Attachment

[Depression = 72% of members]

Attachment and attachment styles can coexist in harmony. This post is a discussion of attachment with respect to our human self. Please feel free to add your thoughts. This is how we grow.




Every day we see things we like, people we like, foods we like, and attractive things we would like to buy or share our lives with. To fill our lives with these things we love seems natural, but in truth, it is path to pain, and not to peace. If given complete freedom, we would most certainly get rid of certain things in our lives that we dislike, certain objects and certain people. We would shoo them all out of our lives, if we could, if we had the choice, because we do not like them. In addition, we would fill our lives with pleasant things, nice people, beautiful persons who we enjoy and who we like the look and feel of. This is what we would all do if only we could, if we had the chance and freedom. Instead, we suppress some of our great desires to remain socially acceptable and decent, and suppress also some of our aversions. In this way, we manage to remain in a socially acceptable bandwidth of normality and accepted conduct. Peter Morrell

[Perfidy]

Attachment and attachment styles can coexist in harmony. This post is a discussion of attachment with respect to our human self. Please feel free to add your thoughts. This is how we grow.




Every day we see things we like, people we like, foods we like, and attractive things we would like to buy or share our lives with. To fill our lives with these things we love seems natural, but in truth, it is path to pain, and not to peace. If given complete freedom, we would most certainly get rid of certain things in our lives that we dislike, certain objects and certain people. We would shoo them all out of our lives, if we could, if we had the choice, because we do not like them. In addition, we would fill our lives with pleasant things, nice people, beautiful persons who we enjoy and who we like the look and feel of. This is what we would all do if only we could, if we had the chance and freedom. Instead, we suppress some of our great desires to remain socially acceptable and decent, and suppress also some of our aversions. In this way, we manage to remain in a socially acceptable bandwidth of normality and accepted conduct. Peter Morrell

[BuildingFromScratch]

I feel that attachment is a fact of life, it's completely unavoidable. The trick is to attach yourself to things which are long lasting or eternal. Such as doing good for others and yourself. Attach yourself to the process of obtaining a goal, not the goal itself. Attach yourself to people enough to gain and give to them, but not so much that they are your world. Attach yourself to hope, and a faith that you can handle almost anything and that things can get better. But don't attach yourself to things having to get better, or to you needing x y and z to live life. Detachment is great, but so is faith, which is like the ultimate attachment.

[Perfidy]

Building, the most altruistic conclusion to attachment is that everybody, every object, every idea, and every thought is in harmony. All phenomena. Attachment can only occur when a person views their self as being seperate from this unification of being. It's hard, I know! How do you feel about this depth and subtlety? Is it too much? These are not my ideas and I want to hear from others on the topic. I was using an awsome therapist that introduced me to some therapy that was derived from these ideas of attachment. She didn't go deeply into the origin other than to say it was largely eastern philosophy, so there are elements of both Buddhism and Hindu doctrine.

[BuildingFromScratch]

Every conception arises from separating from the unification of everything. Logically I think of it like this. There is one me, one universe, one number two, one humanity, one message I just sent to you. I think conceptions are limited and slicing conception more and more to try to explain the slicing of conceptions is pointless. Because I've done tons of it. I think it's best to be practical in real life scenarios, and apply any wisdom or mindfulness you've learned and if you are lucky and skilled, you might become enlightened. Trying to detach perfectly is an unrealistic expectation that will hinder progress. I think most people here just need to learn to be good for themselves, then their families and friends, then maybe more someday.

Sorry if I came off as rude. I've gone through a lot of philosophical ruminations over the past 5-10 years and it ate up so much of my life. Some of it was due to the Depersonalization Disorder. I might have this preconception that delving into such topics is destructive. Because it was for me.

[Perfidy]

Building, as a fellow member of this community, I cannot see anything that requires apology. We are all here to learn and grow. My experience with disordered people has shown me that it is beneficial to ourselves to bring each other up, no matter what. I see no disrespect in your words. I see no malicious intent. I join you in moving forward from suffering. I hope that all can be liberated from pain.

