Introduction and questions

[HurtinNW]

Hello there

I am so glad I found this forum. Sorry if this is long:

My ex and I had an and off again relationship for almost four years. I've been doing a lot of reading and his behavior completely fits BPD or NPD profile: the idealization, the devaluation, the rages, horrible verbal and emotional abuse, black/white thinking, total lack of empathy, etc.

For the first six months I felt I had found my soul mate. I was adored, bathed in warmth. He acted as if all his dreams had come true. We quickly became engaged.

Then the pattern started. There were times I felt clarity. I thought he had an anger problem. He would rage at me, completely losing it. I felt like he was making a case against me all the time, He would details all the things I had said or done, yet when he characterized it I sounded awful, as if there was a shading to everything. He would say I "chewed him out" if I had raised a concern, for instance. I began to think I was the problem. He truly believes I am the problem, and when I am in his reality field I feel like it too. Everything made him mad: how the dishes were done, the way I do laundry, my opinions. When he raged he would say vile things, call me names, scream at me, tear things apart, and a few times acted physically menacing. The rages would end with him storming off to his place, breaking up with me.

This is what is so hard to understand: I felt bad for him. I was often the one who wanted to try again. I wanted to go back to feeling he loved me, to that image of me I saw reflected in his eyes. Sometimes we would start again and once more I would be that beautiful person. But soon he would be aggravated, resentful, aggrieved. He had to be right about everything. We tried therapy. He often would say "any reasonable person" would react the same way to me. The therapist disagreed, but I was very bought into the idea I was "too difficult."

I became more and more anxious, always walking on eggshells. I became an emotional wreck, and to my shame, began acting hysterical at times. He often changed narratives on me, reversing himself completely from what he said before. He kept what I came to feel was an internal ledger: nothing was ever fair. Yet there were times when I felt a real, deep, honest connection with him. I loved him. The characterization of it being a "loaded" relationship is very accurate.

Each time we broke up we spent more time apart, and each time we got back together the time was shorter, so in the final six months we were apart more than together. The last time I saw him was over a month ago. We spent three days together before he raged again. This time he completely ghosted me. Its like I don't exist.

Here's the complicating factors. I have a trauma history myself with a dx of PTSD. I was horribly abused as a child. My mother was mentally ill and scapegoated me, neglected me and was incredibly cruel; I've since recognized the familiarity. And I felt like I had a lot of problem behaviors myself in this relationship. I would get upset and flooded. Sometimes I knew I was "poking" him, doing and saying things I knew would make him upset. There were times I had panic attacks and walked away, or stayed up all night shaking. I became very clingy.

Since the last, final break up, I am having a hard time holding on to my reality. I know I am a successful, regarded person. I have a full time job in an important social service field. I am a highly respected artist. I previously had a 15 year relationship so I know I am capable of that. I have lots of friends and have until this relationship felt like a real person... .sometimes flawed, but real, capable of honest, real love. I know this and yet this relationship completely demolished my sense of self. I walk around wondering if I am as worthless and crazy as I felt with him.

Even though he has completely cut me off I feel like the damage continues. He is a very public person with zillions of social friends. He is incredibly good at getting people to buy into his reality. His public persona could be described as a sweet hurt little boy. He is very charming. He plays the victim. None of his admirers would ever believe he was capable of being abusive. I have stopped going to places where I would see friends because I am so afraid of running into him. I've had mutual social friends contact me to tell me how much I hurt him. It is totally crazy making but he has our mutual friends thinking I am the crazy abusive one that dumped him.

At what point should I reengage with our social circle? I want to take the higher road and not bad mouth him, but am upset that he does this. I do have close friends who are supportive of me, and I am seeing a therapist. How do I stop caring for and about him? I desperately want to heal and move on.

[joeramabeme]

HurtinNW,   

Welcome to BPD Family.

Very clearly written and articulate post.  Since you have identified the behavioral pattern I wont go through all the characterizations of your BF that mirror the BPD traits; seems like you have made that connection.

Regarding your question; How do I stop caring for and about him?

I noted the following self-observations you made:

- I have a trauma history myself with a dx of PTSD

I see this is your first post, but you really sound like you are very insightful and have completed a lot of self exploration.  So, I hope this reply is not too far reaching but given the self-history you mention; could you imagine your question reading slightly different; How do I get the love I am seeking? 

