Idealize/Devalue/Discard

 Looking back,
I thought I had found true love,
But I was just another case study...
An unhealthy portion of the relationship
Was basically symptoms...
Textbook Borderline symptoms...
As if the DSM came to life
And professed its undying love for me...
Being on the edge of co-dependent, of course I jumped at the chance...
Then the scripts began to run...
Basically all ones and zeros...
What should have been a Macy's Day Parade of red flags,
I just let pass by like a warm breeze...
Scientifically, it was interesting...
I definitely became more educated...
You know...
Observing lions in the wild...
Trying to understand them better while hoping not to get eaten alive...
Psychology can be adrenaline inducing, I suppose,
If you go all Jane Goodall, and become one with the apes...
Chimps can be loving and community minded,
But they will also chew off your face and hands if they see you as a threat...
For certain people, just being in love is a threat...
It's something to lose, while before it, they had nothing...
Nothing to lose...
And so, they quickly and methodically go about
Destroying any love they happen to find...
Idealize/Devalue/Discard...
Reading articles on the internet from "BPD survivors" is interesting...
I read my own experience over and over and over and over...
They say everyone is different, but...
Over and over and over and over...
Same old song and dance...
Same motivations...
Identical behaviors...
Sometimes I could see the gears turning...
Of course, I would be the one to help her to help herself...
Of course, I was qualified enough to save her from herself...
Yeah,
Right...
Of course, I was a co-dependent mess...
Classic "White Knight" covert narcissism...
You know how you can see something coming,
And simultaneously not see something coming?
Schrodinger's foresight?
But this jellyfish,
Using logic and scientific method,
Grew some vertebrae...
I won't collapse if I don't have the skeleton of a lover to support me...
I know that what I feel, my emotional reactions, is not objective reality...
I don't ascribe to magical thinking...
At least I can close my eyes at night knowing I don't hate myself...
And I quite enjoy my own company...

Split to Black

 Sometimes it's best
To let someone split you to black...
Vanta-black black...
Allow them
To see you as the villain,
And walk away...
It's an emotional survival tool
For some
To help avoid having to face
Inconvenient truths...
Who needs objective reality,
Logic, or a functional limbic system?
Right?
Being seen as a Bond villain
Can stroke one's ego,
I gotta say,
So when people give me that label,
It can be hard not to oblige...
Put on a show...
But I'm getting better at self control
As the years go by...
Work smarter, not harder...
So,
What's it like
Being on the dark side
Of black and white?
Not being responsible
For the opinions or emotional reactions
Of others,
It's a bit freeing...
Almost entertaining, at times...
I know who and what I am...
Worrying about who and what
Someone else thinks I am
Is above my pay grade...
I can't control the perceptions of others...
They may see me as they wish...
I can only control my own perception
Of the world at large,
And my own perceptions
Of self...
My identity...
Some folks don't have those...
Most don't even try to understand them...
Imagine not knowing
Who you really are...
There's a name, 
And a birth certificate, 
Even an SSI number,
But is there always a soul?
What's in a name?
Names change with a flash of a pen
And a rubber stamp...
It is not your identity...
Not your likes and dislikes...
Not your experiences...
Not your successes or your traumas...
Just a social designation
So people can keep track of you...
So that there's a name to the memory...
But even memory 
Can be fleeting...

BPD Survivor

 Forever...
As in,
"I'll love you forever."
I've never heard that
From someone who actually
Meant it...
Not in three marriages, anyway...
It may have been used as a device
In attempts to
Secure my compliance
As a provider...
My choices for marriage
Were people who
Really couldn't support themselves...
People who needed "help"...
Financially, emotionally, psychologically...
Broken people...
Wounded...
Like I was The New Colossus
For broken hearts...
With silent lips,
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses 
yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse 
Of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, 
tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Forever...
Por siempre...
It exists,
But not for lovers...
If all obstacles are avoided expertly,
Death still separates you in the end...
Forever goes on with or without you...
It's simply a measurement of time...
It seems like a silly thing,
From my current vantage point,
To say that to someone...
To say, "I'll love you forever..."
It feels like "future faking"...
Promising something
That logic dictates
Is an impossibility...
Logic and emotion can co-exist...
I have chosen people
Who cannot commingle the two...
Black and white thinkers...
Splitters...
Triangulation...
Givers of
Idealization and devaluation...
Masters of intermittent reinforcement...
People lacking object constancy 
And whole object relations...
Forever...
Too much to ask,
And impossible to give...
Just be with me here...
Just be with me now...
Be your authentic self...
(Be aware enough
And strong enough 
To actually have an authentic self...)
Give me a reason to trust
Is all I would really ask
Of anyone new...
Give me a safe space
Where I can finally
Let my guard down
And be my authentic self
Rather than a dancing monkey
With a paycheck...

