Passion

We can live life in a number of ways. We can live life conservatively where we never take chances, do what others tell us, and are not noticed by anyone.

We can live life dangerously, constantly taking chances, doing what we want and being noticed by most everyone.

We can live life somewhere in between. Taking calculated risks, doing what feels right for us according to our individual needs and desires, and exposing ourselves to those that we choose.

I live life in between. I take risks when necessary, usually calculated but not always. I do what feels right, not what anyone else tells me to do (at this point in my life, no one except God will tell me what to do). I will surround myself with people that I will call 'safe.'

Most of all, I'm living my life with passion. Everything I do will be with passion.

• My writing and words again have my passion.
• I parent my children with passion so I can be a role model for them
• I work with passion (which, by the way, is my writing and words)
• I express myself, like playing guitar, with passion.
  

Of course, my relationships also have passion. Whether it's a friendship where I just hang out with someone to a full-fledged romance, passion will flow through them in conversation or physical contact, depending on the situation.

You must live passionately if you want to get the most out of things. The law of attraction says that you get out of things what you put into them, so you will get passion if you give it.

I'll live every day with passion.

Content

I started seeing the counselor one year ago. Strangely, when I first went to counseling while being in the relationship with the BPD, it was to work with her on the issues that I saw from the beginning. Of course, we got there and the problems were all mine.

We first saw the counselor because she thought that I had Dissociative Identity Disorder -- multiple personalities! She said that I would morph into different "people" -- when we were laying together and I would talk, I would go into a person that was like my father. When playing games and doing something competitive, I would become someone who was ultra-focused and competitive. When dancing, I became a confident, top-of-world kind of guy that was someone else. There were many other personalities that she said that I had. Scared little boy, guy who would go around and bang women and the like.

I realized that she was playing a sick psychological game and wanted it fixed. If she said that I was dissociating, fine. Let's get me analyzed and see what the deal is.

Of course, I wasn't dissociating. I don't have multiple personalities. Just like I'm not an abuser.

The BPD and I first saw Valerie together -- she is an EMDR specialist and Karen felt that it would be good for me to go and have EMDR. She always thought that I had these terrible repressed memories that I couldn't remember from my childhood, and she thought that EMDR would help me.

I said fine. Looking back again, this wasn't me. It was her. But I played along, believing that a professional would sniff out the true situation and would help the BPD. I didn't understand that BPDs are masters at working with counselors so much that counselors usually dismiss them because the BPD will take the counselor around in circles and not address their issues.

In fact, the BPD told me that she went to another counselor who eventually told her that it was time to go. Clearly, she had issues when I met her, yet this counselor dismissed her? She must have also known that my ex had BPD.

One more thing -- I would never EVER "play along." I have neither the time nor the tolerance to play along and not be true to my convictions, and I wouldn't recommend that anyone else ever have this either. Being a "nice guy" gets you nowhere, as I've learned. I'm now a "good guy" but I'll never be a nice guy again...

When I started seeing the counselor by myself, we covered quite a few things. My childhood was focused on, and we did Imago mapping to see what childhood issues I had. We talked about my fear of being alone, particularly when Karen kicked me out the second time . In the sessions, we got to points where I wasn't needing counseling, and I wouldn't see her for a month or so, then we'd go back in. We'd always discuss the BPD a little bit, but then the focus would go back to me.

My exBPD also saw her, as she played the victim of this abuser (me:)) who lived with her and she couldn't get away from. Then I moved out. So she changed that to "I kicked you out." I reminded her multiple times that she told me "I don't want you to go" and I appreciated saying that, but my safety and the safety of my children was at stake. The BPD was devastated, as she told me.

When we were living apart, I started going to counseling regularly, usually because Karen had just broken up with me AGAIN. After we broke up for good, I started going even more regularly -- I wanted to make sure that I healed properly and made myself whole.

I'm not sure what happened, but I finally feel whole as of last night. The holes are gone.

It's all about awareness. I'm aware of the issues that I've had, I've lived through and I've processed all of them. They no longer subconsciously drive me. I no longer need to rescue, caregive and the like. In fact, when I meet someone that needs rescuing, I walk away.

