BPD Truths

Because knowledge is power

[mytruthtime-blog]

Oh, How the Tide has Turned

Installment 13 in “My Story”

So, fast forward a month or so and I’ve landed a new job and moved to a new city.  The ex and I got back in contact - a couple of weeks after I stopped making the effort.  I’m still not sure it was wise to be back in touch, but I am at least carefully monitoring my own emotional health to stay safe.

As for the ex...well...seems my spidey senses have been tingling for a reason.  What I perceived in her statements, actions, and social media turns out to be exactly as I called it - for a while now I’ve wondered aloud with friends saying “I don’t know wtf is going on, but I can only believe the ex and the Replacement have broken up.  Something.  I dunno, man, but it feels like she’s trying to recycle with me.  Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”  Guess what?  I was right - she’s trying to recycle with me.

It turns out the Replacement has, not surprisingly, turned out to be JUST AS STUPID as my ex first said she was - has CLEARLY not bothered to bone up on just exactly what BPD is and how it effects those who suffer from it.  She clearly has zero clue as to what that means for their so-called “relationship”.  Why do I say this?  GLAD YOU ASKED!

I say this because the Replacement has triggered her own devaluation by the ex.  And, once started, that process simply cannot be undone.  It’s only a matter of time before that whole thing comes crashing down into a flaming pile of burning rubbish.  I won’t lie - part of me is pretty amused by it.  The part of me that called it for what it was, called it when it was, and got vilified for it. That part of me is EAGERLY looking forward to the sudden eye-opening moment for the Replacement and all the others who helped in painting me black and in depriving both my ex and me of the love and support we actually needed for something healthier.  What goes around comes around, motherfuckers, and that part of me is going to have plenty of popcorn waiting when the time comes.

But...

There is a bigger part of me - a much bigger part of me - that is already wincing on behalf of all involved.  It’s going to rip this poor person into shreds.  Of course it will.  How can it not?  I know when the devaluation started - the Replacement has no idea.  She’s still happily tagging her social media about how in love she is, how much she misses my ex, how she really wishes she could be with her, and - the trigger - how much she wishes the ex would come to visit her.  Yeah.  Too bad that moron didn’t bother to EVER follow-up.

She doesn’t even know she’s ruining the very thing she is so desperately clinging to.  The ex is beside herself with guilt, anger, concern, worry, fear, and all manner of other negative emotion as it relates to the Replacement.  Why’s that?  GLAD YOU ASKED!  She’s all about that negative emotion because she’s now stuck between a rock and a hard place.

You see, the ex has NEVER been able or willing to travel for another person.  She can’t.  And not just because she spends her money so unwisely that she can’t even eat nutritiously.  She can’t because being on someone else’s “turf” makes her feel vulnerable - and without her familiar surroundings, or a familiar-enough group of people around her - she simply freaks out about the idea of being at the mercy of the other person.  She does this for a reason - and it is because she assumes the OTHER person is going to be how SHE is when they come to see her. 

She cannot fathom that the other person won’t abandon her in a foreign country in which she knows no one (she’s done this to 2 people).  She can’t imagine they won’t book all their time so that she’s at the mercy of people she doesn’t know and had no desire to know (she’s done this to everyone).  She can’t imagine being made to feel unwelcome but having nowhere to go.  Etc. 

And the Replacement?  The Replacement has no clue.  Just like the Replacement had no clue that right up until the argument the ex and I had, that the ex was texting me about how “inorganic” the whole thing felt with the Replacement and that she wasn’t into it or the idea of something “more”.  But then we had our massive argument where I hurt her feelings too deeply - and it wasn’t long after that the exact opposite of the sentiment was playing out...but to the Replacement, there wasn’t any change.  The Replacement is literally both that stupid and that unobservant. 

We Nons know that the exact WRONG kind of person for someone with BPD to date.  We know they actually require someone who is both observant enough to see what’s happening, and intelligent enough to be able to work with what’s happening.  But to our BPD partners, someone who can do that is the person they fear most of all.  They pick the meek, mild, unassuming, unintelligent, and clearly unobservant people - every time - because they believe they can “get away with it”. 

And now my ex is flipping out because she knows she’s going to hurt this girl.  And, once again, she’s blaming herself for having to do it - hating herself for not having done what was right long ago - and angry as all get out at me for having been right, yet again.

