the romanticized drama of the end game
UPDATE 2: i copy/pasted my related ranting from here (okcupid) to down below so that readers can have the full force of my rant all on one page...
i had one of those depressing realizations, laying here not sleeping, where another facet of the borderliner girls came into focus... oh, great. more clarity on painful topics. lovely.
part of borderline personality disorder is the act of bringing on the end of a relationship. it's called the self fulfilling prophecy. what creates the prophecy?
fear.
fear of rejection, betrayal or envelopment. sometimes all three. and maybe more than just sometimes. but there's another thing there. it's a need.
i look back and i can see the end game in each of them. what i hadn't realized before this morning, nor read about in my research, is that some borderliners actually feed on the drama of a doomed relationship. no, it isn't just a case of fear. there needs to be another shot of energy. another hit of adrenaline to the borderliner's system, because they've already gotten over the "new relationship energy" as people call the excitement of the a new companion or lover. they've already gotten through the drama of the first sexual experience together. the premature declaration of love. the agony over whether or not the borderliner is loved back as they need and expect to be. yes, there is a lull and it must be filled with something substantial.
setting up the dramatic end is the bookend to the original build up of expectations and agonizing over "does this guy like me?" that thrill of first contact is bookended by the thrill of the death of the romance, or the replacement of their infatuation (thought to be love) with hate (justified by something the lover did or does).
after the newness wears off, borderliners spend a lot of time questioning whether it's "real or not" and agonizing over "how is this fated to go terribly wrong?" it's called "waiting for the other shoe to drop," a phrase i never understood until it was used in the context of borderline personality disorder. after i had gone through it a few times. maybe even started to feel those dreaded "waiting for" agonies myself.
at this point, a borderliner becomes easily let down by their current lover or agitated by things they told their current lover were non-issues, way back during the initial orientation period of "i like this and i don't like that." suddenly "this and that" change. more distressing is the reality distortion. "it was always that way, you just didn't understand" or "i thought you would change" etc.
they start reverting to old behaviors previously "outgrown." they give up on projects and resolutions established to lure you in. they start comparing you to "the last guy" ... except this time, the tale of "the last guy" isn't fierce anger. this time, they aren't building you up as "the better catch." this comparison is the "romantic regret" comparison.
sometimes (at least twice in my own experiences) borderliners even attempt to, or actually do contact the previous lover or companion. they want to hear that all is forgiven. they now wistfully accept their own "contributions" to the failure of that relationship. the borderliner needs to see if they have been absolved of the damage they did, somehow no longer feeling quite as justified in their anger and hate as before. to maintain consistency with how you used to be an example of "how much they've grown since the last guy," they will describe this romantic regret as "wisdom and growth."
it's not.
it's just another one of the steps on the infinite stairwell of their cyclic behavior.
"he was polite, but he made it clear we were never going to be friends," she said to me.
i wondered why she had even tried to contact him. it worried me. i wasn't sure why, but i knew it wasn't fear of her going back to him. i sensed something more complicated. even though i thought she was bipolar at the end, i ended up seeing things a lot more clearly later on. bipolar would almost be a comfort because bpd is a complex system of setup, opportunism and rejection and demoralization. bipolar, in comparison, is almost comparable to a mood swing, and they can recover from it without swapping lovers out. borderliners make a complex and specific process out of each and every step of the cycle.
and they have to take that next step because they need the next shot of adrenaline and the next rush of "feeling." without it, they feel that something is missing or wrong because the high has gone and they have never achieved stability before and don't comprehend the concept nor know what it might feel like. all they can do is compare "now" to "before" and see the disparity between the stable "now" and the exciting "before."
"... but jace, you just don't seem to... you know."
no i don't know! you haven't told me!
apparently i just didn't seem to... you know.
"be the right one?"
"act like you love me?"
