Have you been brainwashed

[SlyQQ]

A lot of people may be unaware of the brainwashing techniques employed by BPD many do not know the "bad" ones hone there techniques until they are experts ( though they are all very good ) white knighting is normally the start the stop go signals to throw you off balance sleep deprivation ( you must have had this ) attack on your reality ( gaslighting ) an often embalmed with sexual reinforcement signals the list goes on but many people who think they are in love with a BPD have actually been brainwashed

[hope2727]

Wow how scary. You are describing my life for the past 3 years.

I needed this tonight. I was really missing him. He is off with my replacement and I am here in the dark trying to rebuild my life.

How do we "un-brainwash"? How do we recover? How do we learn to breathe again?

[anxiety5]

A lot of people may be unaware of the brainwashing techniques employed by BPD

many do not know the "bad" ones hone there techniques until they are experts

( though they are all very good ) white knighting is normally the start the stop

go signals to throw you off balance sleep deprivation ( you must have had this )

attack on your reality ( gaslighting ) an often embalmed with sexual reinforcement

signals the list goes on but many people who think they are in love with a BPD

have actually been brainwashed

I remember I would bring her a drink, and she would tell me it turned her on. I was like how? She said, just the way you knew I needed one and brought it to me. I once gave her a gift card I won and wasn't going to use and she told me it turned her on. When I would help her do work around her house she didn't know how to do she would smile and tell me how me helping her was the most incredible feeling to her. When I didn't want to go somewhere, and would go she would tell me how perfect I was for going and how it was like a dream to her.

When I cleaned up her living room while she was dealing with her kid having a fit, she came back and told me that it made her year and wow, she can't even describe how amazing I was.

It's ALL brainwashing.

I'm codependent in relationships. I view my self worth, not from within but through the reactions of those I'm around. She could sniff that out like a shark from a drop of blood a mile away. I become the trainable monkey whom is given a banana for certain things. The adulation I get in return is my reward as it reaffirms my importance. So, let the training begin. Get her a drink = anticipate my needs. Go here or there with me and give up whatever you wanted to do = do the things I want all the time, disregard your own needs. Give her a gift card = spoil and lavish me.  Clean up for me = Do the stuff I don't feel like doing to make my life easier.

As time goes on though, the bananas stop coming. The things you were once rewarded for, now you find are your responsibility. No reward for doing them, just consequences of being shunned or belittled if you don't do them. So what does the codependent who depends on other's words of praise in order to feel good about themselves do after they have been given the drug that fuels them and made them feel whole for the first time in ages by having all their self doubts filled in through her praise? Well after being deprived, we go through withdraw, we chase the high and therefore we do more and more and more and more as we try with all our might to get those bananas here or there. But each time we manage to be tossed a tasty treat, the bar keeps getting set farther up until it reaches a level that is unattainable. Eventually resentment sinks in when you realize you've given up your life to someone who doesn't even say thanks anymore when you paint their whole house yet used to rip your clothes off for getting her a glass of orange juice. So you confront them about how your needs aren't being met and at that moment you are destroyed to them. Perhaps like a nuclear bomb, cut off, discarded or raged on, or perhaps a slow painful disengagement where sex is deprived, intimacy is withheld, and you are totally objectified and devalued as she cheats on you.

It's why they never date someone who has a strong sense of self worth or self esteem. That person doesn't need her junk to feel good about themselves so they essentially can't be manipulated into her nonsense. Throw them a banana, they will say nah, I'm not hungry. And the BPD has no use for someone like that.

Yes you are brainwashed, we all were. And worse, you were targeted, from the very beginning.

[SlyQQ]

It is not easy even knowing what has been done to you it helps to know there is a geoffry rush movie best offer that outlines a scenario BPDs often emulate in the end he still is in some denial about being tricked watch it it may help

[anxiety5]

It is not easy even knowing what has been done to you it helps to know

there is a geoffry rush movie best offer that outlines a scenario BPDs often

emulate in the end he still is in some denial about being tricked watch it it may help

Focus less on what has been done to you, focus more on why. You were broken in some way, probably from a long time ago. This person you thought was your soul mate was less about them and more about the way THEY made YOU feel about YOURSELF. All those little pot holes in your soul of inadequacy and self doubt were sniffed out when you first met and she actually listened to you all the time (something she never does anymore) That wasn't genuine, it was fact finding, and chances are your lack of boundaries meant you gave way too much information up because you felt "Safe" That information was used to know your areas of self doubt, of self worth deficit and of void. The manipulator then fills them and you view them as your soul mate because suddenly for the first time in your life you feel "whole" All those areas of subconscious self doubt are gone. You feel incredible. That is their hook. That is how they do it. The person with BPD is more of their true self at the END of the relationship not the START. So why then are we left chasing someone who is treating us like trash at the end? Because we become broken, and in a way WORSE than when we met. Why is that? Because we put such value on the words of that person who made you feel whole for the first time, it's quite the shock when that very person becomes the one making you feel completely useless towards the end. That is a powerful thing. And it's ultra manipulative. No healthy person emotionally would tolerate what they are doing to you, but we chase the high of the way they made us feel in the beginning without realizing what's happening is nothing but a cycle. That's why when they come back it's never real. It's just an attempt for them to see if they can extract a little bit more out of you to reinforce their grandiosity of conquering you before they split again.

