Saturday, November 12, 2011

Red Flag Perfume

I was watching NBC's Saturday Night Live recently and saw a faux commercial called "Red Flag." It most definitely typifies the BPD persona -- when you watch it, it's quite funny and puts things in perspective.

As you recover from your relationship with the BPD in your life, be sure to keep laughing, and keep life in perspective. You're alive, you've survived, now you need to thrive. A BPD in your life makes thriving quite difficult, as you need to keep providing them with boundaries that they are going to continually violate.

Enjoy the journey, and keep laughing.

7 comments:

  1. This is totally brill !! I laughed til my ribs hurt. For all you early stage of healing victims of a BPD relationship that are thinking "this is no laughing matter" let me say it has been over three years post BPD for me and i can laugh now. It will come to you too if you take the time to heal properly. How many red flags did i ignore or excuse. Too many. I have found the me that he stole. I am back! Stronger and a better person for the experience. I also found peace in visiting church. So something good has come out of his reign of terror. My beliefs have helped me through a rough time recently following the passing of my dear dad. Everything is meant to be. Take care all you NON's and put time out to yourselves, you deserve to be loved and give love in a healthy relationship.

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  2. I turned my cell phone off to stop getting the hate-filled texts my BPD has been sending tonight (to ruin my Thanksgiving) and went straight to this blog to get some grounding. Thank you for posting this SNL bit because it made me laugh just when I needed a laugh the most!!!

    I wish I had the courage to block his number and cut him off completely. No contact is the only answer. I also wish I didn't care so much about the pain and anxiety he puts himself through (although right now my family and I are so black to him we're single-handedly responsible for all his problems). I wish I could get it through my thick skull that he will never get better unless he gets help, and that he is never going to get help.

    When does the hope finally die?

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  3. Hi it's Evil brother of the curse.

    I am 3½ at weeks of NC after a 3 month relationship with a BPD. Wow this is hard.

    Here's a theory on why the BPD splits people black at different points in different relationships. They all seem to be cut from the same cloth yet the point of first splitting to black can occur at 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, one year, 2 years, 4 years, 8 years even 16 years or more.

    From THAT point in the relationship the pattern is similar with crazy-making, splitting back and forth, increasing devaluation, withholding of intimacy (sex), increasing extra-relationship activities.

    Theory: The BPD becomes disenchanted with the significant other. Normal people will terminate the relationship before seeking a new love but the paychological makeup and weakness of the BPD makes them fear being alone. So they break the trust and have sex with another. Normal people would then break the relationship to end the guilt they feel having cheated but the BPD is too afrais to be alone emotionally so they lie to the non and to themselves and try to suppress the imoral thing they've done in order to continue moral and emotional support from the non.

    This does not work. The BPD begins to lose respect for the non because they all still around after the BPD cheated. The verbal and physical abuse are the BPD's disgust with the non even though ofter the non has no idea the BPD has been unfaithful. The infidelity increases because the BPD becomes less and less fulfilled with the cuckold non - even if the non is unaware.

    Finally after a train of infidelities the BPD can't stand the sight of the non and 'blows' to end the relationship without having to admit their infidelities.

    Within a short or longer time the BPD misses the good emotional support of the smitten non and orchestrates new contact. After a few days, weeks or months the pattern repeats itself where the BPD again cheats and the whole cycle repeats.

    The key is not only the total lack of trust boundaries but also the need to not be alone outwieghs the normal guilt involved in cheating.

    The childhood sexual and emotional trauma has scarred the BPD's ability to feel and behave in a moral fashion. They cannot understand this disconnect themselves so the blame their breach of trust of the non.

    Normal people stop a relationship before they cheat. A BPD needs the relationship and needs to cheat - so tries both.

    In the longrun disrespect or a blowup results. In the BPD mind both of these are the fault of the lessthanperfect non.

    Rinse and repeat lifelong.

    Evil brother of the curse

    P.S. Read every single post and every single comment, also 200 articles on BPD. Great blog Den. Please continue.

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  4. Brother of the curseDecember 22, 2011 at 5:12 PM

    You're not going to believe this. BPD ex gf just called 5 hours ago as evidenced on my cell phone display.

    Holy shit!

    NEVER felt Hoovering like this from anyone before. I mean, I love her, I would die for her. Problem is I'm 80% sure she was unfaithful from 6 weeks. We lasted 12 weeks until withdrawal of intimacy.

    Shiiiiit!

    Despite reading over 200 articles and every post of this blog I'm am feeling Hoovered like an addict to heroin.

    Fuuuuuck!

    What to do. I know she is just an illusion - but she's MY illusion!

    Not sure.

