Police Harassment Charge Continuation

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Let me add that I really appreciate your honest, open responses in the thread, in fact, all of the honest, open responses. I think so much about myself and who I have been and want to be in relationships when reading through threads like this and particularly when submitting my own comments and feedback. Thanks 

[Mike-X]

Let me add that I really appreciate your honest, open responses in the thread, in fact, all of the honest, open responses. I think so much about myself and who I have been and want to be in relationships when reading through threads like this and particularly when submitting my own comments and feedback. Thanks 

[Restored2]

Mike-X: I see where you are coming from.  That's quite the full meal deal that you placed before me.  It could take days for me to digest everything that is on my plate.  You make some extremely challenging statements/questions with holding the mirror up for me to take a good hard long look at my reflection back.  Which isn't always easy to do.  I always strive to take the high road.  I do question whether I was duped, delusional or in an illusion with my relationship to her.  Unfortunately, I'm not really sure what the answer is.  Thank you so very much for your encouraging acknowledgments on my honest and open responses in the thread.  Much appreciated.  It's great to hear of the good that comes out of such threads.  You're welcome.    

ForeverDad: You make some very valid points to chew over.  I don't believe that you are berating me, but rather caring enough to challenge me.  For this I am grateful.  Thank you for sharing your personal brush with the police.  You gave it another go with your ex in reconciliation after you both "had protection orders from each other".  It obviously didn't work out, but at least you both got it out of your systems by giving it another chance.  This is where I am coming from and open to.  No one can predict the future and say that our relationship is "long over" and unable to be restored.  Stranger scenarios have happened with miraculous happy results.

[KateCat]

Do you think that she is lucky to have found you, because you are self-sacrificing, strong enough to sacrifice your well-being for hers, your freedom to prove your love? Does self-sacrificing make you feel better about yourself? Does she need you to be self-sacrificing for her?

To me, these great questions read as a complication of the sentiments directly expressed by men who have been members of this forum. Sometimes the story that goes with these statements plays out like this:

"Everyone in her life has abused her or abandoned her." "I am the one who will show her the love she needs." "There is a loving and wonderful person inside her." "Things are rough, but I am the one who can withstand this storm." "She will never find another like me; I remain strong." "I consider her children as my own." "She would be lost without me." . . . . "She has blocked my number. I can't contact her." "Why am I getting calls from a man telling me never to contact her again?" "This guy is a low-life drug abuser; what is she thinking?" "Her kids are calling me, crying. I have to help." . . . . "Why are the police knocking on my door?"

Where you are right now, I think, is a great moment just to sit back and wait and observe and ponder. Who can digest a shocking experience like this in a matter of weeks or months?

I'm really glad you have some strong and principled men speaking directly to you in this difficult time.

[Restored2]

Do you think that she is lucky to have found you, because you are self-sacrificing, strong enough to sacrifice your well-being for hers, your freedom to prove your love? Does self-sacrificing make you feel better about yourself? Does she need you to be self-sacrificing for her?

To me, these great questions read as a complication of the sentiments directly expressed by men who have been members of this forum. Sometimes the story that goes with these statements plays out like this:

"Everyone in her life has abused her or abandoned her." "I am the one who will show her the love she needs." "There is a loving and wonderful person inside her." "Things are rough, but I am the one who can withstand this storm." "She will never find another like me; I remain strong." "I consider her children as my own." "She would be lost without me." . . . . "She has blocked my number. I can't contact her." "Why am I getting calls from a man telling me never to contact her again?" "This guy is a low-life drug abuser; what is she thinking?" "Her kids are calling me, crying. I have to help." . . . . "Why are the police knocking on my door?"

Where you are right now, I think, is a great moment just to sit back and wait and observe and ponder. Who can digest a shocking experience like this in a matter of weeks or months?

I'm really glad you have some strong and principled men speaking directly to you in this difficult time.

KateCat: There is a lot of similar stories expressed by men who have gone down this same painful path before me.  

Thank you for your quoted words of wisdom; "Where you are right now, I think, is a great moment just to sit back and wait and observe and ponder".  

Your quote is bang on; "Who can digest a shocking experience like this in a matter of weeks or months?"  I could very likely be on the year long program or longer to come up with some answers.  

I am very grateful to having some strong and principled men and women speaking directly into my life in this difficult time. They have become an incredibly supportive family to me here on bpdfamily.

[livednlearned]

Hi Restored2,

I haven't been feeling good about my responses to you, and was thinking about this today. I figured out why while I was in the cereal aisle in the supermarket today    I didn't tie together very well my thoughts about "normal" behavior after a break-up, and the BPD behavior. I'll see if I can make sense (still trying to work this out in my own mind).

