All the King’s Horses

Its been a while. It’s been the kind of a while that stirs up a “get stuff off your chest” post…It’s been a maelstrom of meditations, medical problems, friendship fallout, and catching myself in symptomatic behavior. To be honest I’m still being carried by the swirl. I know I’ve written about this before, my difficulty with relationships and BPD, but things have come to such a screaming apex that I thought it might be time I wrote out just how it feels being this socially inept.

Firstly, my long suffering relationship with DG has come to an end. He’s no longer in my life. He moved on, found new friends, and is happy as a clam from what I gather. Its rubbed in my face to be honest. It’s a cycle that’s become overly familiar over the years, simply because there is a clear cut pattern that replays with every relationship. There are a few obvious phases that sometimes overlap and sometimes come alone and fierce.

Anna Karenina

This is the phase of pure paranoia. Things will be going along swimmingly until we spy a tiny, probably meaningless and unintentional hint and spend hours trying to decipher the meaning. We weave these thoughts into an ever increasing web of certainties that may or may not have any basis in reality. Consequently, by acting insecure and suspicious, we push away the very people we fear losing.  Like Anna Karenina,  the smallest signs of being abandoned take hold with a ferocity painting only visions of endings that no reassurances can overcome. While those feelings led her to suicidal resignation, I’m trying to reason my way out of mine.

Humpty Dumpty
The big one with BPD that I can tell you is happening for me right now is the cycle of putting someone on a pedestal (idealization) and then just as quickly, after whatever trigger occurs, feeling nothing for them or even worse, feeling anger toward them (devaluation). I can tell you that I had no idea I was doing this until the pedestal broke, but looking back, this person’s word was gospel to me, every opinion the totality of truth. Now that the break has occurred, all I can see are the fractures left over from the fall.  People are angels or devils with no in between. It’s a hard way to see the world and it’s never made an appearance so strongly with me as it is now after DG. Even Though I recognize what’s happening as symptomatic, I can’t stop the feelings from overwhelming me.

I’m no longer fairest in the land, it’s Snow White.

Here comes the anger and the jealousy. The view is extremely selfish… everyone wants to be favored; to think they’re the closest, the most important…but when the illusion is broken, it’s a long way down to the concrete. This comes into play when you are no longer the center of attention like you once were. It comes with the inevitable pulling away that comes with every friendship whether it be the arrival of a significant other, new friend, new co-workers, whatever the new and exciting thing may be. We feel replaced, no longer good enough (that is if we don’t have the solid self esteem to show us otherwise – which we usually don’t). So, my friend found a new friend. Most people deal with this in a healthy way hanging out with other people who want their company. Focusing so much the one perfect person, however, made that impossible. In the all or nothing thinking, there is now nobody left. I felt devalued and it set of the chain reaction of devaluation and landed me in my angry little hole. Being pushed off to second place (or lower) is something I’m keenly aware of.

Fear and Loathing and the Devil Ether

This all leads me to the fact that while I know all of this, and can recognize the symptoms, just like the devil Ether, “you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way but you can’t control it.” The feelings are so overwhelming. You can reason with it. You can try to think your way out of it, present it with alternative scenarios, shame it, cry and hope it goes away, but in the end, the emotions have their day. You find yourself thinking terrible things and plotting until you snap yourself back to reality.

It isn’t easy. No one can Live up tho the picture I painted, no matter how loving or kind. No one can live up to the best friend myth that I keep looking for either.

The problem is I’m still, well,  I’m mad. Angry. While that’s an honest feeling, it also ranks me in the “unhealthy relationship” category and pushes me even further down the scale of people likely benefit from friendship. I’m still behaving in this terrible way by feeling betrayed and reacting to what was to me, a very real event. So, it’s kind of like shooting yourself in the foot accidentally. It seems I might have to get used to the idea of of being fully on my own and learning to like it.