How to recover from toxic relationship?

[todreaminblue]

you know when i read bpd disorders i think yep thats me its like googling a mental illness.....i have all of them.....anything bad you can name on google its me......in my mind.....in reality i am a good person i do have a mental illness ..when i read bad things about parenting i go yep thats me.......

 

and today i read good things....positive things and i went hey .....i have done that....in fact i have done many of those things...im not a failure as a parent after all...both lines of thinking are actually wrong...because i am unique i am me..i am worthwhile...i am strong and i can make my own mind up on who and what i am and how i can better myself it all comes from me and ends with me..its my life...my journey and i cant let another judge my success or failure or decide who and what i have .....or feel i have to go by others lives sand conform to how they feel or think i am....or even should be..i can listen and i can read but i shouldnt take on anything...other than prayer and a belief in myself i have been taught right by many i have skills to deal with my own issues..and if i dont i can think and i can pray......and ill find my way....sounds like a poem huh.....

 

downtown is an amazing person...i read his posts with an inspired heart by his intellect and compassion......there are many amaZing resilient people on this board........downtown is so knowledgable and i believe has been hurt deeply......and now wants so much to help others.....but as downtown said he doesnt know your ex or you or your life together or have the full story fo what happened and the context which is so important that cannot be written in on post or even several....there are many signs that your gf could possibly have many things wrong with her...ptsd clinical depression bi polar schizophrenia all have symptoms similar if not the same......and then as downtown put even normal people exhibit mild signs......

 

what si obvious is the relationship is probably toxic to both and ended for a reason diagnosing someone to me....without knowing them ...is a really slippery slope......professional counselling may have done wonders and could still do wonders for you......therapy ...with someone who you see face to face cannot be replaced...either can the people around you your friends your family they are valuable because they know or should know you well enough to know where they can offer you the best support and guidance..........the same with your ex...has she someone to talk to.........the internet is a wonderful place.....but it has a disconnect feature......for a reason.....it isnt always true to life and how to deal with things.....its virtual not concrete not solid enough to live in and make decisions or judgments

.............or i might just be a schizoprenic suicidal llama typing to you ..bear with me...before you go she is nuts not reading anymore....

 

 

.yes ..i have had moments i have believed myself to be an animal......normally a funny one like an emu or a llama......but that is i believe because i used to hang out with a lady in a psyche ward who though she was turning into a frog...... who suffered from clinical depression......and had often tried to commit suicide.....she exhibited bpd traits too.....she suffered from clinical depression bought on by the delusion that she was going to be a frog.....she had a tic that was a ribbit.....she would ribbit in silences.....it was actually really sad...she would blush....and feel shame......i know it sounds funny until you read what i last wrote.......it was serious her suicide attempts real agony..for her daughters too her visited her religiously...........

 

as were mine my family........my suicide attempts...not all suicide attempts are tantrums looking for attention...none of mine were...i would do mine privately and plan.only recently have i reached out to tell someone before my bishop actually my inner feelings on why i conssider leaving that way..........not all cutting is a cry out for attention either.....that si dangerous to think that......i would cut and leave them to get infected ...and then go to the doctors and end up with huge scars because i covered my cuts adn they had to cut away dead flesh.............and they were deep cuts....tendons showing....i have a high pain thresh hold unfortunately.....and.......i have permanent scars ......it can be genetic and not a disorder..........my mother used to cut and wear long sleeves too ashamed of the cuts.....my daughter has gotten a tattooo that is almost full arm to cover hers in something beautiful.......my mother was promoted to day time counter manager when she worked due to her kindness and compassion for customers...and she wore long sleeves and is a loyal and giving person.....but she has an illness....diagnosed clinical depression.....and she was married for many many years...put up with a lot of emotional abuse too.....

 

 

you never know...and thats the honest advice i give you....you just dont know what is wrong with your ex ...but what you do know entirely...is she was not right for you........i wish you nothing but the best.....wish her well...let her go...and move on.....from me its the only thing i can truthfully say is my best advice to you.....just deb

Edited March 31, 2017 by todreaminblue

[ML Hammer95]

EDIT: "I'm just being honest and direct and people cant handle that". Man I heard pretty much those exact words myself. It's bull**** dude. It's an excuse for their behaviour. I'm honest and direct but I don't go around leaving a trail of destruction in my wake.

 

This phrase says it all doesn't it? - that the fault is with other people and she won't change. It is an excuse and it put all the blame back onto me really. She was actually capable of seeing some of her faults but if I agreed with them or pulled away then that insight would be disregarded!

 

Thanks for the words of advice mate, much appreciated!