In my "normal" break-up with someone who, although very clingy, did not respect boundaries, I found even the slightest encroachment to be challenging. We did not have good boundaries during the relationship, and the break-up reflected that.

I guess what I was trying to say is that someone who experiences "rejection sensitivity" like pwBPD, those kinds of reactions are heightened. So, in grieving the end of the relationship, I wanted to have time and space to recover and heal, and process difficult feelings. Every time he reached out, it felt that I couldn't do that, for better or for worse. But I was able to regulate my emotions and think before I reacted. I knew I didn't want to file a harassment complaint because he was/is a good person and break-ups can bring out messy feelings and people can act in ways they would otherwise not do.

I was trying to humanize the feelings that many of us feel when we are no longer with someone we were very intimate with -- it's not just a BPD thing to feel strong feelings at the end of a relationship. What is different is the reason why the break-ups occur (fear of abandonment, splitting, projection, etc.) and the feelings = facts that pwBPD can experience, that can flip a situation so that it no longer resembles accurately what happened or is happening.

Your actions are normal. Your ex's reactions are not. But to her, her feelings are valid, just as mine were valid. I felt that my boundaries were not being respected (mostly because I didn't have any idea what boundaries were, or how to assert them in a healthy way).

Thinking this through made me realize that I did something similar in my marriage. When my ex split me black and gave me the silent treatment, at first I would do anything to try and figure out why I had done wrong. I thought of it as a hallway filled with doors and I had to figure out which one to open. One time, after a particularly long stretch of silent treatment, I drove to his work and waited for him in the parking lot where his car was parked. When he saw me there, he was furious. In a way, showing up at work while he had split me black invalidated how he felt, if that makes sense. He was using the silent treatment as a very crude mechanism to create a boundary, and I didn't know anything about validation at the time. I thought if I showed up there I could convince him that I was there for him no matter what. That just made him even more upset. 

That's why toward the end of our marriage I was the last person who could reach him, even though I was the person who most desperately wanted to reach him. Out of his fear of abandonment, he had split me black and pushed me away, and I was all-bad. To ignore him made him even more enraged. Your ex may not be able to differentiate what is feelings-based, and what is factual because of her BPD traits. She may think that anytime you surface, you are harassing her. Feelings = facts to someone who is BPD.

Could that be why your ex filed a harassment charge against you? When people with BPD start to recruit negative advocates, and convince people that you are a target of blame, and begin to engage you with the legal process, things start to become very complicated very quickly. Sometimes, with lifelong consequences. It is not necessarily a sign that what you are doing is wrong -- it's a sign that she has ratcheted up her very complex emotional dysregulation to a new level.

Bill Eddy writes, "When potential Advocates don’t believe the HCP (which is very common initially), then the HCP escalates her emotions even more, and comes up with ever more dramatic allegations against her Target." With advocates being the police or maybe even family/friends, and target being you.

I think the difference for the Family Law board is that we aren't just dealing with BPD -- we are people whose spouses were high-conflict personalities (HCPs, according to Bill Eddy). HCPs are people who, in addition to having a personality disorder, recruit a negative advocate, have a target of blame. It's not clear yet if your ex is an HCP, but she at least is showing the tell-tale signs. We can only hope that she has some advocates in her life who are validating her feelings enough that she does not feel she has to escalate the allegations against you. I was thinking about the female cop -- that behavior would be very validating to your ex. If she felt the cop believed her, it's quite possible that was an awful experience for you could actually be the thing that encourages your ex to drop the charge. Hard to say, I'm really just speculating.

Restored2, I can't tell you how awful it is to go through the legal system with someone who is BPD + high conflict. The legal system can feel designed to fan the flames of conflict. To refer to Eddy again -- in his book Splitting, he compares how the legal system is quite similar to a personality disorder. Courts are very susceptible to emotional or persuasive blaming. And we, the "targets" are out of our depth with our non-persuasive reason and rationale. Again, from Eddy:

Targets are generally at a disadvantage in court. They trust the court to be a finder of fact; they know the facts are in their favor, so they are confident they will prevail. They start out trying not to escalate the dispute, and generally take a problem-solving and settlement-oriented approach. They behave respectfully in court and defer to the all-knowing authorities.

Eddy is actually someone with a tremendous amount of compassion for pwBPD -- he was a former social worker before he became a family law mediator and attorney. He wrote Splitting to help people like us understand what we are dealing with when BPD and courts being to tangle together, and how to do what needs to be done in order to minimize conflict and hopefully get a fair and reasonable outcome.

