. Again.

This can definitely be difficult but it does give you the opportunity to put into practice all the things you have learned and see if you're better able to deal with it now. Do you feel like you're becoming more comfortable setting and defending your boundaries?

I dont want to bother you telling the whole story again, but for some time we are friends and we communicate via phone only. I stopped calling and emailing him since he had established some disrespectful rules for me. There was no respect for my feelings, nothing I said mattered so I established boundaries and detached.

Then we had a fight yesterday cause he complained I didnt write or call while he was sick.

How did this fight happen? Did he call or email you?

He sulked and pouted trying to change ME. Of course never occured to him that this is all a consequence of HIS behaviour. Im a caring and loving person but I just gave up and want to move on to greener pastures.

I'd say there's nothing wrong with wanting to move on when your fed up with how someone is treating you. Since you say that the two of you only communicate via phone, perhaps it's an option for you to just block his number and not open any emails you get from him. How do you feel about that?

My rant is mostly cause no matter how much you try to keep superficial conversation, they still have to attack you. Two weeks ago happened when I met my uBPD relative for 5 minutes.

I am sorry you feel like no matter how hard you try, certain people still seem to want to attack you. When you say 'they', who are you talking about exactly? Just this particular friend of yours and your uBPD family members or are you talking about people with PD's in general?

I know they wont change and I practice the radical aceptance (from as far as I can) but still, even in superficial interactions they are out of control... .Maybe they feel they are losing their power... .Im drained from this crazy kindergarten, honestly. Its tough for me to deal with people that think the world revolves abut them.

Since this is how you feel perhaps it would be better to just minimize your contact with the people in your life that you find so difficult to deal with. However, I realize that this isn't always possible to the extent we would want to. What might help you is to keep telling yourself to not take anything the other person says or does personally because it's only a reflection of their own possibly distorted mind and this doesn't necessarily have to be an accurate reflection of who you really are. I think this is something you already know on a rational level but it seems that you still find it frustrating and difficult to handle the negative behaviors and opinions of others. I understand that, it would be nice if certain people behaved differently but the (unfortunate) reality is that they behave the way they do. It is what it is and we can't change people if they don't want to change. What we can do is change our own behavior and responses to others and my advice would be to try and focus more on that and less on the things other people do, no matter how annoying or hurtful their behavior might be. Is this something that makes sense to you?

[Louise7777]

Hi Kwamina! Thank you very much for your words. 

Answering your questions:

1) Yes, I certainly feel I can enforce boundaries. I didnt at all in the past, so any boundary is an improvement for me. This former r/s was basically on his terms and in the end I saw myself in a corner and having none of my needs met. I let him have all the control so stating my feelings somehow is a big improvement. I think I matured too, although Im far from ideal, since I didnt comunicate my needs as an adult, I just hoped he´d knew (big mistake!).

2) He called me (on the phone). I havent called him for 2 or 3 years and stopped emailing for a month maybe.

3) His emails dont bother me at all, they are never personal (he would never let his complaints/ feelings registered). He usually sends me songs or some article, to which I dont respond. Blocking his number, that would be the wise thing to do. But honestly, I cant. I still feel attached somehow and would be ungrateful if I did (he helped me years ago in a time of need). Although his behaviour is disrespectful, I cant help thinking it would be wrong of me to cut him off like that.

4) When I say "they" I mean my uBPD relatives (3) and this guy. Im VLC with all of them, dont contact them at all (but pick up when they call) and yet, there´s usually some demand coming from them.

You said  "What might help you is to keep telling yourself to not take anything the other person says or does personally because it's only a reflection of their own possibly distorted mind and this doesn't necessarily have to be an accurate reflection of who you really are. I think this is something you already know on a rational level but it seems that you still find it frustrating and difficult to handle the negative behaviors and opinions of others."

You are right, I know that on an intelectual level, but still I struggle with the "not take it personally". Its very personal in the sense that the behaviour is directed to me too. I dont mind about their opinions about me, I never cared much and nowadays I care even less (if anything at all). But you hit the nail in the head when you said "frustration". This is exactly how I felt yesterday. I was relaxing home, having some quiet time and then the phone rings and in 5 mins there´s some demand and reprimend cause I didnt care that he´s sick. Its very frustrating for me to explain to an adult (and older than me) that you make your own bed now you lie (lay?) in it.

Its always me being cornered because I established boundaries and now they resent that. And its draining for me to explain that you are treated the way you treat people. I know I should had behaved differently, but I really dont know what I should had said... .In the end of the phone call he pouted and sulked (as usual when things dont go his way) and Im left aroused somehow and thinking why I danced the crazy dance once more.

If you´d be so kind and enlighten me on how I should had responded, Id immensely appreciate.

[Kwamina]

I was relaxing home, having some quiet time and then the phone rings and in 5 mins there´s some demand and reprimend cause I didnt care that he´s sick. Its very frustrating for me to explain to an adult (and older than me) that you make your own bed now you lie (lay?) in it.

Its always me being cornered because I established boundaries and now they resent that. And its draining for me to explain that you are treated the way you treat people. I know I should had behaved differently, but I really dont know what I should had said... .In the end of the phone call he pouted and sulked (as usual when things dont go his way) and Im left aroused somehow and thinking why I danced the crazy dance once more.

If you´d be so kind and enlighten me on how I should had responded, Id immensely appreciate.

Perhaps it will help to look at why you feel you should respond to them at all. When attacked it's a natural response to defend yourself, but when dealing with people who make irrational demands, a more effective approach might actually be not to respond at all. Are you familiar with the acronym J.A.D.E.? This stands for Justify, Argue, Defend and Explain. When communicating with people with BPD we tend to argue with them and justify, defend and explain our decisions when in fact there really is no need to do so. The people in your life don't have to agree with you and you don't have to convince them that you're right. When you feel like you're being cornered and feel the urge to explain yourself, it might help to keep telling yourself not to J.A.D.E. No justifying, arguing, defending or explaining. In fact no matter how hard you try to explain things, odds are that you won't be able to convince the other person of your standpoint if he/she indeed has a PD. On this website it's put something like this, you are trying to communicate in a totally rational language while the person with the PD is communicating in a totally emotional language. When you think of it like this, it's no wonder that interactions would spiral out of control because you don't even speak the same language

[Louise7777]

Kwamina, thank you again. I still pick up when my relatives call cause my mom somehow wants to keep a r/s with them and I try to shield her from too much abuse (we live together). She´s elderly and in poor health lately. I feel its my duty to protect her somehow.

With him, its some unhealthy reason, some obligation that keeps me there. But I improved, I used to be in the fog completely. The good side is he stopped his silent treatment on me since I established and enforced boundries. Of course nothing improved, just the abuse diminished.

Im familiar with J.A.D.E but I really need to work on it. Im much better on medium chill, though. I use it everytime I deal with my uBPD relatives and it works wonders for me.

But I definetly "jaded" yesterday, I think I did the whole 4, looking back. He´s very good at throwing me a rope and I hung myself! Ex:  "You knew I was sick and you didnt even email me". Then there´s this silence and I feel I have to say something. This is how I got the rope right away... .Oh boy! I should had said something like "we discussed about this before" ... .

I guess another of my mistakes was to use "psychology" on him: if you are not happy, you cant change me, change yourself and maybe I will also.

I have stated in the past that we can agree to disagree and that fine, but he kept pushing for me to go back to my old pattern of acepting his demands. I know he wont change, but it would be nice if he just acepted I think diferently. I know Im kidding me, he never will.

(I will read about J.A.D.E again, thank you so much!).