Gut punch tonight. Need some support.

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I don't even know where to start. A few days ago, someone on this board recommended "Psychopath Free" by Jackson MacKenzie. I downloaded the audiobook and am about halfway through. It's been very difficult to listen to because it hits so close to home. When he goes through sample conversations with a psychopath, it is literally real conversations that I have had with my ex. There was only one thing missing. The absolute certainty that there would be a replacement. That the reason I was finally discarded is because there is a replacement. That's not the case here.

Then, tonight I stupidly facebook stalked her. She is with a woman that she had an emotional affair with while we were together. When she confessed, she blocked this woman, apologized profusely and said that the woman was a horrible person who had reached out to her while she was vulnerable, blah blah.

So I am having so many feelings. What is the difference in BPD and Psychosis? In the book, the author says flat out that the person knows exactly what they are doing and are essentially getting off on hurting you. That's not what I've taken away from this board. What I've gathered here is that our exes are sick and, while we don't excuse their behavior, we try to understand where it is coming from and move on.

This is a game changer. Is the really that terrible? Is she a mentally ill person or is she a Psychopath who is intentionally hurting me? Does it even matter now? No. Not really. But damn. What a difficult night. I'm sorry this is rambling. Just need some support.

[burton2070]

I don't even know where to start. A few days ago, someone on this board recommended "Psychopath Free" by Jackson MacKenzie. I downloaded the audiobook and am about halfway through. It's been very difficult to listen to because it hits so close to home. When he goes through sample conversations with a psychopath, it is literally real conversations that I have had with my ex. There was only one thing missing. The absolute certainty that there would be a replacement. That the reason I was finally discarded is because there is a replacement. That's not the case here.

Then, tonight I stupidly facebook stalked her. She is with a woman that she had an emotional affair with while we were together. When she confessed, she blocked this woman, apologized profusely and said that the woman was a horrible person who had reached out to her while she was vulnerable, blah blah.

So I am having so many feelings. What is the difference in BPD and Psychosis? In the book, the author says flat out that the person knows exactly what they are doing and are essentially getting off on hurting you. That's not what I've taken away from this board. What I've gathered here is that our exes are sick and, while we don't excuse their behavior, we try to understand where it is coming from and move on.

This is a game changer. Is the really that terrible? Is she a mentally ill person or is she a Psychopath who is intentionally hurting me? Does it even matter now? No. Not really. But damn. What a difficult night. I'm sorry this is rambling. Just need some support.

[pjstock42]

burton2070,

I'm sorry you're having a difficult night, I'm having one as well and have had many before today so I know exactly how it feels.

Without knowing the specific person in question, it's impossible for me or anyone here to say whether the behavior you are seeing can be attributed to BPD traits or to those of a psychopath. Also, I haven't read this book but I have seen some YouTube videos that discuss it and I do know that people on this board have said that it overgeneralizes things to an extent and may not be helpful when the person in question is a true BPD as many of their traits may seem remarkably similar to those of a psychopath.

I struggle every day wondering whether my BPD ex gf did what she did as part of some intentional plan to destroy me or if it was simply a breakdown of good intentions that resulted from her inability to think rationally and exhibit emotional maturity. Like you said, I don't think it really matters at this point but it's definitely something that I seemingly can't stop thinking about so I understand what you're going through. All I can say is try to think about yourself through this. What is going to help you heal from this in the best way? What things about yourself can you focus on and grow from this experience?

As difficult as it has been to accept, I have finally been able to convince the logical part of my brain that I have no desire to be with my BPD ex and that helps in times like this. Although the emotional part of my brain is constantly at war with that logic, reminiscing about the good times and longing for her to come back - I have to continue building up the logical sides with the tools that it needs to win this battle. Knowing what you know now, is your ex a person that you would want to be with again? If so, what inside of you causes you to want this? If not, does that make this a bit easier to disassociate from, knowing that her actions are now inconsequential to you as you are moving forward on your own path?

I don't know if any of this is helpful but either way, I'm here to talk to you about it and I hope you're not feeling too down.

