Hi there, Something cool,
Of course there is hope. I haven't read yet "Stop walking on eggshels", because I'm not strong on using boundaries, and more than that I wanted to know if there was hope for my girlfriend, not for me. So that has been my focus, and I've seen some improvement. There are days when you feel it's all the same again, but things don't excalate to being so destructive, so they pass sooner. I've known only for 4 months and I saw improvement already. Maybe you can't tell if you read my lasts posts, because I had a really stupid crisis this week.
One of the nice things of this place is that when you have those crisis that no one else is going to understand and you feel so alone and misunderstood, there are a hundred people here that have lived the same. And they offered me compassion and advice.
One of the things we have in common is that we all have a big number of times when we thought all was lost. And then we go back and we keep trying and we almost forget why we broke up or thought we were over.
The good news is that we can do something. We, not only them or a therapist. We change things, and we see an improvement. And it's empowering to know we did it. We expected a reward from them, but the reward comes also from yourself. It hurts to see that they can't give us what we give them. But then, it's great to see we overcame some obstacles that seemed impossible out of our love for them. We discover we were stronger, and more capable than we thought.
You are absolutely right that no ammount of logic defuses the ranting. We carry a lot of momentum from the hundred times we tried that, and we still expect it to work. We still expect they to realize that we are not the enemy. Right? Well, it doesn't work. And it takes a lot of will to stop and take a step back and start changing how we look at things. The first argument that doesn't grow into a fight, you'll think it's a miracle.
If you learn the tools, they work. Maybe they don't work all the time, but they work a lot more than what we used to do.
It's great news that he is starting therapy, and that he admits to have BPD. I see a lot of guys that never admit to that. You can tell him, when you can, that he's very brave to get the help he deserves. There are a lot more borderlines than we think, specially than they think. But it's a disorder that not many people share they have. And there is a huge stigma about them being trouble makers. So nobody wants to say "I have it". But they are not alone, many people, even many celebrities and great people have it, it's a real thing, it's an ilness and not something they ought to be ashamed of. The less shame, the more improvement. (Many act shameless, as a reaction to how bad they feel with themselves). The thing is, there is a lot of people who feel the way they feel, and when they know this, they feel less isolated. When we can understand how they feel, that also helps a lot.
We are not alone either. We feel that if our family or friends knew about our life, they'd think we are sick in the head, a doormatt, a victim... .But they don't know the whole story. Here, many people know. Many of us understand that in spite of the pain, we keep trying to make it work. We still love them and believe there is a beautiful person behind the disorder.
Please, be patient with the learning and with yourself. You just started a new journey. It feels like there is a lot of walking when our foces are already spent. It feels like that for most of us. And then, we get far on that journey.
Wish you both the best. Keep writing.
