Eric's Reflects on His Experience 15 months after leaving the borderline in his life - in response to "Lonely Me"

I, too, am no longer involved for fifteen-plus months from the BPD subject with whom I'd had an on-again, off-again relationship for over five years. And a not insignificant part of my determination finally and conclusively to end that relationship was the stories and reports, and the comments upon them, as I read on this site after my BPD hooked me up to it. In her way that was the most straight-forward statement she could make to me about what actually were her problems.

And the overall futility of endlessly re-fighting the same battles -- often in a matter of days, hours, or even minutes -- left me sufficiently drained that my appreciation of BPD led me to conclude that, because we can only control ourselves and not the other person, the long-term prognosis for most BPD's is in all but a few cases hopeless: these people rampage through their own lives and the lives of those around them exactly as described in this web-site: a whirlwind, a maelstrom. That is, a storm of wild and unpredictable fury.

I do not believe that BPD's can control their condition any more than can a person who is seriously psychotic or schizophrenic. Sure, with medication and therapy, the afflicted can have prompt intermediation and attention when their mood or functioning is in a down-swing, but they can no more control the episodic occurrences of BPD any more than a genuinely psychotic person can stop themself from having a particularly bad episode. Sure, establishing a routine, removing stressors and triggers from the subject's environment, and other efforts to establish stability, reliability, and predictability can have a mitigating and normalizing effect, however, even taking pains to establish those measures and others, even with the greatest understanding, saintly patience, and endless forgiveness, the BPD will not -- in my humble opinion -- necessarily be aware of or effected by these measures.

To the contrary, the BPD will lash out to the extent of denying my patience and understanding when I feel Job-like for the suffering and abuse I have endured based upon the slim hope that sooner or later the BPD will calm down, come to her senses, relax, realize that I am not the enemy, recognize that I am on her side. And yet, for all my tolerance and consistency, the BPD doesn't seem ever to calm down.

It's not that the wild irrational paranoid ideation is the exception to the rule: to the contrary, it has as much space and "air time" in the BPD's day-to-day life as those sporadic and intermittent moments when she's back amongst the rational. For years, I have paraphrased the old adage which Doug recited as "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think rationally." We do not and cannot control the BPD's thoughts and feelings. In fact, we may not even have a hell of a lot of influence upon them. Regrettably, the very nature of BPD -- the paranoid ideation, the instability of self-image and mood, the constant eruption of intense anger, and the wilfull non-cooperation borne of that paranoia and anger -- is such that that person, by definition, is going to mistrust us, misunderstand our intentions, respond inappropriately, strike out in irrational antagonism in self-defense against non-existent threats, and otherwise respond the the unique and idiosyncratic nature of her experience of the world through the filter that is BPD.

For me, the BPD's likelihood of appreciating who I am and my dedication and devotion to her is like in the Joni Mitchel song -- "don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone" [Big Yellow Taxi] -- that is, it ain't gonna happen while I'm around. After I'm gone, maybe then she'll look back and have a clearer recollection, but as long as I remain a part of the BPD's life I am subject to the demands and abuses of their disorder and, to some extent, become the facilitator for those episodes of acting out and misbehavior.

After all, by continuing in the relationship, I am the one who must, repeatedly, consistently, and no matter what the provocaction, forgive and forget. It is the BPD who can be relied upon never to forgive, never to forget, so that days, weeks, or months after some insignificant conflict, it reappears as some gnome-like creature you can't ever kill. And so there's the familiar repetition of arguments almost scripted for their predictability. Hmmm, did we discuss this before, or am I merely having deja vu all over again?

Again, as Doug noted, doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result: that defies the laws of science, be they physics, biology, or any other discipline. Sure, there may be variations in a specific outcome based upon mere statistical chance, but at some point it becomes clear that flipping a coin is going to be heads fifty percent of the time and tails the other.

One of the most frightening things of this web-site was the extent to which people reported (as was my case) years of involvement with their BPD subject. Yes, the good times were really terrific and the BPD was MORE interesting, MORE exciting, MORE fun than anyone I'd ever met. But then the intermittent, episodic, repeated problems developed with ever-increasing frequency and intensity. And struggling to appreciate someone whose basic constitution includes a hefty element of irrationality -- those quasi-psychotic dissociative episodes where the BPD experiences the full brunt of the condition's paranoia and instability -- wound up taking a long time.

As I say, it wasn't until after my BPD had hooked me up to A.J.'s web-site that I began to appreciate the depth and significance of BPD as comparable to genuine psychosis or schizophrenia. And living with someone subject to those conditions may require an enormous and never-ending devotion, a devotion and discipline I could not imagine myself maintaing day in, day out, year after year with so little hope of ever getting things under control.

Regrettably, for reasons that may never be determined, some people in this world are destined to suffer needlessly, whether it's a result of brain chemistry, environment (a BPD's history of being abused), learned helplessness, or whatever combination of those things (an organic predisposition which is enhanced by some behavioral events and outcomes that, had they been different, might not have had the effects they had). I feel badly when I see an animal suffering (or at least some cute furry thing like a dog or a cat, and, certainly, animals trapped for their furs), but I may be powerless to do anything about it. I may not buy fur, but I cannot rid the world of pet owners who are inattentive or abusive to their pets. To the contrary, given the sheltered shut-in nature of the people who act inappropriately with animals, it is unlikely I can know who they are. So, too, I am powerless really to effect the BPD. I can do my thing and it might be understood as friendly or it might be seen as hostile, provocative, abusive, or otherwise antagonistic and serve as cause, grounds, or jusitification for the BPD's (in her view) responsive hostility, provocation, abuse, or antagonism.

That idiot vice president to the first Bush presidency bungled the NAACP's motto as "It's a terrible waste to lose one's mind" but, excusing the misstatement and in the context of BPD's and those many others who suffer from psychological conditions that spearate them from regular, normal, reasonably healthy people, it's an apt statement. It's a terrible waste. The BPD goes through life with incredible promise, energy, and spirit, and, at the same time, suffers failure, frustration, distrust and misunderstanding, rejection, uncertainty. This really is a tragedy, as in Shakespeare, where the fates, the gods, the forces of nature conspire to make human lives miserable, all for no purpose, no advantage, no benefit.

Good luck.

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