BPD Relationship Recovery: Does it ever conclude?

    It's been so many years since my relationship with the borderline ended -- over 10 years at this point. Over the years, the BPD continues to be involved in my life in many ways, which I will discuss later in this post. You can recover from a relationship with a person suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, but the person, or those suffering from mental illness, may not ever be completely out of your life.

    There were reasons why you let the person who is suffering from borderline personality disorder come into your life. It may have been the place in life where you were when you met the person. It may be your upbringing, and maybe you were brought up, and therefore quite accepting, with a person who had characteristics that were similar or the same as those suffering from borderline personality disorder. It could possibly be that you were predisposed to join a relationship with someone suffering from BPD because of so many other reasons; most likely a combination of factors as well.

    Over the years since I have been in the relationship with the person who most likely had borderline personality disorder, many things have happened where the borderline was pulled back into my life. She called the police on me and accused me of doing various things. This included sending SPAM emails to her and breaking into her computer, as well as slashing the tires on her vehicle and breaking into her vehicle and slashing the leather on her seat. After speaking with the police and requesting that the police ensure that these accusations never occur again, any accusations stopped.

    The borderline continues to inject herself into life in various ways. My wife and stepdaughter saw her at a restaurant as the borderline sat almost next to them a couple of years ago. I was traveling and received a picture of the borderline, asking if this was her. Yep, it sure was. She had aged significantly (I have aged too, however, borderlines often look quite jagged as their stresses age them), appeared to have had some type of plastic surgery like botox or something, and continued to have anxiety, based on the conversation that my wife could hear her talking to her friend about. I now think about what I accepted and what I would let the borderline say about me, and I'm amazed. The person that I am now would never let anyone ever accuse me of doing the things that she accused me; I am a man of integrity and would never even think, let alone act, the way that she accused me.

    

Does BPD Relationship Recovery Conclude?

    You can recover from a relationship with a borderline and feel whole again. I personally feel like I live a blessed life, and I am amazed at what an amazing life I'm living. I appreciate my current relationship, my career, my personal and professional relationships, and so much of my life. The relationship with the borderline is part of me, made me into the person that I am today, and will continue to be part of me. I still look back, fondly on the good parts, and as a reminder of what I would never accept again for the bad ones. They were so acute that they stand out and are almost comical, but they still serve as a reminder. 

Things I can Do Now That I'm Out of a BPD Relationship

I was thinking about what my life is like now and how my life is so free now that I'm not in a BPD relationship. My life can be happy as I don't feel shackled or held back by someone else's insecurities.

Jennie is a very trusting woman, and I appreciate and cherish the trust that I have. She lets me be myself and doesn't try to steal any of my magic. I am eternally grateful.

The following list is by no means exhaustive as it only strikes the surface, but here are some of the things that I can do without being questioned, accused of inappropriate things, kicked out, demeaned, belittled, or generally treated poorly:

• Spend a whole day not talking or communicating with my partner
• Go to they gym
• Go for a run
• Go out with my friends
• Go to see my family
• Stop somewhere that's not planned
• Take my children places without letting my partner know
• Do special things with my children
• Talk to other females
• Have a friendship with other females
• Get another female's phone number (for business or whatever purpose)
• Stay late at work
• Travel on business
• Go into work early
• Do things on my own -- whatever it may be
• Talk with my partner about another female
• Go away with my friends for a guys' weekend out
• Go out with my friends for a guys' night out
• Receive phone calls, text messages or emails from other females
• Have a female coworker that was not put under the microscope
• Have an attractive female coworker
• Go out to lunch, dinner, breakfast...whatever without being accused of cheating

This is just the beginning. You can see the pattern here.

I'm now free. The Me/Us project continues. In the next post, look for updates and plans for this site as we move it out to a new site altogether where you can blog about your BPD recovery, enter forum posts, or do what you want. Look for more information in the upcoming blog entries.

For now, if you're out of the BPD relationship, appreciate the freedom you have. Do something constructive with it.

Relationship Recovery Step 5: Build Your Support Group, And Flex It

When you're going through truly difficult times, it's difficult to find a way out.

You just can't do it alone. If you try to do it alone and handle all this heartache alone, you will be literally broken apart. I know from experience.

Bottom line -- you need a support group to recover from most every relationship. Dysfunctional relationships, like those with borderlines, require even more of a support group.

