more push pull, even in a fantasy!

I just added something to the thread about "you know you're borderline" and I want to post a more detailed reason why I posted my latest thing that went:

"when you nitpick to find something a little wrong with something that might be very right."

Well, anyway, I just divorced my husband and then tried to not glom onto a new friend.

When I stopped seeing my new friend, a man that I had been obsessing on (one of the reasons I ended up on PC) sort of came back to me when I watched a movie "Into Thin Air", about mountain climbing.

Anatoli Boukreev, that Russian climber had been on my mind nonstop back in October 2008 to about May 2009.

As a borderline, I am very dependent on strong personalities and Anatoli's personality appeals to me, as well as his strong voice, accent, and attitude.

I am also intimidated by him (the dark side of the coin) and want to push him away.

He has strong commanding ways; he was a coach as well as a climber.

Now he is on my mind again, 24/7 and I even "go places" in the fantasy. My mentor says that he senses me completely leaving him when I do.

I have always used fantasy to escape my life.

But the only fantasy I know is being around someone who is very intimidating as well as strong and sure.

So this fantasy can also serve to harm me if I don't use it right.

My struggle in my borderline today is pushing away someone helpful that might inspire me in a good way and at the same time I need to protect myself from the darker aspects of this fantasy.

I don't want to lose myself in this man again!

but I still fall for him because there is something I get out of him, too.

Billi

Now that I realize how the attraction to strong, commanding personalities is something typical of BPD, putting it together with all the other bits, I really think my psych must have known I was Borderline, and chose not to tell me.
I can relate to the fantasies, I have always had dreams and fantasies about intimidating, powerful figures, about being completely dependent (which is something that at a conscious level I avoid at all costs and find demeaning), even as a little kid.
I hope you find an answer to your duality, and possibly balance!

This is exactly how it feels.

In my bpd recovery process, I am attempting to dis-enact that legacy by acting in the fantasy in a different way.

In my fantasy, about 5 minutes ago, I told this man, "You cannot fix me, Anatoli. I like you, I admire you, I think you are the greatest. But I don't want to be 'down there' anymore. I realize now that we are equals. You have talents and I have talents. I want to look up to you, but I don't want to depend entirely on you. For your sake and for my own."

Changing my thoughts, I feel calmer, more balanced.

Hopefully in this vein I can function much better.

I am breaking that awful bpd cycle.

Billi

That's an interesting way of handling it Billi, I will have to try that one.

I wonder if seeking out a strong person or savior is the craving for security that wasn't received at a younger age from a parent? I don't know, I sometimes have rescue fantasies, usually when I'm pretty down and scared, and when I'm feeling ok about myself it seems I'm the one in charge.

That sounds like a brilliant way of changing that! And I admire you incredibly for actually going through with it: the fantasies and the submission usually have such a pull, you can be dependent on imaginary figures, too, and it's very hard to get yourself out of that cycle.

Let us know how it goes!

Being attracted to someone who is intimidating might be something to explore.
The person who is intimidating in general would be intimidating to others in a way that could be protective of you; he would be able to intimidate others in the service of protecting you. Or that power (withing self as well as others) feels intimidating.

the woman who abused me growing up was strong and sure and took care of me, but scared the willies out of me.

this man reminds me of her, the good and the bad.

Billi

Bumping up this topic.

an update:

I had to abandon the fantasy.

It was overwhelming me again and I felt once again like I was this four year old looking up to him and he was looking down on me.

I made a promise to myself that if it started making me feel bad, then stop. Don't hold on to it to make it work. Very much like dealing with a bad relationship.

Billi

Go you Billie for being able to recognize those things with in you.

I am bumping up this topic right now.

It's the 13th of October and something is really disturbing me right now.

Every October, since 2008, while my aunt was dying, this man has come back to my mind and there is always a danger of me losing myself to him.

This man has been dead since Christmas of 1997, had a gf, I have never been to his book signings, but I feel like I am *obsessed* with him!

Especially in October, around the 13th or the 22nd.

I even went so far as to wonder (this past year, esp since Andy and I broke up) if there was some "psychic" reason for this "interaction" or "encounter".

This man is dead.

I never knew him.

But he's on my mind AGAIN.

thanks,

Carol

After Andy and I broke up, it started again.

I have, on occasion, had fantasies about strong movie characters I've never met. Never really thought about it in relationship to BPD before.
Don't lose yourself to the fantasy. Talk to us about it as much as you need to.

I am not sure how to relate this to bpd, except that it's a "crazy" thing to me. Rachel, in her book, Get Me Out of Here, talked about feeling like the center of attention and I get giddy from the thought of Boukreev paying attention to me, i.e. in a romantic way.

Also, this fantasy could even get me in bad situations in real life because I really want to have a "Russian friend". Seems harmless on the surface, right? But I am addicted to the idea. Many pwbpd's are addicted or have behavioral issues that are erratic and/or strange.

Many are "love addicts". Wanting to feel loved, lovable and validated.

Carol

Wow, Carol. All I can say is "been there"-- plus, I so admire your courage in writing about this. I have spent significant portions of my life in a fantasy world, one I first started constructing in adolescence. When I'm under severe stress, my mind can dump me into that world whether or not I choose to be there, and I have a hard time getting out again; it sounds like this may have happened to you. My most recent round of difficulties along those lines has involved someone I had a long-ago relationship with, but the time before that-- nearly 20 years ago now-- it was a public figure, someone whose work I genuinely admired. I didn't want to get lost in a fantasy involving this man; I felt helpless, as if I had been thrown back to a 12-year-old emotional state, and I never felt the same simple, uncomplicated appreciation of his work again. Feeling embarrassed and ashamed didn't make any difference. I very slowly worked my way out of the cellar, as I thought of it, with new interests and increasing success in my work. At that time I had no idea of what BPD was or why I was so helpless in the face of my emotions. I know fantasy isn't supposed to be one of the main escape routes for borderline individuals, but I've also read that we focus our attachment on our internalized images of others, rather than on the people themselves. If this is so, then a public figure whom we don't really know could make a tempting target-- we can make him whoever we want him to be, particularly if the real people in our lives have let us down. I'm still at the bottom of a steep learning curve, so I have no idea if this is really so.

