Give it to me straight

[Baglady]

Hi BPD peeps  ,

I think I can trust you all to perhaps get my level of frustration but I'd appreciate if you could tell me straight out if I'm off the wall on this recent issue that cropped up for me.  I need to know if I'm being over reactive or not and I know I can count on you all to be honest with me.

So I'm 2 1/2 years out in my healing.  (Quick backstory - My exBPDH of 21 years had a complete psychotic break and raged at me for several weeks before assaulting me.  He divorced me in the blink of any eye and smeared me left and right.  His family who were my only family in this country for almost 27 years blamed me for his mental illness and dropped me like a hot potato equally quickly - blood is thicker than water  ).

Overall, I'm doing well in healing and in rebuilding my life but a neighbor really bothered me today.  She told me that she was telling a friend of hers who just got divorced about my experience and she told the friend that my ex went through a mid-life crisis.  This neighbor is a good friend.  I've been really honest with her about that fact that my ex is seriously mentally ill and that he assaulted me.   I was irritated by her version of my divorce because my ex's family's official cover story is also that my ex went through a mid-life crisis.

I realized that this cover story is super triggering for me.  I can't stand people minimizing my experience.  My divorce isn't like a lot of typical divorces.  I didn't "grow apart" from my ex.  I was psychologically abused (emotionally, financially and sexually) in my marriage for many years.  I was assaulted.  My ex is mentally ill and incredibly manipulative.  He almost destroyed me.  He should have been hospitalized during his mental breakdown.  His assault was criminal (I didn't call the cops because he took my phone from me and I wanted to spare my son the ugliness).  It is SO insulting to me when people mischaracterize his behavior as a 'mid-life crisis".  It gives him such an out.

I also am very triggered by the phrase "it takes two to tango".  I'm sorry but I thought I was participating in a waltz when I was actually caught up in a foxtrot (if we're going to go with the dance metaphor at all).  How can you tango when you don't even realize that you aren't even sharing the same dance floor until it's far, far too late?

I dunno.  I just think there are common characterizations that apply to 80% of divorces and then you have the 20% of us that are almost brought to our knees by the abuse that we experience as a result of our mentally ill ex-partners.  And our experience of divorce gets lumped in with the 80% and it's minimized and underplayed.  Our level of justifiable trauma is just not understood or acknowledged.  It's so isolating.

Just needed to get this off my chest.  Thanks for letting me vent.

Warmly,
B.

[once removed]

I need to know if I'm being over reactive or not
...
I realized that this cover story is super triggering for me.  I can't stand people minimizing my experience.

youre not over reactive for hating having your experience minimized (its a pet peeve of mine too).

youre not over reactive for being super triggered by her version of the story.

if you go egg her property, you might be over reactive 

seriously, for the most part, "over reactive" isnt so much about being triggered, as we all can be, but whether/how we manage it when it happens.

you may not want to consider where she may have been coming from on this...when im triggered, i usually dont, but indulge me just a little.

it doesnt sound like she felt it was the time or place for her to divulge the dirty details, so to speak. if i were relaying/relating a story about a friend of mine, to someone else, i wouldnt at least 95% of the time.

mental illness isnt the thing to everyone that it is to us. when i was going through it, i told everyone about BPD, i would get deep into the psychoanalysis and start telling them about how the fear of abandonment triggered my ex. and i would get funny looks. nobody i knew that ever shared the fact that i was going through a breakup ever mentioned such a thing.

it sounds like your friend was giving a "readers digest" version, if that.

would it bother me? absolutely.

does seeing where she might have been coming from help?

[Marianne-11]

Hi B,

I am very sorry to hear what happened, and I can really relate to your feelings. I am currently divorcing my STBX husband who has been diagnosed with BPD. I was also heavily emotionally (few times physically) abused in our marriage in ways that are likely hard to imagine to most who don't know anything about BPD. Have gotten also my share of bullying and blaming from my ex husband's mother and some of his siblings.

I've found it hard to talk about what my life was really like because the borderline behavior can be so absurd and irrational on the surface that I've doubted very few would even believe. But by now closest friends know. Some have more knowledge and ability to digest this kind of information and experiences and they can be supportive and validating. Mostly because they actually had come across problems caused by other personality disorders in other areas of their life that I did not know of.

Then one other friend has also been supportive, but he has suffered from depression and kind of seems to think because of that he understands also about personality disorders. He also started to say that "it takes two to tango" and about midlife crisis, and I found it really minimizing and hurtful. Your dance metaphor was very well said!

I know my friend did not mean to be hurtful, but as you said, our level of trauma is not understood by most. I told him that we really should not normalize abusive behavior. But as the healing process is still fragile, I don't want to risk hearing anything like that and have decided to simply talk about other stuff with him.    

I can well understand your feelings and do not think you are off the wall. It hurts even when the people who said it would not have had any intentions to minimize your experience.

I hope you are feeling better, and want to also thank you for sharing this!    

[I Am Redeemed]

Some people are socially embarrassed by the stigma of mental illness. Perhaps your friend didn't want to disclose the truth for this reason. Nevertheless, I see how it could be triggering and invalidating of your experience. I also see how the "takes two to tango" would be triggering because most people who say that are implying that each partner is equally to blame for the dissolution of the relationship. In abusive situations, that is not true.

I don't think your feelings of being triggered are overreacting. They're understandable given your experience.