Sorry for the long response. I just wanted to say something about where a lot of people here on Family Law might be a little different than other boards. Sometimes, major decisions about our lives were made in quick 5-10 minutes hearings. While we sat there with binders filled with evidence, our ex spouse testified for 3 minutes with no facts within a hundred miles of court. And the ruling came down in their favor, with life-long impacts for us and our kids.

It's possible that your case will not end up as badly as those who have been here before you, but it's a big gamble. It's not just about having a relationship with someone who is unstable, or who has a temper, or cheats, or confusing shifts in mood. It's that combined with the legal system, and it can be a formidable and crippling weapon in the hands of someone who is a HCP.

You're in my thoughts and prayers, especially the part where she just lets this drop. You seem like a very caring, kind and compassionate person, with strong morals and a big heart. I hope this ends ok for you.

[Restored2]

Hi livenlearned.  Thank you so very much for your sensitive conscientious response with clarification, sincere compliments and encouraging words.  This is greatly appreciated and speaks volumes of who you are as a person of good character. 

It's good to know that somewhere between Captain Crunch and Fruit Loops in the cereal aisle that you figured it out with the light bulb going on. 

I'm not sure if I understand "rejection sensitivity" in relation to her not being the one who was rejected by me.  I also don't fully understand the whole regulate and dysregulate of emotions for a BPD person. 

I can totally relate to what you mentioned about your marriage in trying to figure out what I had done wrong.  Your hallway filled with doors analogy hits home.  I don't really understand how you showing up to your husbands place of work when he had split you black invalidated how he felt.  Why would your husband out of his fear of abandonment split you black and push you away as all bad and then to ignore him make him even more enraged?  Sounds like a no-win situation.  I don't totally get it. 

I am assuming that "HCP" is referring to high conflict personalities.  Which is confusing, because during our relationship I never saw my ex-girlfriend as being high conflict in anything.  This other side is only showing itself in her breakup.

I sure hope not to step foot into the legal court arena, as I know it is extremely deep murky waters.

I really appreciate your thoughts and prayers immensely, as well as for you taking the time to thoughtfully write what you have. 

[livednlearned]

I'm not sure if I understand "rejection sensitivity" in relation to her not being the one who was rejected by me.  I also don't fully understand the whole regulate and dysregulate of emotions for a BPD person.

The way I understand it, a BPD sufferer's feelings of rejections are based in... .feeling. Not fact. You might go to the store and be gone 15 minutes longer than you said you would. She feels rejected by you, or abandoned. She texts you, and you respond right away but the text doesn't arrive until an hour later. She feels rejected. In each instance, she cannot regulate her emotions, and acts impulsively, goes into a rage, becomes extremely defensive to protect the core wound, which is that she has not developed a stable sense of self. You could do everything she demands (you probably did), and even more, to the point that you are second-guessing her needs, treating her like no one else has treated her, but she will still feel sensitive to rejection because her thought system is driven by her feelings. There are no brakes to help her emotions and thoughts from churning. You cannot be trusted because you're the one she perceives has just harmed her.

I can totally relate to what you mentioned about your marriage in trying to figure out what I had done wrong.  Your hallway filled with doors analogy hits home.  I don't really understand how you showing up to your husbands place of work when he had split you black invalidated how he felt.  Why would your husband out of his fear of abandonment split you black and push you away as all bad and then to ignore him make him even more enraged?  Sounds like a no-win situation.  I don't totally get it. 

Because he perceived that I had done some terrible injustice to him. He was feeling not just the hurt of whatever I had done, but the repeating hurt of whatever that wound is -- rejection from his mother, most likely. His only coping mechanism is to split people black. You are either all good or all bad. It's entirely justified in his mind as a legitimate response, a normal coping skill, when someone rejects him. There is no half this, half that during those moments, so when I was cast black and frozen out, he felt that I was invalidating his feelings, as though I just rolled right over them with no regard for how he felt.

I am assuming that "HCP" is referring to high conflict personalities.  Which is confusing, because during our relationship I never saw my ex-girlfriend as being high conflict in anything.  This other side is only showing itself in her breakup.

Yes, HCP is high-conflict personalities. Not all pwBPD are high conflict. And what you say about your ex is heartening -- if she was not high-conflict in the relationship, it's possible she will not be in the split. Let's hope she was triggered in that moment and was acting out of high emotions, and does not settle into a campaign where she targets you relentlessly through the legal system.

If you look at schema therapy, that might help you understand the "modes" of angry child, lonely child, punitive parent, detached protector, etc. that your ex may have cycled through. The intense rejection sensitivity can trigger these modes. There's a good article about schema therapy here.

