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How to communicate after a contentious divorce... Following a contentious divorce and custody battle, there are often high emotion and tensions between the parents. Research shows that constant and chronic conflict between the parents negatively impacts the children. The children sense their parents anxiety in their voice, their body language and their parents behavior. Here are some suggestions from Dean Stacer on how to avoid conflict.
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Author Topic: She was consciously trying to construct a narrative/story of her life  (Read 485 times)
Cromwell
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« on: March 18, 2018, 01:08:18 PM »

I would have fully detached by now if it wasnt for the monthly or so stalking check up sessions.

anyway just wanted to share something of interest and wonder if anyone has similar experiences.

Im beginning to come to a theory that she was consciously trying to construct a narrative/story of her life by her behaviour.

It came from what at first appeared cryptic things she would say, such as in the midst of hinting that she had been cheating on me she would state "oh, I sure have some story to tell", but give no explanation. (I never probed at all when she would ramble on, hoping instead to let her open up further).

then there were random times she would text me little stories based on events we had gone through, some were accurate but they were editoralised to sound like something out of a romance novel where she would be the victim and I was some hero. Then there were stories were my role would be reversed. Of course I can now interpret that as the idolasation/hatred sequence, but it is this idea of storytelling that I never thought about until now.

When she said "we will always be together" and now im in the situation where, despite some occassional stalking, I ghosted her out of my life since the past 5 months, I wonder if the problem she has is that the people that have came into her life, she never saw as real but almost as characters in a story. Looking back, this starts to make alot of sense how she portrayed people or how she (usually when splitting) would compare me to people on tv. she knows that despite many things she said or did to hurt me, I still stuck it through with her. Its almost as if I believe that each time she would push the boundaries to see how much she could do before I would leave her, and having done that, push further. until I literally had no choice to leave before i would have cracked up because of it all being too much.

the more I feel i understand the more I feel sorry. I can theorise that the early traumas she went through led her to somehow detach from reality partially. thats partly why the relationship needs drama, something to fill the plot. She cant just look back on her life and say, I was a victim, I got help, I led a normal life. of course any hero in this narrative needs to fit unrealistic expectations. someone who endures the entire weight of her anguish, forever, to compensate for the pain she has gone through.

i think I will be somehow hated for not playing my role. the intention was to have me as caretaker, hero/villain, and if I was to be in her life it would mean sacrificing my self, if I died along the way or became institutionalised it would be rewritten to say "he tried valiantly for me but wasnt the one" followed by moving on to the next chapter. In the story tale, people are either Good or Evil. to prove they are evil, bad stuff must happen to them. I think this is why we so much hatred from exBPD when we get into new happy relationships after leaving them. Surely we were supposed to be punished as the victim/ damsel in distress always wins at the end of the story.

she would come up with very childlike references to people she associated with, such as calling friends "accomplices". she once referred to me, as if desperately searching for a role as everything that varied between a multitude of characters obtained from films, depending on what mood she was in. positive and negative. I think too much cannabis from a very early age is a part of fault here in what amounts to psychosis trips ive witnessed in her. indeed I saw this storytelling really accelerate when she was high.

maybe im reading too deeply into it, but I dont think so, I think there is something there that it is only now that ive escaped the chaos that im piecing things together to find some sort of explanation. At the very least it has shown me that there is fundamentally in the condition this needing other people to escape reality and it is here where she was the most unpredictable. Actually the sweetest kindest moments ive seen from her was when she was sober or on a drug comedown, i guess partly needing the security of a caretaker but also mentally having to face reality, acknowledge even how briefly, that she knew I was real, loved her, etc, but then when she couldnt handle those strong emotions the splitting would start again, and the psychosis fairy tale she narrated in her own mind would begin. Her role as the victim meant she could do whatever she wanted in the story. dont mention alcohol, that was the catalyst for her conversion into the most hate filled vile monstrosity ive ever faced.

it is the hardest thing in the world for me to have felt what I felt for her and just walk away. it is especially hard knowing that unlike my other relationships which all ended amicably and we moved on with our lives without grudges or issues, that she still hangs around to the extent i sometimes have lost sleep and had nightmares that she will pop up in the future. well she does, even 6 months later and she has done in the past. probably because she did successfully h00ver me back once before. ive had several opportunities to begin new relationships but now have to entertain the thought of having to protect these people!. who is to say she wont intensify the stalking and generate chaos when she sees that i have moved on and in contrast, she is not living "happily ever after"? and the villain is enjoying a new life, new friends and doesnt seem to be bothered. will she then be seething with the rage i remember proclaiming "see! i knew he lied! he said he loved me and he just used me like all the others did"

the hero doesnt go out to battle and risk his life then comes back to the kingdom to find his queen sleeping around with the villagers. at least in this day and age despite all the anger I had I can be the mature one and go no contact, if we lived back in those days im pretty sure she would have been burned as a witch by now.

she hates me because i dont try to crawl back to her and my life is going forward for the better. i dont mean her ill will, except she had the ability to take a normal calm peaceful person and ive felt rage and anger ive never known was possible. i think her purposefully stalking me is her last form of control. anyone who knows how best to deal with that once and for all please share thanks.

