oh dear, what now?

[icky]

hi. ummmm. i've been with my current partner for 2 years. the first 18 months were incredible. the most amazing time of my entire life. the last 6 months have been really weird and fraught and needy and bizarre and intense and confusing. i'd heard of BPD before, so it's not an entirely new concept, but this is the first time i've been close to someone with BPD. i should add that i'm guessing that this is what my partner has. he's not diagnosed. we've been going round in utterly bizarre circles the past 6 months and i've tried everything i can think of, to make sense of his moods and his needs and of the things he says (which are often utterly contradictory). within those 6 months i've been at the point of walking away from the relationship 4 or 5 times, just because i couldn't cope with the craziness of the situation anymore. i've been at that point again this week and have been clear that i'm breaking up with him and that i can't do this anymore. as anyone here will know, trying to break up with a (presumably) BPD person elicits some very weird responses and situtations, in and of itself. today, i was soo close to just breaking off all contact entirely and not looking back. it made me look back on the past 2 years of our relationship and especially the last 6 months. because i really felt like "it's utterly over" it felt like i had more headspace to look at the whole situation clearly and calmly. and i started wondering "what on EARTH has been going on?". and suddenly "BPD" was the only thing that made any sense at all. i know that labels like "BPD" can be used as a weapon or an insult, so i want to be very careful not to do that, especially as i've come from weeks and weeks of frustration, confusion, anger, etc. what makes me really think that BPD fits the bill are those utterly amazing, incredible, romantic, intimate first 18 months. i've never experienced anything like it in my life. and i remember wondering how this person could be so amazing, special, wonderful, incredible... i mean, he's so amazing, it's uncanny. and that's something i've heard of quite a few times, re BPD. so... reading here on this site today and on "BPD central" to make sure i wasn't getting things muddled up, things kind of fell into place. and i thought long and hard about whether to mention it to him. whether to ask him "do you think you might have BPD? has the thought ever crossed your mind?". (so many cons. so many pros, too.). in the end, i did ask him (via email). i've not had a reply yet, but i'm kind of dreading the reply. i presume his reply will be "whaaaat? are you kidding?" etc etc etc. and if that's his reply, i dunno what to do. i know that's the reply i should be preparing myself for. it's what's most likely. i doubt he'll really (be able to) give it any thought. . so, what now? i guess i need to accept that either:. 1. he has BPD but is not willing to address it . (which would be utter chaos and the relationship stands no chance). 2. he has something similar to BPD but doesn't want to address it. (same consequences as above). 3. we're just not compatible for some reason, which is making him seem so bizarre to me that i'm starting to seriously think he must have BPD cos i can no longer understand him at all. (same consequences as above). 4. he has BPD (or something similar) and is willing to address it. (lots and lots of hard work and patience required with many challenging times ahead). i think the chances that he'll be willing to address whatever it is that he's got going on are really low. so i assume he's just going to claim that it's # 3 - that i'm weird for thinking he's weird. i need to try and make peace with that. and to just let him go. whether it's BPD, something similar, or we're just so ludicrously incompatible it's making us seem nuts to each other. (the intensely amazing first 18 months of our relationship make me think we're not so incompatible and that it is BPD). so, given that i've suddenly realised that BPD is probably what it is, where i've been like a minute away from walking away forever. that makes me suddenly hopeful that "if only" he were willing to address this BPD stuff, then our relationship would stand a chance. (is that a false hope?). i know those first amazing months with a BPD person can be like a "mirage"... it did feel like the most amazingly special time of my entire life tho. so it's hard to forget that time, hard to just say "oh it was just the symptom of a condition that requires treatment". for me, those were the most beautiful 18 months of my life. it's hard to "give up" on that, even if the last 6 months have been harrowing, fraught, like walking on egg-shells, painful, confusing, frustrating, and turning in endless circles. ugh. i'm scared to check my email now, to see if he's replied. i expect there'll just be scorn or derision or fake laughter or something similarly bizarre and un-useful.

