dealing with confusion

[emergent]

I don't think I'm the only one to be unable to follow a pwBPD's monologue when they are dysregulating. I posted about this a few days ago. It's so confusing! Nothing makes sense. Logic is completely absent, or at least it's hermetic to me.

How do you deal with this? I feel a very strong need to understand, but I know it's pretty much impossible. In your case, do you not even try? Give up and walk away, or keep listening without hoping to make sense of what's coming out of pwBPD's mouth? And if you do try, how do you handle it when one sentence is so disconnected from another, when the words don't even fit together?

[thisworld]

With my BPD ex, it was the same. Logic (the way I understand it and I'm pretty good at logic) was absent. In many ways, it was similar to a psychotic "word salad", only it had more superficial coherence. There are many ways to respond to a word salad, depending on your goal.

However, my ex partner's monologues were not psychotic. Sometimes he said he was a bit psychotic, but this is common with controllers. Sometimes they even pretend that they are psychotic:)) Sometimes my partner got confused himself at the face of my logic or the common logic he is well aware of. I think this is because sometimes he couldn't make sense of his own actions but his ego prevented him from admitting this to me - this would mean seeking professional health, which would require change and he didn't want to change. Not seriously, not continuously. So, he nevertheless tried to come up with a logical explanation. Guess what, it wasn't:)) Sometimes he would be more manipulative and gaslight me - purposefully shaking my reality- "I didn't say that... ." - but you did, you know:)) This is a common manipulation tactic to confuse the victim. This is how you become a permanent victim, through confusion. You lose your confidence in yourself, in your faculties and cannot leave. Sometimes, he would lie without any control over it. Some controllers just lie and then start believing that lie.

Now, all this in one monologue. What can you do? I believe, nothing. For one thing, it would be impossible to guess which motive was at work at that particular second.

I'm thinking... ."Why do I still try to make sense of something that is so blatantly, obviously illogical to me." Mind you, it was never about some very complex issue. Very simple contradictions, very basic logic.

What to do with it? I stopped seeing it as something that I needed to respond to. If I wanted to respond to him as a non-intimate caretaker etc, I would respond to his feelings rather than logic. feelings equal facts for them. However, because I was his partner, he might experience this as something denigrating after a while - like never taking what he said seriously. He might like it one day, hate it the next day.

Another thing is, why are you listening to someone's monologue? You are there and present, so certainly she should have a dialogue with you because you matter. Your opinions, your questions, they all matter. I responded to my partner's monologues in various ways: First off, no monologue:)) If he didn't respond to me, did not let me ask a question etc, I would remove myself from the conversation. (This made him crazy but resuming conversation would give the control back to the controller. This sometimes meant I left home at whatever hour.) Second, we had an agreement that we would drop the convo if it started getting hot. (He first liked it but then started using it passive aggressively).

After a short while, I lost interest in these illogical conversations - that were also so invalidating, so hurtful sometimes, so arrogant. I started thinking that I couldn't spend my life with someone who responded this way each time there was a personal issue and I couldn't speak only to soothe him, hiding my opinions or telling things that would comfort him (I felt I betrayed my own self, and that was suffocating).

I left. I think quality thought attracts me more really.

[fromheeltoheal]

There's a lot of good clinical information available about the disorder; folks who study such things have really learned a lot about it.  Learning about the disorder, where it came from, how it started, how the person thinks and what they prioritize, all of that can take the confusion out entirely.  Doesn't make the behaviors OK or acceptable, but it does make them understandable from the context of the disorder, where rational thought and intuition won't.

Do you have an example of a current confusion emergent?

[emergent]

why are you listening to someone's monologue?

This is a really helpful question (and the rest of your response is helpful, too, thisworld. Thank you). I know it probably seems simple, but I have never thought of it before, and it's good to explore my answers.

I'm listening to her monologue because she goes crazy if I don't. I guess it's not a monologue, actually, because she is looking for a reaction. It's not like she would have the same things to say if I were not there. She doesn't react well if I ask questions (either because they make her think I don't believe her or am demanding justification, or because she thinks I should already know all the answers about how she feels). She doesn't react well if I express opinions that are not exactly her own, because she has very low self-esteem and this puts her in doubt. And she certainly doesn't react well if I draw the line and walk away. In all cases, I am met with harsh accusations and attacks on my character. I don't like these bad reactions, and shy away from them out of habit.

I'm listening to her monologue because I have been defining myself through my compassion for many years, and this compassion has been misplaced. I have thought it necessary to be there for her as much as possible, even at my own expense. It is clearly what she wants, for me to listen to her monologue/be there to receive it, without either challenging her or stopping listening, and I have tried to give her that. But giving her what she wants is not compassion. Not at all. Nor is not having my own feelings. I made the decision to leave her about 6 months ago, I am still stuck here for administrative reasons, and it is hard to wean off the very wrong idea that compassion means erasing oneself.

fromheeltoheel, thank you for your comment. I have studied the disorder both as part of my formal education and from a personal interest related to my situation. I am not confused about why she behaves in certain ways. It really is the words that come out of her mouth I'm talking about here. She flies from one thing to the next and they don't make sense together. It is very difficult to give an example, because illogical things don't encode very well in memory and I don't usually remember what I don't understand, especially if there is a lot of it at a time. It's like if one sentence were written in letters and the next in numbers... .It's sometimes a question of justifying a behaviour by reasons which are completely unrelated to the behaviour and are not even reasons. They could be accusations. Or, like today, I said, "Stop screaming at (daughter), she needs comforting when she's in distress like this" (daughter was getting angrily guilt-tripped for something that was totally not her fault, and she was crying her eyes out) and she answered, "Oh, so you think you're being an adult for (daughter), what is an adult? Is it adult of you to break your commitment to me?" and a million other reasons I'm not an adult. OK, this is not so confusing actually, not compared to most conversations in dysregulation mode. But like I said, it's really hard to remember them.

[thisworld]

Emergent, hi again,

I've had to think a lot about compassion and what differentiates it from enabling in practice. I'm not religious but one concept from Buddhism, "idiot compassion", by Chongyam Trungpa helped me a lot. Your comments about compassion reminded me of things that I once read. Have you come across this concept before? You might find it interesting. 

https://enlightenmentward.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/manifestations-of-idiot-compassion/

Per illogical stuff, I don't remember many of those curious thought strings, either. But I think one will be with me for the rest of my life. My ex once said "I've never had anything sexual with her, she is like a sister to me and I got to meet her Dad and take her virginity." I was caught unprepared and sprayed my drink - which is kind of rude I think. I still believe the logic behind this could be discovered in therapy with some effort but it would be impossible to understand what was going on there during a normal conversation at the kitchen table. Only when there was a grin for instance, I would understand that this was a control tactic.   

[emergent]

Hi thisworld,

Yes, I am very familiar with Chögyam Trungpa. I've read his concept of idiot compassion, and it's not exactly what I experience. To him, it means giving someone what they want because we can't stand to see them suffering. I've been giving exBPDw what she wants, at my own expense, because I can't stand the explosion that ensues if I don't. It's not quite the same... .I'm more trying to avoid anger and conflict, not the suffering that's behind it. I'm ok with suffering, especially because it often turns out to be a positive thing, even if it's unpleasant. If suffering could be expressed as what it is, there would be no problem for me. I would obviously be very gentle in not giving what's wanted, but it would get done.

All of this is changing now that I'm leaving, and I feel less and less obligated to participate in this dance, even with the aggressive-to-violent reactions still firmly at play. I don't lose my cool, usually, but I don't always respond.