When I asked her if she was in love with the girl, she said she didn’t really know how to answer that since she can’t say she knows how love feels.  I raised my eyebrows and reminded her that she herself told me (after we broke up) that she’d come to recognize that she’d love me greatly when we’d been together.  That didn’t go over well so I didn’t say more on it.  Then she told me she’d been told she had been in love by someone else - she wouldn’t say who told her that, though, and simply for that very reason (as well as the fact she repeated it when I didn’t hear it the first time) I know that the person with whom she’d been in love was me - and that who told her this was almost certainly either her counselor or her closest friend.  Another reason that conclusion seems sound is because she absolutely won’t address who it was - right now she hates me so much she’s jumped at every chance she could to try to inflict emotional harm on me.  If she believed the only person she’s loved was the Replacement she wouldn’t hesitate to use that information as a weapon.

It seems the Replacement keeps bringing up the idea of my ex visiting.  My ex isn’t ever going to do that.  My ex can’t afford it - and won’t do what anyone else in this situation would do - she won’t save up for it.  Hell, she’s actually refused to take a free plane ticket to go see her.  What’s that tell you? LOL

So the ex is upset.  And I can understand why.  I know exactly what to say to make her feel better.  I know exactly what to do to “fix” the problem.  I even know exactly how to help her to calm herself so she can continue to grow the relationship - but I’ve been changing me and I’m not invested in the outcome anymore.  Until one of them asks me for advice or help, I’m keeping my mouth shut.  And that’s unfortunate for them, because they’ve already lost each other and only one of them knows it. By the time either of them figures out what they could have done to save it (if they ever figure that out), it will already be history.

In the meantime, I’ve been getting seriously creeped out by the ex’s social media.  She’s been posting a lot of shit specifically aimed at me - things that she shouldn’t even been thinking about let alone posting about when she’s supposedly still dating the Replacement.  And that poor thing has no idea what those posts are about - nor why they are aimed at me.  The ex does.  And it’s eating at her that she’s feeling a pull to me again.  It probably isn’t helping that I keep saying over and over that I will not allow us to recycle - that I will not go there with her again.  That all I want is a friendship, but we may not be able to have one now or ever - and that I’m okay with it.

I do feel badly for the ex.  It isn’t her “fault”, per se.  It’s her BPD.  She can’t ever see it unless or until she does something about it.  But that good ole BPD is too perfect a disorder for her.  Her narcissistic streak is ticked pretty hard right now, and I just don’t see that changing enough for her to actually grow in any real capacity anytime soon.

She’s throwing herself into a new fandom - one she included me in ages ago, and where she excluded the Replacement until literally a couple of days ago.  The poor Replacement is already flailing over her love for this new fandom - and all I can do is laugh.  She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the fandom- she’s seen the ex’s social media for months.  She knows what the fandom is.  She’s not bothered to “love it” until the ex linked her to a story that depicts one of the characters as CLEARLY BPD.  Mind you, she’d linked me to it long before she linked the Replacement, so that should have set off alarm bells for everyone - but no, it only set them off for me.

To her credit, though, the ex is at least trying to brute force her feelings back to something pleasant for the Replacement.  But, unfortunately, she’s already let them get too far into the negative range that she’s quite honestly looked at it all and said to me “I mean, what’s the point? She’s not moving here and I’m not moving there.”  I didn’t bother to respond.  It’s kind of a no-brainer that LDR doesn’t ever last unless one of the people moves to be closer to the other.

The ex has already told the Replacement that by the time she’s saved up enough money to go visit she’s going to be moving house and will choose to spend her money on that move rather than on a visit - and you’d think this, too, would have set off alarm bells.  Nope.  It didn’t.  The Replacement hasn’t clued in at all and keeps bringing it up over and over - and why?  Probably because the ex is LYING through her teeth and saying how much she, too, wants to have this visit.  She’s almost certainly lying about all the places she wants to see, and how she can’t wait to see her blah blah blah - yet, the truth is, she’s been so PLAINLY OBVIOUS about just how NOT TRUE any of that is.

It’s in her every action, her voice, her words, her posts, her avoidance - I can read her like a book and always have been able to.  I wish so much she would ask me for help with this situation so I could freely advise her on how to calm herself down, how to overcome the negativity, and how to have faith that she can practice mindfulness successfully since I got her to do so with me all those years ago.

Instead, I will end up watching the implosion from afar, and I will worry that the Replacement will end up harming herself because that’s just how naively in love with this severely disordered person she really is.  She doesn’t see the things I see - doesn’t know it’s already over, doesn’t know the ex is already trying to re-attach to me, doesn’t know she’s already trying to find a new attachment with a local “friend”.  She’s already dropping the Replacement’s identity traits, already adopting new ones, already adjusting her look, already setting up a completely new circle of friends where she excludes the Replacement. 

