Ask the Therapist
PTSD and Healthy Relationships
I have been diagnosed with PTSD from multiple events over the course of my life and am unable to have stable healthy relationships without wishing I had more from them (maybe a form of codependency that
I am learning to let go of because of the results of this "closeness"). My therapist told me today that I have many symptoms of bpd and I am very angry now about it. (no pun intended hehe) I do NOT want to be mentally ill. I am 36 years old and wonder if I will ever be able to have a healthy happy relationship and be married. I don't want to marry a mentally ill person. But I do want to get married. I have problems with relationships, but I wonder if I am not attracting people who are just as mentally ill as I am and who use the fact that I am willing to look at my part and take responsibility for my mistakes as a way not to take responsibility for their own issues and lack of willingness to take responsibility for their part. Is this a possibility? I have what I consider to be healthier relationships with other people. They are not as "close" as the ones that I consider to be unhealthy, conversely, they are with people who do not attach themselves emotionally to my actions or reactions or try to "fix" me. Am I on the edge of a truth that may give me freedom in my life? Could it be as simple as the people that I am drawing into my life merely out of habit? Could it be that the ones that I used to be "comfortable" around, and that I am finding out now to be so destructive and hurtful in my life, are just as mentally ill as I am and are possibly using me as a scape goat so that they can stay in a state of denial while I use them to prove to myself over and over that I am not worthy of healthy, giving and loving relationships? Or is it truly as these people seem to like to point out to me over and over, that I am unworthy of their time and effort and that I am just "too much" for them while they feel justified in their unforgiving, "boundary drawing", controlling behavior . Is it possible that they are likewise overwhelming for me and that neither is "better" or more stable than the other??
<snip> I have problems with relationships, but I wonder if I am not attracting people who are just as mentally ill as I am and who use the fact that I am willing to look at my part and take responsibility for my mistakes as a way not to take responsibility for their own issues and lack of willingness to take responsibility for their part. Is this a possibility?<snip>
Yes! Yes! Yes!
<snip>Am I on the edge of a truth that may give me freedom in my life?<snip>
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
<snip>Could it be as simple as the people that I am drawing into my life merely out of habit? Could it be that the ones that I used to be "comfortable" around, and that I am finding out now to be so destructive and hurtful in my life, are just as mentally ill as I am and are possibly using me as a scape goat so that they can stay in a state of denial while I use them to prove to myself over and over that I am not worthy of healthy, giving and loving relationships?<snip>
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
<snip>that I am unworthy of their time and effort and that I am just "too much" for them while they feel justified in their unforgiving, "boundary drawing", controlling behavior . Is it possible that they are likewise overwhelming for me and that neither is "better" or more stable than the other??<snip>
Would that it were so easy with my patients! You're right on target, Rhonda. One of the primary obstacles that we face as evolving adults is the need to backtrack, re-establish and "re-experience" our past in effort to fix our present. The neurosis of it is that is cannot be done! You can't fix the past...it's an "is". What you can do is re-frame the present and, consequently, impact the future. Prochaska (an academic psychologist at the University of Rhode Island) calls this "willingness to change". That is the cusp of which you speak. You have come to a point of realization that points to not only a desire, but a definitive need to change.
As for your therapist's surmise....it is not uncommon for suffers of PTSD to manifest features of a borderline personality. The thing to recognize and monitor in your own life is that the borderline-ish symptoms tend to surface as a reflection of a situation that is somehow parallel to the trauma. The anger you are feeling is most probably the interior conflict your are feeling between your willingness to change and your desire to stay where you are...and the one person (your therapist) who is supposed to be unconditionally supportive of who you are and where you are saying, "I love you, you're perfect...NOW CHANGE!!!" Quite predictable actually!
You might want to read The Drama of the Gifted Child : The Search for the True Self by Alice
Miller.
