Shade of Black

[GreenEyedMonster]

Just as a thought, what do you think would happen if you accepted what you did (even if you didn't do that) but was unaffected? (Like, "Yes, I looked at you because firstly I am human and my eyes travel to known people, secondly because you are someone with whom I have some good memories and even though we are done, I respect you as a person. I had no intention of disturbing you and I'm sorry if you felt like that. I would totally understand if you sent me a restraining order for looking?" My ex would go blank and come to his senses for a while - also because of some narcissistic supply. If I just blanked him, he would increase the dose of attack because he can't stand being ignored - though he ignores so I communicate only when he does.

I've basically tried all this.  It doesn't matter.  His bad feelings remain, and he still hates me.  How he feels is the ONLY thing that matters, and that is the bottom line.  I even tried thanking him for dumping me, and he still acted like I was stalking him.  I really have tried everything short of just shoving him away HARD, so that's all I have left.

I really don't think he is doing this to me intentionally.  That would require a level of understanding my thought process that he just doesn't have.  For example, I have an advanced degree in an information field.  He puts a false return address on his letters to me.  He is listed in the phone book!  He thinks someone with my background wouldn't know how to use the white pages?  Really?  I have been hired to investigate people!  No, he doesn't know much of anything about my internal world and something like threatening me with a PPO to get anything other than the obvious reaction out of me is far beyond him.  I have played with various explanations of why he does this, and I think it is really very simple, that he thinks I am a bad person -- I must be, because I make him feel bad -- and he wants me far, far away.  His fear of me is very literal and real.  I can only guess that I make him feel intensely horrible feelings.

I do think in a twisted way he enjoys it when I cross his boundaries because it increases his victim status and distracts from the horrible way he's treated me, but I don't think that's conscious on his part.

[C.Stein]

I have played with various explanations of why he does this, and I think it is really very simple, that he thinks I am a bad person -- I must be, because I make him feel bad -- and he wants me far, far away.  His fear of me is very literal and real.  I can only guess that I make him feel intensely horrible feelings.

I wonder the same thing about my ex, if she thinks I am a bad person due to her projecting her own faults onto me.  Now certainly I am not perfect and my behavior (withdrawal) during the last 6 months of our relationship would be understandable to a "normal" rational person.  It might even prompt inquiry or (gasp) concern about what was going on with me.   That didn't happen.

I believe I now make my ex feel bad about herself because she sees what her true self can do to a person.  It is a painful reminder of who she is and the further I am away from her the better.  This is what prompted the shade of black question and just how deep a shade is it?  I still entertain thoughts of "could it work if ... ." as she was not consistently unstable.  Perhaps I am just deluding myself, trying to rationalize what was mostly shallow experiences into something more meaningful and deep.

[GreenEyedMonster]

I used to think that shame was a major factor in my ex's behavior toward me, but I am now unsure if his thinking even makes it that far.  Responsibility repulses him, plain and simple.  This is a defense mechanism on some level, but one that is so subconscious and sneaky that I don't think he's even sorted out why it is.  We talked about it once and he seemed to agree that it had something to do with having been responsible for his mother's feelings for the first part of his life.  

My ex was good with kids but would openly tell you that he hated them.  He referred to them as "messes."  When he looked at kids, all he could think about was how much he'd have to watch them and take care of them and how needy they were, and this absolutely disgusted him.  He told me once that the reason he was so nice to children was because he felt an obligation to take care of them when they were around.  And like I said, he was good with kids, and kids like him.  But he disliked having much of anything to do with them.

Somewhere under all this was a desire to be a good parent, and anxiety about being a bad one. 

I think he feels the same strange combination of revulsion, disgust, responsibility, and affection toward me.  Once it became clear that I was a thing that needed taking care of, and that he couldn't just treat me like one of his cats (leave me with some food and a box and come home later), he decided that I was just too much work.  The problem is, he wants me yet, and so his defenses come up and protect him from taking on the responsibility that causes him so much anxiety.  I don't think he is conscious of any of this.

Somewhere under all this is a desire to be a good boyfriend, and anxiety about being a bad one.

His freedom and personhood are so hard-won after the abuse he endured as a child, he has to hate anything that threatens these things, even things like love and intimacy, so he is a deeply conflicted person.  Avoiding me is really a way to avoid the anxiety caused by that inner conflict.  I make him want to pitch his whole self into the abyss to have me again, and that terrifies him.  He wants to take care of me, but the price for doing so is way too high.  Worrying about being a good boyfriend is so self-swallowing and so anxiety-provoking that he just can't.  Engulfment.

So at this point, I'd say shame isn't a big factor, at least not even close to a conscious level.