And for some odd reason (called STUPIDITY), the Replacement hasn’t looked at all that and realized this was the exact pattern of behavior when the ex began the grooming process with her.  I noticed it when I saw her do it with the Replacement - I recalled immediately how she’d done that in the past, and said “hey, that’s a pattern....” then I watched and waited and it was as clearly obvious then as it is to me now.  So, yeah, I feel hugely sorry for this poor girl.  And I sincerely hope my ex has the moral fiber to do the right thing - but zero faith that she will. 

It’s a sad motherfucking world when you can love someone - truly and really love them in that fairy tell kind of way we all learn isn’t possible - and yet know the best way to love them is to never be a part of THEIR love.  Her love is toxic to her and to everyone else.  It isn’t her fault, but that doesn’t remove the toxicity.  The only thing that will is true therapeutic healing and maybe also some medication.  Only when she has both the tools and the clear-headedness to manage her symptoms will she be able to actually offer someone something other than toxicity.

I don’t know who that person who benefits will be, but I do know this - I do not EVER want it to be me.  There was a time I did, but I’ve seen that dysregulation at its worse and I know that’s the one thing I can never allow myself to be near.  It got her to a point of near (if not full) sociopathy and I want nothing to do with it - ever.  It doesn’t matter if she’s never that way again.  Just the fact that she can become that is enough for me to keep my distance. 

[mytruthtime-blog]

Well, I Finally Walked Away

Installment 12 in “My Story”

It’s taken so much pain to get me here, but I’ve finally managed to walk away.  Emotionally I’m more stable than I thought I would be, though not free of loving her.  I doubt I will ever be free of that.  And, tbh, I’m glad I still care for her - and can care for her while caring about myself enough to stop letting myself be treated so poorly. 

She’s beating herself up for “failing”, posting a lot of stuff about death and suicide, and other things calling herself out for a lot of negative shit.  And I know she thinks/feels this way about herself a lot about what happened between us - yet I also know she’s oblivious to why any of it happened.

She’s completely incapable of seeing that every action she takes - literally every action - is driven by her chaotic emotions.  She knows she doesn’t want it to be that way, but is unwilling to accept or seek the help available to her.  So she just keeps living her chaos - and forces those who love her to feel the same chaos because of her actions. 

She’s even reached the point now where she’s split me so black she doesn’t even see the intentional hurt she repeatedly tries to inflict on me.  In the last couple of weeks I let her emotionally threaten me, say things she knew would cause me emotional pain (and which we both knew were false statements anyway), and endured her trying to repeat the same old cycles I already told her I refuse to participate in anymore.

So I remain fact and she remains fiction, and I’ve finally walked away.  I told her I’ll be glad to hear from her, but that I’m no longer going to be trying to make any of it better for us.  I need my time, energy, and focus for myself, and I keep spending them on worrying about her well-being despite knowing she’s completely disinterested in mine.  She has no idea how fucked it up is to be that way while saying how much I matter - that she did this for years and thinks my rejection of that conflict is somehow wrong.  I’m not even sure if she realizes that “normal” people don’t feel this way, behave this way, or treat others this way - because I know she doesn’t see that she even does this.

And, sadly, when it gets pointed out to her all she does is hate herself more.  Why she chooses to keep that chaos going is beyond my comprehension.  Where most people would be motivated to get those things fixed - to seek help to have more emotional control, to find a way to discover her true self - she can only hate herself more and run from anything and everyone who can actually help her to heal.

My one hope is that someday she will find her healing.  I hope I’m still around to be able to celebrate that with her.

[mytruthtime-blog]

Feelings of Obligation

Installment 11 in “My Story”

I’ve arrived at “No Fucks to Give Land”, and it’s a really weird feeling.  My ex has been texting some, and I’ve replied some - but it all just feels so “forced”.  I realized I really don’t want to hear from her anymore, and that I’ve wanted to not hear from her for a very long time.  I know I certainly don’t want to keep being in contact just because I feel obligated to reply to her.

I can’t help but want to think someday we might be able to be friends - and then I remember all she did to me...and how she couldn’t care about me for me, and only could take from me for all I could provide.  And then I feel disgusted by all of it.  That I ever believed any of it.   But, then I remember for her everything is backwards - that her actions and her wants are literally never in sync. 