"behave as i expect you to?"
yep, that's the one. it isn't what she would have said, but it's what she was actually doing. she was turning the stability into a letdown. a letdown that sets up the beginning of the end.
when the old lover (or lovers) start getting a kinder and gentler appearance in the way they are painted, or when they reach out to them looking to possess some "friendship" as a prize to prove the damage they did wasn't so bad after all... when they start sounding wistful and melancholic and your very existence is no longer filling them with "love," "life" and "brilliant color" ... know that they are romanticizing the end of your relationship.
what's the connection between romanticizing the end and a kinder image of the previous guy? i'm not sure. maybe some the part of the borderline personality feels oncoming guilt for where they're headed. they can't put it where it belongs because that would mean that they are responsible for that oncoming doom. it is far more preferable to make the other party be the enemy than for the borderliner to be the seen as an impatient, intolerant, unloving bad guy, kicking away this latest lover for no real or rational reason. they have to find somewhere to go with this feeling... why not become all wistful and melancholic about the previous guy and soften the guilt by "exchanging it" for an older, safer event that is already in the past? re-association. re-assignment.
sounds plausible. i think there's still a piece of this part of the cycle i'm not getting. it doesn't fit quite right firmly. maybe instead of re-assigning the emotions, it is part of demonizing the current companion by making him seem worse than the others. i'm not sure. it might be a variation from one borderliner to the next.
still... this romanticizing of the end is definitely going on. some borderliners drag it out, with a mixture of intolerance for the current companion and self-loathing. some choose total hard-core hate and intolerance for the current "looser boyfriend" or "the asshole controlling/manipulating/holding back my life." sometimes they oscillate between the two.
but they are building up energy. driving up the emotions, piling on the anxiety so they can have that orgasm of the final moment. the grand "this is over!" the angry ones will just make you out to be worse than everyone else. the passive-aggressive ones will literally drive you mad enough to make the break yourself. either way, it's your fault, not theirs.
at best, you may get the "i still want us to be friends" bullshit. and the "it just wasn't meant to be" tripe. notice the romanticized fate breaking you apart... it wasn't her fault, really... and even though she said some unkind things, and/or pushed you into saying unkind things... it's "just the best thing for everyone" that it went down this way. oh yeah, sure. it had nothing at all to do with the complex set of expectations and demands that you propped up in your head, only informed me of about half of those expectations, or simply changed them after the fact, and then acted like i let you down or betrayed you. right.
at worst, you become the evil bastard they will vilify before the ears of every person who crosses their path from that point on, until... well, until they need to displace you from the throne of "worst guy ever" so that someone else can sit there.
how do you know which one you're going to get? look at the inbetweener. she probably told you about him. was he a quick mistake and a dismissed jerk or was he some poor misunderstanding that they tell you "i think i hurt him..." with the sympathy a non-pet owner gives to a co-worker's dead cat or dog?
"aw, poor thing. too bad about that. oh well, you know they just don't live as long as we do. you know eventually you have to let go and just get another one."
like with sex, the "cool off period" between orgasm, or shots of the drug of drama, vary between individuals. some will go cold and declare "never again!" (or use the near term equivalent "it'll be a long time before i ever love again, that's for sure!"). these are the lazy ones. others will head for a different destination to get the drug from a different source. this type of borderliner is the thrill seeker. the runaway. brilliant schemes and grand plans. time to travel. time to do "all those things he held me back from doing."
either way, the borderliner will find a way to still fulfill their short term needs. there's the thrill seeking, the drama, the casual sex and the poor, wretched inbetweener.
hmm... thinking about it, maybe the inbetweener is just a less important, convenience lover that gets caught up in a smaller, shorter round of the borderline game. i don't know.
like i said... "just call me Treg."
and, lest you think i'm a horrible awful man for all these declarations and bitter "judgments..."
i, unlike those who put me through their meat processor, possess empathy for their shitty situation. really, how long will they continue this mad cycle and how many times will they chew through lover after lover? it's not that they consciously WANT to harm or hurt. it's not that they consciously seek out the downs and the fears and the anxieties. their experiences have wired them up for hurrying things along. defense mechanism. their experiences have wired them up with addiction to that thrill and the rush of one drama or the other. the worst are the ones who have been brought to this point by physical and/or sexual abuse.
