I only recently decided to "figure out what is wrong with me".
One thing that many people dont realize about BPD folks, is that we just don't realize how crazy we are. We have lived with our THOUGHTS and mood swings for much of our lives, most of us were also likely raised in families that experienced similar mood swings, and so we have very poor contrast and perspective to even see that we have a problem. I have been batshit crazy for 29 years, and here I am just realizing it.
We seem to mostly come from highly unstable childhoods and mine was no different. 4 kids, 1 bipolar mom, lots of rage, anger, CONSTANT fighting.
The stories I read here have been so heartbreaking to me, as most of them are written by the victim s of BPD spouses; They could have been written by either of my WIVES. They help me to realize that my wife remembers all of those terrible and nasty things that I say, even when I don't. I hope that all of you out there living with a BPDy realize that they likely care so much MORE about you than their words and actions can dictate. Something that seems common amongst BPD folks is the "mask" we put on for everyone. When that mask comes off...we are truly vulnerable, and we create that vulnerability by sharing our true thoughts with someone else. My personal theory on this is that, as we become closely entrenched with another person as BPDs, we so closely associate ourselves to them that we almost become one. The truth is, for me at least, that your proof that we love you is that we are BPD about your ***. When you see us put on that mask for someone else, its because we dont really and truly care about them, for myself it seems like the only people I've ever really truly been able to care about were the people on the ****-end of my BPD stick, talk about some tragic irony.
The real problem with that, is that we hate ourselves, and since you are now a part of us, we hate you too. We can't discern between the two, when you do something that rubs us the wrong way, we spout off that same inner rage that we beat ourselves up with every day. The sad difference is that I can forget all those nasty things I tell myself, and you cant forget those nasty things that I tell you. For BPD people, our personal image is so fluid that we can lose ourselves, reinvent ourselves, and find ourselves again all within a single day.
I am struggling with BPD now, and I've finally realized what it is. There is hope for the spouses and BPDs themselves out there; I know because I have beaten this before, and I will beat it again.
My first WIFE and I were married at a fairly young age, she was my second girlfriend. The first 2 years of our relationship were almost impossible, the amount of rage and anger and tears that poured was terrible. I always used her past sexual experience as a reason to beat her up(emotionally) and belittle her; I used it to beat myself up, and belittle myself. She would go from being the light of my life, to being a terrible **** 10 minutes later. Sometimes the rage would last hours or days, sometimes it would subside. I always felt so justified in my actions, -I- was right, -she- was wrong; She should have KNOWN how her actions would affect me. This was all HER fault. After some 3 years of being together, I finally found a way to defeat this inner demon that had been eating at me and her and our relationship for so long. I picked a role-model, someone I looked up to, someone that wouldnt be having these problems, someone that could deal with this ****. I picked him and i put him in my head, everytime I would start to feel my mood slip, I would imagine him saying "come the **** on, are you serious? Look around, look how lucky you are, get the **** over it".
Over time, if you keep yourself from getting stuck on those railroads in your mind, those thought cycles that feed your negativity, if you STOP letting yourself go to that place in your head...it goes away, or at least it gets buried. For nearly 2 years, towards the end of my marriage, I was totally calm and peaceful in my head; it is impossible to describe how satisfying that is for someone who struggles with BPD. Eventually my wife left me for a man twice my age, who made half my income, and she did it because I killed what love she had for me. I killed it with my constant negativity, outbursts, anger the years prior, and it just never recovered; This was obvious for some time, and I was not surprised when my wife asked me to leave, as I had unconciously engineered it.
I say that the thought-cycle gets buried, because for me it has returned.
The difficulty for a BPD person is figuring out which emotions are rational and which ones are crazy, because we can make those crazy ideas seem very legit. Perhaps my distrust for my wife isnt without cause or origin, but the truth is that this stuff happened 3 years ago, and dragging a grudge through the mud, dirt, and tears for those years has been the most damaging thing I could do to relationship with my wife. As a BPD person, I realize that I wasnt wrong to feel bad about my wife lying to me, she was wrong in those cases, but at some point I either have to accept it and let it go, I can't keep carrying this grudge with me forever.
I have read like many of you, that there is no cure for BPD. There is a cure, but it isnt a pill. We are creatures of habit, our habits rule every aspect of our lives, and our the thinking habits of BPD individuals are flawed. Those thinkin habits can be changed, I have changed them and been better, and now I have to change them again. I know I can do it, and I know that for those of you suffering out there at the hands of BPD individuals, they CAN get better, but not if they don't accept that they have a problem. So here is me saying out to the interweb world that I have a problem, and ************ I'm gonna fix it.
I'm going to fix this using the following approach, and I'm sharing it here so that it might possibly help someone else in the future.
a) build my sense of self, restore my true confidence
b) Keep myself from getting stuck in negative thought cycles, as a BPD person, my emotional stages progress MUCH faster than a normal person, and allowing myself to stay in a negative thought cycle for EVEN A MINUTE is dangerous and can lead to a downward spiral.
c) "Act as if you are, and you will become." Act like the ideal version of yourself, what would you be like if you didnt have these problems? Be that person.
d) Learn that your facial expression, posture, diet, sleep schedule all factor into your mood. One time I was deep into a negative thought cycle and i passed a friend in the hallway, she could tell I wasnt feeling well and said "Just smile, you'll feel better" She was right. Next time you feel your negative emotions creeping up, put a smile on your face..the kind of confident simple smile that says "ive got all this **** figured out". Raise your hands in the air for 2 minutes(victory style), this is PROVEN to improve your mood and sense of self-worth. Apparently the human body cant fist pump the air without feeling like a boss.
I hope it works for me, and I hope all of you here find some peace with your BPD spouses and yourselves, you CAN find it, and it is so worth it.
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