That’s the thing about BPD, you know?  The only real hope for her is that she “grows out of it” in 10 to 20 years.  If that doesn’t happen for her the best she can hope for is to manage her symptoms - but not to prevent them. 

All I can feel is a massive wave of relief that I won’t be spending my life with her, and so much regret that I invested so much of my own emotion and vulnerability and what is - quite literally - a lost cause.  I can’t help her, and I no longer want to even try, and I’m struggling with being the person who can actually cut someone out of my life “for no good reason”...but there is a good reason and I’ve been trying to get to this place for a very long time.

Still, I know the right way to do this and the wrong way - and it’s a very bizarre thing to feel caught between these two things.  So, I’m giving it time to settle enough for me that no matter how much I believed in her - or might be able to believe still - that it’s pointless.  No matter what, we were always going to end up here.  There was never anything I could have done to change that.

I am, at least, grateful for the unexpected gift I ended up with from it all.  I’m glad I have that way to see it - because after all she did to me, and would continue to do, the only real feeling I have left when I consider it all is contempt for the person she’s chosen to be.

She doesn’t want to be that person, yet she chooses it at every step.  She’s rid herself of the people who would help her to be accountable to the person she says she wants to be - the person she hopes she is.  Instead of keeping those people, she’s surrounded herself with people who pat her on the head and feed into her own psychosis.  It’s like she’s an alcoholic who has shit all over the people who loved her to surround herself with people who will just keep handing her bottles of liquor.

And I’m not that person.  I can’t do it and I won’t do it.  Nor will I allow her to use me as if I could be.  I don’t like the person I become when subjected to her cruelties and her hatred - I don’t think she’s toxic but her treatment of me certainly is.  I’ve never wanted to feel the emotions she draws out in me - I’ve never wanted to have anyone in my life who is like that, yet somehow it happened anyway. 

And that’s what I have to examine.  Why I allowed it - why I fostered it - why I was damn blind to the monster she really has chosen to be.  I can’t wrap my brain around it, and I no longer wish to try.  I just wish I could more easily remove her from my life without it feeling like I’m some asshole who is rejecting her because of her mental illness.

So, I’ll keep reminding myself that my rejection isn’t because of that - it’s because of who she’s chosen to be.  I have no respect for that, and I need to keep that in mind every time her unwelcome BPD-driven texts cross my phone until I finally let it sink in deep enough and block her number for good.

[mytruthtime-blog]

Fuck the NHS

Today my ex was told by an NHS psychiatrist that she “probably has BPD” but is “too high functioning” to get the help she needs.  They won’t give her any meds, they may not give her any therapy, they might be able to treat her through a “training” program for junior doctors - but the end result is, they only confirmed she has the disorder and have left her without any help.

Fuck the NHS - the fact she has BPD but is high functioning isn’t a sign she doesn’t need help.  It’s a sign that help can ACTUALLY help her.  She had so much hope and it was so hard for her to even go in the first place and they left her such a mess - invalidating her even worse with some of the shit they said.

I’m so fucking mad for her.  It’s like they won’t help her unless she’s suicidal or physically harming others - as if benign BPD isn’t every bit as horrid to live with - as if she is somehow less deserving of the kind of help that will allow her to live a healthy and happier life than someone else.  Jesus Fucking Christ I don’t get it.  I don’t know how that happens.  I don’t understand.

And now I have to decide what kind of help I can or should give her.  I can afford to pay for her meds and her therapy - I can get her the help she needs.  But I also know that it isn’t my job anymore.  Not that it ever really was. 

All the NHS managed to do today was to make us both feel worse.

[kushandwizdom]

[mytruthtime-blog]

I Have Arrived

Installment 9 in “My Story”

Welp, looks like I’ve finally arrived at a decision - now I just have to make it happen.  Emotionally, I’m not entirely there yet but I don’t think I need to be.  I can see the trend that’s been happening in me so I might as well start the process to finalize it.

I have decided to exit my BPDexgf’s life for good - permanent no contact.  This time I have very little emotion pulling me the other way, and I don’t think I’m going to announce it to try for a mutual agreement.  I just don’t want to risk being hoovered again.

Instead, I’m going to fade into the woodwork and let her forget about me like she’s wanted to for a long time.  It’s better for both of us this way - no expectations, no disappointments - and by the time she realizes I’m gone there won’t be anything she can remember to drive her to reconnect anyway.  That will be the blessing of the BPD for her...she won’t remember much about what we were, or who I was.  And, if she ever does get her shit together and seek therapy for reasons that will get her to recovery...well...I hope she’ll have the good sense to not try to contact me or repair what we lost.  That would only damage me - and I’ve taken enough damage from her.

