Denial

[Hopeful83]

Me again,

Just thinking about something my therapist said about my ex and wondered what your take is. She believes that he must be heavily in denial to be able to have done what he did and for him to be able to continue functioning in his life knowing what he's done. I've never really explored the possibility of BPD with her, as she sees this as purely a cultural thing - that his family refused to let him marry me, so they married him off to someone from his culture (long story short - together for three years and were planning to get married, relationship fell apart in a matter of weeks when he went home and told his mum he wanted to marry me, he was engaged to someone else within six weeks of us splitting up)

While I now see this as a possibility (the cultural aspect), I still maintain that my ex had BPD traits (rages, the love bombing at the start, the pull and push behaviours) and was wondering if this is also a survival mechanism of theirs - heavy denial. Burying thoughts and feelings, and pretending they don't exist or never happened? I can't understand how else he managed to move on so quickly and seemingly without showing any remorse or compassion.

It's like a switch went in his head and that was it - I no longer existed, or his feelings for me were turned off. I understand that the family had a heavy influence, but I also wonder if the BPD would have helped him be able to switch so quickly and in accordance with their wishes?

I just wondered how this sounds from a BPD point of view... .

Hopeful

[C.Stein]

My ex seems to have completely denied we ever had a relationship let alone feelings for each other.   Not even once has she acknowledged either after the final discard.  It is like I was never anything more than an acquaintance to her ... .at best. 

With respect to the cultural thing, don't underestimate the feeling and sense of obligation and duty with respect to parents and cultural expectations.  

[Hopeful83]

My ex seems to have completely denied we ever had a relationship let alone feelings for each other.   Not even once has she acknowledged either after the final discard.  It is like I was never anything more than an acquaintance to her ... .at best. 

With respect to the cultural thing, don't underestimate the feeling and sense of obligation and duty with respect to parents and cultural expectations.  

 C.Stein - how are you doing?

This is what I mean - the denial. It is a form of denial, after all. My ex made out that I actually didn't mean to him what he had said I had meant to him for three years, which I know is a big, fat lie - whether he truly believes it now, or whether it's what he needs to believe in order to move forward, it's still a lie.

I agree that there was a big sense of obligation and duty there. I also have no way of knowing if he was threatened or not, so there's that, too.

I just wondered if people with BPD are able to suppress their feelings well, or if they use a certain mechanism to be able to move on, albeit in an unhealthy way, because to me it seems like a shockingly hard thing to do. To not slip up once, to just move forward without looking back. Part of me wishes I were also able to do this 

[C.Stein]

C.Stein - how are you doing?

Been worse ... .been better ... .but surviving and slowly moving forward.   Thanks for asking.   

This is what I mean - the denial. It is a form of denial, after all. My ex made out that I actually didn't mean to him what he had said I had meant to him for three years, which I know is a big, fat lie - whether he truly believes it now, or whether it's what he needs to believe in order to move forward, it's still a lie.

I agree that there was a big sense of obligation and duty there. I also have no way of knowing if he was threatened or not, so there's that, too.

I just wondered if people with BPD are able to suppress their feelings well, or if they use a certain mechanism to be able to move on, albeit in an unhealthy way, because to me it seems like a shockingly hard thing to do. To not slip up once, to just move forward without looking back. Part of me wishes I were also able to do this  

Compartmentalization of emotions is a defensive mechanism pwBPD often engage in and it plays along quite nicely with denial.  It is a way to avoid painful emotions.   Sad thing is the emotions are still there and continue to eat away at your psyche until they can no longer be contained ... . then boom.

[schwing]

Just thinking about something my therapist said about my ex and wondered what your take is. She believes that he must be heavily in denial to be able to have done what he did and for him to be able to continue functioning in his life knowing what he's done.

My understanding is that it is more than denial.  Sort of like delusional thinking/dissociation.  With my exBPDgf, when I interacted with her months are we had broken up, she was engaged to someone else and yet I think she believed I wrong her in some way.

I think before they discard us, they are convinced that we intended to abandon them (i.e. real/imagined abandonment) and that they leave us first in order to avoid this imagined abandonment.