[thisworld]

I used to think that shame was a major factor in my ex's behavior toward me, but I am now unsure if his thinking even makes it that far... .

So at this point, I'd say shame isn't a big factor, at least not even close to a conscious level.

This. I don't believe one can healthily approach someone (in an ongoing intimate relationship) constantly from the perspective of reading them beyond themselves. I also think this may be one of the reasons of being painted black sometimes. Something half-therapeutic starts occurring in the relationship, so they react to intimate partners the way they sometimes react to the therapist (with frustration and revolt). Maybe this, in an intimate relationship, also causes being painted black. The test is there. Also, I think, for an "understanding" analytical angel myself, sometimes this "reading" may go too far and I'm faster than my partner in terms of development, recovery. Maybe that gives him a feeling of insufficiency as well - though everything positive about me made him insecure. Between two intimate people, there are always ego masks hiding certain things He is obviously more comfortable with what he calls "dating down" - he kept on saying I was his first "equal" relationship, which I didn't enjoy after hearing it twice, either.

Just a couple days ago, I read a post here from one of the moderators, they were about internal thoughts of pwBPD. I wanted to ask something, in case I'm misunderstanding. Those inner thoughts, which garner my empathy and sympathy, are not necessarily conscious, are they? Like, pwBPD are not so aware of themselves? I believe my ex partner was perhaps aware to a degree - though that didn't result in motivation to change himself.   

[GreenEyedMonster]

Just a couple days ago, I read a post here from one of the moderators, they were about internal thoughts of pwBPD. I wanted to ask something, in case I'm misunderstanding. Those inner thoughts, which garner my empathy and sympathy, are not necessarily conscious, are they? Like, pwBPD are not so aware of themselves? I believe my ex partner was perhaps aware to a degree - though that didn't result in motivation to change himself.   

My ex was self-aware enough to talk about his issues with a decent level of understanding, but he couldn't analyze his own actions in the heat of the moment.  If he were actually having anxiety, all hope for insight was lost.  "I'm pushing you away because I fear responsibility" is not something I imagine would ever cross his mind.  He could, in a calm moment, articulate this about his fear of having children, or tell me about how he once quit a job because the responsibility consumed him and he would dream he was at work all night, every night.

Awareness is lovely, but it doesn't undo the fact that in my ex's case, having responsibility opens up his core trauma from childhood.  Like I said, I think his fear of me is actually the combination of wanting me and knowing that wanting me means facing his trauma.  His brain automatically makes him hate me to avoid facing his trauma, because his brain has been doing this for him since he was a little child.  The farthest he got to articulating this to me was saying that I was "emotionally abusive" like his other relationships had been.

In his inner experience, he hates me because I am a bad person who gives him bad feelings, and that is all there is to it.  Is there an engulfment fear under there?  Of course.  But when he is feeling those bad feelings, analyzing them isn't helpful unless the analysis empowers him to make a decision about facing that trauma. 

It is the same way that "I hate my job" can really mean "I want to be really good at my job, but it takes so much from me that I don't have time to have a life, kids, a husband, and a self, too."  In the moment, all you really feel is that you hate your job, and your emotions must de-escalate before you can become aware of the rest of it.

[thisworld]

Awareness is lovely, but it doesn't undo the fact that in my ex's case, having responsibility opens up his core trauma from childhood.  Like I said, I think his fear of me is actually the combination of wanting me and knowing that wanting me means facing his trauma.  His brain automatically makes him hate me to avoid facing his trauma, because his brain has been doing this for him since he was a little child.  The farthest he got to articulating this to me was saying that I was "emotionally abusive" like his other relationships had been.

In his inner experience, he hates me because I am a bad person who gives him bad feelings, and that is all there is to it.  Is there an engulfment fear under there?  Of course.  But when he is feeling those bad feelings, analyzing them isn't helpful unless the analysis empowers him to make a decision about facing that trauma. 

This. This is so meaningful GEM. And maybe when we are "loved" instead of hated, that means a denial of that possible encounter with trauma through us. It's like pushing away hate and thus the reason behind it. 

[steve195915]

"Painting black" is a term that's confusing to some, and has always made me wonder flat, satin or semi-gloss?  Anyway, musings aside, we all do that to some extent: have a falling-out with someone and then accentuate their negative qualities while minimizing their positive ones, to make them seem worse in our heads, justify their dismissal from our lives and make ourselves "right".  And then there's the handy tool of projection, assign negative traits we see in ourselves to someone else and then banish them, so they conveniently take those traits with them so we end up free of them.

