Is this BPD behavior?

[shellbent]

From the bu and the time since then, it seemed pretty obvious that she was plagued with all kinds of fears and anxiety. Reading made my rs a lot clearer as to why it failed.

But I'm starting to think there is something even more messed up with me than her.

5 months since she dumped me and I have dated others and even realized she wasn't right for me on the long run. (however still better than anyone I have been involved with) I still can't go thru a day without hurting. She has moved on and is probably in a honeymoon stage right now.

But for the last 5 months nothing has changed between us, except an even bigger distance. I have stopped contacting her, and haven't tried to talk to her for weeks at a time. in the first few months I tried every few days and she would make up excuses not to smoke a cig with me or whatever at work.

Now it doesn't seem like she is avoiding coming within my range by random chance. So I would think she is over the relationship. So today I asked if she wanted to smoke, and again told me she couldn't. However not 4 minutes later she was down with someone else. I just don't understand why she would make up stupid little lies not to spend a few minutes with me.

Fine she doesn't contact me even though she said we could be friends, but she lies. It pisses me off so much, that she won't just tell me she doesn't want to go with me. Of course that might hurt even more, but this just shows that she is full of $h't.

So the question really, is her behavior BPD related, or is it normal for someone to act like the other didn't ever exist, even though she truly thought at one point that I would be the one for her. After all this time all I have done, was be nice and caring and understanding (to even her BS), and I "get" nothing in return. She never asks how I am doing (maybe really selfish), and also still acts like when I was trying to chase her.

And even if someone is trying to woo you, would it be normal to run away from that person? I mean we dated, we loved each other, why can't she accept me in her life? What kind of mean thing did I do to her, what  goes thru her mind when she sees me?

I know nobody can answer all these questions, but it helps to write it down.

Maybe someone knows some possible reasons though.

I know people say an ex is an ex for a reason, and that holds true with all but 1. Because there is so much confusion and so much unexplained, in my mind everything was easy to work out. Will maybe never know why she doesn't want me back. So they say you will avoid your ex because it is awkward, but we broke up and eventually I accepted her decision. There was not yelling or name calling or blame. Just a lot of emotions. So we were nice to one another, she knows I love her. How can that make her want to avoid me and then in the meantime act totally fine and completely over me. She does look at me sometimes, but she is either really good at hiding that, or she really doesn't care. So it doesn't add up.

Can someone make sense to all of this? Am I being paranoid? Of course the worst part is that I cannot bear to take this anymore. I think I still love her, but it is too painful so I just try to block it out. But seeing her just makes me want to talk to her so things aren't so crappy between us. I can't win. And I can't get close to her anymore.

[BlackandBlue]

I know what you are going cause I went through that same thing. My ex used to work with me and while we were together we would always take our breaks together. We would go get something to eat or get coffee. But after the break up she wouldn't give me the time of day... .like I didn't exist or had any relationship with her. I would always ask and she would refuse only to go on a break with someone else right after I asked. Sometimes I think she would to this to intentionally hurt or upset me because she is very vindictive in passive aggressive ways. As bad as you want to talk to her and such I honestly think you are better off not doing so. By asking and being rejected over and over it just caused more pain for me. Luckily my ex quit and it has really helped. Seeing her and hearing her voice was triggering so many negative emotions... .i was always on edge. Hang in there, things will get better.

[Blimblam]

Shellbent

Man I feel like I could have written this myself not very long ago.

You are deep in the FOG right now. Fear obligation and guilt. The best remedy for this is no contact.  You will get there when you do.  Untill then you may keep touching the fire to remember you get burned.  Maybe your at the point now you realize that.

This sucks man! 

She has a severe mental disorder so deeply ingrained it makes up her personality.  Her personality is compartmentalized.  She sees in black and white. Right now you are split black. She was in some way damaged at a young age.  This caused her personality to fragment. She has a personality disorder and it is triggered by intimacy. Fears of abandonment and fears of engulfment. Deep down she is wounded and when the disorder is triggered she feels this deep seated fears but she doesn't know how to process them so she projects that wounded child into you and she uses her knowledge of you to find your buttons and she pushes them. She sees you as the bad guy the parent or authority figure who punished her and she rebels. When your inner wounded child shows up looking for answers she shows you how she felt as a child. She's reinacting a child hood memory. But now you are that child and she dumps all that pain and shame and fears into you and tosses you away like an emotional tampon. You become the embodiment of all her own inner pain and shame the very things she is trying to avoid. So you see it's really about her running from herself. She holds you in contempt the same way she holds herself. Then she seeks out a new attachment someone to attach to and loose herself in so she can forget about all that pain.

To her it's about her need to avoid feeling shame and pain. She does not seek to reconcile with herself so she can not with you untill she has split her new attachment black. She needs a bad guy  to hold in contempt that way she doesn't have to face her own pain.

It's a vicious cycle and a pattern she will repeat over and over.

It is hard to be friends with someone like that. Many have tried only to be sucked dry emotionally and abused over and over in an endless cycle of misery.

