Hi Loveless2615,
I’ve done a lot of reading and, while I understand I’m no expert and no two people are the same, her behavior during the split doesn’t seem consistent with the typical way people are “split black” and discarded. She didn’t get nasty or insulting, just said it wasn’t fair that she couldn’t be good back to me (which I thought she was) and she didn’t want to hurt me worse down the road.
I think how some people with BPD (pwBPD) react/behave when they split (idealize/devalue) their interpersonal relationships varies from person to person. Personally I think the degree of their attachment can be a factor. How they react is less important than the fact that they are splitting you.
Your BPD loved one broke things off suddenly, causing you to panic and feel blindsided. She then blocked you on all her social media. This sounds like the behavior of someone who is possibly devaluing you.
And just like other pwBPD, the emotions behind their devalue dissipated, enough that later she started to unblock you. And I agree with Sadly, she's setting you up to be recycled.
Then I’d be straight forward, tell her I’m not going to play games and pretend I don’t want her back. BUT I also need to know the root cause of what happened and how we’re going to both fix it.
The rub is, you can no more fix this behavior (i.e. splitting) than you can cure her disorder by loving her "enough." Whether or not you are playing games or pretending x, y, z, if she has this disorder, she's going to alternate between idealizing and devaluing you. This is going to happen because she has this disorder.
If she is denial about having this disorder, then she's going to project her issues onto you and subsequently blame you (directly or indirectly) for what she is going through. Maybe for now her disordered emotions are manageable enough that she can insulate you from them; but give it another cycle or two and her behaviors might be more "typical" and recognizable.
I’ve been screwed over by complete narcissists and somehow I’m still caring and compassionate (not sure why) so I just feel compelled to love this girl despite everything. I really love everything about her, and this feels different than being screwed over. It’s just been hard to let go of hope, and even harder now with these (possible?) signs, even though our phone call last week she told me not to wait for her or whatever.
Consider, that while you feel compelled to love this girl. She feels compelled to alternate between idealizing you and devaluing you. She is following her feelings. It's just that her feelings (and her psychology) are very different from yours.
I would argue that all the qualities you love about her, are just your own qualities that she mirrored back at you. And you would be better served by figuring out why you might not be as caring and compassionate towards yourself as you are towards this girl. If you care about someone who is going through what you are going through, who is in love with someone who treats them just as this girl has treated you, what would your advice be for such a person?
Best wishes,
Schwing
