the delusion

[Yonda]

I hear people saying it was the best sex they ever had

Was it really?

Or was it that you were just being adored

Being adored makes any sex deficit better

Moments perhaps

Filling someone’s void makes you work harder in bed

Not that you know that at the time

Stay long enough you won’t be getting any sex

Over 18 years I stayed for a fake relationship thinking that the person I was with had deep issues that so could identify and not knowing exactly what they were.

Not knowing this mental illness existed

By the end it is like living in a dungeon

You know you have to get out but you don’t have the capacity to come out of the fog and get it done

You start putting in place measures unconsciously to get them out of your life and they pick up on that

They know their time is has run out

My fault

You best way out is they have a lot to lose because they are survivors

If they have nothing to lose you are gone..

They will drag you into all sorts of accusations

I’m still scared she will come after me

I just hope she knows what she has to lose and that keeps her in survival mode

She wanted to take me to court and I said do it

I would have taken my whole life down to stand up for myself

She didn’t do it

Why because she would lose everything

Her job, her credibility she survives on and that facade

I would have torn in down in public

I made the veiled threat just like she does

Didn’t speak the words

Just like she does

Maybe I got away with it

I wake in fear that I didn’t

I am her a shell

It’s a reverse  mirror

Thats what happens if you stay that long


 

[Yonda]

Oh and think about this

How creepy is this

They feel like you are their abuser

Because in essence without you knowing you are in a way

Their mind hasn’t developed

So what they think isn’t a distortion

It’s real

[SaltyDawg]

Yonda,

   So much truth in what you said.  Inspiring - thanks for sharing.

SD

[Rev]

Yonda,

   So much truth in what you said.  Inspiring - thanks for sharing.

SD

Agreed ... the poetry is as elegant as it is stunning in its accuracy.  Beautiful in the purest sense of the word.

Rev

[Yonda]

I am not sure about inspiring

We all touch on the truth but we don't actually see the truth

Rather seeing it as mental illness that has major impacts on them and us

Perhaps we should start looking at it from the angle that their mind has not developed pasts points in their life

That is a mental impairment

I think it is way beyond trauma though it has all the aspects but not quite the same.  It can be hereditary and I believe my ex, her father has BDP as well.  The mother is cold as ice and the father is BDP.

Stages of someone's development stuck in ages 2-3 then 10-15-16-17 and that is where it stays.

Their minds do not grow

They can be successful because those that can focus and present a facade can get away with it.  But mostly I believe they mirrored what success is and use it like a blueprint or a framework to operate in without really understanding.

Fake it until you make it

Not unlike what many other people do

The passion I believe is the void and lust they are trying to fill

The love is very young

They are moving between the lust and passion and the child who needs to be loved

What does that make us in their eyes when that conflict inside them is happening?

There sits the shame they feel, I believe

They are compromising their "inner child" to their "adult" to an "adult"

That does make us the abuser in their eyes sometimes

That is the reality, we are causing trauma in the person.   It's impossible not to.

Think of it this way would anyone feel comfortable having a sexual relationship with a person with Down Syndrome?

Just because BDP might look like adults, act sensually and seek that type of relation they are not equipped mentally to make that judgement. 

I don't believe

They go to therapy to learn how to think like an adult.  Another learnt behavior so they can ACT appropriately

Is that actually changing their mind to become and adult?

Therapists going over "reparenting" teaching them how to deal with their inner child and grow

I spent so much time going over elements of relationships.  How to deal with jealousy, how to deal with conflict, why you shouldn't lie and why it wasn't needed, the elements of trust, how to say no, balancing their rights, allowing her to find her own path,  supporting her, going over "hurts"

Years and years and years and a massive amount of patience

It docent work.  You think it is working but they acting on what they think you need.

They don't understand at all.   You cannot teach them.

The worse thing you can do is allow them to have any influence over finances and life plans.

Children - you have to be deluded if you have children with them knowing they are BDP.  For a start your kids could have it and who wants that?

You have to workshop every single decision with them

You have to come to terms with the fact that you in essence are with a child in an adult body.  That child needs a parent and is so scared that they will do anything to survive.

Unfortunately the damage is to us is quite serious and significant

I forgive myself because I had no idea that these people existed

I fluctuate between great sorrow and fear and sometimes anger because it is hard to be treated so badly and not be angry

[SaltyDawg]

I am not sure about inspiring

I am 'Inspired' by your self-awareness of the condition.  Keep sharing.

[Yonda]

No I really don't have much insight.  I just had go through a very painful process, that I am not out of yet.

I had to think about how my life as knew it was destroyed and I have to come to terms with a difficult relationship I believed was caused by sexual abuse in her past which made her act how she did.  I gave her scope because of it. 

I don't believe there was any sexual trauma in her past.  She mentioned something briefly once but I don't know if that is correct.  It is hard to tell.  It wasn't specific.

Think about it, we are approaching them as adults with adult needs and expectations

In effect they are selling themselves to us sexually to gain protection, have their needs met on a very childlike level.

How would that feel to compromise your "inner child" like that to someone?

You would feel used, worthless, ugly,  taken advantage of...scared....can't trust...confused....

We are the abusers.   In a way.   That is massive statement and I understand some people would be confronted by that thought.

I read all kinds of forums which people state how great the sex was and I don't think they really understand the effort BDP people put into sex and why. 

What is behind the scenes in their minds.

People are putting them up as sexual objects by describing the sex they had with them. 