[Restored2]

Hi livednlearned.  Thank you for your follow-up detailed response with article link about schema therapy.  This article is very informative for me to put in perspective for how she may have cycled through these modes. 

So once again, for a BPD person it is pretty much all summed up as feeling=facts.  What a messed up way of thinking this is! 

Interesting perspective on your husband splitting you black with feeling the repeating hurt from the wounds of his past.  I take it that this splitting someone black could be even more intensified for someone who has been previously sexually abused on top of physical, emotional and mental abuse, making them extremely sensitive to all sorts of physical and emotional triggers.  Is this an accurate statement?

   

[livednlearned]

 Interesting perspective on your husband splitting you black with feeling the repeating hurt from the wounds of his past.  I take it that this splitting someone black could be even more intensified for someone who has been previously sexually abused on top of physical, emotional and mental abuse, making them extremely sensitive to all sorts of physical and emotional triggers.  Is this an accurate statement?  

I believe so. My ex's formative years are a bit fuzzy to me, but I believe his mother (bipolar, possibly BPD) had some kind of psychotic break or post-partum depression following N/BPDx's birth. She was hospitalized, and it sounds like nuns (?) took care of N/BPDx in some kind of institution for the first year of his life. His father sent the older sister to live with relatives. I have to imagine, reading about attachment theory, that being separated from your mother at birth must have had a profound impact on his development, especially if the caregivers had a lot of children to care for.

N/BPDx also had a visceral hatred of the Catholic church that was so emotionally charged he would barely tolerate the celebration of Christmas. It was the most difficult challenge we had, other than the obvious BPD problems. It broke my heart to not be able to go to church with S13. I look back now and realize that most of the emotions N/BPDx had about the Catholic church had to do with pedophilia. He claimed two of his altar boy friends were sexually molested. But it was so strange how it came up -- at first it was his cousin, then it was a friend. When I asked if there were actually two kids molested by the same priest, he got angry at me for challenging him. I was just trying to figure out if there was more than one, which is how he initially told the story. I suspect it could've been N/BPDx who was molested, and he would forget which kid he used as the proxy victim when he was telling the story to me. The whole family left the church, which makes me wonder if they knew, but instead of bringing it to attention, they just left, and buried the shame.  

There's no way to know, but I don't know how else to explain the behavior that just came out of left field. And even though the emotional logic is not the same as factual logic, there is a pattern there. I wish I knew more about validation when we were together. I really had no clue, and it wasn't until the relationship was over that I learned about it. It's possible it was too late anyway, but still. I can't help but wonder. I'm happier now, and it would've been a challenge to raise a child with him. I trust that this is what was meant to happen, as baffling as it has been.

One thing, though.

for a BPD person it is pretty much all summed up as feeling=facts.  What a messed up way of thinking this is!  

I don't know. I mean, yes -- in excess. But when I really pay attention to how I think, and where my thoughts come from, I've noticed how sometimes I will think something and it is based on some floating thought that came out of... .where? Often the past, or sometimes a projection into the future. I can be thinking about a conversation with my boss a few days earlier while driving in the car, and then next thing I know I'm muttering under my breath, still irritated. Emotions play a role in shaping who we are, and our stability as a person, how we interact in the world. We tend to treat emotions as something that creates problems, and it certainly feels that way when you're in a relationship with someone who is BPD. But the more I heal, the more I realize that the problem is when we don't pay attention to feelings, like they're somehow not real. In ourselves, just as much as in pwBPD. This isn't to say that validation cures everything, but it's amazing how powerful it is. It's changed my life.  

[Restored2]

I wish I knew more about validation when we were together. I really had no clue, and it wasn't until the relationship was over that I learned about it. It's possible it was too late anyway, but still. I can't help but wonder. I'm happier now, and it would've been a challenge to raise a child with him. I trust that this is what was meant to happen, as baffling as it has been.

We tend to treat emotions as something that creates problems, and it certainly feels that way when you're in a relationship with someone who is BPD. But the more I heal, the more I realize that the problem is when we don't pay attention to feelings, like they're somehow not real. In ourselves, just as much as in pwBPD. This isn't to say that validation cures everything, but it's amazing how powerful it is. It's changed my life.  

I too wish that I had of known all about this BPD stuff while I was still in the relationship, or better yet, before I even stepped foot into the relationship.  I was totally clued out about what BPD was.  Either way, you present as being extremely insightful.

Emotions are flags that should never be ignored.  Validation is not the cure for everything, but I can see where it is powerful.

[Turkish]

I'm not sure if I understand "rejection sensitivity" in relation to her not being the one who was rejected by me.  I also don't fully understand the whole regulate and dysregulate of emotions for a BPD person. 

