How To Bring Closure To a BPD Relationship

I was reading through contributor David's post. David, thank you for contributing -- please continue contributing as long as you feel the need. Your posts will always be welcome here.

For those of you that are feeling the pain that David feels and wishes to contribute, drop me a line at mybpdrecovery@blogspot.com

One thing that David indicated in his last post was that you will never get closure from the relationship.


I disagree. You can get closure. It will take time, and you may not be ready for it.

Closure is Forgiveness
To truly get closure in the relationship, you must forgive the BPD for what they did. That's right, you have to forgive the person that treated you horribly, that said mean things about you, may have cheated on you, shows little conscience, etc.

You must forgive the BPD for what they did to you. Depending on where you are, it may seem counterintuitive and impossible.

Give yourself time. Over time, you will feel all of the emotions that I outline below, and you may eventually forgive.

How to Forgive The BPD
The problem with dysfunctional relationships like BPD relationships is that to properly heal from the relationship, you need to have no contact. Remember, the Non is addicted to the BPD and having contact with them feeds your addiction. Look for a post with regards to the No Contact Rule in the upcoming days.

Before you can forgive the BPD, you must feel the appropriate emotions of grieving a loss. These are not in the formal order, and in fact, you may go back and forth and back into stages. You will go through many of these phases as you work through the loss of a BPD, so get ready and allow yourself to experience the feeling.

Let yourself feel the following emotions. Don't try to hide them or stuff them away. If you do, they'll come out in unhealthy ways. Furthermore, don't try to hide them in a bottle of alcohol, excessive work or the like. Let yourself fully mourn the relationship and you'll get through it.

Denial
The first stage of the grieving process is that you'll deny that the relationship truly is over. Borderlines are good at keeping their Non partners in this phase for years on end. They break up with them, go out and start dating others, then miss their Non partners, bringing them back into the fold. They'll do this time and time again for months, if not years.

What happens to the Non is that they grow so accustomed to this that they actually convince themselves that the BPD will be coming back, like David thinks. This is why the No Contact rule is so critical so the Non can fully heal from the relationship.

Pain
When getting through the relationship and feeling the need to bring closure, the Non will feel much pain. The reality that the relationship is over is difficult to accept, but when you do accept it, you feel enormous remorse.

If you're like me, you felt that this was it; this person was the one that you put everything into, the person that you compromised so much to be with, you accepted so much, and they still rejected you. You feel so lost, like you'll never get back to yourself again and never find a relationship like that again.

The reality is that you probably won't get back to that person again -- you're going to grow and become a better person than the one that you were. You probably won't find a relationship like that again, if you learn about what it was in you that accepted such as dysfunctional relationship. In the end, if you do the work, you'll actually have much healthier, functional relationships in the future.

Anger
You're going to feel quite a bit of anger, and you need to get it out. Anyone that was with a true borderline has quite a bit of anger that they have to deal with. Being someone that treats you so poorly stirs up quite a bit of anger.

Let yourself displace the anger in a healthy way. Close your doors, lock yourself in your home, go to a canyon and let your exBPD have it. Scream like she was there -- make sure that she's not really there, because you're then violating the No Contact rule which is critical to bringing closure.

You need to feel the anger. You need to get through it. Without getting through it, it will come out in unhealthy ways. You'll seem irritable, you may take some of your anger out on others, and the like. Overall, not something that you want to do to others that you love.

Depression
Through this process, you're going to become depressed and sad. you're going to miss your exBPD and wonder how you're going to get through this life without them. How will I survive? What am I going to do with myself now that they're gone?

Depression while grieving the loss of a loved one, even a BPD who broke your heart, is inevitable, normal and acceptable. It's strange because this person treated you so poorly at times, but it's okay, you can allow yourself to be depressed.

Be sure not to allow yourself to be depressed for too long. Eventually, the days should start to be better. They should improve. If they don't, see a professional for evaluation and treatment.

Fear
While healing and recovering, you'll have quite a bit of fear that will go through your mind. I've lost my soul mate -- how will I ever find someone like them again? I never had such a great lover, friend, etc.


You'll feel fear all around you. I would argue that fear drives much, if not all, of the reasons that we were in the relationship with the borderline in the first place. We were afraid that we were never going to get what we wanted in a person. We wanted that person that was exactly what we wanted, and the borderline gave us exactly what we wanted on a silver platter. We're so blind to the reality that this person isn't real that we overlook their emotional stability, their raging, their psychosis, and all the other fun things that make them a borderline.

