I need help, I feel completely lost and isolated

[OtterlyAnguished]

Hello to everyone. I need help. I feel like I’m at the end of my rope and my life is hanging on by a thread. I hope there is someone, anyone who can help me. I was in an eight month relationship with a woman whom I believe exhibits characteristics of BPD. We lived together and we were happily in love and inseparable for eight months, then she left after telling me in tears that she always hurts the one she loves the most and she doesn’t understand why. After only a few weeks of her leaving, she told me she made the biggest mistake of her life leaving me and we reconciled, but after only a few days, she inexplicably abandoned me again, only one day after telling me she was fully committed to me and our relationship and that she wanted to marry me. Then she blocked me on social media and blocked my phone number. Since this happened four months ago, I’ve read several books about BPD: I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me, Stop Walking On Eggshells and The Buddha And The Borderline. After reading these and doing online research, I’m convinced she exhibits traits of BPD. Despite my genuine attempts to woo and win her back, she is now living in her car homeless and it breaks my heart. She is the most intelligent, creative, beautiful and most loving and caring woman I’ve ever met, but she has this other side that can be so mean and selfish and cruel to me. I’m a kind, caring and generous and loving man. She told me many times no other man has made her feel as amazing and as loved as I have, but yet she, in her words, “resists and rejects the very things she longs for.” All of this has left me a mere shell of my former self, and now I’m seeing a social worker and I’ve been prescribed an anti-depressant that leaves me even more depressed and contemplating suicide. I have my own issues; I suffer from fibromyalgia and c-ptsd, but the pain I suffer through with those illnesses doesn’t come close to the pain I’m experiencing now since becoming involved with and abandoned by who I thought was the woman of my dreams and my soulmate. I have no real support group and my social worker doesn’t really have much experience with BPD and I feel completely lost and isolated and in need of real help and support. Thank you for listening and for any help or advice you can give me. I am utterly anguished and lower than I’ve ever been.

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Rev]

I am utterly anguished and lower than I’ve ever been. [/quote

Hey... Thanks for reaching out... Take a breath and then take another one and then take another one.

Can you get yourself on to a help line where you can talk to someone? I think a voice would be better than words on a screen.

But for now, this will need to do.

I just wanted to offer this thought. Each of us has been born beautiful into this world. Our only duty to each other is to remind each other of that.

Your courage in writing - that's beautiful.
Your ability to believe in her even as she has hurt you - shows how beautiful you are.
Your honesty about where you are at - shines beauty into the the darkness.

Hold on to those three things for a while.

Write back if you need to.

Someone will answer.

Hang on to your beauty. Somebody in this forum needs it. You have a purpose here.  I can feel it.

Rev

[OtterlyAnguished]

Thank you for reaching out to me Rev. Your caring words and your concern mean a lot. You are correct, talking to someone about my situation would be ideal, but I don’t even know where to find someone to talk to. Just posting my story here was difficult for me. I’ve always been a sensitive, creative guy, but I’ve also always been a tenacious and tough guy too; having been through several major surgeries and other adversities in my lifetime, but none of those experiences come close to what I’ve been experiencing with my BPD girlfriend. I’ve never been even remotely involved with anyone with such issues. When we first met, she warned me she was in her words, a “tornado,” and I replied I’m not afraid, I’ve weathered many storms, but I never knew of any such storm as borderline personality disorder. As much as I’m hurting right now, and believe me when I say I thought I knew pain having fibromyalgia, but I can’t even imagine the mental pain and anguish my girlfriend and others suffering with BPD experience. And there in lies the rub; I’m a very empathetic man, I always have been. It hurts me to see any one hurt in any way; people, animals, insects...it doesn’t matter. I feel the pain of others and even more so the pain of those I truly love. I thought I could just tough it out and absorb my girlfriends pain and be there for her no matter what. However, like snow, the pain has accumulated like so many snowflakes, one on top of the other until I feel an avalanche is about to happen, burying me beneath not only her trials and tribulations, but the trials and tribulations I suffer with having my own health issues. Thanks again for responding Rev and thank you for caring. Just knowing that someone is out there who understands and cares helps me tremendously.

[Harri]

Hi and welcome.  I am glad you posted.  

A lot of us here can relate to what you describe so know you are not alone.   You are in a safe place with others who not only understand but some of us have already been through the healing process and others are still working on it.  Regardless, we can all help and support you as you work your way through recovery.  It is tough though and it hurts for sure.   Things do get better though.

I’ve been prescribed an anti-depressant that leaves me even more depressed and contemplating suicide.

