More Journaling

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

This is a continuation of a previous thread: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=334559.30

I think the old thread is getting rather long now, and its title (Feeling Immeasurably Better Now) kind of makes me laugh in a bit of a bitter way, and I don't like that kind of laughter - I like joyful, affectionate laughter.

I still need to talk talk talk, write write write though. Thank you so much for having patience with this and for giving me a space in which to do it.

One thing I am realising is that confronting the trauma of the break-up is going to lead in to confronting the trauma of the relationship itself.

One example:

As I told you, there were many times when he'd "dump" me and cut me off. I was secure in the relationship and never had a moment's doubt that he'd come back to me. I didn't doubt his feelings for me or the strength of our relationship. I wasn't at all insecure or fearful about that. But...

What I didn't trust was that he would keep himself safe. You know the "risk taking behaviours" bit? He had that and then some. He would pick fights with people he couldn't possibly best. He would bait and wind-up the police and risk arrest. He would pop cocodamol like candy, risking organ failure from paracetamol overdose. He would drink to dangerous levels. He has a long history of impulsive suicide attempts.

So, when he was out of contact, I was always scared. I was always scared that Something Bad had happened. I wouldn't doubt his love for me, but I would doubt whether he was actually alive or not. Terrifying times.

The relief I would feel when I'd hear his text tone... The "Oh thank God, thank God, thank God!" relief. The physical tension easing so much that my muscles went from taut to relaxed so abruptly that my legs couldn't hold me up relief...

And I am now coming to terms with the fact that no relief is coming this time. The nightmare won't be broken to the sound of his text tone. All of this won't turn out to be something and nothing. I won't ever get the comfort of knowing he's alive and safe ever again. That relief is never ever coming again.

That feels horrific. Truly horrific. But... On the other hand, the periods of acute fear are over now too. I will never have to go through acute fear like that over him again. Yes, there will now (at least for a while) be chronic fear, with no end in sight, no relief... But those episodes of acute fear are something I am never doing to have to go through again.

[Bnonymous]

This is a continuation of a previous thread: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=334559.30

I think the old thread is getting rather long now, and its title (Feeling Immeasurably Better Now) kind of makes me laugh in a bit of a bitter way, and I don't like that kind of laughter - I like joyful, affectionate laughter.

I still need to talk talk talk, write write write though. Thank you so much for having patience with this and for giving me a space in which to do it.

One thing I am realising is that confronting the trauma of the break-up is going to lead in to confronting the trauma of the relationship itself.

One example:

As I told you, there were many times when he'd "dump" me and cut me off. I was secure in the relationship and never had a moment's doubt that he'd come back to me. I didn't doubt his feelings for me or the strength of our relationship. I wasn't at all insecure or fearful about that. But...

What I didn't trust was that he would keep himself safe. You know the "risk taking behaviours" bit? He had that and then some. He would pick fights with people he couldn't possibly best. He would bait and wind-up the police and risk arrest. He would pop cocodamol like candy, risking organ failure from paracetamol overdose. He would drink to dangerous levels. He has a long history of impulsive suicide attempts.

So, when he was out of contact, I was always scared. I was always scared that Something Bad had happened. I wouldn't doubt his love for me, but I would doubt whether he was actually alive or not. Terrifying times.

The relief I would feel when I'd hear his text tone... The "Oh thank God, thank God, thank God!" relief. The physical tension easing so much that my muscles went from taut to relaxed so abruptly that my legs couldn't hold me up relief...

And I am now coming to terms with the fact that no relief is coming this time. The nightmare won't be broken to the sound of his text tone. All of this won't turn out to be something and nothing. I won't ever get the comfort of knowing he's alive and safe ever again. That relief is never ever coming again.

That feels horrific. Truly horrific. But... On the other hand, the periods of acute fear are over now too. I will never have to go through acute fear like that over him again. Yes, there will now (at least for a while) be chronic fear, with no end in sight, no relief... But those episodes of acute fear are something I am never doing to have to go through again.

[Bnonymous]

And every little "How could he do that?" will now be replaced by this one huge "How could he do that?"

It is a question I won't have to confront on an almost weekly basis over a different thing each time anymore. I only have to confront it once now. It is the greatest confrontation with the question that I will ever have to endure, but... It is also the last.

He could not possibly have hurt me any more than he just has. But... The other side to that coin is: he cannot hurt me any more or anymore.

My heart was like the organs of Prometheus, regenerating each day to be devoured again and again... It will not regenerate again this time. It cannot be devoured again.

[Bnonymous]

And the endless endless Laingian 'Knots' and moral dilemmas and moral residue ("moral residue" is a brilliant concept - if anyone's interested, look it up) and damned-if-do-damned-if-don'ts... These are soul-destroying. It will be good to be free from them.