[icky]

oh, whoops, sorry . i just realised this should've gone in the "saving a relationship in or near breakup" section. this was my first post, so i didn't realise there was a breakup section

[jrharvey]

Something doesn't seem right here. 18 months of perfection is  LOONG time for someone with a mental illness to "fake it". BPD people have always been BPD. They don't catch it or get it like you get PTSD. Something very traumatic has to cause it and usually something very early in childhood. People with BPD cycle thorugh feelings of intense love and feelings early in the relationship. They cling on like their life depended on it and treat you like the most amazing person. This part last a few months. At most maybe 6 or 8 months until the infatuation wares off. Then they start to see fault in you and the fact that you are not perfect triggers very very intense emotions in them causing them to go nuts basically. They can have extreme anger rages, extreme depression, give you silent treatment, cheat on you, emotionally or physically abuse you, hurt themselves, threaten suicide etc... .Have you noticed any of these things in your relationship?

What specifically makes you think he has BPD?

[icky]

hi. thanks for your thoughts. we're in a long distance relationship - so the 18 months doesn't surprise me at all. specifically the last 6 months have been the time where we've spent more time together and it's become fraught . some of the things you've listed make me think of BPD, plus some others too. some are:. start to see fault in you and the fact that you are not perfect triggers very very intense emotions in them causing them to go nuts basically. They can have extreme tantrums, extreme depression, give you silent treatment, emotionally  abuse you, behave recklessly.

[icky]

given how draining our situation is at the moment and given it's been a difficult day, i probably can't explain it better than that at the moment. i'm exhausted and want to make some peace with the situation (probably BPD). i realise i will need to look more closely at whether he has BPD or something similar, in the days and weeks ahead. i don't think i have the strength to put it into words well today.

[waverider]

If you have the ability ti have a closer look at his previous interactions with people it will show up red flags. A history of being close to people then falling out with dramatic tales of how abandoned/bullied they were. Family members who just can't be bothered with him any more. Tales of being the black sheep, unfair workplace dismissal etc.

As previously mentioned BPD will have been present a long while, except this face of it has only just come to the surface at this stage in your RS with him. It would have surfaced in the past with other people. The over the top considerate face is often a pwBPD trying to role play who they would like to be, taking their cues off you. Unfortunately this does not come from a core set of values or sense of self, so it is not self perpetuating and so it runs out of momentum.

It also makes them feel like a failure (again) so they go into defensive / denial / delusional mode, and projection of blame onto you. Especially when they realize you are just a normal person and not the "goddess" they wanted you to be.

Ergo the collapse of the relationship is your fault, you were meant to be their savior.

When a pwBPD does come to accept the disorder it rarely happens when you bring it up, that is likely to be met with automatic denial, it may sink in eventually, but it is rarely a light bulb moment switched on by their partner.  Acceptance can also bring with it its own can of worms.

Working on why you were drawn to this person in the first place is a good place to start. Did you perceive they were providing for you what you had missing for yourself?  pwBPD are needy and need rescuers, but they are also good at role playing the provider too. Often they appeal to our own need to be rescued or have our needs filled. Hence "rebounders"  are vulnerable to the charms of pwBPD in their time of frailty

[icky]