Can you tell us more about what is going on here?  Did you just start your medication?  Does your doctor and social worker know you are feeling suicidal?  Sorry for all the questions.  i am concerned though.

I have no real support group and my social worker doesn’t really have much experience with BPD and I feel completely lost and isolated and in need of real help and support. Thank you for listening and for any help or advice you can give me. I am utterly anguished and lower than I’ve ever been.

Well, you have a support group now.  We've got you.

I hope you feel free to jump in and post to others as that is an important way to learn and build knowledge and understanding of your own experience.  

We have a lot of stuff to read too.  A good place to start is here:  How to get the most out of this site

Again, welcome.  

[Levi Love]

Hello utterly anguished,

 for some reason, after more than a month, I just happen to log on only to feel to read your entry.  Your story reads a lot like mine in the early honeymoon phase of my relationship with my wife with BPD.  I was everything to her and I loved being the hero.  I didn't know then that had major traits of cptsd.  Anyway, after about our second major separation, I started reading more about cptsd & BPD.  After the third separation, I started going to local support groups.  

PLEASE READ (ANYTHING ON CPTSD)  COMPLEX PTSD: FROM SURVIVING TO THRIVING
Pete Walker

PLEASE READ "Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder: A Family guide for Healing and Change"  
by Poor M.A., Valerie.  

Of all the over dozen books I have read, this one helped me the most.

GREAT NEWS.  The one you love is still reachable as was mine in the beginning.  I was too busy being her favorite (enabler) to seek lasting help...  

ADVICE
Keep reading and writing here.  It really helps.   Praying for you.

[OtterlyAnguished]

Thank you Harri. Well, let me go back and fill in some details I haven’t shared yet. Because of my circumstances; my fibromyalgia and other heath issues, my wife of 12 years divorcing me in 2017, and my inability to really work, I was forced to move back home with my parents in rural Alabama two years ago, having no health insurance. After being here only five months, my mom died of cancer which devastated me.. I am grateful to have a roof over my head, but my dad is very old, but still very active, but he just doesn’t understand my plight and he means well, but he verbally abuses me on a regular basis. I am lucky to have a dog named Huckleberry who I found while living with my wife on a run down avocado farm her parents owned in South Florida, adjacent to the Everglades. Previously, my wife and I lived in Chicago for many years and before getting sick, I was a very successful fashion photographer. Poor Huck was just a feral puppy when we met. He was filthy dirty, skin and bones, with fresh, bleeding wounds and I soon found out from the vet that he also was dying from heart-worm disease. I nurtured him back to health and domesticated him and after my wife abandoned and divorced me in the most vicious way; I trained Huckleberry to be my service dog. He goes everywhere with me. He is my angel in fur. I wouldn’t have made it this far without him. In August 2018 I met J, my BPD girlfriend, on Instagram and she was living in her car in Los Angeles. She’s a very talented, but tortured artist with her own past trauma. We immediately hit it off and were mutually attracted to each other on so many levels, and in October 2018 she drove all the way across the country to live with me, Huck and my dad. I can honestly say, in all my years, I have never met a more talented, brilliant and mercurial woman. She told me so many wonderful things about myself that no one had ever told me before. It was as if fate had brought us together and we were both on cloud ninety-nine, skipping way past cloud nine. We were soulmates it seemed. We clicked on so many levels, it was bliss, until cracks started to appear and I noticed that J was suffering from trauma greater than anything I had experienced. Most of the time she was here was heavenly, but she would pull a Mister Hyde on me at the drop of a hat from time to time, but then quickly revert back to her loving and doting self. Until eventually she inexplicably left to return to LA in June 2019 (one week before her birthday) to live in her car once more, before realizing she had made the biggest mistake of her life by leaving me she said and reconciling with me in July, only to split me again only one day after she said she wanted to return here to marry me. And then two days later she blocked me on Instagram and blocked my phone. I was devastated. Luckily my dad found a local health clinic for low income people like me who don’t have insurance. While I don’t have a doctor, only a nurse practitioner and a social worker, I am grateful just to finally have some help. D, my social worker diagnosed me with severe depression and in consultation with my nurse practitioner, they put me on 10mg of amitriptyline two weeks ago to hopefully help with my depression and my fibro pain, but I feel horrible. Sorry to ramble on, but I just wanted to give everyone some background to my story. I feel the more information the better. So I feel completely stuck being a big city guy who’s trapped here in rural Alabama, with no friends and no opportunities. At least when J was here I had a like minded soul who understood me and encouraged and loved me for who I am. But now she’s gone with the wind, taking my hope for a brighter future with her. I don’t want to give up, I know I still have many gifts to share with the world, but it seems behind every door I open, only more misery awaits me.

