Leaving

[seenr]

Just wondering how many of you who are non-BPD have been caught in a cycle where you have left the BPD (even for an hour) and was told you were abandoning them?

In my experience this was commonplace with us – the first two times she left. Then after that, there were times when I could say or do nothing to improve things so leaving was one of my few alternatives. I also recall standing there thinking ‘where the hell did this come out of?’ and thinking should I go or is everything going to kick off? Here are some reasons I left (and probably why I came back all the time was ‘guilt’

Giving her a present for Valentine’s day where she immediately wanted to buy us all food. I said ‘no’ immediately as I was going to offer to buy that too but she thought I was trying to control what she would buy.

A birthday present that she was not impressed with and I thought behaved very childish over. Any attempt to 'fix' it from here was futile.

Moving an object in her house. We were trying to get it down a small space and there was no room for both of us. I just lifted it & she was very unhappy as she thought I’d no interest in doing anything with her

Went to an outdoor event in the city where she said ‘there must be 100 girls here you fancy more than me’. There were 0. I loved her and her only.

When she phoned me at 2AM to come to her house (I was in my house) and as soon as I got there she behaved indifferent and when I left she said ‘go on go see your Mammy’

Getting engaged on a Saturday and that night having all my bags packed because of a remark I made that she didn’t like.

Her getting drunk, waking in a panic & claiming her drink was spiked because she had little or no recollection of the events the night before.

It all seems so trivial. It all seems crazy.

[Meili]

I'm sorry that you had to experience those things. I would argue that it is fairly common though.

It happened frequently for me. In fact, it didn't even involve my actually doing anything and she thought that I was abandoning her. Toward the end of my r/s, I even told my x that I was just with her because I felt guilty about her feeling abandoned. Each day, I continue to fight the urge to contact her because I feel so guilty about all of it.

Here's the reality though, what they experience happened long before we entered their lives. The damage had already been done and nothing that we could do can change that. I'm fairly positive that if any of us had the power to make our pwBPD feel secure, we'd do it in a heartbeat.

[schwing]

Hi Seenr,

One of the criteria for the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder is:

"Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment."

Just wondering how many of you who are non-BPD have been caught in a cycle where you have left the BPD (even for an hour) and was told you were abandoning them?

You see they fear abandonment real or *imagined.*

And in my experience, one of the situations which seems to trigger them to imagine it more often occurs when they develop feelings of familiarity (like family) and/or intimacy.  Probably because you can only be "abandoned" by people you rely upon.  You cannot be abandoned by strangers.  And perhaps because these feelings resonate with some abandonment trauma they may have experienced a long time ago.

Giving her a present for Valentine’s day where she immediately wanted to buy us all food.

A birthday present that she was not impressed with and I thought behaved very childish over.

Valentine's day... .birthdays... .graduations... .anniversaries... .heck, I just experienced it to a degree on Father's day with my uBPDmother.  But these are days for family and/or of significance for those who are significant to us.  And so these are days in which people with BPD (pwBPD) seem to be particularly charged.

Now the thing is, they might be unaware of (or hiding) their specific feelings, which I argue is their fear of (real/imagined) abandonment, but they find a way to vent these feelings none-the-less.  Sometimes they end up devaluing us, sometimes themselves.

Moving an object in her house... .I just lifted it & she was very unhappy as she thought I’d no interest in doing anything with her

Doing something around the home... .like family?

Went to an outdoor event in the city where she said ‘there must be 100 girls here you fancy more than me’. There were 0. I loved her and her only.

You see... .*imagined* abandonment.  And it only made sense to her that she would be feeling this way if there was a real chance you would "abandon" her for one of those 100 girls.

When she phoned me at 2AM to come to her house (I was in my house) and as soon as I got there she behaved indifferent and when I left she said ‘go on go see your Mammy’

This one is only slightly different.  She would feel her disordered fear that you would abandon her.  And so she insisted you come to her, to prove that you would not "abandon" her.  But on your way there, she decided to abandon you first by rejecting you? 

Getting engaged on a Saturday and that night having all my bags packed because of a remark I made that she didn’t like.

Getting engaged... .doesn't get too much more intimate than that.  Afraid that you would abandon her.  So she abandoned you first.  And I'm sure each time she abandoned you, as soon as her disordered feelings subsided, she would come back to you... until it starts to overwhelm her.

I hope some of this helps.

Best wishes, Schwing