Closure and how it relates to us

[Depression = 72% of members]

what does "closure" mean to you regarding the relationship youre detaching from?

how do you see yourself reaching it, or hope to reach it?

if you have reached it, how did you get there?

[once removed]

what does "closure" mean to you regarding the relationship youre detaching from?

how do you see yourself reaching it, or hope to reach it?

if you have reached it, how did you get there?

[Tsultan]

Once removed, very thought provoking question I like it.

For me, closure means acceptance. (Getting there with that) yeah! Deep down in the soul acceptance. Letting go of any expectations that my exBPDbf will change behavior. That’s huge. Letting go of hope. Feeling all the grief anger, denial, bargaining, and again finally acceptance. It’s a process and it takes the time it takes. The process of letting go and moving on picking up the pieces, dusting myself off and learn the lessons that were given to me. And growing because of them. Thanks for asking.

Gratefully,
Tsultan

[Mutt]

It’s a process and it takes the time it takes. The process of letting go and moving on picking up the pieces, dusting myself off and learn the lessons that were given to me. And growing because of them

It is a process that does take time it certain people I had a break up with my current girlfriend that was very different than my ex wife. It was different because one is a healthy adult versus and unhealthy adult it was not a traumatic event like a break up with a pwBPD because of how it ended at that time and for the reasons why.

Why is a question that can be asked over and over again when you break up with a pwBPD and if you have to keep asking yourself why you’re going through a life event.

There are different pieces if you break down the process of healing and letting go, I speak for myself when I say this but the  closure was a difficult part for me and I’m thankful to the moderator that was here at that time. She said you can give yourself closure if the other person can’t give it to you and that’s exactly what I did but it took time and it helped move the process of healing forward.

[Tsultan]

Hi Mutt, I wondered if you could share your thoughts on the different pieces of healing and letting go and the difference between closure and the healing and letting go process. And one more thing, how did you go about giving yourself closure?

Thank you,
Tsultan

[Cromwell]

After going NC it was just a case of concentrating on my own life for a change and building things up practically, alongside getting trivial stuff like my health to focus on, physical and mental.

once I was living an actual real life, versus, living a dream - the compare and contrast made closure a no-brainer.

i dedicated way too much focus, time, effort on something that fundamentally gave me no joy, fullfillment or happiness - the opposite. Closure came when I put that momentum into reverse - for a moment i felt stalled, its been cranky, but eventually each day became not only better but logarithmic.

hardest part emotionally was the raw, nervy, fixations on the recent trauma. time and support here to get out of the rut. Time by itself doesnt help, what helped was new life experiences filling my days that layered over the old, I also discovered to quote JayZ "ive got 99 problems but a b1tch aint one"

there was and is far more to life, I thought at one time she felt all encompassing, monopolising my thoughts, but i saw it differently eventually, it started to bore me, there is a whole world out there as a prize for me having crossed the rubicon and leaving "the one" behind.

I guess i just found out in the process: i must be a very selfish person and I closed on that point of enlightenment.

[Mutt]

Hi Tsultan,

As Cromwell put it you have to take the focus off of the other person and focus on yourself not everyone can go nc some members had full contact but they changed the dynamics of the r/s with what they shared or mostly didn’t share about themselves personally.

We’ve had some members arrive here years after their pwBPD without closure the impression that I got is that they’re not completely over it. Healing is not linear it’s different for everyone but I’d suggest to give yourself closure early on in the initial stages.

The first part of healing or the first stage I think that is the most painful I did think that the latter ones would be less painful but they can still be almost as painful but just differently.

At the onset you have to stop the bleeding or it’s just going to continue. Some people will recycle or rebound there’s no judgement from me I rebounded fairly quickly with my non gf at the time I liked being In a r/s she didn’t want to continue but I wanted to have a r/s with someone plus I overreacted I was really worried about how much the break up would hurt so I found myself started another r/s with someone new it was a distraction and it had that initial magic in the beginning it was something different something new. Most importantly I took a long break after my exuBPDw because I needed to rebuild myself and I had to go through the grief but the r/s after her i didn’t think that there were many lessons to be learned from it because what I learned after my exuBPDw helped in that r/s.

