Acceptance

[ACycleWiser]

Weird how suddenly many of the puzzle pieces of the relational aftermath suddenly start to configure automatically.


I am not saying i am at the end, but certainly at "an end stage". After the stages where you question everything, where you are still wrestling with yourself in your own flavors of magical thinking and splitting, where you swing between blame and self-blame, where you jump between anger, bargaining, denial and an enormously deep sadness, topped of with the last bit of hope, you suddenly find yourself at peace with a simple line of reasoning.

"Happyness is an inside-job"

And yet with the particular dynamic in a bpd relationship you kind of forget that. You empathize with a person that you wish could be moved onto the same level of self-acceptance as you, that you wish could see themselves with the same love as you see them, you wish you could extract that self-hate from them, to make them whole. And the two of you can have this magnificent everlasting bond.

Unaware to you is that you are a little grandiose yourself, so you unconsciously believe that you have some magical skill or a special kind of love that can pull such an awakening off in an other person. It works for a while but then matters suddenly get worse. Then you try again, and again, and even more... and in the process you actually start to resent yourself for failing. You even end up being hated for trying - which in hindsight i totally understand. and before you know it your happyness becomes dependant on that other person. A person that has no skill set to generate enduring happyness for herself, let alone the two of you..

I love my ex in a very very special way still, for all the good she did and all the sacrifices she too did make in the relationship. I still sympathize with her struggle, the relationship cycle she is endlessly trapped in, the lack of a structured self that is firm enough to regulate itself and protect itself from the destructive inner voices of her past. It's a tragic load to carry and i don't know how she does it. But as i said before, it was quite grandiose of me to think i could help her fix any of this, or accommodate her condition. Unwittingly at times you make things worse even. And you also try to turn someone in the person YOU would like, not the person she was supposed to evolve into had complex trauma and abuse not halted that process. I tried to the point of exhaustion but it would have never worked.

So today i let go. Calling on the universe to show her mercy and provide the help she needs on her path forward, that she finally may find her true self instead of staying confused in mirror-like attachment fantasies. I want her to be able to make her own happiness.

At the same time i make my happiness wholly my own business again.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi ACycleWiser,

I saw a quote at work this week:

"Happiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy until you choose to be happy."

Sounds like you are definitely on the right path. Good job. 

Wools

[WhatToDo47]

Beautifully said, both of you. This helped alot. Thank you.

[imtiredofthiscrp]

As a recovering alcoholic, acceptance is something I am constantly working on. Recently my ex said something to me along the lines of "loving someone is deeply accepting them for who and where they are in their lives".

I find myself trying to control their rage and outbursts, but I end up acting in ways I am not proud when I attempt to accomplish this. We accidentally got quarantined together last week after they came to visit for xmas then tested positive for covid. We should not have been locked in a house together for that long. Inevitably that turned into a massive blow out the other evening after I'd finally had enough of the jabs and attitude. We got physical because I tried to stop them from taking my things when they left. I am super not proud of myself, nor am I happy with how they acted in this moment either.

Somewhere in the fight, there was a moment of clarity for me and I said "you're really not going to do this peacefully and I'm going to just have to accept that this is who you are right now isnt it?" "Yep!" was the answer I got. I want so bad to show them that they dont have to feel this way or make other people (me) feel this way. I want to show them that they are doing the same thing to me that they've done in every other relationship. I want to show them where they are wrong. I want to show them how they can be better. I want I want I want. I want to control the uncontrollable. Thats the bottom line.

I used to be able to accept things I cant control, move forward to change the things I could, and I even knew the difference most of the time. In this relationship though, I have fallen back to staying put in places that I can change, trying to control things I cannot, and forgetting to pause and acknowledge the difference. Accepting that this isnt my battle is hard. My battle is with myself and my own patterns and bad behaviors. My battle is bettering me.

[ACycleWiser]

My battle is bettering me.

And it is the only battle you have control over.

There is no use in trying to make someone else "see" or "feel differently" about anything, and if it was it still would not help you. With an alcoholic and later depressed mother i had a childhood that programmed me with the illusion i could and should control this, in her darkest moments she often blamed me for ... how SHE felt so bad. So you may have been raised with such wrong pointers to life, but they are wrong. And there is some de-programming to do on my end there too.

At the end of the day it is their emotion and however black or white that is, it is beyond your control. Even the taunting and getting under your skin says nothing about you. The ONLY thing that says anything about you is the level in which you can control yourself, and compare what you get accused of against your most honest analysis of yourself.