i know these things, too. i comprehend them. they interfere with my bitterness and keep me from being hateful. not that i haven't sent a set of hate mails in response to being toyed around and ground up... i admit it. but i know what's really going on and i know why. worst of all (for me) is that i still love them. i love who they claimed to be. i don't know if that claim is a real person or not, but it's the only thing i have that's any good, so i hold on to it. bitterly and ... sigh ... wistfully.
actually, there IS a scenario in which their behavior is intentional and conscious: a borderliner can progress only so far before they are aware of their own steps and procedures and either chooses to get help and change... or decide that they have finally found clarity and control by simply using all the experiences they've had as a map for how to manipulate people. not just lovers. friends. co-workers. employees.
this is when the borderline personality has gone from solid borderline stimulus-response to Sociopathy. willful anti-social behavior for personal satisfaction or personal gain. no longer motivated by fear (except the ego and fear of being called out for what they are), they are motivated by lust, greed, the need for accomplishment... whatever.
these are the people i have no empathy for. once someone starts to willingly manipulate another person, for personal gain, they no longer deserve humane treatment because they are actively behaving in an inhumane and socially destructive manner. a wound deserves treatment and care, but a knife requires a sheath.
or better yet,
something to dull its cutting edge.
But... then we're no longer discussing borderline personality disorder. so thus ends this particular rant.
Here's the related rant from my journal at OKC:
The Sudden Departure
i've noted that this is the exact type who broke me a few years back. i noted just today that they changed the wording a little. It used to say something along the lines of "no doubt, there's somewhat of a trail of wreckage behind you..." That was part of what made the type's description so dead on. Why the change?
i call her elise. Through her, i call myself "Treg." Yes, another piece of wreckage behind her, preceding myself. Where there are two, there are likely to be more. A trail of it. i'm sure it didn't stop with me.
To all of you sudden departures and elise's out there: your problem is most likely your fear of envelopment and rejection. Basically, you "get scared" (to quote elise) and back out just when things are moving along nicely... but you've had some time to think... or you're waiting to actually make contact. Yeah, that's when the fear and anxiety seeps in. TIME. Too much time without disaster... WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?? That's when the borderline personality disorder takes over. The lust. The runaway. The jealousy. Whatever. That's when you toss away a perfectly decent lover/potential lover, toss him a half-cooked story of fate and misunderstanding and other such BS that comes from you wanting not to feel like you're what you are: "the bad guy."
Here's a tip: evolve. Get help. Try some sincere apologies, too. If you try to spend the entirety of your life with this behavior, you will end up miserable. More miserable than you are right now in the core of your being (that little place, compacted and pushed down and hidden where you store all your hurt... the little gem of hate and brutality you bring out in order to drive your current no-longer-interesting companion into becoming "the bad guy" so you don't have to be). You will end up miserable alone or miserable in a sudden attempt to escape the fate you fear the most: being alone.
"i'm lonely!" she complained to me.
Maybe if you admitted to it, and spent some time being personally responsible for your actions... and maybe if you actually spent some time really, actually ALONE, you would get a little further along than "leaving soon." And really, with the casual sex, the friendsex, the one night stands, the lovers, the boyfriends, the "not-boyfriends," "not lovers" and all other spectra of labels... you really haven't BEEN ALONE. Not really. Not long enough for it to count. That's why you can't wait longer than a few months to see someone. You need your fix NOW.
Get off the merri-go-round. It's not merry at all for your wreckage, and i suspect that core part of you is just as sick of it as you claimed you were, for a few months, when you were lucid, self aware and trying...
i had one of those depressing realizations, laying here not sleeping, where another facet of the borderliner girls came into focus... oh, great. more clarity on painful topics. lovely.
part of borderline personality disorder is the act of bringing on the end of a relationship. it's called the self fulfilling prophecy. what creates the prophecy?
fear.
fear of rejection, betrayal or envelopment. sometimes all three. and maybe more than just sometimes. but there's another thing there. it's a need.