As for me?  I need to devote all my time and energy to me...finding out what my needs and wants are - healing from the abuse from my childhood and from my ex.  I’ll never forget her.  Some part of me will always love her, but I cannot subject myself to her abuse any longer.  More importantly, I don’t even want to stick around in the hopes that she’ll get better someday.

It’s weird for me to be at this place, yet I’ve known for a long time this is where I was headed.  I would think I’d feel some sense of emotion over the tragedy of it all...but, honestly, the only thing I have left to feel is a level of guilt for being the one who she manifested her symptoms in full with - of triggering her, breaking her, or whatever the hell it was that happened.

She expects to talk on Tuesday.  I will beg off with an excuse and will begin to be non-committal in texts.  I think she’ll be glad for that, maybe even as glad as I am - and whatever discomfit she has over it, in the end she’ll move on quickly.  I’ll become just another person who left her life and she’ll never understand why - just like she’s never understood any of the others who did the same.

Part of me wants to be the one person she can say never left her - but clearly she doesn’t realize she’s the one who wants everyone to leave.  If she didn’t want that, she’d have gotten help years ago when she first had the chance.  No one can choose the wrong actions every time unless they also know the right ones - she wants her chaos, her fragmentation, and her cross to bear.  I cannot fix her, and no longer wish to even try to help her.  She took everything I had to give and the only thing I have left now is the strength to walk away.

The more I think about doing this, the better I feel.  It took me a while to realize the massive relief I felt about the severing of our last string, just as it has taken me a while to realize I’ve only remained in contact out of some sense of moral obligation - that I’d been forcing myself to do what I thought was “right” despite how much I just really didn’t want to be doing it.  And that tells me it’s time.  She deserves better than that, and so do I.

I will miss my old friend who no longer exists.  She was the most important person in my world - and no other women existed once I met her.  It will be a while before I notice them again.  I will miss the good she and I brought each other, and the love we grew together.  I am so lucky I knew her and that she loved me.  I always felt that way.  Whoever this person is now, I don’t have any emotion for her, and I don’t want to grow any - I just want it to be over.

[mytruthtime-blog]

I Just...Don’t...Get...It

Installment 8 in “My Story”

Talked with the BPDexgf today and did my absolute best to come to an agreement about going permanent No Contact.  Fat chance.

I’ve spent a lot of time learning about what BPD is like from people who have recovered from it.  It’s helped me understand a lot about my ex and a lot about how our interactions led to the Merry Go Round of Doom.  I want off of it, but I also don’t want my exit to be without explanation and mutual agreement.

A couple of weeks ago she randomly announced she “wanted out” not long after I did.  I know that feeling very well.  I just don’t know why she wanted out.  I suspect it was because she hit a wall of not being able to cause me so much pain - which only made her feel even shittier about herself.  But, that’s just a guess.  To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time thinking she feels shitty about anything she’s done to me - she’s never once taken ownership of her actions, although I know she hurts about the fact it happened.  Whatever that’s worth.

I’ve been feeling not so great about not being willing to pay for her therapy, so we talked about it.  She can’t explain why it bothered her for years to let me pay for her therapy when were very close - but can now ask me to pay for her therapy when I’m ready to walk away.  I offered to write her a check to pay for a year of therapy on the condition that if she accepts it, it means we permanently go our separate ways and will not ever contact each other again.  She didn’t accept the offer.  Not that it surprised me.

While my offer was very real, the truth is - if she really understood she needed therapy, really comprehended just how fucked up her behaviors are - it would have been worth it to lose someone she doesn’t want in her life anyway.  And her idea that I would pay for her therapy while she continues to shit on me and not treat me like a human being who has value or who brings value to her life is something I cannot wrap my head around.  Not to mention that she literally cannot see my replacement is so incredibly more fucked up than she is...I just can’t justify paying for her therapy any other way than to agree to permanent no contact.  I tried to get that agreement.  I tried to offer her what she once wanted - and her response was to insist we speak again on Tuesday.

Like...what?  What even is that? 

The sad thing is, I really think I’m slowly arriving at a place where I just no longer believe in her anymore.  And, man, I believed in her a lot.  More than I believed in myself, really.  Talent recognizes genius, and I recognized a long time ago that she had far more capability than I ever did.   When she and I were close I saw her begin to establish a solid identity, I saw her begin to slow her emotions down and to start identifying them.  I saw her make progress in leaps and bounds toward the person she always hoped she would be - and then? 

