She broke my heart and has left scars on my psyche -Healing

[Depression = 72% of members]

The original thread "*She broke my heart and has left scars on my psyche which I feel will never heal" has gotten too long and has been locked. --I wish to thank everyone who has offered me so much insight and support.

This is perhaps a good moment to change the tone.  The original title included  '... .which I feel will never heal'.  This, of course, was written in a moment of despair.  Naturally, time heals all wounds, but I am curious why the wounds left after a relationship involving BPD seem to take longer to heal --it is as if the wounds carry some odd psychological infection.

*** I would ask the site monitors to consider the best place for this sort of discussion.  I wished to begin here, as it is the location of the original thread Harri started for me. ***

So here goes.  I am firmly committed to never go back to my BPD ex -I know I cannot out of self preservation.  We have been out of contact for 5 months or so -I began posting on BPD Family on the 100 day of no contact.

Since leaving her I find myself unable to stop thinking about her -not all the time, but she comes to my mind several times each day.  It as if I am trying to find my own closure and gain an understanding of a relationship which had no rhyme or reason.  

My suppositions:

My BPD ex simply had no control over her actions whatsoever -there was no malicious intent, however she acted out terribly.

I do not feel I was duped or tricked.  In that I do not feel I was the victim of some Machiavellian plot on her part.  We were in love, but her alleged disorder (undiagnosed) made our relationship dysfunctional and dangerous to for me.

Out of rationality and self preservation I left the relationship.  Good reasons.

Having reason and logic on my side, knowing what I did was the right thing for me, why does it seem to take an inordinate amount of time to let her go in my heart?

I realized yesterday I am still attempting to assemble pieces of the puzzle, that was our relationship.  Our relationship is over and done and has no bearing on my current life -why the compulsion to entertain these thoughts?

Yesterday I figured out a few more instances where she potentially lied: who too what picture, who visited her when, why her ex did such and such --So what?  This is now irrelevant to my future, our lives touch at no point.  So what is the psychological mechanism which drives my compulsion?

If the good people her on BPD Family are willing to I would like to explore this phenomenon, as I believe my experience is not unique. I hope by gaining some understanding of the mechanism I can step out of the system and end what seems to be a self rewarding obsessive cycle.


Wicker Man

[Wicker Man]

The original thread "*She broke my heart and has left scars on my psyche which I feel will never heal" has gotten too long and has been locked. --I wish to thank everyone who has offered me so much insight and support.

This is perhaps a good moment to change the tone.  The original title included  '... .which I feel will never heal'.  This, of course, was written in a moment of despair.  Naturally, time heals all wounds, but I am curious why the wounds left after a relationship involving BPD seem to take longer to heal --it is as if the wounds carry some odd psychological infection.

*** I would ask the site monitors to consider the best place for this sort of discussion.  I wished to begin here, as it is the location of the original thread Harri started for me. ***

So here goes.  I am firmly committed to never go back to my BPD ex -I know I cannot out of self preservation.  We have been out of contact for 5 months or so -I began posting on BPD Family on the 100 day of no contact.

Since leaving her I find myself unable to stop thinking about her -not all the time, but she comes to my mind several times each day.  It as if I am trying to find my own closure and gain an understanding of a relationship which had no rhyme or reason.  

My suppositions:

My BPD ex simply had no control over her actions whatsoever -there was no malicious intent, however she acted out terribly.

I do not feel I was duped or tricked.  In that I do not feel I was the victim of some Machiavellian plot on her part.  We were in love, but her alleged disorder (undiagnosed) made our relationship dysfunctional and dangerous to for me.

Out of rationality and self preservation I left the relationship.  Good reasons.

Having reason and logic on my side, knowing what I did was the right thing for me, why does it seem to take an inordinate amount of time to let her go in my heart?

I realized yesterday I am still attempting to assemble pieces of the puzzle, that was our relationship.  Our relationship is over and done and has no bearing on my current life -why the compulsion to entertain these thoughts?

Yesterday I figured out a few more instances where she potentially lied: who too what picture, who visited her when, why her ex did such and such --So what?  This is now irrelevant to my future, our lives touch at no point.  So what is the psychological mechanism which drives my compulsion?

If the good people her on BPD Family are willing to I would like to explore this phenomenon, as I believe my experience is not unique. I hope by gaining some understanding of the mechanism I can step out of the system and end what seems to be a self rewarding obsessive cycle.


Wicker Man

[zachira]

Wicker Man,
I admire how you are doing everything to take a look at why you found yourself in such a heartbreaking relationship, and are wondering why it is still hurting and how to avoid being in a similar situation in the future. I would say that the first step would be to work on how you seek validation. If our internal validation system is strong, we value ourselves as the first source of feedback, and accept outside feedback as it pertains to our sense of self. If we value external feedback, then we are on a never ending self defeating cycle of trying to please others and are vulnerable to taking on the negative feelings of others as our own feelings.

[Wicker Man]

I admire how you are doing everything to take a look at why you found yourself in such a heartbreaking relationship, and are wondering why it is still hurting and how to avoid being in a similar situation in the future.

My tryst with BPD was just that -an affair.  I have been married for 20 years to a wife suffering from diagnosed, medicated, but otherwise untreated OC(PD).  I use the parenthesis to make clear the fact that I ran from one relationship involving a personality disorder to another.  Out of the frying pan and into the fire.  OC(PD) and B(PD) are at polar opposites on the personality disorder continuum.

My wife and I are currently both in therapy and doing our best to reconcile -there has been a full disclosure of the affair.  --So I am not concerned with ever entering another relationship with someone suffering from BPD.  I am simply trying to sort myself out in the hope of having a healthier relationship with my wife and myself.

In 20/20 hindsight I believe 20 years of repression, accepting a deeply flawed marriage as my duty as a 'savior', created the emotional rift which in turn made fertile ground for betrayal.  When the affair began it began as an emotional affair but escalated into an engagement and my filing for divorce.

I would say that the first step would be to work on how you seek validation.

It is interesting you point this out.  People suffering with OCPD do not validate, it is part of their perfectionism -nothing is ever good enough and thus there is no place for it.  When I am not traveling for work I cook, clean, maintain the house, I attempt to be a model husband.

I am without a doubt a codependent 'people pleaser' and a workaholic. I am in therapy and working on both of these traits.  Work played a part in my attraction for my affair partner -we met at work and she seems to have been an extension of my obsession with it.  My identity seems to be closely linked with my work.  My work is exciting, all consuming, creative and on a variable reward schedule (free lance) --put simply seductive. 

Yesterday, ironically mountain biking,  I realized I seem to have a need for thrill seeking.  This need is largely fulfilled through my work.  I work in the film industry, so it is high pressure, but very rewarding.  There is a similarity when working on set to the controlled chaos which I found in my BPD relationship -soaring highs and crushing lows. To be clear -my affair was a one off, my thrill seeking never before involved promiscuity and certainly never will again.

There is a contradiction here, as I am a financial conservative and prefer safety over real danger. -this is what helped me remove myself from a dangerous relationship.

I believe I have the right questions in mind to correctly focus my therapy and thank you for reinforcing my need to focus on validation.

Back to my original question do you believe the echos and aftermath from BPD relationships lie solely in my presumable unhealthy need from validation or are there other elements at play?


Wicker Man

[zachira]

Wicker Man,
Thank you for your reply. I apologize that I did not fully understand that it was an affair with a woman with BPD and you are now back to working on your marriage.
As far as "an unhealthy need for validation", we all need to be validated and that is not unhealthy in itself. What is unhealthy is when we seek validation from people who do not have the capacity to provide validation and/or people validate us and we refuse to accept it because we feel we do not deserve to be loved and cared for by other people. 
"Are there other elements at play? For sure. What those are, are being revealed, and with the courage and resilience you have shown, you will continue to face your pain and feel better as you go forward on your journey.

[Wicker Man]

... .we refuse to accept it because we feel we do not deserve to be loved and cared for by other people.

My case was diametrically opposed to this notion.  I felt I deserved every bit of the adoration she showed me and therein was my Achilles heal.  I have spent my life working on being my version of a 'good man' --but was unaware of my deeply seated codependency, I fell into the trap of believing in fairytale love. 

It felt like this was the love I had spent my entire life making myself ready for.  --believe you me I am dwelling on this in therapy and will continue to do so. 

She was my perfect drug, intelligent, interesting, creative, magical, and apparently I was apparently attracted to her need for being saved from a cruel world (my codependency in overdrive).  Now to be fair, to speak in very general terms, life in the PRC is quite hard on women,  -so I had plausible deniability... .  It was easy to justify to myself my need to save her.

To clarify: I do not see myself as a victim and do not feel she 'tricked me'.  I hold no animosity toward her, in fact I feel deep pity for her.  I cannot imagine what it must be like suffering from BPD.

Intellectually I have some understanding, it is the emotional separation I am still trying to process.


Wicker Man

[Cromwell]

I recall you said something along the lines that when you decided not to buy the house, you were called a coward by her.

It would be interesting to know if this was the first time she had ever used derogatory names towards you?

i think it was one of your earlier posts on that initial thread you made but I cant fully recall the entire context of it.

[schwing]

Hi Wicker Man and

Naturally, time heals all wounds, but I am curious why the wounds left after a relationship involving BPD seem to take longer to heal --it is as if the wounds carry some odd psychological infection.

I will make an attempt to speculate as to why BPD relationships seem to take longer to heal.  Also I would point out that IMHO time doesn't necessarily heal all wounds, it depends on what you do with that time.

