the faults within myself

[aubin]

For the last three years I've been recovering from the relationship with my BPD ex. During that time I came to terms with the fact that my own traumatic childhood (and my likely BPD or ASPD mother) had a lot to do with why I ended up in that horrible relationship and why I stayed so long. Much of this recovery process over the last three years has been spent acknowledging the hurt and trauma I went through, the shame I carry deep inside me, and the difficulty I have admitting to this, even to myself. I've been working with a wonderful T who's been helpful and supportive and I made some necessary changes to my life (like ridding myself of some toxic "friends" and learning to take care of myself).

So here I am. Three years post-BPD and still single, still barely able to date, still feeling scarred by the experience. I've analyzed and examined and reexamined and over-thought nearly every facet of my social life and my family history. But I mostly have detailed what is wrong with everyone else: all the faults of my highly critical mother, all the faults of my likely BPD sister, all the faults of my absent father, all the faults of my needy toxic friends, all the faults of all the people in my life. I put some necessary distance between myself and my family and got rid of those toxic friends. I started developing some new friendships that are slowly building.

So here I am, having analyzed to *death* the faults of everyone else. So now there's just me. I know this is the next step. I know this is an important next step. I know this is a *critical* next step. But I just can't bring myself to do it. To acknowledge the faults within myself, the things that got me into that relationship with BPD ex in the first place. The things that got me to stay for far too long. The things that make me self-sabotage good potential friendships but cling to the most destructive people.

Even writing this feels so so hard. So difficult.

Okay, I'm pressing 'post' now. Yikes.

[eeks]

Aubin, I struggled for a long time with self-help and personal growth type methods that seemed only to apply more shame to what I already felt.  Accusatory or confrontational approaches to "facing your shadow".

I used to think that psychoanalysis was the dinosaur of the therapy world (go 3 times a week for 10 years and don't feel any better?  who would bother?) but I was in a group therapy program last year with a psychodynamic component, and I see an analyst now as my regular therapist.  Unlike the shaming coaching type approaches, the point isn't blaming yourself, nor is it blaming parents or anyone else who neglected or traumatized you (in my initial interview with the psychiatrist who ran the program, he even asked me about my grandparents' life history) but to understand all the influences on yourself, the "ingredients in the recipe" as it were, positive and negative, that went into making you who you are and contributed to the life situation in which you find yourself today. 

So I really wouldn't say that what attracted you to a pwBPD and led you to stay in the relationship even though it wasn't healthy are "faults".  Having examined the ways in which your caregivers failed you doesn't mean you now have to look at "your faults", rather you can take that information and use it to figure out which universal human developmental needs of yours were not met by them.  Even that doesn't necessarily lead to change, but in my view this awareness is a necessary precondition.

It seems that people are drawn to relationships with others who resemble both the positive and negative traits of their early caregivers.  Harville Hendrix, in Keeping the Love You Find, says that your unconscious will only accept love from someone who is like the person you couldn't get love from in childhood.  I think that's strange, but it seems to be true. 

So even though your patterns might be outdated (in the sense that they are based on childhood survival strategies that are no longer necessary) and ineffective, you can look at your choices as "getting love and surviving the best you know how".  You can recognize it and change it, but that doesn't mean you need to feel shame about your old way of doing it. 

[aubin]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply Eeks. I am trying to identify the things that I want to change about myself. This is hard especially because it means going against that inner struggle for perfection that I inherited from my disordered parents. I just read a thread on the false self -- this describes what I'm trying to get at. I know I put up a "front" (false self?) and this is what my BPD ex attached to. Now that I'm writing this, I think this front was about being perfect -- being stable, happy, super confident, and without any perceivable flaws (maybe "flaw" rather than "fault" was the word I should have used in my original post. Even acknowledging that tiny mistake brings shame. Ugh). I think this front helped me survive my parents but it gets in the way of building real open and honest relationships with people.

I don't know how else to change flaws without first acknowledging them. But that step of recognition is bringing so much shame. It's painful.

[Reforming]

Hi Aubin,

It's almost two and a half years since my relationship ended and I can relate to your feelings.

Though I'm definitely much better than I was in the first year I still have periods where I feel stuck and damaged. When I feel angry, frustrated or frightened at the speed of my recovery.

But healing and lasting change takes time. Recovering from these relationships is so very different to processing a normal breakup. We're left stripped bare and naked like a frightened child that's been thrown to the wolves.

I try hard to make a conscious effort to be gentle and kind to myself.

I think finding a good therapist and the right therapy is key, but it's still a slog

My ex and I went to couple counselling twice during our relationship, both times at my instigation.

The second was at the end of our relationship after I discovered that she'd had an affair.

We went for a few months but eventually it became clear that she wasn't willing to engage so I ended our relationship.

