I was in a horrible, embarrassing relationship for several years. I chased him. He let me catch him. He ran away. I chased him. He let me catch him. He ran away. This lasted for four-hundred-and-seventy-five years, which is longer than most prison sentences. The problem seemed to have something to do with my legs, which would not stop moving in his direction. I cursed myself the entire time, and cursed him too, of course.
It was just your typical, lopsided, obsessive relationship. Nothing special, really, except that it literally drove me crazy. Oh, everything was fine so long as we were together – but the minute he ditched me I lost my mind. I stalked this man in a way that would have driven most people to seek a protective order, but he was not “most people”, so in our case I simply stalked him until he suddenly decided we were dating again. From the very beginning he behaved in a way that would have driven most people way far away from his direction, but I was not “most people”. It was almost as if I said, “Wow, I really hate you. Where have you been all my life?”
This relationship didn’t simply happen out of nowhere. It was one of many that followed a similar pattern. This one just happened to last four-hundred-and-seventy-five years instead of, say, one-hundred years.
I was so miserably, dangerously crazy when I was chasing this guy. Once I caught him, I was fine. Just another nice lady working in tech support. But this was a guy who wouldn’t stay caught, so I was crazy a goodly percentage of those four-hundred-seventy-five years. In fact, I started seeing a psychiatrist at the beginning of that relationship. I also went in to therapy. Because the relationship lasted for so many, many years I had plenty of time to try to figure out why I was in the relationship to begin with, and the general direction of my psychiatric and psychological treatments began to focus on Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD made sense to me (although I must admit no doctor or therapist – psychological assessment examiner notwithstanding – seemed to agree with me). I found a great textbook about the treatment of BPD, and I found a therapist willing to focus on Dialectical Behavior Therapy in a one-on-one situation. DBT became my focus, my talisman, my ticket to a future that didn’t involve running.
And then, suddenly, it was over. I met and married someone else. Someone I didn’t have to chase, who happens to love me, and who I love, too.
With the horrible relationship behind me, I couldn’t think of much to talk about in therapy, so I stopped going. The decision about who and what to fight was a no-brainer so long as the war still raged: the enemy was clearly identifiable as “my boyfriend”, and the war was for my sanity. Once the boyfriend was out of the picture I lost track of where the front line was, or if there was even still a war going on.
It’s difficult to know where to begin in therapy when I’m not standing in the middle of a war. A lot of the language I used to describe my feelings back then is gone because I’ve lost the context. If I were to see a therapist today and try to tell her (or him) why I wanted to see them and what I hoped to achieve I would be at a loss.
“What’s wrong?” they might ask.
I’d have to say, “Well, nothing, really.”
“And what do you hope to achieve through therapy?”
“Eh, er, I dunno to tell you the truth, hard to put in to words.”
I plan to crack open my old friend, Cognitive-Behavorial Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (by Marsha M. Linehan) this weekend and see where it leads me. And blog about it here, of course.
Popularity: 1%