Hi Caesar46 and
During Summer we got back again and I tried to save her one final time while exhusting everything I have. Money, time and huge effort was put in to stop her mad sprial into darkness. When I see that I am broke and pretty much hopeless I used a silly reason and blocked her. I was quite calm and happy after that for a month and all hell broke lose.
You cannot save someone who does not want to be saved. And don't be confused: how you want to save her, is not how she wants to be saved. Her kind of "save" is all about what other people do for her. Your kind of "save" requires her to focus on herself, and change herself, in a way that she might not want.
A month ago I have received a message from her best friend which I only know her by name that she is extremly sick and wants my help. I resisted as much as I could but her health situation was terrible and real. She was about to get paralysed (even death) and in huge pain and needed my connections, caring plus monetery support. She cried and begged for help while treating me as good as possible so I cave in.
Some people with BPD (pwBPD) will do almost anything, including threaten suicide, in order to get other people to "save" them. How do you "save" someone from themselves?
I'm not suggesting that she got sick in order to convince you. I'm saying that if poor health doesn't persuade others, then it will be poor financial situations, or other poor decisions that they make which engage other people's sympathy, and motivate other people to rescue them.
Borderline "waifs" will use their "helplessness" in order to get people to rescue them. If you don't help them the way they want you to help them, they will continue to drown until you do. You throw them a life preserver and tell them to use that to float; they will throw it back to you and tell you to come in the water instead.
I helped her and during that time we suddenly become lovers too. But the underlaying problems of BPD was there so after her surgery I begin to pull away.
She *seduced* you.
But everyone around me also keeps saying that "She will return very soon and I must be ready to reject her for good." and this fact is torturing me. Until now she returned to me for because she knows I was always a safe heaven to rest and recover but after saving her life I fear that I have become something even more.
You are not become "more," (in her mind) you are the same. She has always known how to get you to "save" her. Overtime, she has needed to compel you with stronger efforts; she is doing "more" to continue to get what she wants from you. She will continue to show you what it takes to get you to submit, as long as you allow her to do so.
I know I have to reject her, I know I cannot fix her, I know what I feel is not love but extreme trauma bond but still I am not sure I can stop her if she comes back. ...
Plus the thought of her coming back to me is painful enough and I keep wondering when it happen everday.
Pain may be the only instructor you have left. No one can save you, not from yourself. You need to remember how much pain she has inflicted upon you already, with the promise that each time you go back to her, she will inflict *more* pain upon you later, if you continue this dance.
You have learned that putting your hand in the fire burns you. But you don't understand the reason why you keep putting your hand into the fire. As painful as it is when you are with her, being with her helps you in some way (that you may not be admitting to yourself). Maybe, by focusing your attention on being with her or not being with her, you are avoiding a deeper pain.
People who are *codependent*, learn to focus their attention on other people's problems as a coping mechanism, or an avoidance behavior. If my attention is focused on how another person is hurting, I have no attention left to address how I am hurting. I am a codependent, and this is how I see myself.
You might consider that as painful as it is to be with her; you are avoiding facing something about yourself that is even more painful, or at least, that you believe is more painful.
It is not more painful to take care of yourself. Taking care of yourself is *much much better* than taking care of other people. If you cannot take care of yourself, you truly cannot take care of anyone else.
For codependents, taking care of themselves is so difficult that they may run towards another situation that knowingly causes them great pain in order to avoid taking care of themselves. Maybe the codependent is afraid of the unknown, or feels like he/she does not deserve the effort, or something else -- whatever it is, it is a lie, because it prevents them from taking care of themselves, from saving themselves.
Maybe this is true for you, maybe not. But until you accept that the pain of being with your BPDloved one is not what you want for yourself, until you believe that you deserve better than this pain, until you can do what you need to do in order to *save yourself," you may end up repeating this cycle of pain. Until you choose to stop. For your own sake.
Best wishes,
Schwing