Since leaving her I find myself unable to stop thinking about her -not all the time, but she comes to my mind several times each day.  It as if I am trying to find my own closure and gain an understanding of a relationship which had no rhyme or reason. 

I don't know why you find yourself unable to stop thinking about her.  But I can tell you why I found it difficult to stop thinking about my exBPDgf for many months (perhaps years) after our 4-5 year relationship ended.

For me, at that time, thinking about her, was a means of avoiding the pain I was experiencing.  Maybe it was the OCD trait I was exhibiting.   For me, utilizing the analytic part of my mind was a coping mechanism; one that I depended on for much of my life.  I might have argued that I am just trying to understand my situation so that perhaps I could avoid such a future unpleasant experience.  But at that time, I really just needed to take care of myself.  And the co-dependent part of my personality made it excruciating difficult to focus on taking care of myself.

So here I am trying to *understand* in order to stop hurting.  What I eventually learned how to do, was just hurt, be ok with that hurt.  And accept the reasons why I was hurting.  But also take care of myself while I was hurting - which (for me) meant some exercise, rediscovering some creative outlets, finding new creative outlets, but basically spending more time with myself focusing on not what I thought should make me happy but on what actually made me happy.

I would argue that even before I was with my exBPDgf, I had these ideas of what would make me happy which were not necessarily true.  The biggest lie I told myself was that I was happy while I was with my exBPDgf.  And truth be told, while I was with my exBPDgf, I was very happy, but I was *also* deeply miserable.  And trying to unravel this massive cognitive dissonance was a big part of my recover from this painful experience.

My BPD ex simply had no control over her actions whatsoever -there was no malicious intent, however she acted out terribly.

I do not feel I was duped or tricked.  In that I do not feel I was the victim of some Machiavellian plot on her part.  We were in love, but her alleged disorder (undiagnosed) made our relationship dysfunctional and dangerous to for me.

It's my impression based on what you wrote here, that you are also dealing with a cognitive dissonance; two conflicting ideas that are duke-ing it out in your mind.  As I read it, your BPD ex acted out in ways that are completely at odds with the personality and disposition of the woman you know and perhaps still love.  So it is very difficult for you to believe that she could willingly do what she did (whatever it was she did).

And perhaps in some sense you are right.  For example, if someone was suffering from a disorder that makes it next to impossible for them to act against their impulse, then in a sense, they have no control over their impulsive actions.

But what you may need to accept is that so long as they are suffering from this disorder, their impulse to act out maliciously towards you may happen again, completely outside of your or their control.

Out of rationality and self preservation I left the relationship.  Good reasons.

Having reason and logic on my side, knowing what I did was the right thing for me, why does it seem to take an inordinate amount of time to let her go in my heart?

It took a long time for me to let go because deep down I wanted to believe that the "good" part of my exBPDgf could be freed and perhaps could return to me.  If only the "bad" part of my exBPDgf could somehow be excised.  A big fear I entertained was that she would suddenly be cured and I would miss out on all the goodness in spite of having spent so much time trying to help her.

I think until I truly accepted that this disorder she has is *real* and not only real but also very deeply entrenched in her psyche.  Until I accepted that there was a good chance she would never beat this disorder.  And when I accepted this, I realized that the "good" part of my exBPDgf, was never a real part of her personae.  There is a reason why this is disorder is described as a *personality* disorder.

And I would not want you to blame yourself for finding it difficult to "let her go."  For me, I connected with my BPDex in a way that reached my own core wounds - wounds that relate to how I related to my disorder mother (before I even realized or accepted that my mother is disordered).  Perhaps there is such a connection for you as well.  Perhaps your relationship with your BPDex resonates with some other important familial connection that is also yet resolved.

I realized yesterday I am still attempting to assemble pieces of the puzzle, that was our relationship.  Our relationship is over and done and has no bearing on my current life -why the compulsion to entertain these thoughts?

Yesterday I figured out a few more instances where she potentially lied: who too what picture, who visited her when, why her ex did such and such --So what?  This is now irrelevant to my future, our lives touch at no point.  So what is the psychological mechanism which drives my compulsion?

If the good people her on BPD Family are willing to I would like to explore this phenomenon, as I believe my experience is not unique. I hope by gaining some understanding of the mechanism I can step out of the system and end what seems to be a self rewarding obsessive cycle.

Try this.  When you catch yourself thinking obsessively about your BPD ex.  Ask yourself, is there an emotion behind this thinking?  Instead of focusing intently on your recollection of the past, ask yourself how do you feel right at this moment.  And see if you can release/express that emotion.

I hope some of this helps.

Best wishes,

Schwing

[schwing]

Back to my original question do you believe the echos and aftermath from BPD relationships lie solely in my presumable unhealthy need from validation or are there other elements at play?

I believe that people with BPD (pwBPD) are as keen and sharp at seeing the wounds and vulnerabilities of others, as they are as blind and helpless in the care and recovery of their own wounds and vulnerabilities.

Probably, your BPDex knew exactly what to give you in the effort to provide a simulacrum of what you needed in the hope that you would provide her exactly what she needed: which is a partner who would not betray/denigrate or abandon her.  The problem for pwBPD is that most of the time, the perception that their partner will abandon them, is primarily imagined (and disordered).

So we know why she could not get what she wanted.

But she probably did show you what she believed you wanted/needed.  The trick is to get the majority of whatever that was, from yourself.

After all, you cannot get someone to love you, if you do not love yourself.  Because how would you ever know that they love you?

[once removed]

I am curious why the wounds left after a relationship involving BPD seem to take longer to heal --it is as if the wounds carry some odd psychological infection.

i think you may find that the further out you get, the clearer it will become that this part is generally more about us than BPD.

certainly, a relationship with someone with BPD tends to be loaded, high conflict, and often ends traumatically.

when i say "loaded" i mean that both parties tend to bring a certain amount, and certain kind of emotional baggage into the relationship, and connect and bond over it in both passionate ways and dysfunctional ways.

what that means for you specifically, or any of us, tends to be unique.

murray bowen is the author of family systems theory, in psychology.

Bowen family systems theory was developed by psychiatrist and researcher Dr Murray Bowen (1913–90). It is a theory backed up by a growing body of empirical research.1 In recent years Bowen’s concept of ‘differentiation of self’ — which describes differing levels of maturity in relationships — has been shown by researchers to be related to important areas of well-being, including marital satisfaction, and the capacity to handle stress, make decisions and manage social anxiety.

Bowen was a US army physician during World War II who became interested in psychiatry after seeing the varying effects of trauma on soldiers. Bowen’s theory is invaluable for helping us to understand the variations in how different people manage similarly stressful circumstances.

www.thefsi.com.au/us/bowen-theory/

ever notice how two people can go through a similar trauma and respond to it very differently? some bounce back, some struggle for years. some people grow up in a highly abusive household and develop BPD, while some, even some within the same family, do not. some people grow up in a very loving household and develop BPD.

bowen theorized that this has to do with our level of emotional maturity, or level of differentiation. he also theorized that we tend to mate with our emotional equals (people with similar level of differentiation).

so differentiation is a good place to start if youre trying to understand this: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=275714.msg12612781#msg12612781

I realized yesterday I am still attempting to assemble pieces of the puzzle, that was our relationship.  Our relationship is over and done and has no bearing on my current life -why the compulsion to entertain these thoughts?

Yesterday I figured out a few more instances where she potentially lied: who too what picture, who visited her when, why her ex did such and such --So what?  This is now irrelevant to my future, our lives touch at no point.  So what is the psychological mechanism which drives my compulsion?

family systems theory aside, trauma and grief are complex things, and our bodies process them in unique and fascinating ways, in order to make sense of our experiences and bring resolution to them.

Wicker Man, most likely, the narrative of your relationship will go through many different revisions as wounds heal and you get emotional distance, but i suspect it has a great deal of relevance to both your current life and your future. if you continue to dig, things will, eventually, make a lot of sense, and your path forward will become a great deal clearer.

[Wicker Man]

I recall you said something along the lines that when you decided not to buy the house, you were called a coward by her.

Her final 7 day rage was concerning my purchasing the house as well as her wishing me to follow a scorched earth policy when if came to finalizing my divorce. 

I had never said we would not buy a house, I had informed her we should wait until after I booked my next movie -the Spring Festival (New Years) is quite a long break and was nearly upon us.  I had explained there is a lot involved in buying a house and we would be in a better position if we waited 2 or 3 months. 

I cannot definitely confirm in which case she called me a coward, house or financial settlement of my divorce.  I do remember specifically her saying, after I asked for some moral support, 'Being sad and weak will get you nowhere'. -lovely way to start a morning of packing... .

No, before then she had never said anything quite like this -she had rages regarding retroactive jealousy -nothing about being a coward. 

I leaned from her soon after she broke up with me that she had been under enormous pressure from her family over the house purchase  -she cracked under their pressure, and likely the fear changing the timeline must have instilled.

[Wicker Man]

... .time doesn't necessarily heal all wounds, it depends on what you do with that time.

I could not agree more and it is to this end I wished to start this discourse.  As I have mentioned I am in on going therapy -I look at this as extracurricular homework.

I don't know why you find yourself unable to stop thinking about her.  But I can tell you why I found it difficult to stop thinking about my exBPDgf for many months (perhaps years) after our 4-5 year relationship ended... .

... .utilizing the analytic part of my mind was a coping mechanism; one that I depended on for much of my life.  I might have argued that I am just trying to understand my situation so that perhaps I could avoid such a future unpleasant experience.  But at that time, I really just needed to take care of myself.

