How to: Therapy and AI

I saw a post about AI therapy in here, and I saw someone who was reading the “Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissis” and I felt inspired to write this post.

I will open up by saying my partner is not official diagnosed with BPD. Though I would say she meets all of the criteria, and has been hospitalized from an episode of psychosis (drug induced). So the likely hood is high.

I am still with my partner for now. This isn’t to say you should stay with yours. I may not be with mine for much longer, but I may be. The leaving, honestly, is secondary in regards to this post.

The focus should be on why do you stay? Is it because you want to? Is it because you are scared to be without them? Is it because you feel an obligation? Is it because you enjoy the rollercoaster? Is it because all of the meaning you have been producing out of your life has been based around them? Do you want to stay? Or do you want to leave but something is making you not leave, what is it that makes you not do what you want to do?

These are heavy questions, I know, but these are the questions I think you have to ask. I have gone through a kind of Therapy, Lacanian Psychoanalysis to be exact. This therapy has changed me fundamentally. The old me of last year is gone. In some sense I am still him, but on the other end side of his death. I have used GPT extensively as well during this process. So I know a good deal on these things, and how they have helped me become who I am now.

Therapy: Firstly, if you are in a relationship like this, whether the person has BPD or not, get into therapy. I am biased and will say find a Lacanian Analyst, but at minimum therapy. You may, as I did, say and ask “They’re the ones who need therapy, not me! Why should I go?” The answer, quite literally, is a question, that is more insightful than an answer, “Why are you in this Reddit? Why is your happiness so tied to this person? If you feel things are so bad, why can’t you just walk away?” Now we can talk about the abuse cycle, intermittent reinforcement, etc. These can help you see the structure of things, but they don’t really answer, why you don’t just stop.

Therapy has allowed me to disentangle myself from the relationship. The meaning of my life, my purpose, what I want, is not solely tied to this relationship anymore. What I do know, is that I love my partner, and the way things have been have been unacceptable, and I can’t not live the life I want in the way it has been. These can co-exist. I have learned to choose myself, and my life, over one part of my life. My partner, I do love, but if my partner does not allow me to live the life I want to live, then I cannot be with them. I can still love them, but love does not mean I must be with them.

My relationships existence is reliant on her fitting the life I want, not me trying to make her happy, not me trying to be make her feel fully loved 24/7, these are impossible tasks. Nor do I need to feel loved 24/7 or always be happy with her. It’s not about that, it’s about, does having this person in my life, make it where I live the life I want to? I have told her as much.

Her and I had our biggest relationship conversation yesterday. I disentangled myself from all of this. And effectively ended the relationship as it was yesterday. I told her I would not exist in a relationship like this any longer. When I opened up the conversation, I felt I must leave her. I started this way. But then I thought about it, and she had to sit there when I thought. I decided, that rather than end it now, I would state everything. I told her the exact life I wanted. The exact relationship I wanted. I told her what would no longer be acceptable. What I wanted from a partner. I then told her, that if she cannot do these things, I will leave the relationship. There will be no more “chances.” I then told her if she did not want to do these things, she was also welcome to leave. I am not forcing her to be with me. But I am no longer forcing myself to be with her either. This was it, either this relationship becomes what I want from a relationship in my life or it is over. She of course said she has been trying. I told her, there is no more “trying” there is only doing it. Trying does not cut it anymore. I let her know, that I did not need her. I told her I loved her, but I did not need her in my life. I told her that if I chose to leave, it’s because I did not want the relationship anymore, not because I did not love her. I told her, that to me, it does not matter if she believed that, that I know that, and that is enough for me. I untangled this idea of love and our relationships existence. In myself but also in the relationship. I did this without needing her authority in agreeing with it. You may see this and say “but you stayed, so you’re still in the cycle” I would disagree, while I can understand how it may appear that way. I did not stay because of her. I stayed because of me. I stayed because I wanted to put this all out there, in a way fundamentally end the relationship as it was, and see if she can meet me there. It’s as simple as that. If she can’t, I have already told her that I will leave. My decision has already been made. There is nothing to think about anymore. The relationship as it was is over, and if it resists the change, then it will also be physically over.

