Saw my therapist, today

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Good session. Absolutely confirmed everything I knew/suspected about the current mode of contact by her and her BPD. I guess I needed the validation that I was right.

Said a lot of encouraging things and, while I'm on the right road, I still have a ways to go. Baby steps.

My therapist has met her several times, counseled with her and is dead set on her having BPD. Most of all, she was proud that I let go and moved on, but I still need to work on validation from others for my own self-worth. Fill my own cup, by myself. She told me it was a lesson I had to learn from myself, nobody was going to teach it to me. I agree.

Biggest thing she told me that really stuck with me is "Knowing what you know, doing what you've done, why would you still give her ANY sort of power over you?" (ruminations). That struck a chord. She knows how to light my fuse and that lit it good.

Between that, and this site, it's helped so, so much.

[Irish Pride]

Good session. Absolutely confirmed everything I knew/suspected about the current mode of contact by her and her BPD. I guess I needed the validation that I was right.

Said a lot of encouraging things and, while I'm on the right road, I still have a ways to go. Baby steps.

My therapist has met her several times, counseled with her and is dead set on her having BPD. Most of all, she was proud that I let go and moved on, but I still need to work on validation from others for my own self-worth. Fill my own cup, by myself. She told me it was a lesson I had to learn from myself, nobody was going to teach it to me. I agree.

Biggest thing she told me that really stuck with me is "Knowing what you know, doing what you've done, why would you still give her ANY sort of power over you?" (ruminations). That struck a chord. She knows how to light my fuse and that lit it good.

Between that, and this site, it's helped so, so much.

[dobie]

That's awesome "Irish" love that quote by your T as well ! 

[Dunder]

Congratulations Irish. That's great news!

[Irish Pride]

Thank you!

I will no longer be the puppet. I've cut the strings and will act on my own devices. I will trust my intuition and, if I'm wrong, I'll learn from it. My failure to listen to my gut, to acknowledge every, bloody     is why I am where I am. I take full responsibility for it. But, I also have to be mindful that I don't go over to the other side of the spectrum. There's a lot of grey area and I need to always keep that in mind. React, but don't overreact.

[ReclaimingMyLife]

Fabulous work by you and equally famous quote by your T.   Thank you for sharing!

[Irish Pride]

Fabulous work by you and equally famous quote by your T.   Thank you for sharing!

Thank you! 

[Achaya]

Thank you!

I will trust my intuition and, if I'm wrong, I'll learn from it. My failure to listen to my gut, to acknowledge every, bloody     is why I am where I am. I take full responsibility for it.

Same here, Irish. When I go back and look at journal entries I wrote years ago, I see that I knew then everything that culminated in my ex walking out on me. I wrote her a letter, but never shared it, in which I actually told her how she was going to abandon me in the end, and it is exactly accurate. I wrote this 3 years ago!

I really did a number on myself, to have known all this information and yet not acted upon it. I dropped it into a mental file for the "bad times," just like the letters were all dropped into a certain Word file. I would literally reread them after the times my ex withdrew, and it would totally validate what I was seeing during the current bad time, but I still didn't push the information into conversations with my partner. She reacted so badly, I became increasingly afraid over time to share with her any information about the impact was having on me.

The information about her abuse and her instability in the relationship resided within me, not between us, and absolutely not within her.

[jhkbuzz]

Good quote!    Here's one that my T said the other day that has stuck with me:

"She's in a dysfunctional relationship with herself.  How could she be in a functional relationship with anyone else?"

[Achaya]

Good quote!    Here's one that my T said the other day that has stuck with me:

"She's in a dysfunctional relationship with herself.  How could she be in a functional relationship with anyone else?"

That is amazing! I started noticing that about my ex a few months before the relationship ended. During the time she was distant from me, she frequently was engaged in some destructive interaction between parts of herself. For example, self-loathing in which she experienced one part attacking another, self-punishment rituals, self-pity, and so on. When I recognized that she was more involved in these self-self relationships than she was in relating to a partner in the outer reality.

[Irish Pride]

Thank you!

I will trust my intuition and, if I'm wrong, I'll learn from it. My failure to listen to my gut, to acknowledge every, bloody     is why I am where I am. I take full responsibility for it.

Same here, Irish. When I go back and look at journal entries I wrote years ago, I see that I knew then everything that culminated in my ex walking out on me. I wrote her a letter, but never shared it, in which I actually told her how she was going to abandon me in the end, and it is exactly accurate. I wrote this 3 years ago!