Instead of a defense mechanism it feels more to me almost like a sense of disbelief, as if I have not completely accepted she is out of my life.   She is gone and it was ultimately (with quite a bit of help from her) by my hand -but on some level I seem to not be accepting this as I feel I aught to.

 And truth be told, while I was with my exBPDgf, I was very happy, but I was *also* deeply miserable.  And trying to unravel this massive cognitive dissonance was a big part of my recover from this painful experience.

It's my impression based on what you wrote here, that you are also dealing with a cognitive dissonance; two conflicting ideas that are duke-ing it out in your mind.  As I read it, your BPD ex acted out in ways that are completely at odds with the personality and disposition of the woman you know and perhaps still love.  So it is very difficult for you to believe that she could willingly do what she did (whatever it was she did).

Well spotted and well said.  I was happy while we were together, but I also had a feeling of uneasiness.  I loved her, but I did not fully trust her.  She had likely been unfaithful and my trust in her had been shaken.  There was some cognitive dissonance to be sure.  I had also fallen into the misguided belief I could, through love give her a safe place to heal.

And perhaps in some sense you are right.  For example, if someone was suffering from a disorder that makes it next to impossible for them to act against their impulse, then in a sense, they have no control over their impulsive actions.

She agreed with me when I suggested when she drank that she could completely forget about us -we didn't drink for our last 7 months together.  She was trying to do her best.  I also got the impression she didn't feel she could trust herself if we were apart -she wanted to be at my side constantly.

But what you may need to accept is that so long as they are suffering from this disorder, their impulse to act out maliciously towards you may happen again, completely outside of your or their control.

Intellectually I know I did the right thing for me in ending our relationship.

It took a long time for me to let go because deep down I wanted to believe that the "good" part of my exBPDgf could be freed and perhaps could return to me.  If only the "bad" part of my exBPDgf could somehow be excised.  A big fear I entertained was that she would suddenly be cured and I would miss out on all the goodness in spite of having spent so much time trying to help her.

The honest to God truth is I wish her nothing but happiness.  If by a bolt out of the blue she were to gain some level of inner peace I would be thrilled for her.  I tried my honest best to be there for her.  -I was unaware of BPD while we were together.  She had been diagnosed schizophrenic and bi-polar -I wish I had had more memory of personality disorders from college psych... .

And I would not want you to blame yourself for finding it difficult to "let her go."  For me, I connected with my BPDex in a way that reached my own core wounds - wounds that relate to how I related to my disorder mother (before I even realized or accepted that my mother is disordered).  Perhaps there is such a connection for you as well.  Perhaps your relationship with your BPDex resonates with some other important familial connection that is also yet resolved.

She reminded me of my mother in quite a few ways.  My mother had created 'an inappropriate friendship' of me as a child using me as a confidant.  This is likely the root of my codependent traits.  I will take this to my therapist more directly.  I have mentioned the connection -but I will bring it up again.

When you catch yourself thinking obsessively about your BPD ex.  Ask yourself, is there an emotion behind this thinking?  Instead of focusing intently on your recollection of the past, ask yourself how do you feel right at this moment.  And see if you can release/express that emotion.

Schwing,  This is a great idea and I will do my best.  Thank you for such a thoughtful response.

Wicker Man

[/quote]

[Wicker Man]

I believe that people with BPD (pwBPD) are as keen and sharp at seeing the wounds and vulnerabilities of others, as they are as blind and helpless in the care and recovery of their own wounds and vulnerabilities.

Do you really believe this to be an act of volition on the part of someone with BPD?  To me it seemed she acted out of instinct, it was her very nature, not something she had any control over I am not even sure she knew she was mirroring me.

Certainly she had on control over her rage.  As proof I offer you this.  If she had been able to contain herself for 10 more days she would have ended up with me there in her country and a huge escrow account.  Instead she felt (I believe) abandoned and went into the worst rage I had seen to date.  7 days of relentless pounding.  Ultimately this bit of 'luck' caused me to have an epiphany and end things.

Probably, your BPDex knew exactly what to give you in the effort to provide a simulacrum of what you needed in the hope that you would provide her exactly what she needed: which is a partner who would not betray/denigrate or abandon her.  The problem for pwBPD is that most of the time, the perception that their partner will abandon them, is primarily imagined (and disordered).

I agree and this fits my observations.  Her previous boyfriend had been rich and she was acting like a rich woman when we met.  After we had spent sometime together she began to reflect family values... .  Interestingly she had very little money, it was a guise.

So we know why she could not get what she wanted.

Yes... .the grizzly catch 22 that is BPD.

But she probably did show you what she believed you wanted/needed.  The trick is to get the majority of whatever that was, from yourself.

I did feel very good about myself while I was with her.  There were extenuating circumstances as well -she was an extension of work and also offered me a unique view of her culture and language.  I had constructed a fantasy around believing we shared a healthy love -it was an enticing dream

After all, you cannot get someone to love you, if you do not love yourself.

You have to be able to say 'I' if you are going to say 'I love you'


Wickerman

[Wicker Man]

... .both parties tend to bring a certain amount, and certain kind of emotional baggage into the relationship, and connect and bond over it in both passionate ways and dysfunctional ways.

Certainly if I had been of sound mind at the time I should have been aware and concerned at the rapid enmeshment.  I was physically exhausted and mentally consumed by work when we met.  We were working 7 days and 110  hours a week.  As I had mentioned I had been repressing a dissatisfactory marriage for nearly half my life.  Instead of having any level of concern with how our relationship began, or even that I found myself in an affair, I was swept away. 

A big part of our bond was her family.  We would spend time every night video chatting with her grandparents --who could not understand a work of my Mandarin.  We were laughing the entire time. --The poor thing would have to repeat exactly what I had said in order for her grandparents to understand me.  Interestingly, I was accepted equally as quickly by her family -I believe because they were desperate to have her with someone safe.  I was very quickly helping her little brother with his English homework. --Part of the loss I feel is that of her family.

what that means for you specifically, or any of us, tends to be unique.

Of course... .No silver bullet. 

bowen theorized that this has to do with our level of emotional maturity, or level of differentiation. he also theorized that we tend to mate with our emotional equals (people with similar level of differentiation).

I will look into Bowen and discuss this in therapy -thank you for the suggestion.

... .narrative of your relationship will go through many different revisions as wounds heal and you get emotional distance, but i suspect it has a great deal of relevance to both your current life and your future.

This is my greatest concern --I agree it is of the utmost importance to understand, accept and grow from this experience.  I would be ignoring an event such as this at my own peril. --I have had enough peril for the time being... .thank you very much.  I look forward to getting on with a far less perilous life soon.


Wicker Man

[Cromwell]

Wicker Man,

what I came to realise over time is that these feelings are because something is repressed and/or something in the puzzle is either missing or doesnt fit right. Either about our ex or ourselves (or both). I believe when you are starting to question more stuff such as her interactions with others, its a way of post-processing, now that you have that space, maybe as the months go by and you realise your probably not going to reconnect with her, it feels safe to start to do that processing.

I very much actively filtered away most of the hurt and question marks I had about my ex, it is therefore, why I was able to be so "happy" with her during the time together.

I only started to get better once I got to the no contact stage and realised, im not going to see her again, I started to let the repressed feelings reveal themselves, I recalled all the hurtful things she did that I did nothing about at the time, I also started to look at some of the things that were suspicious or odd about the r/s, that the only viable option I had with her was to quickly sweep away into the recesses of my mind, because in this sort of r/s there is little opportunity to have an open discussion like adults. Dont dare upset the Queen.

Wicker Man, your posts have given me some much needed reference frame to entertain the idea of starting to feel compassion for my ex. It is not easy to have empathy for someone who has caused such magnitude of hurt and its because I still equate her with being a normal person who has acted in an evil way. Her behaviour is bizarre and I dont even know all of it. Trying to figure out bizarre behaviour is futile.

You had very strong feelings for this person, you worked towards what seemed like a dream being realised, in the midst of that you have suffered from probably a huge dose of disenchantment or things having happened that you didnt expect to. We have had our own nuances in our narratives, but I believe these are the fundamentals that cause the most difficulty to just wake up the next day and not have any reason to think about it ever again. I know you want to get on with life and ideally forget it and move on, great, but if you hadnt have invested yourself to the extent that you did, it would have been a lot easier, the same for me. I look back and realise that I had over-invested myself because I wanted to believe that she was the "one" id waited for. The thing is, her condition mirrored and encouraged this, even my last reengagement I could see how easy it was to have been attracted in the first place. The word isnt "natural", there is nothing here that can be explained by nature, or inherent in a biological sense, the behaviour is rooted in the personality, developed from childhood it is conditioned and I can prove this by the fact that it can be treated with therapy and cured, despite the huge amount of work required. If it was "natural" then this wouldnt be possible.

thankfully it also means that if you are unhappy with codependent traits, these too can be altered. maybe this interaction you have had has been a catalyst into taking the steps needed to make some changes. Ive started to realise that if I hadnt been this way, I would have never even accepted a r/s with my ex in the first place, or at the very least, would have left her straight away when her behaviour surfaced. Most people did, I was the longest she was ever in a r/s, and that tells me that ive got a lot of work to do when it comes to expecting better for myself. You on the other hand broke things up before they escalated, all I can say is that whilst you have maybe missed out on the company that you enjoyed as well as the happy times with her family, you have also spared yourself from the high probability of enduring some very hurtful moments in the future.