i'm reading so many posts here thinking "yup, yup, yup, uh huh, yes, yup, yup, uh huh". but i'm also totally exhausted. these past 6 months have been harrowing - total rollercoaster. before, i could do no wrong. now i can do nothing right. for now, i guess i'll just read posts here to make some peace with this entire issue. and then i guess i'll give up on the relationship. i don't know. is it worth one last try, now that i know(?) what's going on with him? previously i was just guessing, guessing, guessing, guessing and thinking wow he's insane. it was unbearable. maybe knowing it's BPD will give me the strength i need and the understanding i need, to deal with it better? right now i just feel a lot of exhaustion and some relief, to know (in all probability) what's going on. it's all starting to make sense and to fall into place. thankfully, i don't feel angry about it, now that i can understand it. and i do still care about him. i'm someone who's quite good at setting safe, good, sensible boundaries. so i have not let him treat me particularly badly so far. (as soon as it started, i immediately started putting up boundaries). (those boundaries weren't respected, so i reinforced them). (i have experience working with traumatised street dogs (rescue dogs) so i have some valuable experience in how to set safe, basic, healthy, good boundaries and how to respond when they are ignored/ crossed). so i don't have a long list of grievances of terrible stuff my partner has done in our relationship, because i've been putting really good boundaries in place. but these past 6 months have been him trying to trample across all of my boundaries and having tantrums about "boundaries mean you don't truly love me". i've let him have his tantrums and just re-stated that my boundaries are there and that i think they are healthy and justified and that i love him and care about him and that i'd like to find a constructive way of working with the issues that have come up. that is what the past 6 months have been about. and he's reacted insanely to every healthy boundary i've asserted and reasserted. which is why i've started wondering whether he's nuts these past 6 months. so thankfully (thanks to good boundaries) i'm not at a stage in the relationship where i think he's the enemy or where i've allowed him to have the power to hurt me really deeply. (i think it's natural that there's some hurt in relationships - without some hurt, surely our hearts wouldn't be truly in the relationship). (but i've not let him hurt me to the point where it feels unsafe or toxic). when it has started feeling toxic, i have said that unless we fix it and make it non-toxic, i'm leaving the relationship. this was the point i was at again, this week. so maybe there is some "hope" yet. i certainly think he's a lovely person - he has so many beautiful traits and he's incredibly sweet and intelligent and caring. (sometimes. sigh). but i guess that's okay - we all have great traits and non-great ones. maybe the reason he's chosen me as a partner is because he knows i'm strong enough to work with and help traumatised street dogs. and so he senses i'm strong enough to work with and help him, without it damaging me and without it making me resent him. ?

[icky]

hi waverider. ooh yes, your post resonates totally : ). yup to all of what you wrote. yup, yup, yup . specifically i'll address the last question. i am someone who is drawn to "underdogs" in life. always have been and possibly always will be. if you read what i just wrote about about working with street dogs, i think i'm drawn to that in a non-toxic way tho. yes, he does both the very very needy thing and also the amazing provider thing. when i met him, i was rebounding from a relationship that had ended (amicably) after 15 years. also, i was in my mid-life non-crisis phase. i am loving my mid-life phase! : ). i don't know why people call it a crisis, other than it feels like the first half of your life is now behind you and something entirely new and exciting and unknown is going to open up and be the 2nd half of your life. so i was in a situation where i was feeling incredibly open and curious and wanting to talk to people who were open emotionally and vivid and i think that's what drew me to him. (also, i do LIKE him - he's a great person, except for this BPD stuff that's been driving me nuts recently).

[icky]

i also realise that me saying to him "do you think you maybe have BPD?" isn't going to lead to him saying "wow yes, you are right!". : ). i realise it will lead to more defensiveness on his part. but then i thought about how weird it would be to be 95% sure that's what he has and to not mention it!

[waverider]

we all have strengths and weaknesses, good points and bad points. Normally though these are spread out around a balanced center. The lack of a balanced center with pwBPD means you can get either a full whack of good then a big slab of bad. These extremes make it very difficult to hold a consistent relationship together, as the swings are far too extreme for most people, without a full understanding and the tools to deal with it, it can cause a relationship to bog down or fail altogether in the lows.

If you feel you have the understanding and strength to deal with this you will be able to get it out of its present trough, but it will continually to rollercoaster in and out of it. It will never be the ideal it was, or you thought it could be, and you will become a "carer" whether you like it or not.

Even if you could wave a wand and eliminate BPD a pwBPD has lived a lifetime of it, they have no bank of "normal" experiences to fall back on, and it is our experiences that make us who we are. So they will have huge gaps and scars.