I really did a number on myself, to have known all this information and yet not acted upon it. I dropped it into a mental file for the "bad times," just like the letters were all dropped into a certain Word file. I would literally reread them after the times my ex withdrew, and it would totally validate what I was seeing during the current bad time, but I still didn't push the information into conversations with my partner. She reacted so badly, I became increasingly afraid over time to share with her any information about the impact was having on me.

The information about her abuse and her instability in the relationship resided within me, not between us, and absolutely not within her.

That's my biggest struggle. I'm not a stupid person, but I acted in a VERY stupid way and I'm beating the bloody shyte out of myself over it. But, it's getting better. I hit the "shyteass lottery" with this one. But, I have to just keep remembering that it's a learning experience and I really am the better for my knowledge. Hope you do, too!

[Irish Pride]

Good quote!    Here's one that my T said the other day that has stuck with me:

"She's in a dysfunctional relationship with herself.  How could she be in a functional relationship with anyone else?"

Love it! 

[ReclaimingMyLife]

Good quote!    Here's one that my T said the other day that has stuck with me:

"She's in a dysfunctional relationship with herself.  How could she be in a functional relationship with anyone else?"

This quote is brilliant!   Certainly true of my ex and very true of me post-b/u.   I need to learn from this r/s,  to be sure,  but when I crawl up in bed with my own self-loathing and become immobilized I am in an equally dysfunctional r/s with myself.   This is brilliant.   Thank you!

[Achaya]

In my case, choosing abusive partners then staying with them has been too much of a lifelong pattern. What I see in myself is not stupidity, but a way of relating that fits with the needs of pwBPD and other abusive people. I learned this as a child, and now I do it automatically. I need to take these behaviors off the auto pilot and take more control of how I think about and act within my relationships. I am getting interested in the process.

[Irish Pride]

In my case, choosing abusive partners then staying with them has been too much of a lifelong pattern. What I see in myself is not stupidity, but a way of relating that fits with the needs of pwBPD and other abusive people. I learned this as a child, and now I do it automatically. I need to take these behaviors off the auto pilot and take more control of how I think about and act within my relationships. I am getting interested in the process.

Same here. I'm on my path, sounds like you are, too! Best of luck!

[jhkbuzz]

Good quote!    Here's one that my T said the other day that has stuck with me:

"She's in a dysfunctional relationship with herself.  How could she be in a functional relationship with anyone else?"

That is amazing! I started noticing that about my ex a few months before the relationship ended. During the time she was distant from me, she frequently was engaged in some destructive interaction between parts of herself. For example, self-loathing in which she experienced one part attacking another, self-punishment rituals, self-pity, and so on. When I recognized that she was more involved in these self-self relationships than she was in relating to a partner in the outer reality.

Interesting that you should use the phrase, "parts of herself."

About a year before we broke up, I (finally!) began to recognize that my ex had mental health issues.  Up until that point I had somehow failed to recognize that I had been living with someone who rotated through a "cast of characters."  I began wondering if she had dissociative identity disorder (DID), but some pieces didn't seem to fit (she didn't have serious memory lapses that I was aware of, for example).

We were having a lot of issues around this time as well - first and foremost being her infidelities. I told her that the only way I would continue in the r/s was if she agreed to get into therapy, which she happily agreed to. Her therapist almost immediately began giving her the "lingo" to describe her mental landscape, which was very helpful in our conversations.  She admitted that she heard voices in her head, and her therapist told her that these were her different "parts of self."  There was 'little M', a very childlike (4 year old range) part who often took the lead; there was 'teenage M', who had been acting out in our r/s by being unfaithful; there was 'adult M' who really should have been running the show but would allow these other parts to take the lead.  In addition, I had experiences with her in which she was shut down (slept and slept and slept) or was completely emotionally detached - even in situations that I was crying and upset. Despite all we had been through, I was hopeful that things would get better between us as she progressed in therapy, but as it all turned out she lied to me the entire year she was in therapy about being in contact with her affair partner (she swore she cut off contact, but she didn't).

I began to suspect BPD about a month before she moved out - and everything about both the breakup and aftermath confirmed it for me.  I found this site about that time, and also started seeing a T - who was pretty wide-eyed as I was describing everything I explained here. Her theory (although she likes to remind me that she can't diagnose from afar) is that my ex is actually more dissociative, but that teenage M is also borderline.  She says that kind of co-morbidity is not uncommon.

