Why do we Blame Ourselves?

[NYMike]

I went to T today and him and I had a nice session.We talked about this self blaming myself for this painful breakup.

He said,Mike stop blaming yourself.You are hurting yourself by losing 33 lbs.I looked up at him and said,i don't know how to NOT blame myself.

My ex had me convinced I was crazy,mental,nuts.She had me convinced that things I seen were not REAL.I would catch her in a Lie and she would deny.So much happened and she was able to turn it all on me and make it look like I was a nut job.I fell for this time and time again until I was crippled with pain and tired.

So I am still NC and working on stopping this SELF PUNISHMENT.

Anyone else relate to the beating yourself up and destroying yourself because of a relationship with a BPD.?

[Infern0]

It's your rational brain trying to find answers where there are no answers.  The easiest thing to do is blame yourself

[clydegriffith]

I defintley don't blame myself. Everything is her fault. She still tries to portray me as the crazy one to her friends and relatives but her track record speaks for itself. You don't have 5 kids by 3 guys in 6 years without at the very least raising eyebrows about your character.

If you're thrown out of one bar, perhaps its the bar. If you're getting thrown out of every bar you patronize than you're the problem.

[MammaMia]

InfernO

You are correct.  

We can often fall victim to what our BPD-loved ones constantly tell us... .that everything in their lives is our fault, and we are terrible human beings.  We become care-givers who feel responsible for all of their pain and sadness, even when we know we are not to blame for their self-destructive behavior.

BPD ruins so many lives. I hate what it does to friends, family, and partners in life.  We are collateral damage.

It takes courage and strength to fight to regain our identities and improve our own wellbeing.  And so the battle begins... .

[myself]

In a strange way, we take it on ourselves because that gives us a feeling that maybe, once we pick ourselves back up, we can fix or solve it. I felt that many times in the r/s. SOMEONE needs to do something, SOMEONE is responsible. But she piled so much of her baggage on top of me it was hard to make a real move until the r/s was over. Those lists we make of our ex's good and bad actions? Make one of your own, about who you were when with them. The more honest you are, the more you'll see where the blame does or doesn't fall, and where the personal growth needs to be happening.

[Hope0807]

Yeah I went through blaming myself pretty bad.  I thought those feelings would never pass.  I felt pride to carry the fairness mindset of:  "There are two sides to every story and each person plays a role in the breakup."  Well…here's the reality.  Those ideals come into play in NORMAL relationships.  Relationships with a PD person is so far off the scale of normal you can't even explain it to someone unless they've experienced the same and/or have a professional degree in psychiatry.  My ex was and continues to do such cruel things and shows such a strong lack of empathy and conscience that I no longer blame myself for anything…not even the most awful parts of myself that I threw in his direction and couldn't believe I was capable of. 

I rest comfortably NOW in knowing that every awful thing I said and did to him was absolutely my insides SCREAMING at me:  "There's something VERY VERY wrong with this person…wake up and RUN!"  Yup, instincts, ignored.  Start treating yourself with compassion and the healing will begin.  One book that was a MASSIVE help in the blaming myself area was:  "Living and Loving After Betrayal" by Steven Stosny.  Really and truly explained a whole lot about WHY we put ourselves through those unfair emotions after the fallout with an emotional manipulator.

Hang in there and keep posting.    

I went to T today and him and I had a nice session.We talked about this self blaming myself for this painful breakup.

He said,Mike stop blaming yourself.You are hurting yourself by losing 33 lbs.I looked up at him and said,i don't know how to NOT blame myself.

My ex had me convinced I was crazy,mental,nuts.She had me convinced that things I seen were not REAL.I would catch her in a Lie and she would deny.So much happened and she was able to turn it all on me and make it look like I was a nut job.I fell for this time and time again until I was crippled with pain and tired.

So I am still NC and working on stopping this SELF PUNISHMENT.

Anyone else relate to the beating yourself up and destroying yourself because of a relationship with a BPD.?

[Splitblack4good]

InfernO

You are correct.  

We can often fall victim to what our BPD-loved ones constantly tell us... .that everything in their lives is our fault, and we are terrible human beings.  We become care-givers who feel responsible for all of their pain and sadness, even when we know we are not to blame for their self-destructive behavior.

BPD ruins so many lives. I hate what it does to friends, family, and partners in life.  We are collateral damage.

It takes courage and strength to fight to regain our identities and improve our own wellbeing.  And so the battle begins... .