I'm now drawn to people that don't need no stinking rescuing.

Awareness. I'm aware of the issues. I don't have to rescue and put my time into another in an attempt to deflect my inner pain. I have no inner pain. I'm content.

I'm content. What a feeling.

One year of counseling. I wanted to make sure I got here, and I've arrived. The childhood issues are put away. I emerge confident, sure of myself and the person that I always wanted to be.

I'm the man I always wanted to be. God, tears are in my eyes as I write this. I can't believe I can feel like this.

Looking at what happened in the past few years, my life was in turmoil long before the BPD. She was, as the counselor put it, "The Perfect Storm" that brought everything to a climax.

First, I was miserable in my marriage. Absolutely miserable. My ex wife wasn't the person that I should be with, but I persisted. Once I got out of the marriage, I was unsure what I should do. I met women that filled my time, but I had little tolerance for any bullshit. The first relationship that I was in after I separated, I wanted out after 2 weeks. The girl had issues and I had no time for that. I finally got out after about 7 months. There I was, being a nice guy again.

I had a couple of other relationships before I met the BPD, but they clearly weren't going to be the end-all either. I was going through the divorce and not emotionally ready for it. Then I met her.

Second, my career was all over the place. I had veered off of the writing path and had gone into Project Management, probably because that's what my father did. While I liked parts of project management, particularly working with others to make things happen, I didn't love it. It suited me okay, but I'm the kind of person that can do most everything.

I was offered the job heading the fishing company, but the company wasn't going anywhere and I was dealing with HUGE issues with the girlfriend. She drank too much, was too emotionally needy and too controlling (uh oh, sounds like a pattern here), and I wanted out. The Fisherman offered me the job in Delaware, and I jumped at it.

Delaware was such a wonderful experience for me. I proved to myself that I could be on my own and thrive, not survive, but thrive. I love that place and I cherish the memories that I have from there. Managing Editor of a fishing magazine, fishing regularly, going out when I wanted, learning to play guitar, speaking at fishing meetings and conventions...what else would a guy want?

The only problem is that my kids were 3 hours away from me. In the end, I couldn't live so far away from them. It was too hard for both of us. We're too close and I never wanted to be that kind of father. So I had to come back, and I began looking to get a job up north and find a girlfriend up north.

Then I met her. We started dating and the sparks were there, I filled her emotional holes, and she gave me what she thought I need. Things were wonderful. When I was planning to move, she asked me to move in when I moved north, 3 short months after our first date. I thought that it would work because I'd be over her place all the time anyway, so I said yes.

The first position I had when I was up here was okay. It was a Marketing Manager position, a job where I did quite a bit of writing and developed web marketing programs as well. I probably spent half my day dealing with Karen and her issues then recovering emotionally from dealing with her issues, and my work was mediocre. After one year, it was time to go, and I found a company where I could be a web marketing manager.

This is where the Perfect Storm kicked in. I was essentially learning new skills in web marketing, not devoting enough time to it, having a girlfriend that was so far up my ass that she took me to lunch every day, and then getting my kids on 2 nights a week and weekends. I was completely controlled by her fears, and I complied and tried to make them better. The job suffered, and I feel bad about that. That will never happen again. I feel bad about that.

I was a superstar when I was a web marketing manager at this company. They discovered that in addition to my web marketing and management skills, I was a great writer. They loved me and I loved the job and the people that I worked with. Unfortunately, the company was acquired and times were changing quickly. My boss left after I was there for 4 months, and most management had been fired or was on their way out. My co-workers ALL left as well. So I had to go after 6 months.

I actually was hired by an ex-patriot of that company who brought me into a Product Management position. At first, I had too much responsibility, and given everything with the BPD, I just couldn't do it. In time, they scaled back my responsibilities to heading the content development team.

I've realized that my passion remains in writing and that I express myself through this writing (think so? Look at how many posts I've written about this). I finally have realized that my passion falls in writing. I've always done it as Editor and all the fishing columns that I've held through the years, but I finally realized that this is my passion. This is what I will do in the future until my passions change. But this is my passion.