What pulled everything together for me is when someone mentioned "schema therapy" in a discussion on these boards - light bulbs started going off and all the pieces started to fit into place when I started to read about it. Schema Therapy was developed by Jeffrey Young for pwBPD to:

“….address lifelong, self-defeating patterns called early maladaptive schemas.  Over a period of 15 years, Young and associates identified 18 early maladaptive schemas through clinical observation. A basic premise of Jeffrey Young’s approach is that individuals with more complex problems have one or more early maladaptive schemas, which makes them vulnerable to emotional disorders.

An early maladaptive schema has been defined by Jeffrey Young as ‘a broad pervasive theme or pattern regarding oneself and one's relationship with others, developed during childhood and elaborated throughout one's lifetime, and dysfunctional to a significant degree.’ Therefore Early Maladaptive Schemas began with something that was done to us by our families or by other children, which damaged us in some way. We might have been abandoned, criticized, overprotected, emotionally or physically abused, excluded or deprived and, consequently, the schema becomes part of us.  Schemata are essentially valid representations of early childhood experiences, and serve as templates for processing and defining later behaviors, thoughts, feelings and relationships with others. Early maladaptive schemas include entrenched patterns of distorted thinking, disruptive emotions and dysfunctional behaviors.  Schemata are perpetuated throughout one’s lifetime and become activated under conditions relevant to that particular schema.” (taken from www.cognitivetherapy.me.uk/schema_therapy.htm)

What particularly caught my attention were the Schema Modes.  Schema Modes are “the moment-to-moment emotional states and coping responses that we all experience.  Often our schema modes are triggered by life situations that we are oversensitive to (our "emotional buttons".  At any given point in time, some of our schemas, coping responses, and emotional states are inactive, or dormant, while others have become activated by life events and predominate our current mood and behavior.  The predominant state that we are in at a given point in time is called our schema mode. All of us flip from mode to mode over time.” (www.schematherapy.com/id61.htm)

There are both healthy and maladaptive schema modes.  There is the “healthy adult” and “contented child” mode – but there are a plethora of maladaptive modes.  The listing of all the modes can be found at www.schematherapy.com/id72.htm.  When I read the listing I almost fell out of my chair.  Many of these modes described my ex’s state of functioning at various stages of our r/s. 

When we first moved in together she was in “vulnerable child” and “compliant surrenderer” mode. She was also often in “punitive parent” mode – towards herself.  She had an extremely critical inner voice that would continually tell her how (fat, stupid, insert-your-insult-here) she was.  Was she ever in “healthy adult” mode?  I think so, but the appearances of the healthy adult were few and far between.

By year four when she began her infidelities she had switched into (passive-aggressive) angry child mode, as well as impulsive child mode.  Mixed in were bouts of detached protector mode, and that internal punitive parent voice began to be turned outward towards ME. No wonder why I couldn’t recognize who she was anymore!  The dichotomy was extreme, and it made my head spin for a very long time.  I suspect that “healthy adult” was also in the mix, and might account for the times that things seemed to get better.  But it never lasted, and eventually she would slip back into maladaptive modes of functioning.

In the immediate aftermath of our b/u, I used to wonder if she ever really loved me.  Now I understand that she did... .but sometimes as a healthy adult, more often as the needy 'abandoned child.' Did she care about our r/s?  ‘Yes’ when she was her adult self, but too often ‘no’ when she was operating out of impulsive/undisciplined child mode. In that mode she was capable of bouts of impulsivity (lying, cheating) that destroyed our r/s. Did she care about my well-being?  Yes, sometimes – but sometimes not at all, especially when she was in detached protector mode.  Did she see the good in me?  Often - unless she was in punitive parent mode, and then I was the meanest, most controlling, most worthless POS on the planet.

I think the truest thing I could say is that she loved me, but was unable to sustain her ‘adult-self’ love for me for any length of time.  She slipped into maladaptive ways of coping so often that a healthy, adult r/s was never sustainable.  It took me a very long time to understand that.

[jhkbuzz]

Good quote!    Here's one that my T said the other day that has stuck with me:

"She's in a dysfunctional relationship with herself.  How could she be in a functional relationship with anyone else?"