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JNChell
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« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2018, 08:43:51 AM »

I wonder if the problem she has is that the people that have came into her life, she never saw as real but almost as characters in a story.

Hi Cromwell. Wow! This really struck a chord with me. My ex has what I would call an extreme attatchment to fantasy, sci-fi and gaming. Clothing, tattoos, jewelry and I believe that each room in her house is fully decorated and themed in these genres by now. It’s all she reads, and she reads a lot. She can become very emotional while watching the movies. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy these genres, minus the gaming, but she is deeply into it. I have often wondered if it’s a total escape for her. Total detachment. Do you think our situations may be somewhat similar in this aspect?

Detaching is hard stuff. It’s painful, but we’re here because we want to get through it, and we’re probably in one of the best places on the planet to do so. I completely agree with you on Good/Evil comparison. Unfortunately, our exes aren’t able to live in the gray area that is the great big center of reality.

Great post Cromwell! How are you feeling right now in your detachment process?

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“Adversity can destroy you, or become your best seller.”
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Waveney

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« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2018, 11:00:20 AM »

Dear Cromwell,
I was really struck by your experience of this fantasy world and the failure to see people as real. My pwBPD has a complete online fantasy life, in which she is single, lives alone, is rich, and is currently heterosexual with a (titillating) history of sex with women. In reality she is my partner, lives with me, is completely supported financially by me, and is a lesbian (although she recently started an affair with a man, so who even knows?). She interacts all day online through various apps, being different versions of herself depending on who she is talking to. She even said to the man she's cheating on me with (when he was telling her that her behaviour was unbelievable) that she was just trying to be who he wanted her to be.

When she talks about the people she catfishes or with whom she has online and sometimes real-life relationships she talks about ___ing them and then ghosting them as if they have no feelings or are not real. She strung a woman along (who had confided in her that she suffered from mental illness), telling they were seeing each other, constantly texting and sexting her, meeting up with her, and then she suddenly dropped her and blocked her on everything. She told me that they met on Tinder so what did this woman expect? She spends literally hours a day looking at other people's lives on facebook and Instagram and will try to look like certain women, but if anyone she knows starts to look like her she immediately changes her appearance.

She also recounts stories of things that have happened that I know did not happen to her. So she will tell a story with herself as the hero or victim, but in fact I know that the events actually happened to someone else or not at all. I think she is constantly trying to impose a narrative on her chaos and it does break my heart to see just how hard things must be for her to be so completely out of touch with reality all the time.

So I think that in addition to seeing everyone else as a character she just uses or engages with when she needs them (and who is irrelevant when she doesn't need them), she also treats herself as a host of different characters in her own story. Only her story seems to be taking place in multiple genres simultaneously. Sometimes when we are sitting on the sofa and she is on her phone I look at her and wonder who exactly she is being in that moment, and is she even aware of where she is and that I am here?

She definitely spends most of her day escaping reality and is also high on various weed products all the time, so that seemed similar too.

I hope you are able to re-ground yourself and find a way to manage the potential stalking. The on-going impact is hard to deal with.
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Speck
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« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2018, 11:48:13 AM »

Hey, Cromwell:

Thank you for sharing your story.

My uBPDw didn't engage with a sci-fi fanstasy life per se or treat me as a cartoonish feature in her narratives, but she most certainly spent most of her waking hours partaking in leisure pursuits: reading, watching Netflix, hiking, swimming, biking, shopping, traveling, etc. Sounds pretty exciting, right? Nope. Over time (10 years), it began to dawn on me that her fantasy of us involved her having a neverending, perpetual childhood with me in the role as her ever-loving, understanding caretaker.

This arrangement worked just fine until I started to protest the way she treated me. Then, Boom! she was gone.