As others have said, keep talking about it. Feeling that you can't just locks you deeper into the fantasy. I should know; this is the first time I've ever breathed a word about this to anyone, therapists included, so thank you again.

thanks, esp. longleaf.

I stayed awake all night last night, listening to the radio, sometimes I heard songs that may or may not have been good for me to hear. But I did not indulge. There was one bad time when I did engage in an erotic fantasy about him, but I called Ani immediately; he told me to call him, even if I woke him up. He was awake and seemed to have been waiting for my call and sounded relieved to hear from me, even though I was distressed. "Ani, it's back...help..."

I knew he could not make it go away, but just hearing him go, "Carol, I'm here, your'e okay..."

I fell asleep, exhausted, around 7am PDT. I woke up again around 1pm and was still so tired.

I kept myself very busy today, listening to music, coming on here, and finally doing my laundry, which had been piling up for the past *month*...what a mess...! I did it.

I did not tell my roommate Bruce; he does not understand how a "harmless fantasy" can hurt.

Thanks,

Carol

Wow, I totally relate to this thread. Didn't know that this kind of fantasy with this kind of person was a bpd thing. Wow.

Vy

Thank you for your experiences B and putting it into words so wonderfully.

IMO, this relates to BPD, who says our minds are immune from splitting even in fantasies? If we are inherent 'splitters' we will do it across the board.

This is classic Idealization vs. Devaluation.

"When viewing people as all good, the individual is said to be using the defense mechanism idealization: a mental mechanism in which the person attributes exaggeratedly positive qualities to the self or others. When viewing people as all bad, the individual employs devaluation: attributing exaggeratedly negative qualities to the self or others.
In child development, idealization and devaluation are quite normal. During the childhood development stage, individuals become capable of perceiving others as complex structures, containing both good and bad components. If the development stage is interrupted (by early childhood trauma, for example), these defense mechanisms may persist into adulthood."

And may also persist into our fantasies, dreams, subconscious life...
It happens to me all the time.

Has anyone here ever had a fantasy about themselves....being someone you're not? Someone who is more like a polar opposite of how you view yourself? A perfect person, a superhero? I've had a superhero fantasy since I was very, very little, and to this day it still reoccurs occasionally in my dreams. I've never really talked to ANYONE about it......

Oh, yes, the superhero bit... that was how it all started for me. Not exactly a superhero, but someone braver, prettier, who did good things and got acclaim for it. What adolescent doesn't want to be someone else, at least some of the time? But it stuck in my head, as so much else did.

In my fantasy, I am saving Boukreev from his loneliness and his feeling of not feeling fit anywhere except in the mountains.

He has always been isolated from others, except when climbing with them. In one of his books, he is described as "his sisters being his best friends" and being a lonely library boy keeping his mother company. (don't quote me; not word for word).

So I must have made up a story in my mind of "saving him" or something and having him "save me", too.

Anyway, last night was hard. I did not quite make it. "He" came over again (not him, I fantasized him coming over); I could not be a mench and deal without it.

I could not sleep without him or with him last night.

I don't know wher I am going with this.

My insomnia is escalating.

this has been going on since 2008, even when I was still in the psych system and I remember begging my pdoc to put me on some medication for s*x addiction and/or ocd symptoms. He did not. He did not know how to help me.

My counselor, back in therapy, also had just said, "You need this out right now becaue your aunt died." Did not change it either. She did not work thru it with me.

I was dealing with it alone.

Thanks everyone for helping this thread.

I desperately need some support and to stay in reality, in the world.

It also seems I am helping break others' silences, too. That warms my heart.

Carol

Im pretty new to the forum so excuse me if this is a pretty idiotic question; is fantasizing about different scenarios or relationships with other people a common thing in BPD?

Sorry to gate crash your thread

No such thing as an idiotic question. I think fantasizing/working through scenarios in our heads is probably a human thing. For me, what ties it to BPD is the obsessive quality of the thoughts-- the way my mind goes there whether I want it to or not, and I then find it difficult or impossible to switch the process off.

questions is how we learn.

so ask away.

I am still learning about this.

More questions than answers and now the answers, although somewhat comforting, sound to me, a typical pwbpd! so pat and unconvincing and simplistic.

I wish there was a way for me to fantasize without feeling so degraded.

My mentor and I had a very disturbing conversation today at Self Help Mental Wellness.

He said that my fantasies border on self-injurious elements. In other words, they are degrading to me. An example, one of the fantasies is about Boukreev imposing a massage on me. Without me saying it's okay.

Ani thinks my fantasies turn me on because of an imbalance of power. And then the flip side of that is feeling in power when I am "helping" Boukreev.

Rachel, in Get Me Out of Here, worked in therapy, thru feelings of humiliation/pleasure and feeling powerless and shamed.

I am also dealing with this.

Ani said I need to seriously consider changing the scenarios. If not elimating them.

But as a pwbpd, I am *bored* by healthy scenarios. Self-degradation excites me.

I will see how I do tonight, after having shared this with you ppl.

Broken

My fantasy has not ended, but I think I am feeling better, quieter since my last post.

I am working on validating myself. And feeling like I deserve to be treated well.

Carol

You sure do