[fromheeltoheal]

One definition of ego is "the self, especially as contrasted with another self or the world."  The word ego can have a negative connotation, but it is a standard part of human development, and without it we wouldn't have a 'self'; we know what that looks like as exhibited by borderlines.  So having an 'I', a 'me', a 'self' is standard human, and to retain that sense of self we draw boundaries around it, ego boundaries, inherently 'separate' from others.  If no one had an ego we would be all 'one', like the Borg of Star Trek, a group consciousness.

Since humans do have egos, a good thing, there's a negotiation of boundaries between two people that forms an attachment; the more both people let down their ego boundaries and let the other in, the stronger the attachment.  And ego preservation is boundary preservation; where do we draw the line?  Some people are so distasteful that we draw the line so far away from us that they aren't in our lives at all, and with some people, 'acquaintances' maybe, we have strong boundaries and a corresponding weak attachment, maybe an attachment in a single area of our lives only.  And then, in the case of all of us here, we let down the boundaries a lot and let someone in who acted like a Trojan Horse, and the resulting attachment and its detachment were painful.

So for me it all boils down to boundaries, something I've historically sucked at, mostly because I didn't focus on them, in my naivete I assumed everyone would treat me the way I treated them, the Golden Rule, but alas, other people have egos too, and some use them in a boundary-busting way, and I let them.  One of the biggest things I got out of my relationship with a borderline was the concept of boundary enforcement, people can't be trusted until they prove themselves trustworthy, and it's critically important to only let the good ones in, lessons borne out of pain, but at least I learned them.  And to go back to the entry post, it is perfectly acceptable to remove the people and things from our lives that we don't want, and to populate our lives with the ones we do, a matter of continual upgrade, and sure, what we call normal and accepted is what society calls normal and accepted to an extent, and while there are laws, I was never much for rules and norms.  It's a brand new day, this boundary preservation thingy is profound, and it's a lot better to be a little lonely at times than tolerate disrespect, on the way to the life of our dreams.

[KeepOnGoing]

Thank you for the discussion. Frankly, this feels way too heady for me right now. Nearly six months out, and I'm still in F-it mode. I don't trust anyone. Don't want to interact with anyone. Certainly don't want to attach to anyone, and yet I am in a committed, monogomous relationship that feels somewhat dull and lifeless. I attached to a friend wBPD, only to find that I am truly love addicted and sick myself. I am currently damned if I do, damned if I don't, if you will. Damned if I attach. Damned if I don't. And still find myself obsessing on my friend wBPD who hasn't spoken to me in months. Talk about heady. Sorry for the rant. I'm just sick of myself.

[Blimblam]

I think the issue is being attached to the outcome of our doings. Or being too attached that it blinds us.

[Perfidy]

Heel, what you wrote about letting someone in that acted like a Trojan horse really speaks to me. Because of the deception and subsequent betrayal I chose the word perfidy as my screen name so that I wouldn't forget what happened in order to be aware that less scrupulous people do indeed exist.

Defining boundaries for me has been to totally scrap my ideas of what the word boundaries means and come up with a more realistic definition. Now, when someone finds my personal boundaries I say nothing to them and simply act accordingly. My boundaries are now for me and no one else.


The understanding of self has been the focus of my thought since I became able to use my mind for anything other than feeling emotional pain after the split. I want to understand my self as I am and not how I think I am. Life may be simple. Human beings are complex.

In the most basic analysis it can be summed up like this. I was taken advantage of by a person of low morale character, used, abused, and discarded. I became hurt and angry. A lot. 

I had an active part in my own suffering. I became so depressed suicide ideation formed. I love my self more than that, and I want to know why I became this way. She is in no way worth any of the pain I felt! I misapprehended her as a person and assigned her qualities that she, in reality did not posses. This could only come from ignorance and desire.  That is the most baffling part of the whole experience! So, it had to do with features of self that caused me to become so ill.

[fromheeltoheal]

In the most basic analysis it can be summed up like this. I was taken advantage of by a person of low morale character, used, abused, and discarded. I became hurt and angry. A lot. 

