I really have to think about things, and remember things when I write about this. See my mind is not so clear anymore, after 30 years with him, I do even wonder if "I" even exist. Yes, we are talking about personality disorders, specifically "borderline".
A person with bpd will put you on a pedestal. You are the best thing that ever happened to him/her. You walk on water for them. You are the best. They are happy and it's all because of you. That is when they idolize you, and try to mirror you because they don't have anything in them self to look at. So while they put you on the pedestal, they also put themselves up there with you. You are them, they are you. They invade your soul. Like a vampire. They need for you to give and give and give them some more. You do. It's the beginning of a relationship. Isn't that what we do, we compromise !!!!!! You can look back on this many years from then and see there was no compromise, but it was the beginning of a relationship, so that's what you thought you were doing.
Second phase ----- you got knocked off your pedestal that they put you on. You don't know why. It's all alien to you, so you start to research about all the things that you are doing wrong. You try to do better and better, but nothing you do is good enough.
Why do they pick us? They know that we have empathy and compassion, they do feel that we will never leave them. A BPD biggest fear is rejection and abandonment. Guess what, so is ours. It's normal to have those feelings. But with BPD it's catastrophic.
We go thru the push/pull, the black/white thinking. We don't really understand this because we don't have BPD. Borderline Personality, thinking is totally different, they have no empathy for what they cause to another person, they can really only feel their own pain, their lack of self esteem, their moods, etc..... It's whatever they feel at that moment, and that moment can change at any time or last for weeks or months, or years.
So many people come here and say, my spouse just got up and left, he's gone now for a month or longer, 6 months or longer, and he blames me for everything. He talks to me when he has to, but I don't even feel like he saw me, I felt like I didn't exist. BTDT. I didn't exist then, because he painted me black, (black and white thinking). I was his enemy. I dared to express my feeling and my opinions. He tried to put up with it for awhile, but he couldn't. I wasn't doing what he wanted me to do.
I was trying to be a person.
My ex would always tell me that he wanted me to go back to being the person that I was, this was during apologies. He told me he didn't want me to be afraid of him anymore. So I tried to do what he wanted, I tried to be the "me" that he first met. I was wrong there also. That's not what he wanted, because he never really did see "me", I was an illusion, he wanted me to go back to the "illusion" that he had of me.
So do I go back to being who I was, nope wrong answer, I was supposed to make sure he was happy, and if he wasn't then I should accept that all the blame fell onto me.
I was supposed to be OK for all the months he just disappeared, that was my punishment for not being who he wanted me to be. Thing was, I would never be able to be who he wanted me to be. The criteria changed daily, or hourly. It changed whenever his mood changed.
I was supposed to cook, clean, iron, and when I did this, I wasn't supposed to do that, I was supposed to be there to answer all of his unending phone calls. The house was supposed to be clean, but if I dared to do this, then I was ignoring him, even though he wasn't at home. I was supposed to look sexy all the time, yet anything he bought for me to wear was XL mens clothes. If I tried to look sexy, he told me to go put a bra back on because I looked like a wh@re.
There was never a win win situation. My mind circled around and around on this. Whatever I did was wrong, if he was in a bad mood. I was his enemy even if I didn't say a word, even if I wasn't even there. I was blamed for it. I was blamed for global warming because I was alive and i was breathing the air.
I'm doing pretty well in my recovery. I think I mostly write this stuff so that sometimes people can look more at the behavior, instead of thinking, well if they can just stop drinking............
((((hug))))
amy