Another Lightbulb Moment

[Pig wrestler]

Rough weekend with Mrs pig wrestler. I definitely wasn't the grey rock during our multiple arguments. I took the bait on multiple occasions.

SoT said to review your plays to make sense of them and I'm doing just that.
1). I now understand what the books and professionals mean by them not having empathy. She has plenty of empathy but NOT for my feelings. Ouch.
2). I was making perfect sense during one of our arguments and then I was labeled as the CRAZY one. Most likely because I challenged her view of herself. Double ouch.
3). No matter what I do or say unfortunately she will NEVER adopt a healthy way of dealing with me and our marriage.

Fun times.

[Rebel13]

So sorry PW! All you can do is take the next step that makes sense to you, based on processing events in new ways, and the insights you are gaining. I wish you the best!

[square]

Some empathy can be extremely self centered. For example, someone can have affective empathy for people they identify with - so it's really just about them in the end. Others can perform empathy to look good, they might volunteer and always be helping others, but it's just a mask.

I think PDs start relationships thinking everything will finally be perfect, and their partner will support them in every way and agree with them on everything. But when they find out their partner is an actual individual person with their own needs and thoughts, they feel betrayed. They can't be alone, so they feel stick with someone who betrayed them. No room for empathy for a betrayer. Some PDs can go back to "oh no, everything is perfect after all" but others, once they feel betrayed, there's no coming back really.

[MaxedOut]

PW, I am sorry it went down like that. Having more knowledge doesn't make this stuff not hurt less or not be frustrating. My STBXw is also definitely capable of empathy, like sometimes overly so, just not when she's emotionally activated or the person/place/thing trigger shame or abandonment. Which, means lots about me, marriage, family, and home.

I think for PDs, the mental tracks of those associations and distorted perceptions about the closest people/spheres just keep getting more reinforced over time, and become the fast, deep groove for more and more contexts. Then stuff that was maybe only happening when they were dysregulated creeps deeper into regular periods (and that helps increase dysregulation). I can see how a dedicated BPD, using something intensive like Dialectical Behavior Therapy can help not wear those tracks and force a short circuit to examine the thinking but without that (and probably often with that) I tend to think stuff just accrues strength and distorion over time.

And making perfect sense/rationality is typically counter-productive with my spouse - it irritates/angers her. Something brief like a statement or generally how a certain behavior made me feel would get discounted/steamrolled past/negatively reacted to in the moment but I would sometimes notice some silent behavior change indicating it did stick and there was a desire to meet some need but no talking about it, no ackowledgement, etc. Plenty of times that backfired too. It's a wierd playing field.

Another book rec for you PW: The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans (e-book avaialble). She has a framework that I think speaks to a lot of what you are abserving and calling out about coming from two different but cohesive realities. She walks through that and how baffling it is for us to understand and includes a lot of examples of the two realities as play in interactions/relationships (e.g., mutuality and understanding is a good thing, versus relationships are about power and that cedes power).

But, yeah, sorry. It is a real mix of feelings when we go into these interactions with more understanding and many of them don't feel great.

[square]

MaxedOut, I didn't mention my experience with my husband and empathy because it seems that he either only has fleas or maybe the toxicity is something else entirely such as bipolar or schizoaffective. But as with your spouse, mine has quite a capacity for true empathy - when he is not triggered or in the darkness. His empathy was a big part of why I was drawn to him, and it wasn't a mask that slipped.

But, man, if he is triggered or defensive or dark, empathy goes to zero.

My DD has a friend whose mother sustained a TBI from a car crash. She went from being a good, stable mom to being a selfish, impulsive mess. She demands her 19 year old son give her money, she gambles, she yells, she has zero regard for how things affect her family. It's very sad for her young adult kids, who remember a totally different mom.

Anyway, it seems to me like the TBI may have damaged her capacity for empathy, which suggests at least partly a physical component to it. It also seems to have impaired executive functioning a bit.

I think with my husband, neural inflammation wipes out his empathy even when he is not directly triggered. But sometimes he is not so inflamed and can even tolerate a little stress without snapping.

Sorry for taking it a little off topic.

[SonofThunder]

Well done reviewing the game tapes sir! 