Sorry man, been there, and it sucks.  I don't know your gal obviously, but the more I think about mine, the more I see her as not malicious, just clueless.  She thinks people are "ugly", her word, and that everyone's out to get her, and she's very unaware of how the world works and human nature in general, except from her warped perspective, which she can't see beyond.  And since that's been going on her whole life she's developed tools to deal with it, which end up being very painful for the recipient.  I found out the hard way that it sucks to be her, and she was more than willing to share that pain with me, although now I feel compassion for her, she is doing her best from inside the disorder, and I can retain that compassion as long as she's a long, long way from me.

The understanding of self has been the focus of my thought since I became able to use my mind for anything other than feeling emotional pain after the split. I want to understand my self as I am and not how I think I am. Life may be simple. Human beings are complex.  I had an active part in my own suffering. I became so depressed suicide ideation formed. I love my self more than that, and I want to know why I became this way. She is in no way worth any of the pain I felt! I misapprehended her as a person and assigned her qualities that she, in reality did not posses. This could only come from ignorance and desire.  That is the most baffling part of the whole experience!

And therein lies the gift of the relationship.  Pain is a really good motivator, maybe the best, and maybe our experiences with borderlines were supposed to happen, to get us to that next stage in our own evolution.  It's learned a hell of a lot about myself in the last 2 years, life is getting good, and I'm actually kinda happy I did my time in hell, since it contributed to the death of my naivete and immaturity.

So, it had to do with features of self that caused me to become so ill.

Yes.  There's what happens and what we make it mean, two entirely different things.  What I've made my relationship and it's demise mean has changed over time, a natural progression that needed to run its course.  So, what did yours mean to you, from today's perspective?

[Perfidy]

Heel, from today's perspective the relationship was a malignancy. It's over. I'm healing from a dark point in my life. I'm still the same kind, loving person I was before. I'm nice to others just as I was before, during, and after. I am, was and always will be a good, decent human being. I really feel like I wasted almost eight years of my life on hope. I find nothing beneficial in squandering my resources. Growth is a normal function of life. The malignancy is gone. Now is more like aftercare.

[fromheeltoheal]

Youda man Perf.  There's a good metaphor for detachment: the malignancy becomes benign, with no remission.  I say that as well as healing we're growing, in fact when the healing is done, we get to keep the growth, kinda like when you lift weights: lifting weights actually tears muscle, and it responds by repairing the tears and getting bigger and stronger, so it doesn't happen again and we're capable of more.  Maybe borderlines exist for a purpose, and come into our lives when it's time to learn lessons that will take us to that next stage, better than we thought we wanted, the life of our dreams.  I'm runnin' with it... .

Take care of you!

[Blimblam]

Reading the book the search for the real self has given me a lot of insight on the importance of attachement in our childhood states of develepment and how pwBPD are created.  Essentially a pwBPD is trying to form the secure attachment they never formed in childhood the issue is for them experiencing the abandonment depression with a secure attachment to guide them through the opiedal stage of development but they fear doing this becuase this is experience is painfull. In some

Way we needed to form a parent child bond as well and experience the abandonment depression. Because to use the label we are codependent.  Not that this is bad though but because their is a truama within the culture that led to the circumstances to create pwBPD and codependents. So the wound is a cultural one that manifests all the way down to the individual level. This is how I see it and why I don't think creating a "healthy normal" that conforms to the norms of a sick society and stigmatizing the people that suffer from an imbalance on a societal scale is healthy.

[Aussie JJ]

BB's been reading masterson

Important thing is our attachment style not our pwBPD's.  What is your attachment style would be the question here... .

Mine, undefined.  Not sure yet I'll figure it out, something I should look into. 

[Blimblam]

BB's been reading masterson

Important thing is our attachment style not our pwBPD's.  What is your attachment style would be the question here... .

Mine, undefined.  Not sure yet I'll figure it out, something I should look into. 

Haha yeah I picked it back up to read through again. 

The thing is the way I see it if we focus on one thing such as attachment style which is a symptom of something much larger we might not be necesarily doing the real inner work to correct the the attachment style. It's like a mushroom. We look at the ground  and we see a mushroom but really the mushroom is just the fruiting body of a larger organism a myceliam network that is out of sight.