I dont miss the 99% happy moments with my ex as much as I have been devasted by the 1% deeply traumatic moments that sullied the whole r/s. It means that even though today I could be in her company and try to enjoy new experiences, I cant ever shake, brush off or sweep away that 1% trauma she did, regardless if she regrets it. Something is inbuilt in my mind that it wont let me forget, because it is protecting from new trauma, warning me that it doesnt want to expose itself to more. Our exs have their own personal same core traumas to deal with, its just that they lack the strength to protect themselves from further by taking pragmatic steps. The best they hope for is having a caretaker in their lives that will go hand in hand with them as a momentary protector. This isnt love, it is attaching oneself to a support worker. If there was a more resourceful support worker available, youd get fired and replaced. I just made myself the best available at the time, which is why it went on so long. Please try to bear this in mind, the difference between the love you felt and her desperate need to be looked after. If you put yourself in her position and realised that you couldnt cope in life without a caretaker, it is not just something nice to have but it is a necessity.

[Wicker Man]

Wicker Man,
,

its a way of post-processing, now that you have that space, maybe as the months go by and you realise your probably not going to reconnect with her, it feels safe to start to do that processing.

Here is the thing -I know I will never be with her again and in all likelihood never see her again.  This is why I find the re-hashing disturbing.  Does it matter that I figured out who took a picture of her the week after she ghosted me (while sitting on our bed grrrrrr.) No.  It is irrelevant to me now and counterproductive, if not outright detrimental for me to think about.

... .the only viable option I had with her was to quickly sweep away into the recesses of my mind, because in this sort of r/s there is little opportunity to have an open discussion like adults. Dont dare upset the Queen.

I was pretty consistent about 'poking the bear' when I had questions.  We actually talk a few things through, but it was definitely not her strong suit.  I would bring things up and she would attempt shock and awe... .(it had worked in her past relationships)  I would bring the intensity back down and begin discussing again.  I told her the sooner you can stop yelling the sooner we can be done with this discussion and then do something fun.

Her behaviour is bizarre and I dont even know all of it. Trying to figure out bizarre behaviour is futile.

Yep.  The best I can figure out is if I were to be able to have an honest heart to heart conversation with her (theory to the point of the absurd) and ask her why?  She would have answered 'I don't know'.  I feel she lacks the sense of self to have a rational motivation for her actions, emotions and thoughts.

You had very strong feelings for this person, you worked towards what seemed like a dream being realised, in the midst of that you have suffered from probably a huge dose of disenchantment or things having happened that you didnt expect to.

Oh! If I knew then what I know now.  I have said it before... .I feel like I woke up in a nightmare of my own creation.  --dumbass... .

I know you want to get on with life and ideally forget it and move on, great, but if you hadnt have invested yourself to the extent that you did, it would have been a lot easier... ... ..I wanted to believe that she was the "one" id waited for

Yes, I threw myself into our relationship heart, body and soul -it seemed like fairytale love.  I have never felt more happy, or better about myself than when I was with her.  There were, of course, extenuating circumstances which lead to these feelings of elation.  She was helping me connect more with work, the deep connection through her to the Chinese culture, the intimacy with the language, and the idea of starting a family the acceptance from her family.  Feng Shui and BaZi are real in China and it is fascinating to bring mysticism into day to day life.  However, all this joy and elation was all, of course, resting on my flawed notion of fantasy versus reality -love versus addiction. 
I will repeat... .--dumbass... .

thankfully it also means that if you are unhappy with codependent traits, these too can be altered. maybe this interaction you have had has been a catalyst into taking the steps needed to make some changes.

As I begin my therapy and quest for understanding of personality disorders I am beginning to believe traits like codependency and some personality disorders are self rewarding.  E.g. I believe my codependency makes me a wonderful friend and a caring husband -so it is good right?  Nope.  It means I have a good deal of repression and am at my core in need of help.

OC(PD) people believe their disorder makes them strong and their drive for perfectionism is righteous. 

I am still interested to see if B(PD) has a self rewarding aspect.  It strikes me ':)ream Come True' is not happy with the way she is, but she seeks succor from others and cannot look within herself -too dark too scary.

You on the other hand broke things up before they escalated, all I can say is that whilst you have maybe missed out on the company that you enjoyed as well as the happy times with her family, you have also spared yourself from the high probability of enduring some very hurtful moments in the future.

Blood and pain my friend.  I have quite a good imagination and if the wheels had flown off OMFG.  Lets just do some free association here: Visa, custody, international law, homeless, friendless, deported, arrested, penniless.

Our exs have their own personal same core traumas to deal with, its just that they lack the strength to protect themselves from further by taking pragmatic steps. The best they hope for is having a caretaker in their lives that will go hand in hand with them as a momentary protector.

This makes me so deeply sad Cromwell.  There really is beauty in her, I mean magical beauty -the sort of magic that can only happen when one flirts with psychosis.  She is such a tragic character -but she does not have the ability of introspection to a level which would allow her to seek real help.  So yes while she is 'Young and Beautiful' she will trade her body for momentary relief from her crushing loneliness.  --She told me I was the first man she loved, sadly I believe her.  She told me she had literally never told anyone she loved them before.  Of all the lies I think this was a truth.  She kept previous boyfriends hooked by withholding her love.  Kept them dancing for approval she would not give.

This isnt love, it is attaching oneself to a support worker. If there was a more resourceful support worker available, youd get fired and replaced.

I worked for a group which trains seeing eye dogs.  It was remarkable for me to learn some of the seeing eye dogs end up being beaten by their masters.

I just made myself the best available at the time, which is why it went on so long. Please try to bear this in mind, the difference between the love you felt and her desperate need to be looked after. If you put yourself in her position and realised that you couldnt cope in life without a caretaker, it is not just something nice to have but it is a necessity.

Yes.  I made myself available to her.  I saw her need to be cared for, and fulfilling that need made me feel good about myself -seeing her progress out of darkness (cutting and voices stopped).  She had, as a point of fact, left the previous 'care taker' and rebounded to me.  This young man had given her a $1.5mm apartment and a car.  I offered her love.  To be honest I guessed the end game would have been her tiring of love, house and hearth -I presumed a rich guy who hit her once in a while would have ultimately been more seductive and she would have left me... .  Please see free association above in this post... .

This still leaves the question at hand -when and how to I best accept that she is gone.  Day by day I am working this through.  Day by day a little stronger.


Wicker Man

[Cromwell]

just as I managed to be recycled by meeting my ex on public transport, you know yourself there is still the possibility, despite the distance, to resume again.

Even if we discount this and you are assured of yourself that this is not the case, this processing is part of your self development as an adjunct to your healing. I never realised that despite my thoughts seeming to be about "her", much of them were not so much about her as to untangling "how" did this situation happen. Again, it is post-processing, as the thoughts are no longer about the present or the future of being together.

In the midst of it all, I pieced some fragments together that seem to fit about her behaviour, her whereabouts, things she said that now dont mean the same to me as they did then. Question marks I had subconsciously but ignored at the time. Like you said, they shouldnt mean much as the r/s is supposed to be concluded, but it could just be the way the mind works, it is revealing things now that it feels safe to do so. It doesnt ascribe value to its calcuations, its up to you to do that. If you truly dont care about who took that picture, thats what you will tell that memory. Im sure you have had those moments in life that out of the blue - usually when you are relaxed - a thought comes about some quandary that youve had in the past and its like a lightbulb "aha" I understand now, or at least, have found a different perspective to something that didnt entirely make sense before. I see this as the same. I will never know the complete picture over what had happened, I think my need to reconcile with my ex was in a big way, still trying to get the opportunity to get answers. Isnt this part of the allure? trying to find a definitive conclusion. I need to get to the point, and im very close to it, of labelling all those things as "dont care anymore".

I felt the same fairytale aspects you described, although when I look back to some of my previous r/s, I also had these same feelings, its just that the difference with my BPDx is that I would be cycled through intense lows which then made the good times feel even more exaggerated for their soothing abilities. In short, it was this person who built me up then broke me down just as far, I became seeking that comfort as if I was someone deprived of food for a few days then that same jailer would invite me to sit at the table with them with a lavish meal and drinks. I recognise you probably didnt go through the same cycles, but I realise now what I had became addicted to. The kindness and 'loving' person was amplified in my mind because of the polarity of it from the state of hell she could also give. I never associated her at the time (denial, repression) as being the designer of the hell I went through, but she was. Keeping me in the fog with gaslighting and other mendacious behaviour, probably derived more from her psychosis than by intent, regardless made me all the easier to manipulate. She may, or may not have believed her own lies or version of reality. That makes it all the more disturbing and no wonder all this post processing at trying to find an explanation burns out our inner processor. I just eventually stopped trying to and felt far better for it.

Trying to answer the question of accepting she is gone, in rational terms, she isnt gone, as proved to me when I saw her again on the bus after all this time. Besides her 2 uninvited visits during the time of NC, as far as I could tell, she was equivalent as non-existing. I sense a great deal of caring feelings you have for her, perhaps an underlying worry that she will come to harm and insecurity that she will cope now you have left. I had these too, its part of your personality. Id highlight "worry" as being a potential reason for you thinking about her. All I can say is from my own experience, there was little need to, whilst mines didnt seem happy, she was nonetheless surviving like she had always done before I met her. I worried for nothing and it might have been my own ego to think that she needed me as much as I thought.

The truth is, I wasnt in a position to help anyone, although trying to made me feel stronger. You might have been able to but in the end realised that the cost and risk meant you couldnt afford to keep trying.