Borderlines can be extreme in a lot of ways, and can be extreme painters, make someone absolute scum and the owner of everything bad about themselves, mental gymnastics to feel better, effective when taken to the extreme and perfected.  Reality can warp when taken to the extreme like that, and it's up to us to accept the role we've been assigned by someone with a mental illness, which usually means removing them from our lives, at least on this board, since nothing empowering will come from them when they're in that mode, and then also being aware of when we do the painting and why, making sure we only paint when it improves the picture, as we populate it with empowering people on the way to our bright future.

I have quite a different outlook on "Painted Black" term. Per the definition above it's when we accentuate their negative qualities while minimizing their positive ones to make them seem worse in our heads to justify their dismissal in our lives.

Here's my issue with that definition.  Many of the words and actions of the pwBPD were absolutely inhumane, downright cruel.  Some of the traits of their disorder are:

-Highly manipulative and controlling

-splitting; idealizing or devaluing behaviors, love you/hate you

-projection; when they assign their own deficits/faults to you

-poor impulse control, capable of volatile or violent behaviors and vandalism

-paradoxical emotional responses; when you love them more, they love you less and distance themselves, withholding affection and/or sex

-Lying and deceitfulness, mixed messages, self-contradicting

-Lack of remorse or empathy, unwillingness to own their own mistakes/flaws

-Infidelity, sexual or emotional affairs

-Infantile behavior; tantrums, rageful outbursts, baby talk

-Guilting and shaming you during the relationship, everything was your fault even the breakup

-Inappropriately flirtatious with others, even in your presence

-Abusive, critical and rejecting emotionally, psychologically or physically

-Attachment fears, acting out angrily after periods of closeness

-Cognitive distortion or thought disordered.  Gives strangely incongruent responses to your attempt to communicate openly, or problem solve

-Deflects confrontation by crying, raging, or projecting it back to you

-Denial of unsavory, childish behavior.  Can't/won't apologize.

-Extreme jealousy; tries to separate you from other attachments (friends, family, etc)

-rebound relationships are extremely common

These are not my made up traits, they are just some of the accepted clinical traits by the experts.  

So when we talk about or think of these horrible and vile acts from our ex, we are not accentuating the negative qualities to make them seem worse in our heads.  They were truly horrible and vile acts that have no place in any relationship. If we realize the relationship is a unhealthy for us and we are trying to end our emotional attachment, wouldn't it be absolutely insane to reflect on the good times and positive qualities of our ex?  

What I observed is quite the contrary for most of us in that we seem to minimize or downplay their horrific actions, even if we know it and talk about it, there seems to be some sort of denial or mental separation to actually acknowledge the acts.   So after weeks, months, and even years we find ourselves missing them, thinking of the good times, thinking of taking them back or do go back, (how many recycles have we already went through?)

What if someone asked us prior to our relationship with our BPDex this question.

"What would you feel about a relationship with someone that lies, cheats, verbally abuses you, breaks up multiple times with no remorse, has rages and temper tantrums, makes false accusations about you, (... .list our own specifics here)?".  

Would our answer be that we would definitely be in love with a person like that, we would be missing them, constantly think of them when we were split up, and wanting them back and that we would do everything to be together with them even after multiple breakups (like we all have done) regardless of how they treated us?  

I don't think the problem getting over our ex's is that we paint our ex's black, if anything it's that we paint them white in our minds and have a difficult time of acknowledging how someone we cared about could be so inhumanely and abnormally cruel.  

[GreenEyedMonster]

This. This is so meaningful GEM. And maybe when we are "loved" instead of hated, that means a denial of that possible encounter with trauma through us. It's like pushing away hate and thus the reason behind it. 

EXACTLY.  My ex "trusted" me and painted me white when he believed that his core trauma would not be part of the relationship.  I am generally an independent, low-maintenance, straightforward girl, and he told me he liked all these things about me.  Of course in hindsight, he liked them because they are signs of a woman who is not likely to engulf him with a lot of responsibility and need.  He trusted me because he didn't think I would re-enact the abuse he experienced as a child.  Of course all of us have needs, me included, so it was only a matter of time before this proved not to be the case.

My ex has a problem making it very far at all into a relationship because most people are more demanding earlier in the relationship than I am, some even on the first or second dates.

He paints people white, though, sometimes without good reason, just because he needs someone.  His ex-fiancee, for example, had two profoundly disabled children, one who couldn't even speak at all.  My ex rationalized entering this situation by saying that they weren't his kids, he wasn't responsible for them, and they could just be friends with him.  He would have gotten the surprise of his life if he would have married her!  So for him, painting white was more of a defense mechanism than painting black, similar to rationalization.  When he was lonely, he'd justify people's flaws away.  When they are painted black, though, I think that he really does reduce them to the re-enactment of abuse, and he believes it to be intentional on the other person's part.