We are attached to our society and culture to survive and our society is attached to the earth for it's resources. The imbalance in the individual is a reflection of the imbalance of the macro scale attachments. But to the individual level is the work of working through what Jung calls the shadow and recognizing our projections and working through our individual truamas or we will projects them perhaps outsourcing them causing further truama for someone else. Their are people who make secure attachments simply because they outsource truama the way it is modeled in society. So I think doing the inner work in oneself will reap the fruit of secure attachments in ones life.

[fromheeltoheal]

The thing is the way I see it if we focus on one thing such as attachment style which is a symptom of something much larger we might not be necesarily doing the real inner work to correct the the attachment style. It's like a mushroom. We look at the ground  and we see a mushroom but really the mushroom is just the fruiting body of a larger organism a myceliam network that is out of sight.

We are attached to our society and culture to survive and our society is attached to the earth for it's resources. The imbalance in the individual is a reflection of the imbalance of the macro scale attachments. But to the individual level is the work of working through what Jung calls the shadow and recognizing our projections and working through our individual truamas or we will projects them perhaps outsourcing them causing further truama for someone else. Their are people who make secure attachments simply because they outsource truama the way it is modeled in society. So I think doing the inner work in oneself will reap the fruit of secure attachments in ones life.

the real inner work to correct the the attachment style.

Which presupposes some styles are incorrect.  One thing I like about attachment style theory is that none of the styles are labelled incorrect, dysfunctional, wrong, they just are.  And there are empowering combinations of styles and disempowering ones; having an anxious style myself, I need to avoid avoidant partners for example, because regardless of how much work we do, there will always be an underlying incompatibility in styles.

You gravitate to the macro Blim, and for me it's about micro.  I'm not going to change society, and the older I get the less interested I am in changing myself and the more interested I am in surrounding myself with people who accept me the way I am, and love and care about me exactly that way.  And of course that includes a presupposition that nothing is broken, and I'm good with that too.  In fact that got validated by my ex, I did almost everything right, certainly well enough to be in a reasonably healthy relationship, but it didn't work out, that's OK, one of the biggest things I got out of it was how crucial it is to let the right people into my life and keep the wrong ones out, boundaries baby, and attachment style theory goes a long way with helping me with that.

[Blimblam]

The thing is the way I see it if we focus on one thing such as attachment style which is a symptom of something much larger we might not be necesarily doing the real inner work to correct the the attachment style. It's like a mushroom. We look at the ground  and we see a mushroom but really the mushroom is just the fruiting body of a larger organism a myceliam network that is out of sight.

We are attached to our society and culture to survive and our society is attached to the earth for it's resources. The imbalance in the individual is a reflection of the imbalance of the macro scale attachments. But to the individual level is the work of working through what Jung calls the shadow and recognizing our projections and working through our individual truamas or we will projects them perhaps outsourcing them causing further truama for someone else. Their are people who make secure attachments simply because they outsource truama the way it is modeled in society. So I think doing the inner work in oneself will reap the fruit of secure attachments in ones life.

the real inner work to correct the the attachment style.

Which presupposes some styles are incorrect.  One thing I like about attachment style theory is that none of the styles are labelled incorrect, dysfunctional, wrong, they just are.  And there are empowering combinations of styles and disempowering ones; having an anxious style myself, I need to avoid avoidant partners for example, because regardless of how much work we do, there will always be an underlying incompatibility in styles.

You gravitate to the macro Blim, and for me it's about micro.  I'm not going to change society, and the older I get the less interested I am in changing myself and the more interested I am in surrounding myself with people who accept me the way I am, and love and care about me exactly that way.  And of course that includes a presupposition that nothing is broken, and I'm good with that too.  In fact that got validated by my ex, I did almost everything right, certainly well enough to be in a reasonably healthy relationship, but it didn't work out, that's OK, one of the biggest things I got out of it was how crucial it is to let the right people into my life and keep the wrong ones out, boundaries baby, and attachment style theory goes a long way with helping me with that.

That makes a lot of sense. The compatability of attachment styles. I like the concept that an attachment style is not incorrect but personally I would like to work towards having a more secure attachment style. I lean towards the anxious style. So I am projecting that a bit thanks for pointing that out to me. Yeah my mind always works towards weaving the micro into the macro and vice versa.