[OtterlyAnguished]

Thank you so much Levi Love. I will certainly look into the book you recommended. I myself have c-ptsd and I suspect that my BPD ex also suffers with it too. She’s been through a lot of trauma dating back to when she was a young girl. I miss her more than the desert misses the rain and would do almost anything to win her love once more, but it seems she may be gone forever. She told me many times that I’m the man of her dreams, but she also told me my love for her and her love for me scares her. She’s never experienced real, true love before and it breaks my heart that she feels the need to run away from our love and forsake me, leaving me bewildered and confused and totally shattered. I believe when you find that one special person who you connect with on so many levels and who truly makes you happy and content and loves you through thick and thin, you should hold onto that person with all your might. Unfortunately, she believes it is better never to have loved at all, than to have loved and lost. Her fear of abandonment and her fear of being consumed in love are like nothing I have ever experienced. I’m fourteen years older than her, and she told me many times when we were together, “Please don’t die on me.” You see, her father died in a car accident when she was only six years old and that was the beginning of her life of trauma. It’s as if suffering is all she knows, and she just can’t allow herself to be truly happy in a loving and caring relationship; even though she says that’s what she longs for the most, yet in her words, she resists and rejects the very thing she craves the most. I’ve never had someone leave me because they were truly in love with me, yet frightened of that very love.

[Rev]

When we first met, she warned me she was in her words, a “tornado,” and I replied I’m not afraid, I’ve weathered many storms, but I never knew of any such storm as borderline personality disorder. As much as I’m hurting right now, and believe me when I say I thought I knew pain having fibromyalgia, but I can’t even imagine the mental pain and anguish my girlfriend and others suffering with BPD experience. And there in lies the rub;

Not sure if it will help - but if you are feeling any shame, like some how you should have "known" better, each one of us men who ooze empathy are hooked in some manner like this - they tell us up front who they are without really telling us - mine told me the same - I see it as an unconscious white flag - like please help me from myself - like a child would - and what they present to the empathetic person changes in a chameleon like fashion.  So while you know now - you didn't really know then - your sense of you should have known comes from your sense of clarity now.

One article that really helped is the one about the stages of bpd relationships.  You can find it here.

Blessings on your day.

Rev

[Rev]

Here's the link to the article:  https://bpdfamily.com/content/how-borderline-relationship-evolves

Also - read anything legitimate about the nature of the trauma bond. 

Rev

[OtterlyAnguished]

Thank you so much Rev. I don’t necessarily feel any shame in not knowing about BPD’s insidious nature, but I am definitely scarred but smarter now. Thank you for the link too. I hope you have a wonderful day.

[Levi Love]

Hello Rev,

  I want to thank you for posting that link.  That article describes my entire relationship (top to bottom) to my wife who is filing for divorce after our third long separation in our short marriage.  I still am not for divorce because of my biblical beliefs, and will pursue restoration.  However, now I will not be as (willing) ignorant.

Thanks again.

[Unsure101]

Here's the link to the article:  https://bpdfamily.com/content/how-borderline-relationship-evolves

Also - read anything legitimate about the nature of the trauma bond. 

Rev

Useful article , thanks.

[Rev]

Hello Rev, I still am not for divorce because of my biblical beliefs, and will pursue restoration.  However, now I will not be as (willing) ignorant

I totally respect that.  I struggled for weeks over this - had people praying for me - and in the end I could not. It was just too abusive. She had hit me and broken things and even pulled the wheel of the car at 80 mph on the highway in the middle of one of her rages.

I'll pray for you my friend. You have courage and may you be carried as if on the wings of eagles.

Rev

[Levi Love]

I totally respect that.  I struggled for weeks over this - had people praying for me - and in the end I could not. It was just too abusive. She had hit me and broken things and even pulled the wheel of the car at 80 mph on the highway in the middle of one of her rages.

I'll pray for you my friend. You have courage and may you be carried as if on the wings of eagles.

Rev

Hey Rev,

I do remember the rage/verbal abuse sessions like I was in the very front raw of a bad rock concert.  As I am separated now going on over 1 yr.s, I don't missed that.  That said, I am still lonely for the very soft, affectionate, and compassionate side of  my wife.  We had such great times together, on mission trips with our church to just cooking in the kitchen together.

I do welcome your PRAYERS because bottom line, I don't really have what it takes to carry out this mission "til death do you part" when we get back together for the fourth time.  I am learning as much as I can about BDP triggers & VALIDATION. 

Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder: A Family guide for Healing and Change" 
by Poor M.A., Valerie.    (pg. 165...)


Again, thanks for the article.  I got a lot from it.  GOD BLESS