Changing personalities is like learning a new language. Understanding>fluency> instinctively thinking in it, especially undrer stress> loosing your old accent, are long and arduous steps, it is the same with BPD "recovery"

A lot depends on what you ultimately want for your future going forward

[icky]

i guess what i would need to work out is what "benefit" i would be getting from this relationship, if i choose to continue it. i don't want to be his social worker/ therapist. it's okay for me to have that role when i'm working with street dogs. it would be okay for me to have that role if i was working professionally with BPD people. but if i'm having a romantic relationship, i don't want to have the role of the therapist. : P. i do think that life knocks us all around pretty hard and we all are left with bruises or scars or damage. so helping each other in a relationship, with the bruises and scars life has left us with, is okay. i guess i'll need to work out if we can get some kind of even relationship happening, where we are both supporting each other kind of equally. i don't mind if i support him a bit more. but i don't want to be in a carer/ therapist role. i want a real relationship between equals who like and love each other genuinely and who are not primarily together because of need(iness). so i guess i will have to evaluate whether/ how that is possible. . right now, i'm just relieved to (probably) know what's going on and to know that i could deal with it in a helpful, supportive manner. step 2 will be working out how to make it a genuine relationship between equal partners, one of whom happens to struggle with BPD issues

[Kelli Cornett]

Something doesn't seem right here. 18 months of perfection is  LOONG time for someone with a mental illness to "fake it".

Not unheard of. My BPDw went just about this amount of time before she dysregulated for the first time with me.
I came to find out that there have been triggers in her life (events and people) that tend to set off her dysregulation, and she can go for stretches of time where she's very high functioning if those triggers aren't present.

Unfortunately, as happens in many BPD r/s, I have now become a trigger myself and that's when discard for partners of pwBPD tends to happen. They then move onto a new idealization (person, job, location, ideology, spiritualism, etc.), discard the old r/s (which is now a trigger, as it reminds them of their dysfunction and how their r/s always turn out), and never have to deal with their lifelong issues.

[icky]

hi waverider. thanks for your thoughts. again, i agree totally. i guess only time will tell. i do like the challenge of working with traumatised street dogs - it's beautiful to see them blossom and grow - and yup, they retain most of their demented habits and never become particularly stable personalities. i will give this careful thought and will continue to set healthy, safe boundaries for myself, cos i know i'm of no use to anyone else unless i'm feeling kinda okay myself. i think i'll need some weeks to get my mind around this stuff and to see what kind of a difference knowing it's (probably) BPD is, makes. again: right now i'm just so relieved to have an explanation for the bizarrrrrrre last few months. they were so weird that i wasn't just questioning his sanity - he was so intense in his behaviour and his statements that occasionally i'd start wondering whether i was completely nuts : ). so right now i just feel total relief to have some kind of "road map" and not to be stuck in a swamp up to my knees, wondering how the heck i'd got stuck there and where to now?

[icky]

. Unfortunately, as happens in many BPD r/s, I have now become a trigger myself and that's when discard for partners of pwBPD tends to happen. They then move onto a new idealization (person, job, location, ideology, spiritualism, etc.), discard the old r/s (which is now a trigger, as it reminds them of their dysfunction and how their r/s always turn out), and never have to deal with their lifelong issues.

. yeah - i wonder if that's what i'm turning into too. i've spent 6 months setting healthy boundaries and calling him on all his bizarre behaviour... he hates having it pointed out to him. and i don't think he likes that i've now been a "witness" to 6 months of bizarre and crap behaviour. so even if i did find a way to work with his BPD, i kind of suspect he's going to turn it into a thing of "if you say/ think i have BPD then you're horrible and you're no longer the woman of my dreams". sigh.

[icky]

Mmm, well it's almost midnight here and i have a long day tomorrow, so i'm going to try and get some sleep. thank you soo much for this site and your thoughtful comments so far. i'd love to be able to come here for support during the next few weeks, which will be the most challenging and will probably be a make-or-break situation. as i'm someone who loves learning tho and who finds human nature and behaviour and psychology immensely interesting, i look forward to learning heaps and to some very interesting insights. night : ).