Persons suffering from BPD see things in severe black and white... .the murky, shifting gray zones make them uncomfortable. It's hard for them to maintain two opposing ideas in their heads without breaking into a flop sweat. Also, pwBPD are masters at categorization; they need to label things/persons in order to understand their world. Maybe, some of this is going on for your ex.

The stalking behavior is concerning. But, most likely, a benign consequence of her just checking up on you to see if you are still in her sphere of influence. You mentioned a previous successful h00ver... .

Keep writing if it helps. Someone here is always listening.


-Speck
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Starfire
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« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2018, 01:07:28 PM »

My ex would make similar comments.  "If you only knew."

It was also important to him that I understand and respect what other people thought of him.  Except I learned what other people thought of him from him.  It was very much his narrative.

He would get very caught up in music and movies and the deep meaning behind them that we could apply to our relationship.  He still swears that The Notebook is proof that he and I were meant to be together because in his mind we ARE Noah and Allie.
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Speck
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« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2018, 07:59:56 AM »

Hey, Cromwell:

How are things going since you first shared this with us?

We're aways here if you need to talk.


-Speck
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Cromwell
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« Reply #6 on: April 15, 2018, 12:33:20 PM »

Hey, Cromwell:

How are things going since you first shared this with us?

We're aways here if you need to talk.


-Speck

Hi Speck

Im in a vastly better place, I really feel almost recovered from this. Dont get me wrong, it has been an emotional nightmare that took more out of me than any other relationship id been in. I mean, 7 months on after complete no contact and ive still got some loose ends I think to tie up. Ive usually been ok with breakups, they went amicably.

What I would like to say though is that im starting to notice the byproduct of it has made me feel like a far stronger person, awakened me in many ways to my own weaknesses that Id like to work on. I dont feel so bitter anymore about meeting this person because im starting to see the value of it, which wasnt obvious at all at the height of anger and depression/longing.

You guys here, and every person who posted their unique story has been so valuable. Not only that I realised I am not alone in the world that couldnt handle someone with this PD, but that it is in fact a recognised extremely difficult relationship to go through. Also I learned more about my ex, AFTER putting her out my life, studying and reading other people's stories, were like all the missing jigsaw pieces started to fit.

I was so ill, psychologically, with anxiety, paranoia, ptsd, at the worst during the relationship i went into stress related psychosis. People worry about being depressed or angry, when I got to those stages they were a walk in the park to deal with compared to where I started. Today I feel i have got over it, became a stronger person and actually look forward to the future. I think as time goes on the memories fade also. Ive learned that im a very emotional person and I think this made it even harder for me to go through, but its also why the good times were so amazing to me, and Im glad I can look back at them and not regret meeting this person.

The only thought today as I enjoyed my peace was to think, how much she lost out on and probably doesnt even realise it. I also realised that I didnt like her as much as I had illussioned myself i did, I played my own part in idolising her and idealising the relationship, just because i wanted this person to be part of the dream that she played her part in presenting to me. I think my relationships in future will be a piece of cake, even if I come across those with PDs I think I will at least have a solid idea of how to deal with them.

Thanks for your interest and thanks again to everyone you dont know how much this board has come to mean to me.  Doing the right thing (click to insert in post)

It sure has been a life experience ill give it that much at least!  Smiling (click to insert in post) Smiling (click to insert in post)
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Speck
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« Reply #7 on: April 15, 2018, 09:27:14 PM »

Hello again, Cromwell:

It's good to hear such a positive report from you. Please forgive me for paraphrasing what you have most recently shared:


  • I'm in a vastly better place.
  • I really feel almost recovered from this.
  • The byproduct of [this breakup] has made me feel like a far stronger person.
  • [I feel] awakened in many ways to my own weaknesses that I'd like to work on.
  • I don't feel so bitter anymore about meeting this person.
  • I'm starting to see the value of [the relationship].
  • I realised I am not alone in the world.
  • I learned more about my ex, AFTER putting her out my life.
  • Today I feel I have got over it.
  • I became a stronger person.
  • I actually look forward to the future.
  • I think as time goes on, the memories fade also.
  • I'm glad I can look back at [the good times] and not regret meeting this person.
  • I enjoyed my peace [today].

I'm counting fourteen positive statements up there. FOURTEEN! That's huge, my man. You've come so far in your recovery and I'm so happy to see such growth in your life.

I agree, this website is such a healing garden for so many. It appears that you've taken the site tools, lessons, and discussion forum to heart and have been able to affect real change in your life.  Doing the right thing (click to insert in post)

Detaching from pwBPD is tough work. We are here for you.

Keep writing, keep processing, keep learning... .


-Speck
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