i look back and i can see the end game in each of them. what i hadn't realized before this morning, nor read about in my research, is that some borderliners actually feed on the drama of a doomed relationship. no, it isn't just a case of fear. there needs to be another shot of energy. another hit of adrenaline to the borderliner's system, because they've already gotten over the "new relationship energy" as people call the excitement of the a new companion or lover. they've already gotten through the drama of the first sexual experience together. the premature declaration of love. the agony over whether or not the borderliner is loved back as they need and expect to be. yes, there is a lull and it must be filled with something substantial.
setting up the dramatic end is the bookend to the original build up of expectations and agonizing over "does this guy like me?" that thrill of first contact is bookended by the thrill of the death of the romance, or the replacement of their infatuation (thought to be love) with hate (justified by something the lover did or does).
after the newness wears off, borderliners spend a lot of time questioning whether it's "real or not" and agonizing over "how is this fated to go terribly wrong?" it's called "waiting for the other shoe to drop," a phrase i never understood until it was used in the context of borderline personality disorder. after i had gone through it a few times. maybe even started to feel those dreaded "waiting for" agonies myself.
at this point, a borderliner becomes easily let down by their current lover or agitated by things they told their current lover were non-issues, way back during the initial orientation period of "i like this and i don't like that." suddenly "this and that" change. more distressing is the reality distortion. "it was always that way, you just didn't understand" or "i thought you would change" etc.
they start reverting to old behaviors previously "outgrown." they give up on projects and resolutions established to lure you in. they start comparing you to "the last guy" ... except this time, the tale of "the last guy" isn't fierce anger. this time, they aren't building you up as "the better catch." this comparison is the "romantic regret" comparison.
sometimes (at least twice in my own experiences) borderliners even attempt to, or actually do contact the previous lover or companion. they want to hear that all is forgiven. they now wistfully accept their own "contributions" to the failure of that relationship. the borderliner needs to see if they have been absolved of the damage they did, somehow no longer feeling quite as justified in their anger and hate as before. to maintain consistency with how you used to be an example of "how much they've grown since the last guy," they will describe this romantic regret as "wisdom and growth."
it's not.
it's just another one of the steps on the infinite stairwell of their cyclic behavior.
"he was polite, but he made it clear we were never going to be friends," she said to me.
i wondered why she had even tried to contact him. it worried me. i wasn't sure why, but i knew it wasn't fear of her going back to him. i sensed something more complicated. even though i thought she was bipolar at the end, i ended up seeing things a lot more clearly later on. bipolar would almost be a comfort because bpd is a complex system of setup, opportunism and rejection and demoralization. bipolar, in comparison, is almost comparable to a mood swing, and they can recover from it without swapping lovers out. borderliners make a complex and specific process out of each and every step of the cycle.
and they have to take that next step because they need the next shot of adrenaline and the next rush of "feeling." without it, they feel that something is missing or wrong because the high has gone and they have never achieved stability before and don't comprehend the concept nor know what it might feel like. all they can do is compare "now" to "before" and see the disparity between the stable "now" and the exciting "before."
"... but jace, you just don't seem to... you know."
no i don't know! you haven't told me!
apparently i just didn't seem to... you know.
"be the right one?"
"act like you love me?"
"behave as i expect you to?"
yep, that's the one. it isn't what she would have said, but it's what she was actually doing. she was turning the stability into a letdown. a letdown that sets up the beginning of the end.
when the old lover (or lovers) start getting a kinder and gentler appearance in the way they are painted, or when they reach out to them looking to possess some "friendship" as a prize to prove the damage they did wasn't so bad after all... when they start sounding wistful and melancholic and your very existence is no longer filling them with "love," "life" and "brilliant color" ... know that they are romanticizing the end of your relationship.
what's the connection between romanticizing the end and a kinder image of the previous guy? i'm not sure. maybe some the part of the borderline personality feels oncoming guilt for where they're headed. they can't put it where it belongs because that would mean that they are responsible for that oncoming doom. it is far more preferable to make the other party be the enemy than for the borderliner to be the seen as an impatient, intolerant, unloving bad guy, kicking away this latest lover for no real or rational reason. they have to find somewhere to go with this feeling... why not become all wistful and melancholic about the previous guy and soften the guilt by "exchanging it" for an older, safer event that is already in the past? re-association. re-assignment.