Id be more concerned if you were the type of person that said all of these strong feelings you had, and then within a few days, forgot all about her. Being NC can be the equivalent of watching our exs funeral in front of our eyes (if it is an adamant belief we wont ever have anything to do with them), of course there is going to be a grieving stage. This scenario, for me at least, is even harder to go through because it is grieving about a person who still exists but had to be casted out of our life, I couldnt fully draw a line under it all knowing that there was the possibility that our paths would cross again, and they did.

When I "try to" recall r/s ive had in the past, I realise that I will never forget them, its just a case that so much has happened since that the connections are inferior to the newer ones ive got from Medusa. Thats where the temptation has been to just go into a rebound r/s to soothe this pain, im glad I havent, I know I would have carried on too much of this into a new r/s, the new experiences would have been conjoined with my still healing and reminiscing of medusa and would sully the new r/s, despite the opportunity to be distracted. Youve set yourself the task of putting therapy as quite a central focus, it is related to your ex, so of course you need to think about her in order for the psychoanalysis. Its like how ive put studying as more of a priority than my therapy.

Remember I said before from my own experience, at the start it felt like I would never forget her, the recall of memories were so strong and recent, I had little knowledge of what had happened to make sense of most of it. but as I learned more and life goes on alongside, new experiences, she became gradually less in my mind. The time it took the longest was when I felt depressed by it all, unmotivated to do anything, had already lost a great deal of social support, so I just fixated on what had happened, by doing so, strengthed these mental linkages of memories. There is no single panacea, it is doing many small things combined with time that dilutes the intensity of what really is, the past.

Old saying I once heard "when holding sand, the tighter you try to hold, the more will release", I see the same with memories, the more you think of it, try to analyse and psychiatrise the behavior witnessed, the more they are released for processing. Thats actually a good thing, for the moment, im not saying go into denial, shrug it all off, your trying to make sense of things or the role you played, gain more insight and youve done all you can to accelerate the process. I know the feeling, can I just get over this and get on with my life, unfortunatly there is not any short cuts I know of and truth is that trying to change traits that were assimilated from our childhood is not an overnight fix. This might not be so much as thinking of "her" as it is, a lot of revelation about yourself. At least I began to see it as that. Even now when I think about my recent dance with the borderline, I am asking more of the "why did you speak to her in the firstplace?" rather than "why was she wearing my hoody"? In short, this seems like thinking about her, it likely is more about her being just that specific variable of a person what could have been another individual with BPD or similair traits who you would have fallen for under similar circumstances.

Last example, im thinking of my ex now, because im forced to recall her in order to outline behaviours. I dont generally think of her when im at work or studying or with other people, although I used to. at one point, she was almost 95% of my day to day thoughts, during the r/s she practically consumed my attention. I wasnt obsessed with her, it was the circumstances that I allowed myself in that caused it. Like you said, day by day, this is a marathon not a sprint, try to slowly incorporate other things that demand your attention whilst not avoiding the role her memory is important in your therapy - which is in itself (for the moment), a path towards eventual recovery but will not in the future be as signifcant a role as it seems to be now.

I see it as the equivalent of having witnessed any other kind of trauma, your not going to just go to bed that same night and forget it like it never happened. Maybe some people do (which worries me a bit how they could) but nevertheless, you and I and the people on these boards do need time and some therapy of sorts to alleviate the feelings generated by what weve experienced.

I know I can sound a bit erratic at times but generally all I can say is that I moved from being very fixated and sorry for myself for what id been through to generally forgetting about her, enjoying life and feeling stronger than before the r/s. Ive had a little hiccup since which has revealed to me some residual work to do, but I never expected at a similar stage you are at, that id get to this. I share this as giving some hope to you not to worry, you seem to be doing all you can to accelerate the rate-of-change, look how youve already changed the fatalistic thinking you had when you first came here, the belief that you would "never heal", your on your way towards seeing some clarity in the midst of what happened.

Tell yourself you will never heal, or cant forget about her, your programming that as a goal for yourself to work towards.

"whether you think you can or think you cant - your right" (Henry Ford)

[Wicker Man]

Even if we discount this (possibility rekindling the relationship) and you are assured of yourself that this is not the case, this processing is part of your self development as an adjunct to your healing... ... ..Again, it is post-processing, as the thoughts are no longer about the present or the future of being together.

As I have said it is the loss of the dream I lament the most.  There was an excitement in the idea of living and working in a foreign culture.  She was the embodiment of work, play, family, and the exotic.  A potent cocktail.  Coming down from this expectation for love, family, and adventure is hard. 

Beginning an affair was emotionally shocking to me, choosing her over my marriage was incredibly difficult to now have to backtrack, admit failure twice is difficult and embarrassing.  I am now grappling with two hugely emotional 180˚ turns.

Now the task at hand is to figure out if my marriage can be fixed and if it should be at all.  Are we, my wife and I, right for each other or reacting out of fear?  Can we, through therapy, grow into a strong and happy couple?  How does my quietly grieving the loss of ':)ream Come True' add weight to reconciliation?  What was the context of our marriage the catalyst for my affair?  -This does not strictly have anything to do with BPD, but it does effect my perception of it.

If you truly dont care about who took that picture, thats what you will tell that memory. Im sure you have had those moments in life that out of the blue - usually when you are relaxed - a thought comes about some quandary that youve had in the past and its like a lightbulb "aha"

Yes -the thought came to me in a moment of calm. The key is in the repetition of the notion -it doesn't matter.  What is done is done.  How and why she acts as she does is no longer of my concern -intellectually I know this and the emotional acceptance of this is my goal.

... .still trying to get the opportunity to get answers. Isnt this part of the allure? trying to find a definitive conclusion. I need to get to the point, and im very close to it, of labelling all those things as "dont care anymore".

It is slowly dawning on me I never truly and completely trusted her.  I was in love and very work fatigued, so I was not processing this completely from within the relationship.  She, at one point, told me she could not come visit me, because there were no flights.  -Instead of accepting this, as one would from a trusted loved one, I check the airlines for ticket availability. I may have been foreign, but this foreigner knew flights leave every 30 minutes 14 hours day between these two gigantic cities... .  ugh... . 

I would like to think if I had not been working 110 hour weeks for months I may have had the presence of mind to have removed myself from the relationship earlier.  Who knows.  I was infatuated and limerence is a powerful drug.

In short, it was this person who built me up then broke me down just as far, I became seeking that comfort as if I was someone deprived of food for a few days then that same jailer would invite me to sit at the table with them with a lavish meal and drinks.

For me this took the form of trying to save her from a cruel world.  My codependency on overdrive!  I glossed over the 'bumps in the road' thinking always Amor Vincit Omnia.  I believed the importance of family in Chinese culture would have been the glue to hold us together between thick and thin.  Truth be told the divorce rate in China is about the same as it is in the US.  My reasoning, as were my actions --deeply flawed.

Trying to answer the question of accepting she is gone, in rational terms, she isnt gone, as proved to me when I saw her again on the bus after all this time.

Yes, of course.  She is still alive, still creative, intelligent, beautiful and as deadly to me as the sweetest poison.  She still offers me my last chance at having a baby.  Perhaps the most stinging part of the lost dream -however a child with her would have sealed my fate.

she was nonetheless surviving like she had always done before I met her. I worried for nothing and it might have been my own ego to think that she needed me as much as I thought.

I am an arrogant SOB, as I have said before.  I know her life would have been better, as least for a short time, if I was wiling to place myself on the sacrificial alter which was our relationship.

The truth is, I wasnt in a position to help anyone, although trying to made me feel stronger. You might have been able to but in the end realised that the cost and risk meant you couldnt afford to keep trying.

Yes... .the 'what if'.  Some people do have loving and rewarding relationships with BPD partners.  It is an incredible amount of work, but it is possible.  For me, due to the extenuation circumstances, it was a risk I could not afford to accept.

Id be more concerned if you were the type of person that said all of these strong feelings you had, and then within a few days, forgot all about her.

I am empathetic, perhaps to a fault.  You certainly don't need to have concern.  If anything I need to learn to keep my empathy in healthy check.

Being NC can be the equivalent of watching our exs funeral in front of our eyes. 

I look at NC as MAD -mutually assured destruction.  It is the nuclear option, and for me it was the only option at hand.  Even if I were not attempting to reconciling a marriage and could have stayed in contact with Dream Come True -I would not have.  I could not bare to stand by and watch her suffering.  If what she said it true she never shows her beautiful part to her boyfriends.  She can't be alone, but she does not allow herself to love them.  Tragic beyond sad.  She withholds her love to protect herself from her need to extinguish them. 

I consider myself luck to have been shown her inner beauty -it is brilliant and truly lovely.  As I mentioned she enjoyed taking care of me.  Ordering dinners, hand washing my clothes so I could steal a few more moments of sleep, she always made sure I had everything I needed at work.  I will never doubt she loved me in her way.  In fact the first time she washed my clothes I was doing it myself and she said 'What do you think you are doing!  Go back to bed'. 
It is a cultural norm, but when we would eat out together she would serve me my food.  When we were alone I did the same for her.  She said 'This isn't right'.  I told her China is outside -in our room I get to do this for you.  --I don't dwell on the good parts of our relationship, and one day I will stop dwelling on the bad parts.

Youve set yourself the task of putting therapy as quite a central focus, it is related to your ex, so of course you need to think about her in order for the psychoanalysis.

I have a lot to sort out.  How my tryst with BPD effected me, how it has effected my marriage and how to proceed with the rest of my life.  It is a tall order, but I want closure, not to recover, but to thrive.

