Don't know where to start

[Depression = 72% of members]

Not sure where to even start. Found this group/website from a Google search. I'm here hoping that if I share some of what I have experienced, someone might have insights to share back. And hoping that I can learn from others' stories. And I guess I' hoping to feel better.
I have been with my girlfriend for a year, and at least 9 months of that time has been confusing, tumultuous, chaotic, scary, crazy-making, sad, painful and exhausting. I don't know if she has BPD, or NPD, or both, or something else, but I know that her behavior and her thought patterns are not "normal." I am depleted. I ended the relationship on September 26, but later, after she pleaded with me, I agreed to give her a chance to reconcile if she would get into therapy. So far she's had three sessions with a therapist, but I'm not seeing a lot of positive change.
There's so much, so many crazy things that have happened, but I will try to be concise here, and just ask--does this sound like what y'all have gone through?
The list of false accusations could fill pages and pages. The list of times she has berated me, ridiculed me, mocked me, made fun of me and called me names for doing completely normal things, could fill pages and pages.
At the beginning of the relationship, she told me frequently that I was sneaky but refused to tell me why she thought that. She finally told me that it was because I kept my phone ringer off, with my phone on vibrate. I told her that I just don’t like the sound of the ringer—any ringer. But she refused to accept that explanation and insisted that I was being sneaky and must have something to hide. But she also said that not liking a ringer was "crazy" and that I must have some psychotic tendencies or something if a ringer disturbed me that much.
She has on several occasions, after we've been out in public, accused me of staring at some random woman, always someone I wasn't even aware of, but if I tell her I wasn't she yells at me that I know exactly what I was doing and calls me a liar. She tells me frequently that I am creepy and attention-seeking. She once berated me in the middle of a Walgreens because I asked the store employee to help me find something--saying that I was so desperate for attention that I would flirt with anyone. She says that I stare at people and make people uncomfortable. I have asked people that I trust, people I have known for a long time and whom I trust to tell me the truth, about this and they say that I don’t do this. When she gets angry and jealous and we get into a disagreement about it she will often start yelling and calling me deranged, evil, psycho, or tells me I am a narcissist, calls me a whore and a bitch.
She frequently wakes me up to start quizzing me, interrogating me, about things I have said, or that she thinks I have said, or to ask me about whom I’ve spoken to and when, or to ask me about Facebook posts, either mine or other people’s, and what they mean. She uses vague questions and accusations and it always becomes a fight. She stalks my Facebook interactions and turns every "like" or "love" react on other people's photos into reasons to believe I am cheating with those people. Innocent posts that I share, memes, etc., she reads bizarre meaning into and accuses me of sending subliminal messages to people on FB that our relationship is on the rocks or that I am available for sexual encounters. She sees and hears sexual innuendo in interactions where there is none. She has snooped in my FB messages, my texts, and my email and then tries to weaponize years old conversations against me. She has, in the span of minutes, gone from being insanely jealous and acting convinced that I am cheating, to making fun of me about conversations that she saw when she snooped (again, conversations from before I even knew her) and that she believes (incorrectly) were my attempts to flirt with people, telling me those people shut me down and weren't interested in being with me. She latches on to words in what I say, giving them meaning other than what I intended, refuses to hear me when I tell her what I meant, and takes offense at even the most well-intentioned statements.
