SALT TO THE WOUND
Moving Beyond Your Borderline Break-up

This article is for survivors of a relationship that's had toxic consequences for them. It is not intended for anyone with BPD traits! If you suspect you have borderline personality features, what follows could feel injurious to you! Please leave this site immediately and seek alternative web content that may be more congruent with your personal views and needs. 
Thank you!

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You might be licking fresh wounds in the aftermath of your BPD break-up, or you may have somehow gotten beyond craving your Borderline at this point. If that's true, and you're continuing to ache and obsess, it's very likely you're beating yourself up for staying too long--or getting involved at all. This is counterproductive, and stopping it with effective new tools can be learned.

You've always been hard on yourself. In reality, it's been easier subjecting yourself to the Borderline's abuse than hanging out with your own, because when you're beating-up on yourself, you can't defend against your attacker! Basically, you're pouring salt on open wounds that are still trying to heal. How much sense does that make?!

Taking 'responsibility' for your predicament is only useful in hindsight, so you can learn from mistakes you've made along the way, and not repeat them. It is not useful while you're trying to mend from any sort of upset or trauma! It keeps you from staying with Your painful feelings, respecting them, and getting to the other side of this struggle. Basically, your poor brain gets trapped in playing both sides of that net, which doesn't work in tennis--or in love. You learned this ridiculous habit in childhood, but it doesn't serve you here! 

The toughest part of having gotten tangled up with a BPD individual, is that they always leave you with toxic shame. Borderlines have an uncanny ability to get you to open-up, be vulnerable and trust them. You generally feel pretty safe at the beginning--which may be because they're so candid with you, due to their lack of boundaries! You think to yourself; "gee, if they're so revealing about themselves, maybe it's okay for me to be, too." A sincere person naturally inspires our trust--but the Borderline can play-act at sincerity, and then drop you on your head without remorse or conscience.

During this relationship, you navigated exquisite ups and devastating downs. If he or she acted lovingly, you started trusting that you were lovable, and those marvelous feelings were here to stay. When you were diminished, guilted or shamed for behaving imperfectly in your lover's eyes, you felt undesirable, ashamed and worthless. In essence, you've allowed this guy or gal to micro-manage your pleasure and your pain--but giving that kind of power to somebody else is not only foolish, it's dangerous!

The sad reality is, you've driven yourself hard your entire life. Poor self-worth from early childhood is what sets the stage for this kind of behavior, which has made you susceptible to being seduced by a borderline in the first place!

Contrary to what you might believe right now, you did not develop self-worth issues during this affair~ they were cultivated in you from a very early age onward. It's crucial to correct this condition with solid professional help, or you'll likely repeat this painful experience over and over again, regardless of how educated or savvy you get about Borderline Personality Disorder! Either this, or you'll never trust yourself to love again~ and that's just plain tragic.