Boundaries = War

If you're dealing with an undiagnosed Borderline, it really is a futile situation.

I understand there are some books out there that attempt to help you communicate with your BPDSO, but in reality, it can really seem hopeless, especially in the long term if they are NOT getting treatment.

An example for me is when I started to set boundaries. I'd be receiving poor treatment from my ex, and I would put my foot down. Immediately it became a (ME VS HER) war.

Immediate rage. Inappropriate anger. Black and White thinking. She was the victim. I was the aggressor. All because I said, "Treating me this way hurts my feelings. What can we do to work on together to make it stop?"

For doing this I was labeled the following:

1. Hypersensitive
2. Excessively Needy
3. Having no friends
4. Having high anxiety
5. Being a cruel tyrant
6. Any other personal attack trying to tear my self esteem that i can't think of at the moment.

Dealing with this over time, can have a serious damaging effect on the thinking of the Non. You begin to believe the outrageous accusations of the BPD. Over time, it breaks down your psychological defenses. You begin to question yourself. Believe them. If you're in this terrible place in your life, do the best thing for yourself and get out of the situation as quickly as possible. If you don't it can have serious long term consequences to your mental health and state of well being.

Now beyond being accused of many things that weren't true, it was done at a level of screaming and abuse that was incredibly inappropriate. My ex is an emotional, abusive bully. She uses the good nature of people that care her against them. It allows her to mistreat people who she knows aren't going to set their boundaries. That's why boundaries are so important when dealing with a borderline. You have to protect yourself above all things, even it means losing the relationship. That is where the self examination comes into play and you NEED to desperately question why you would stay in a situation where someone treats you like a piece of garbage for so long. Over time, my ex's "real" emotional investment into the situation became less and less as I was devalued more and more. as she pulled away more, I became more invested into the situation trying to fix it. Classic push/pull splitting. A cycle that will repeat itself with more frequency as the relationship progresses.

I need to put myself before anyone else. Look out for numero uno.

Few Excellent Lectures on Borderline Personality Disorders

I found a few lectures on BPD that I found quite good

Can be found HERE and HERE

There are also a few others if you scroll under "People who listened to this also liked..."

A Very Good Show about BPD and Co-Dependency

I've been watching this show lately called Intervention

You can find the link to the first part of an episode by clicking on the name.

I've been watching several episodes and have noticed the same co-dependent traits in the enablers that I've seen within myself.

A lot of things have jumped out to me from watching this show. A majority of the people with problems are Bipolar or have Borderline Personality Disorder. I've seen the same pattern of behavior that I saw in my ex.

1. Destructive chemical addictions. (primarily alcohol, but marajuana, pills, cocaine as well)

2. Self destructive behaviors.

3. Violent temper

4. Manipulation. Inappropriate anger/Rages.

5. Sexual promiscuity.

You can clearly see them masking the inner pain. Everything is a result of extreme inner turmoil and pain. The real lesson from this show to me though, are the enablers.

I'm an enabler. I just want to placate and do anything possible to make the person "happy". If I just give in. Sacrifice myself. Sacrifice my boundaries, everything will be fine. It's can be so hard to just say "no". If you really want to help the person you love with BPD you need to learn to say "No". Enabling them will just perpetuate the behavior.

Carrot On A Stick

This has been truly the worst 2 years of my entire life. Especially this last year. I'm starting to see a little light at the end of the tunnel, but I still have a long way to go.

I think the hardest thing for me to deal with is acceptance. I haven't even seen my ex in almost a year, (she moved away) yet she still hoovers me. Nothing serious, but if I want I can keep my foot in the door as one of her little playthings if I play by her rules, which I refuse to do. There really is no other way to describe it. I realize now that I never had a chance in the situation. I projected the fantasy of what I've always wanted into a dysfunctional relationship/person.

Being involved with a BPD is a classic example of "Carrot on a Stick". Meaning they always keep the illusion of joy and absolute love and harmony just out of reach. There is always something holding it up. Some excuse, no matter how bizarre, that is putting an electric fence in front of our ideal relationship. Understanding that the fence is BPD, and that BPD and the wonderful person you love and cherish are the same person, is when you can truly begin to heal. I'm blocked from the woman I loved by a fence with barbed wire, electricity, and a host of other defensive mechanism traps. The codependent in me is telling me "She needs me. I can save her.", so I try and climb the fence to rescue her. It always ends up the same way. I get violently shocked and emotionally injured. You'd think I would learn not to try and climb the fence.

It's very hard to give up on the people we love. I'm wired exactly like my mother, and I wish I wasn't. She "stayed" in a relationship with an abusive BPD (My father) and now that he's gone, she doesn't know what to do with her life. She was completely enmeshed with an abuser, who even at the end of his life when he was lost in morphine, was choking and hitting her. It was the most horrific scene I've ever witnessed in my life. My abusive father, dying and emaciated, lost in some memory from the past beating my mother as she's screaming.

Granted he improved when he quit drinking, but just because the physical abuse stopped, doesn't mean the emotional and verbal abuse got any better. It didn't. I don't have any negative feelings against my mother, but damn I wish she would have got us out of that situation early in my life. It has crippled me emotionally to where I can barely function now. It's been so hard to overcome. I've tried to mask it by going to the gym like a madman most of my adult life to build a solid exterior, but inside, I still feel like that cowering child waiting for the beatings. I realize now that BPD/Codependents are cut from the same mold. It's why we get involved in these dysfunctional dances. I could have very well ended up BPD myself, except my mother was an all engulfing co dependent who smothered me and tried to protect me, so I adopted her ways through childhood idealization. It's all unconscious. You don't do this purposely, it just becomes who you are as you experience life I suppose.

I have to stop thinking I'd be happy if only my exbpdgf wasn't severely mentally ill. Nobody can make me happy except myself. I have to learn to love myself. I wish my childhood and lifetime of abuse hadn't made that possibility feel like climbing Mount Everest.