My question/reply is based on having a similar background and identical question as yours.  Part of what I have learned is that my reaching out to my pwBPD traits for love, at first receiving it and then being denied it ever existed, made me unable to let go and recreated dynamic of transferring my unmet needs from unavailable parents to an unavailable spouse that also could not meet my needs no matter how articulate and clearly I could state them and ask to have them met.

What do you think?  Does this have a possibility or am I far off the mark? 

- I am having a hard time holding on to my reality

Nothing feels like being more out of reality than being with a person that appears to be whole and complete and yet is empty in some critical areas but has learned to paint those empty areas with a seemingly replete stroke and appears to be able to willfully turn it on and off. The truth is that they were unlikely to ever have the ability to begin with.

I feel like the damage continues - I understand and relate.  There is a way forward.  Stay here and keep posting, you will learn more and that will bring release from what felt to me like a whirlpool of confusion.

Look forward to hearing back.

[HurtinNW]

I am seeing now there is definitely a pattern. This really is hard for me because I thought he was the OPPOSITE of my mother. I shared so many things with him. He was going to be different. He is convinced he was different. And yet... .every single one of his hurtful, damaging behaviors is the same. It is like I smelled out someone who would hurt me the same way, pretended to myself they were different, and embarked on a journey to have the story end differently. This time my abuser would change. This time I would be loved.

I am worried about myself. I do want to be loved. Truly, honestly, for real. I want to be loved for whom I am. I want to love in return. I know I want this, in an adult love. I have a healthy, positive love for my kids and they for me so I know I am capable of healthy love. I am now very uncertain how to find it with a partner. How I will know I am not sensing out the damaging patterns of the past?

I think part of the reason this is SO damaging to me is I opened my most vulnerable parts up to a person who used them to try and destroy me. Why the heck did I do that to myself?

[babyducks]

HurtinNW,

When I first arrived here I was almost exactly like you described in your first post.   Things have since turned in a different direction for me but I could relate to almost everything single thing you wrote.

When I met my partner it was nirvana, a state of perfect happiness.  For about six months.   Maybe slightly less.  There were some fissures early on, some  that I ignored because I thought 'this was it, this was what I had been waiting my whole life for'.

And then weird behavior started.  I vividly remember one argument about a bike ride.  I wanted to go for a bike ride, she wasn't even at home mind you, she was working and went berserk because I was leaving to go on a bike ride.  I didn't understand.

The behavior started to escalate.   And I started to get pressure that looked and sounded like this "if you REALLY loved me, and IF you  REALLY  are a good person you would JUST xyz".   Well,      I did really love her and I was a good person so what was the harm in doing xyz... .at least that is what I thought at the time.

Like you I grew up with a mentally ill mother.  I knew a lot about mental illness. I had a good and stable life.  I had worked to repair that damage and in normal situations I functioned fine.  This was nowhere near a normal situation. 

One day one of those incredible rages exploded into violence and suffice to say I ended up with a broken hand.   It was my own fault.   I made very poor choices during that whole weekend.  Pushed to my limits, my limits broke and I did things I never thought I was capable of.   

It took surgery and weeks of therapy to repair the physical damage.  Unfortunately this drama played out in a very public way in our small community.  Everyone had an opinion.   My partner is a waif BPD and most people believed I had been unconscionably cruel, if not down right abusive.   Part of my partner's illness is being and believing the lost hurt lonely child persona and people rallied to her side.

The advice I got was to not engage in anything that would add any drama to the situation.   It was too volatile for both of us.   I was absolutely emotionally devastated, so raw I could barely eat or sleep.   I think I lost 15 pounds in about 6 weeks.   She was so overloaded she appeared frankly psychotic on several occasions.

I withdrew for a while to allow myself some breathing room but when I started to venture back out socially I scripted a couple of lines that protected me.  There was absolutely no way I could explain the complexities of BPD, or what had happened in the last 6 months of our relationship.  Trying would have just added more fuel to the fire.  So I developed what I called my White House Press Release.  Say very little, say it woodenly, say it all over again if necessary.   It looked like this "There are things that went on between (her name) and me that you might not be aware of.  I'm not really in a place to be able to discuss it.   I do appreciate your concern."

It was bloody hard.   I wanted to scream from the roof tops, look I am not at fault here, I am not some evil monster but the more I did that the more I kept the argument alive.   And she fed on that.  It was by far the hardest time of my life.  And that is saying something.