We saw our couples counsellor separately afterwards and the counsellor's final words to me were "you need to work out why you stayed so long in this relationship"

I was very angry and emotionally blasted at the time and I can't say that I was thrilled to hear her conclusion, but it stuck in my mind and I promised myself that I would try and face up to it.

I began with CBT and eventually I switched to Schema because I recognised that my own negative behavioural patterns were pretty deep rooted.

I wanted to work with a therapist who understood BPD and I wanted a therapy that could produce concrete results within a reasonably defined timescale.

I switched schema counsellors last year because I thought I needed to work with someone who was a better fit for me. I wrote down my goals for therapy and from the outset I have tried to focus on myself and my own behaviour rather than my ex and our relationship.

We have discussed my ex and my relationship on a number of occasions, but the primary focus has been my myself and if I slip off track my T gently guides me back. She does this gently by asking whether this is something that I want to explore and this helps remind of my primary goals

It hasn't been easy and I still ruminate at times, but we were together for almost 16 years and I accept that it will take time and work to get over this and that it's quite possible that part of me will always grieve for the loss.

Overall I think schema was a good choice.

It explores your family history to help you understand the roots of your behaviour, but it does this as a basis for enabling change and it gives you the skills to realise that change.

Exploring your FOO can be a painful process, but as eek said, you do it so that you can understand the forces that shaped you.  It allows us to step back from ourselves and recognise that that we are inherently flawed or bad we just learned to behave in unhealthy ways because that it what we modelled as small children or ways that we learned to cope with our FOO. This empowers you to let go of self hate and self blame and learn to be kinder and more compassionate to yourself

I recognise that my parents made mistakes. I don't think they are bad people, they were struggling with their own wounds and as a result they failed to meet some of my most important needs.

It happens a lot... .

To quote the poet Philip Larkin

"They fck you up, your mum and dad.  

They may not mean to, but they do.  

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fcked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,  

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don’t have any kids yourself."

At a certain point I've learned to forgive them

It's up to me to change now.

A big lesson for me is learning to recognise and understand my own needs and work to meet them myself in a healthy way

One of the things that I'm really aware of is my strong tendency to focus on others either by rescuing or by finding fault.

My new years resolution for 2015 is that when I find myself doing that I stop and shift my focus to myself

I agree that it's not easy, especially when you're someone who habitually focussed on others, but it's the only way forward.

In order to meet your own needs you need to be present with yourself and your feelings even when they are painful or unpleasant. Most of us have learned to do the opposite and it can feel very uncomfortable for a while but with effort and persistence it's possible. Mindfulness is a great help

Good luck and well done

Reforming

[eeks]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply Eeks. I am trying to identify the things that I want to change about myself. This is hard especially because it means going against that inner struggle for perfection that I inherited from my disordered parents. I just read a thread on the false self -- this describes what I'm trying to get at. I know I put up a "front" (false self?) and this is what my BPD ex attached to. Now that I'm writing this, I think this front was about being perfect -- being stable, happy, super confident, and without any perceivable flaws (maybe "flaw" rather than "fault" was the word I should have used in my original post. Even acknowledging that tiny mistake brings shame. Ugh). I think this front helped me survive my parents but it gets in the way of building real open and honest relationships with people.

I don't know how else to change flaws without first acknowledging them. But that step of recognition is bringing so much shame. It's painful.

You're welcome.  Regarding perfectionism... .knowing it's not a healthy way to live life, but even thinking about recognizing it brings up shame, reminded me of this - I've listened to 4 of 6 parts of an audio series called "Already Free" by Bruce Tift. He is one of a number of therapists integrating Western developmental psychology with Eastern mindfulness.  This is more than just telling your clients to do mindfulness meditation homework, they are actually combining and synthesizing elements of the philosophies.  Anyways, in the part where he explains the developmental view, he says that educated clients cannot even understand how it's possible for a person to do something that is self-destructive, that runs counter to their own needs and goals. He responds, imagine you are a small child, and you can either hit yourself or your parent hits you.  Which would you choose?  So people "hit" themselves (this can be emotional hit, of course) to prevent the parent from hitting them.

When you start breaking or questioning the "survival rule" that "you must be perfect", (I have a similar rule, but it's more about meeting achievement standards, and it was all supposed to happen stepwise and stable, than being actually perfect), it makes sense to me that you would feel shame.  I feel shame when I break my rules, think about breaking my rules, or have external circumstances in my life such that I am unable to follow the rules.  My observation in myself is that it is because I am anticipating conflict... .and in that moment it feels like a genuine risk of losing all the relationships that are important to me.  All of them!

The only way I really know of to change this is to have a relationship with a therapist where you are able to reveal all of yourself to him or her (this of course hinges on the therapist's skill in detecting parts of yourself that you might keep hidden even from yourself!) and the therapist does not abandon you, punish you or react negatively to what you are saying or feeling.  It's happening for me, more slowly than I'd like but it's happening.