Does anyone ever argue with their exBPD inside their own head?

[Fox Mulder]

This isn't meant to be a super serious thread, just something I've been thinking of recently.

After spending five years with my exBPDgf, I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what she'll say in any given argument. I've been NC with her for six months and I keep finding myself thinking about what the argument would be like if we were to talk again. All the things I could say ("you were cheating on me the entire time but you won't accept blame for it because you were 'depressed and suicidal' and somehow can't be held accountable for your actions) and all the things she'd say ("you emotionally manipulated me into idolizing you by making me think you were this really great person but you weren't, you were just manipulative and selfish".

Of course, whenever I start imagining this hypothetical argument, I have to firmly remind myself that it's never going to happen because I'm never saying another word to her ever again. It's impossible to win an argument against someone with BPD. They're not worth having. I'm heartbroken about losing the good aspects of the relationship, but I definitely don't miss the circular and endlessly-looping discussions I had with her about our relationship, her therapy, and her self-worth. None of the help I tried to give her was ever enough to matter, but even the smallest mistakes I made were enough for her to make a molehill out of and justify how pitch black she's painted me.

[once removed]

hey fox mulder,

i remember the circular arguments very well. about half the time id try to walk away. usually i would try in vain to come up with some magical bullet proof argument. i think ive learned my lesson, but it took me a while to also realize that perhaps my goal should not be "winning" an argument.

this kind of replaying arguments is not uncommon, ive done it in far more situations than my relationship with my ex. its about replaying a loop on a tape and in a sense, mentally trying to change the outcome. its actually pretty doable, but it clicks when we change the loop.

"All the things I could say ("you were cheating on me the entire time but you won't accept blame for it because you were 'depressed and suicidal' and somehow can't be held accountable for your actions)

try, on your end, accepting that she wont accept blame. trim it down, try not to attribute motives. this person has a mental illness. thats not an excuse; it is what it is. mental illness is not easily accepted or understood very quickly, it takes time and studying and more time and more studying.

and all the things she'd say ("you emotionally manipulated me into idolizing you by making me think you were this really great person but you weren't, you were just manipulative and selfish"."

arent we all? as you may know, a pwBPD has difficulty seeing us in shades of grey, as people with positive and negative qualities. all they see is the positive at first (this can also be true for all of us, but can be more extreme for a person with mental illness). seeing our failings triggers swinging back and forth between seeing only the positive and only the negative; very difficult to ever see both. its not personal, though it feels that way.

this may help with understanding and accepting what feels impossible:

Radical Acceptance

[joeramabeme]

This isn't meant to be a super serious thread, just something I've been thinking of recently.

After spending five years with my exBPDgf, I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what she'll say in any given argument. I've been NC with her for six months and I keep finding myself thinking about what the argument would be like if we were to talk again. All the things I could say ("you were cheating on me the entire time but you won't accept blame for it because you were 'depressed and suicidal' and somehow can't be held accountable for your actions) and all the things she'd say ("you emotionally manipulated me into idolizing you by making me think you were this really great person but you weren't, you were just manipulative and selfish".

Of course, whenever I start imagining this hypothetical argument, I have to firmly remind myself that it's never going to happen because I'm never saying another word to her ever again. It's impossible to win an argument against someone with BPD. They're not worth having. I'm heartbroken about losing the good aspects of the relationship, but I definitely don't miss the circular and endlessly-looping discussions I had with her about our relationship, her therapy, and her self-worth. None of the help I tried to give her was ever enough to matter, but even the smallest mistakes I made were enough for her to make a molehill out of and justify how pitch black she's painted me.

Fox Mulder, my answer is a definitive yes!  For me the looping arguments and discussions are like an inconsistency that cannot be resolved no matter how hard I try to understand.  What helps me break the loop is to stop trying to process it from MY way of thinking and understanding. 

She does not think like I do, so how could I resolve real or imaginary arguments using my thought processes.  Placing myself in her shoes and then trying to understand the looping argument is a way of practicing acceptance.  I can't reconcile her way of understanding but I can accept that she thinks or feels the way she does. 

In thinking about my many arguments with my pwBPD traits, is that for her feelings are facts.  She would actually tell me this.  I tried to argue with her about her feelings are not facts but just feelings, she never got it and it only served to upset her and push us further apart.  Sometimes when I still ruminate about arguments, I can short circuit my mind by realizing that her position about facts were based on her feelings.  Of course, I most often did not agree, but, once I can accept that this true for her, I can begin acceptance of her and the loss of my r/s.

Hope this provides some release from your mind-chatter.  I am not perfect at this and sometimes I think part of the process of having this internal dialogue is to re-clarify that I was not directly to blame for what happened, even if she feels I am.

[oor_wullie]

sorry to pluck an oldert thread out this way, but i spotted this just now and really wanted to speak to it.

your comment really hit a nerve in me, because it's the last part of NC that i constantly struggle with. i talk to her in my head... .no, not talk, *argue*!

there are so many things that go unsaid with borderlines. we can't talk to them, not properly, because so many things trigger their anger or defence mechanisms. and they never, *ever*, EVER, take responsibility for anything. i think that lack of ability to own their own crap is at the root of why it's so hard to break free. there's no possibility of closure when you can't ever have a proper conversation where problems are expressed and each person takes ownership of the hurt they caused and show they're sorry.

so we end up, when they leave, or when we leave, with nothing but unspoken, unexpressed frustrations; and thousands of conversations that we never had, and never *could* have had.

so you start having those conversations in your head. i started doing this even while we were still together. and even then, i could never quite bring myself to speak these things out loud to her. either she'd be okay, and then i'd not want to rock the boat, or she'd be angry, but then it would be impossible to talk to her.

