BPDFamily.com

So, I went and checked my spam text folder a few minutes ago.  And there they were, two messages from her, from this morning.

Hi.

I'm not moving anymore and C (bf) and I broke up.

I did reply but haven't heard back.

It never ends.

May I ask what you replied back with?

Hi Summer,

Wow, you have lost me here. Why did you reply? (That's not a judgement question. I am curious. I understand that you care about her and her well-being.) You have a good understanding of BPD and how it played within your relationship. She hasn't changed; her BPD is still alive and kickin'. So, you know what her reaching out is probably all about.

I replied with, "I am here if you need to talk, but we need to set boundaries if that is going to happen.  I am a stronger person now, and I understand my weaknesses, my "white knight" complex, and my co-dependency."

I replied because I do care about her well-being. 

But do you know what I feel now?  Indifference. 

I will not see her in person until she commits to therapy and proves that she is in therapy (DBT) that will help her.

I will keep you updated.

The me from two months ago would have said, "Yes, well I told you he's not good.  Do you have a place to live? Once I get settled, you can move in with me."

Feeling indifference and not running back/accepting her right away... .way to stick to to the insights you've shared with us here SummerStorm!

Any news from C?

She's A.  Boyfriend is C.  I won't be B.

Get it?  B is between A and C.  I crack myself up sometimes.  *crickets*

Anyway... .no, I haven't heard anything.  A few weeks ago, they were unlinked on Facebook.  A few days later, they were back.  Now, hers says nothing and his just says "in a relationship."  He posted about how he's not moving "for the time being." 

Either way, I was right.  This upcoming move across the country spelled disaster.  A week after their yard sale, she breaks it off.  Man, she loves promises but hates the actual commitment.

I'm a woman (obviously), but this is hilarious.  I'm printing pictures at my local pharmacy, and Hall & Oates' "Maneater" is playing on the radio.  A sign!

It's like talking to a child. 

Her: Um ok.  Hi Freud.

Me: I see you aren't ready for a serious conversation.

Her: I didn't want a serious conversation.  I just wanted to let you know that I'm not moving.

Me: Ok. Well, best of luck with whatever it is you're doing

Amen to that! You are not the same person that you were a few months ago. Stay safe and strong. It is primarily about you now. You're in a good position as you now can partially, or fully, affect an outcome.

^such a loaded, manipulative comment lol

Her: "I just wanted to let you know I'm here and I need attention (like sex or you telling me I look pretty) and I want you to say you want to give it to me"  :thought:

lolololol

Cool... .and that's all that needs to be said. She let you know, you know it. Everybody can go on with their lives.

Haha.  If I was a real b___h, which I'm not, I would have replied with, "Hi.  Your new haircut looks like s___t.  Thanks for letting me know you're going to stick around here to try to make my life hell again." 

I should have replied, "Ok, and now I want to let you know that I have to cancel the party I had planned for when you moved." 

Oh, and let's remember what she said on the day she discarded me.  "You're a poison, and I don't want you in my life.  You don't need to know what I'm doing because I don't want you around anymore."

Now, let's put it into the BPD Speak Decoder^TM... .

"You aren't giving me what I want anymore, so I'm done with you.  I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing until I'm doing something that might get you to have sex with me/live with me.  Then, I'll tell you all about it, but in a way that sounds mature, while also being super manipulative." 

I should find a way to contact her mother and be like, "Please, for the love of God, take her.  I'll even pay for her plane ticket." 

Is this a game now?

I see nothing emotionally charged about her letting you know she isn't moving. She didn't want a serious conversation. Fair enough.


No one can make your life hell unless you let them.

Indifference would look more like not being interested what is going on on her Facebook page, much less her boyfriends... .or having an opinion on what his father thinks of the move.  

I agree with Suzn.

I know it is hard to stay composed in these situations. Super hard.

It sounds like you are still angry, SummerStorm. Would you agree?

I recycled briefly again  and Boy do I regret it! In my case: nothing will change, if someone mistreats you then they will do again, love is not worth a dime without trust.

I deserve better, we all do. From now on I am NC ... .delete, delete, delete  

It would be a game if I had sent those things, but I didn't.  I know some people who would. 

I'm indifferent to how I feel about her and the reaction I'm going to have to her, but I obviously care about her well-being, since she attempted suicide two months ago. 

Also, I won't let her make my life hell, but that doesn't mean she won't.  She could very well apply for the job opening where I work, or at the very least, sign up to be a substitute.  I would be able to ignore her, but it doesn't mean she won't try. 