On one occasion she sent me a long, barely coherent message saying that the more she observed my interactions with my dog (which are pretty normal and not in any way out of the ordinary for any dog owner, and I have plenty of friends who would attest to that), the more she wondered "how far" I had "gone with him," basically implying that I had sex with my dog. When I got upset with her about that and told her that was extremely hurtful and offensive, she first defended the accusation, later apologized and said she didn't want to think that way but couldn't help it, and later when I brought it up to a counselor denied having said it at all. Fortunately I had saved the message.
She's constantly telling me that she is “aware” of what I am doing, making vague accusations, but refusing to tell me what it is that she is “aware” of so that I don’t know what I’m actually being accused of, and if I try to insist that she tell me, she simply tells me that I know what I’m doing and that I must be playing dumb.
She actively interferes with my ability to work, and has constantly accused me of not working when I am working (I work at home), believing I am actually chatting with women online. Once she physically snatched my laptop in an attempt to prove that I wasn't working, and when I decided to leave and go to my office to get some space she got in my car and refused to get out, then after I distracted her and she got out and I drove away she followed me to my office building, but couldn't follow me inside because of security. She has followed me many times, always accusing me of sneaking off to have a secret meeting. She even accuses me of using my dog walks to secretly meet up with someone in the neighborhood.
When we disagree about things, especially about how to interpret something or when she's telling me that I am crazy because I don't see things the way she does, she will, 9 times out of 10, get out her phone and call someone, a friend, one of her adult children, her mom, in order to ridicule me and get them to side with her about her interpretation of things. But of course she doesn't tell them what really happened or what I really said, but only her version.
She insists on constant contact and will call me at inappropriate times, like in the middle of a meeting. She once called in the middle of my dentist appointment, three times, and then got angry when she heard me laughing with the hygienist because she said that was proof that I went there to socialize and get attention and didn't really need any dental work.
She likes to tell me that she has spoken with people about me and that they have confirmed that I am crazy, or a narcissist, or a liar, etc. When I speak to those people, they deny having said that, or sometimes they deny even having spoken to her about me at all. She seems much more concerned, sometimes, with how other people perceive our relationship than the actual relationship itself.
She will take any opportunity to accuse me of seeking attention and to ridicule me about it, even for just the smallest things. For example, one afternoon I pulled my motorcycle out of the garage, and parked it in the cul-de-sac near my next door neighbor’s driveway. I didn’t think too much about where I was parking, my only concern being for having a flat spot. I proceeded to clean and lubricate the bike chain, but she came out and started yelling at me, asking why the hell I parked in front of the neighbor’s house instead of my own. I didn’t understand why it was an issue. I told her that it was only going to take about 10 minutes, and the neighbors weren’t going anywhere so it wasn’t really an issue. My house is on a tiny cul-de-sac with six houses. All the neighbors are friendly and have a fairly relaxed attitude about that sort of thing. I had seen my neighbor earlier that day and he told me he had a friend from high school in town visiting and they would be hanging out on the porch. But in any case, there was no reason why there should have been an issue with how I parked my bike to work on it. I finished doing what I was doing, but the whole time, she insulted me, told me I was desperate for attention, said I should just go ahead and do it in the middle of the street to make sure everyone knew what I was doing, took out her phone and taunted me and laughed and made a show of taking photos of me, my bike, and my driveway and saying she was going to post them online to show how ridiculous I was.
It goes on and on. The insanity has become too much. There's a new target for her delusional jealousy every week, on top of that, and her Facebook stalking has become actual stalking. I don't know what to do, what I want, how to end this pain. I just want to love and be loved and be allowed to be myself without being spied on, followed, accused of things I'm not doing, berated, lied to, etc.