[EmilyJane]

Keeping the focus on myself is exactly what I need right now - and was something I was getting the hang off until she tried to get back in contact (been harder since). Ensuring there is no way of contacting me is essential, the slight ego boost isn't worth being sucked back in. Especially as I was having success getting out there with other girls.

 

I'm reassured that you think I'm on the healthy end of the spectrum as during attacks and arguments by her I was made out to be the one with all the problems. I remember a few months ago I went to counselling and told her, she said I was 'having a meltdown' and made no attempt to understand until I told her to walk away unless she understood and supported my decision. Her perception of counselling though remained me and the counsellor sat in a room 'bitching and blaming her for everything'.

 

I remember how good I was feeling when she was gone (she said too that she was feeling great until a few days before she got back in touch) and that is my motivation to stay away - I know I will improve quite quickly it's just being disciplined and setting boundaries.

 

They can rarely if ever admit that there is anything wrong with them let alone something that accurate. When I've experienced someone with it there's been like zero self awareness and no capacity for growth or change. You take responsibility for yourself and your mistakes in every post. You are not the problem.

 

 

The counselling was a problem for her because it was an outside unbiased mental health professional who would be able to spot what was happening. it was a threat to her gaslighting and emotional control over you

[ML Hammer95]

They can rarely if ever admit that there is anything wrong with them let alone something that accurate. When I've experienced someone with it there's been like zero self awareness and no capacity for growth or change. You take responsibility for yourself and your mistakes in every post. You are not the problem.

 

 

The counselling was a problem for her because it was an outside unbiased mental health professional who would be able to spot what was happening. it was a threat to her gaslighting and emotional control over you

 

The counsellor was very quick to note that this relationship was indeed abusive and manipulative and controlling. Maybe the lack of control she had over these sessions explains her reaction to them.

 

What amused me was when she said before 'walk away from me' but always came back when I left! I think that was classic abandonment issues but I'm glad it's not my problem. At least anymore. I just want to move on and I've got the support of everybody I know in this matter.

 

Something so intense was never going to be sustainable, especially with the behaviour she was capable of exhibiting.

[EmilyJane]

The counsellor was very quick to note that this relationship was indeed abusive and manipulative and controlling. Maybe the lack of control she had over these sessions explains her reaction to them.

 

What amused me was when she said before 'walk away from me' but always came back when I left! I think that was classic abandonment issues but I'm glad it's not my problem. At least anymore. I just want to move on and I've got the support of everybody I know in this matter.

 

Something so intense was never going to be sustainable, especially with the behaviour she was capable of exhibiting.

 

I think those sort of relationships are also not sustainable because for at least one person in them it wasn't real. All the love and adoration poured on you way too early before you can possibly know each other was never real.

 

The care she exhibited that you mention, is just part of the bait performance, the facade she is acting out because she's learnt it works on people. If you think back on stuff when you've had more time. It's possible you will see that a lot of how she operated is explained as someone desperately mimicking what she thinks love and relationships look like without any actual direct emotional understanding of it and of how they are meant to feel for her followed by anger and blame of you when her nuts comes through and she doesn't feel perfect and loved and adored and safe. That is what she thinks a relationship is. Being totally externally validated in absolutely every respect and every minute no matter what she does by her chosen victim.

 

It ended i would guess as she became unable to maintain the facade and when she became increasingly angry at you for not filling that howling emptiness inside. They need a constant stream of big emotional responses just to feel like they exist and it's like they get a tolerance for it because there is never enough. Obvious to anyone else that they are looking for the wrong solution and that's never what a relationship is for.

 

I honestly don't think that people on the extreme end of the spectrum have the capacity to feel anything like what most of us would label love. I think it's much more base than that. Need and want for a person to help keep away the howling emptiness and fear in their middle where their sense of self identity should be. I think that their whole being is taken up with maintaining psychological cohesion through other people, it would not be possible to feel love for tools who might turn out to be weapons against her at any moment. Because on some level they are aware their is something deeply wrong with them and everything they do is to avoid anything to have to face that.

 

I hope one day you can see that you are lucky you are you and not her. It must be such a horrible frantic disordered unstable existence. Where everyone is just there to hurt her or be used to medicate herself with never experiencing actual love and only able to mimic for a short period what it "should" look like. That sounds a lot like hell to me.

 

And well, someone like this does just not get born like this, there's a lot of literature Building to re label it complex post traumatic stress disorder. Because it seems to often me how women in particular, learn to adapt to things like prolonged emotional abuse as children. It's all very extreme culturally feminized behaviours. Men's responses look typically more like what is often labelled narcisstic personality disorder. Personality disorders are tricky things because they clearly encompass enculturated gender roles.