While I now see this as a possibility (the cultural aspect), I still maintain that my ex had BPD traits (rages, the love bombing at the start, the pull and push behaviours) and was wondering if this is also a survival mechanism of theirs - heavy denial.

Heavy denial, delusional/distorted thinking, splitting... these are all their survival (defense) mechanisms protecting their psyche from what they cannot face: their primary abandonment trauma, their own disordered behavior, that the problem does not reside in everyone else but in themselves.

Burying thoughts and feelings, and pretending they don't exist or never happened? I can't understand how else he managed to move on so quickly and seemingly without showing any remorse or compassion.

It's like a switch went in his head and that was it - I no longer existed, or his feelings for me were turned off.

I don't believe people with BPD (pwBPD) can attach to more than one person at a time.  It's just that they can alternate between one attachment to another.  But once they are attached to you, it seems like they were never close to anyone else.  And once they are not attached to you, it seems like they were never attached to you.  This has something to do with their lack of object constancy.  But you can think of it as a switch -- they can only be "on" for one person at a time.

I understand that the family had a heavy influence, but I also wonder if the BPD would have helped him be able to switch so quickly and in accordance with their wishes?

I just wondered how this sounds from a BPD point of view... .

This is my guess: from a BPD point of view at the beginning of the relationship you are idealized.  Primarily because you don't seem like "everyone else" in that you don't trigger their fear of abandonment as all the others have.  But this is only because you are not yet sufficiently close to them to trigger this fear.  This is why these relationships seems always be love-at-first-sight kinds of initiations.

Once they start become intimate with you... .truly intimate in that they spend more time with you and become familiar (i.e. like family) with you... .then their disordered fear of abandonment kicks in.  And this is when the push-pull starts.  They want you to prove that you won't leave them that you are committed to them.  But their insecurity has nearly nothing to do with your actual behavior -- it has everything to do with their disorder.  When they push you away, they get their distance and then want you back.  But once you get close again, they feel their disordered fear and push you away again.  And this goes on-and-on until their fear of abandonment becomes overwhelming to them and they need to leave you altogether -- at this point they are convinced that you will leave them but *they* need to leave you before you can leave them.

And then they find your replacement... typically before they discard you.  And start the whole cycle over again with the new person.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes, Schwing

[londons]

this is all so well said!  to me, this is what we all want to know.  if u ask me, nothing describes our struggles, confusion, frustration and pain like the above posts!  i just want to get all of our exes together in one room to ask them these questions!  here is my story... .so, he left a kind, hott wife (that would be me-on a good day), 8 kids that are between 16 and 30 that grew up together and adore each other, adored us as step parents, grandparents that fit right in, extended family that all got along amazingly well, a beautiful clean home, christian togetherness (we prayed beautiful prayers with the kids nightly) magic in the bedroom (sparse at the end), a comfortable, happy relationship, long term plans and goals, great mutual friends, similiar hobbies... .      get the picture?  a match made in heaven.   and he traded 9 years of that for 50 family members that no longer respect/admire him,   and an empty apartment.  our 8 kids are destroyed by his behavior.  they all support me; not sure if they have even have talked with him since this happened.    they love me like their own mom.   everyone talked daily, even though the kids are all starting their careers.     what sense does that make?   that new girlfriend must be somethin' else.     how do you drop all of the above in a matter of days?  he left behind what every person strives to achieve in their lifetime (a wonderful family unit and an electric relationship)    for a girl?  what head are u thinking with, dude?   can you males help me understand this?     what the what?     i thought he would be coming home by now, saying what was i thinking?  i just dont get it... .

[londons]

ok schwing, i was writing mine while u were writing yours.  everything i needed to know , you answered.  u are really an intelligent individual and i appreciate your being here for us and i wish good things for u!  i know u are correct in all u say, but because it is all "mental" and not visible or tangible, i forget those aspects of their delusional, tormented  minds slash disorder.   your reply, as accurate as it is, made me cry.  what u said is true and we have to face it.  it is just so hard to accept.   so sad, isnt it?  for everyone involved?  where did this personality disorder come from and why would our God create it?   it tears families apart... .it affects soo many people when u think about it, like a quiet, sneaky, well hidden parasite that jumps from relationship to relationship and does not die until the person dies... .