Then she fell in love - had to deal with us being apart for a few months - and it dysregulated the shit out of her.  She never went back to “normal”.  That was the beginning of her intense BPD manifestation - and it’s my fault, I guess.  I don’t know.  It feels like my fault, I’ll say that.  I do know she had some symptoms of BPD prior to my ever knowing her, but they weren’t interfering in her life the way the symptoms began to manifest after she fell in love. 

I feel so much guilt over that.  And sadness.  Especially because I just don’t feel like a positive influence in her life anymore.  I don’t know why she would want me to stick around, or to have an “option” with me when she treats me like she fucking hates my guts.  For someone with my childhood trauma - that sort of thing isn’t something I can subject myself to, and I don’t think anyone should. 

I suspect the only reason she wants therapy now is part of her mirroring behavior - and her need to pretend for my replacement.  It’s probably an unfair thought, but that’s how bad her behaviors really have been...that a thought like this isn’t all that out of line.  She says she wants therapy so she can figure out her goals and passions, to know and improve herself, and to be able to manage.  Nowhere in her explanation for why she wants therapy now did she ever once even hint at not wanting to self-sabatoge or to fuck over those she loves.  And that’s what troubles me. 

She’s in a mindset that she’s the one who is a victim to everyone else’s fucked up attitudes toward her - and is hostile about it, too - as if somehow the people who have those attitudes only have them because of all the incredibly fucked up shit she’s done to them for years on end.  And she’s never owned that.

In all honesty, it’s that more than anything that I need to be away from...it just grates on my last nerve that she can actually think or behave this way.  It’s wrong.  It’s more than wrong.  It’s sick and demented - and it’s creepy as fuck.

She has a psychiatry appointment in a few days - where she’s hoping to get diagnosed with ADHD.  If she can get that diagnosis she may get a prescription that will help her with clarity of thought - the last time she took them (she tried some for a couple of days) she was able to focus and feel calm, to separate her emotion from her thoughts, and it was then that she knew she didn’t want to advance the relationship she wasn’t sure she wanted, and didn’t want to sever our last chance at something meaningful - to make no decisions effecting her or me or anyone else in that way until after some time in therapy.  Off the meds she did the exact opposite of what she’d wanted.  And now she’s paying the price of it.  I think she thinks she can just get on the meds again and all her problems will go away. 

She needs probably a mix of meds plus DBT, but she would prefer not going to therapy if she can feel in control “enough”.  That’s my problem.  Meds alone can’t help her - they can only help relieve a couple of her symptoms.  The rest will require hard, honest, and intense work in DBT.  I don’t know that I think she’s capable of that anymore - and I’m not sure she ever will be, which means I am losing faith. 

It’s been far too much damage for far too long, and I’m really just not interested in subjecting myself to the person who could make the choices she’s made and not feel an ounce of responsibility for them - and won’t take accountability.  She just won’t or can’t tell me what she’s done and why she’s sorry or ensure it won’t happen again.  And I can’t do it again.  She doesn’t know who she is anymore - and I can say I certainly don’t recognize her.  She said she wishes she could Eternal Sunshine herself so she could meet me again - and all I can wonder is why the hell I would want that. 

I’m grateful for where I am - I’ve learned so much, and I have so much growth I will do from this point, but I deserve better in my life than she’s given or even wants to give.  She chose to treat me worse than any other person in my life - except my abusers - has ever treated me.  And she’s never even apologized or shown remorse for it...she just keeps doing it wondering what my problem with her is - and pushing me away because she was tired of feeling like she’s a bad person.  Until she can be someone I can admire or appreciate in some meaningful way, I can’t say there’s anything she possibly could give me that I would want.  Lord knows she’s not brought anything meaningful to my life for a long time, now.  And I am not interested in trying anymore.

In the end I will break my promise not to give up on her.  I’ve already given up on us, and I’m already heading out of her life...when the last of my faith is used up, there’s no reason to even stick around...which makes her choice not to take the check for therapy even more stupid than I thought it was.  She’s going to lose me from her life for good either way because I just can’t do this anymore.

It’s better to just stop now.  For both of us.  And I can’t leave an option open for the future - I need to walk away knowing I’ll never be subjected to her bullshit ever again.  When I walk away I intend to never look back.  And that thought makes me so much happier than even one more round on the Merry-Go-Round-of-Doom it isn’t even funny.