 

In essence, she is actually likely a victim in one respect. But she's never chosen to face it and change. I think it's still important to remember though, thst they really do suffer and have often formed these behaviours as instinctive survival responses to the environment they were in as children. She's not just a monster who sprung fully formed.

 

Sorry for rambling thoughts, hope I've made sense, half asleep

Edited March 31, 2017 by EmilyJane

[PLT]

Great post Emily. It can be hard to remember that they are like this for a reason, usually going back to childhood, which I think is why there are so many child like behaviours.

 

But I don't think it excuses how these people treat the ones that love them. It's really not that difficult to not destroy someone emotionally, and yet they choose to, again and again, for their own ends. With my ex at least, it's like she just didn't have a conscience. Not just going by how she treated me in the end, but ALL her ex relationships, ALL her ex friends, ALL the family she doesn't speak to. It's the same old story. She treats/treated them all as disposable, and drops them without warning, without discussion, and without explanation, almost on a whim. It's quite scary when you think about it, the complete and utter lack of empathy or regard for anyone else's feelings. Absolutely everything they do is what serves them at the time.

 

The pathological lying is another thing. According to my ex, practically every man that looked at her during 2016 wanted her. The neighbour, the so called friend, the ex that "was always happy to provide", the other ex that for the 6 years previous she had not one good word to say about, the guy at work. Most if not all knew she had been in a RL for 3 years. It was never mentioned or an issue until 2016. Now I look back I see how utterly ridiculous it all became. Jealousy mind games from a middle aged woman. Pathetic really.

 

In some ways I wish I had confronted at least one of these people, and caught her in the act. I didn't, I let her talk me out of it. Once the realisation hits home that they are so dishonest, you begin to question every single thing they ever said to you.

 

These things they do are not forced on them. They are all a choice. Sometimes one of the other choices is simply to do nothing, and yet they will choose the option that causes the most drama and pain to their victim.

 

Of course, everything I say is based only on anecdotal and personal experience.

[keiji]

I think those sort of relationships are also not sustainable because for at least one person in them it wasn't real. All the love and adoration poured on you way too early before you can possibly know each other was never real.

 

The care she exhibited that you mention, is just part of the bait performance, the facade she is acting out because she's learnt it works on people. If you think back on stuff when you've had more time. It's possible you will see that a lot of how she operated is explained as someone desperately mimicking what she thinks love and relationships look like without any actual direct emotional understanding of it and of how they are meant to feel for her followed by anger and blame of you when her nuts comes through and she doesn't feel perfect and loved and adored and safe. That is what she thinks a relationship is. Being totally externally validated in absolutely every respect and every minute no matter what she does by her chosen victim.

 

It ended i would guess as she became unable to maintain the facade and when she became increasingly angry at you for not filling that howling emptiness inside. They need a constant stream of big emotional responses just to feel like they exist and it's like they get a tolerance for it because there is never enough. Obvious to anyone else that they are looking for the wrong solution and that's never what a relationship is for.

 

I honestly don't think that people on the extreme end of the spectrum have the capacity to feel anything like what most of us would label love. I think it's much more base than that. Need and want for a person to help keep away the howling emptiness and fear in their middle where their sense of self identity should be. I think that their whole being is taken up with maintaining psychological cohesion through other people, it would not be possible to feel love for tools who might turn out to be weapons against her at any moment. Because on some level they are aware their is something deeply wrong with them and everything they do is to avoid anything to have to face that.

 

Excellent post, EmilyJane. You're basically describing my ex-wife here. I've never figured out a "diagnosis" for her, but I guess this would be a very good description. She was extremely affectionate from the very beginning, a really quick "I'm so in love if you left me I'd die" situation. I was only 24, so I fell for it. She was pretty and smart and took care of me. What else can you ask for? She devoted 4 or 5 years of her life to adapt entirely to my personality and tastes and please me in a very subtle way, so she was basically perfect in my eyes, except for things she couldn't control like our sexual life (it was very poor). Then things started getting colder and colder, so she said, "let's get married". i guess it was an attempt to save a sinking boat. During the last year I started noticing certain traits I didn't like. At first I didn't confront her about it, but there were a couple of times when I couldn't take it anymore and I mentioned her dubious behavior. And then everything exploded, she started flirting with a work mate who lived in a different town, left overnight and started a new life adopting an entirely new personality.

 

It's hard to accept that you've been lied to for nine years, that you don't really know that person, that you were in a relationship with a facade that starts falling apart the moment you confront them about it, that you've been subjected to pathological lies that last to this day, but, as you say, we're lucky that they're no longer in our lives. I'm not sure I've fully accepted all of this six years after, though.