Even I did it in a way.  Held on to that as some kind of ideal. 

Step back and think about it, it's quite stark and sad

Something else that changed the way I thought was, I was listening to a psychiatrist who has a car accident and it resulted in brain trauma. In that conversation he said that he had issues with emotional regulation.  That he realized he did when one day he hit his toe.  He said, normally he would ride the pain but after the accident he couldn't do that.  The pain was so intense it felt like he was dying. If you read about brain trauma and the programs people are given for recovery, it is very similar to BDP.  The emotional deregulation and some of the thought process and they are given CBT and told to practice mindfulness, good health.

When BDP say their emotions are so intense they feel like they are dying, that is real. 

They live in a frightening world pretending they are adults with child minds.

I don't believe they should be in adult relationships at all.

When we say they are acting out as a three year old would,  I think we also need to understand they are processing most thoughts as a child would. 

All of it

All our interactions with them...

That puts a new spin on it doesn't it.

[Elitevaz]

Wow, this is an interesting take and I had some thoughts on this level too. I definitely felt like I had a child on my hands. However, I have two children from another mother and I know what it's like to actually have children. Neither of my other children seeked any kind of sexual gratification from me. My ex however, did. Many of the accounts of interaction by others with pwbpd also show a very quick sexual escalation. I think you did kind of cover this in saying that it's being used as a bargaining chip or leverage to get the parental protection that they need to survive. However, real kids do not resort to this, so I don't think it is on the same level. Their thinking is child-like, but it is not a childs mind. They are something primitive for sure. My life with my kids vs my life with my ex had similarities and differences. My kids also had difficulty with emotional regulation, but did  not lash out at me as my ex would. They didn't hurt themselves. They actually learned when I taught them. My kids had a better capacity to learn. I wouldn't exactly say that makes my ex a child or even less than a child, but it was child-like. I had to spend large amounts of time teaching her basic things and even then she might still not get it. Things that seemed very simple cause and effect to me were incomprehensible to her. Funny too, because she would watch kids shows that would interest a preteen. Yet, she vaped nicotine and weed, drank all my alcohol, unlike a preteen. They have traits of both adults and kids.

[Yonda]

It’s a split isn’t it though?

A child and an adult with impulses such as desire

But still a child like mind

I was saying they are selling their inner child to their adult desire, to an adult

That conflict makes them feel a certain disgust with themselves and you at times.

I believe

It’s a transaction and one they can’t rationalise sometimes in themselves.

or you.

They know their emotions are immature

I think they are asking why you want and desire someone with child emotions just like they are asking themselves why.

They want their love to be “pure”

[Yonda]

In response

Re the the child like mind

People with mental impairments who have child like emotions and thoughts also have sexual desires

The question still stands would you have sex with someone with Down syndrome

What is the difference?

I worked with people with down-syndrome and other impairments and some of them have no sexual inhibitions.

They aren’t capable of rationalising it all

What makes BDP people any different?

[SaltyDawg]

The question still stands would you have sex with someone with Down syndrome

What is the difference?

[...]

They aren’t capable of rationalising it all

What makes BDP people any different?


Ouch!  When framed that way, that is very rough.

At least my borderline is capable of rationalising, when she is baseline.  However, when she is triggered she is not.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica the original definition of borderline is as follows:

The term borderline was first brought into psychiatric terminology in 1938 by American psychoanalyst Adolph Stern. Stern used it to describe patients who were “on the border” of psychosis and neurosis, individuals who displayed particular symptoms under stress but then soon became relatively functional again.

So, in essence part crazy (under stress) and part sane (when not under stress).  I definitely see this dynamic in my wife.  What others have called the Dr Jekyll / Mr Hyde personality.

I am in love with the sane version of my wife, yet I despise the crazy version.  That is my perception of the reality of the borderline.  Make sense?

[Yonda]

The part that makes them insane if you want to call it that is the part that is vulnerable in a way we don’t experience

I can sit here in my anger for what she did to me and label it as a vindictive, mind altering, discard.

Which it was

I don’t excuse it

But at the end of the day they have a mental impairment not unlike others who have been are diagnosed differently

But just as vulnerable

At one point I felt sexually I was taking advantage of her and I could get over it.

In the back of my mind it was there

I think instinctively I worked it out

I look back and think OMG I would have crossed a line and never known it.

I don’t sit in guilt for that because I didn’t know

But I think that is the case.

I feel it in my heart that is true

I think they don’t have the capacity to take on complex emotions and desires in regards to adult relationships and sex.

Where I do.

They have a survivors mentality and I think that compromise makes them feel like dirt. In turn we are inflicting it.

Unknowingly

[Yonda]

The rationale  is a facade

We all say it l?

It’s learnt behaviour to fit in

We can’t pick and chose…

Which one is it “?

The vulnerable child behind it or the facade they give you to say it’s ok. Stay with me. I love you. I desire you.

Yes perhaps they respond with an adult impulse which enjoys the sexual experience

It’s a primitive impulse

Even children experience it. A sexual impulse.

I know I did and didn’t know what the hell  that was.

[Yonda]

Sorry if that is a bit out there

Sexual impulse and sexual desire with the weight of an adult mind behind it

Two different things

One is totally an impulse and physical response

But when it comes to something more complex with thought, emotions and acting on them, they have no clue.

They just know they need..

Impulses and need

The throw away line is they mirror you and your desires

They please you

Say that slowly……..

Say it slowly and  think about it…

Do more than think about it, feel it