Not angry.  More like disappointed.  The move was supposed to be so she could get therapy and be with her parents.  When she told me that, I said to myself, "This isn't going to work.  I want her to get therapy, but I just don't see her staying committed to it."  So, I see her falling back into her old habits again.  And if I was angry, I would have actually sent her those messages. 

I have an incredibly sarcastic and twisted sense of humor that sometimes comes across as something else.  I think it probably comes across better in face-to-face conversations.  I deal with teenagers every day.  Sarcasm and weird humor is how I connect with them.  I mean, I tell them that I keep the skeletons of former students in my closet, and I say it with a straight face. 

Actually, I'm having quite a laugh at all of this. 

I have zero interest in recycling.  I go back to work next week, start a grad class in early September, move into my new house in October, and plan on adopting two cats in November or December. 

And again, my situation is a bit different, since we were never a couple.  Her discarding me hurt a lot, and it's taken me two months to sort through everything, but I've also had the past two months off work and didn't have any vacations planned due to buying a house, so I didn't have anything to really focus on.  Now, I have a lot of focus on.   

This sounds triggered.


Good for you for resisting however your comments are emotionally charged, fired up because she contacted you. What do you think that might be about?


This does not match your comments. Indifference is not emotionally charged, it's calm and centered. Do these comments look calm?

FWIW, I can relate to her reaction to the response you did send.  It's great for you to have an understanding of boundaries and co-dependency.  But these are insights to APPLY, not conversation topics.  No one likes to feel like the subject of clinical analysis.  For the future, I'd suggest using concepts we find useful in healing and understanding, privately, and making the subject matter of the relationship (to the extent there is one) something that organically ties you together.

I do understand what you're saying.  Honestly, it was more a way of me telling her that I am not up for "chit-chat."  I'm sure she expected me to react in the way I usually would, and I didn't.  Maybe I didn't use the correct method/wording, but it got the desired effect, as she stopped replying to me.   

You absolutely got the desired effect, which would be space. That's good, it'll help you heal.

The thing that I'd caution about this, is that while you did get what you wanted, you showed your pwBPD that you still quite aren't done processing these emotions. This is what my instincts tell me after following your story here.

If I was her, I'd take that as a sign of you still being engaged in the relationship. It might bring her back for more.

You said indifference is your goal. Goals are good; they can lead to acceptance, so a positive step there. But as patientandclear mentioned, it is better to practice the concepts that we are learning here when we face a possible conflict situation. In this relationship you are the more emotionally mature person. If she is truly disordered, you will have to continue to keep your head straight and not give her anything to go on. Don't feed the fire.

I completely understand what you're saying.  I do.  Generally speaking, everything is overly dramatic with me.  Everything appears emotionally charged.  I'm a Leo and and an English teacher.  It's a potent combination, but it comes in handy when I teach Romeo and Juliet and play Mercutio and the Nurse when we act it out in class.  I've chased a student down the hall for taking my Grumpy Cat stuffed animal off my desk.  Was I really mad at her for taking it?  No, of course not.  I've given a co-worker the middle finger when he made fun of me.  He gave it right back.  We laughed.  We moved on.  

If you want to see me really emotionally charged, check out my tweets after a new episode of Lost Girl airs or after one of my sports teams loses.  

But while I was replying to her, I was printing out pictures, chatting with people on Twitter, helping the woman next to me edit her pictures, checking out a pack of pineapple gum (FYI, it's good but loses its flavor quickly).  Two months ago, I would have stopped everything I was doing, sat on my bed, waited for her reply, and then, when she stopped replying, I would have sent a text that said, "Please.  Let's talk about this."

This may be TMI, but it's also that lovely time of the month for me.  Also, it's hot and humid out, I have a headache because of it, and I'm stressed because the date I am able to move into my house was moved up a month, from November 1st to October 1st.    

Was my initial reaction emotionally charged?  Sure.  But I'm a human.  I have emotional reactions to things.  My initial reactions are always charged.  In all, my conversation with her took out 5 minutes of my day.  Then, I went grocery shopping, sang along to Taylor Swift on my drive home, played with one of my cats, found out that there is a women's soccer game on TV tonight (awesome!), and finally(!) ate dinner.    

If this would have been two months ago, I would have gone grocery shopping, but I would have forgotten half of the things I needed because I would be focused on her instead.  Then, I would have come home, gone to my room, tweeted a bunch of angry tweets about her, and played with the apps on my phone while waiting for her to reply.  After about an hour, I would have crawled under my blankets and fallen asleep, without eating dinner, with my phone on my pillow.  Then, I would have woken up every couple of hours, just to see if she replied to me.  