This quote is brilliant!   Certainly true of my ex and very true of me post-b/u.   I need to learn from this r/s,  to be sure,  but when I crawl up in bed with my own self-loathing and become immobilized I am in an equally dysfunctional r/s with myself.   This is brilliant.   Thank you!

Yes - we are ALL capable of having a dysfunctional r/s with ourselves - but it's a matter of degree.  In therapy I'm dealing with being molested as a child and the shame that I've carried because of it throughout my life.  My T described that as being in a dysfunctional r/s with myself - but while I'm at 20% dysfunctional and 80% healthy, it's the opposite for my ex.  Not beating anyone up here; we all have our "stuff" - but some have more "stuff" and dysfunction to deal with than others.

[Achaya]

Interesting that you should use the phrase, "parts of herself."

All of the description in your post also applies to my experience in my most recent relationship. I was aware of the cast of characters early on. In the beginning there was an adult who I fell in love with, but that person was out less and less over time. I was left longing painfully, anxiously, for the return and enduring presence of my favorite adult part, the only one who really connected with me in a mutual way. It's not the usual thing to be going on in a relationship, pining for one of your partner's inner selves to return. I am so codependent I didn't care about that. I had no idea how devastating the impact would be on our relationship. I didn't know until I got to this website that the on/off relating pattern was a part of BPD and a consequence of not having an integrated self. I have learned a lot in a short time.

[Irish Pride]

Good quote!    Here's one that my T said the other day that has stuck with me:

"She's in a dysfunctional relationship with herself.  How could she be in a functional relationship with anyone else?"

That is amazing! I started noticing that about my ex a few months before the relationship ended. During the time she was distant from me, she frequently was engaged in some destructive interaction between parts of herself. For example, self-loathing in which she experienced one part attacking another, self-punishment rituals, self-pity, and so on. When I recognized that she was more involved in these self-self relationships than she was in relating to a partner in the outer reality.

Interesting that you should use the phrase, "parts of herself."

About a year before we broke up, I (finally!) began to recognize that my ex had mental health issues.  Up until that point I had somehow failed to recognize that I had been living with someone who rotated through a "cast of characters."  I began wondering if she had dissociative identity disorder (DID), but some pieces didn't seem to fit (she didn't have serious memory lapses that I was aware of, for example).

We were having a lot of issues around this time as well - first and foremost being her infidelities. I told her that the only way I would continue in the r/s was if she agreed to get into therapy, which she happily agreed to. Her therapist almost immediately began giving her the "lingo" to describe her mental landscape, which was very helpful in our conversations.  She admitted that she heard voices in her head, and her therapist told her that these were her different "parts of self."  There was 'little M', a very childlike (4 year old range) part who often took the lead; there was 'teenage M', who had been acting out in our r/s by being unfaithful; there was 'adult M' who really should have been running the show but would allow these other parts to take the lead.  In addition, I had experiences with her in which she was shut down (slept and slept and slept) or was completely emotionally detached - even in situations that I was crying and upset. Despite all we had been through, I was hopeful that things would get better between us as she progressed in therapy, but as it all turned out she lied to me the entire year she was in therapy about being in contact with her affair partner (she swore she cut off contact, but she didn't).

I began to suspect BPD about a month before she moved out - and everything about both the breakup and aftermath confirmed it for me.  I found this site about that time, and also started seeing a T - who was pretty wide-eyed as I was describing everything I explained here. Her theory (although she likes to remind me that she can't diagnose from afar) is that my ex is actually more dissociative, but that teenage M is also borderline.  She says that kind of co-morbidity is not uncommon.

What pulled everything together for me is when someone mentioned "schema therapy" in a discussion on these boards - light bulbs started going off and all the pieces started to fit into place when I started to read about it. Schema Therapy was developed by Jeffrey Young for pwBPD to:

“….address lifelong, self-defeating patterns called early maladaptive schemas.  Over a period of 15 years, Young and associates identified 18 early maladaptive schemas through clinical observation. A basic premise of Jeffrey Young’s approach is that individuals with more complex problems have one or more early maladaptive schemas, which makes them vulnerable to emotional disorders.

