The rage stage of healing

[seekingtheway]

I've been meaning to write an update on here for a while - the healing process for me has taken some interesting twists and turns. It's been 15 months since I broke up with my ex, and about 7 months since I last contacted him to let him know that I wasn't okay with the way I was treated, and that I didn't want any further contact with him. He has been in a relationship for about 10 months, but continues to occassionally orbit me (parking near my house or in places he knows I will walk past etc), but I keep my head low and make it clear I'm not up for any contact. I think one day it will stop, but it still unsettles me and I have to work hard to keep my nervous system in check.

I have been in therapy for more than a year now. The recovery process for me has been brutal at times. While I accept that my ex's problems are his alone, I decided it was time to excavate my entire childhood and do a post mortem my entire life, as well as an inventory of my current friendships. This part has been unexpectedly hard - I didn't expect to see such a huge fault line of neglect, control and Cluster B behaviours rippling through my entire life. It's led to many dark nights of the soul, and a stage of withdrawal, protection and shedding.

I decided to step back from a number of family relationships and friendships that I realised exist only because I have been keeping them alive by over-functioning or allowing someone else's needs to over-ride my own. By stepping back and letting go of the rope, I've been able to observe what these connections are really made of, and it's been really confronting to see that these are not reciprocal or safe relationships for me, and haven't been for a long time. I reckon this has applied for around 60-70% of my family and friendships. I dug my heels in at times because I really didn't want to have to admit that I needed to let a lot of these friendships go and deal with the grief of all of that loss.

During all of this, I went through a stage of rage... which I was not expecting, but it was equal parts cathartic and distressing. My way of safely releasing it was to scream or shout it out while I was driving, with music turned up very very loud... I reckon there will be a few people who will have seen this manic open-mouthed screaming lady driving around for a while and thought WTF??? But it's like i was screaming at every moment of disrespect, control, abuse, neglect, cruelty that I've ever experienced in my life. It lasted a few months but I feel like this was such a powerful release for me - to name the dsyfunction, feel every inch of the anger and injustice of it... and release it.

And so... here I am... on the other side of all of that, with a lot less friends, a lot less contact with my family, a much more boundaried way of interacting with people I don't know well, a lot more free time. But there's peace, hope for the future, and more self trust than there's been for a long while.

Would be very interested to know if any other members went through this process as part of their healing?

[Under The Bridge]

Good to see you're evaluating your life and learning what is good for you and what is toxic. Maybe we all need to do this at some point, irrespective of BPD - we tend to feel better after clearing things out, whether emotionally or simply de-cluttering.

In answer to your question, I'd imagine that all of us went through the rage stage as well as all the other stages concerned with a BPD relationship; guilt that maybe we could have done more or that we could have set boundaries, etc We're logical people so are bound to get angry when we've treated our partner more than fairly and received abuse in return.

My biggest source of rage was at how my partner could simply walk away after an outburst, without any sort of remorse or conscience. I hadn't heard of BPD then so I just thought she had a mean streak. The rage eases when you realise that your partner was ill and will continue to treat any future partners exactly the same.

It also eases when you start being honest with yourself and acknowledging that you were in a repetitive toxic cycle and, if you let it continue, could be in it for the rest of your life. I then realised that even with the wonderfully high points, such a relationship would have taken it's toll on me. I was with her for four years..I couldn't imagine what 40+ years would have been like to my mental and physical health.