So rather than waste time worrying how you were brainwashed, understand WHY It's because you in some way shape or form lack a good or positive sense of self worth or sense of being adequate or good enough. Ignore all the things they ever said and realize it was done purposefully to manipulate you. Forgive yourself for tolerating what you tolerated. And start to focus on what will heal these wounds and more important keep you strong to never let yourself be their victim again and to turn off that beacon which attracts these people in relationships moving forward. That focus should be YOU and building a healthy self esteem of not needing to feel a sense of worth through anyone's eyes but your own.

[Infern0]

Definatley brainwashed.

White knight at the start for sure,  she presented as the absolutely helpless damsel in distress who needed rescue and protection.

Then definatley all the push pull keeping me constantly off balance and confused and trying to fix things. 

Sleep deprivation is a definate,  I was on 2 hours a night for months.

Brain all shot to bits,  couldn't think straight,  permenant headache.

And the worst part of it is that she had the power to sort of instantly take the pain away and so I sort of became reliant on that and trying to get her to do that.

It's really bad and leaves a hell of a lot of damage.

[maxen]

it's a tough thing to acknowledge co-dependency, so that's a great place to start.

It's ALL brainwashing.

I'm codependent in relationships.

so, what's the connection between these things?

[billypilgrim]

A lot of people may be unaware of the brainwashing techniques employed by BPD

many do not know the "bad" ones hone there techniques until they are experts

( though they are all very good ) white knighting is normally the start the stop

go signals to throw you off balance sleep deprivation ( you must have had this )

attack on your reality ( gaslighting ) an often embalmed with sexual reinforcement

signals the list goes on but many people who think they are in love with a BPD

have actually been brainwashed

I remember I would bring her a drink, and she would tell me it turned her on. I was like how? She said, just the way you knew I needed one and brought it to me. I once gave her a gift card I won and wasn't going to use and she told me it turned her on. When I would help her do work around her house she didn't know how to do she would smile and tell me how me helping her was the most incredible feeling to her. When I didn't want to go somewhere, and would go she would tell me how perfect I was for going and how it was like a dream to her.

When I cleaned up her living room while she was dealing with her kid having a fit, she came back and told me that it made her year and wow, she can't even describe how amazing I was.

It's ALL brainwashing.

I'm codependent in relationships. I view my self worth, not from within but through the reactions of those I'm around. She could sniff that out like a shark from a drop of blood a mile away. I become the trainable monkey whom is given a banana for certain things. The adulation I get in return is my reward as it reaffirms my importance. So, let the training begin. Get her a drink = anticipate my needs. Go here or there with me and give up whatever you wanted to do = do the things I want all the time, disregard your own needs. Give her a gift card = spoil and lavish me.  Clean up for me = Do the stuff I don't feel like doing to make my life easier.

As time goes on though, the bananas stop coming. The things you were once rewarded for, now you find are your responsibility. No reward for doing them, just consequences of being shunned or belittled if you don't do them. So what does the codependent who depends on other's words of praise in order to feel good about themselves do after they have been given the drug that fuels them and made them feel whole for the first time in ages by having all their self doubts filled in through her praise? Well after being deprived, we go through withdraw, we chase the high and therefore we do more and more and more and more as we try with all our might to get those bananas here or there. But each time we manage to be tossed a tasty treat, the bar keeps getting set farther up until it reaches a level that is unattainable. Eventually resentment sinks in when you realize you've given up your life to someone who doesn't even say thanks anymore when you paint their whole house yet used to rip your clothes off for getting her a glass of orange juice. So you confront them about how your needs aren't being met and at that moment you are destroyed to them. Perhaps like a nuclear bomb, cut off, discarded or raged on, or perhaps a slow painful disengagement where sex is deprived, intimacy is withheld, and you are totally objectified and devalued as she cheats on you.

It's why they never date someone who has a strong sense of self worth or self esteem. That person doesn't need her junk to feel good about themselves so they essentially can't be manipulated into her nonsense. Throw them a banana, they will say nah, I'm not hungry. And the BPD has no use for someone like that.

Yes you are brainwashed, we all were. And worse, you were targeted, from the very beginning.