[mytruthtime-blog]

Setting My Boundaries

Installment 7 in “My Story”

So I think I’ve found a way to overcome my co-dependent reactions to my BPDexgf’s ridiculously inappropriate request to pay for her therapy.  I’m going to stick with my initial reaction when she asked - which was to say no. 

I have a lot of reasons for why that’s the right answer, but the guilt I was starting to feel about it was really getting to me until I remembered we had made an agreement 2 months ago.  We agreed neither of us would make any decisions about taking the final steps to sever what we had left, nor would she take steps to advance her new relationship - that we would wait for those decisions until after she had therapy.  She went ahead with her choices though - and, I think it’s fair for me to say that meant she didn’t care about therapy, or us, enough to maintain the bond of our friendship. 

Without that, why would she think it’s appropriate to ask me this - and why would it be appropriate for me to do it?  The answer is that it isn’t.

Not to mention that I can tell the only reason she’s even talking about it is because she’s trying to pretend for the replacement.  That she cannot even see how seriously bad that situation is - how ill-equipped most people would be let alone her - does not bode well.  The danger she’s put herself in with this, and this other person, is so beyond my comprehension I cannot believe it.

More and more I am becoming resolute in needing her out of my life in all capacities.  If she sincerely cannot see how fucked up this whole thing is - if she honestly felt it was “good” to make her choices without having learned enough in therapy to actually know it was the right choice...or to even begin to understand that emotions are not facts...well, I think I have to give up.

What even is the point in trying to help someone who is incapable - or unwilling - to even know what is wrong in the first place?  That’s an effort in futility.  

Don’t get me wrong, I do love her in some way still and I do want her to be happy.  But her happiness always comes at someone else’s destruction and I just can’t be a part of that - neither from inside nor outside of a real connection. 

I can see now why we were always headed to this place.  The more I uncovered about the truth, the less willing she was going to be to see it.  There is no way this won’t become intolerable for her as it continues - and that’s exactly why therapy cannot help her.

Just.  Wow.  What a revelation.

[keepseekingknowledge-blog]

[fadingsuggestion]

Fuck anyone who says I have to forgive everyone, “for my sake.” I worked hard for this anger. I worked hard to love myself enough to hate them.

[itsokaytodecay]

I don’t think people realize how much strength it takes to pull your own self out of an anxiety attack or a panic attack. So if you’ve done that today or any day, I’m proud of you.

[dailytwitterposts]

[dvilsnvrmnd]

[mytruthtime-blog]

I relate to both the size and sentiment of these words

[acutelesbian]

A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life. Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.

[fat-thin-skinny]

this fucks me up every single time

[acutelesbian]

I never expected this to be my most popular poem out of the hundreds I’ve written. I was extremely bitter and sad when I wrote this and I left out the most beautiful part of that class.

After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, “is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?” We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort.

She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice.

Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage, the “feeling of love” had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation.

The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with.

The divorced ones said they chose to walk away.

Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days.

I no longer fear the day someone who swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again.

[kellyann-graceful-warrior]

I was fortunate to be told this by my mom from a young age, but this can really apply to any relationship. If you have a close friend who doesn’t wanna communicate with you and work through something that happens, that’s not gonna last either. Relationships aren’t based on “perfect feelings” all the time.

[mytruthtime-blog]

It’s hard to see love as anything other than choice, imo.  From the very start of it we make choices leading us to that emotion we call “falling in love”.  And every step we take after that is a choice - to be and remain vulnerable, to always seek mutually satisfying resolutions, to forgive, to practice accountability, to share the burdens and heavy loads, to give as much as we receive, to hear the hard things, to say the necessary things, to never harm the other, etc. and so on.  It is always a clear series of conscious choices, every step of the way...even when every emotion in your being would rather pull you in some other direction.

If you make enough of the right choices the relationship strengthens and the bonds deepen.  Make enough of the wrong ones and you’re simply choosing to ensure one, or both, of you walks away.  Choose wisely.

[mytruthtime-blog]

Shit My BPDexgf Does #12

Installment 6 of “My Story”

We’ve been “broken up” for a long time - a couple of years, actually, but we have remained friends.  Over those years the friendship has diminished incredibly because of some seriously incomprehensibly fucked up shit she’s done.  The more she did those things, the more hurt I became, and the more hurt I became, the more fucked up shit she would do after dysregulating due to guilt, shame, self-loathing, panic, etc...Good times!

Fast forward to where today we are not “friends” but are still in-touch with each other without emotional investment (at least on my part).  Yesterday she asks me if I will pay for her therapy.

Uh. What?