Through the process, particularly in the beginning, we'll notice how much fear we have of life without the borderline. We eventually learn that life without the borderline is better because:

• we're not responsible for another person anymore
• we don't have to live our lives walking on eggshells anymore, afraid of the next time that the borderline is going to freak out on us for we don't know why
• we can find someone that truly loves us for who we are, not the void that we temporarily feel
• we can find someone that treats us well and truly loves us

Internal Reconciliation

As we get through the healing process, we begin to understand what happened, why we were in the relationship, the voids that the borderline filled and the like. To be sure that we don't repeat history, we have to learn these things or we will enter relationships with other borderlines and repeat they dysfunctional patterns.

Internal reconciliation takes quite a long time and will actually go in cycles. We may initially reconcile the relationship and what happened, but have many pieces that are still unreconciled. This is normal and acceptable.

There are some parts of my relationship that I continue to struggle with to this day. I've never seen the BPD in person since we broke up, and I'm not sure what I would do if I were to run into her. I don't know how I would act. I think that I would avoid the situation at all costs because there would be no good outcome. In the end, I wouldn't feel better about anything, so it would be best to avoid any interaction.

What I've realized about the BPD that I was with is that she and many other BPDs are limited in their capacities. They are not capable of the caring and level of loving that others are, and they are immature in their love. As such, they will never have the relationship at the level that I expect a relationship. One that contains high levels of trust and understanding of the others' needs and desires.

Acceptance
We eventually accept that the relationship is over, accept the loss, grow in ways that we can, and move on. This may take years for some people, which is acceptable.

Allow yourself the time that you need to get through the process. This takes time; one must go through the phases that I've described above, or they will not be able to fully heal.

In the end, remember that your BPD ex is limited; you should actually feel bad for them. You don't ever need to tell them this, but feel bad for them nonetheless. They live a life of constant turmoil, drama and misery.

One more thing that helps with this process is prayer. Pray to help with accepting the loss. Pray to help get through the feelings of anger, depression, and other emotions. Pray to help forgive your exBPD for the things that they did to you.

Forgiveness
It may take some time to get through all the phases of healing from a loss and actually feel the capability to forgive. When you are able to forgive, you've truly grown, you've become a better person, you'll feel better about yourself. You've healed from the BPD relationship and you're ready to do other things in life. Congratulate yourself-- you've taken a large step in your personal development. You now have brought closure to the relationship.

You can bring closure to a BPD relationship. It's not easy, and you may not be able to easily see yourself getting there. By following these steps, praying, and giving yourself time, you can get there.

Even though these emotions are difficult, us men feel like we should stuff these emotions. Don't do it. Let yourself feel them fully. I was fortunate enough to be on the stop smoking drug Chantix which allowed me to be fully emotional when going through the breakup. Be sure that you can allow yourself to get through the emotions, or they'll come out in unhealthy ways later in life.

Vacation: Replacing The Memories

I had a great week of vacation. Thanks to David for his contributions -- he wrote both You Are Not Alone and Remembering The Past. It still amazes me how so many of us had (or are having) the same walk.

If you want to contribute a posting to this blog, let me know. Send me an email at mybpdrecovery@blogspot.com and let me know what you'd like to write about and how you'll cover it. We love to hear from guest bloggers.

Active Time
So, last week I went to Vermont for a quick, mini-ski vacation. My friend Chris was on military leave, and we decided to have a workout vacation. We did just that. Running, skiing, mountain biking, we were quite active.

On Monday, I picked him up from the airport, and we went running. We then drove north to Vermont where we skied at Mount Snow on Tuesday.

What a day of skiing we had. The conditions were absolutely perfect with the entire mountain being open and the  snow being loosely packed. We skied the entire mountain, and it snowed a good part of the day. There were few people on the mountain, so we had the place to ourselves to boot. What a great day.

From there, we went further north and drove to Killington where we stayed at the same place that the BPD and I stayed. Being lifelong buddies, Chris and I are different. We don't really even party. Every night, we were in bed at 10 pm so we could get up early and be on the ski slopes when the lifts start running.