This has been my life.  I'm still so dumbfounded that I could have been fooled like this.  For 6 years.  2 weeks before she left, I was her best friend.  I was her soul mate.  We had just had an anniversary a few weeks before she left and she wrote/said those things to me.  Then poof - now it's this fake, distant, emotionless void of a person. 

Yesterday while talking to my T, we discussed the very things she used to get at me.  The very things your post hits on - she figured out what made me tick, what she could motivate me with.  It was guilt mostly.  She gave me the "If you loved me more then (fill in with something like we'd have kids, or we'd get married, etc.)" and each time I caved.  We were a couple of months away from starting to make a family because that was the last test I passed in order to keep her future searching (for lack of a better term, it always seemed like she needed something to look forward to).  I'm realizing that even though I wanted a family (or thought I did?), I'm extremely fortunate that we didn't make it that far.  That would create some sort of forever bond with her and good god the thought of that is scary.

But what you said in your post below this about WHY her tactics worked on me is what I need to figure out.  Why did those guilt trips work on me?  Why did it create feelings of inadequacy inside me?  Why did my self-esteem dip?  I was a happy and very comfortable-with-myself person prior to meeting her.  Now I feel like a shell of the person I once was.  I feel used and exhausted.  But at the same time, like a burden is off my back.  That I don't have to drag this "grown" woman through life anymore.  I no longer have to constantly provide and receive nothing in return.  And there's something to that that is comforting.  I just wish the longing would stop.  The loneliness would subside.  And that I didn't care at all of who or what she is doing currently.

I would wish these feelings on no one but I'm thankful that there are groups like this that can provide validation to what I'm going through.  I haven't felt validated in I can't remember how long. It's nice to know that I'm not nuts for feeling this way. That it's not just "oh we couldn't work it out," there's something more at play here.

[Sylvia76]

That's pretty much how I feel: brainwashed and exhausted.

I used to get thanks for all I did... .but now I get told it makes him feel helpless and less of a man.

He tells me to "make my own decisions" and then criticizes every decision I make.

He tells me to stand up for myself and shuts down when I do.

He tells me he has no clean clothes, I do the laundry... .then he tells me I do it too quickly.

I make dinner... .he says he's not hungry.

I can't even make ice cubes properly.

But then in a few days he comes back with a sad story about how he hopes I know how much he loves me but he gets "overwhelmed".

I'm just emotionally worn out from all of this.

Now I'm dealing with a situation where I had to go to the ER (I fell and split open my head), he refused to take me and now he's mad at me that a) I got hurt and b) that the situation makes him look bad.

6 stitches later and all I get are vague texts from him saying "I feel empy" "I am nothing".

So frustrating!

[777Alex777]

This hit home, thanks all. wow. I could not believe what it felt like to sleep 8 hours once I was away from her. For 5 years I was belittled and degraded if I went to sleep before her (usually 3-4am) and still had to get up for work at 6am. all of it hit home. thank you.

[KeepOnGoing]

A lot of people may be unaware of the brainwashing techniques employed by BPD

many do not know the "bad" ones hone there techniques until they are experts

( though they are all very good ) white knighting is normally the start the stop

go signals to throw you off balance sleep deprivation ( you must have had this )

attack on your reality ( gaslighting ) an often embalmed with sexual reinforcement

signals the list goes on but many people who think they are in love with a BPD

have actually been brainwashed

I remember I would bring her a drink, and she would tell me it turned her on. I was like how? She said, just the way you knew I needed one and brought it to me. I once gave her a gift card I won and wasn't going to use and she told me it turned her on. When I would help her do work around her house she didn't know how to do she would smile and tell me how me helping her was the most incredible feeling to her. When I didn't want to go somewhere, and would go she would tell me how perfect I was for going and how it was like a dream to her.

When I cleaned up her living room while she was dealing with her kid having a fit, she came back and told me that it made her year and wow, she can't even describe how amazing I was.

It's ALL brainwashing.

I'm codependent in relationships. I view my self worth, not from within but through the reactions of those I'm around. She could sniff that out like a shark from a drop of blood a mile away. I become the trainable monkey whom is given a banana for certain things. The adulation I get in return is my reward as it reaffirms my importance. So, let the training begin. Get her a drink = anticipate my needs. Go here or there with me and give up whatever you wanted to do = do the things I want all the time, disregard your own needs. Give her a gift card = spoil and lavish me.  Clean up for me = Do the stuff I don't feel like doing to make my life easier.

