Thanksgiving

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Thanksgiving day here in the US - beginning of the big holiday season - a time inescapably filled with reminders/memories of the 13 such seasons I shared with my uxpwBPD.

I'm over four years out from the big breakup now and have spent an inordinate amount of time since then in therapy, dealing with core issues of attachment/trust, learning to see and present myself as the valuable/loveable person I really am rather than the worthless/inherently unloveable person my uNPD/BPD rager of a mom made me believe I was, and healing from a lifetime of self-inflicted emotional abuse that culminated in the 12+ year relationship I had with my ex whose ending - and my reaction to it - prompted me to get help/find this board in the first place.

I am taking time this morning to let the memories I have of this day with my ex simply come, make me wistful, make me sad, and make me angry for all the things I lost and no longer have. They were important. They enriched my life. They had value. They still do. And, for all those reasons, it seems only right that I should grieve their passing/loss.

On this day of thanksgiving, I'm choosing to spend just a little time acknowledging and leaning into the sadness/grief I feel because it's just as real/present as the gratitude I feel for having had all those years, surviving my breakup, and finding myself where I am now.

Feeling sad/grieving makes me feel so vulnerable. I find myself instinctively wanting to reach out, and contact my ex for comfort. To have him tell me everything will be okay. And the saddest thing of all is that I know he can't do that - that all he'd actually be able to offer - despite how much he actually cares about me - is more pain - because he cares, is disordered, and can't do anything else.

So I reach out on this board instead - to those, like me, who still struggle with these feelings - and am thankful today, more than ever, to have all of you here.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Be gentle with yourselves today. You are more important than you know.

- TC

[talithacumi]

Thanksgiving day here in the US - beginning of the big holiday season - a time inescapably filled with reminders/memories of the 13 such seasons I shared with my uxpwBPD.

I'm over four years out from the big breakup now and have spent an inordinate amount of time since then in therapy, dealing with core issues of attachment/trust, learning to see and present myself as the valuable/loveable person I really am rather than the worthless/inherently unloveable person my uNPD/BPD rager of a mom made me believe I was, and healing from a lifetime of self-inflicted emotional abuse that culminated in the 12+ year relationship I had with my ex whose ending - and my reaction to it - prompted me to get help/find this board in the first place.

I am taking time this morning to let the memories I have of this day with my ex simply come, make me wistful, make me sad, and make me angry for all the things I lost and no longer have. They were important. They enriched my life. They had value. They still do. And, for all those reasons, it seems only right that I should grieve their passing/loss.

On this day of thanksgiving, I'm choosing to spend just a little time acknowledging and leaning into the sadness/grief I feel because it's just as real/present as the gratitude I feel for having had all those years, surviving my breakup, and finding myself where I am now.

Feeling sad/grieving makes me feel so vulnerable. I find myself instinctively wanting to reach out, and contact my ex for comfort. To have him tell me everything will be okay. And the saddest thing of all is that I know he can't do that - that all he'd actually be able to offer - despite how much he actually cares about me - is more pain - because he cares, is disordered, and can't do anything else.

So I reach out on this board instead - to those, like me, who still struggle with these feelings - and am thankful today, more than ever, to have all of you here.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Be gentle with yourselves today. You are more important than you know.

- TC

[michel71]

Thank you Talitha. I love to hear from people like you that have come through the other side. You are a source of strength and inspiration to all of us. Be especially loving and good to yourself today and throughout the season. You deserve a collective big hug from the entire group here!

[patientandclear]

Talithacumi: I always get so much out of reading your posts. I admire your insight and clarity, and commitment to "reality over comfort," which as they say is an indicator of mental health. I also really relate to the length of time since the formal end of your relationship. The pain and loss are still very much with me three years after the end of my BPD r/s and nearly a year after we severed contact, apparently for good.

One of the reasons it's been so hard for me is similar to an observation you made in a different thread a few weeks back, about how you had gotten to a point in your life where you were ready to trust someone, so you really did trust your BPDex, and it was so very hard to accept that that trust was not warranted and he wasn't going to protect your heart.

I had a very similar dynamic--my BPDex felt like a safe place after a long abusive r/s--and it has been very hard to accept that he was not safe or trustworthy, not at all.

I miss all that was good and it is an ongoing battle to make room for all the seemingly incongruous emotional truths about that relationship.

Thanks for sharing your journey here. Happy Thanksgiving.

[eyvindr]

Hi patientandclear,

Nice to see you. This --

I miss all that was good and it is an ongoing battle to make room for all the seemingly incongruous emotional truths about that relationship.

So true. That is the struggle. I really loved my ex, and know that she really loved me, too. The worst of it all is that -- so much love lost, for both of us. But the alternative -- staying on the roller coaster -- wasn't something I was willing to do. But I know I'll never find another like her. Her positive side was as good as her negative side was bad.