It wasn't meant to last.

And it wasn't personal.

As tausk would say the disorder always wins.

[shellbent]

This seems to be the hard truth that I don't want to accept.

It does seem though that I wasn't black intermittently when she liked some posts on FB.

That didn't even last a day.

I know I should just move on and forget this, but is there really nothing I can do or say to her that will make her realize what she is doing?

[shellbent]

I know what you are going cause I went through that same thing. My ex used to work with me and while we were together we would always take our breaks together. We would go get something to eat or get coffee. But after the break up she wouldn't give me the time of day... .like I didn't exist or had any relationship with her. I would always ask and she would refuse only to go on a break with someone else right after I asked. Sometimes I think she would to this to intentionally hurt or upset me because she is very vindictive in passive aggressive ways. As bad as you want to talk to her and such I honestly think you are better off not doing so. By asking and being rejected over and over it just caused more pain for me. Luckily my ex quit and it has really helped. Seeing her and hearing her voice was triggering so many negative emotions... .i was always on edge. Hang in there, things will get better.

What was the reason you guys split up? Do you know at least?

[Blimblam]

This seems to be the hard truth that I don't want to accept.

It does seem though that I wasn't black intermittently when she liked some posts on FB.

That didn't even last a day.

I know I should just move on and forget this, but is there really nothing I can do or say to her that will make her realize what she is doing?

Sadly no. Especially when you are painted black.

I didn't want to accept it either.  My ex was the quiet borderline type she never raged and was a really sweet girl.  At the same time she was a cunning manipulative liar.  When I was being devalued she was sadisticaly cruel and systematically destroyed me and drove me insane.  It was extremely sadistic and methodical. She enjoyed it!

My ex really does have a sweet considerate compassionate side to her.

Out of compassion it's easy to look back with rose tinted glasses or in utter disgust hatred and contempt. It depends on how we are feeling but seeing it as a whole is a different story.  Then their is her story becuase her reality is very different. Her reality is about survival and getting her perceived needs met. 

I am not sure how severe her disorder is she may be able to improve with therapy.  The thing is it's a personality disorder and most likely they will only learn healthier coping mechanisms and some tricks to not get overwhelmed so easily.

It's not something you can fix and she has to want to fix herself.

Accepting this is indeed radical and it didn't come to me in one simple step.  Can't fix em.

The more you show them you actually care and really love them the less they respect you.  It's a lose lose situation.  No one wins this game.

But hey you might find Jesus out of all this.

[shellbent]

I'm a believer, I actually thought she was a gift, the person I've waited for. This makes it even harder ro understand.I know my life needed a jolt and without pain my stubborn brain won't budge. My father passed a few years ago, and it only hit me when my ex broke up with me. I really needed someone and she wasn't there for me.

I've changed, but now I'm slowly giving up, because it feels like more than I can bare.

Why am I suffering? Why does my life seem like ___ now? These are the questions I want answers to

I have a hard time believing now that it was for the best.

Sometimes I also don't know how to cope with these strong emotions.

[BlackandBlue]

I know what you are going cause I went through that same thing. My ex used to work with me and while we were together we would always take our breaks together. We would go get something to eat or get coffee. But after the break up she wouldn't give me the time of day... .like I didn't exist or had any relationship with her. I would always ask and she would refuse only to go on a break with someone else right after I asked. Sometimes I think she would to this to intentionally hurt or upset me because she is very vindictive in passive aggressive ways. As bad as you want to talk to her and such I honestly think you are better off not doing so. By asking and being rejected over and over it just caused more pain for me. Luckily my ex quit and it has really helped. Seeing her and hearing her voice was triggering so many negative emotions... .i was always on edge. Hang in there, things will get better.

What was the reason you guys split up? Do you know at least?

Well... .she was emotionally draining me and I couldn't keep the honeymoon phase alive because I was depressed. She was so needy and I thought I was doing a good job but it was never enough. She turned it around and said I was draining when in actuality it was her making me withdraw.

[Blimblam]

I'm a believer, I actually thought she was a gift, the person I've waited for. This makes it even harder ro understand.I know my life needed a jolt and without pain my stubborn brain won't budge. My father passed a few years ago, and it only hit me when my ex broke up with me. I really needed someone and she wasn't there for me.

I've changed, but now I'm slowly giving up, because it feels like more than I can bare.

Why am I suffering? Why does my life seem like now? These are the questions I want answers to

I have a hard time believing now that it was for the best.

Sometimes I also don't know how to cope with these strong emotions.

Bpd traits or severely BPD the fact remains things happened they way they did.

In time you might see the gift more clearly but there is a lot to process emotionally. The pain has to to be felt and experienced to let it go. 

An interesting concept is that of shadow projection and the feminin archetype or anima.  So in our mind we have a concept of a woman our dream girl image and when we see or meet someone that gives a symbol that resembles this image in our mind it triggers us to project this onto them. 