As time goes on though, the bananas stop coming. The things you were once rewarded for, now you find are your responsibility. No reward for doing them, just consequences of being shunned or belittled if you don't do them. So what does the codependent who depends on other's words of praise in order to feel good about themselves do after they have been given the drug that fuels them and made them feel whole for the first time in ages by having all their self doubts filled in through her praise? Well after being deprived, we go through withdraw, we chase the high and therefore we do more and more and more and more as we try with all our might to get those bananas here or there. But each time we manage to be tossed a tasty treat, the bar keeps getting set farther up until it reaches a level that is unattainable. Eventually resentment sinks in when you realize you've given up your life to someone who doesn't even say thanks anymore when you paint their whole house yet used to rip your clothes off for getting her a glass of orange juice. So you confront them about how your needs aren't being met and at that moment you are destroyed to them. Perhaps like a nuclear bomb, cut off, discarded or raged on, or perhaps a slow painful disengagement where sex is deprived, intimacy is withheld, and you are totally objectified and devalued as she cheats on you.

It's why they never date someone who has a strong sense of self worth or self esteem. That person doesn't need her junk to feel good about themselves so they essentially can't be manipulated into her nonsense. Throw them a banana, they will say nah, I'm not hungry. And the BPD has no use for someone like that.

Yes you are brainwashed, we all were. And worse, you were targeted, from the very beginning.

Anxiety5: This is tremendously helpful to me. Thank you so much. I sort of figured it out, but to have a complete stranger on here write it out just caused a major shift for me. My denial has been melting away, but this helped remove the last few chunks.

It reminds me of a voicemail I received after I had talked to her on the phone. I was responding to her with some of my own indifference after basically giving on at trying to get her attention. I had left her a sort of - whatever, have a great time- response as she was going out with a crowd of people after telling me how sick she had been all week (always, really) and I remember the voicemail I received two hours later was so odd. So insincere, yet with the same flowerly languaging about how W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L... .I am, and I thought, W-T-F? I had a moment of clarity. Like the banana didn't work because is smelled as if it was full of desperation.

I had failed to take the entire relationship back to the every beginning and recognize that the bananas were, well, bananas all along. She drugged me from the very beginning. I was nothing special. Just a puppet she needed.

Wow. Thank you again!

[billypilgrim]

She drugged me from the very beginning. I was nothing special. Just a puppet she needed.

This is what I've also just recently come to the realization of.  I was just the flavor of the week and that due to my own issues (caretaker temperament), I took it upon myself to make it work.  For 6 years.  You could have swapped me out with some other poor schmuck with a similar personality/temperament and she would have gone down this road with him instead.  It would have saved me a lot of pain and trouble, that's for sure.

And that voicemail that you left, that moment of clarity that you mentioned, is the relief you are feeling that she's not your job anymore.  That for the first time in your relationship with her you can actually think and feel things for yourself instead of always trying to live life through her.  

If you are anything like me, you have probably been craving validation of your own feelings and now that you don't have to constantly validate her feelings, you can finally look out for yourself.  I know that being able to discuss this and finding this site (as well as my T) has really helped me feel validated for the first time in a long while.  This craziness isn't on me or you either, for that matter.  Or at least that's been my take on this.

[Samuel S.]

Yeah, I was brainwashed for a long time with her supposed love, tenderness, and even sexual intimacy. She continuously would say how my first family, consisting of my wife and two daughters, did not love and only used me. I did my best to prove her wrong, but she just continued and continued pounding examples, like as far as my two daughters, "Well, how often do they care to talk with you? Not all the time. I am here for you, etc.!"

It was only when one of my daughters was here, and she and I got into a very heated argument, then, I knew something was wrong with this picture. You see, my BPDw heard this argument from another room and told me later than she heard it, and she began laughing at the situation. Laughing! Then, I knew that I was being brainwashed, undermined. It was like she was like Iago in "Othello" by Shakespeare!

Now, fortunately, I have a better relationship with my two daughters, and my BPDw refuses to see them, and they refuse to see her. I am just glad that my two daughters and I have been able to reconcile a lot of the hurt that she has caused. I explained to them what she had done with her brainwashing.

[mywifecrazy]

The person with BPD is more of their true self at the END of the relationship not the START.

This is WITHOUT A DOUBT the best and most accurate statement I've read on here in the last 17 months.

Thank you for your sharing that!

MWC... .

[Perdita]

This is what I've also just recently come to the realization of.  I was just the flavor of the week and that due to my own issues (caretaker temperament), I took it upon myself to make it work.

This is me too.  It is actually a good characteristic to have, but BP people (and some others) seem to see this as something to exploit for their own benefit.  This just made me realize how they can turn what is good about us against us.

[Blimblam]

A lot of the brainwashing is unintentional behavior though. They legitimately dysregulate then when we sooth them they reward us. We become addicted. So addicted that when they begin to pull away I think a lot of us go into denial I know did. Cognitive dissonance. The bond is so intense in the begining with the intensity and going through their little dramas where we are the hero. Then when their engulfment and abandonment fears are triggered and they start to get distant we tell ourselves it's a phase it will work out. At which point I tried to work it out but that just triggered her more. So she started to devalue very subtly but this didn't fit in with my idea of her so this gave her a bunch of leeway to lie and me to accept her lies.