[hope4better]

Not sure where to even start. Found this group/website from a Google search. I'm here hoping that if I share some of what I have experienced, someone might have insights to share back. And hoping that I can learn from others' stories. And I guess I' hoping to feel better.
I have been with my girlfriend for a year, and at least 9 months of that time has been confusing, tumultuous, chaotic, scary, crazy-making, sad, painful and exhausting. I don't know if she has BPD, or NPD, or both, or something else, but I know that her behavior and her thought patterns are not "normal." I am depleted. I ended the relationship on September 26, but later, after she pleaded with me, I agreed to give her a chance to reconcile if she would get into therapy. So far she's had three sessions with a therapist, but I'm not seeing a lot of positive change.
There's so much, so many crazy things that have happened, but I will try to be concise here, and just ask--does this sound like what y'all have gone through?
The list of false accusations could fill pages and pages. The list of times she has berated me, ridiculed me, mocked me, made fun of me and called me names for doing completely normal things, could fill pages and pages.
At the beginning of the relationship, she told me frequently that I was sneaky but refused to tell me why she thought that. She finally told me that it was because I kept my phone ringer off, with my phone on vibrate. I told her that I just don’t like the sound of the ringer—any ringer. But she refused to accept that explanation and insisted that I was being sneaky and must have something to hide. But she also said that not liking a ringer was "crazy" and that I must have some psychotic tendencies or something if a ringer disturbed me that much.
She has on several occasions, after we've been out in public, accused me of staring at some random woman, always someone I wasn't even aware of, but if I tell her I wasn't she yells at me that I know exactly what I was doing and calls me a liar. She tells me frequently that I am creepy and attention-seeking. She once berated me in the middle of a Walgreens because I asked the store employee to help me find something--saying that I was so desperate for attention that I would flirt with anyone. She says that I stare at people and make people uncomfortable. I have asked people that I trust, people I have known for a long time and whom I trust to tell me the truth, about this and they say that I don’t do this. When she gets angry and jealous and we get into a disagreement about it she will often start yelling and calling me deranged, evil, psycho, or tells me I am a narcissist, calls me a whore and a bitch.
She frequently wakes me up to start quizzing me, interrogating me, about things I have said, or that she thinks I have said, or to ask me about whom I’ve spoken to and when, or to ask me about Facebook posts, either mine or other people’s, and what they mean. She uses vague questions and accusations and it always becomes a fight. She stalks my Facebook interactions and turns every "like" or "love" react on other people's photos into reasons to believe I am cheating with those people. Innocent posts that I share, memes, etc., she reads bizarre meaning into and accuses me of sending subliminal messages to people on FB that our relationship is on the rocks or that I am available for sexual encounters. She sees and hears sexual innuendo in interactions where there is none. She has snooped in my FB messages, my texts, and my email and then tries to weaponize years old conversations against me. She has, in the span of minutes, gone from being insanely jealous and acting convinced that I am cheating, to making fun of me about conversations that she saw when she snooped (again, conversations from before I even knew her) and that she believes (incorrectly) were my attempts to flirt with people, telling me those people shut me down and weren't interested in being with me. She latches on to words in what I say, giving them meaning other than what I intended, refuses to hear me when I tell her what I meant, and takes offense at even the most well-intentioned statements.
On one occasion she sent me a long, barely coherent message saying that the more she observed my interactions with my dog (which are pretty normal and not in any way out of the ordinary for any dog owner, and I have plenty of friends who would attest to that), the more she wondered "how far" I had "gone with him," basically implying that I had sex with my dog. When I got upset with her about that and told her that was extremely hurtful and offensive, she first defended the accusation, later apologized and said she didn't want to think that way but couldn't help it, and later when I brought it up to a counselor denied having said it at all. Fortunately I had saved the message.
She's constantly telling me that she is “aware” of what I am doing, making vague accusations, but refusing to tell me what it is that she is “aware” of so that I don’t know what I’m actually being accused of, and if I try to insist that she tell me, she simply tells me that I know what I’m doing and that I must be playing dumb.
She actively interferes with my ability to work, and has constantly accused me of not working when I am working (I work at home), believing I am actually chatting with women online. Once she physically snatched my laptop in an attempt to prove that I wasn't working, and when I decided to leave and go to my office to get some space she got in my car and refused to get out, then after I distracted her and she got out and I drove away she followed me to my office building, but couldn't follow me inside because of security. She has followed me many times, always accusing me of sneaking off to have a secret meeting. She even accuses me of using my dog walks to secretly meet up with someone in the neighborhood.
When we disagree about things, especially about how to interpret something or when she's telling me that I am crazy because I don't see things the way she does, she will, 9 times out of 10, get out her phone and call someone, a friend, one of her adult children, her mom, in order to ridicule me and get them to side with her about her interpretation of things. But of course she doesn't tell them what really happened or what I really said, but only her version.
She insists on constant contact and will call me at inappropriate times, like in the middle of a meeting. She once called in the middle of my dentist appointment, three times, and then got angry when she heard me laughing with the hygienist because she said that was proof that I went there to socialize and get attention and didn't really need any dental work.
She likes to tell me that she has spoken with people about me and that they have confirmed that I am crazy, or a narcissist, or a liar, etc. When I speak to those people, they deny having said that, or sometimes they deny even having spoken to her about me at all. She seems much more concerned, sometimes, with how other people perceive our relationship than the actual relationship itself.
She will take any opportunity to accuse me of seeking attention and to ridicule me about it, even for just the smallest things. For example, one afternoon I pulled my motorcycle out of the garage, and parked it in the cul-de-sac near my next door neighbor’s driveway. I didn’t think too much about where I was parking, my only concern being for having a flat spot. I proceeded to clean and lubricate the bike chain, but she came out and started yelling at me, asking why the hell I parked in front of the neighbor’s house instead of my own. I didn’t understand why it was an issue. I told her that it was only going to take about 10 minutes, and the neighbors weren’t going anywhere so it wasn’t really an issue. My house is on a tiny cul-de-sac with six houses. All the neighbors are friendly and have a fairly relaxed attitude about that sort of thing. I had seen my neighbor earlier that day and he told me he had a friend from high school in town visiting and they would be hanging out on the porch. But in any case, there was no reason why there should have been an issue with how I parked my bike to work on it. I finished doing what I was doing, but the whole time, she insulted me, told me I was desperate for attention, said I should just go ahead and do it in the middle of the street to make sure everyone knew what I was doing, took out her phone and taunted me and laughed and made a show of taking photos of me, my bike, and my driveway and saying she was going to post them online to show how ridiculous I was.
It goes on and on. The insanity has become too much. There's a new target for her delusional jealousy every week, on top of that, and her Facebook stalking has become actual stalking. I don't know what to do, what I want, how to end this pain. I just want to love and be loved and be allowed to be myself without being spied on, followed, accused of things I'm not doing, berated, lied to, etc.