[fromheeltoheal]

personally I would like to work towards having a more secure attachment style.

Yeah, me too, and another thing I like is that when an anxious person gets with a secure one, it can make the anxious one more secure.  One cool reason is anxious and secure people want the same thing, closeness and emotional intimacy, anxious people need it, and secure people provide it easily and naturally.  Plus, 60% of the population is apparently secure, and contrast that with the few percent with personality disorders and the odds are in our favor bigtime!

[Perfidy]

Who really wants an attachment with a romantic partner that parenting skills need to be present? That always bothered me in the r/s. I felt like I was raising a rotten kid! Lol! I have five natural children and NONE of them were like that! My children all stand on their own and are tops in their fields. My youngest is 27 and he and the others are all buying their own homes, in good secure relationships, they all have positive outlooks and are successful at whatever they choose to do. No druggies, drunks, jail birds. Apparently my parenting skills paid off. I surely did my best parenting with the BPDex. Probably why it lasted as long as it did. I really do hope the best for her.

[Blimblam]

Perfidy but that's the thing in some ways we craved that attachment the parent child one with our exs. In some ways it made our ego or sense of individual self feel whole. I too didn't feel comfortable often with the parent child dynamic between myself and my ex and for a long time kept that boundary in some ways although it was always present to an extent. The thing is a pwBPD rewards us for parenting them and I began to attach more and more to the ahamkara or ego-doing of the parental role. the attachement was a combination of pride, resentment and unconditional love.  This created a fragmenting of my superego, extraverting it in a care taking way and a conflict with my ego which demanded conditions. Over time this chipped pieces of my ego away into my superego which became a caring force for my ex and a punishing force for my inner lonely child.  Over time making me more and more dependent on my ex for feeling whole.

So I see it as an internal conflict between the the superego structure as a cirtical parent and loving parent and the inner impulsive child and lonely child. The conflict between these structures gives rise to an unhealthy ego which can create a void and lead to unhealthy attachment styles.

[Perfidy]

Oh yes blim, it was unhealthy. In all of the different "I"'s that we have, just about anything can happen. It must be possible to be in a relationship happily and also free from attachment. It appears as though attachment is what made me lose touch with my true self. Today I experienced serenity and recognized it as something that I've always had. I think that is what happens when my true self, or the real I, isn't covered in falseness.

[Blimblam]

Oh yes blim, it was unhealthy. In all of the different "I"'s that we have, just about anything can happen. It must be possible to be in a relationship happily and also free from attachment. It appears as though attachment is what made me lose touch with my true self. Today I experienced serenity and recognized it as something that I've always had. I think that is what happens when my true self, or the real I, isn't covered in falseness.

I might be wrong but I get the sense that your use of attachment has an eastern feel to it. In the east attachment is and aspect of what they refer to as the ego or ego attachment.  But in Hinduism the word for ego is ahamkara or ego doing.  Ego being sense of individual self or "I" as we recognize it as our distinct individual self doing. So what is the ego doing?   This ties into psychologies models of the psyche structures that exist in the unconcious parts of our mind that surface into the concious or ego.  So when I caretake the aspects of the superego or inner parental structure enter my ego and I am doing that role.  Of when I have a base urge for something like food the Id or impulsive child structure of the unconcious enters the ego and does the the workings of that structure.  The ego must have the impulsive child enter the ego structure or we would starve to death.  So we need our ego and we need these unconcious psychic structures.  The attachment is to identifying with the ego doings. Attaching our hopes, dreams, expectations and self worth to these doings of our ego.  That's one level then their is how these aspects of our psyche are attached to the larger external systems such as culture, society, and the material plane of existance.

[fromheeltoheal]

It must be possible to be in a relationship happily and also free from attachment. It appears as though attachment is what made me lose touch with my true self. Today I experienced serenity and recognized it as something that I've always had. I think that is what happens when my true self, or the real I, isn't covered in falseness.

The ideal relationship is one in which we can express our true selves and have it accepted fully, and there is no relationship without attachment, that's what a relationship is.  We're a little skewed and gun shy because we became attached to people with personality disorders, but the only way out of that back to bliss is to accept it as a lesson we apparently needed, a prerequisite for the relationship of our dreams.  What would it mean if that were true?

