Hi All,
Due to a massive Nor' Easter where I live this week's podcast is a throwback to October 2020. Unfortunately, this podcast remains relevant in my life today. It is a testament to our interpersonal relations with a Cluster B. At the time I believed my wife to be borderline. Now I have come to know her as a covert narcissist. Either way, the abuse and neglect remain the same. I hope you get something out of this throwback to 2020. I am confident a new episode will be uploaded at the same time next week.
Thanks for your continued listenership and support of My Inner Torch.
Hi All,
Due to a massive Nor' Easter where I live this week's podcast is a throwback to October 2020. Unfortunately, this podcast remains relevant in my life today. It is a testament to our interpersonal relations with a Cluster B. At the time I believed my wife to be borderline. Now I have come to know her as a covert narcissist. Either way, the abuse and neglect remain the same. I hope you get something out of this throwback to 2020. I am confident a new episode will be uploaded at the same time next week.
Thanks for your continued listenership and support of My Inner Torch.
In previous podcasts, I've talked about emotional sandcastles and weather vanes. When in a relationship with a borderline, you'll experience both, and both of these terms encapsulate the firestorm of varying moods and emotions you will deal with every day as you navigate the choppy waters of inexplicable rages, devaluation, and general emotional and or verbal abuse at the hands of someone you love who has BPD. There's also another term or comparison I like to use with this tricky game we play and that is the old favorite, chutes and ladders. Welcome to podcast 6 of my inner torch. Now I'm going to start with the disclaimer again for those of you who have been diagnosed or non diagnosed with BPD. I would recommend that you do not continue with this podcast or any of my previous podcasts because they will serve as triggers. This is a safe place for those of us who love somebody with BPD and are still trying to figure them out, and I would have to say that, good luck to all of us, including myself, because I'm 19 plus years into my relationship slash marriage with my wife who is UPPD, undiagnosed borderline personality disorder.
In dealing with the borderline, in my case, as I said, my wife of over 18 years, it sometimes feels to me like a game of chutes and ladders. And in saying that, I mean, like the game, you spin the wheel and wind your way up the board and sometimes you get a ladder, like when your borderline is feeling good on a rare and usually short lived emotional high. And, you know, you feed off of this positive energy, drafting off of their normal behavior. But when you spin the wheel, like an emotional trigger, you land on a chute and tumble down the emotional game board. Unfortunately, this is something we must face the harsh reality of. That unlike the children's game of chutes and ladders, our emotional game with the borderline is one we most likely will never win at. Our chutes and ladders has triggers that will prevent us from making that final game winning spin.
Recently I watched a video by a psychotherapist the other day, and the biggest takeaway I got was when he said, and I quote, nothing you ever do for the borderline will be enough. And I'm gonna repeat that again. Nothing we ever do for the borderline Will be enough that statement rang very true to me. Do you ever notice that happiness for the borderline is a fleeting emotion? Do you ever feel like no matter what you do for your borderline, it's never enough? There's no acknowledgment. No positive reinforcement.
And so I asked the question, and perhaps I don't know the answer, sometimes I think I do, Why do borderlines do this? Do they push us? Why do they push us to eventually do what they fear most and that's abandon them and the relationship? Or are they testing us? And if so, why do these tests involve emotional and verbal abuse? I can't tell you how many times I go online to a lot of these bulletin boards and these forums of people who are trying to understand and deal with somebody with BPD, and I just read their postings, and I just sit there going, why why are you staying in the relationship? And yet I can step back, look inward to myself, and say, why am I staying in my marriage?
Why am I trying to make things work? What is wrong with me? Am I a caretaker?
Am I codependent? Am I a combination of both? You know, am I the constructive partner trying to show the borderline that the world is really not the bad place that they think it is? But what I've come to realize over the last 19, almost 20 years, is that you can't change the filter. You can't change the lens in which they see the world. And so it comes back down to the question of why do we stay in the relationship? Again, as I've said in previous podcasts, I know that if I were on the outside looking in, which I am when I go on these these bulletin boards and these forums.
I am on the outside looking in. I am a voyeur. And even though I understand a lot about borderline personality disorder, I still am aghast at what I read at how people with borderline personality disorder treat us with reckless abandon and why we sit there and say, but I love them. Why is why do we hang out with people who, you know, are, for lack of a better term, emotionally and verbally abusive to us and can be, in some instances, physically abusive. And I've always wondered about that. I've always wondered why people stay with alcoholics, with drug addicts, with people who cause them harm. And maybe for us, we can't see beyond, you know, we we can't see what normality would look like.
But I have to tell you, after almost 20 years, I am beginning to see what normal looks like. I am looking at couples as they walk by me on the street holding hands, maybe sharing a moment together. And I think, are they normal? Does one of them have BPD? And if so, are they struggling like I am in my relationship? You know, I have to be honest with myself, and I'll be honest with you.
I don't know. I can't even imagine what a normal relationship would be like. I have friends of mine who post on Facebook when their anniversaries come and, you know, they post wonderful things about their spouses. And my spouse has never done that. I've been devalued. I've never been really appreciated for who I am. You know?
And I look at that and say, wow. Wouldn't that be really nice if if my wife did that? And, of course, I don't think she ever would. Because in a BPD person's life, I don't know, they they maybe don't want you to be feel too comfortable. At the beginning, they do. At the beginning, they idolize you. There's idolization, idealization.
But then what is white becomes black, and it vacillates back and forth. And I have to say that I've been more in the black than I've been in the white, so to speak, in in my wife's eyes. So is it a symbiotic relationship? I will pose this question to you, that the borderline needs us, and in some weird way, perhaps some dysregulated way, we need them. Think about it. Because in reality, if somebody is emotionally, verbally, or physically abusing us, why would we, in our right minds, stay in the relationship? So think about that.
If you're involved with somebody with BPD or you know somebody who is, why do they stay or why do you stay in the relationship? What compels you? I know for me, I originally wanted to show my wife that the world was not such a bad place, that people are good intrinsically. But for some reason, I think it's evolved to now I am codependent in the sense that it's the relationship I know. It's the devil I know. But there is a part of me that says, what would a normal relationship be like? What would that feel like?
And you know what's interesting, and I will share this with you, is that when I was in a normal relationship before I met my wife, that relationship did not appeal to me. Somebody caring about me. Somebody somebody being normal, I guess. And so sometimes we have to take a step back and say, okay. We're dealing with somebody with borderline personality disorder. What we do for them will never be enough. But what does it say about us? And that's why there are a lot of people out there that say, you know, you have to take a step back, you have to self reflect, and you have to also build up your own self value to get to a point where you're not being gaslit by the BPD personality, where you're not believing what they're saying to you.
And you can step out of your own reality and say, you know what? Or their reality. Step out of their reality and say, you know what? I am a good person. I have value, and I'm not going to allow myself to be branded or gaslit by that person. I'm not gonna buy into their sense of reality, which is probably 3 sheets to the wind. I'm gonna believe in myself. And I think that's one of the reasons I started this podcast because I am beginning to believe in myself again.
I'm beginning to build my own emotional sand castle that won't be washed away with the tide of rage. And perhaps, maybe I will be on a ladder rather than on a shoot and be able to stay on an even footing as we continue the game. Because that's really what it is. The emotional game of chutes and ladders with somebody with BPD. I appreciate everybody continuing to tune in and download. Please spread this amongst your friends if they need a hand, if they need perhaps some illumination, a light, a torch. Myinnertorch@gmail.com. Please feel free to reach out to me and share your experience with your relationship.
It's always good to hear about how other people are faring. Myinnertorch@gmail.com. And until next time, be well, and in whatever you do, be good.