[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]

Hi Hope,

Welcome to our community.

You've come to a place that is very supportive and full of wisdom.

And thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Venting here is a bit different than venting with friends.

1st - only you really know if you are seeing things correctly, because all we have is your words. I can tell you from experience that the deeper you go to check in with yourself, and then share those thoughts, the more you will get out of our exchanges here.  So keep at it.

2nd - If your girlfriend is in counseling that's great. Three sessions can make a difference for some people. Others need more. It depends on how much stuff they need to work through and how deep their trauma goes.

3rd - You are here on the bettering board, which suggests that you are hoping to have something improve. You describe a lot of challenging behavior from your girlfriend. So - where are you thinking that there is the best chance to see an improvement in your relationship and what role are you hoping to play in it?

Thoughts?

Hang in there.

Rev

[kells76]

Joining Rev in welcoming you, hope4better -- glad you found the group. Yes, LOTS of experiences and insights here. You're not the only one to cope with a strongly paranoid and controlling partner.

Can you tell us some more about what keeps you in the relationship, as you're here on the "bettering" board?

It IS possible to feel better, to answer your question, though sometimes things "feel worse" before they feel better. This can be because when we learn and implement new relational tools & skills (which are often non-intuitive when dealing with a person with BPD, aka pwBPD), this shakes up the relational norm in uncomfortable ways at the start. If you're up for making changes, though, then yes, it is very possible for things to get "less worse" and even calmer/better.

Read some posts, check out other members' stories, and reply here whenever works for you.

Cheers,

kells76

[NotAHero]

Hope4better

Welcome to the boards.

 In addition to what the other valued members mentioned I would add 2 points:

1- It is rare for a BPD or NP to improve or benefit from therapy if they entered it as part of an Ultimatum. If she is only in therapy because of her fear of you abandoning her she will likely try to convince the therapist eventually that you are the one at fault. Even if she started the therapy with taking responsibility. It’s just how BPD works. There is still hope though that she might benefit because every BP is different. Just tone down your expectations.

