How to cope with grief

[Peaceandhealing]

I was wondering if anyone has any insights into how to move through the grief associated with the ending of a relationship to someone with BPD. I was with my ex for 5 years and, though he doesn't have a formal diagnosis of BPD, he very much fitted the picture. His psychiatrist said that though he couldn't at that point give him the the diagnosis of a full personality disorder, he could diagnose significant attachment damage, alongside ADHD and Aspergers.
As you can imagine our relationship was very intense and very traumatic. Huge highs and huge lows. He was my best friend, the person that I have loved most, and the person that I thought that I'd grow old with. Sadly he was also angry a lot of the time, raging, very verbally abusive when upset (both in person and by email, text etc)  at times physically abusive and often either intensely clinging or utterly abandoning- especially at times of need, such as when we  had a couple of miscarriages. Towards the end I also found out that he had been tracking me through a tracking device in my car.
I've had EMDR therapy for the PTSD that occur as a result of our relationship. I'm also in weekly talk therapy. In general I'm doing so much. better than I was when I finally left him a year ago. However I still find myself overwhelmed by grief at times. It comes on like a huge wave and I feel like I'm sinking. I suppose I'm still trying to reconcile how my ex could have been all the things that he was in one person. It's incredibly painful and very difficult to explain to other people in my life.
On one level I still love him a huge amount. I don't think that will ever go away, though I often wish it would!
How has anyone else found a way through this? For me it's the awful awareness that it is not safe to be with the person that I love most because their mental health problems (and refusal to acknowledge them or get help instead blaming everyone else)  means that they can and frankly will be very abusive towards me at times. Whilst at other times they are wonderful.
Thank you for reading

[oftentimes]

Hi there!

It sounds to me like you very much have found a way through this - going to group therapy, EMDR, and learning about the illness are all very good ways to move yourself through the stages of grief in a healthy way.

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to just 'get over things' - it is a process and it just takes time. Have you heard of the 5 stages of change? They apply to grief, addiction recovery, relationship trauma recovery- pretty much everything when it comes to what our brains go through when we experience something that turns our understanding of the world upside down through a psychic wound.

The stages are a cycle and a person does not necessarily move through them in order and going back and forth between the stages is quite common too. The first stage is always the precontemplative stage and for the grief cycle we call it denial
Here's how it works in terms of grief:
1) Denial: This is when we aren't aware there is a problem yet or cannot allow ourselves to be aware bc it is too painful (denial even applies to when we lose someone close to us. We might be staring at their open casket and saying "this isn't real, this can't be happening...")

2) Anger - pretty self explanatory. Don't shy away from or repress anger. It is a healthy, normal response to trauma and can be motivating, healing, and protective. Of course, finding healthy ways to express anger is critical. Our trauma is never an excuse to be abusive or harmful to others. But there are plenty of healthy outlets to channel our anger and it can be really healing. I worked at a domestic violence shelter that had a partnership with a local kiln. The kiln donated pieces (like plates / vases whatever) that people either didn't want or had messed up somehow. Clients of the shelter were allowed to go into an enclosed area and break vent their anger by shattering the plates on the ground. These kind of things can be very helpful AS LONG AS it is in a controlled environment. Breaking stuff in front of children etc., can be traumatizing to them.
3) Bargaining - this is where we start to wonder if there's something else we can do to change the situation. We look for compromises or ways to change our behavior in hopes to change the situation. This stage can lead to a lot of internalized self-blame. "What if I just did this?" "If only I had done this?" "I'll do anything to change this, there has to be a way." "What can I do to get over this faster and move on?"

4) Depression / sadness: we feel hopeless. sad. like there's no way out. This stage (for me at least) sucks. It feels powerless. It hurts.