I get that, to many people, things are black-and-white and clear-cut. They're not to me. To me, everything is grey and nuanced. For me, each situation has to have its pros and cons weighed up every single time. There are no general rules; there are only particular situations to be confronted, analysed, and acted in, one at a time. It's hell.

There would be many situations where the dilemma was like: If I give him money, I will be enabling him, I will be helping him to kill himself, I will be standing in the way of his recovery. If I do not give him money, he is very likely to commit suicide. My choice is: a/ "help" him in a way that I know isn't helping longer term but at least keeps him alive long enough to have the possibility of helping himself longer term, or b/ don't give him money, feel good about not being an enabler, but run the very real risk that he will die and then all the "longer-term, bigger picture" stuff will lose all relevance.

I confronted dilemmas such as these frequently. Sometimes I jumped one way, sometimes I jumped the other. But there was always moral residue. The moral residue was inescapable.

I felt almost doomed to be a bad person and a bad partner. I felt there was absolutely no way to get it right. Whichever way I jumped, there was risk and there was potential harm to both of us.

I wasn't kidding myself that suicide was likely. So was prison. And prison would not have been the "natural consequences" that constituted a wake up call and the beginning of sorting himself out. Prison would have been the end of him.

I wanted him to sort himself out, to build a better future for himself. All the literature and received wisdom tells us that they have to hit rock bottom to come back. It completely misses the fact that there really are many people who literally won't survive rock bottom. Hope simply cannot be kept alive without keeping the person themselves alive. That's hard and creates irresolvable dilemmas and received wisdom seeks to solve the insoluble by painting a picture where hitting rock bottom inevitably and universally results in recovery. It glosses over the fact (and it is a fact) that, for many people, hitting rock bottom results in suicide.

There was never any Right Thing To Do in this situation. There was only ever a "lesser of two evils, but nevertheless still an evil" thing to do.

It is a situation that is deeply deeply damaging to the psyche and to any sense of self as a moral agent in a navigable world. I will be tremendously glad to be free from that.

[Bnonymous]

I am noticing that this time (between 3pm and 6pm UK time) seems to be the hardest for me. I don't know why or what to do about it. It's becoming almost predictable. I tend to be okay-ish in the morning and okay-ish in the evenings - but during the late afternoon, I seem to collapse a bit.

Maybe because this was the time of transition from my time into our time. He'd usually text 3-4pm-ish. Then we'd talk on the phone 5ish, or, if he was coming over, he'd arrive around 5:30pm. This was the time when our separate days' activities were drawing to a close and the time when we'd get together (IRL or on the phone) and chat about them would arrive. I feel his absence so acutely at this time of day that the pain is almost unendurable.

The shock and betrayal are very hard things to wrap my head around and cope with. But they are nothing in comparison to the grief.

And the habits and the routines and the expectations associated with them... The pain of these... The pain of expecting to hear his text tone, knowing I won't, but still expecting it... It's unbelievably painful. It's very much like a bereavement.

[Bnonymous]

And I am still having so much difficulty understanding how it isn't affecting him like this. It seems almost inhuman to me. I don't understand how someone can be such a big and consistent part of someone's life for so long and then... walk away and not look back.

I don't understand how he isn't thinking "Oh, I've got to tell B this!" and "I'll just finish the washing up and then I'll call B". And then confronting a huge gap where I used to be.

I don't see how the other woman could plug that gap either, because people aren't interchangeable. I know that having someone else would make all this feel much harder for me.

I can't understand how he isn't grieving, grieving to the point where it's unendurable and he has to reach out.

I don't understand how anyone could not be.

I think people IRL would answer that with a single word: heroin.

[Bnonymous]

I do think that's the answer.

I know no one here knows him. I know I have talked much more about all the crap he puts me through than anything else, but that's only because the good stuff is so much harder to put into words. I guess people probably think he's part-ill part-a**hole and that's the end of it.

But that really isn't the whole picture. His patterns were reliable. Yes, he could be absolutely awful a lot of the time. But his conscience always brought him back to his values and efforts in self-improvement and self-reflection and taking responsibility. That always happened. Without fail. It was something completely reliable and trustworthy.

And it does very much look, to me and probably to outsiders, as though he can't have cared all that much about me and the life we had together. But he did. He cared very much.

Heroin takes all of that away. When a person is high on heroin, they forget all their troubles and just feel euphoric insulated bliss, regardless of what's going on around them. When a person is coming down from it, starting withdrawal, they don't care about anything but getting that next hit. In either phase, their capacity to care about the things and people that used to matter to them becomes almost non-existent.