[billypilgrim]

A lot of the brainwashing is unintentional behavior though.

I realize that most of the behavior is unintentional. But just because it's unintentional doesn't mean that it's not manipulation.  Or that it doesn't hurt.  Or that it's somehow fair or healthy.  But you are right, the rewards hooked me.  I loved being the hero and I understand the enabling role I played, it's the only reason that we lasted as long as we did.  I guess I'm just tired of feeling sorry for someone that could do what she did to me.  I'm disgusted at the hold that she had over me.  I'm sickened by how much I let my things in my life go for the "sake of the relationship."  What relationship?  It wasn't reciprocated.  I was a host and she the parasite.  It was a one way street and she wore me down to the core.  I was questioning my own reality when she left.  Am I the crazy one?  What is wrong with me?  What could I have done differently? etc. etc.  

Now that I've rediscovered which way is up and which way is down, I've realized I never want to go through anything like that again.  Not only with her but with anyone else like her.  I find myself so desperately in need of validation for these last 6 years, there's no way I could even think about feeling sorry for her for how this played out.  I'm fresh out of sympathy and patience for her.  I just hope she gets help so she doesn't do this to some other hapless soul.  

Perhaps this is indicative of the stage of grief that I'm going through but I know I'd never be able to trust her again.  And who knows, I could end up in the same place you are where I wake up one day and miss her like crazy.  But I know there's no way I could even consider letting her back into my life.  I think that's something that each of have to determine for ourselves.

[Blimblam]

I got tired of being an addicted to my ex also. It seems like your coming into your anger phase.  The anger phase is essential and can be healthy.  My advice is to focus on behaviors that are unacceptable that you respect your self too much to put up with.  It's easy to slide into the my ex the monster. 

[Rifka]

A lot of people may be unaware of the brainwashing techniques employed by BPD

many do not know the "bad" ones hone there techniques until they are experts

( though they are all very good ) white knighting is normally the start the stop

go signals to throw you off balance sleep deprivation ( you must have had this )

attack on your reality ( gaslighting ) an often embalmed with sexual reinforcement

signals the list goes on but many people who think they are in love with a BPD

have actually been brainwashed

I remember I would bring her a drink, and she would tell me it turned her on. I was like how? She said, just the way you knew I needed one and brought it to me. I once gave her a gift card I won and wasn't going to use and she told me it turned her on. When I would help her do work around her house she didn't know how to do she would smile and tell me how me helping her was the most incredible feeling to her. When I didn't want to go somewhere, and would go she would tell me how perfect I was for going and how it was like a dream to her.

When I cleaned up her living room while she was dealing with her kid having a fit, she came back and told me that it made her year and wow, she can't even describe how amazing I was.

It's ALL brainwashing.

I'm codependent in relationships. I view my self worth, not from within but through the reactions of those I'm around. She could sniff that out like a shark from a drop of blood a mile away. I become the trainable monkey whom is given a banana for certain things. The adulation I get in return is my reward as it reaffirms my importance. So, let the training begin. Get her a drink = anticipate my needs. Go here or there with me and give up whatever you wanted to do = do the things I want all the time, disregard your own needs. Give her a gift card = spoil and lavish me.  Clean up for me = Do the stuff I don't feel like doing to make my life easier.

As time goes on though, the bananas stop coming. The things you were once rewarded for, now you find are your responsibility. No reward for doing them, just consequences of being shunned or belittled if you don't do them. So what does the codependent who depends on other's words of praise in order to feel good about themselves do after they have been given the drug that fuels them and made them feel whole for the first time in ages by having all their self doubts filled in through her praise? Well after being deprived, we go through withdraw, we chase the high and therefore we do more and more and more and more as we try with all our might to get those bananas here or there. But each time we manage to be tossed a tasty treat, the bar keeps getting set farther up until it reaches a level that is unattainable. Eventually resentment sinks in when you realize you've given up your life to someone who doesn't even say thanks anymore when you paint their whole house yet used to rip your clothes off for getting her a glass of orange juice. So you confront them about how your needs aren't being met and at that moment you are destroyed to them. Perhaps like a nuclear bomb, cut off, discarded or raged on, or perhaps a slow painful disengagement where sex is deprived, intimacy is withheld, and you are totally objectified and devalued as she cheats on you.

It's why they never date someone who has a strong sense of self worth or self esteem. That person doesn't need her junk to feel good about themselves so they essentially can't be manipulated into her nonsense. Throw them a banana, they will say nah, I'm not hungry. And the BPD has no use for someone like that.