For me what this episode did was rip open my core wound.  You will hear the phrase core wound around here if you hang around long enough.  All of us have a core wound.  Mine came from my childhood with my mother.   And like you touched on I thought that the love I had found with my partner was going to be the love to repair that original core wound.  that's why it was so intoxicating.  When it blew up,  I wasn't just hurt I was crippled.   Rocked to my core.  No pun intended.

There are no quick answers or easy fixes.  It is going to take some time to come out the other side of this.  Be gentle and kind to yourself.   In some ways view this as if you had been in a bad car accident, and you need to format a plan of recovery.   I had to go back to the basics.   Eating well, sleeping, exercise, a spiritual life, therapy, investing in myself.  Building myself back up.

Right now it's perfectly natural to have million and a half questions and an equal amount of doubts.  This is not a normal break up.   What you are going through is excruciatingly difficult and displays all the hallmarks of a BPD break up.

Keep posting.   Writing in itself is cathartic.   

'ducks

[HurtinNW]

Thank you, everything you say makes so much sense.

I do have a core wound. Mine is my mother. As I said she was mentally ill and alcoholic. But her mental illness was very complex, very stealth. She was capable of presenting very well. In fact I think there were parts of her that were genuine and loving. But then there were parts that were cruel and self-loathing and frankly batcrap crazy. I was the target of the crazy. She had favorites and scapegoated me as a girl. My brothers only saw one side of her. For me? She fed me, quite literally, to pedophiles. This was always my fault. My mother was a master at creating and controlling narrative. In my family it was "known" that I have to get my way, that I lie, that I "embellish," etc. My stepfather is a registered predatory sex offender. This is an undisputed fact, anyone can look it up. Yet my family claims I made this up. If they are confronted, they change courses, and minimize, saying it was a few bad years. If confronted, they change courses, and attack, saying I am being mean to our mother. If confronted, they change courses again... .

I've had a lot of therapy, a lot of healing, and done a lot of work on this core wound. I don't ever expect to lose the pain, but I have turned the pain to good; I am an artist and mother, a good mother, too. In fact I am admired for who I am and what I have become. Until my ex I felt reasonably good about that. I had ongoing fears about relationships, especially after my ltr of 15 years ended, and I have my flaws. But mostly I felt positive about myself.

Because of my core wound, I am vulnerable to thinking I am crazy, make stuff up, and do not deserve love. One of the things my mother would tell me when I was little was "no one will ever love you."

Guess what my ex pulled out of his pocket when raging? He would say things like "your mother was right." Or he would call me "deranged," "Nuts," etc. He would go from loving one moment to screaming at me the next.

I think someone without my wounds would have hit the road then, if not long before. But his ways of hurting me hurt in ways that made me panic at a primal level: I had to get him to take it back. I could not bear the thought of another person I loved thinking this, saying this. It was like everything I had done in my life crumbled. I had met the man who I felt would truly love me, wounds and all, and instead he rejected me and demolished me. I cannot describe how painful this has been.

Here's one of the things I'm struggling with: I became very dyregulated myself in the relationship. I showed symptoms that are listed as personality disordered... .I developed horrible separation anxiety. I got anxious, emotionally brittle, and reactive. I'm telling myself that this doesn't mean I have a pd too, but I'm worried now. I'm worried that perhaps I truly am the one with the problem... .like my mother.

I have been asking others for feedback on that. My ex of 15 years just laughed and said no, you are not crazy, none of the things my recent ex says about me. He and I had our problems and conflict, and there were times I was anxious and my PTSD got triggered, but for the most part I do think I completely sane. But the last few years have done a real number on me. I'm wondering if it is possible to develop a pd by being repeatedly exposed to one.

[Conundrum]

Here's one of the things I'm struggling with: I became very dyregulated myself in the relationship. I showed symptoms that are listed as personality disordered... .I developed horrible separation anxiety. I got anxious, emotionally brittle, and reactive. I'm telling myself that this doesn't mean I have a pd too, but I'm worried now. I'm worried that perhaps I truly am the one with the problem... .

You probably don't have a clinical PD--the majority of our citizenry are messed up in multifaceted ways. However, I wonder if you gave into unhealthy wants thinking they were needs. Repeating patterns even destructive ones is alluring and comforting--though familiar wants can be terrible for us, when they revolve around another broken person. Especially, when you abdicate control to them. Control should only ever be given in small increments to those who deserve it. When you climb on board another's reality train--you have to be very careful that the conductor isn't into terrorizing the passenger.