[guy4caligirl]

Steve that was an amazing cry from the heart , you nailed it pretty good , now the question is

Why do we do that , what makes us praise them and suffer to get them back after all the worth on earth human treatment ?

What is it can someone answer this question other than we got used to the drama , or ciaos ? 

[fromheeltoheal]

I don't think the problem getting over our ex's is that we paint our ex's black, if anything it's that we paint them white in our minds and have a difficult time of acknowledging how someone we cared about could be so inhumanely and abnormally cruel.  

Yes, you're right steve.  My original response to C.Stein's post was to point out that we are all painters, accentuating someone's traits either positively or negatively to make our opinion of them align better with our feelings towards them, not our exes in particular, people in general, and borderlines take that to the extreme.  And you're also right that a challenge in detaching and healing is facing the 'painting white' we did, which to me can be a misleading term, what we did was deny unacceptable behaviors and accept them anyway, lost in a fog, fear, obligation and guilt, and untangling that is one of the challenges moving forward.  And another challenge for some is being hated by our abuser, difficult to accept if we're trauma bonded to them, when C.Stein's point was that the projection practiced by a borderline makes the paint blacker the more extreme the abuse.  It shouldn't matter what our abuser thinks of us, as long as they're out of our lives where they belong, but sometimes it does matter, and digging into why is where all the growth and healing are.

[steve195915]

Steve that was an amazing cry from the heart , you nailed it pretty good , now the question is

Why do we do that , what makes us praise them and suffer to get them back after all the worth on earth human treatment ?

What is it can someone answer this question other than we got used to the drama , or ciaos ? 

The answer to that is very individual and each of us need to do that soul searching for ourselves.  Yes it makes absolutely no sense that you could keep wanting somebody who's been your cruel/dismissive tormentor, and turned your world upside down and inside out.  It's an inner battle between your rationale mind and your painful longing that has us continuing to wrestle over the thoughts of our toxic relationship and trying to make sense of it.  

Some of the reasons can be:

-we have poor self-worth

-we're starving for affection and sex

-we have a Savior Complex and feel we must absolutely save them

-we have codependency issues, maybe due to how we were brought up or issues from our childhood

-we are people pleasers, rescuers, or fixers

-we are perfectionists, stubborn, don't give up easily and admit defeat

-we look for the good in people and ignore the bad,

-we believe what we hear, especially from people we love and can't comprehend their behavior

-we have our own issues with abandonment or attachment

-we were at a vulnerable time in our life (recent breakup) or was lonely and ready to give ourselves to someone

-our morals and values would be compromised, especially for those who got married and don't want to accept divorce

-we are the giving type

-our strong desire to be loved and trust

- AND MANY MORE

There are some of us that have come to grips with their own emotional issues like co-dependency but I reject the idea that all of us are carrying abnormal unhealthy emotionale issues just because we were in a relationship with a pwBPD.  We were in a relationship where our good qualities, and yes in some cases our own issues, were exploited by a person with a personality disorder where they used manipulation to meet their needs.  Their words and actions went from one extreme to another and completely out of the realm of normal.

Some may argue that we are equally to blame but that is ridiculous to me.  If a thief breaks into our house and steals our possesions, are we equally to blame because we had a house with possessions inside that enabled them?  

What we responsible for how many recycles we allowed and for our own healing from the toxic relationship we endured.  

[C.Stein]

I think the tendency I see here is a lot of broad strokes of paint, be it "white" or "black".   

The important thing to remember is everyone is a unique individual ... ."us" and "them".  In what one might consider a "normal" world there really isn't a true "white" or "black".  This was one of the reasons I titled the thread "shade of black", because there are different colors for different people and situations.  I think we also need to be careful on how we portray pwBPD.  They aren't demons or the devil looking to consume our souls.  I might even go so far as to say many don't even realize what they are doing, at least not on a conscious level.

Everyone brings positives and negatives to a relationship.  Perhaps the reason why some people stay in this type of relationship is because the good outweighed the bad or the bad just wasn't that bad, but got worse over time.  Some peoples ex's are much worse than others.  Point being, every single one of our ex's here have some redeeming qualities or we wouldn't have gotten involved with them in the first place.  When you look at the whole person in terms of a color it would be more different shades of grey, not a true "white" or "black".

With respect to the topic of the thread, the shade of black refers to how our (or mine specifically) sees us now in relation to their own misdeeds in the relationship, particularly if the pwBPD was the one to discard.   Some shades may be closer to a dark grey,  others may be the deepest of "blacks", some may not be "black" at all.   