Again, I totally get what you're saying.  I react strongly to pretty much everything for about 5 minutes, and then I go back to normal.  That's why I always wait a day to reply to a student's parent when he/she e-mails me.  I know that my initial reaction will not be a good one.  

True, but compared to responses I gave her two months ago, it's clear that I've grown as a person.  When she discarded me, I sent about 15-20 messages, begging her not to. 

Right now, the only emotion I'm still processing is frustration.  This was not how things were supposed to work out.  She was supposed to move across the country and get therapy.  Now, she's staying here, and a new position just opened up in my department.  There is about a 2% chance of her getting that position, if she were to apply, but there's always a chance.  If she would get it, I could ignore her, but I would have to see her.  The entire department meets every day for almost an hour.

I feel nothing for her anymore.  If I were to pass her on the street tomorrow, I would politely say "hello," but I wouldn't say much else.  She revealed who she really is.  I don't like that person, and I can't communicate with that person.   

It absolutely sucks when any former partner chooses what we think may cause them harm. I get the same frustration. I used to feel the same way about my pwBPD until I realized that I cannot change her. I was projecting an imagine on her that I wanted to believe in. This, however, was and is not reality.

I'm sorry if it feels like I am challenging you here. This is not my intention. Judgements tend to make a situation worse, especially when they are invalidating. I also get feeling like I'm not being heard. It's the worst form of punishment.

Do you feel like your pwBPD is not hearing you?

|iiii That's always good, Summer! And kudos to you for not falling into your rescuer pattern in your response when she contacted you.


Are you sure?  :)

These relationships take an emotional toll on us. There's a lot to process afterwards, and it takes a while to get to anything approaching indifference. This is someone you cared deeply about. It's hard to shake that, even when we rationally know that the other person is not healthy for us.

For me personally, I've just recently gotten to a place of consistent emotional 'neutrality' about my exBPDbf - by which I mean I don't get triggered, I don't feel betrayed/guilty/etc., I don't think "what if," I don't really have much of an emotional reaction at all to thoughts or reminders of him. This took about 13 months from the time of the breakup.

I'm just trying to say... .it takes a while. Don't feel pressured to "feel nothing for her" - you are human, with human emotions, and it's ok to take time processing through those.


It sounds like, instead of "feeling nothing," it's really this - and you're still processing through and reconciling this.

It's hard to sift through all of this. I often liken disordered/dysfunctional relationships to hurricanes that leave behind a lot of wreckage and debris. It's impossible to rebuild overnight.

Summer Storm,

  I don't want to sound like I'm ganging up on you... .I'm not... .but I agree with the others here.

Being in your shoes I know a part of you was happy to hear from her. Been there.

Personally I would not have replied at all. Any reply is contact. She wanted to let you know she is single.

Who the eff cares? She treated you like shyt. Any response is a challenge.

Mine jumped right into therapy to get me back. Did she follow through? No. She went to a run of the mill therapist that I doubt knew she was BPD. She only went to this therapist five times:

-When she callously dumped me to "see other people" and I met someone else during that time. She came back and went to therapy to "save us". I dumped a great gal to take her back.

-She saw her therapist the day she dumped me. She was already cheating on me with someone else and told me the therapist told her "you have come a long way" and was really proud of her. She then told me the therapist agreed I friend zoned her so she was dumping me for someone else.

You are best to ignore her and find a super new gal. You sound like a great person. Responding only feeds into them. They are predators. Don't feed a predator.


PW

It's really hard to find a baseline emotion when a recent lover contacts us.  I'm amazed at how hard it has been for me - but I accept this and rely on confidants to ground me - keep me from over reading, over reaching, over reacting, over... .

One way we support each other (as outsiders to the relationship) is to help members in this situation home to a unaffected baseline.  The worse thing we can do is to drive them to an elevated emotional state.

In reading this thread, I come away thinking that maybe we should just say we are trying to help someone get back down to baseline. It might feel invalidating if we're not saying what we are trying to accomplish.


These impulsive contacts from ex's are really hard to navigate.

• The whole situation with the move and the breakup could change at any minute. Might simply be an over-reaction on her part.

• Over reading the note on our part is easy (both positive or negative) - this most likely was a probe for validation (sorry it didn't work out, he's a creep, need a hug)

• Over engaging (or over resisting) the note on our part is a trap we want to avoid falling into.

• Separating how we really feel at time like this is hard, we have so many emotions in play - hope, caution, fear, hurt, desire for vindication, etc.