2- Since you are still early in the relationship start practicing boundaries now. Going out with friends and she accuses you of cheating ? Go out anyway and use validating and communications techniques from “stop walking on egg shells”. She will either learn to accept it or escalate the behavior at which point you may want to consider other options.  At any rate don’t lose yourself trying to please BP. It is not possible.

[babyducks]

welcome hope4better,

you've made a good decision to join and get what you are experiencing out into the open, sharing it with people who have been with you are and understand.

I ended the relationship on September 26, but later, after she pleaded with me, I agreed to give her a chance to reconcile if she would get into therapy. So far she's had three sessions with a therapist, but I'm not seeing a lot of positive change.

Three sessions are not a lot.   it takes time to establish rapport.    it takes time to come up with a treatment plan.   has your gf been to therapy before?   is she familiar with how the process works?   how about you?    have you done therapy before?     I am wondering how familiar you both are with the world of mental health treatment.   It can be a complex world, with unique terminology, and different expectations.     when I first got together with my now Ex partner, I had never been to therapy and didn't know much about types of therapy or realistic goals.

--does this sound like what y'all have gone through?

briefly.   yes.

But she also said that not liking a ringer was "crazy" and that I must have some psychotic tendencies or something if a ringer disturbed me that much.

This sounds like projection.    when I first came here I didn't know what  the projection was or how people could do something like that.   Projection is one of those psychology terms that can be confusing.    Projection is a defense mechanism that attributes one's own thoughts, feelings or motives to another.    Accusing some one else of behaviors that makes us uncomfortable.    It's a way of off loading the negativity.    "I don't do that!   You do that!"

She has on several occasions, after we've been out in public, accused me of staring at some random woman, always someone I wasn't even aware of, but if I tell her I wasn't she yells at me that I know exactly what I was doing and calls me a liar. She tells me frequently that I am creepy and attention-seeking.

My Ex pwBPD (person with BPD) was always greatly greatly concerned with appearances and perceptions and was hyper critical about them.  She had a desperate need to have things appear perfect.  and when they weren't  she often accused me of messing them up in some way.   I often responded by explaining to her how she was wrong about what she perceived.    this was a recipe for a circular argument, where we deadlocked into going round and round.   Me explaining and her accusing.

all of us here have had circular arguments, where we have explained the facts logically only to run into the highly intense emotions of our person's mental illness.

When she gets angry and jealous and we get into a disagreement about it she will often start yelling and calling me deranged, evil, psycho, or tells me I am a narcissist, calls me a whore and a bitch.

what do you do when the disagreement becomes verbally abusive?

She has, in the span of minutes, gone from being insanely jealous and acting convinced that I am cheating, to making fun of me about conversations that she saw when she snooped (again, conversations from before I even knew her) and that she believes (incorrectly) were my attempts to flirt with people, telling me those people shut me down and weren't interested in being with me.

well this isn't good.   can you see how this is more about her, what she is feeling and thinking, than about what you are doing or saying?   can you see this as her insecurity bubbling to the surface?    and her using maladaptive coping techniques to deal with it?

On one occasion she sent me a long, barely coherent message saying that the more she observed my interactions with my dog (which are pretty normal and not in any way out of the ordinary for any dog owner, and I have plenty of friends who would attest to that), the more she wondered "how far" I had "gone with him," basically implying that I had sex with my dog. When I got upset with her about that and told her that was extremely hurtful and offensive, she first defended the accusation, later apologized and said she didn't want to think that way but couldn't help it, and later when I brought it up to a counselor denied having said it at all. Fortunately I had saved the message.

I'm guessing that you proving she had said it,  that didn't help resolve the argument did it?    pwBPD do not process  events and emotions the same way you and I do.   we tend to believe that everyone else shares the same opinions and thoughts we do and processes information the same way we do.    this is not the case.    and it is certainly not the case with some one who has BPD. 

pwBPD have harmfully intense emotions that change very rapidly.    its the emotion of the moment that is most important, and they believe the emotion is 100% accurate and will last forever.     until the next boiling emotion rolls in and then that becomes the most important emotion.    seem familiar?