It's nice to feel like this finally. Do something that you love, become the person that you always wanted to be, be the father that you always wanted to be.

This is why I'm done with counseling. I've done the work, and I completed it. As a result, I can make the above statements. I do something that I'm passionate about, I've become the person that I've always wanted to be, and I'm the father that I always wanted to be. I'm content.

The only thing that is missing is being the husband that I always wanted to be. I've realized that this will happen in time, and I'm no longer rushing to find it. The law of attraction is in my favor, and as long as I continue to emanate my positive, uplifting energy, it will come back to me, tenfold.

So, I can now say, I'm content.

What a good feeling.

Perception

I have a piece of artwork that reads "I am a pilgrim on the edge of my perception. We are travelers on the edge, always at the edge of our perception."

I bought this piece of artwork a couple of months before I met her. What a telling piece of art, foreshadowing what I was about to live through. She hated -- I mean hated -- that piece of artwork. I found that piece of artwork (and the Believe sign that I got her) in the garbage, out in the garage, anywhere that she didn't have to see it. She thought that was me screwing with her and other females, trying to take advantage of them through changing their perception. Or something like that.

I just thought it was a neat concept and a neat piece of art.

The BPD knows that their perception of the world is different from everyone else's. They know it intimately, and they *try* to make you think that they see things similarly. They slip too many times, though, telling you things like, "I knew that I was into you because if I found that he (the old boyfriend who she has a restraining order against) was living with someone else and I wasn't with you, I would have freaked out."

Really? If I had to have a restraining order against someone because I feared for my *life,* and if the things I say about this person (they were a narcissist, they regularly lied and screwed with me, etc.) were true, I would pray that they were with someone else.

I think normally though. My perception of the world is not so self-centered that I cannot understand the dynamics of a normal, healthy, functional relationship. I understand how things are supposed to work. I may not have had much normalcy, but I'm working on it :).

The BPD only can focus on themselves. After they have split and made their partner the evil one, they are still so controlling that they cannot wish their partner well, as a normal relationship does. They will attempt to destroy the partner, as that person is the reason for their misery. They try to project their misery, their emptiness onto the partner, then destroy them at all costs.

I have heard stories of BPDs, years after a relationship has terminated, accusing their partner of stalking them when they were hundreds of miles away. Many BPDs will file false police reports and ultimately get themselves into trouble.

They need the drama and will do whatever to make drama. She accused me of tampering with her computer network at one point, illegally checking her email, and other things that I can't even remember. One was send her a text message at 3:12 in an attempt to screw with her as her daughter gets off the bus at 3:20 (this was the best one ever - I'd call her at 3 every day because we'd talk at lunch - somehow, 3:00 became the regular time I called. That was, in some way, an attempt to screw with her -- true BPD paranoia). This is months after we had spoken for the last time, and was all done via email and text message.

I wonder what my motivation would be. Just to screw with her? To find out information that I would make me sad?

The BPDs perception is all about them. They do not think how these actions which they accuse the partner would impact the partner if they actually did them. In the end, such senseless accusations are yet another attempt to get attention, primarily from her family, but from anyone else who will provide it.

The thing that makes me the most sad is that while she was thinking all these bad things, I was living life on Cloud 9, thinking that I was truly in love and that life was great. Meanwhile, every day, she was splitting and making me into some evil person that was out to get her, screw with her, cheat on her, and the like. When she talked about her old boyfriend, she never said anything good about him. He was just there to lie to her, screw with her and take advantage of her. Now I'm the same person, and I tried so hard to make every day special, keep things on an even keel.

Unfortunately, the Nons live a life that's an illusion. The BPD is good at making the Non's life blissful until they give the Non their misery in slow doses. We think that this was the life we always wanted (I said that many times), but the BPD has an entirely different perception going on in their head. Looking back, she gave it to me from the beginning, but I was so confident that I would just excuse it.

