Becoming her "trigger".

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I'm in a wonderfully unique position of working in the same building as my exBPDgf(yay!). I'm not going away and she's not going away anytime soon. From what I've learned of BPD, pwBPD have a lot of the same patterns and thought processes. If I understand it all better, I can stay a "step ahead" of sorts. Try to predict her irrational way of thinking until a new full time replacement arrives and she focuses her energy on him.

I have a question about triggering "shame" in a BPD. I've heard she's been a bit "out of sorts" these past few days, which I can only assume is from seeing me at lunch time again. I changed a lot of things in the way I look post break-up.(since she pretty much killed that version of me). I feel happier, I look happier. My confidence is back and indifference is growing everyday.

Would this new version of myself "trigger" her? I'm tired of giving her power over me by "hiding", but I'm not trying to trigger her on purpose. It's just that everyone fun goes to lunch at noon, and I miss laughing and having a good time at lunch. Where after the break up, I just hid and ate lunch by myself.

Am I wrong? I feel like hiding from her gives her power. I don't engage. I don't plan to engage. I just want to hang out with my friends at lunch like the time before she started working there.

[Dhand77]

I'm in a wonderfully unique position of working in the same building as my exBPDgf(yay!). I'm not going away and she's not going away anytime soon. From what I've learned of BPD, pwBPD have a lot of the same patterns and thought processes. If I understand it all better, I can stay a "step ahead" of sorts. Try to predict her irrational way of thinking until a new full time replacement arrives and she focuses her energy on him.

I have a question about triggering "shame" in a BPD. I've heard she's been a bit "out of sorts" these past few days, which I can only assume is from seeing me at lunch time again. I changed a lot of things in the way I look post break-up.(since she pretty much killed that version of me). I feel happier, I look happier. My confidence is back and indifference is growing everyday.

Would this new version of myself "trigger" her? I'm tired of giving her power over me by "hiding", but I'm not trying to trigger her on purpose. It's just that everyone fun goes to lunch at noon, and I miss laughing and having a good time at lunch. Where after the break up, I just hid and ate lunch by myself.

Am I wrong? I feel like hiding from her gives her power. I don't engage. I don't plan to engage. I just want to hang out with my friends at lunch like the time before she started working there.

[Turkish]

It sounds like you may still feel responsible for her feelings.

[Dhand77]

It sounds like you may still feel responsible for her feelings.

Golly no. Just trying to gain a level of maturity in this whole thing. I know I have a better chance of punching Hitler, than getting her to act mature about this. I'm just tired of the negativity and just a little reassurance that I should be able to move back to my old routines, trigger or no trigger.

[FannyB]

Hi Dhand

You may indeed be triggering her - but so what? Your intentions are good - you are putting you first and your motive is not to wind her up. If she reacts it's for her to absent herself from that situation, not for you to go and hide again. 


Go ahead and live your life! 


Fanny

[Anez]

I agree with fanny. if you being a normal adult at work triggers her feelings of shame or whatever ... .then that's on her.

We gotta live our lives.

keep doing what you're doing!

[Dhand77]

Thanks everyone. After her aunt contacted me and revealed that she cheated on EVERY guy she's had a relationship with, including her husband. It snapped me out of that guilty feeling. We WERE doomed from the start. This actually WASN'T my fault. I CAN go back to my lunch hour. Screw her and her victim crap. If I trigger feelings of shame, too bad. She should feel shame for acting as cruelly as she did.

Thanks everyone.