The time it took the longest was when I felt depressed by it all, unmotivated to do anything, had already lost a great deal of social support, so I just fixated on what had happened, by doing so, strengthed these mental linkages of memories. There is no single panacea, it is doing many small things combined with time that dilutes the intensity of what really is, the past.

I certainly feel malaise.  Life is a bit grey as I walk through the beginning steps of my recovery.  Turning down 4 movies in China so far this year has been hard.  Regaining my status here in the US market will be a slog, but I will manage it.  There is an allure to the exotic -both her and Asia, but for my health and wellbeing I will remain here.

there is not any short cuts I know of and truth is that trying to change traits that were assimilated from our childhood is not an overnight fix. This might not be so much as thinking of "her" as it is, a lot of revelation about yourself.

Yes, the answer lies within me.  As I can no longer help her on her life's journey she holds no answers for me.  You and I were both smokers and part of smoking is a death wish -perhaps there was an element of this in my attraction to her.  She was dangerous and I knew it, I did not understand at the time she was imminently dangerous and to what degree. 

As I mentioned when I first spoke with her I commented on her tattoo sleeve so I could have a look at her left wrist.  I had assumed she had attempted suicide I had formed this assessment before our first conversation.  My attraction was her excellence as an artist and perhaps the codependent in me was looking for someone to save.

"why was she wearing my hoody"?

The empath in me feels terrible for her having to go back to our apartment in Beijing -she has not been back since we broke up.  She often slept in my old T-shirts -there is one which I folded waiting for her on her pillow.  My shoes, some books, coats all where I left them.  The dishes I washed are now covered in dust.  Ending any relationship is excruciating.

I dont generally think of her when im at work or studying or with other people

Part of my struggle is not having my old 'mistress' work to take my mind off of my various relationship struggles.  When I left her and China I left 70% of my work contacts.  Work here will begin again for me, but waiting for it gives me far too much time alone.  I have the 'luxury' of leisure time, which I am currently spending poorly.  Day by day it is getting better, but malaise has a great pull.

Tell yourself you will never heal, or cant forget about her, your programming that as a goal for yourself to work towards.

I agree with this statement whole heartedly.  This was my motivation for changing the subject of this thread.  I took out the 'never' and replace it with 'healing'.

"whether you think you can or think you cant - your right" (Henry Ford)

I want to leave this quote.  It is wonderful.

Thank you again Cromwell.


Wicker Man

[Cromwell]

As I have said it is the loss of the dream I lament the most.  There was an excitement in the idea of living and working in a foreign culture.  She was the embodiment of work, play, family, and the exotic.  A potent cocktail.  Coming down from this expectation for love, family, and adventure is hard. 

Beginning an affair was emotionally shocking to me, choosing her over my marriage was incredibly difficult to now have to backtrack, admit failure twice is difficult and embarrassing.  I am now grappling with two hugely emotional 180˚ turns.

Now the task at hand is to figure out if my marriage can be fixed and if it should be at all.  Are we, my wife and I, right for each other or reacting out of fear?  Can we, through therapy, grow into a strong and happy couple?  How does my quietly grieving the loss of ':)ream Come True' add weight to reconciliation?  What was the context of our marriage the catalyst for my affair?  -This does not strictly have anything to do with BPD, but it does effect my perception of it.

Its difficult for me to comment on this, its hard for me to understand how this is affecting your r/s with your wife. What I do feel is that, there are loads of questions, the same that I racked my brain with. Trying to find some sort of rational to what might be (certainly the case for me) less focus on feelings rather than thinking. Im putting you in the "thinker" box basically, im pretty sure of it. Its a tool but it might be getting over-used. Such as you may have noticed in my posts, "why was she wearing my hoody?" not "how did that make me feel"? I got to this stage of looking more at the emotions, simply out of desperation. There was little possibility of finding an answer to the multitude of questions. The feelings and emotions started about 5 months in to the NC. Painful, very much so, thinking had been a more comfortable way of processing, despite it not getting any results. I had to start "thinking" about "thinking about feelings" and doing it more conciously, almost telling myself to do so. The new friends and aquaintances I make, there is the somehow part of my personality that "thinks" about them, tries to understand based on perceptions of behaviour. It sounds a bit silly to me, but ive done this more or less all my life. The times I should have said "this person hasnt on the surface done anything wrong - yet - for some reason I just dont feel comfortable about them"... .or "this person hasnt really done anything wrong"... .yet... .theres something about them that makes me either distrustful, angry, bored, (put whatever emotion here).

Then I think about my feelings about Medusa. She had that magnetism that differentiated herself from other women who I could feel good with but not "amazing" with. They had a list of things I could rationalise and tick every box as being excellent relationship potential, in comparison, yet Medusa somehow made me feel the way they couldnt at the time. Can turn around and say well "thats what got you into this mess", true, but at the same time, it was what I wanted at the time. Can you maybe relate to any of this? Getting in touch with emotions is something for some reason I shyed away from or didnt even recognise. If I would have listened more to them than the "thinking" part, I know my decisions not just with this r/s but the rest of life in general, I would have avoided quite a few pitfalls.

It helps even now to mention this to you because for some reason it is something I just dont do naturally. Im thinking of her recent behaviour, trying to establish patterns, trying to work things out based on logic. That only works to an extent. How does it make me feel that she wants to meet up, despite all that hurt I have felt from the past. It does simplify the whole decision making progress rather than "I havent get answers about x,y,z from her, that are unresolved". Chances, are, they never will be, and ergo, just perpetuating that whole cycle I went through 3 years of. A quest from one day to the next of trying to figure out what was going on, rather than being in synergy with my feelings that said "youve been devastated by this person" "shes made you distrustful"... .even from those feelings I can then go into "thinker" mode but geared towards decision making. Theres just something about me that ive not relied on historically towards basing decisions based on emotions, preferring to think my way through things, despite the lack of facts available. I think there is a place for it now, at least to work with the thoughts but not entirely subordinate or even dismissed altogether as they often were. It put me off therapy straight away to hear what sounded like a broken record, "how do you feel about that? "how did that make you feel" or whatever variation on the theme. I realise, I didnt want to feel, or try to. Im just maybe scraping the barrel and trying to leave no stone not over turned in the hope that maybe you may or may not find this helpful as much as I did.

Yes -the thought came to me in a moment of calm. The key is in the repetition of the notion -it doesn't matter.  What is done is done.  How and why she acts as she does is no longer of my concern -intellectually I know this and the emotional acceptance of this is my goal.
It is slowly dawning on me I never truly and completely trusted her.  I was in love and very work fatigued, so I was not processing this completely from within the relationship.  She, at one point, told me she could not come visit me, because there were no flights.  -Instead of accepting this, as one would from a trusted loved one, I check the airlines for ticket availability. I may have been foreign, but this foreigner knew flights leave every 30 minutes 14 hours day between these two gigantic cities... .  ugh... . 

I would like to think if I had not been working 110 hour weeks for months I may have had the presence of mind to have removed myself from the relationship earlier.  Who knows.  I was infatuated and limerence is a powerful drug.

You know I have this feeling that I was a "thinker" maybe an "over thinker" with suppressed emotions that found an "over feeler" "under thinker" and I dont mean that as to do with intelligence at all. I feel that being with Medusa caused this provocation to be forced into sharing her state of emotional level at times. Like this website advertises "emotionally intense" relationships, I think in terms of what I went through pretty close if not a very slight understatement 

If I had been more in tune with my feelings and emotions, I would have lasted 3 months into what became 3 years. Ive had emotionally happy relationships, yet they were just that the same with Medusa yet not the negative intensity. After all, this is where the problem comes from, no one ever complains about the good times being "too much" to handle.

Why did I stay with her for that "borrowed time?", simply how she made me feel, without me being even conciously aware of it to realise. Regardless that all the thoughts about everything, the feelings were what continued it, because I never properly listened to them or trusted them. Didnt want to confront the hurtful ones when I should have, they would have spared me from worse to come.

By the way, I borrowed Sun Tzu Art of War from my step son, I bought it for him last year. Nothing in it about dealing with an enemy you hold the conflicting love/hate emotion for. I know how to deal with her on open ground terrain, etc, but it all is based on the assumption that she is the enemy. Wicker Man, for whatever she did, and she did plenty, I was my own worst enemy at allowing it. Its why it wasnt just a flesh wound but why as they say, it hurts to the core. It was simply an enemy who knew exactly where the weakest structural part to hit, if she wanted to. Im not so much trying to find emotional acceptance anymore as much as trying to desperately patch that weak fortification back up. Yes it feels as if I was over run emotionally by a mercilless monghol hoard, but as JNChell once said here, its about building back up with the little tools that are left after the fallout, that is how I relate to it all anyway.

For me this took the form of trying to save her from a cruel world.  My codependency on overdrive!  I glossed over the 'bumps in the road' thinking always Amor Vincit Omnia.  I believed the importance of family in Chinese culture would have been the glue to hold us together between thick and thin.  Truth be told the divorce rate in China is about the same as it is in the US.  My reasoning, as were my actions --deeply flawed.

Same way of thinking for me, in my case equally, saving from the cruel world she gave me such insight that she had lived through, trying to counterbalance it as best I could, feeling of being the saviour, later on viewing it towards "martyr". I fully relate to my flawed reasoning, she resented the gesture, hated me for trying - I was invoking her buried shame each time. Its not against me personally, yet in the process of trying, I became on the one hand - someone who could meet her needs so reliably, yet she couldnt emotionally handle having to confront the notion that I truly loved her, or at least, wanted to. Again, its not that I didnt do enough for her or that any outsider would rationalise it all and think "that guy is doing everything he possibly can, yet she doesnt seem to appreciate it"... .I really feel that she just couldnt handle it emotionally and when it became too much, that is what paradoxically set off her Push-away defence mechanisms. Now its at the seemingly "ambivalent" stage of me showing her nothing emotionally and yet, I have this feeling she is wanting what she had before, yet it would all just lead to the same outcome. It is what causes the most despair in me. Every way I look at it, it is ultimately a lose-lose scenario on both sides.