Yes you are brainwashed, we all were. And worse, you were targeted, from the very beginning.

I totally do not agree with your first paragraph. A thoughtful woman would appreciate and continue to compliment if she cared enough. A BPD might stop and keep lifting it to higher levels.

I know when somebody helps me, it makes me feel so happy and it may be something I can do on my own or not, but I'm always thankful and show it. I think most people are! Also depending on how long you are in the relationship, some things become one or the others chore, not that it's right, but it does. In my marraige, I cooked, he cleaned up. It worked, we both were fine with it.

With my BPDbf yes, nothing became enough for the next time. They are emotional and monetary vacuums. They suck out whatever they can because we allow it by constantly doing the next trick for a treat, like a dog!

We jump through a million hoops and then end up begging for more for nothing or little.

I believe a non will appreciate all you give, with the difference being if she truly loves you she will appreciate it with her heart, not as a game!

All nons are not great either, it depends on each individual person. That's why we have to choose more carefully.

Sorry I'm posting on the staying board, I am so gone from that craziness. People in general should appreciate anything anyone does because nobody owes anybody anything.

Read " the five love languages" we all feel loved in different ways!

Bottom line is, we should do things because we want to or because it makes some bodies life easier, but it should be reciprocated in some way to not have anybody feel shifted!

Rifka

[vortex of confusion]

I totally do not agree with your first paragraph. A thoughtful woman would appreciate and continue to compliment if she cared enough. A BPD might stop and keep lifting it to higher levels.

So true! Even though my plan is to leave, I still thank my spouse when he does things for me. If either of us do something nice for the kids, they are rather quick to say thank you and show appreciation. My spouse rarely says thank you and has a tendency to give me a full report of every little bitty thing that he does. He is not content to do something because it needs to be done. He has to point it out even if it is his normal chore. When he changes the cat boxes, which has been his job since we got married umpteen years ago, he announces it so that he can get praise. It makes me so mad that he seems to have this constant need for praise.

With my BPDbf yes, nothing became enough for the next time. They are emotional and monetary vacuums. They suck out whatever they can because we allow it by constantly doing the next trick for a treat, like a dog!

The only way to slow this down is to stop doing the tricks. I don't even get treats and rarely have. Things started out normal enough but then slowly devolved. My treat is to not get devalued or get in trouble as it were. It is like being a friggin' little kid all over again. I have often said that I had more freedom as a kid than I do now.

[anxiety5]

A lot of people may be unaware of the brainwashing techniques employed by BPD

many do not know the "bad" ones hone there techniques until they are experts

( though they are all very good ) white knighting is normally the start the stop

go signals to throw you off balance sleep deprivation ( you must have had this )

attack on your reality ( gaslighting ) an often embalmed with sexual reinforcement

signals the list goes on but many people who think they are in love with a BPD

have actually been brainwashed

I remember I would bring her a drink, and she would tell me it turned her on. I was like how? She said, just the way you knew I needed one and brought it to me. I once gave her a gift card I won and wasn't going to use and she told me it turned her on. When I would help her do work around her house she didn't know how to do she would smile and tell me how me helping her was the most incredible feeling to her. When I didn't want to go somewhere, and would go she would tell me how perfect I was for going and how it was like a dream to her.

When I cleaned up her living room while she was dealing with her kid having a fit, she came back and told me that it made her year and wow, she can't even describe how amazing I was.

It's ALL brainwashing.

I'm codependent in relationships. I view my self worth, not from within but through the reactions of those I'm around. She could sniff that out like a shark from a drop of blood a mile away. I become the trainable monkey whom is given a banana for certain things. The adulation I get in return is my reward as it reaffirms my importance. So, let the training begin. Get her a drink = anticipate my needs. Go here or there with me and give up whatever you wanted to do = do the things I want all the time, disregard your own needs. Give her a gift card = spoil and lavish me.  Clean up for me = Do the stuff I don't feel like doing to make my life easier.

As time goes on though, the bananas stop coming. The things you were once rewarded for, now you find are your responsibility. No reward for doing them, just consequences of being shunned or belittled if you don't do them. So what does the codependent who depends on other's words of praise in order to feel good about themselves do after they have been given the drug that fuels them and made them feel whole for the first time in ages by having all their self doubts filled in through her praise? Well after being deprived, we go through withdraw, we chase the high and therefore we do more and more and more and more as we try with all our might to get those bananas here or there. But each time we manage to be tossed a tasty treat, the bar keeps getting set farther up until it reaches a level that is unattainable. Eventually resentment sinks in when you realize you've given up your life to someone who doesn't even say thanks anymore when you paint their whole house yet used to rip your clothes off for getting her a glass of orange juice. So you confront them about how your needs aren't being met and at that moment you are destroyed to them. Perhaps like a nuclear bomb, cut off, discarded or raged on, or perhaps a slow painful disengagement where sex is deprived, intimacy is withheld, and you are totally objectified and devalued as she cheats on you.