[ML Hammer95]

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/breaking-up-reconciliation-coping/second-chances/619069-meeting-ex-soon-how-proceed

 

Cautionary tale... this is what happens when you return contact and get sucked back in. Thankfully brief and lessons will be learnt.

[Downtown]

I honestly don't think that people on the extreme end of the spectrum have the capacity to feel anything like what most of us would label love.

Emily, my experience is that BPDers are able to love very intensely -- albeit in the same immature way that a young child is able to love. If you doubt that this is real "love" as most people perceive it, ask any parent whether she believes her young children truly love her. I believe that most parents -- if not all -- will give you you a resounding "Yes." They recognize that the children's inability to regulate emotions does not make them incapable of loving.

 

It's all very extreme culturally feminized behaviours. Men's responses look typically more like what is often labelled narcisstic personality disorder.

Are you still talking about BPD behavior? If so, my experience is that there is nothing feminized about BPD symptoms. The BPD prevalence rate in the general population is about 6% for both genders.

 

And well, someone like this does just not get born like this, there's a lot of literature Building to relabel it complex post traumatic stress disorder.

I am unaware of any growing movement in the psychiatric community to relabel BPD as C-PTSD (Complex PTSD). Because C-PTSD is not generally regarded as a separate disorder, there is no generally recognized definition of what it is. It therefore is whatever someone chooses to say it is. C-PTSD has been proposed as a clinical syndrome but, to date, has been rejected -- by both the American and European psychiatric communities -- as not being valid or useful as a categorical device.

 

As to what causes a child to develop BPD, nobody knows for certain what the answer is. The current view of the psychiatric community is the theory that it is some combination of genetics and childhood environment (abuse or abandonment). Genetics alone might be sufficient to cause BPD if the child were genetically predisposed to becoming so overly sensitive that he mistakenly perceives normal day-to-day events as "traumatic" -- or mistakenly believes he is being "abandoned" every time mother leaves the room. Likewise, severe abuse in early childhood might be sufficient by itself to cause BPD.

[Downtown]

I think telling her she may have a disorder and needs help was a huge mistake - every time we spoke since she managed to bring it up in almost a mocking tone. [Your 4/4 post.]

Hammer, given your intent to leave her, I doubt that telling her was a "huge mistake." It nonetheless likely had little chance of helping her if she is a BPDer -- which is one reason that therapists typically do not tell high functioning BPDers the name of their disorder. Because a BPDer has such little self esteem, what she almost certainly will do on hearing your accusation is to project it back onto you. This projection works entirely in the subconscious. Hence, the likely result is that she will be convinced -- at a conscious level -- that YOU are the BPDer.

 

Surely someone who says all these things wouldn't come back again, especially if she doesn't like/love me like the forum members think. [Your 4/7 post.]

On the contrary, my view is that "BPDers are able to love very intensely -- albeit in the same immature way that a young child is able to love" (post #34 above). Similarly, Emily's states "I don't think that it's that she doesn't love you, I think it's more that what she thinks is love is actually complete external validation and is not about what she can give you either" (Emily's 4/8 post).

 

I mention this again because, when abused partners come stumbling out of abusive relationships, the #1 question they want answered is "Did he/she truly love me or was it all an act?" If the Ex is a full-blown narcissist or sociopath, the answer is "No, it was all an act." But if the Ex is a full-blown BPDer, the answer is "Yes, you likely were loved very deeply but, because your Ex is emotionally immature and unstable, he/she is only capable of loving you in a child/parent relationship, not a husband/wife relationship."

 

As to your statement, "Surely someone who says all these things wouldn't come back again," I tried to address that issue two weeks ago (post #15 above). I stated,

BPDers absolutely HATE being alone. Because they have a fragile, weak self image, they feel a strong need to be around a stable partner who can supply them with the missing self identity -- by grounding them and helping to center them. But, when you do exactly that, a BPDer will soon start resenting you for it. She will feel like you are "controlling" her and suffocating her. This is due to a BPDer's great fear of engulfment. The result is that a BPDer typically will berate and devalue you -- but won't want you to leave permanently. This is why the #2 best-selling BPD book is titled,

I Hate You, Don't Leave Me!

Most likely, you understood this explanation very well two weeks ago. If so, your doubts and repeated questions likely are evidence of the struggle going on in your mind between your "intuitive child" and "logical adult." Because I had been in a 15 year relationship, it took me at least a year to bring my child's feelings into close alignment with my adult's understanding.