To answer the question about how I gave myself closure and the different stages. I’ll answer the second part first I don’t think that I can give all of the answers in this thread don’t look to far ahead in healing look ahead in the sense that here is hope and things get better - believe that.

I had a huge ego wound after my exuBPDw broke up with me she had an affair a third person entered the picture and I had no control over the situation. I asked myself what did I do wrong, what does he have that I don’t have, I had really low self esteem I was comparing my value to him. It hurt like hell at the time to try to get closure from her because she was ashamed of what she had done and avoided me it felt like all of those years that we were together meant nothing.

I told myself that she couldn’t continue the r/s because of her mental illness she had gone as far as she could with us but she doesn’t have the r/s skills to be able to sustain or repair r/s’s because of BPD. So I have myself closure by accepting that she was really mentally ill even though at the time I didn’t completely understand it. I speak for myself when I say this but it felt like something in the whole picture with healing was resolved or at least I managed to become unstuck and continue on the path to healing.  To me not having closure feels like limbo you’re stuck there until you can come to a reason why the r/s with this person cannot continue.

[Tsultan]

@Mutt, so that makes sense to me. In sorting my thoughts out, closure to me is a part of the letting go and acceptance of the r/s not working out and cannot continue.the point in which I fully realized and accepted that he cannot give me what I need in the r/s because of the disorder. So there is no sense in me going to hardware store anymore to buy bread and milk. The distance between the heart and the mind can be very long. 

It helped that you clarified for me with the term of being in limbo. I think that is where I painfully was for 7 mos until I ran into him by “mistake” one day. After I saw him I felt such pain again. It was after that I knew I had to “stop the bleeding “ for my own sake. I think it was at that point closure began to take place. Funny thing now that I recall, I did say a prayer a few days before I ran into him to help with the healing. This time I was on my knees. The timing was unmistakable. I pull into the parking lot where I walk and lean up against the back of my trunk to put my sneakers on and who comes pulling in the trail head parking lot but my exuBPDbf. We couldn’t escape our “chance” meeting. He was 50 feet away from me in his truck looking straight onto me. As painful as it was I think it was HP’s (higher power) way of helping me through the last push.
I’m always amazed at how and in what form my prayers get answered.

It is tempting to find another bf to try to distract myself with but I’m not going to entertain that idea. If I do meet someone I will disclose where I’m at if I’m still grieving. After all my r/s’s my approach to the next one if there is going to be a next one is to establish a friendship first. Then see where it goes. Very SLOWLY.   

Thanks Mutt.  wise words.

Tsultan.

[Red5]

Closure?... .which relationship, marriage we talkin about?, .

Mr. Cash pretty much sums it up for me... .

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FywSzjRq0e4

Red5

[Beneck]

Great question.

So for me... .it's all about coming to terms with your actions in regards to the relationship.

That you could have done things better, without that entailing that it's your fault.

In my case for instance, I did my absolute best, especially considering what I knew at the time. And there are things I could have done better, and instances in which I could have acted with greater clarity.

And in some or another, even if it was insignificant, I contributed to what happened.

And that's ok.

We're human, and we make mistakes. But we can learn and so better next time.

So in a way, for me, closure is all about FEELING (rather than just cognitively realizing) the above.

 

[once removed]

i hoped for some months that my ex would come back (she broke up with me).

its not as if i wasnt suffering like crazy, i was a complete mess, but i think in order to really grieve, and fully grieve, i first had to let go of the hope that the relationship would return; that was hard, and it took me those months to get there. i think one part of closure is accepting that the relationship is dead and it isnt coming back.

i also received some closure in the form of breaking down my relationship, determining what happened, how it broke down over time, and how it ended. how it ended seemed such an abrupt, out of the blue shock to me at the time, but once i was removed from the pain, it made a lot of sense; i just couldnt swallow it before.

So for me... .it's all about coming to terms with your actions in regards to the relationship.

this was the last stage for me. those things were hard to see, took a while to see, even if i had been open to it. but "what have i learned, what are the lessons that i want to take into future relationships" was figuratively closing the book, and it was a good chapter to end on.