It's why they never date someone who has a strong sense of self worth or self esteem. That person doesn't need her junk to feel good about themselves so they essentially can't be manipulated into her nonsense. Throw them a banana, they will say nah, I'm not hungry. And the BPD has no use for someone like that.

Yes you are brainwashed, we all were. And worse, you were targeted, from the very beginning.

I totally do not agree with your first paragraph. A thoughtful woman would appreciate and continue to compliment if she cared enough. A BPD might stop and keep lifting it to higher levels.

I know when somebody helps me, it makes me feel so happy and it may be something I can do on my own or not, but I'm always thankful and show it. I think most people are! Also depending on how long you are in the relationship, some things become one or the others chore, not that it's right, but it does. In my marraige, I cooked, he cleaned up. It worked, we both were fine with it.

With my BPDbf yes, nothing became enough for the next time. They are emotional and monetary vacuums. They suck out whatever they can because we allow it by constantly doing the next trick for a treat, like a dog!

We jump through a million hoops and then end up begging for more for nothing or little.

I believe a non will appreciate all you give, with the difference being if she truly loves you she will appreciate it with her heart, not as a game!

All nons are not great either, it depends on each individual person. That's why we have to choose more carefully.

Sorry I'm posting on the staying board, I am so gone from that craziness. People in general should appreciate anything anyone does because nobody owes anybody anything.

Read " the five love languages" we all feel loved in different ways!

Bottom line is, we should do things because we want to or because it makes some bodies life easier, but it should be reciprocated in some way to not have anybody feel shifted!

Rifka

I totally agree. First of all, I refuse to change who I'am in the way that I focus on my significant other and my family. My story was told in the terms of hindsight being 20/20. In those moments I was happy to give, or to help. It was only after it all unraveled that I could see it for what it was. I was kept giving with a carrot on a stick, and when I realized that carrot was never going to be captured, I could see it all for what it was. I was coerced down a path of manipulation and mind games to get me to conform into a person who gave, got nothing in return and became conditioned and trapped from leaving. I'm NOT a victim. I realize my own emotional deficits allowed this to happen, but my point is not being a victim as much as a target. That I/We are.

[KeepOnGoing]

Just finished watching the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Thought of all of us on this thread. Watch it for a fun, uplifting splash of cold water in the face if you think you're having a weak moment, or needing a small reminder of how gullible we've all been.

[WhatTheFrank]

I don't even see the female protaganist/antagnonist as BPD of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as BPD.  She is just a plain scoundrel, no matter what PD you'd like to ascribe to her (as are the male characters).  I don't think my BPD was a bad BAD person (wow she had moments of such a good person, forget, forget, forget the good times that were rare!), but it is the constency of the PD that will keep bringing her into compromising/unsatisfactory life situations/choices.

[KeepOnGoing]

I don't even see the female protaganist/antagnonist as BPD of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as BPD.  She is just a plain scoundrel, no matter what PD you'd like to ascribe to her (as are the male characters).  I don't think my BPD was a bad BAD person (wow she had moments of such a good person, forget, forget, forget the good times that were rare!), but it is the constency of the PD that will keep bringing her into compromising/unsatisfactory life situations/choices.

No, our BPDs are not bad people, you're right. Just disordered, and brainwashing and manipulation are the by products. It's their survival tool(s).

I'm not saying any of the characters in the movie are BPD. What did resonate, since we were talking about brainwashing, is how quickly I bought into the "brainwashing" with my BPD friend. I had this insatiable need to help, rescue, be needed.

Does anyone else get me here?

[jadedcat]

These are good to read. Sorry everyone for what you've gone through, but knowing others experience it helps me. I left a month ago, spurred on by friends, family and my therapist, who all considered my wife's behavior as emotional abuse. I was beaten down and unable to see which way was up. You get so confused and I just came to accept that things were my fault.

She had left me a number of times over the past five or six years. Her depression often meant I took on the lion share of housework as well as working two jobs. When she felt better, she told me I enabled her and should have challenged her more and then she'd say that I might not be a good fit for her when she is not depressed.

Now that I have left, she has hinted at being suicidal, grown irate at me, sworn up and down at me, called me a liar, written that I have broken her heart, and on and on. Her texts wear me down and leave me thinking that I am a bad person for having left. I know I needed to for my own sake and for my kids, but I feel such guilt for leaving. Inside, I know, I should be feeling good for all the time I spent trying to make this work and for taking care of her, but the brainwashing leaves me feeling evil.