 

After just two weeks of intense reading on the Internet, I had a pretty good understanding of what I needed to do to get out of the toxic relationship and why I needed to do it. Yet, because my child was over a year behind my adult, the child sabotaged my every effort to break away. It hindered me with nagging doubts, terrible guilt, and a strong feeling of obligation. It kept telling me that the theory floating around in the adult part of my mind was an insufficient basis on which to wholly abandon a loved one.

 

Even after I had left my then-wife, I still refused to go No Contact for eight more months, at which point I finally realized she is incapable of ever being my friend. It seems that -- for all human beings -- the inner child makes at least 90% (if not 95%) of the important decisions. I was 50 years old before I understood that simple notion. And it took me 12 years to do it.

 

What happened was that, for 12 years, I took my bipolar foster son to a weekly family group meeting with the psychologist who was treating him. Whenever the psych challenged me on something, I always had an elaborate well-thought-out explanation for doing whatever I had chosen to do. Never mind that what I had chosen was not working with my foster son and never mind that I kept repeating the same pattern year after year.

 

The psych was always greatly amused by my explanations. He would laugh and point out, in his kindly fashion, that my elaborate rationalizations could not disguise the fact that my inner child -- not my adult -- was calling all the shots, making nearly all the decisions. In any contest between the adult and child, he claimed, the child would almost always win. But I just could not swallow that concept.

 

Yet, after twelve years of his gentle rebukes, it dawned on me one night -- right as I was about to drift asleep -- why he had to be right. My inner child, I suddenly realized, is the sole judge of what is fun and what is not fun. That decision is all powerful. The adult part of my mind will nearly always conclude that it makes no sense -- indeed, would be preposterous -- to do something, go somewhere, or date someone I do not enjoy. My adult logic thus nearly always has to end up in the lap of my inner child.

 

This is why learning about my exW's problem (BPD) and my own issues was the easy part. What was difficult is internalizing that understanding, i.e., transforming knowledge into wisdom, which requires that my feelings catch up with my intellectual thoughts.

[ML Hammer95]

Downtown, again, an excellent post and exactly what I needed to hear!

 

You are right in saying that intellectually I understood your explanation as to why she keeps coming back and that it is something inside of me that contradicts that at times. As each day passes, my heart hardens again and I look forward. I recognise that she did love me in her way and I am sorry she thinks I hurt her.

 

Got another counselling session in a months time. I think another month of NC will leave me in good stead, it's just giving the time some time.

[ML Hammer95]

Cried tonight over her. Remembering the good and feeling sorry for myself generally that someone loved me and I acted terribly towards her. Probably a bit lonely too.

[AMarriedMan]

The BPD prevalence rate in the general population is about 6% for both genders.

 

I think that number is the lifetime prevalence of BPD, not the proportion of those afflicted in the general population at any given time. BPD is most common among young adults with a tendency for the symptoms to become less severe or disappear as the sufferer ages.

[Downtown]

I think that number is the lifetime prevalence of BPD, not the proportion of those afflicted in the general population at any given time. BPD is most common among young adults with a tendency for the symptoms to become less severe or disappear as the sufferer ages.

AMM, you are correct that 6% is the lifetime prevalence, not the percent of the population who are full-blown BPDers at this very moment. The prevalence rate for any particular year is substantially smaller. Some recent studies show that BPD traits appear to become somewhat less strong starting in the mid-forties. Hence, some of the BPDers are said to no longer have BPD when they get older.

 

Keep in mind, however, that a person in his fifties who now meets only 80% or 90% of the diagnostic criteria (thus "not having BPD") likely will be nearly as impossible to live with as a person meeting 100% (thus "having BPD"). BPD is not something -- like chickenpox -- that a person either "has" or "doesn't have." Rather, it is a spectrum disorder, which means we all exhibit BPD symptoms to some degree. Hence, saying that someone once "had BPD" but "no longer has BPD" is a distinction without a real difference, given that the criteria for "having BPD" is set arbitrarily high.

 

The substantial drop in the BPD prevalence rate as the population ages is not evidence that untreated BPDers eventually become good marriage partners. Rather, that statistical change is largely an artifact of the seriously flawed and arbitrary manner in which BPD is currently diagnosed. It makes no sense at all to use this dichotomous (yes or no) method for diagnosing behavior that varies in intensity from person to person. Doing so is as silly as diagnosing everyone under 6'4" as "short" and everyone under 300 pounds as "skinny." This is why the psychiatric community is now in the process of dumping this flawed methodology and fully replacing it with a graduated approach (e.g., normal, mild, moderate, strong, and severe).

[ML Hammer95]

http://www.nicolamethodforhighconflict.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/List-of-Negative-Behaviors.pdf

 

I found this online... I think this girl exhibited around 15-20 of these signs.