sounds plausible. i think there's still a piece of this part of the cycle i'm not getting. it doesn't fit quite right firmly. maybe instead of re-assigning the emotions, it is part of demonizing the current companion by making him seem worse than the others. i'm not sure. it might be a variation from one borderliner to the next.
still... this romanticizing of the end is definitely going on. some borderliners drag it out, with a mixture of intolerance for the current companion and self-loathing. some choose total hard-core hate and intolerance for the current "looser boyfriend" or "the asshole controlling/manipulating/holding back my life." sometimes they oscillate between the two.
but they are building up energy. driving up the emotions, piling on the anxiety so they can have that orgasm of the final moment. the grand "this is over!" the angry ones will just make you out to be worse than everyone else. the passive-aggressive ones will literally drive you mad enough to make the break yourself. either way, it's your fault, not theirs.
at best, you may get the "i still want us to be friends" bullshit. and the "it just wasn't meant to be" tripe. notice the romanticized fate breaking you apart... it wasn't her fault, really... and even though she said some unkind things, and/or pushed you into saying unkind things... it's "just the best thing for everyone" that it went down this way. oh yeah, sure. it had nothing at all to do with the complex set of expectations and demands that you propped up in your head, only informed me of about half of those expectations, or simply changed them after the fact, and then acted like i let you down or betrayed you. right.
at worst, you become the evil bastard they will vilify before the ears of every person who crosses their path from that point on, until... well, until they need to displace you from the throne of "worst guy ever" so that someone else can sit there.
how do you know which one you're going to get? look at the inbetweener. she probably told you about him. was he a quick mistake and a dismissed jerk or was he some poor misunderstanding that they tell you "i think i hurt him..." with the sympathy a non-pet owner gives to a co-worker's dead cat or dog?
"aw, poor thing. too bad about that. oh well, you know they just don't live as long as we do. you know eventually you have to let go and just get another one."
like with sex, the "cool off period" between orgasm, or shots of the drug of drama, vary between individuals. some will go cold and declare "never again!" (or use the near term equivalent "it'll be a long time before i ever love again, that's for sure!"). these are the lazy ones. others will head for a different destination to get the drug from a different source. this type of borderliner is the thrill seeker. the runaway. brilliant schemes and grand plans. time to travel. time to do "all those things he held me back from doing."
either way, the borderliner will find a way to still fulfill their short term needs. there's the thrill seeking, the drama, the casual sex and the poor, wretched inbetweener.
hmm... thinking about it, maybe the inbetweener is just a less important, convenience lover that gets caught up in a smaller, shorter round of the borderline game. i don't know.
like i said... "just call me Treg."
and, lest you think i'm a horrible awful man for all these declarations and bitter "judgments..."
i, unlike those who put me through their meat processor, possess empathy for their shitty situation. really, how long will they continue this mad cycle and how many times will they chew through lover after lover? it's not that they consciously WANT to harm or hurt. it's not that they consciously seek out the downs and the fears and the anxieties. their experiences have wired them up for hurrying things along. defense mechanism. their experiences have wired them up with addiction to that thrill and the rush of one drama or the other. the worst are the ones who have been brought to this point by physical and/or sexual abuse.
i know these things, too. i comprehend them. they interfere with my bitterness and keep me from being hateful. not that i haven't sent a set of hate mails in response to being toyed around and ground up... i admit it. but i know what's really going on and i know why. worst of all (for me) is that i still love them. i love who they claimed to be. i don't know if that claim is a real person or not, but it's the only thing i have that's any good, so i hold on to it. bitterly and ... sigh ... wistfully.
actually, there IS a scenario in which their behavior is intentional and conscious: a borderliner can progress only so far before they are aware of their own steps and procedures and either chooses to get help and change... or decide that they have finally found clarity and control by simply using all the experiences they've had as a map for how to manipulate people. not just lovers. friends. co-workers. employees.
this is when the borderline personality has gone from solid borderline stimulus-response to Sociopathy. willful anti-social behavior for personal satisfaction or personal gain. no longer motivated by fear (except the ego and fear of being called out for what they are), they are motivated by lust, greed, the need for accomplishment... whatever.
these are the people i have no empathy for. once someone starts to willingly manipulate another person, for personal gain, they no longer deserve humane treatment because they are actively behaving in an inhumane and socially destructive manner. a wound deserves treatment and care, but a knife requires a sheath.
or better yet,
something to dull its cutting edge.
