Hit a fork in the road with BPD ex and obsessive behavior... seeking advice

[Truth619]

Hi Family,

I'm hoping you can share your wisdom and insight about my situation to help me make a decision. My ex BPD GF and I parted ways eight months ago. We had a fleeting three month office romance that complicated things so we mutually decided it was best to end the relationship.

In the last couple of months though, I've had lots of anonymous LinkedIn viewers and I've gotten several spoofed caller ID calls whereby when I pick up the person on the other end is silent and then hangs up. Interestingly enough, the calls all have my same area code and prefix numbers, but the last four numbers are always different. I've called the numbers back and the numbers are either out of service, have a robotic vm or the person tells me that they didn't call me. And just recently I was working late at home and my Instant Message status showed me as Busy (that was my status when I logged off before leaving the office and I didn't bother to change it when I got home) and my ex's status was Offline. But while I was working, she logged in and her status changed to Away.

I continued working and around 8pm, my ex's status changed to Busy! I laughed out loud because I knew that it was a test to see if I could see her status and if I would respond. It was yet another game because technically no one's status is Busy after hours because when you're home Busy doesn't apply.

I continued working and didn't respond. But her recent behavior has been nagging at me. Not sure what it means. Is she obsessing? Stalking? Charming? Or wants me to reach out? I do worry about her. And almost feel like I should reach out. We don't communicate since the b/u and I haven't run into her at work in a couple of months and this new behavior concerns me.

Part of our problem was poor communication (Super quiet girl)so my gut tells me she's trying to communicate. I'm concerned about her, but I have mixed feelings about going down that road again with her. Any advice?

Thx

Truth

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[sweetheart]

Hi Truth619,

If this recent contact from your ex hadn't happened had you been thinking about getting back in contact with her?

The reason I ask is that if you hadn't, and from what you say you both decided to end the relationship, I'm not sure what would be gained by making contact.

That said if you have been thinking about reaching out to her, then this may be a way in.

Can you tell us more about your mixed feelings, eight months is quite a while to be broken up, and are the complications that were there last time something that you want to revisit again?

I realise I've asked you quite a lot of questions  , if not to answer here, to perhaps have a think about.

[Truth619]

Thanks for responding Sweetheart.

No, I had not been considering reaching out to her prior to this new behavior. I'm not dating anyone at the moment, but wasn't considering going back to my ex either.

I have mixed feelings about starting up a relationship up again. I was really into her and vice versa, but as things progressed she pulled away and shut down and gave me the silent treatment for weeks at a time even. I mean we'd hang out, but she'd just be silent and wouldn't or couldn't communicate. Her silence and mood swings wouldn't just happen out of any anger they just took over. It was tough for me emotionally and her as well so the best thing at the time was to take a break even though we still cared about each other. No meanness was involved.

There are a lot of changes happening at work with different teams. I'm sure she's nervous about her job status as we all are. She doesn't really talk to or hang out with anyone at work so I figure that she may be trying to get my attention. The charming, stalking and fake calls say a lot. I read other posts about receiving sexual anonymous emails. I've gotten those as well with cryptic like message.

One email subject line read "I think I'm in love with you" but the body read something like "I heard a lot about you and think we can meet in person sometime... ." with a link for me to click to see naked pix. And the closing salutation was "I miss you" XOXO... .pretty personal stuff to say to a complete stranger.

The most interesting thing about the first email was that it included 6 fake email recipient addresses and mine. But one of the fake email recipients had the same last name as my ex which isn't a common name! That's a bit too coincidental, I must say.

So, I'm wondering if this is the beginning of obsessive BPD behavior or her being stressed out and needing someone to talk to.

Thanks.

[Truth619]

Sorry guys... .the word "hovering" keeps posting as "charming"... .which doesn't make much sense. 

[sweetheart]

With regards to her behaviour, we can't know what it means. I appreciate that's probably not very helpful, but ultimately we're just guessing and IMO it's better not to guess.

So how do you feel if it is her, how do you feel about contacting her again to check out if she's ok? It doesn't mean you have to get back together again.

And of course you could just ignore the messages and get on with your life.

[cosmonaut]

There's something to be said for trusting our gut, and you are the only one here that knows your ex.  It does seem, however, that you may be trying to read the chicken bones.  There's a lot of circumstantial, nebulous events that you are interpreting as forming a narrative and they may not.

The emails could easily be spam or phishing emails.  Those are common with such hooks to try and reel people into visiting the site.  Similarly, the anonymous LinkedIn visits could be bots crawling the site which show as anonymous visits.

So, I would try and be careful with reading too much into these things.  Our minds are constructed to see patterns, and sometimes that trips us up and we can see patterns where they are not.  It's best to try and keep the focus on ourselves and work on detaching if that is what we have decided to do.

[Truth619]

Thanks Cosmonaut. I'm pretty sure I'm not reading chicken bones though. As I shared, I'm not interested in reconciling with my ex, but I'm a caring, feeling and empathetic human being who's not willing to just walk away from a friend in need. And I do believe she is currently in a distressed. True, I'm the only one who's been in the relationship with my ex, but I do respect the support and feedback the site offers.

I agree, the emails could be a stretch, but others on this site had the same experience. I'm unaware of bots crawling on LinkedIn, but anything is possible, but I'm 90% certain that it's my ex. Doesn't bother me though. If it soothes her, fine with me.

You didn't comment on the recent flurry of Fake Caller ID calls I've received. Eight in the last three weeks alone. All of which have the same area code and prefix as my number. All of which hung up after I said hello. All were checked and discovered to be either a "non working number" (when I immediately called back), robot vm, endless ringing and the one guy who barely spoke English whom I called right back and he told me he hadn't dialed my number.

I will say this much, the patterns are pretty consistent and very obvious. I am going to check on her this week and if she is okay. If she is, I will still extend my friendship and nothing more.

Thanks again.

Truth

[sweetheart]

Take good care of yourself and let us know how you get on.