[Perfidy]

Blim, that's correct. In learning the power of mindfulness, I became fascinated with eastern philosophy. In the 12 links of dependent arising or dependent origination of Tibetan Buddhism, I can see how that is the way to end all suffering. It's meant for this lifetime and any other lifetime. I'm not a Buddhist or Christian and hold no other belief. As I was reading Zen I came across a statement that parallels how I feel about belief. Belief is a limitation. Once we arrive at a belief, it becomes overly concretized and solid. When this occurs, growth stops or slows because we think we have found the final solution to life. Doesn't all religion promise that there is a life after this one? So I replaced the word belief with the word experience. Now, the divinity that we are built around, the subtle consciousness that we call our self, isn't god. However, the definition of divine isn't god, but godlike. We are clearly mortal. As we all know, death is very much a part of this lifetime. I don't need promise of reward or punishment to have good morals and act with good virtue. I can do this as a choice of my own, and I do. I can choose to be responsible for my self, and i am. I experience the divinity instead of believe in it. I respect the divinity that is my self and the divinity that all human beings are built around. The self is the possessor of mind and body. The self is infinite and eternal. The mind and body will fade. The subtle consciousness that is the possessor of mind and body was never created and cannot be uncreated. It just simply is, always has been, and will always be. Eternal. Infinite. Indestructible. To my self, this appears to be the message Christ brought. Now remember, I'm not a Christian. If I have to describe my self I could only be described as athiest. I subscribe to no belief. I learn from my experience. As a mortal being, body and mind built around infinite self, could any belief do anything other than limit me?

Ok, back to Eastern philosophy, attachment arises out of feeling. Feeling arises out of contact. Contact arises from the senses, or the sense spheres, which include the sense and it's perceived object. Grasping arises out of attachment. These four of the twelve links are weak. Attachment being the weakest. If we are successful in breaking attachment we can liberate our self from suffering. Have I suffered? That would be a big fat yes. Attachment can be to anything. It can be to candy. Behavior. People. Money. Drugs. It has ignorance that propels it. Is it not true that when a person uses drugs to get high, that it is perceived as pleasure, but in reality it causes suffering. Can you see this? An active misapprehension of reality. The same with people. Our BPD partners, weren't they the source of our suffering while we perceived them obscurely? We, out of ignorance, gave them qualities that they didn't actually possess! The contact through our senses. The feeling though our senses. The attachment because of our feeling. Grasping for them because of our attachment. These are links in cause and effect of human suffering. Are they not?

[Perfidy]

Heel, one of my girlfriends threw this question at me. She asked me if I was ever with anybody that was ALWAYS nice to me. I couldn't think of one single romantic relationship where this was fact. I had to answer with a no. Without attachment in a relationship, the answer would be yes. Without attachment there is nothing to disagree about. She kinda floored me with that question. I want to throw that out there. Have you been with anyone that was always nice to you?

[Perfidy]

It's common to associate attachment to relationships. It's common for relationships to bring misery. I wonder if there might be a connection there.

[Blimblam]

Well hmm I have to westernize my understanding to respond.  Our attachment to things like candy or any food are connected to aspects of our psyche in this case our impulse base desires or the "Id." All of the things we attach to are projections of aspects of our psyche.  :)etachment arises when we become aware of these aspects of our psyche our projections and the interconnectedness.  Modern societies attachment to the divine feminine is really screwed up.  The divine feminine is conciousness itself trapped in the material plane. Conciousness feeds on conciousness it is doing this with the awareness that this is your mother and with respect and awareness of the flow of conciousness that allows one to detach.  To become aware and connected to that flow with respect and most importantly not outsourcing your pain.  This requires awareness of the inner aspects of the psyche and their connection to the external.  

That's why a practice like fasting or merely not eating for a few days can make one extremely aware of these inner aspects of ones psyche and their attachments to food and how they relate to it. These inner aspects seek To connect to the external they seek this attachment becUse everything is interconnected. The real issue as I see it is self awareness. 