Peace of Mind

 It's really starting to feel like everything is going to be okay...
Knock on wood?
I have experienced peace and peace of mind for months now...
Haven't needed valerian root since this past December...
Used to take those gel caps by the handful...
Still in therapy, but weaned off of the anti-depressants...
I actually feel like a whole person...
I'm even developing a savings again...
The job is good, and they are very fair...
Bills are easily paid, and my mind gets more and more clear...
I am enjoying just being...
Finally...
I have no one pushing me to become something I'm not...
No one suggesting I be someone I don't choose to be...
I make the choices...
I reap the rewards...
I work the hours...
I make the paycheck...
The clothes get folded at my leisure...
A little bit isolationist,
But, well, covid is still in the air despite vaccines,
So I'm not alone in being alone...
Simple necessity...
Perfect time for it, actually for a multi-year pandemic...
Choosing to physically isolate isn't stigmatized, for the moment...
It's just prophylaxis, rather than a symptom of depression...
I'm doing okay...
There are moments of happiness...
Moments of hope...
Got by with a little help from my friends...
I know some love is actually real...
Lasting...
I've felt it...
I feel it...
I know I have much to be thankful for...
I still have a lot of work to do on myself, but I'm surviving...
Even thriving, to a modest extent...
Soldiering on, like I always do...
The mission is never really completed...
Not while you live...
Traversing the battlefield is the mission...
Landmines and bear traps...
Enemy fire...
Friendly fire...
Lack of object constancy...
Poor whole object relations...
These are the obstacles you may face...
Minor wounds, if you find yourself...
Help the inner child grow and mature...
Find peace...
Seek peace within yourself...

Event Horizon

 Quiet, overcast morning...
New client sleeping in the next room...
On Hospice...
Just waiting out his time...
Quite a lot of clients lately on Hospice...
Just being kept comfortable
While inoperative cancers grow unchecked...
Waiting for the end...
Palliative care...
The metaphor is apt
As I wait for the divorce to go through...
Just keeping myself comfortable
Until the inevitable end finally arrives...
The state makes you wait
Sixty days
Before considering the case...
In case misplaced soul searching
Causes both parties to reconsider,
Or reconcile...
Or in case biological children, 
Shared by the litigants, 
Are involved...
There are step-kids,
But only for another month...
Not their first potential step-dad
Chased into the wilderness...
Regardless of connections made,
Connections get cut...
Necessarily...
New connections get made,
In time...
Old connections sometimes shrivel
Like umbilicus, and fall off...
Sand turns mountains
Into sand,
Eventually...
Let the winds blow...
Let the rain fall...
Corrosive... Bitter...
However natural or necessary,
It is a subtractive process...
It weathers, then erodes...
Pruning encourages growth...
Creative mind-scaping...
Wringing out the rot...
Washing it away...
Flushing away the waste...
Ideally...
Some people hold on to their trauma
As if it were precious metals and gems...
The dragon's hoard...
Those with no sense of self
Hold on to every scrap of self they can find,
Real or imagined,
Positive or negative,
With a desperation that could extinguish the sun...
It's hard to escape
That kind of gravitational pull
If you allow yourself to get too close
Too fast...
But at the event horizon
You are both torn apart,
And replicated...
Schrodinger style...
Spaghettified and transformed...
Crushed, infinitesimally,...
And then expanded universally...
Reborn...

Solo

 My apparent need to "save" people from themselves was/is projection...
I was trying to save myself...
I mistakenly thought I needed the "other piece" of my broken self...
That I needed someone else, a significant other, to feel complete...
That if I could convince the disillusioned that my love was real,
Then my love was real...
I was wrong...
I can only save myself...
I, alone, can choose to do that...
I do have support, some very good friends,
But I'm doing a lot of this work on my own,
By my own will to power
(Bolstered by therapy, of course...)
I'm not cultivating any romantic entanglements...
I'm not feeling that familiar urgency to find a new companion...
I don't need anyone to play with...
Or anyone to play games with me...
It's now about healing...
Exploring my emotions without always having the need to put them into words...
Accepting that some things don't need to be explained,
And some things are impossible to symbolically represent...
I exist...
For the moment, that is enough...