So what we are dealing with is our dream girl and the the conflict of that and the reality of the person we had the relationship with. When we project our dream girl onto someone we deal with ourself in many ways and this may open us up and lure out the hidden parts of us that needed love.  But these darker aspects of the feminine archetype or anima drag down the ego untill the mirror shatters and often our ego identity with it.

This allows one a painfull process of putting the pieces back together but now with access to parts of the self that had been long dormant that we had been seeking for outside ourselves.

And I'm sorry about the passing of you father Shellbent.

[Blimblam]

I want to add something that has helped me. 

A lot of these issues stem from our FOO. The concept of foo issues. Early child hood issues.  So a lot of the healing is about reconnecting to our inner child. The thing is we got a lot of lessons about these things as a child in child stories and rhymes and fairytales.  Like in hansel and gretal we follow the trail of breadcrumbs back to our family of origin.

The projection of our dream girl or anima projection is our inner child trying to reconnect to the feminine to recieve the love it needs.  This is like Peter Pan chasing his shadow. 

The ego identity shattering is like the story of humpy dumpty and his great fall.  All the kings soldiers and all the kings men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again.  So, no one but you can put these pieces back together.  You may or may not identify with what others say but the answer and solution ultimately has to come from you.

The fantasy of who our ex was is linked to our childhood fantasies which is in our shadow. The parts of ourself we seeked to reconnect with outside ourself. So just because our ex had we own reality which was in consistant with our fantasy doesn't make our fantasy bad.  Or our ex necessarily bad.  When we project onto someone an idealized fantasy that puts them under a lot of pressure to live up to! 

This is why I find children's stories and the lessons theirin to be a good way to reconnect to the wounded inner child because they are linked to my childhood memories that make up my shadow.

BecUse wasn't it that joy of being as free as a child again a big part of the allure and mystique of the relationship?

[shellbent]

Thanks for all of this! It seems right on par with what I'm feeling.

Ego has a large part to do with it, also feeling like the odd one out. My ex told me that for her, our rs was a learning experience. Not sure how to perceive that, but either way it sucks to hear. It's like she is saying now she knows what not to do. Mostly though I think she was talking about the same thing that I was experiencing before. Seeing deep into her soul and finding a dark and scary place. This was once things were spinning out of control.

All in all, I think that both of us were able to see behind each others masks and we saw the other for who we really are. This probably happened, because we both trusted one another 100%. They way I acted, I was close to a mental breakdown. The breakup just led me on an even crazier path, I was literally losing my mind. The funny thing is, she shared some really personal stories about herself a month into our rs, how she was abused by this one boyfriend. Also about her childhood stories that she was always picked on and avoided and excluded.

People always made her feel unwanted and inferior or not good enough. Now I can tell she is compensating for this by wanting everyone's attention (except mine). So when she told me these things (they were a red flag of course), but that warning i didn't head. I should have known that she was sensitive, especially after something that happened so long ago still has a deep impression on her. I'm a relaxed person, it is very rare that I rage or act out. In fact the only times (when not by myself) that I got upset, was when my ex refused to talk to me and tell me what was on her mind. She would avoid talking about problems, I guess she couldn't handle any criticism and she had the fear that even just opening her mouth and voicing her opinion she would be ridiculed, blamed and criticized.

So this was pretty much the only person that got me to raise my voice and it caused me to get a little depressed afterwards, because I felt like there was no control over the rs and that she didn't want to do anything to work on it.

On the other hand our daily routine went back to normal and we didn't really talk about that incident again. Also back to loving each other. I even remember the night after this happened we were made up and we said we don't want to be mad at each other so we let it go. I should have tried and talked to her then and there. I see my mistake now. Still she might have used her avoidance techniques to work her way around a conversation, but I would have at least tried.

The problem is I wanted her to see that I accept her for who she is, not who she pretends to be. Of course she is very shy and mostly quiet so it is hard to tell sometimes what I wanted to see and what she really is.

It seems though, as you also said, she is running from herself. So even if I say I accept the person under the mask, she wouldn't want me to because she is trying so hard to change that about herself. I feel like this is what she was projecting towards the end, that she needed to work on herself and me telling her she is "perfect" or "good enough" just seem like deterring her from self development. If people fall in love with the false self, they are always going to be disappointed when the mask slips. When I met my ex she was very low on energy, she seemed in comparison like a low functioning person. So to me it seems like I saw right away who she was. I fell in love with the sweet, kind, scarred girl, who just wanted someone to love her without her having to put up a false self. So she was trying to hold it together but eventually started to fear that I am rejecting her and distancing myself. This is actually a strange  fact. 3 months before we broke up, I was constantly asking myself why I don't get out of this rs. These were the red flags I would think about when I had my time away from her. Some of the reasons I said were dumb, so I ignored them. Others though weren't and I felt like there were things that were not in harmony with each other, but then I thought this isn't that much to sacrifice.

So I stayed, even though I was contemplating leaving, but I didn't want to hurt her either. So then I could consider leaving her, and now that she doesn't want me, and I miss her I feel like I died inside. Go figure! Need some more lessons on the Self.