But... then we're no longer discussing borderline personality disorder. so thus ends this particular rant.
Here's the related rant from my journal at OKC:
The Sudden Departure
i've noted that this is the exact type who broke me a few years back. i noted just today that they changed the wording a little. It used to say something along the lines of "no doubt, there's somewhat of a trail of wreckage behind you..." That was part of what made the type's description so dead on. Why the change?
i call her elise. Through her, i call myself "Treg." Yes, another piece of wreckage behind her, preceding myself. Where there are two, there are likely to be more. A trail of it. i'm sure it didn't stop with me.
To all of you sudden departures and elise's out there: your problem is most likely your fear of envelopment and rejection. Basically, you "get scared" (to quote elise) and back out just when things are moving along nicely... but you've had some time to think... or you're waiting to actually make contact. Yeah, that's when the fear and anxiety seeps in. TIME. Too much time without disaster... WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?? That's when the borderline personality disorder takes over. The lust. The runaway. The jealousy. Whatever. That's when you toss away a perfectly decent lover/potential lover, toss him a half-cooked story of fate and misunderstanding and other such BS that comes from you wanting not to feel like you're what you are: "the bad guy."
Here's a tip: evolve. Get help. Try some sincere apologies, too. If you try to spend the entirety of your life with this behavior, you will end up miserable. More miserable than you are right now in the core of your being (that little place, compacted and pushed down and hidden where you store all your hurt... the little gem of hate and brutality you bring out in order to drive your current no-longer-interesting companion into becoming "the bad guy" so you don't have to be). You will end up miserable alone or miserable in a sudden attempt to escape the fate you fear the most: being alone.
"i'm lonely!" she complained to me.
Maybe if you admitted to it, and spent some time being personally responsible for your actions... and maybe if you actually spent some time really, actually ALONE, you would get a little further along than "leaving soon." And really, with the casual sex, the friendsex, the one night stands, the lovers, the boyfriends, the "not-boyfriends," "not lovers" and all other spectra of labels... you really haven't BEEN ALONE. Not really. Not long enough for it to count. That's why you can't wait longer than a few months to see someone. You need your fix NOW.
Get off the merri-go-round. It's not merry at all for your wreckage, and i suspect that core part of you is just as sick of it as you claimed you were, for a few months, when you were lucid, self aware and trying...
Labels: abuse, anti-social, arrogance, behaviors, BPD, choices, exposure, fear, humans, neuroracism, psychiatry, psychology, shame, truth, women
posted by dysamoria at
10:24 AM
4 Comments:
I hate relaships, this is exatsly what they end up.
When it turns Valenbane's Day I am going to put
my happy clothes away for that day and
mwear my all black clothes all Feb 14.
To mourn the loss of love, which is now a black
sharp' glassy metal hole without any air even.
i have a black shirt with a heart on it that has a black stripe of "void" running down the middle. made it with cafepress.com. that's what i will probably be wearing if i am out that day...
I hope you'll excuse my language, but: f**kin' s**t! This post just hit the nail!
Only one thing: when you write "borderline girls", or just "borderline", I simply read "girls", period.
The first 1/4 of this post totally describes what I've been put through. I wish I had read it a couple of days earlier :-)
P.S.: I hope you'd got the mail I'll sent you some days ago through the haiku website. Take care!
hi Oscar, i did get your email. i'm sad to hear that you've gone through this shit with girls. There are a lot of girls who end up with BPD. More than males for some reason. i think because women are expected to save face all the time while men are allowed to blow up. So the women repress shit and get mentally twisted up from it. BPD is a neurological defense mechanism against abuse and toxic life experiences. Even though it is not an excuse for bad behavior, it is an explanation and they aren't simply evil.
And you can swear on my blog :-)
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home