Through A Glass, Darkly II

Entry 1.    7:45 a.m.

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

-1 Corinthians 13:12

If you are a person being prosecuted for a crime and are mentally ill, and a jury or judge determines you committed the act from which the charges arise, in some jurisdictions you may be found guilty, guilty but insane, or not guilty due to mental defect. The latter two will likely get you committed to a mental institution for treatment for some period of time.

The more I read and reflect on the behavior that I have described herein, the more I am convinced that Jenny was mentally ill. I believe more than ever, as I have contemplated before, that she had borderline personality disorder ("BPD").  Having lived with her and experienced the bizarre nature of her behavior toward me and the kids, having read every text remaining on her phone thet she sent and received over the last several years, listened to voicemails left to her, and read the writings she left on her computer along with her suicide note, I am more certain than not that she was a textbook case.

When not in a depressive stupor from grief, which has been happening the last couple of days, or cleaning the house and caring for the kids and dogs, I have been reading as much as I can on BPD from professional sources on the internet. At times, I felt they were standing behind Jenny and taking notes for their future works.  It is that straight forward. 

The NIH list feels like a checklist, in which she ticked off almost every box.  https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/borderline-personality-disorder. I could walk through the list, and may at some point to explain and describe how each fits, but for now it is enough that I am confident in it.

Then, with further reading, I learned about the centrality of lying to BPD. There are multiple flavors of lying, again, most of which I recognized as coming from Jenny--whether in regard to the affair, her denial of her attempted suicide, her denial of her earlier affair. But the biggest aha moment arose when I discovered the role of distortion (or smear) campaigns in BPD.  All of the lying and trashing of me, all of the disregard for how I was caring for her, all of Jenny's inexplicable anger toward me suddenly makes sense. 

This doesn't make me feel better, but worse. I don't absolve her of the mistreatment, she committed all of the acts described herein and more and I hold her responsible for abjectly ignoring her children, lying each week in therapy, lying to, abusing, mistreating and smearing me.  But it now makes sense.  She was guilty of these things, but was mentally ill when she engaged in them.

This is what drives my sorrow at the moment. It was emanently fixable. We may not been able to repair our relationship, but she could have been treated successfully to fix the bottomless emptiness.and worthlessness she felt much of the time, of which I am certain.  But even though I heard her admit to feeling worthless or suicidal or afraid I would leave her, or saw her rage, I didn't link this behavior to illness, nor as a cluster of symptoms. The BPD of course became worse when she was diagnosed, the chemotherapy serving as steroids for her feelings of worthlessness, the discovery of the affair exacerbating her fear of abandonment. She could have been helped, had we had an understanding that this was, at least in part, symptoms of disease and not simply disdain or rejection of me (which it was).

I love Jenny, loved her. I feel like I failed her on many levels as I continue to read about this illness. I took care of her assiduously and made every effort to show loving kindness. That I didn't understand until relatively recently that she was sick, feels like a failure. I admit, before you comment below, that she would not have believed it, nor do I believe she would have necessarily changed her behavior, but I wish I could have tried and seen what would have happened had I, or her sisters, talked to her about it.

Grief causes physical pain at it's most severe. I ache to the bone this morning, missing Jenny, feeling like I lost my own life.

More on distortion campaigns below:

Typical Targets: Current or Former Family Members

Distortion campaigns are often done behind the scenes against people who are or were related or emotionally close to the perpetrator.  They may start months or years before the target is even aware of the campaign.  For instance, the breakup of a relationship is often connected to a distortion campaign against a former partner.  The campaign may have started a long time before the breakup, to give the Borderline “justification” regarding what she or he has done or is about to do to the target, be it having an affairs(s), kicking them out of a home, filing false domestic violence charges, running away with the children, stealing large quantities of joint money and property, or some other hostile actions. By the time the target is aware of the distortions, people around the Borderline may have been hearing for a long time that the target is some evil, horrible, cruel person as part of the distortion campaign.

Borderline Recruits Others to Lie and Distort

The BP (short for “Borderline Personality” or “Borderline Person”) is likely to make extreme false allegations, distortions, and varied lies to defame and harm her or his former partner and other targets. The BP is also likely to involve many other people in the distortion campaign. Many are passive participants who will listen and believe the BP’s lies. Others become actively involved in spreading them further. The target may find that there are dozens of people, many whom have never met him or her, who believe and repeat the lies of the BP.