She actively interferes with my ability to work, and has constantly accused me of not working when I am working (I work at home), believing I am actually chatting with women online. Once she physically snatched my laptop in an attempt to prove that I wasn't working,

pwBPD have very high needs for attention and affection.     extremely high needs.     if you are not paying attention to them, it feels ...literally... life threatening and they will generate a story that explains the intensity of their feelings.     if it feels so incredibly horrible than clearly you must be doing  something terribly wrong to make them feel this bad.

and when I decided to leave and go to my office to get some space she got in my car and refused to get out, then after I distracted her and she got out and I drove away she followed me to my office building, but couldn't follow me inside because of security.

this sounds dangerous.    have arguments reached the point of physical violence?    we can help with a safety plan.

It goes on and on. The insanity has become too much. There's a new target for her delusional jealousy every week, on top of that, and her Facebook stalking has become actual stalking. I don't know what to do, what I want, how to end this pain. I just want to love and be loved and be allowed to be myself without being spied on, followed, accused of things I'm not doing, berated, lied to, etc.

we can help.    we can help you make sense of what you are experiencing.    It will take a little while.     there are no quick fixes.    let's continue the conversation you began.

how are you feeling today now that you've put your thoughts and experiences out here for all of us to help with?   

'ducks

[hope4better]

So - where are you thinking that there is the best chance to see an improvement in your relationship and what role are you hoping to play in it?

I'm still a little lost, tbh. I know that I am harboring resentment, anger and hurt from all the awful things she has said to me and about me, and from the things she has done, and I have to work through that by myself in order to feel better and be able to see her in the same light I used to, before all the chaos started, or in a new but better light, and also so that I can be who I was in the beginning and be a better partner. Despite her telling me she loves me, I feel less loved than I ever have in my life, so it's a battle with myself every day just to be kind and try to see the good and show love instead of just being reactive. I'm in fight, flight or freeze all of the time now, always on alert for the next accusation, the next round of manipulation, the next personal attack, whatever, and until I'm more regulated I know I can't be helpful to her.
So. . . I'm working on all of that in individual therapy myself.
I allowed her to violate my boundaries and stayed with her even when I wanted to end it, multiple times, because I kept telling myself that she was acting out of fear and if I could be the kind, compassionate partner her behavior would improve over time--but it didn't. And so I also have to deal with this sense of loss of myself.
That's where I'm at now. I don't know what I should hope for. I just know that I don't want the relationship the way it was, but I remember the person she was at first. I don't know if this makes sense, but I feel like if I knew her behavior was just the result of a mental illness, I would be more likely to be able to recover and heal and move forward with her, but if it's just a function of who she is, if she knows what she's doing and just doesn't care, then . . .I don't know.

[hope4better]

Can you tell us some more about what keeps you in the relationship, as you're here on the "bettering" board?

Some days I don't know. I guess because I remember the good things from the first few months. I do enjoy much of the time we spend together now, for the most part, even though she still engages in the some of the same behaviors (but now I disengage, tell her why I'm disengaging, and either leave, ask her to leave, or hang up the phone, because that's all I have the energy to do) the tension, sadness and f/f/f state still hangs over my head. I think right now I'm still just waiting, for the horrible feeling of dread and hopelessness, to subside, so that I can feel the other things I remember feeling with her. I don't want to give up yet, and like I said in reply to Rev, I feel like if this is all really because of BPD or something similar, maybe there's hope. I also am about to start  taking antidepressants myself, as soon as my prescription arrives, because the toll this relationship has taken on me has become overwhelming. And that's another reason I'm not giving up yet--I want to see if my feeling better helps me handle her better.

[babyducks]

its okay to be a little lost.    most of us arrived here in crisis.   I did.    we get it.   its natural to have hurt and resentment.

so it's a battle with myself every day just to be kind and try to see the good and show love instead of just being reactive.

maybe the person you should be showing love to and being compassionate with is ...yourself?