What Is a Support Group?
A support group is just like the name sounds, a group of people who are there to support you as you go through a difficult transition, or just life in general. This group can be comprised of friends, family, co-workers (as long as your working situation allows for this), or a group of people with common interests. For example, those that attend Alcoholics Anonymous are surrounded by other attendees who could all be considered part of their support group.

To have a solid support group, one must be able to trust their support group and believe that the support group truly has their best interest at hand.

For the Non in a relationship with a Borderline, they need a solid support group. Their recovery is critical and the Non needs this. Part of the Non's support group mix should also be a counselor for a number of reasons. First, there is quite a lot of shame around being in a relationship with a borderline. You have accepted so much in the relationship that you have buried, and these things (like being treated so poorly) have to be dealt with in a safe environment.

There were many things that happened with the borderline that I didn't want to initially tell my friends. They would ask me questions like, "why would you let her do that to you?"

There were a lot of things that they would ask me those questions. I wasn't ready. A counselor could help me get through all these issues and questions.

CoDependence


Many Nons that are in a relationship with a borderline find that they have codependent tendencies if they are not all-out codependent. This must also be examined and worked through.

Many Nons also find that joining a support group such as Alanon also helps them get through their codependent issues and makes them responsible for themselves.

We Need People To Talk To


We are human beings that have emotions. Working with a support group that helps you get back to a normal sense of right and wrong is very important when recovering from any relationship, particularly a BPD relationship. This is one part of the puzzle though. Ultimately, you need to decide what's right and wrong for you, which takes more time.

This is an important step. As you go through this process of recovering from a bad relationship, you need to learn from others what is right, what's wrong, and the healthy way to deal with issues that arose in the relationship and in your current life.

Relationship Recovery Step 3: Do The Work

So you've gotten out of a relationship, and you've felt the pain, and then you've committed to letting yourself heal. No hiding from the pain or the healing that you need to go through.


What's next? Doing the work.

The work. What work?

Aaaaah, this is where the fun really begins.

Pull Yourself Apart

You've felt pain, and you're feeling pain. You now need to make sure that you don't feel pain like you are feeling again.

*This is the only way that we will make change is to feel this pain, then commit to not feeling this way again.*

For some, you were in a bad relationship. The relationship was dysfunctional from the start; you were scarred, but you'll be okay.

For most, you had a pattern of bad relationships. This one was the coup de gras, the icing on the cake, the REALLY bad one, the one that made you decide that change was required.

For my borderline relationship, I had a number of *okay* relationships before that. I was always looking for sparks, and whew, did I find it with the borderline.

Eventually, the sparks get to be too much, as I learned.

Doing the work requires a number of steps, which is self-investigation. These steps will go into future steps as well, but this step requires actually making the commitment to doing the work of healing, getting better, then determining how you will never fall into the trap of a dysfunctional relationship (for the purposes of this blog, a borderline relationship) again.

Why?

Ask yourself the hard questions. You've probably been hurting so badly since the initial breakup that you've been in the blame mode, but it's time to look inside. As the pain subsides, look into your inner core, learn about yourself and who you really are:

• What am I really about?
• What do I like? 
• What do I dislike?
• How would I rate my life? Is it that bad, or is it good?
• What do I want to change?
• How can I make these changes?

Then, ask yourself the questions that you want to ask the least:

• Why did I get into this relationship with a Borderline?
• What needs did the BPD fulfill?
• How did the BPD fill my needs? What need did they meet the best?
• Is this need reasonable and realistic?
• Do I need to adjust my needs and expectations?
• What needs did the BPD not meet?
• How dysfunctional was the relationship in the end?

Ask yourself the hard questions. Write them down and think about all of your responses.

Get Ready to Meet the New You

The process that you are about to go through will enable you to grow like you have never grown before. You will become the person that you always wanted to become.

This process will take time, it won't be easy. It will hurt, you will take some steps backwards, but in the end, if you Do The Work, you will come out of it a new person that you admire.

One person said that being in a relationship with a BPD and coming out of it is like steel going into the fire. You can be burned by the experience, or you can survive the fire and come out like brandished iron which is nearly impenetrable.

If you Do the Work, your self esteem will go through the ceiling and you will feel better than you ever have, every day. 

Welcome to your new life. Get ready for Step 4 -- Start a Me Project.

Relationship Recovery Step 2a: When It Hurts Real Bad, Find Distractions

I know, I know. I sit here and say, you've got to feel the pain, allow yourself time to heal, and now I'm saying find distractions?