[unicorn2014]

Read the first page.

What do you call it when someone does you wrong? How do you tell the truth about someone without painting them black in that situation? I'm assuming that is something different.

[unicorn2014]

Read all 5 pages.

Read what the original topic was.

All I can say is this reminded me of the struggle I had for a long time after I divorced not to paint my ex black. I was very angry at him for things he did (to me) and I was told that his story was not mine to tell. I finally listened and stopped doing that. I assume a pwBPD would not listen to advice and would just keep going.

One of my former therapists said we all have these traits  but in a person with the disorder they are taken to an extreme.

[C.Stein]

What do you call it when someone does you wrong? How do you tell the truth about someone without painting them black in that situation? I'm assuming that is something different.

We all carry buckets of paint, one white and one black.  For every action/choice we make some white and black paint gets applied to us.  This is automatic, each of us owns our actions and choices we make in life.  Holding people accountable for their actions/choices is not applying paint but rather recognition of the paint that gets automatically applied to us.

Now when we take our paint and apply it to someone/something else we are attempting to shift accountability away from ourselves.   For each stroke of black that is applied to someone/something, the painter applies a stoke of white to themselves.   I proposed in the first post that depending on the severity of the "painters" (ex) actions, more black paint is applied to you when they attempt to shift accountability for their actions onto you.   This results in different (deeper) shades of black as they are mixed with the paint that is already you, some shade of grey.  

I do wonder how many stokes of black paint can a person take before they become entirely black in the eyes of the "painter"?  This is why I wonder about the severity of the actions.  As the painter (ex) attempts to paint themselves white, the partner (us) who is being painted "black" comes to represent all the "bad" in the painter.   The more heinous and cruel and actions the heavier the black paint gets applied.

[GreenEyedMonster]

People do us wrong for a lot of reasons.  We all have our struggles and our shortcomings that make us human.  My ex was emotionally abused by his mother and probably his first girlfriend, so did he really have a shot at having a normal relationship with me?  There were almost 40 years of life experiences that happened to him before I came into his life, and I just got punished for the actions of a bunch of other women who came before me.  The things he did were awful, yes, and he bears responsibility for his actions, but his actions are also a product of a lot of circumstances that are beyond his control. 

The thing that I have noticed about my exBPD, however, is that he doesn't see people's negative actions this way.  For him, if you hurt him, he assumes some kind of negative intention on your part, and this justifies all of the "punishment" he will dole out after that.  He can't comprehend that people do things to him because of their own limitations or lack of insight.  That makes forgiveness really hard for him, and so he goes through life painting people black instead.  He can't separate my intentions and my feelings for him from the way our last argument made him feel.  I became "abusive" because holding him responsible for his actions gave him bad feelings.  I think this is one of the main differences between how "nons" handle people's shortcoming vs. pwBPD.

[unicorn2014]

Green Eyed Monster, thank you. I hate it when my pwBPD calls me emotional abusive.

This post reminded me of my former marriage, when I broke up with my former husband  I believe I was painting him black based on what other people told me. On the other hand he did relapse, and he did do things to me that were horrible.

Could some please explain to me one more time the difference between factually reporting what someone did to you as opposed to painting someone black? I am sorry I am so slow.

[GreenEyedMonster]

Could some please explain to me one more time the difference between factually reporting what someone did to you as opposed to painting someone black? I am sorry I am so slow.

Painting someone black is changing your OWN perception of reality based on your emotions, in order to cope better.  You could compare it to being a "fair weather friend."  It is a way to deal with and keep in your life only people who are kind to you, and to avoid confronting or dealing with your own shortcomings.  For example, if I am unkind to my boyfriend, and he leaves me, I might say, "Well, I didn't really like him anyway.  He deserved it," etc. rather than coming to terms with the fact that I made a mistake that led to my own loss.  So painting black has nothing to do with objective reality.  It is changing reality to avoid painful emotions.

Factually reporting what someone did is objective reality and is not a defense mechanism.  You would not be avoiding reality, but dealing with it.  There are legitimate reasons for a breakup, and sometimes people are factually cruel to us.  Making the decision to cease dealing with someone's toxic behavior is not painting black.  However, it's important to recognize that no human being is 100% toxic or evil, even if we choose not to deal with that person.  Understanding the nuances of why a person behaves the way he does keeps us from writing people off as useless or evil.  It's also important to mourn the loss of the "good parts" of a relationship in a healthy way and not try to make it all bad in hindsight just to make it easier for ourselves.

[unicorn2014]

Green Eyed Monster, I understand, I think what my ex did to me was so heinous it was hard for me to see his good side, however I am past that now. Thank you taking the time to explain it to me.