I remember the person she was at first. I don't know if this makes sense, but I feel like if I knew her behavior was just the result of a mental illness, I would be more likely to be able to recover and heal and move forward with her, but if it's just a function of who she is, if she knows what she's doing and just doesn't care, then . . .I don't know.

the person she was at first was deeply engrossed in the idealization phase of a BPD relationship.    chances are you were the perfect person then and the relationship was the perfect relationship.   typically that isn't sustainable.

many times members here have the discussion of is it a mental illness or is it a defect of character.   its always something people grapple with.  

no one here can diagnosis, we are not qualified professionals.   still we do have a wealth of personal experience to draw from.    my Ex Partner was diagnosed Bipolar 1 comorbid with another cluster B illness most likely BPD.    my story is not significantly different from anyone's on this board.    its not terribly different from yours.        my Partner had serious mental illness and while she worked to manage it, her illness took a terrible toll on the relationship.  

take some time to post and read here.    its a safe place to become firm in your decisions.

'ducks

[poppy2]

(but now I disengage, tell her why I'm disengaging, and either leave, ask her to leave, or hang up the phone, because that's all I have the energy to do) the tension, sadness and f/f/f state still hangs over my head. I think right now I'm still just waiting, for the horrible feeling of dread and hopelessness, to subside, so that I can feel the other things I remember feeling with her. I don't want to give up yet, and like I said in reply to Rev, I feel like if this is all really because of BPD or something similar, maybe there's hope.

Hi hope4better,

I've read your story, and it must have been so hard to go through all that. I'd like to share one impression, which is that you've noticed you're in f/f/f a lot, as a result of constant stress, uncertainty, and hypervigilance.

Im wondering what it would take to get you out of this state? what I mean is, I feel like you (or anybody) can only make their best decisions once they are no longer reacting, and no longer super stressed.

I read you saying you disengage, and that's very important, and I'm wondering if there are any other tools you can use to help your body recover, before assessing any long-term goals? I wasn't in exactly the same position as you but I think I can imagine it and it took me a long time to absorb the lessons and information on this site, as well as in general to be able to take distance and perspective on the situation. A short-medium term list (even a mental list) of your non-negotiables, or things you need for your basic mental stability, is what I would recommend, and maybe your therapist can help with that, or you can feel free to explore them here.

I hope that's helpful,

poppy

[Cat Familiar]

You’ve had to cope with a lot and in doing so, it has reset your concept of what is *normal* in a relationship. Being in constant stress, like you’ve been, is not a good place to make decisions or have an overview of your relationship.

For now, your first priority is to give yourself some breathing room. 

When you feel ready, check out the Tools section at the top of this page. There’s much to learn in how to cope more productively with a partner with BPD. Take your time, don’t overwhelm yourself. Perhaps a good place to start would be the articles on Boundaries.

Many of us enter into these relationships and deal with behaviors we previously never had to consider.

That she has a definite proclivity toward paranoid thinking, you need to remember that denials from you are unlikely to register as truth for her, since she’s so invested in her world view. It’s a challenge, but the best way to cope with those accusations is to look for the emotion behind them.

I would guess she has a tremendous fear of abandonment. You can learn more in the articles about Invalidation.

These patterns have often existed for a lifetime. Making productive change will take a long time and commitment to therapy. She must want to do it for her own sake, not just to keep you in the relationship.

[thankful person]

Hi hope and welcome. You are not alone, I certainly relate to much of the craziness and insane jealousy and paranoia you describe of your partner’s behaviour. I’m glad you found the forum relatively early in your relationship. It took me 6.5 years before I found this website, and I am struggling to undo much of the ridiculous things I have agreed to over the years. But I am making progress. Learn as much as you can from these amazing people here. I am unbelievably grateful to have all this amazing support after feeling so totally alone for so many years and not feeling able to talk to anyone about any of it because I think they would just tell me to leave. You can make a difference by responding to your partner differently. I wish you all the best.