An early maladaptive schema has been defined by Jeffrey Young as ‘a broad pervasive theme or pattern regarding oneself and one's relationship with others, developed during childhood and elaborated throughout one's lifetime, and dysfunctional to a significant degree.’ Therefore Early Maladaptive Schemas began with something that was done to us by our families or by other children, which damaged us in some way. We might have been abandoned, criticized, overprotected, emotionally or physically abused, excluded or deprived and, consequently, the schema becomes part of us.  Schemata are essentially valid representations of early childhood experiences, and serve as templates for processing and defining later behaviors, thoughts, feelings and relationships with others. Early maladaptive schemas include entrenched patterns of distorted thinking, disruptive emotions and dysfunctional behaviors.  Schemata are perpetuated throughout one’s lifetime and become activated under conditions relevant to that particular schema.” (taken from www.cognitivetherapy.me.uk/schema_therapy.htm)

What particularly caught my attention were the Schema Modes.  Schema Modes are “the moment-to-moment emotional states and coping responses that we all experience.  Often our schema modes are triggered by life situations that we are oversensitive to (our "emotional buttons".  At any given point in time, some of our schemas, coping responses, and emotional states are inactive, or dormant, while others have become activated by life events and predominate our current mood and behavior.  The predominant state that we are in at a given point in time is called our schema mode. All of us flip from mode to mode over time.” (www.schematherapy.com/id61.htm)

There are both healthy and maladaptive schema modes.  There is the “healthy adult” and “contented child” mode – but there are a plethora of maladaptive modes.  The listing of all the modes can be found at www.schematherapy.com/id72.htm.  When I read the listing I almost fell out of my chair.  Many of these modes described my ex’s state of functioning at various stages of our r/s. 

When we first moved in together she was in “vulnerable child” and “compliant surrenderer” mode. She was also often in “punitive parent” mode – towards herself.  She had an extremely critical inner voice that would continually tell her how (fat, stupid, insert-your-insult-here) she was.  Was she ever in “healthy adult” mode?  I think so, but the appearances of the healthy adult were few and far between.

By year four when she began her infidelities she had switched into (passive-aggressive) angry child mode, as well as impulsive child mode.  Mixed in were bouts of detached protector mode, and that internal punitive parent voice began to be turned outward towards ME. No wonder why I couldn’t recognize who she was anymore!  The dichotomy was extreme, and it made my head spin for a very long time.  I suspect that “healthy adult” was also in the mix, and might account for the times that things seemed to get better.  But it never lasted, and eventually she would slip back into maladaptive modes of functioning.

In the immediate aftermath of our b/u, I used to wonder if she ever really loved me.  Now I understand that she did... .but sometimes as a healthy adult, more often as the needy 'abandoned child.' Did she care about our r/s?  ‘Yes’ when she was her adult self, but too often ‘no’ when she was operating out of impulsive/undisciplined child mode. In that mode she was capable of bouts of impulsivity (lying, cheating) that destroyed our r/s. Did she care about my well-being?  Yes, sometimes – but sometimes not at all, especially when she was in detached protector mode.  Did she see the good in me?  Often - unless she was in punitive parent mode, and then I was the meanest, most controlling, most worthless POS on the planet.

I think the truest thing I could say is that she loved me, but was unable to sustain her ‘adult-self’ love for me for any length of time.  She slipped into maladaptive ways of coping so often that a healthy, adult r/s was never sustainable.  It took me a very long time to understand that.

Thank you this! Very informative!

[DyingLove]

Thank you!

I will no longer be the puppet. I've cut the strings and will act on my own devices. I will trust my intuition and, if I'm wrong, I'll learn from it. My failure to listen to my gut, to acknowledge every, bloody     is why I am where I am. I take full responsibility for it. But, I also have to be mindful that I don't go over to the other side of the spectrum. There's a lot of grey area and I need to always keep that in mind. React, but don't overreact.

Good for you IrishPride.  I'm glad you're makin' it!  Too much dread lately, it's good to hear positive stuff!   :-)

[Irish Pride]

Thank you!

I will no longer be the puppet. I've cut the strings and will act on my own devices. I will trust my intuition and, if I'm wrong, I'll learn from it. My failure to listen to my gut, to acknowledge every, bloody     is why I am where I am. I take full responsibility for it. But, I also have to be mindful that I don't go over to the other side of the spectrum. There's a lot of grey area and I need to always keep that in mind. React, but don't overreact.

Good for you IrishPride.  I'm glad you're makin' it!  Too much dread lately, it's good to hear positive stuff!   :-)

Thank you, DL! I just wrote something similar in another thread.  We're in this, together.