5) acceptance: You do not just get over grief. You learn to accept it. You learn to move through your life and sit with awareness of the pain you hold, but no longer are immobilized or consumed by it. As time goes on, your connection to the pain and your ability to compartmentalize it becomes stronger. Maybe it only hits you during holidays or certain situations. When you are moving toward the acceptance phase and in the beginning of it, people often describe it as coming in waves that are getting increasingly further and further apart. In the beginning of the grief cycle, the waves were 100 ft high and constant. You couldn't stand up to catch your breath before getting hit by another. Toward the end of the cycle, the waves are smaller and further apart. But they are still there. Full acceptance doesn't mean an absence of your pain. It means you have healed to the point where you have found a place for your pain and can sit at peace with knowing it is there. People don't just forget about a person or a loss. We learn to live, heal, and learn from it. We allow it to exist within ourselves along with everything else we've experienced good, bad, beautiful, painful. We are complex and capable of tremendous growth as human beings. Acceptance brings us growth from wounds - it is when we realize we are stronger and better people because of our painful experiences, not in spite of them.

Hope this is helpful to you. Hang in there <3

[Lucky Jim]

He was my best friend, the person that I have loved most, and the person that I thought that I'd grow old with. Sadly he was also angry a lot of the time, raging, very verbally abusive when upset (both in person and by email, text etc)  at times physically abusive and often either intensely clinging or utterly abandoning- especially at times of need, such as when we  had a couple of miscarriages. Towards the end I also found out that he had been tracking me through a tracking device in my car.

Hey Peaceandhealing, Welcome!  You story is quite familiar, so you are not alone.  I'm sorry to hear all that you've experienced.  Yes, there is a way through it.  Leaving a BPD r/s is painful, as many here can attest.  I suggest you focus on yourself and your needs.  Your task, I submit, is to get to a place where you love yourself too much to allow yourself to be the object of anyone's abuse ever again.  That sounds easy, but is actually pretty hard for most of us Nons, who are used to putting the needs of a pwBPD ahead of our own.  Healing involves getting back on your path, which is yours alone.  What are your gut feelings?  Fill us in, when you can.

LuckyJim

[Peaceandhealing]

Thank you both for your helpful replies. I know about the grief cycle but it was good to be reminded of it, especially the fact that it is nonlinear. That's the part that keeps surprising me I think. I feel like I've got to a more stable place and then another wave of the cycle kicks off! I do think that I'm moving through it though. I don't feel angry or disbelieving or scared anymore (in general!) now I mostly feel sad. As the anger, shock and disbelief have died away, I've started feeling compassion for him again and consequently my level of sadness has sky rocketed!
The last thing that my ex did was send me a 10 page email. 10 pages of abuse and accusations really. Some of the accusations were really very very viscous ( that I deliberately caused the miscarriages that we had suffered for example) and the rest of it was a sort of psychological assessment of me claiming that I  am amongst other things, a covert narcissist. I finally, with the support of my counsellor, close friends and family, wrote him a short, non emotional, non accusatory reply not by email but as a posted letter, at the beginning of this month essentially just detailing the real facts. I didn't expect any reply from him and I didn't get one (and I wouldn't have read one if I did). The letter has been very helpful for me as I can now sleep again at night ( I was waking up 3 or 4 times each night crying about his email).  I'd been no contact with him for almost a year and will now be no contact with him again. However with that out of the way it's almost like my brain has gone- nastiness dealt with, box ticked, forget about it, remember how much you love him and miss him. WHAT IS THAT ALL ABOUT!
Yes loving myself enough really is key isn't it?

[oftentimes]

Have you talked with your therapist or read up on trauma bonding? That really helped me work through the confusion of how I still felt so attached to someone who has caused me such great harm. The scary part about trauma bonding (well on of the scary parts) is that if we don't address them we are MUCH more likely to repeat them in other relationships. Geeze this personal growth stuff is SO hard, isn't it?

[once removed]

However with that out of the way it's almost like my brain has gone- nastiness dealt with, box ticked, forget about it, remember how much you love him and miss him. WHAT IS THAT ALL ABOUT!

you may be depressed...over 70% of members are, when they arrive here. and during depression, something called the "garbage truck" phenomenon can happen, where our brain will literally pull upon memories, associations, thoughts, feelings, that make everything worse. more here: https://bpdfamily.com/content/depression-stop-being-tortured-your-own-thoughts

it certainly helps to talk. having a strong support system was probably the number one factor in my own recovery. i had people in my life that would listen, but didnt know how to help, ran out of things to say, got impatient with me, that sort of thing. i also had to trust that things would get better, and being on the other side of it, i can tell you that they really do.

its a good idea to start with what happened. what led to the breakup?