As a Non, we settle in because we think life is just wonderful, but then things begin to change on a daily basis. At first, the good outweighs the bad, then slowly, the scales tip back. Now we're completely enmeshed and unable to break the chains easily.

Looking back, it was a learning experience. I know what I will -- and will not -- accept out of life. I know that relationships take time to develop and are built on trust -- without it, no (and I mean NO) relationship exists. I will not fall into the traps that I fell into again, I will have healthy boundaries with my partner, and I will not tolerate large levels of dysfunction that negatively impact my children or career. There are other important things in life, like Me.

When looking for a partner, make sure that you have similar perceptions. I know that Men are From Mars and Women are from Venus, but you need to view the world the same way and understand similar experiences. It takes time to develop this understanding of another person; I gave this understanding blindly and assumed that we saw things similarly. Wrong.

Our perception is everything.

Health

It's nice to feel like I have my mind back. She no longer haunts me. I don't think about her all the time anymore either. I used to spend my time thinking, sometimes saying aloud, "you don't know me," and the statements that I used to say to her every day.

The BPD's reality is a different reality from the normally functioning person. They think differently, all emotion and very little logic. Their logic is based on emotion. The problem is that a partner of a BPD is given this to deal with on a daily basis, and this illogical, emotion-based logic where emotions become facts becomes the non's reality.

Over time, this can do some serious damage to the non. I feel like for the most part, I fought a good fight. I should have NEVER admitted things of myself that I did not believe in an effort to compromise. I thought that it was the right thing to do at the time, but I was not true to myself in an effort to keep stability in the relationship. Big problem, I now realize.

I have my normal emotions, feelings and attitude toward life back. I no longer possess the BPDs baggage, fears and emotions, like she so adeptly gave to me. My reality is back, and it's real nice to have it back.

Life's back on track. The interesting thing is that I have no idea where things are taking me. That's okay. I no longer fear the things that I did six or four months ago. I don't really think that I fear much at all now. The holes that I needed to fill are filled, and ones that I thought needed to be filled are no longer holes. They went away.

Particularly the hole with regards to sex.

When you're with a BPD, your sexual needs are met, and then some. Suddenly, your sexual needs change so that they're more than they've ever been because of the BPDs use of sex. They use it to hook you in and keep you hooked. You fear leaving the BPD and never having sex like that again.

With time, you learn that the sex while frequent and without boundaries, isn't that good where it can't be replaced. After all, these people do have few boundaries, but they're human. I've written this before, but there are sections in bookstores that are devoted to sex, and you can't tell me that only BPDs and their partners are reading these books and having good sex. There are adult stores, and I don't think that only BPDs and their partners (which would be 4 percent of the population) are patronizing these stores.

I've also realized that the constant battle, then make love, is also quite dysfunctional. There needs to be time to heal the wound and reconnect in a healthy way. You cannot have such extremes in a relationship.

I now believe that the sex with a healthy person can (and will;-) be so much better than sex with a BPD. While there will be healthy, flexible boundaries, I've always believed that two loving, caring partners will connect and go to a higher emotional and spiritual level. This level cannot be attained with a BPD, or if you can attain it with a BPD, it's only temporary. Healthy relationships maintain this level and actually build on this level, going to new levels as the relationship develops.

It takes time. Healthy partners, however, will appreciate this level and want to reconnect regularly so they can get back to this level.

When in a dysfunctional relationship, the sex may have been good, possibly better than any other relationship. Having good sex is a prerequisite to any good relationship. You cannot accept mediocrity, even in the sexual area.

My emotional well-being is on an even keel again. Nice to feel like I'm driving my own ship, I'm in charge, and things are back to stable. Life is good.

Angel

I've got an angel
She doesn't wear any wings
She wears a heart that could melt my own
She wears a smile that could make me want to sing

She gives me presents
With her presence alone
She gives me everything I could wish for
She gives me kisses on the lips just for coming home

She can make angels
I've seen it with my own eyes
You've got to be careful when you've got good love
Cause them angels will just keep on multiplying

You're so busy changing the world
Just one smile and you could change all of mine
We share the same soul

--Jack Johnson