i had maybe two conversations, very early on, where i talked very abstractly about the things that had hurt me, and she sort of listened and seemed to be sorry and even apologise. but as soon as i ever brought up anything specific, it was always my fault - her general apology for the general hurt she caused me evaporated when faced with specifics.

so i'm left reliving those conversations, over and over, and then creating loads of new ones about all the other crap that i either never dared discuss, or i found out about later. over and over. it's like a nightmare sometimes. it affects my mood. and  it's so hard to shut it off. even when i manage to shut it down, as soon as i'm off my guard, it starts again - an endless round and round.

and there's no closure here. i know the voice i hear isn't hers. i know that she'd never take any responsibility for anything. even the arguments i have with her in my head i lose! or, if i allow myself to win the argument, it feels so hollow it just makes me feel worse.

i don't know the answer, other than to stay hyper-vigilant at all times.

in any event, fox, you have my sympathies. i know how hard that can be.

[SummerStorm]

The worst thing about arguing with a pwBPD is that you usually have no idea what you're actually arguing about.  I get into arguments all the time; I'm a high school teacher, and it comes with the job.  Those arguments are usually pretty stupid (a student gets mad when I don't accept his late homework), but at least I know what I'm arguing about.

During the devaluation stage, my exBPD would just start arguments out of nowhere.  Once, I jokingly texted her and asked her to provide some goofy questions for a "how much do you really know about your teacher?" quiz that I give at the end of every school year.  Her suggestions started out normal (Which other teacher in my department did I go to high school with?) and then quickly went downhill and became not questions but criticisms that were basically just projections (They should know that you lose yourself in fantasy literature and TV shows because you can't deal with reality; They should know that you have no coping skills). 

I quickly fired back, "Sorry if I take a few damn days to get over something(this was after she decided that we should just be friends and I accepted that)Some of us actually process things and take some time to to mourn, while others just sit around and smoke pot."

She replied, "LOL... .I don't smoke pot to deal with my emotions."  I didn't even bother mentioning to her the fact that she once told me that the two best anti-depressants she's found are me and pot and that she kept telling me how smoking pot helped her clear her mind and feel calm.  My coping skills are just fine, but she couldn't understand why I would be so devastated whenever she would tell me that we should just be friends.  The first time, she at least tried to be understanding, in her own way, but I could tell that she was just going through the motions. Her coping skills, on the other hand, are nonexistent.  She got mad at me for calling her out on her actions, and she tried to turn it around on me.   

[Lucky Jim]

Fox Mulder, Agree, it's impossible to "win" one of these circular arguments with a pwBPD; it's an endless loop that leads nowhere.  My T once gave me a piece of advice: "if something is crazy, drop it."  Yet for some reason, you can't seem to "drop" these arguments with your BPDxGF.  What makes you think you can "win" one of these virtual arguments?  It seems a little like you are beating yourself up, though I'm unsure why you're doing it.  What is the reason that you are doing this to yourself, if she's out of the picture?

LuckyJim

[Gonzalo]

SummerStorm I remember spending so much effort trying desperately to understand what we were even arguing about. The arguments would have so many prickly ends and wild assumptions that just figuring out what the actual point of disagreement was could be a chore, and it didn't help that if I tried mirroring and it wasn't right, she wouldn't try to communicate her idea with different words, but would instead accuse me of not trying or not caring, then either shut down or find something new to argue about.

Lucky Jim, learning to just politely back away from the crazy is one of the positive things I took away from the relationship with my ex-. I've saved myself quite a bit of mental exhaustion and ongoing drama by politely apologizing and backing away once it's clear that things are not based on reasonable thoughts instead of trying to understand and/or fix them. I used to think that wasn't OK, that I should try to help and make it all work, but I got over that - and I have plenty of people who like and appreciate my help in my life to keep that part of me happy.

[Lost Out]

Oh hell yes! Trying to make sense of the non sense is our brains way of seeing the world as it is, congruent. Bpd is feelings are facts and that is it. If you have a logical mind then you want to get facts and make sense. At least you want to other to listen to your point of view and give it validation even if there is disagreement. But we are talking to children here, and we expect adult conversation? Who is the crazy one?

[SummerStorm]

Oh hell yes! Trying to make sense of the non sense is our brains way of seeing the world as it is, congruent. Bpd is feelings are facts and that is it. If you have a logical mind then you want to get facts and make sense. At least you want to other to listen to your point of view and give it validation even if there is disagreement. But we are talking to children here, and we expect adult conversation? Who is the crazy one?

Yes, me trying to have an adult conversation only resulted in her replying, "Ugh.  All you ever want to do is talk about things.  We don't need to talk about everything."

These replies would come after I tried to talk about how she hurt me.  Of course, we don't need to talk about my feelings.   

[joeramabeme]

At least you want to other to listen to your point of view and give it validation even if there is disagreement. But we are talking to children here, and we expect adult conversation? Who is the crazy one?

To funny!  In my insanity I crafted multiple methodologies to remove every illogical escape of the facts (at least as I saw them) and the sad part is that when I was able to successfully do this, she just gave me a blank look and would either walk away without a word or change the topic so that the logical conclusion of the facts could not be distilled. 

It really is a no-win situation.  We love them so deeply, we perceive that we are getting something from them that we always wanted, sadly, I don't think that we see the entire picture.  The part that is missing has to do with the thoughts they are having that are hidden to us and change the course and outcome of our interactions.

Thank you again bpdfamily.com for helping me to understand my own insanity.