[icky]

oh and p.s. re your Q, waverider, about why i chose this partner... i must say the initial idealization phase is incredibly flattering and lovely! haha. oh dear. to have someone incessantly tell you you're the most amazing thing to have ever happened to them and that they think you're perfect... sigh. yup, i'll admit i fell for that  . : ). now that i know it's a BPD idealization phase - i'll know it, the next time it happens and i will be on my guard, haha. but seeing as it was the first time i'd had that happen to me, i was wholly unprepared for it and was totally floored and swept off my feet. it was an incredibly romantic time. like the most romantic film i've ever seen, and then some. : )

[waverider]

i guess what i would need to work out is what "benefit" i would be getting from this relationship, if i choose to continue it

i don't want to be his social worker/ therapist

it's okay for me to have that role when i'm working with street dogs

it would be okay for me to have that role if i was working professionally with BPD people

but if i'm having a romantic relationship, i don't want to have the role of the therapist

: P

This is the kicker when you end up living with a pwBPD, you dont get to "knock off work" go home and unwind. It's the lack of time and place, or respite that eventually brings you down. It feels like life sabotaging and your own life can become dysfunctional and handicapped by association. So if your LDR moves to cohabitation it ups the anti entirely.

Hence you have to think of the long term before you slip into default mode.

[waverider]

mid life crisis= browsing postcards and believing the idyllic images they portray.

The tropical island portrayed on the card from BPDland shows a tropical island, sun and promise, and servants providing for your every whim. It doesn't show the poverty and garbage in the backstreets, nor does it add a warning about the regular cyclones and tsunamis that the region is prone too. You discover these things after you relocate there

To successfully navigate this part of your life you take holidays rather than relocate your life.

[Kelli Cornett]

How did your 15 year r/s end "amicably", during midlife? What were the reasons it ended, was it amicable and mutual from day one (or did one person decide to end it, then the other one got on board), etc.

I think glossing over your 15 year r/s that ended in midlife while posting a ton of info very quickly about your current 2 year r/s, is kind of interesting.

[icky]

mmm can't sleep. drat. not sure about the mid-life metaphor. : ). i know my mid-life journey certainly got massively distracted and made topsy-turvy by this new relationship. . i didn't intend my mid-life shifts and growth to lead me to BPD land : ). i happened to meet a guy with BPD, during my mid-life phase . i'll be having a good long hard think about this BPD island. cos yup, there's lots of garbage and pollution and shanty towns and stuff. i'm not sure i want the 2nd half of my life to be about BPD stuff! : ). umm, well, re previous relationship ending - i dunno if i'm meant to tell my whole life history here. i think it's okay to gloss over some things, especially if they're not the main issue? (to partly answer your question, the 15 year relationship kind of fizzled out, it wasn't an amicable split to start with, it was more like a car breaking down, over time more and more stuff started breaking down and then we managed to call it quits without becoming mean about it). sorry if i've posted "a ton of info" about this current relationship. given i only realised the BPD thing today, i need to get this stuff sorted in my head, so i've just blurted it out as a way of processing it. i've been thinking bout this (BPD) relationship while not-managing-to-drift-off-to-sleep and i still feel affection for him, but i think what i've lost these past 6 months is the feeling of respect. at the moment, i can't respect him. and right now, i don't know how to get that back, or if i even can. and i don't think i can have a relationship without respect. i've watched him behave appallingly and not apologise for it or even realise what he'd done, for months now. it's left the respect just draining out of the relationship, which feels pretty crap.