R2, take a look at this from a thread on object constancy (the whole thread is good):

"[object constancy is] the capacity to value an object for attributes other than its function of satisfying needs."  And this one speaks volumes.  To me it says that pwBPD, who *lack* object constancy, are unable to value (or love) an object (us) when they find that we no longer function to satisfy their needs.  This is to say, they only love us so long as they need us.  And when they do not need us, they find that they are unable to love us.

For a pwBPD, not only do feelings=facts, but love=need. My Ex realized the latter to a certain extent, by what I found in one of her journals,"I just want to run back into his arms, but that would be out of need, not love." And, "Turkish is everything a woman could want in a man, but I just can't love him." She had, of course, found a new "love" by then, but what she missed is that she ran to him out of her version of love: need. This, of course, was a mirror for me to look into why I wanted to fix the r/s, the two little kids we have aside.

I think a lot of us here try to get back to that point of being needed by our pwBPD. Due to being split, however, they've moved on, recycles notwithstanding, and people only talk about a recycles after the r/s is done. Are we addicted to being in loaded relationships, or do we not know any better?

[Restored2]

"[object constancy is] the capacity to value an object for attributes other than its function of satisfying needs."  And this one speaks volumes.  To me it says that pwBPD, who *lack* object constancy, are unable to value (or love) an object (us) when they find that we no longer function to satisfy their needs.  This is to say, they only love us so long as they need us.  And when they do not need us, they find that they are unable to love us.

For a pwBPD, not only do feelings=facts, but love=need. My Ex realized the latter to a certain extent, by what I found in one of her journals,"I just want to run back into his arms, but that would be out of need, not love." And, "Turkish is everything a woman could want in a man, but I just can't love him." She had, of course, found a new "love" by then, but what she missed is that she ran to him out of her version of love: need. This, of course, was a mirror for me to look into why I wanted to fix the r/s, the two little kids we have aside.

Hi Turkish.  Thank you for your sharing with the thread links.  Very insightful material.

What a sad reflection on the thinking of your ex from what she wrote in her journal.  I don't really understand how she could have the desire "to just want to run back into" your "arms, but that would be out of need, not love" and say that "she just can't love" you.  This doesn't make sense to me.  I don't think I put together that love = need for a BPD person.  In other words, they only love out of need to be loved themselves?

I understood "object constancy" to refer to someone (object) having a consistent track record of character, reputation, trustworthiness, etc.  Is this not the case?

   

[Turkish]

"[object constancy is] the capacity to value an object for attributes other than its function of satisfying needs."  And this one speaks volumes.  To me it says that pwBPD, who *lack* object constancy, are unable to value (or love) an object (us) when they find that we no longer function to satisfy their needs.  This is to say, they only love us so long as they need us.  And when they do not need us, they find that they are unable to love us.

For a pwBPD, not only do feelings=facts, but love=need. My Ex realized the latter to a certain extent, by what I found in one of her journals,"I just want to run back into his arms, but that would be out of need, not love." And, "Turkish is everything a woman could want in a man, but I just can't love him." She had, of course, found a new "love" by then, but what she missed is that she ran to him out of her version of love: need. This, of course, was a mirror for me to look into why I wanted to fix the r/s, the two little kids we have aside.

Hi Turkish.  Thank you for your sharing with the thread links.  Very insightful material.

What a sad reflection on the thinking of your ex from what she wrote in her journal.  I don't really understand how she could have the desire "to just want to run back into" your "arms, but that would be out of need, not love" and say that "she just can't love" you.  This doesn't make sense to me.  I don't think I put together that love = need for a BPD person.  In other words, they only love out of need to be loved themselves?

I understood "object constancy" to refer to someone (object) having a consistent track record of character, reputation, trustworthiness, etc.  Is this not the case?

I would say that is values constancy. In psychological terms, it's what's talked about in the thread.

As for love vs. need, or a discussion of what love is, that's a recurring topic here. If you want to learn more about what you are dealing with here, take a look at some of the topics marked with the black "I" on the Questions and BPD Resources page. Most (all?) of us went into these relationships eyes wide shut. The fact that there is a legal board here is a testament to the wreckage that some of these relationships can cause due to the disorder. We play a part, too. Do you remember the movie War Games? Sometimes the winning move is not to play. If you do choose so, then learn as much as you can, if not for whatever is going on now, but for future relationships.

[Restored2]

Thank you for your words of wisdom and the link referrals, Turkish.  It is outright scary the fact that there is a legal board as a testament to the wreckage that BPD relationships can cause.  They can be like wrecking balls in our lives!  I can see how not playing could be the winning move in some instances... .