There was a radio station who I recall once offered to give away a very expensive state of the art Hi-Fi (back then  ) but they would only give it if the person wouldnt say "whats the catch" or along those lines of not literally just taking it, no questions asked. I recall that no-one won it.

It makes me empathise so much with my ex, the very idea that there was someone who would love her and want to nefarious or hidden agenda attached is just completely so foreign to her or as much too dangerous to accept, that she would connect on that level, that it led to the destruction of my r/s with her ultimately, just as it has done all the former and destined to do so without her changing. Just as I feel I have to change. It reminds me of when you said your ex had previously been in a r/s with that wealthy person, who offered her so much materially. I could have been a billionaire, it would have made no difference to what I have to offer now, its inconsequential to her connecting emotionally or making herself vulnerable in that way. Its why it makes no difference to rationalise about how much I have done, could have done, or didnt do enough of. Her emotional needs are intherently insatiable due to her condition.

[Cromwell]

I consider myself luck to have been shown her inner beauty -it is brilliant and truly lovely.  As I mentioned she enjoyed taking care of me.  Ordering dinners, hand washing my clothes so I could steal a few more moments of sleep, she always made sure I had everything I needed at work.  I will never doubt she loved me in her way.  In fact the first time she washed my clothes I was doing it myself and she said 'What do you think you are doing!  Go back to bed'. 
It is a cultural norm, but when we would eat out together she would serve me my food.  When we were alone I did the same for her.  She said 'This isn't right'.  I told her China is outside -in our room I get to do this for you.  --I don't dwell on the good parts of our relationship, and one day I will stop dwelling on the bad parts.
I have a lot to sort out.  How my tryst with BPD effected me, how it has effected my marriage and how to proceed with the rest of my life.  It is a tall order, but I want closure, not to recover, but to thrive.

I had this (despite it being more "not" a cultural norm!) in one of my previous r/s, she treated me like a king, it was "trading places" of the role I took with my ex. All I can say is that I felt comfortable with it, I was in some ways over-compensating at times for what I felt she had always lacked. There was good intent, yet every good deed wont go unpunished. It was when she made a mockery of it, despite on the surface expecting and at times demanding the attention and being "served", when she decided to be cruel she tried to put me into a "submissive" category rather than accept the alternative, that she was deeply cared for. Again, the trigger of engulfment, at the time I put it down to low self esteem, which it isnt really as simple as that (again, "thinking", not feeling). It led to the r/s finishing with the end result of me now trying to reframe to her, for my own decimated self esteem that "no i wasnt your submissive". Again, this is probably going to have the unintended effect of making her feel worse about it all, yet, this isnt about her needs anymore and as you said before, I have no obligations beyond just the common courtesy and doing no intentional harm that youd give to any person.

I certainly feel malaise.  Life is a bit grey as I walk through the beginning steps of my recovery.  Turning down 4 movies in China so far this year has been hard.  Regaining my status here in the US market will be a slog, but I will manage it.  There is an allure to the exotic -both her and Asia, but for my health and wellbeing I will remain here.

Yes, the answer lies within me.  As I can no longer help her on her life's journey she holds no answers for me.  You and I were both smokers and part of smoking is a death wish -perhaps there was an element of this in my attraction to her.  She was dangerous and I knew it, I did not understand at the time she was imminently dangerous and to what degree. 

At the moment you feel this way, id encourage you to not neglect your aspirations. It will take time to get out of this malaise but since unburdening myself with "submissive cromwell" ascribed attributes, and going NC, its like I rechannelled that energy expenditure back to myself and im on a path that seemed inconceivable to me 9 months ago. In that process ive found new opportunities, new contacts and friendships where everything had formerly been so bleak and fatalistic. I also believed that id been so wiped out by this experience, I had nothing left but a few fragments of my sanity still intact to work back up from. It is this movement forward that is the rational part of realising how much the r/s was stunting my potential. Likewise, she is thriving, one month after NC and she finally got (needed to!) get a job and provide for herself. All that worrying how she would cope without me, was in hindsight, pointless. In an ironic way, she was forced to rely on herself when the caretaker impromptu resigned without notice.

As I mentioned when I first spoke with her I commented on her tattoo sleeve so I could have a look at her left wrist.  I had assumed she had attempted suicide I had formed this assessment before our first conversation.  My attraction was her excellence as an artist and perhaps the codependent in me was looking for someone to save.
The empath in me feels terrible for her having to go back to our apartment in Beijing -she has not been back since we broke up.  She often slept in my old T-shirts -there is one which I folded waiting for her on her pillow.  My shoes, some books, coats all where I left them.  The dishes I washed are now covered in dust.  Ending any relationship is excruciating.
Part of my struggle is not having my old 'mistress' work to take my mind off of my various relationship struggles.  When I left her and China I left 70% of my work contacts.  Work here will begin again for me, but waiting for it gives me far too much time alone.  I have the 'luxury' of leisure time, which I am currently spending poorly.  Day by day it is getting better, but malaise has a great pull.

In the same vein, the drama and chaos was the perfect thing I needed at that time in my life and did in fact serve that purpose.

It leads me to conclude that the r/s happened for a reason and ended for a reason.

At least it has provided these perhaps prior unacknowledged insights that can now be worked upon.

Have a good day Wicker Man.

[Wicker Man]

It was one year ago today I gave my undiagnosed BPD lover my mother's engagement ring.  To commemorate the occasion I have resolved to never look at her instagram account ever again.  Periodically I would weaken, unblock her, and look at what she had posted.  It was a daily count of the last time we spoke with pictures and veiled messages to me.

It has been a bittersweet day.  I still look for a life lesson in the experience, but I am healing.  Sometimes in fits and starts, but I am proud of my resolution. 

Her birthday is later this week -up to this point she has been remarkably respectful of not trying to contact me.  She does, in my unprofessional opinion, suffer from BPD -but she is a very special person.


Wicker Man

[Cromwell]

Hi Wicker Man

Her birthday might well be a difficult time for you, it was for me, since it invoked memories about good times spent together and can entertain the thought of nostalgia. I also got a visit from her on this day, which I had correctly anticipated. Glad to hear you are keeping strong resolution, its getting easier for me and ive got you to thank for a lot of it. My studying is soon coming to an end and its my hope you will have some literary recommendations for my holidays

try not to block her out your mind on her birthday, it likely wont work anyway, just get through that day hour by hour break it down into small segments. I know that my ex's next will be in comparison "just another day", such is the power of progress and healing. best wishes.

[Wicker Man]

Her birthday might well be a difficult time for you, it was for me, since it invoked memories about good times spent together and can entertain the thought of nostalgia.

@Cromwell Thank you for your support.  My feeling of nostalgia is tied to my optimism in the beginning of the relationship --making too many excuses and over looking her frequent appalling behavior.  Her mirroring silver bullet hit my Achilles heal -the idea of starting a family.  Ironically, this would have been the very thing which would have ended my life as I know it. I have said it before and I will say it again... .ugh!

She, like most all people suffering from BPD, had a diabolically painful childhood.  I wished to help her reconcile this pain and through reconciliation hopefully mitigate her self destructive behaviors -offering a safe and loving relationship, a haven for healing.  It certainly seemed like a good idea at the time -The best laid schemes of mice and men... . 

I now marvel at the near absolute likelihood of abject failure and personal destruction a continued relationship with her would have brought me. I had so completely blinded myself in the joy of the moment and the dream of a life extraordinary  --From this more sober vantage point I find astonishing the mental and emotional gymnastic I had preformed --it seems absurd.

Last year at her birthday everything was going swimmingly -the gift I got her was perfect to the point she guessed what it was! --it was a custom made piece of jewelry.  -We really did have quite the connection.  I had been out of country for a few weeks, so it was literally impossible for her to know about the manufacture of the gift.  She just knew me and us.  --that is a bit of nostalgia.

What I need to keep firmly in mind is the rest of reality.  She blew a 50 amp fuse at her birthday dinner and stormed out of the banquet room.  Her Grandparents, mother, step father, aunt, uncle and some neighbors were there -we had recently become engaged, so it was birthday meets engagement party.  Part of the evenings 'agenda' was for me to meet the aunt and uncle... . 

I was forced to apologize to the guests (in my limping Mandarin), I grabbed her little brother, he and I went downstairs into the alley to talk her down and get her back into her birthday party -(rescue).  Little brother was obviously upset by her storming out, so I felt I could to not leave him to hear the inevitable conversation about her behavior at the dinner table -(rescue). 

--The blow up was over how the meal had been ordered and a benign interaction between her mother and the hotel staff.  No one was safe from her rage.  I had to explain the party was not only about her and she had an obligation to her guests.  --One of whom was me (I left this part unsaid).

When I think of her I inevitably recall of the title of a Kurosawa Movie 'High and Low'  in Japanese 'Heaven and Hell'.  The movie has nothing to do with us, but the title certainly fits.

I know that my ex's next [birthday] will be in comparison "just another day", such is the power of progress and healing.