Jaded Souls

 About a month to go
And fiasco number three
Will be officially and legally
Over...
Third times the charm...
Three strikes and you're out...
It's hard to find someone
That lives up to the fantasy
That your imagination
Makes them live in...
Those lies we tell ourselves
In the beginning like
"We're so alike."
"We have so much in common."
The lies we tell ourselves,
Or the lies they tell you,
"I'll love you forever."
I've heard that from 
Three different women
Who didn't believe in love,
Didn't think they deserved love,
Whose souls had died
Long before I met them...
I've found,
In the beginning of the end,
It's really easy to hate
Someone you once loved...
For making you believe 
They were something 
They never were...
For allowing you
To fall in love with them...
I fell, each time,
So it was my fault
For not keeping my eyes open...
It's not like they cast a spell on me...
It just felt that way...
I cast spells on myself...
I made the choice,
Whether consciously or not,
To be with
Empty shells...
A reflection of my own insecurities...
To try to "save"
Jaded souls...
Like me...
What did I expect would happen?

Grossly Normal

 I'm starting to come to the conclusion,
Through therapy and personal research,
That I'm actually fairly psychologically and emotionally stable...
I've just seen some shit...
Been put through numerous other people's personal Hellscapes...
Maybe sometimes I was kerosene on a fire...
Maybe sometimes I was a multi-purpose fire extinguisher with an A-B-C rating...
Neither seemed to be done at precisely the right time,
Apparently...
Sometimes we receive our karma...
Our just desserts...
Sometimes we are the vehicle of karma for others...
Just a tool...
(Take that every way you like...)
How "real" is free will?
Chemical and electrochemical reactions...
Mathematics...
Ones and zeros...
Do we really pass the Turing Test?
How much of our path is swayed by  the chaos of emotions?
How much is swayed by the intellect,
Or by the gut?
Muscle memory and psychological scars...
Lessons learned, and lessons repeated...
I learn, but sometimes I need reinforcement...
I learn, but it doesn't mean I won't 
Throw myself into a fire
At some future date...
(Don't worry - that's metaphorical...)
It doesn't mean I won't, once again, fly too close to the sun...
I've done that a lot...
Falling back down to the Earth always hurts like Hell...
The impact...
Fuck...
Every damn time...
But I'll get up,
Dust myself off,
And try something different...
Being psychologically "good enough" doesn't mean I always make great decisions...
But it does mean I'm doing okay...
I'm not spiraling out of control...
I've seen all of this shit many times before...
Both personally and anecdotally...
Case study after case study...
I can take on great damage and survive
Where others might lose a bit of their will to live...
It's all too easy to get sucked into chaos...
Or to slouch into the darkness,
Actually shrinking an already fragile sense of self...
Why does the scorpion sting?
Or the viper bite?
"It's in my nature," they respond
When asked  why they betrayed you.
They couldn't help themselves...
It was simply psychology...
Psychological make-up...
Nothing personal...
But I always tend to take things personally 
When I am the receiver of abuse...
Yeah, therapy confronted that one...
Not taking certain things personally
Offers immense clarity...
I still need some practice,
But I'm getting there...
Some thorns I will hold under my skin for a very long time...
There are many...
Sometimes you don't learn what you shouldn't do
Until you do what you shouldn't do...
By now,
There are a myriad of things I shouldn't have done...
So,
I have numerous things that I will not do again...
That toolbox is dizzyingly complete...