Do you think perhaps you have some more processing to do in terms of how your ex and his family treated you? Having your reality and truth denied or distorted can have a huge emotional impact. What can you do to help validate yourself and what you know to be the truth about your experience?

[Baglady]

Thanks for your input BPD friends  !  I knew I could count on you to provide some excellent feedback!

Nope - I didn't egg anyone's house  .  In fact, my neighbor and I are good and we went for a nice walk afterward.  And yes, my neighbor was providing a "reader's digest" version of events and protecting my privacy.

I was just so shocked at how hurt and triggered I was by this characterization of my divorce.  And yes, I have so much more processing to do (despite 2 1/2 years of therapy  ).  I think I'll be in therapy for the rest of my life and I'm not the one with the disorder.

It was so good to have my experience validated by you all.  Sometimes, it's just hard for me to trust my own reactions and I just wasn't sure if I was over-reacting or not.   

I'd so love to get to a point where things like this can just roll off my back!  And I'm an easy going personality to begin with!   Two steps forward, one step back healing is frustrating but it is what it is.

Much thanks to all 
Warmly,
B

[BDR]

you are not alone , when I saw my BDP wife acting out in very bizarre behavior I only confided in a few very close friends . one was a good  friend of mine and  one was her longest and oldest friend. my friend comforted me as he had struggled with his own sex addiction but her friend wanted proof and at 1st didn't believe me . When I gave her more details she told my wife's  sister who at first thought I was over exaggerating , but as she new her sisters (my wife's )story she was the first one to call her out and tell her she was sick and needed professional help. Once sister was involved my wife blew up on me in our driveway in front of the whole neighborhood. To her family  I was always the best son in law until  mentioned divorce then Her Dad sent me a very cutting email blaming me for her behavior and not controlling my family. Then later he  wanted to know how much of her behavior was public.  I cut off all communication with them for now and want them to deal directly with their daughter (who is almost 50 yo) who I will no longer support.

[Baglady]

Hi BDR 

Yes - a huge part of my hurt around my divorce actually centers around my in-laws.  I've come to terms with the fact that my exBPDh is actually very mentally ill and a lot of his abhorrent behaviors are a result of that illness.  However, my in-laws are clearly not mentally-ill or disordered but their behavior to me was downright cruel around the time of the divorce.

I, too, was the best daughter-in-law until in the blink of an eye, I suddenly wasn't.  My former parents-in-law choose not to believe me about my ex's psychosis until it was absolutely laid bare to them.  They accepted it then but in a matter of weeks started to downplay it all as a "mid-life crisis".  My assault was minimized.  My ex-father-in-law actually implied that somehow I shouldn't be that affected due the fact that I had been sexually assaulted when I was child.  His actual wording "You were already a broken woman so..."   Still picking my jaw up from the floor after than one!

I'm 100% NC with them now (hard because I don't have any other family and I have a child who engages with them frequently). 

I clearly see how my ex's illness has its roots in this horrendous dysfunction.  Yet if you met them, you would think them the most, wholesome loving family in the county.  Oscar-winning levels of false, covert dysfunction at play 

Warmly,
B

[Cat Familiar]

I understand how those seemingly innocent comments can be deeply wounding even years after the fact. When I first joined here, I did a lot of venting about my ex husband, who undoubtedly has multiple personality disorders and was abusive to me physically and emotionally, and was a routine philanderer, financially irresponsible, drug abuser, and violent.

When someone posted “we tend to match our partners on an emotional development level,” I went ballistic. I had gotten together with this guy when he seemed harmless, just after college, and it took years for him to grow into the psychopath he was. I was not at all happy being compared to him on any level. Yet it was likely true that when we got together we were similarly immature.

My ex was good at hiding his deviant side and most of my friends had no idea. Some did, however.

But it was many years down the road that I was still processing the emotional damage from that relationship. Now I can understand the frog metaphor. I got into the water and it was warm at first—and as the temperature increased, it didn’t occur to me that it was almost boiling, until I finally had the courage to jump out.

Nowadays I feel totally released from all those years with him. I seldom think of him, other than when I get a phone call from a creditor trying to track him down. The Internet is forever.  

[BDR]

wow you hit it straight on. I was 30 she was 25 . Spent much of my time alone no serious relationships up til that time , working and going to  school not very outgoing and very naïve. Her initial passion and energy drew me in .Relationship was always shallow. She hid her bulimia for 1st 7 years of marriage along with a list of antidepressants and other medications that I had no clue about. Truth be told I was stuck in my own world came from a family that showed little emotion or intimacy so we got along fine outside of the violent outburst and tongue lashings that came at random. For those  I had no tools to deal with them  so I just shut down or avoided her. Any issues about life- like money or the kids she would go ballistic on me if we didnt agree. She would create such a storm we would never end up talking about any thing that was difficult. I could never talk about my work especially if I had a bad day.
but over the years I began to grow and longed for intimacy - kept asking "there has to be more than this" we tried counseling but all they told us was to communicate more.  she even went to rehab for the bulimia and was a new person for awhile but cut ties with the rehab and never did any follow up work. That's when I started to realize something was off and she was not maturing at all . I started to find more and more little secrets and catch her in lies . As each season of life changed she would pick up a new addiction. I put up with all of them thinking one day the sun would come out and fear of divorce. The last addiction was other men . I even put up with that for 2 years,