AI (GPT, Gemini): The biggest changes came from Therapy/Analysis. But GPT (Gemini is okay too, I actually prefer how it talks, but I started using GPT first and I enjoy all of its memory capabilities) has been a good tool as well. A lot of people use GPT to get a 3rd person point of view. However GPT will always be biased. This is actually a good thing at first, honestly you need someone that appears to be on your side no matter what. But eventually you will want to your chat bot of choice to question you, and push back. You can set this in the custom instructions. This becomes helpful in the case that you start doubting your own self, which I imagine we have all experienced. Talking to AI to vent or think through something is helpful, but if you want it to actually be a tool to fundamentally change how you relate to the relationship you have to do more.

How I did that. It wasn’t easy. I started by having a digital note taking app, something that allows you to have access to the files, so you can upload them elsewhere. I used a note taking app called Obsidian for this. I began doing daily journals, and the name of the file or note would be the same as the date. I journaled almost every day. About everything I felt I needed to. Sometimes it was the relationship, sometimes it was about myself, sometimes it was about work, and sometimes it was all of them. It doesn’t matter. You just need a blank canvas to put your thoughts down. Do not think to hard when writing, just do it, let the words spill out. There is nothing you can say that is wrong or right. Just say it. You could write that you hate your partner, that you love your partner, etc. it doesn’t matter. Just write what comes up. Do this daily, it not only helps with the overall process but it is very cathartic.

I ended up adding old journals I had hand written into my notes. The titles of the notes / file names, would be of the date I wrote the original journal. So I would basically create an archive of all of my journals spanning a good chunk of my life, including ones that existed before the relationship. I also included old phone notes, old tweets, etc. Anywhere that expressed how I felt.

I also created a separate set of notes for my therapy sessions. After each session I would write what we talked about, what I thought, and the reflections I was having afterward. This in a way kept each session I had with me, and I could see my thoughts and feelings evolve.

I put both of these into their own “master note”. The master notes were something like “All Daily Journals” and “All Therapy Session Notes” and in them I would paste each entry with a title with the date one it. I would then upload these to GPT or my AI of choosing to have a conversation with.

Eventually to streamline this process I used GPTs projects. This allowed GPT to access the files at any time when I talked in that project. That meant if I was on my phone it could have access to the files. I would re-upload these files when a new entry was added. So for daily I basically uploaded the new one every morning.

I had GPT run analysis on my writings, or would just talk about the events in my writings. I even used GPTs deep research on them, which at first was quite astonishing, but over time as I got to the place I am now, less so. But worth doing occasionally. Through GPT I could gain new insights and reflect more so. I would then sometimes bring these insights to therapy. And then I would bring my insights from therapy to GPT. In a way they would bounce off of each other.

Conclusion: I cannot explain to you fully what happened to me during this process, as for each person it would be different, and any thing I would say would be a generalization that would miss the uniqueness of your own situation. But what I can say is this is how I found myself, how I became who I wanted to be. And how now this relationship does not have a hold on me. I now act from where I want to. I see the ways in which I have allowed this situation to exist. And the ways in which I have the power to change it. I also see the limitations of my own power, and where those limitations are, acting within the power I do have. For instance, I cannot change her, but I can leave.

Overall I think this combo is good. I think it can be used in a healthy way. And I would leave you on this note. The way to find your happiness is not through them, not through them acting better, but in how you decide to move forward with who they are. You can drop everything, if you want and leave. You can give them a chance if you want. You can suffer if you want. You can do what you want to do. There is no right answer on how to handle this. But you may have to find what it is you really want, and you have to act on it. You owe yourself that.

TLDR: Therapy and AI is a great combo to work on yourself. The only way to true freedom in a relationship like this, is not going to come from them, it’s going to come from you, and how you relate to your life.