Dark Side of the Moon

 Strange, 
How hope and fear
Can be so near in proximity...
So similar in their ability to cripple one's will...
It's all in how you apply it...
Anything can be toxic
When used incorrectly...
Even hope...
Pipe dreams
Leaving a lingering sense that maybe next time
It won't be so bad...
That you'll learn how to navigate those stormy seas...
Smooth sailing, right?
Only if you're living in the future,
And not paying attention to the now...
That's where the damage happens...
Now...
We cling to ideas and ideals
As if they were actual human beings...
The actual humans are often just something that we form uninformed opinions about...
Just a reflection of ourselves...
"All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love.
All that you hate.
All you distrust.
All you save.
All that you give.
All that you deal.
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create.
All you destroy.
All that you do.
All that you say.
All that you eat.
And everyone you meet.
All that you slight,
And everyone you fight.
All that is now.
All that is gone.
All that's to come,
and everything under the sun is in tune,
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon."
Pink Floyd, Eclipse...
Had to cite the entirety of the lyrics...
It felt right...
The theme music for this time in my life...
The Dark Side of the Moon...
From a time when I had a bit more hope than I generally do now...
Or, at least, when it was much more optimistic...
Driving the backroads as a teen with my "little brother" Mike in the passenger seat...
Blasting The Dark Side and The Wall...
Roger Waters, he knew...
He knew how we were feeling...
He understood...
That lingering feeling that you're an outcast,
And finding yourself, regardless...
From my now adult perspective,
The meanings of those albums are much more poignant...
Even more personal...
They have aged well...
My heart is still beating
Like the intro to and the last moments of
The experience of that vinyl...
The clicks and the pops...
That was my first memory of it...
On the cusp of the digital age...

Heart of Gold

 One thing that lets me know
I'm not completely over
The last relationship?
I'm still having a hard time
Forgiving...
A part of me
Still hopes 
That she suffered
Immensely...
Hopes 
That she is still suffering,
Immensely, 
Despite any of her attempts
To dissociate or forget...
Still hopes 
That she does miss
My lips on hers
Even while she
Lies in bed with another...
With others...
I still hope
She learns more
About who she really is...
And what she 
Is responsible for
In her relationships...
Maybe she can be better
For the next one...
Maybe she can
Learn to be mindful
Of her emotional reactions...
Maybe...
There is still a good measure
Of hurt and anger
That I have to get over...
An unhealthy level of bile
Built up in the system
That has to stop
Before I can be
Emotionally clear...
That's ego talking...
"How could she do this to me?"
Truth of the matter?
I shouldn't have taken
Any of her words or actions
Personally...
She treated me
Like she's treated everyone else
That she has committed to...
With suspicion and infidelity...
Projection and crippling insecurity...
So,
Yeah,
I'm not "there" yet...
Not completely "over it"...
But
I should be...
If I'm being honest with myself,
I likely started the separation process
Months before we finally separated...
I was simply
Waiting for the opportunity
To get away...
I just wasn't going to be
The one to call it off...
"I won't be the one."
I knew she'd eventually
Get around to it...
Asking for a divorce...
It wasn't the first time...
Predictable patterns of behavior...
All I had to do was wait,
And I'd be free...
I left all of the responsibility to her...
I let her own her final decision...
When people talk,
Listen...
They are usually
More literal with their words
Than even they believe...
And I could tell,
In hindsight,
She wanted out
From the moment we
Got together...
No matter what she told herself...
When she told me the truth,
The absolute truth,
It was when she was in meltdown mode...
That's when she told me
How she really felt about me...
When she was love bombing me,
Telling me about "forever" love,
That's when she was lying to me,
To us,
In an attempt
To convince me to stay...
"Don't give up on me..."
Even at those times
I could see the skepticism
In her eyes
When she looked at me...
Trying to convince herself
That I was the one
When she never really believed it...
I was just another thing
That she had wanted to own...
A plaything...
Something
To play house with...
A game...
A game I eventually
Refused to play...
No longer content
To convince her
Of who I really was...
Who I really am...
That's not something
She cared much about,
The parts of me
That were me...
She only cared
About the parts of me
That made her feel
Superior to me,
Superior to others...
Picking at any weakness...
Meticulously tearing apart
Any words I said or wrote...
I couldn't even write her 
Love poetry
For fear of her either
Misunderstanding the words
Or assuming some darker message
That she had invented in her head...
Nothing would have been enough...
Nothing would have truly
Penetrated her armor
Despite her being
So easy to penetrate
By "randos," as she calls them...
Nothing special...
Nothing that anyone
Couldn't have...
Show up with a bag 
And she's yours
For at least a few hours...
Classy...
But, I know
That I should be working towards
Forgiveness...
Forgiveness of myself...
Forgiveness of her...
I know...
I know I have to dispense
With the need
For meanness and spite...
But it's so tempting
To feel that way...
For a time...
It does get easier
As time goes on...
In cycling waves...
I know that it's nothing but ashes to ashes,
And dust to dust...
Nothing more than 
A collection of memories
Of a lead heart
Plated with gold foil...