    Updates coming.

    P.S. Thought I managed to paint myself black for eternity when I confided in her she was BPD. 25 days later she must have found a way even that was my fault and/or untrue.

    She meets 6 of 9 criteria even without infidelity.

    I'm an idiot. Otherwise mentally and physically (post relationship STD test was all negative) healthy, but an idiot!

    Evil Brother

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  5. i am trying to leave a guy with bpd and finding it increasingly difficult. we were together for 7 years and althoiugh it was 7 years of hell, i still care about him and it breaks my heart of what he is going through inside although i know i must get away to protect myself and do what is right for me. i dont unerstand why i still care for him after all he has put me through and am struggling with this. it should be easy to walk away after what he has done to me but it's not. he begs me to come back and says he will change and its so ifficult to keep turning him down as that is all i ever wanted from him but know it cant be. i feel cruel for turning him down and leaving him as i know this is killing him inside but i know it has to be done for the violence and chaos to stop. its so hard, i love him truely but cannot allow myself to be treat like this anymore, i hope i can grow strong enough to cut him out completely. if anyone has any advice on how to leave for good and cope with the pain of hurting the bpd party it would be much appreciated.

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  6. I don't have any easy answers for you, but I was/am in a similar situation and I can tell you what I have experienced.

    A few years ago, I saw a woman standing in a bakery, and for only the second time in my half-century on Earth, the world seemed to stop. As I started to get to know her, I realized that she was emotionally damaged, but I did not want to assume the worst. After experiencing half of a year of what soon became daily incidents of her bizarre and cruel behavior, I had to accept that she was suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. I did not want to give up on her, but by trying to stay with her, I was enabling her abusiveness and I allowed her to gradually derail my life. After more than 2 years, among other problems, my physical health had deteriorated to the point where I could no longer recognize myself.

    I had tried being very tolerant and even-tempered in the face of her degrading words and actions. She even once told me that I was a very tolerant man. But the more I took it, the more she dished it out. I had tried telling her in a very diplomatic and gentle way that she really needed psychotherapy. But she wouldn't try to get any. After a while I started to express anger. But that just seemed to feed her sickness. During all this time I continued to pour my love into the bottomless pit. Eventually, I tried telling her that I would not meet with her if she was to preface our meeting with an abusive phone call. But the result was that she ended up blaming me for avoiding contact with her, and then she tried to hurt me even more. At that point I had to totally break off contact with her. So, I haven't seen her in more than a year, and haven't answered any of her messages for the last 9 months.

    ( continued in next post ... )

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  7. ( ... continued from previous post )

    I still believe that I loved the real woman who was underneath the sickness, not just the physically gorgeous woman, and not the shiny parts of the illusion. And I believe that she really did love me, at least to the extent that she was capable of loving someone. Intellectually, I realize that I was in a no-win situation. Nevertheless, I still feel guilt and anguish when I remember the time she told me "Don't give up on me". I still feel like jagged-edged sheets of metal are gouging out my heart every day. As sad as the situation is for me, I know that I will rise up from my own ashes and gradually reconstruct myself into a stronger form. What torments me the most is thinking of her remaining in her hell, wasting the rest of her life in coldness, and ending up without anyone who really loves and respects her. She left me 3 messages over the last five weeks, and I had to force myself not to respond. Having to be cold to her is incredibly painful and breaks me inside. I wish I could talk to her as a friend, I wish I could comfort her, but her messages, although polite, indicate that she hasn't learned anything, and I know that if I were to respond to her the abuse would start all over again.

    The thing is that I would be willing to absorb more undeserved punishment and allow my ego to be smashed some more, if that would ultimately help heal her. But I've already tried that and I know it wouldn't help her. It would only serve to give her more practice at being an abuser. Recently, I told some friends that if one truly cares about a friend, lover or spouse, then one will wish to help the loved one grow into a better person, not become a worse human being. And that by enabling our beloved people to abuse us, we are not actually doing them any favors, but rather are facilitating their self-destruction.

    I guess my story is not very comforting and does not provide any simple solutions to someone who loves a BPD person, but hopefully it will help you put some things in perspective. If a BPD person will not try any kind of therapy, I don't think any improvement can be expected. What I'm saying is that at this point pain and sadness are probably unavoidable, no matter what you do. In my case, I expect this sadness to be part of me for the rest of my life - AND I must move forward.

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Please tell me your story and how it relates to Borderline Personality Disorder. I appreciate any and all comments that you leave on this blog, and as long as they do not contain inappropriate language or are not on-topic, will publish them. Please note that I cannot respond to blogs as this is an anonymous blog. However, I will publish all appropropriate comments.