can we get infected by BPD behaviors?

[truthbeknown]

I ask this question because even though my alleged BPD exgf pushed me away over the last 6 months and was not really like a normal breakup.   Everything I read says they (BPD) will reach out to you most times if one goes no contact.   About three weeks ago I was ready to go no contact and she reached out to me on her birthday (see other post about this).  However, in our last text conversation she said she would like together this week because she has no kids with her this week.  Yet she kept posting facebook posts about things she was doing with others and I did very good at not visiting her timeline until yesterday.  Despite how I wanted to stay in my own power and not reach out to her something triggered me to have feelings of love.  She also posted a pic of her with her cousins new baby.  I saw her with the baby and I melted.  I was ready to deal with the replacements (friends) that she went out with and posted about but I was not ready to see her with a baby.  Something about that triggered this feeling of compassion, and a feeling of love that I still have for her.  So I broke my boundary and liked her post with the baby (not the other events).   Afterwards, I beat myself up over it and felt like I had just given away my power.  I couldn't believe how I forgot everything she did to push me away for just that brief moment and I returned to the feeling of love.  Somehow I feel like I have created my own push/pull in my own mind by doing this.  So I wonder if i'm now picking up some borderline behaviors because I felt the need or impulse to do this? 

Also, I am very emotional.  It seems like I'm the basket case.   Now I feel like I lost my power in regard to her and this week without her kids.  Instead of her wondering if I'm thinking of her now I put myself in that position.  This is so hard to completely disengage.  I'm struggling mentally.  So does that mean I'm sick now too?

[Harley Quinn]

Hi truthbeknown,

Try not to beat yourself up for doing what you have.  Instead I'd suggest you look at your actions with the curiosity you seem to have about what drives them and accept, then let it go.  When we dwell on things we do, it doesn't change anything exterior, instead it just creates interior turmoil.  Making choices from a state of inner turmoil isn't necessarily a wise move, so the first thing I'd do in that situation is to come away from the Facebook and go for a walk or do something relaxing instead of focusing on whether what you did was right or wrong.  You liked something.  Can't take it back, I presume, so the important thing here is what you want to do next.

Are you hoping to reconcile the r/s?      

I'm struggling mentally.  So does that mean I'm sick now too?

It's highly unlikely that an emotionally healthy individual would be in a r/s with someone who has BPD or traits of, as a more emotionally secure and mature individual would walk away at the first red flag.  In reality we all have work to do to address our own 'stuff' and so it's not surprising that we often find ourselves noticing behaviours in ourselves that we see in our ex partners.  It is said that we pair with people who are on the same emotional maturity level as ourselves.  

For that reason, I'd advise anyone in a codependent r/s to examine their own motivations for becoming involved in and staying in a dysfunctional r/s.  Whether this then gives us the tools and self awareness to be emotionally healthier individuals who then choose to remain in a BPD r/s and be more able to handle and manage what comes with that, or to move on and eventually be able to have a healthy r/s with another who is non disordered.  Your own journey is all about you, not anyone else.  At the beginning of it there was you and there at the end you will be.

Love and light x  

[truthbeknown]

Hi truthbeknown,
Are you hoping to reconcile the r/s?      

I don't think it's possible because of the dynamics.  Sometimes I fantasize about it and I don't know why.  What the dream is that she would contact me and try to re-engage but I would say, "only if you were willing to engage in some form of help from outside sources, do work on yourself etc."  

However, in reality I don't feel she is motivated to do this because she has the silver spoon syndrome- her parents spoon feed her money whenever she needs it and therefore she is emeshed with them (especially the mom who is very manipulative and paranoid).   So in some ways i have empathy for her because I know she is being manipulated.  However, she turns that manipulation onto me as like the old saying: "hurt people, hurt people."  

You're right- healthy individuals would just say, ______ this and walk away.   What keeps me hooked is how she was different in the beginning and my empathy for her b/c my kids are going through the same thing she is going through with her mom. My ex and her mom are so alike its scary!  My kids have allegiance to their mom not out of love but out of fear.  So love becomes power.  I was the only one in her life that didn't try to manipulate her and she pushed me away.  Really ironic and sad. The emotional tie in for me is that in some metaphoric or weird way I had hoped that since she was an adult that my love for her would help her to want to fight the pattern of influence that her mom exerts. 

In the beginning when she was on anti-depressants she fought back against her mom's negative influences.  After getting off, she is weak and is being influenced by all the wrong people.   It's almost like a teenager choosing poor friends who get one to do bad stuff, she has taken that path with my replacements. Again, perhaps i anchored saving her with saving my kids or giving hope that my kids could recover in adulthood.  However, losing this battle with her diminishes my hope that my kids will be able to win the fight later on

I may have to unfriend her so that I'm not tempted to look but I wanted to remain friends.  I think I'm fooling myself that we can be friends and again that is another emotional challenge I'm working through.   Once i get back on track financially I want to seek help because as the forum helps me I think having someone that I could talk to face to face would also be helpful.  

Oh one other big hook:  She has a big family and so did my ex wife.   In between the two of them I had an experience with someone who didn't have a big family and was feeling like a loner like me.  When we broke up I had no problem maintaining no contact for awhile.  We eventually reconnected and remain as friends today.  However, being included as part of the family and then having that pulled away from me has thrown me into a PTSD of sorts bc this happened with my ex-wifes' family as well.  She was also my religion and she brought me into her community and now all of that is gone.  I feel she projected her abandonment onto me and now I have taken it on because I got addicted to the family and belonging to a group again.  

Now it's just me again and I will get used to that but seeing those pics definitely doesn't help.

I know I am still living the trauma or fallout with my kids and the first BPD woman.   I do have a way of attracting them.  Back to the drawing board and trying to work on myself again.