If it wasnt for endless hours researching and understanding this disorder now I'm out of the relaitionship with my xBPD gf then a lot of it I would still be blaming myself for a lot it plus you have to understand wen it goes sour at the end and they say all those nasty things to you they are talking about themselves they know it's them my ex even looked me in the eye once and admitted its her days later blamed me and now split me black . Do not take it personally difficult I know but just keep saying over and over to yourself it was them not me and you then start thinking more positive well I have anyway .

[Infern0]

As someone who has been through two BPD relationships I can tell you that knowledge is power.

The first one happened 4 years ago and when it all fell down I didn't know that she was BPD and blamed myself.  I ended up in low level depression for the best part of three years,  never being able to understand what went wrong,  and thinking I just must not have been good enough.

When I had round 2 four years later the cycle was almost exactly the same,  serious deja vu and worse pain.

This time I worked out that something was wrong with all this and put the clues together and found out about BPD.

Once you have something to go on you can recover.  It's so much better than being in the dark and giving in to false self hatred and false regret for the fake BS they accuse you of,  I wasted 3 years of my life thinking I was a worthless loser because of the first BPD,  this time I know that's not true and don't feel half as bad.

[Blimblam]

I went to T today and him and I had a nice session.We talked about this self blaming myself for this painful breakup.

He said,Mike stop blaming yourself.You are hurting yourself by losing 33 lbs.I looked up at him and said,i don't know how to NOT blame myself.

My ex had me convinced I was crazy,mental,nuts.She had me convinced that things I seen were not REAL.I would catch her in a Lie and she would deny.So much happened and she was able to turn it all on me and make it look like I was a nut job.I fell for this time and time again until I was crippled with pain and tired.

So I am still NC and working on stopping this SELF PUNISHMENT.

Anyone else relate to the beating yourself up and destroying yourself because of a relationship with a BPD.?

I think you answered your own question. We blame ourselves because they drive us crazy then convince us the problem is we are crazy.  I can tottaly relate! 

I understand the self punishment thing.  Check out the lonely child schema mode and anxious attachment styles. The thing is after a relationship like this we absorb a lot of truama and are hurting those emotions trigger regressed states of mind associated with the pain and rejection we feel.  The mind ruminating is a normal response to that kind of truama and part of the unwinding process.

[Splitblack4good]

As someone who has been through two BPD relationships I can tell you that knowledge is power.

The first one happened 4 years ago and when it all fell down I didn't know that she was BPD and blamed myself.  I ended up in low level depression for the best part of three years,  never being able to understand what went wrong,  and thinking I just must not have been good enough.

When I had round 2 four years later the cycle was almost exactly the same,  serious deja vu and worse pain.

This time I worked out that something was wrong with all this and put the clues together and found out about BPD.

Once you have something to go on you can recover.  It's so much better than being in the dark and giving in to false self hatred and false regret for the fake BS they accuse you of,  I wasted 3 years of my life thinking I was a worthless loser because of the first BPD,  this time I know that's not true and don't feel half as bad.

Yep that's the way I'm thinking about it to I didn't realise my now ex was BPD she dropped hints while we were together she knows she has it but didn't want to directly tell I suppose she hates herself enough already she told me it was something similar to bipolar and she had a history of mental illness I guess she was hoping I would just "get it " BPD won in the end . Shame tho my ex was loving , caring , and generous that was the real women she was but only 20% of the time on and off 80% of the time she was what seemed 3 different people up and down emoitional fair ground ! It was difficult to understand why one day so happily in love them a month of  confussion trying ways to get her back to how she was for the one day she was happy if I'd of known I wouldn't be typing this right now and be on this site .

Let's just hope my replacement can do a better job than I did ? She's worse now tho she is more hateful her eyes are black ! Blacker than she split me ! She's on the war path to destruction I'm staying away from her just hope her new toy doesn't break !

[Tibbles]

"It takes courage and strength to fight to regain our identities and improve our own wellbeing.  And so the battle begins... ." I really like what MammaMia said here. Says it all.

One reason I think that we blame ourselves is that when in these relationships we get so isolated from any other support systems that all we hear is how bad we are and with no one to counter that we start to believe it. The way they explain things start to seem logical and I know I agreed - yes it is all my fault. As we fight our way out and start to regain our sense of self we start to see that no, its not my fault. It's an illness and we are NOT the devil incarnate. It takes a long battle to stop the self blame and the "what if I had done ... ." and " If only I had... .things would have been different".