[icky]

ugh. still can't sleep. my alarm clock goes off in 3.5 hours from now. ugh ugh ugh. sorry for blurting so much today - i'm a blurter, when i process stuff : /. now that the relief over working out this BPD stuff is starting to subside a bit, i think i just want this relationship to be over. maybe i should go and post in a section for "how to split up with someone who has BPD". cos when i'm in the relationship (nowdays) i do "everything" wrong. when i go to end the relationship i suddenly get asked "but why?" and told i'm wonderful and that i shouldn't leave. this back and forth is really messing with my head. i realise i won't manage to get an amicable split happening with a BPD person. but i can't even manage to get a mutual split happening. we can't even ing agree on whether to end this relationship or not. i've never been in that situation before. either a split has been mutual (both parties want the relationship to end). or it's been one person wanting it to end and the other person accepting that. in this current relationship, everything i've said or considered to be important has been ignored for the past 6 months. even as i've been trying to split up from him, he's basically ignored my attempts. just plain IGNORED them. how does that work? : ). in the past, he's done the typical BPD thing of totally freaking out cos of abandonment fears. but these past weeks, his modus operandi has been to pretend that i'm simply not splitting up with him. when i say that we need to stop this, it's getting toxic, he's pretended that i'm "just in a bad mood" and am making some kind of childish threats. (yeah, i realise that there's plenty of people who make those kind of childish threats). but i've genuinely been trying to break up with him. and he just pretends it hasn't happened. which is kind of driving me nuts. and i'm not getting any closure on it. . i think i need to stop hoping we'll call a mutual end to this relationship. i need to end it. and if he wants to pretend that hasn't happened, that's his prerogative and it's inside his head, but that's none of my business anymore

[Kelli Cornett]

I think the 15 year relationship is playing a huge part in this, and can answer a lot of your questions about your current situation.

Rhetoric like 'mid-life journey', LTR that 'fizzle out', 'break down like a car', and saying that the split was amicable when you're saying it really wasn't, sound like you don't want to look back to see how you wound up here.

And in the time it took me to type this, you've already posted that you're going to end your r/s.

[icky]

it's like he's a little kid. first he was clinging to me and saying you're wonderful you're wonderful. the past 6 months have been tantrums and lashing out. but when i go to leave, suddenly the little kid starts clinging again, saying "don't go". how do you split up with a kid?

[icky]

hi northface, oh, i totally admit i'm in a muddled state... i've had an awful 6 months, been trying to salvage/ end/ salvage/ end this relationship to no avail. currently i just want to walk away from it. and looking back at the past 6 months and the 18 months before it, i've realised that BPD is the only thing that explains to me what's gone on. i'm totally emotionally muddled about this. and yup, i have looked at my 15 year relationship and will do so again in the future. but right now, i'm struggling with this stuff. and yeah, i get that everything is connected. but if you're asking for reasons why i got into the current relationship, my childhood/ youth has waaaay more to do with that than my last relationship. anyway, i understand your advice and will process it as well as i am able. and will continue blurting muddled stuff (for as long as i'm allowed) about the pain of having been in a BPD relationship and now watching it end

[waverider]

There is no amiable break up in BPD land. They are used to rash reversible decisions, that is how they operate. You need space to think about this rather being reactionary, your decisions here have just swung all over in a matter of hours late at night.

Take space think it through decide what you want to do in the cold light of day. Think about it a few more days and see how it sits with you. if you want to call it a day, disengage yourself and any commitments, belongings you need to return etc. Then flat out say it and leave. There is no easing out.

Muck will fly and all cooperation will cease. It is a matter of tidying your affairs to avoid collateral damage.

Good luck with whatever you choose. if you make a choice and go back on it then that will set a precedent of disbelief

[icky]

crikey. long day (on just 2 hours of sleep). i heard back (via email) from my partner/ soon-to-be-ex and as expected he wasn't open re my question whether he'd considered he might have BPD - tho i was surpised that he wasn't particularly angry or upset about my having asked. (?). we've decided to have a few days apart and not talk again til next week (monday) cos at the moment, we're just fighting, going round in circles. i'm not sure how that will go - he seems to still be in total denial that we have issues or are about to break up, which is bizarre, but hey. things have been bizarre for months, so what's new. i'm going to use the next few days of calm to think about things and to work out a position i can gently-but-firmly assert on Monday. i had a big cathartic cry today and feel more peaceful about the whole thing. i don't feel as angry with him anymore and my expectations are becoming more sober. thank you for the excellent support here - such great information and communication - and the space to think about BPD issues. it's good to have a calm, sane space here, while BPD relationship stuff twists your brain/ sense of reality. thanks.