Replacing Old Memories
This was the first time that I had been skiing in Vermont, particularly Killington, since my relationship with the BPD. Chris and I went to some of the same restaurants that I went with the BPD. Given the time that has helped heal the wounds and being with Chris, we had a good time. I was able to replace the memories with the borderline. Next, I'll take Jennie to these places as she'll love them.

Chris was married to a suspected borderline, and he actually first introduced me to the disorder. He's someone who knows my story, and he's a good person. We share a number of hobbies and see the world through similar glasses.

We hit the mountains of Killington hard and skied for the entire day, only breaking for lunch. The conditions were perfect, and the skiing was fast and furious. Later in the week, we drove home, ran some more, and went mountain biking as well.

What a great mini-vacation. I needed it, given the stresses and fast pace of work right now.

Self Realization
While I was away, I was able to think about the relationship that I was in with the Borderline and the needs that it filled in me. Given that borderlines lack any real identity, the relationship was initially what I needed it to be. I realized that there were weaknesses in me and my personality that needed work. The relationship with the borderline helped me expose these weaknesses and work on them.

I'm back from vacation and have lots of new material coming in the near future. From the definition of bpd to how to create rules to live by, I'll be providing more useful information that I hope you can use for dealing with your BPD relationship or recovering from your BPD relationship.

It's good to be back.

Depression and Depression Treatment for Someone Recovering from a Relationship Loss

So, you've just ended a relationship with someone. Reading through this, we could actually apply these principles to someone with Borderline Personality Disorder or someone who ends a normal relationship. The pain is incredible, and you're feeling quite depressed.

You're suffering from depression. Do you need treatment?

Maybe.

Depression After a Relationship Ends is Normal
After a relationship ends, it's normal to be depressed. After all, this person meant something special to you, and now they're gone. What do you do?  

Mourn. You have to mourn the loss. It's what you do -- it stinks, but it's normal, it's human, and you can get through it.


Mourning a relationship is just that, it's like having someone die on you.  In fact, these are the normal phases of grieving a death; they can be used for grieving the loss of a loved one as well:

• Shock is the first stage. At first, you may be numb.
• Next, you'll probably go into some type of Denial
• Next you'll feel guilt. This is normal. You wish that you had or hadn't done something with the person.
• The next phase is usually anger. This is necessary to get past the loss. 
• Depression may come and go and be different each time in length and/or intensity.
• Resignation means you finally believe the reality of the loss
• Acceptance and Hope come when you finally understand that you will never be the same, but you can go on to have meaning and purpose in your life.

 Depression should decrease over time. If it doesn't, you should see a psychologist for evaluation, and maybe a psychiatrist for depression treatment. Sometimes, just talking through the issues with a psychologist is enough depression treatment.



Getting Over The Relationship
A suicide survival website also discusses how to get over the loss. This actually applies to someone who lost a loved one with or without BPD, but given the disorder, it may actually be even more applicable to someone leaving a relationship with a borderline:

• Tell the story -- Isn't it true that you need to tell your story so you can 're-frame' it? You need to tell someone the entire story so you can make sense of it and understand what's normal and what's not. Some want to stuff this kind of grief and put it away, but clearly, that does not do any good long term
• Express the emotions that you need to express -- Again, you can't stuff your emotions. They will come out in unhealthy ways. Be sure to let go of the emotions. If it's real difficult, literally schedule time to mourn, and go into a room or somewhere private and mourn. Doing this over and over will help you get through the pain. 
• Make Meaning From The Loss -- Determine how you will change, what you will do to grow as a person. We all grow from the time we are born until we die. We continue to evolve, learn new things and change our behaviors, further refining ourselves. Will you join a church? Will you gain a spiritual side? Will you take up a new activity? Will you teach yourself to play an instrument? You need to show how you will grow from the loss, then demonstrate this growth.
• Transition from The Person to A New Relationship -- This is the toughest one. You have to become a new person that displaces some of the relationship energy. Jumping into a new relationship usually doesn't work, because you need to grow. So, you need to find outlets for some of the relationship energies. Go out with friends. Join a support or social group. You see where I'm going here.

Depression from the loss of a relationship, borderline or not, is normal. It can last months, but you should begin to feel better. Don't get me wrong, it may take you years to feel completely back to normal (depending on the length of the relationship), but within 90 days, you should be feeling better.

If you don't, you may want to see a psychologist or psychiatrist for depression treatment. Allow yourself to grieve and go through the steps of getting over the relationship. You can do it.

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