"Emotional atrophy," ceasing to feel any emotions towards or connections with people who used to matter is a recognised symptom of heroin abuse. As is suddenly cutting off family, friends, and other loved ones, and completely changing one's social circle to revolve around other users.

I don't think he could have given up the bond and routines we had easily (BPD or not) any other way.

I think this fits in all too well with all the other "he's using again" jigsaw pieces in my previous thread.

[Gemsforeyes]

Dear B-
You are going through it, my friend.  The grief, the bereavement.  Those are your true feelings, those were my feelings as well, at one time.  And then they flipped into anger, amazement, numbness, sadness, back to grief, nothingness, deep depression, PTSD, and on and on.

I’ve tried to find something, ANYTHING, to “blame” his behaviors on.  I made excuse after excuse for him, his lies, his rages, his threats, his stealing from me.  He blamed his cruelty on me.  And I came to believe him for quite some time.  Most of us on this site continue seeking rational explanations for the behaviors.  Even after we learn about BPD and the behaviors that accompany the illness.  But the thing is, it’s not rational behavior; so sadly, that kind of closure likely won’t be had.

The abrupt and cold cutting off of a loving relationship is something a “non” would NOT and could NOT do, so we don’t understand it.   We would NOT be able to simply forget about the person we love and have another person immediately move into our hearts and head space.  But pwBPD are different.  As I said in an earlier post, their actions are driven by desperate attempts to fill that bottomless emptiness they feel, but don’t understand.  I think since they don’t understand it, they can’t possibly “explain” why they need to change relationships.

Not to generalize, but there ARE great similarities in this type of behavior amongst pwBPD when they leave relationships, or continuously threaten to leave relationships.  The relationships don’t seem to run a normal course; the endings are generally not kind and well thought out.  But saying this is not intended to minimize what you found beautiful and special about your pwBPD.  From my readings here, all of us found something beautiful and uniquely wonderful about our BPD partners. 

But I have to say, after a ton of soul-searching, hitting my bottom and hard work, I made mine out to be way more unique and “special” than he was.  It was almost as if I was the artist and he was the art.  I needed to somehow justify staying with him for as long as I did.  I “painted” him beautiful.  The weakness was or is in me, and I know that now.

I Guess our hope, tho’ we’ve no way of verification, is that our former lovers think of us and remember the love they expressed for us.  At least that’s my hope.  Seems that’s the best I can hope for.  Someday that will not matter to me...I know that, too.

Warmly,
Gemsforeyes

[Gemsforeyes]

Dear B-

I want to clarify and state that if he’s using heroin again, that may likely exacerbate the BPD behaviors.  I meant to include that thought in my above post, so I apologize.

Hugs to you,
Gemsforeyes

[Bnonymous]

But I have to say, after a ton of soul-searching, hitting my bottom and hard work, I made mine out to be way more unique and “special” than he was.  It was almost as if I was the artist and he was the art.  I needed to somehow justify staying with him for as long as I did.  I “painted” him beautiful.

This made me smile. I have done that before. But not here. He is beautiful. He is also ugly. He is bad. And he is also good. I never edited him, I just took the rough with the smooth and accepted it as a package deal. He is who he is. And he is beautiful to me and always will be.

It was mutual. We both saw the best in each other and admired it.

I was thinking of something he said to me a few months ago: "You are the strongest person I have ever known. Stronger than the body-builders, stronger than the weight-lifters... Because you are strong on the inside. And seeing it makes me believe I can be strong inside too" - what is that if not love? (rhetorical - it was love)

[Bnonymous]

Am feeling a teensy tiny bit better each day now. Just a little, but... baby-steps.

I did something today which I had been contemplating for a while but was unsure about. Remember I pay for his phone? And he's recently changed his number and SIM so he's not using that account anymore?

Well, I logged in and deactivated it. That SIM won't work anymore now if he ever tries putting it back in. This does, of course, mean that I can now be certain that I have no way of contacting him and that I will never hear his text tone again. But...

It also means that if she stops paying for the new one, and he kept the old one as a back-up, then he can't just put it back in and try running up a bill on my card. Tbh, I'm not sure it could have worked that way anyway. It's my card saved on that account, but it didn't used to auto top-up - I used to log in and put credit on it for him. But I am not 100% confident that he wouldn't have been able to top up with my card direct from the phone - there's a fair chance that he could have done. I didn't want to risk that happening, so... I've deactivated it.

I feel a bit bad about this (crazy or what after everything?). And I wouldn't have done it if he had still been using it. Not so quickly anyway. But he isn't using it anymore. He's got a new SIM, a new number, and a new account which she tops up, so...

Closing the old one felt like tying a loose end.