[burton2070]

pj - thanks for your response and I'm sorry you are also having a difficult evening. The answer to your question is no - I do not still want to be with her knowing everything I know. I'm mostly in the phase of beating myself up for allowing someone to manipulate and emotionally abuse me the way she did.

I will have to search more on the reviews of the book. It's pretty brutal. It's one thing to think you got mixed up with a mentally ill person who is incapable of treating youi with respect and quite another thing to think you spent 1.5 years with someone with full on evil intent to hurt you.

The fact that she is showering social media with pics of her and the replacement isn't helping. This is someone she confessed to an emotional affair with, showed me the days and days of very emotional and sexual messages with, and apologized profusely about. We had entire couples therapy sessions about this person and how to move forward. And now, less than three months after discard, they are in love. Oof.

I hope you feel better soon. Stay strong and stay on this board for support. You are not alone. Have a good night.

[pjstock42]

Burton, it seems like we are in remarkably similar situations. My relationship was also 1.5 years (which actually seems to be pretty short compared to many here) and I'm about half as far into the post discard timeframe as you. I'm also in that same stage that you mentioned where I am constantly beating myself up and using 110% of my mental energy trying to figure out how I've ended up where I am in life, it leaves me totally mentally exhausted at the end of every day.

In regards to the social media stuff, all I can say is try your best to not even go looking for it. I've been lucky in having not once seen anything from her on social media as I basically made this impossible for myself to do through blocking etc. on all perceivable social media sites just days after the discard since I know the temptation would be strong.

What you say about her being "in love" in less than 3 months after being with you, that hits close to home for me. I was totally in love with my BPD ex gf within 3 months of that relationship starting and I know that she had been in a relationship not too far before ours so really, I was probably the replacement for someone else and you may have been as well?

I hope you feel better too. I have been getting terrible sleep all week so I restructured my evening tonight in order to get to bed early which I hope will make me feel a bit better. Look forward to hearing your thoughts on this tomorrow after you've had some time to process it.

[fromheeltoheal]

Hi burton-

I'm sorry you're going through that, it is very painful and confusing, we've been there and understand.  And you are going through it.

Psychopath is an obsolete psychological term, that set of traits is now called Antisocial Personality Disorder, ASPD, and it is distinctly different from Borderline Personality Disorder, although as you say, Does it even matter now? No. Not really.  It's the behaviors and how they affected you that matter.

And as far as an education on the clinical side:

The traits of ASPD are listed and described here

The traits of BPD are listed and described here

You might read those and see which ones fit best, plus disorders can be comorbid, meaning occurring together, and really everyone's different with their own unique cluster of traits.  Plus it's a continuum; we all exhibit some of the traits at least some of the time.

And the other thing is you ended up on this site for a reason, and you read things that sounded familiar, I'm assuming, so best to keep reading and posting, and decide for yourself if there are enough posts here that you could have written; that does two things, one, it will allow you to decide that whatever is up with your ex really is a thing, you're not crazy, and two, you're not alone.

Take care of you!

[stimpy]

I've been through a similar journey too. After I was discarded (abrupt, hurtful, no closure etc... .) I was hurt beyond understanding. And I began searching the internet for answers by searching on her behaviour patterns.

And initially came up with NPD... .

Then my therapist said BPD... .

Then I read some forums and thought ASPD (what I think used to be called psychopath)... .

And after all that I think it is probably BPD, co-morbid with ASPD and NPD. And really it doesn't matter. She is unwell and has lived a turbulent and difficult life and seems to hate just about everyone significant in her life (mother, ex husband, ex boyfriends etc... .)

But getting closer to understanding the different personality disorders helps to depersonalise what she did and by gaining an understanding of them, we can work out better what happened and this helps in the process towards closure.

The thought that we may have dated someone who was ASPD, or who had ASPD traits is quite disturbing in some ways. And I wonder how I could have fallen for it. But mine played the victim card very skilfully, drew my sympathy and charmed me and pulled me in. And she was sexy and funny and seemed pretty together. I had no experience of this type of person. I fell for it.

The payoff is that I'm pretty sure I will never fall for it again.

And this is where the research and forums like this are so helpful... .we learn the red flags and build the skills to read other people better.