If not completed yet, I highly recommend you rewind the interactions (like plays in a game where you analyze both the offense and defense) that made you write the 1-3 above. Keeping the toolbox tools in mind, run them again in your mind using the tools for a possible self-protected outcome in which you may be even more pleased with yourself. When you do this, picture both what the offense and defense may do in your new mental simulation of the interaction. This kind of practice pays off!

PD's have a playbook as the Top 100 traits list at the Personality Disorders tab is a large collection of playbook plays you may experience. There is a common thread found here on Out of the FOG of "they use the same playbook" in the comments. The longer you are here and the longer you review your game tapes, you will see the repetition of traits, and that it seems your PD is doing the same thing as some other Out of the FOG comrade's PD, which is empowering because you are not alone in your experiences. 

In your mental (or always-private journal) rewind and re-run of those plays, assign the PD trait term you experienced. For example, your #2 as you describe, is classic projection, and projection is a very frequent play in the PD playbook.  So in your re-run, when you think through the scene where she projected crazy onto you, the term 'projection' is mentally assigned by you and then you think through your original reaction and how you may possibly use the toolbox tools more effectively in a similar future experience. Name your tools as well.

I also always consider name-calling from a PD to be a sign that they have run out of educated replies in the current interaction, which is not going as they intended, therefore they may feel a bit situationally cornered.  That is when I expect their next reactions to be similar to that of a cornered animal; either teeth and claws are extended to fight their way out, or they somehow reverse the roles, getting out of that uncomfortable spot. Projection, imo can surely be a part of the role switch, but imo it's also a sign of being in a corner, which is imo actually skill points credited to the nonPD. 

Doing this mental practice is very common for athletes, especially for ones whose sport requires precision, choreographed repetition of form.  Examples such as in gymnastics events, dance and track and field, shooting sports and so many others. Many of these athletes will run their routine in their mind and feel the choreographed routine in their body just prior to beginning the actual event. I believe reviewing and re-running past interactions will assist you greatly in future interactions as it will hone your instant trait awareness and quick toolbox retrieval for calm, proper deployment. 

Be aware always that as your skills increase, your PDw may steadily turn up the heat and/or creativity in many ways, such as worse-case timing, new tactics not yet deployed and/or covert operations and more, but take notes and review the plays!  Imo a PD has very high radar and they sense their normal set of plays are now increasingly ineffective at switching drama triangle roles and cycling the larger IDD.

Again well done on reviewing the tapes and wishes for continued forward skill progress. 

SoT

[Feathers]

Hi PW, really sorry to hear about your rough weekend. Brings back memories, none of them fondly. Know very well the physical and mental exhaustion from my uPDh's anger benders. My body humming and buzzing like high voltage power lines from the pent up hurt, confusion and unfairness of his irrational rage and verbal attacks. Two things in your post I would like to address that stood out to me:

"I definitely wasn't the grey rock during our multiple arguments. I took the bait on multiple occasions."

Grey rocking and medium chill DO become easier to achieve with time and practice. Unfortunately, unlike a sport or hobby we enjoy practicing to proficiency, with our PDs we only get the opportunity to practice these new found skills when they are flipping out on us. It will never feel normal to a nonPD to gracefully accept circular reasoning arguments, inverted reality and accusations that mirror projections of the PDs own absurd behaviours and traits. Grey rock and chill took me quite some time to do well and yet it still does not come naturally and likely never will because shutting down and disengaging is not a sentient being's wheelhouse. But it is what we must do to mitigate escalation. Try to remind yourself that like a shield, a shroud or a cloaking, grey rock is what you do, not who you are.

The 2nd bit that caught my attention:

"I was making perfect sense during one of our arguments and then I was labeled as the CRAZY one."

Ah yes, the "crazy" label. Unfortunately perfect sense quite often acts like super high octane jet fuel to PDs perpetually simmering rage-blame embers. Set my uPDh off like a roman candle, especially when "perfect sense" was undeniably obvious and true, yikes. Over time I came to recognise the repeating pattern of his over-reactionary response typically signified a truth or reality bomb hitting a bullseye.

The toolbox has some really great helpful no/low conflict response suggestions for times when you might be caught out too far from shore when a redtide comes in. 

The awakening times can get heavy, all the best to you PW.