Look, you're human. I'm human. When it hurts real bad, we do whatever we can to distract ourselves from the pain.

That's okay. As long as the distractions are healthy.

Healthy Distractions While You Are Healing

So, what's a healthy distraction? There are many:

• Spending time with friends
• Seeing a movie
• Doing a hobbie
• Watching television
• Exercising
• Playing a musical instrument
• Listening to music
• Reading a book (not a self-help book or a love story)

You can see where I am going here. The distraction could be almost anything.

Time Heals

So if time heals, your healing from the relationship will take time. It will take time for you to reprogram yourself and learn new ways of living life -- you'll change from the "we" to the "me" in everything you do or say. This can be difficult.

While you're letting time heal you, these healthy distractions will help. Playing golf was one of my favorite things to do while healing from the relationship that I was in. I used to go and play rounds of par three golf as I could play with my kids or by myself, and it was a nice way to spend some time outside.

Watch Out for Unhealthy Distractions

There are unhealthy distractions that postpone the pain and can bring you into a world of even more hurt. These include:

• Drinking excessively or taking drugs
• Sex with non committed partners
• Starting a new relationship too soon
• Anything in excess -- exercise, work, etc.

I hope you see where I'm going here. Do everything in moderation so you can keep yourself and your head whole.

Distractions can be good while you're healing from a broken relationship. You can find healthy ones and help yourself on the road to recovery.

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Relationship Recovery Step 2: Let Yourself Heal

Someone heard me say this once and responded, "of course you have to do that, Captain Obvious."

It's the easiest thing to overlook. In this world, we don't give ourselves time to heal. Any relationship that ends -- dysfunctional or non, romantic or friendship, has an impact on you when it ends.

Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann moved to Hawaii after Jerry Garcia died and the band disbanded. He lived there for a number of years, and Hawaii remains his residence. Bill said that immediately after the band officially disbanded, he went there to heal.

Heal?

Thirty years of his life -- 30 years -- was spent as the drummer of The Grateful Dead. He and Jerry were the founding members of the band. Whether they were close or not, they had a longlasting relationship. The band was often called The Family, especially in the early days. They lived together for many years and traveled together as well.

Relationships -- romantic, friendship, working, family -- are the most important element of human interaction. When we lose them, we lose a part of ourselves. We must heal from losing this part, then make ourselves whole again.

If we do not heal, we cannot be whole.

Part of this healing, of course, is Feeling the Pain, which was the first step in this process. After we have felt the pain and are feeling the pain, we have to allow ourselves the time to heal ourselves.

Like I have mentioned, drinking or abusing drugs, digging into work, jumping into another relationship, over exercising and a number of other excesses do not allow you to heal -- they allow you time to distance yourself from the pain.

The problem that when you come back, the pain is still there.

Ways to Heal from a Dissolved Relationship

Share your feelings with a friend or a professional -- It's important to express your feelings instead of stuffing them back inside of you. If you let them out, it's like toothpaste coming out of a tube. It can't go back in and keep doing damage to your psyche.

Think about how many things you've stuffed back inside and haven't dealt with in your life. It's human, but it's not good.

Back to sharing the feelings. By sharing your feelings, they become real and they lose their impact on you. You allow yourself to have the feelings, hence letting yourself heal.

This can be particularly difficult in a dysfunctional relationship, and even worth in a broken borderline relationship. You know elements of the relationship were wrong and broken, and you probably hid it, and now you have to admit these wrongs and that you knew they were wrong. What's worse, you don't have closure, so you probably don't want to expose all the dysfunction in hopes of the relationship re-kindling.

Letting it all out, the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, is part of the healing.

Realize That You're Broken

After a relationship ends, everyone worries about you, and you tell them, "I'm okay."

No you're not. A relationship ending is like a death, and you have to go through the mourning -- and healing process. It takes time and a process of rebuilding. You need to rebuild.

Even if you tell people that you're okay, deep down inside, you're not. The sooner that your broken self comes to the surface, the quicker you can heal.

In upcoming posts, look for the next Relationship Recover Step, Do The Work.

Relationship Recovery Step 1: Feel The Pain

When you get out of a BPD Relationship, it hurts like no other. The pain you feel is, well, quite painful.

You feel like you've been knocked down, and all of your efforts, all of your accepting the unacceptable, were in vain.