That’s right, she’s asked me to pay for her therapy.  Nevermind that the whole reason I stepped away 3 years ago was so she could go to therapy and focus on herself and her recovery without the distraction of a relationship.  Nevermind that she always felt pressure to come out of therapy I paid for more capable of handling her splitting due to her intense feelings for me.   Nevermind that she’s actually dating someone else and she and I are not close anymore.

IN WHAT UNIVERSE IS IT OKAY TO EVEN ASK THIS? 

Oh, that’s right...the universe known as my “BPDexgf is only ever and always out for herself”.  It’s cool to lie to me about what she wants for us for years and pull some serious fucked up shit leaving me destroyed - yet the entire time literally be grooming someone to be the replacement for me in her life as soon as she felt she was secure with the new attachment.  Right up until just a couple of weeks ago she was still doing this - even while planning her conquest. 

But I find myself caught in a catch-22.  If I don’t agree to pay for her therapy she will almost certainly twist that into some proof of how I only wanted her to go to therapy so I could romantically benefit - when the truth is, I have never expected to benefit from her therapy in that way.  I’ve always known it could never be me again - because I am the reason her BPD manifested in full for the first time.  Her emotions for me will always dysregulate her.   I wish it were otherwise, but I have never believed we could ever really try again.

Where I am conflicted, however, is that I do want her to get therapy.  I want her to be happier and healthier.  I have massive concerns about this new person she’s seeing, however, because I’m starting to suspect that person has undiagnosed Schizotypal Personality Disorder...and guarantees my ex will have some interesting times in her future. 

I’d laugh if it weren’t just so sad. :/

Anyway, yeah, her new relationship makes it a little odd because I know for a fact it will risk her recovery to have to deal with either hurting that person or dealing with an abandonment.  There is a chance it might be a positive effect, but the odds make it so that the risk is not worth it.  There’s a reason we were agreeing to not end or start anything until after she’d had time in therapy - but that good ole’ impulse control problem helped her self-sabatoge as usual. 

If the relationship she’s in now blows up, my big concern is it may pull her out of therapy to try to save the relationship (which is exactly why 3 years ago I stepped aside while urging her to go!).  I’m not sure there’s a point to waste the money on therapy when I know the likelihood is so high that she’s going for the wrong reasons and is also at risk to abandon the therapy at some point.But more importantly, as I walk my own recovery path I have laid down a boundary to never again do something for someone in the hopes of it making me feel more valued by said person. 

It is a troubling situation.  I think I only have two choices - say no that I will not do it and live with the guilt I will feel for not helping her when she’s directly asked for it, and knowing she’ll almost certainly never get the help she needs if I don’t...or...pay for it and leave her life permanently since I don’t think I can live with how it will feel to know she will NEVER comprehend the kind of person I am that I would actually still pay for her therapy after all she’s done to me.

The sheer fact that she thinks it was even appropriate to ask me shows just how unable she is to understand that I AM A PERSON and not a means to an end.  I flipping hate the way her BPD manifested.  Like...HATE IT.

That stupid objectification habit born of dysregulation is so messed up.  She’s not trying to use me or take advantage of me - she just can’t stop herself from doing it, or seeing it.  Yet, I still end up being used and taken advantage of.  Somehow her lack of intention means, in her eyes, she’s absolved of all responsibility or accountability.  Our problem is that I don’t share this opinion.  I don’t think she’s responsible for her illness, but she damn well is accountable for her choice to not manage her symptoms.  Maybe she can stop wasting her money on needless shit like sexcapades, retail therapy, and other bullshit and pay for her own therapy.  Oh, wait, no - that requires actually functioning executive regulation capability.

I think I am going to have to come up with a way to let her see the pros and cons of each one, and the emotional implication FOR ME with each.  And then let her choose - but that’s a waste of time because she’ll still choose the one that hurts me the most as long as it benefits her the most in the exchange. 

Might as well forgo that and just make the decision to pay for it and then just fucking exit stage left. But then I ask myself...how much of my debate with myself on this is because of my very tendency to only feel valued when meeting someone else’s needs?  Apparently a lot of it - because it’s grinding against my moral code to think I might say no. 

Catch-22 is alive and well up in here.  Fucking pro.

[slo-djinn]

[sadbitchezonly]

Being able to find someone you click with so naturally is the best feeling ever. You feel like you’ve been best friends you’re whole life, it feels like you’re coming home. You’re so comfortable with them. Maybe that’s what a soulmate is. Not someone who shares every single thing in common with you, but someone who feels like home.