[vortex of confusion]

I'm not saying any of the characters in the movie are BPD. What did resonate, since we were talking about brainwashing, is how quickly I bought into the "brainwashing" with my BPD friend. I had this insatiable need to help, rescue, be needed.

Does anyone else get me here?

I haven't seen the movie but I get what you are saying. For me, it was so subtle. And, I was already pretty programmed from childhood. In my family of origin, the only time that people seem to pay attention to you is if they are mad at you or if they need something. It was really easy for my husband to take advantage of that. There were so many times that I would bring up something that I did not like or was uncomfortable with he would make it sound as though I was being unreasonable. Because I didn't have a firm grasp of what was reasonable or unreasonable, I bought into his excuses hook, line, and sinker. Because he seemed so normal and came from a "good" upbringing and I didn't, it was rather easy for me to fall prey to him. Is that his fault for untintentionally brainwashing me or was it my fault for not knowing any better?

[Starless]

Oh my god, I am so glad I found this thread. I originally came here to learn some skills and try to make my relationship work but the more I read the more I realize I need to get myself some help and accept that this is probably going to have a very bad ending. My heart is so broken right now. I'm using every bit of my energy not to break down here at work. I've only been married for a month so I think it's probably a good thing I came here and saw this now before I let him damage me for years to come. I'm so heartbroken though. Does anyone with BPD respond well to therapy?

[vortex of confusion]

Oh my god, I am so glad I found this thread. I originally came here to learn some skills and try to make my relationship work but the more I read the more I realize I need to get myself some help and accept that this is probably going to have a very bad ending. My heart is so broken right now. I'm using every bit of my energy not to break down here at work. I've only been married for a month so I think it's probably a good thing I came here and saw this now before I let him damage me for years to come. I'm so heartbroken though. Does anyone with BPD respond well to therapy?

Sending you a great big hug. 

Whether or not a person responds well to therapy is largely dependent on the person. If a person wants to change and acknowledges his/her problems, then I think they respond well. If the person is unwilling to accept or acknowledge his/her problems, then therapy is probably not going to make much of a difference.

I saw lots of problems within the first month of marriage as well. I rationalized them all away by saying that it was just us getting used to the whole marriage thing. I didn't know what to expect out of marriage so it was all a learning experience. And, I was afraid to ask for help because I had only been married such a short time. Don't get caught up in the FOG like I did. I have been married for 16.5 years and feel like I am a shell of the person that I used to be.

[Starless]

Oh my god, I am so glad I found this thread. I originally came here to learn some skills and try to make my relationship work but the more I read the more I realize I need to get myself some help and accept that this is probably going to have a very bad ending. My heart is so broken right now. I'm using every bit of my energy not to break down here at work. I've only been married for a month so I think it's probably a good thing I came here and saw this now before I let him damage me for years to come. I'm so heartbroken though. Does anyone with BPD respond well to therapy?

Sending you a great big hug. 

Whether or not a person responds well to therapy is largely dependent on the person. If a person wants to change and acknowledges his/her problems, then I think they respond well. If the person is unwilling to accept or acknowledge his/her problems, then therapy is probably not going to make much of a difference.

I saw lots of problems within the first month of marriage as well. I rationalized them all away by saying that it was just us getting used to the whole marriage thing. I didn't know what to expect out of marriage so it was all a learning experience. And, I was afraid to ask for help because I had only been married such a short time. Don't get caught up in the FOG like I did. I have been married for 16.5 years and feel like I am a shell of the person that I used to be.

Thank you so very, very much. That is my biggest fear. When he lies and I calmly call him out on it he would rather leave than admit he lied. I don't think therapy is going to change this. Are you still married? Have you & your spouse tried therapy? PM me if you don't want to talk about it here. Thank you again. *hugs back*

[vortex of confusion]

Thank you so very, very much. That is my biggest fear. When he lies and I calmly call him out on it he would rather leave than admit he lied. I don't think therapy is going to change this. Are you still married? Have you & your spouse tried therapy? PM me if you don't want to talk about it here. Thank you again. *hugs back*

We are still married. We have not tried marriage counseling. My husband is a sex addict and goes to a 12 step program. He has gone to therapy a couple of times but doesn't go regularly. It seems to be a very occasional thing.

We never really considered marriage therapy because we have always been able to talk to some degree. Also, one of the things that I have run into is that my husband will listen and acknowledge what I say and tell me everything he thinks I want to hear. Afterwards, he will not act on or follow through on any of the stuff that we had discussed. I had been noticing and had mentioned that there are so many times when I am talking to him that it seems like the lights were on but nobody was home. In one of his first therapy sessions, the counselor brought that up right away. She told him that she wouldn't be able to help him if he wasn't more present during their sessions.