[HurtinNW]

Here's one of the things I'm struggling with: I became very dyregulated myself in the relationship. I showed symptoms that are listed as personality disordered... .I developed horrible separation anxiety. I got anxious, emotionally brittle, and reactive. I'm telling myself that this doesn't mean I have a pd too, but I'm worried now. I'm worried that perhaps I truly am the one with the problem... .

You probably don't have a clinical PD--the majority of our citizenry are messed up in multifaceted ways. However, I wonder if you gave into unhealthy wants thinking they were needs. Repeating patterns even destructive ones is alluring and comforting--though familiar wants can be terrible for us, when they revolve around another broken person. Especially, when you abdicate control to them. Control should only ever be given in small increments to those who deserve it. When you climb on board another's reality train--you have to be very careful that the conductor isn't into terrorizing the passenger.

Yes, I definitely gave into unhealthy codependent patterns, including thinking my wants were needs. I did climb aboard his reality train, and gave him a lot of power over me. I think it is important for me to take stock of that. I saw my therapist today, and I asked her if she thinks I have a PD. She said no. She said pretty much what you did, and agreed with my self-assessment of how familiar this was to me, at a very deep level. She also pointed out that my ex wants me to feel I am the problem, that is the whole point.

I think I have a deep need to feel everyone can be saved. I want to believe in redemption. What I need to work on is doing that in a healthy way, with healthy boundaries. It is one thing to hold out for redemption and hope in a professional capacity, another to bring it into my life and letting it terrorize me.

[joeramabeme]

However, I wonder if you gave into unhealthy wants thinking they were needs. Repeating patterns even destructive ones is alluring and comforting--though familiar wants can be terrible for us, when they revolve around another broken person. Especially, when you abdicate control to them. Control should only ever be given in small increments to those who deserve it. When you climb on board another's reality train--you have to be very careful that the conductor isn't into terrorizing the passenger.

This is walking a very fine line.  When are our needs, wants and our wants, needs?  Affection, companionship, love; wants or needs? 

When all of us climb aboard the PD train, we are all assuming the best.  We use whatever tools and knowledge we have amassed to guide our decisions.  I know for me, I thought my marriage was putting the stormy childhood past behind me.  It was a symbol of achievement of all the personal work that preceded.

She was not the train conductor at first, it was us.  My pwBPD traits acknowledged that she had had a tough road and was going to do everything required to make it all work.  In retrospect, she did not and still does not know about herself.  I would hardly compare her to a terrorist, although she is terrorizing in the name of her own self-protection. 

All of us are only seeking to be loved, hardly a fault.  Nor can we be to blame for our circumstances that shaped our lives.  But we do have a responsibility to ourselves for our own happiness and to that end, we learn and heal.

Abdicating control is not a conscious decision, it is a learned pattern of behavior.  Take it easy on yourself, stay ready to learn new ways of being, accept who you are and where you are and keep moving forward.

[HurtinNW]

When all of us climb aboard the PD train, we are all assuming the best.  We use whatever tools and knowledge we have amassed to guide our decisions.  I know for me, I thought my marriage was putting the stormy childhood past behind me.  It was a symbol of achievement of all the personal work that preceded.

She was not the train conductor at first, it was us.  My pwBPD traits acknowledged that she had had a tough road and was going to do everything required to make it all work.  In retrospect, she did not and still does not know about herself.  I would hardly compare her to a terrorist, although she is terrorizing in the name of her own self-protection.  

All of us are only seeking to be loved, hardly a fault.  Nor can we be to blame for our circumstances that shaped our lives.  But we do have a responsibility to ourselves for our own happiness and to that end, we learn and heal.

Abdicating control is not a conscious decision, it is a learned pattern of behavior.  Take it easy on yourself, stay ready to learn new ways of being, accept who you are and where you are and keep moving forward.

This describes me to a T. I truly thought my relationship with my ex was an example of how far I had come. While there were red flags, there was no way of knowing the hell that the relationship would become.

My therapist gave me a workshop on Compassion Towards Self today. I hope it helps.

[Turkish]

Hello HNW,

I didn't ask my T if I had a PD, specifically, but for him to Dx me with "something." He grew visibly frustrated the second time I asked. It's understandable to over-analyze ourselves, especially coming out of abusive relationships. My T said that I was a Rescuer (he admitted that he was, growing up with an alcoholic father), and that there was nothing wrong with that. I made poor choices.