[icky]

in another thread on this board, i read a perfect description of some BPD behaviour i've been mulling over a lot today. i'll copy and paste the quote and my comments here (hoping that's okay). Quote by Meili on November 02, 2016. "As we know, feelings = fact. We'll never be able to change what they consider fact. My friend was explaining that she can say that the grass is purple and believe that the grass is purple, but when faced with undeniable evidence that the grass is green, she'll apologize and admit her mistake but still believe that the grass is purple. Once it's a fact to her, it's a fact forever more no matter what. Because of that, debating the color of the grass is pointless. Her SO just has to accept that she sees that the grass is purple. He cannot contradict her because that would be telling her that what she believes is wrong and therefore she's wrong/bad. He can only work with the fact that she sees the grass as purple. He doesn't have to internalize it and believe it himself though. It doesn't have to change a thing about him." . . thank you for wording the grass-is-purple stuff so well. this is one of the things that has upset me MASSIVELY in the past 6 months with my partner. after the idealization phase, all sorts of BPD behaviour started, including the "my feelings = FACTS" thing, which really freaked me out. i was having the-grass-is-purple stuff yelled at me in his tantrums with the ultimatum that i either "hear" and "validate" that the grass IS purple, or i'm the worst person on the face of the planet and the worst partner imaginable (ie. being expected to validate the FACT - validating the feeling was "not enough". not realising at the time that it was BPD stuff, those situations shook me to the core. i wondered if he was just plain insane. i'm only now starting to understand the BPD dynamic of feelings = FACTS. thank you for wording it so clearly and so well...

[waverider]

Its part of Radical Acceptance, that is just accepting what you cant change, and what ultimately doesn't have a negative impact on you simply by being so... eg it doesn't really matter to you if they think grass is purple. Its only the arguing about it that causes stress.

Take a read HERE

[icky]

i'm on my way to work, so i'll only write a brief reply and add more later. i agree that whether grass is purple is kinda academic, if you have a very open mind : ). what i found really challenging (not knowing it was BPD at the time) was when the feelings = FACTS thing was not something as neutral as grass-is-purple. but was me inadvertantly doing something tiny. and him deciding that was me hurting him MASSIVELY AND ON PURPOSE. and there would be meltdowns and tantrums where i'd be given an ultimatum of either i ADMIT that i hurt him massively on purpose or i'm the worst person on the planet for "not even admitting it". (i mean, either way that has me being a horrible person right? i mean, if i'm someone who would intentionally massively hurt their partner - that'd make me a horrific person. and one that he shouldn't want to be together with, given how toxic that would make me). but again, that's looking at it through the "logic" lense. i inadvertantly did something tiny, it caused him massive pain, he expressed his feelings in a feelings=FACTS way and wanted me to "make things better" by validating not just his feelings but also the "FACTS". in retrospect, it's a pattern that's easy to understand. at the time i felt like he was either going insane or trying to drive me nuts.

[icky]

. Its part of Radical Acceptance, that is just accepting what you cant change, and what ultimately doesn't have a negative impact on you simply by being so.eg it doesn't really matter to you if they think grass is purple. Its only the arguing about it that causes stress. Take a read HERE.

. ooh, thank you for the link - it looks excellent - i will read in detail later today. i'm still doing lots of processing, getting to grips with this BPD stuff, but making good progress. the real test will be how things progress as of monday when SO and i talk (we're on a gotta-stop-fighting-break til then). thank you so much for a calm, great space (with intelligent, well-observed, helpful information) in which to process this stuff