[Perfidy]

Blim, you got it. All things are in unity. The word universe implies this. To bring unity into perception is to destroy attachment. As individuals that are self aware, the most magnificent thing we can do with our selves is to bring unity to humanity one person at a time. Wouldn't bringing unity to a romantic relationship result in a better relationship? Wouldn't our differences become non issues? Wouldn't we spend our time in this life enjoying love, peace and harmony. Do you think it's possible to be nice to each other all of the time? Is it possible to live so that hatred, anger, and lust don't have to be suppressed because they can't even form?

[fromheeltoheal]

Heel, one of my girlfriends threw this question at me. She asked me if I was ever with anybody that was ALWAYS nice to me. I couldn't think of one single romantic relationship where this was fact. I had to answer with a no. Without attachment in a relationship, the answer would be yes. Without attachment there is nothing to disagree about. She kinda floored me with that question. I want to throw that out there. Have you been with anyone that was always nice to you?

It's common to associate attachment to relationships. It's common for relationships to bring misery. I wonder if there might be a connection there.

No, I've never been with someone who was always nice to me, and that's OK, that isn't the goal.  Sure, we can sit and meditate and create our own bliss, and keep those boundaries nice and high and strong, nobody gets in, although we may find that we've created our own prison and it's lonely in there.  The purpose of relationships is to amplify our emotions and our life experience; we experience higher highs and lower lows in them, and if we pick the right partner, we're experiencing the highs more often than not.  And of course if we pick the wrong partner, like one with a personality disorder for example, the highs don't really exist outside the fantasy in our heads, and the lows are hell on earth.

Humans are social animals, born to connect, and I was never one for disappearing into the Himalayas in search of enlightenment.  I had a girlfriend once who asked me if I wanted to step into the fire with her, and it still strikes me that that term was perfect; we fought and argued all the time, but we never, ever threatened the relationship or attacked each other with low blows, I grew a lot in my time spent with her and felt fully alive, and yes, we were our true selves with each other.  Attachments between two imperfect creatures are work, but it's the best kind of work.

[Perfidy]

Heel, I totally hear you about the highs and lows in a relationship. I don't like to argue and fight. That roller coaster I don't want to ride on. Sure, in a perfect world everything is perfect and that's not how it is, I get all that. I've had one relationship since the BPD episode. It lasted about six months and we didn't argue at all. Not one fight. She threatened the relationship. When she did that I ended it. I won't be in a threatened relationship. Even BPD girl didn't threaten our relationship. Well, at least not with words. Lol! I've dated a few different women, some more than others. Speaking of BPD girl, come to think of it I wanted her gone and told her that often. I told her I wanted to end it but she just wouldn't leave! Weirdest thing there. Weird, weird, weird. Heel can I ask you what you would do if your partner told you point blank that they wanted you to leave? Would you stay? How many times would you need to hear that before you left? Oh yeah, now I remember, she has a personality disorder. What a crazy can of worms!

Ok, back to the one that threatened the relationship. I approached that relationship with the idea that two people can always bring each other up, and never bring each other down. We have minds. We can use our minds to find solutions even if the solution has to be agree to disagree. No fighting. I don't even like to play fight let alone real fight. I am aware of attachment. If I had brought attachment into that relationship I would have been more likely to stay after the relationship was threatened. I was in a relationship without attachment.

I too won't wander into the Himalayas in search of enlightenment, although that is infinitely more appealing than tracing my veins with a sharp object, which is exactly what I did after suffering severe depression for months after the breakup with BPD girl. I would have been better off in the Himalayas than in that experiment.

I hope that I do find a relationship that has its foundation in love, peace and harmony. This is at our core. When we become self aware and act from a position of true self, that is what we bring with us into a relationship. Love, peace, and harmony. When two people have this, then and only then, can it be true love. Two people that love themselves, together. In love, together.

I see why true love is so rare. I see why fighting and hatred and war and all other self destructive behavior is so common. We as humanity, have not developed insight into the nature of self. The human self is pure love. That's what we all want. That's the hardwiredness for connection that we all feel. we all want to feel that love and be happy. We are at odds with our selves. When we fall on our butts in a relationship, it's the same fundamental problem, and the weakest link is attachment. Does self knowledge seem realistic?