[schwing]

... .a match made in heaven.   and he traded 9 years of that for 50 family members that no longer respect/admire him,   and an empty apartment.  our 8 kids are destroyed by his behavior.  they all support me; not sure if they have even have talked with him since this happened.    they love me like their own mom.   everyone talked daily, even though the kids are all starting their careers.     what sense does that make?  

The way I would break down this behavior is that your exBPD ultimately put his own emotional needs ahead of everyone else.  And no one (perhaps not even himself) understands what his emotional needs are.  For someone with BPD, the more intimate you feel towards someone, the more your disordered feelings manifest.  Towards the end, distance helps somewhat but it doesn't address the heart of the problem: the source of his disordered feelings.  And if he is unwilling to face this, who can help him?  You cannot save someone from themselves.

that new girlfriend must be somethin' else.     how do you drop all of the above in a matter of days?  he left behind what every person strives to achieve in their lifetime (a wonderful family unit and an electric relationship)    for a girl?  what head are u thinking with, dude?   can you males help me understand this?     what the what?     i thought he would be coming home by now, saying what was i thinking?  i just dont get it... .

It has nothing to do with the sex.  The sex is just the symptom; the impulse behavior he turns to perhaps to avoid.  When he is not overwhelmed with his disordered feelings, his fear that he will be abandoned, then he is free to be close (for a time) to the one he is currently attached to.  But once his disordered feelings start to overwhelm him, as they will continue to do until he faces them, then he cannot be free of his fears.  With you, in the beginning he was free to love you.  But as you became family, his disordered feelings got in the way of everything.  And at the end, it got in the way so much, that he sought someone new.  It could have been with anyone.  But most likely he chose someone that he believed would be attached to him and would never abandon him.  Sadly, he doesn't realize that his fear of abandonment has nothing to do with the other person.

We don't have this imagined fear of abandonment -- actually what we have is *actual* abandonment.  And perhaps we can understand how hard it is to trust someone new after this betrayal.  Well, my understanding is that pwBPD experience this fear during the relationship and it escalates until they need to flee from it.

Does this make sense?

where did this personality disorder come from and why would our God create it?   it tears families apart... .it affects soo many people when u think about it, like a quiet, sneaky, well hidden parasite that jumps from relationship to relationship and does not die until the person dies... .

Where did this personality disorder come from?  I can tell you what our current understanding is (i.e., theories) -- we all have an idea how difficult it is for the adult mind to process trauma such as with soldiers during war or any other kind of catastrophe.   We are only beginning to have good strategies to help *adult* minds worth through trauma (e.g. PTSD).  Now what happens to children's minds when they go through trauma.  I can only imagine it is much worse.  And I don't believe we have as many strategies to help *non-adult* minds with trauma.

This personality disorder comes from traumas that occur to young minds (perhaps around 3-5 years of age) when they experience abandonment (real or perceived), betrayal or perhaps frequent denigration.  Some kids seem to survive such traumas without developing BPD... .some do.  Just like some adults experience PTSD with some traumatic experience, and some do not.  This is the short version.  The long version is more complicated.  And as similar as people with BPD are, they are also uniquely different -- it all depends on what their experience is vs. their innate disposition.  Some do *recover* from the disorder.  

Now... .why would our God create it?  I don't think I'm equipped for this kind of discussion.  Why would God create disease, war, evil?  Or at least why would He allow them to exist?  This is probably a question that is best discussed in a different context or on a different forum.

[londons]

thank you , schwing.  may i ask where you have acquired all this knowledge?  i dont want to be nosey, but the grasp you have on this disorder amazes me.  what is your background? profession?   i know some of your story and know that you have experienced your share of pain. i am sorry you have had to endure that.  i have been on long enough to be aware of the disorder, but like i said, since it is not visible or tangible, i need a DAILY reminder that this man is mentally ill, that he does not think like i do.  but u seem to not need that daily reminder.  how do u do that?  what do you do to mentally say to yourself to get thru the pain each day?  like u dont have enough on your plate, i just dished out 5 more questions to answer!    on behalf of all of us, thank you for being here... .   i hope u receive a fraction of the comfort you bring to us on this site .