I need encouragement

[JerryRG]

Just thinking today, not that I ever do too much thinking, I came to the conclusion that the reason I cannot figure out this whole relationship thing with my ex is because I cannot figure it out. I know that sounds stupid but it's where I am today. I had a bad day obsessing about the relationship, our son and the crazy things she did right randomly that were so outrageous that I cannot comprehend them. This is like trying to hold smoke in my hands, it is impossible.

I laugh about her then want to cry, then I want to slap her face then I feel sorry for her, so strange.

I usually default to blaming myself for something I could have done different or I blame myself for not being able to understand her, then I blame myself for not understanding myself.

The silence is something I have to learn to deal with, living with her in my life was a constant chaos and drama feast.

WHY THE HELL DO I MISS THAT? WHAT IMPORTANCE DID I DERIVE FROM TRYING TO LOVE HER WHEN SHE WAS SO BROKEN

I just want the memories to end, I've avoided seeing our son after she took him back into her care, I simply want nothing to do with her and if I never see her again as long as I live that would be just fine too.

Having a bad day and when I don't want to look inside myself I can find anything outside myself to make me miserable. It's all about me and my recovery. I told her to get out of my life until she got help and she's gone. If we didn't have a son I could let go forever.

Thank you all for your support, I read your posts and relive my past, keeps me grounded in reality, if there is such a thing as reality with pwBPD.

[rfriesen]

Yes, I also often find it impossible to figure out what my relationship with my exBPDgf was all about. Where was she coming from when she said or did xy or z? I think it's impossible to figure out because it was all ambiguous, all sincere one moment and then taken back, undermined, disavowed the next. I think in her own head she was never stable and clear on where she was coming from -- I've come to think that the expressions of her deepest, most overwhelming, earth-shattering emotions were "real" in the sense that she meant them in the moment. But genuinely real emotions have some permanence and stability to them. It was as if she sensed her own instability on some level and tried to make up in intensity what she knew was lacking in stability. Maybe on some instinctive level she felt that if she could just make the emotions intense enough, they might last for once. I don't know -- it's easy to lose yourself trying to think these things through.

For me, that's what I miss -- feeling that intensity and the hope that it might not be fleeting, that we might just grab it and hold onto it. But you're absolutely right -- all the chaos and drama are a nightmare and it makes no sense to keep missing that. I think it's just very hard to let go without any closure, and it's hard to find closure because we can't make sense of what it was all about. As I said in another post, when the idealization broke for me and I came to see the whole relationship in a new light, it was like finding a ghost in the place of all my most beautiful memories. I thought I was sharing all these profound moments and experiences with the love of my life, but she was never fully there.

[JerryRG]

Thank you rfriesen

Everything about her was intense, reminding of the saying, "a candle that burns twice bright, burns twice fast"

I feel in love with an illusion.

A good friend told me tonight that my ex holds on to our son just to control my emotions, she also said, what kind of life would she have if she lost our son as well. I cry for her because I did love her, she just cannot be loved. Without our son she has only herself. No wonder she guarded him with her life and treated me with such hatred. Truly a sad sad illness

[rfriesen]

JerryRG, it really is scary how they can use everything in the world around them as a means to further manipulation. During my last visit with my exBPDgf, she whispered to me that she hoped to get pregnant and have my kid, just so that she could be sure I'd always be around. I think she actually meant that as an expression of how deeply she loved and needed me, but it just terrified me and I told her that was insane. She laughed it off, but added "I really would keep the kid to make sure you're around."

Lucky for me, that didn't happen (and I made sure not to take any chances on that visit!) -- but your comment about your ex using your son to control your emotions sure brought back the memory of what my ex had said - and gave me a shiver down my spine!

[JerryRG]

Thank you again rfriesen

She was so broken I begged God to allow me to give her my child, I gave my ex my heart, my soul, my love, attention, admiration, devotion, time, encouragement, my body, and mind. She knows I lifted her from homelessness and suicide and death 100 times.

I begged her for month after month to get help, walk through recovery with me into a new life on a new plain of existence that I was experiencing spiritual growth and a level I've never dreamed possible. She went to one meeting and gave up, I left my recovery behind for her and our son. But that set me back and I couldn't do it anymore. I'm not going back to hell.

I do pray she wakes up before waking up is no longer possible. Codependent to my core.

[Carley]

"The silence is something I have to learn to deal with, living with her in my life was a constant chaos and drama feast.

WHY THE HELL DO I MISS THAT? WHAT IMPORTANCE DID I DERIVE FROM TRYING TO LOVE HER WHEN SHE WAS SO BROKEN"

Jerry, I am thinking after reading your post, that your capacity for insight into yourself will make it possible for you to get beyond the painful feelings that you are still having at this point.  I sense that you will be able to work through this very painful stage in the breakup.  Please know that life will present you with more opportunities to share your generous nature with others.  Perhaps start by looking for ways to be a special friend to others in a non-romantic context.  Do you have nieces or nephews to spend time with?  A neighbor or someone at work who seems a little lonely?  You seem to be a very giving person, and our world needs people like you.

[ChangingOfTides]

"The silence is something I have to learn to deal with, living with her in my life was a constant chaos and drama feast. "

And that's just the point, i discover it myself lately,

I choose to let myself be emotionally hijacked by my ex, giving her full micromanagement over my emotions, going from Utter Love initially towards all the negative ones like Guilt, Shame, Fear and even some self-hate.

The emotional hijacking was like a drug, and as it is with all drugs, they just cover up some empty and negative feelings that you may hold inside, it's because at one point in your own life, your own emotions where discarded, or shamed upon, or you had to be strong and grow into an adult way to young, which really leaves you with an incomplete emotional development.

Probably there is an emptiness inside that a BPD can easily fill as they have the intensity to override whatever brittle emotions you may feel yourself.

[troisette]

Hi Jerry

Was your childhood a drama and chaos feast?

I ask because sometimes we unwittingly replicate what we experienced in our FOO. We don't like it but its familiar. Was with me. 

[JerryRG]

Thank you everyone for helping me.

Seeing our relationship as a drug addiction is most helpful.

I can fight addiction with the same tools I use in AA.

Taking care of myself has never felt comfortable but it is nessesary to do so to stay healthy and heal.

I was brought up in chaos, violent father who was alcoholic and now just realizing a narcissistic mother. I did not know how to discribe her but now I'm certain. Defying either parent was certain death, ether threats of violence or cold silent treatment. She did things to me at night as well, not sure if it was sexual or not but still bizarre and harmful. I have a very vivid recall as well, remembering all the way back to age 3, I'm visual and process information through a filter like everything I hear is presented on a big screen in my mind. I know I dissociate but only with certain people.

I recall my ex telling me when she woke me late at night there were times I would scare her with an evil look and tell her to "leave me the F alone" I have no memory of this. I would wake up late at night on our couch in the dark with my mother touching me.

My ex did say on occasion that she was sexually abused and tried to never take my accounts serious. She did say that she wondered who F***** me up so badly. Of coarse coming from her I laughed it off.

I have been told a few times that I am to pray for her, AA, my beliefs are such that forgiveness is maditory. Even if I don't mean it I'm to practice forgiveness anyway. It heals us and releases us because they may never know we are doing it anyway. I try but I do love to hate what she's done to me.

Things will be ok, and thank you all so much for your encouragement and support. I will try my best to be helpful to all here as well.

Time to heal, time to live again