All you want is that person back in your life. You know, if they are BPD, that it's the worst thing for you. You'll be abused emotionally, maybe physically, definitely verbally. Your standards, whatever you believe in, will be thrown out the window.

Yet you want them back.

They say that the most normal person -- the person who has it all together -- can be taken apart by someone suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. The reason is simple.

Borderlines are perceptive. They know people. They're supersensitive, so they are sensitive to your needs. That's probably why you fell in love with them in the first place.

Unfortunately, they're not fully developed, and their disorder precludes them from developing fully, or usually so they can get to a place where they can be in a fully functional relationship.

How to Feel The Pain

Before covering how you can feel the pain, we must first cover how you will not feel the pain. If you start:

• Drinking alcohol excessively
• Taking drugs
• Partying way too much
• Dating someone else right away
• Exercising in excess
• Doing anything in excess -- way way too much

...you won't feel the pain. Please understand that doing many of these things, such as exercising, is actually quite good for you. However, when done in excess, they become problematic.

Now, there is a time to avoid the pain, but only if you eventually deal with it. There are times when things are so bad, or you think that they are, that you just can't deal with them. If you feel like this, then go out with your friends, let them relax. I remember that when the BPD and I first split, my friends took me out to the local bar and grille then introduced me to the staff. "You're gonna love this place," they pumped me up. I have such wonderful, supportive people in my life.

When the time comes, you will need to really fill the pain. Believe me, it hurts. It will take time, and when you're in it, it will feel like a long time.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and in retrospect, it wasn't too long. They say that in a relationship, it takes you about 1 year to heal for every 2 years that you were in the relationship. With dysfunctional relationships (like borderline relationships), I'd say it takes longer than that.


Now it's time to really feel the pain. Lock yourself in your home and let it all out. Feel the loss. Mourn the relationship. Cry, cry and cry some more. Maybe you need to write a goodbye letter. If you do, then do it.

Put on some of the saddest songs you know. Put on those breakup songs that break your heart.

Your heart is broken. Let it be broken.




There are many phases of the mourning process, and after you deny that the relationship is over, it's time to feel the pain.

However, you can get through the pain, and you can feel great when you come out of it. 

How Long Will This Last?

You should feel the pain intensely only for a few weeks, no more than three weeks. They say that it takes about 23 days to change a habit, and you now need to get used to the habit of not having this person in your life. You know that it's for the better, but it still hurts.

You'll feel the pain for months, if not years, but the intense pain should subside after about three weeks. You need to start putting your life back together, which will be covered in some later topics.

If you start to have suicidal thoughts, if you cannot get out of the funk and stop feeling the pain intensely, if you just can't get it back together, get support immediately. Professional support can be quite helpful and can help get you over the humps that you need in life.

So you've felt the pain, and you've gotten through it. Time for the next step, Let Yourself Heal.

10 Steps To Recover from A BPD Relationship

Recovering from a BPD Relationship is a difficult endeavor. Some would say that it's the toughest thing that they'll ever do. For some, it will be the toughest thing that they'll do.

Let me tell you, you can do it. You can live through this and be the person you always wanted to be when you get out of it.

Follow these simple steps, and you'll have no problem getting yourself through the BPD recovery process.

*Note: Some of these steps are intermingled, inter-tangled, and interdependent. You will often be working on step 6, then slip into step 1. They are not a step-by-step guide, but you will walk through these steps in the process.

How long will it take to heal from a dysfunctional relationship? They say that it takes you approximately one year to heal from every two years that you were in a relationship. For dysfunctional relationships (particularly BPD relationships), double this time, and you should be safe.

Bonus For Finishing
Here's the beautiful thing that you'll discover from this guide: When you're done with these steps, you will emerge a person who is much better than before you entered the relationship with the BPD.

One more thing -- this recovery guide can be applied to BPD relationships or general relationships also. After all, you don't have to be BPD to be in a dysfunctional relationship, or any relationship gone bad, for that matter. All of these recovery steps can be applied to a regular relationship and will help you grow.

The 10 Relationship Recovery Steps

1. Feel the pain
2. Let yourself heal
3. Do the work
4. Start a Me Project
5. Reinforce (or build) your support group, then flex it
6. Find others that have been there and have felt the pain
7. Find spiritual fulfillment
8. Accept yourself
9. Learn to love yourself
10. Recognize that you are a Work in Progress

In upcoming posts, look for each of these steps fully outlined, described and detailed with examples. Stay tuned.