I am going to make the 31st just another day -also with the time difference it is easy to make the date ambiguous.  I don't even know in which city she is currently staying.  As I mentioned I have resolved to no longer look at her Instagram.  --With this compulsion I am done.  One down and several to go.

Last year she shared her noodles with me -one must eat noodles at the birthday feast, they symbolize long life.  What a difference a year makes.

I wish her well -but it won't be me rescuing her on her birthday this year. 

My studying is soon coming to an end and its my hope you will have some literary recommendations for my holidays

@Cromwell

Oh God -all I read lately are texts on psychology, philosophy and self help books.  I feel like Jack is becoming a dull boy.  I was thinking of re-reading Dune -if you haven't read it have a look it is a great book.  I need to read something for pleasure soon - I feel like my head is swimming from my deep dive into self reflection.


Wicker Man

[Cromwell]

I was thinking of re-reading Dune -if you haven't read it have a look it is a great book.  I need to read something for pleasure soon - I feel like my head is swimming from my deep dive into self reflection.

Will give it a go WM.

Ive been reading into mirror neurons, really interesting perspective towards trying to look further into the "mirroring concept".

[Wicker Man]

Ive been reading into mirror neurons, really interesting perspective towards trying to look further into the "mirroring concept".

We all mirror to an extent.  Personally my mode of discourse changes somewhat depending on the social situation and with whom I am interacting.

However, there is never a loss of self and I am conscious of the alterations.  Know your audience... .

It would have been interesting to be able to have had discussed this with her about mirroring  -although I should guess such a conversation would have caused far too much cognitive dissonance to actually be instructive for either of us.

From what I have read the mirroring, which implies a hyper astute level of perception on the part of the borderline, was a defense mechanism developed during childhood.  Having grown up in turmoil, in my opinion, her ability to read people was honed razor sharp and has become innate.  She told me she can read people's thoughts -in my opinion she was actually reading minute cues on a micro level.  Like a cold reader. 

I met a professional cold reader once, his ability to ask general questions, and from reading micro emotions learn incredibly personal details.  For him it was studied, calculated, and premeditated.  I do not believe this was the case for ':)ream Come True'. 

In the crucible of such a childhood as she experienced she was forced to adapt.  There is a saying in Asia 'The standing nail gets hammered' being extraordinary (in her case mental illness) is frowned upon -part of Mao's legacy.  Reading people for her was a survival skill and, I believe, autonomic.

From DSM 5: "the emotionally dysregulated child makes enormous demands on his or her family. The exasperated parents ignore or even punish the child’s outbursts, which leads the child to suppress his or her emotions. The suppressed emotions build up to an explosion, which then gets the attention of the parents.  Thus, the parents end up reinforcing the very behaviors that they find aversive. Many other patterns are possible, of course, but what they have in common is a vicious circle, a constant back-and-forth between dysregulation and invalidation."  --in her case the attention often came in the form of a beating.


To quote the Prince's Bride "Ha-ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia... .”

If I were you I would not spend too much time on the analysis of mirroring.  Dwelling on the enigma that is borderline personality disorder might better be left to the professionals.  I am hoping to day by day distance myself from wondering about the strange cocktail that was her psyche and instead continue to focus my own self development.


Wicker Man

[Cromwell]

Just as it takes two to form love, it involves a narrative and the fact that tragedy was involved just makes it congruent with all those other narratives. There was love but in the narrative continuing sense, it is why this decision to break away is the most difficult, especially when she is still in contact and keeping it sustained. Its hard to dismiss the idea that love is a declaration/confirmation that a serious long lasting relationship works. It encompasses what you said about "love prevailing". If we argue that having been hurt is enough of a sign to give up on it, it goes against that being hurt is inevitable in loving someone at some point, it becomes those make or break moments, where the choice is to walk away from it. I did walk away in the end, this is the recycle, this is where errare humanam est comes into play.

Im getting closer to closure. I can accept that the relationship failed yet at the same time accept that the love was there, in what I more see as

Describing himself as a “reconstructed romantic,” Professor Singer said, “I don’t believe in romantic love in that it has to be sweet and painless.” The best one can expect, he said, is “meaningfulness with moments of real happiness.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/us/irving-singer-mit-professor-who-wrote-the-nature-of-love-dies-at-89.html

If there is something I can relate to it is that I did find meaningfulness, its something where there are difficult choices to make, I think its got the stage of, I found sweetness, pain, meaningfulness and real happiness, but do I really feel strong enough to make it endure longer than it has. With her it seems like it is down to me to make those choices, set a meeting, emotionally invest, put up with the pain from her. Thats the nature of this enmeshment, what I have to accept as part of who she is. In actuality, it is part of what I feel it is all about, this going through pain as a "proof" to her of love, the longer it goes on, the fact I havent fully walked away, is what is gluing this together. Its what she meant about "being together forever", yes but on the basis of proving to her that however she behaves I wont ever leave. When I leave her I know it will be forever, thats where the hesitation and conflicted feelings come from, it is where the narrative ends, and that is what love is a story of meaningfulness. Ive had plenty time to learn about the meaningfulness from this board, it has in some ways made me love her more rather than less. It has made it harder to detach. This not contacting her and when I do, not giving emotion is just ramping up a desirability factor of wanting what seems unattainable - a hallmark of the condition. I want to get to a point of the narrative ending and saying, I found meaning, I shared virtues with her, and had my share of pain and happiness - as I realise now is to be expected - but it came to a point where it ends and love becomes "loved", because the alternative is my vision of all this just going circular and I needed to learn about her condition which I inherited along with the rest of her to understand that and make some kind of sense of it all. The narrative is all about choices, just like everything changed when I told her I loved her, or the choice to go no contact, or to talk to her again. Her choice in what she did. In effect I ended up loving someone that I didnt really know, and when I found out more, it still never erased it away, despite the hurt.

I can find meaning in all of that, but this is the narrative coming to an end, its not due to not being able to put up with the pain as much as it is wanting to find more peace in life and happiness and accepting im not getting enough of it and not willing to be the one working for it because besides a few vulnerabilish moments she put herself in, which was brave, I know after going NC that she will be completely risk adverse. In essence, it is becoming meaningless to me, an important component for me needed to make the effort to sustain it.

 Errare humanum est, sed in errare perseverare diabolicum (I texted her that 2 weeks ago). Leave her with some sort of meaning if she needs it for when the time comes, the days are numbered she knows this as much as I do, the chasing isnt there and thats what is missing in the narrative which has meaning to her.

I will look into some of Rands works, Im familiar with her but avoided due to a very left wing education  but I think will give it a chance. For my holidays, along with Dune, these 2 days ive sabotaged a lot of studying, its a good thing stuff like this happens, she isnt brave enough to make it any different for me and by this point nearly 4 years in, I think ive ran more out of steam than I have bravery.

[once removed]

From DSM 5: "the emotionally dysregulated child makes enormous demands on his or her family. The exasperated parents ignore or even punish the child’s outbursts, which leads the child to suppress his or her emotions. The suppressed emotions build up to an explosion, which then gets the attention of the parents.  Thus, the parents end up reinforcing the very behaviors that they find aversive. Many other patterns are possible, of course, but what they have in common is a vicious circle, a constant back-and-forth between dysregulation and invalidation."  --in her case the attention often came in the form of a beating.

  this is not in the DSM. i found it in a psychology textbook for a course taught at Berkeley. a good clinical source, but not the DSM.

complete DSM here: https://bpdfamily.com/content/borderline-personality-disorder

[Cromwell]

This is the stage im at now I believe WM, things are too calm, i can tell by her text today the nervousness and awkwardness setting in. I read today a book written by a doctor in the bookstore, it said that 15% of the population have self harmed as a way to soothe anxiety in childhood. For me the concept of doing so is remote and foreign, but i find the behaviour of self sabotaging r/s is in some way a form of replacement cutting (my ex used to self harm but stopped when she got the attention of her parents).

now its just replaced though in different forms; The cheating gives that momentary "kick" and all the other chaos manufacture, it is replacing the physical self harm but its manifested itself in a different form. still a self sabotage of the fear of enjoying a fulfilling r/s but that it can then be subsequently lost. taking control over its destiny just as achieving the soothing relief by cutting is self administration. I had just picked up the last copy of Dune when I had a text from her. Its the same mirroring going on with a bit of desperation attached, basically why im not reciprocating the emotion from her telling me of her crying from a song we used to share in the past.

I left the book store buying nothing, this keeping in contact starts to feel like my own kind of self harm, never mind what her issues are and im coming to realise it more clearly than before. Not in the mindset to read a book that I loved the film, just because someone is still able with a few sentences, snipe from afar and I end up reciprocating, albeit from a trench this time.

I also found an alternative to lower my BP by 10, its called aspirin. What I need is to avoid having it raised in the first place and then needing that same source to choose whether they will bring it back down.  

[Wicker Man]

@Once Removed

I apologize.  The PDF I quoted this from is titled "Abnormal Psychology
Twelfth Edition—DSM-5 Update"  Perhaps the PDF was titled incorrectly.

I will be more careful in the future.  Before finding BPD Family a friend had sent me this PDF>

Once again I am sorry for the misattributed quote.

[once removed]

The PDF I quoted this from is titled "Abnormal Psychology
Twelfth Edition—DSM-5 Update"  Perhaps the PDF was titled incorrectly.

no worries. its a textbook for a psychology course, updated to include the DSM 5 updates. the DSM is strictly a diagnostic criteria manual.

https://www.amazon.com/Abnormal-Psychology-12th-DSM-5-Update-ebook/dp/B00I8XF5KQ