When I did mentoring with at-risk youth, they threw out a concept at one of the group coaching sessions: "you don't know what you don't know." Most of the youth, and not a few of the adult mentors, looked like curious puppies, twisting our heads this way and that, attempting to understand. It was basically a call, a challenge, to stretch our minds to step outside of the world-views we took into the room, and a challenge to explore the unknown. We know what we know.

I was "sent" to therapy within the first year of my 6 year r/s. She was also suppsed to attend, but abandoned me. Later, when I found a couples' communication class and said, "this would be good for us," she replied, "ok, good luck and I hope you enjoy it." 

Two kids later, it was over. With scant hope of wokng things out, due to she finding a fall back lover), we went to a family conselor recommended by her therapist. Again, she abandoned me after one appointment. Four months later, she finally left the house.

After being here for a few months, I started thinking about my mother and my crazy childhood. Over the years, a number of people had said I should write a book about it. I started considering that my mother, though outwardly different from my Ex, was also BPD. About 7 months after my Ex left, a few months after my mom (an RN) said of my Ex,."of course she's BPD," my mother admitted that she was BPD. One of her therapists over two decades ago suggested it, though didn't give her an official Dx. Mind. Blown.

Not really, though. It was anti-climactic. Old resentments and anger also surfaced within me.

HurtinNW,

I invite you also to join another board, where you can explore your core wound. I think it will help you going forward by processing the past. You'll find good company there. We even have a Board Parrot 

[L5]  Coping and Healing from a BPD Parent, Sibling, or Inlaw

To repeat the sage words of my T, "There's nothing wrong with being a Rescuer." Understanding why we may sometimes go too far is a step towards healing.

Take Care,

Turkish

[shatra]

joer wrote

Part of what I have learned is that my reaching out to my pwBPD traits for love, at first receiving it and then being denied it ever existed, made me unable to let go

------Yes I can relate... .he heaped lots of love on me and then insisted it was just casual dating. He promised the world and when I reminded him of this he denied it.  He would be very devoted and then in a bad mood later, he would downplay his feelings for me

----Is this typical, for them to deny the love or intimacy ever existed?

[Conundrum]

All of us are only seeking to be loved, hardly a fault.  Nor can we be to blame for our circumstances that shaped our lives.  But we do have a responsibility to ourselves for our own happiness and to that end, we learn and heal.

Yes, we all have our stories to tell and our contextual perspectives shape those narratives--which often are dependent upon the stages of life that we are in.

The great benefit of a board such as this is that through our collective anecdotal experiences we can begin to gleam commonalities that perhaps may enhance how we define and experience what it means to live a meaningful life.

One commonality, which I believe is noticeable is a hierarchical over-dependence, or over reliance placed upon romantic attachments resulting in an imbalance within the self. That leads to great suffering. Romantic attachments are wants, which optimally should be balanced with equally important and fulfilling wants. When a romantic attachment becomes the predominant characteristic towards defining a meaningful life to the exclusion of maintaining a healthy interdependent framework--the self accedes authorship for its own happiness to the vagaries of said romantic attachment. It is a search for a meaningful life that becomes entirely dependent upon a mythic (idyllic) quest for self-fulfillment within another's arms. As we witness here, when that unbalanced quest hinges upon a person suffering from a disorder--we spiral into the land of the lost.

As nons we can balance our wants, though without evidence based therapies pwBPD cannot (or they struggle mightily). They confuse want and need tracing their destiny lines in the most haphazard of damaging ways.

I'll always love my pwBPD. She's wears the mask of Janus, but I will never define a meaningful life based upon my attachment to her. We were destined to collide and stick. I accept that. Still, all things change. I hope that this made the slightest 2 cents.

[babyducks]

This describes me to a T. I truly thought my relationship with my ex was an example of how far I had come. While there were red flags, there was no way of knowing the hell that the relationship would become.

My therapist gave me a workshop on Compassion Towards Self today. I hope it helps.

Hi HurtinNW,

the workshop on Compassion toward Self sounds like a great idea.   When I first got here I was in such discomfort I was desperate to figure out what was "wrong" and find a way to fix it.   What I have come to find out much later and further down the road is that right/wrong, good/bad, evil, etc etc while expressive of how I felt were not helpful in trying to unravel what was going on.  They were too laden with judgments for me to work with those concepts.   I ended up falling more in line with

  Take it easy on yourself, stay ready to learn new ways of being, accept who you are and where you are and keep moving forward.

I also like what Turkish said about the other board, Coping with a Parent.  Some great stuff going on over there.  When you are ready, have a peek.   It's worth a visit to see the board parrot.   

'ducks