BPDFamily.com

I know many of us have heard or had weird experiences with our pwBPD during and even after the relationship. I was just thinking about some of the things my ex had said before she dropped "I'm cutting contact with you forever" text a couple of days ago. When I do, they are just the strangest things I've ever heard.

I'll list some examples from recently.

1. She told me how it sucked for her feeling sick for the last couple of months (some sort of ovarian cyst thing that kept going) and she got nothing to show for it. I asked her what did she have to show? She replied to me, a baby. This is right after we just got intimate on one of her apparent "safe" days.

2. Strange conversation about the first person she's kissed was her younger sister and how soft her sister's lips were, etc. This was followed by how her youngest sister had the softest butt she's ever touched. It was just so weird to hear it as she lays next to me on the floor.

I don't know if she was just trying to creep me out or intimacy brings out the weird stuff she's kept inside for a long time.

Leonis

Number 1 makes sense, number 2 doesn't.

My ex was desperately trying to get pregnant a few years ago. She would say things like 'this is God's way of punishing me' when her period arrived, then she would say she doesn't believe in God.

The second point is very off the wall in my opinion.

Too many to list but my friend was saying some odd things when we met up last year, this was before he told me he had bipolar (and before my T said he probably has BPD).  Just things that were off for a 47 year old to say and I knew right then there was something a little off about his behaviour.  

For example he gets something in his head and keeps going on and on about it; like he feels that  Im under the thumb and that cropped up daily in all different situations.  The next thing (as I like rock concerts) was that a certain band had leprosy and id catch it going to these kind of things; the last one was me now having to wearing ginormous pants since turning 44 etc.  All done as jokes but he would go on and on.  Quite bizarre at times.  Other times he would just come out with the most inappropriate things.  To be fair though he did always say he was eccentric and outlandish.

Just off the top of my head:

"I love you like a stalker"

"I can make people fall in love with me"

Some things about her dark side-- like she likes to drink because it let's her feel more free to be her bad side.

Some wildly inappropriate details about her and my replacement's life together that for some reason she felt compelled to share with me.

I can think of several 100 myself and some are funny in a strange kinda way.

There's a little old lady who lives in my apartment building and she gives me her chocolate milk in one pint containers from her meals on wheels because she doesn't like it. My exgf told me not to drink them because they "probably put them down their pants"

Yep, twisted minds

"If I start drinking I'm gonna become an alcoholic". She wasn't much of a drinker so idk how she would know she would become addicted to it.

That one kind of makes sense because the co-morbidity between alcoholism and BPD is a whopping 67% (or something close to it). Those are some seriously bad stats.

so our exes said some strange things.

what was our reaction to the strange things that were said? are there ways in which these lists can help us learn more about BPD or help us detach?

I wrote down all the crazy things my ex told me and it continues to this very day, she's worried about wichcraft and why? Either she's practicing or she suspects others of using it on her, either way it is not something to post all over fb and have people consider her serious

I will not believe her because she lied so much and I've caught her in many lies just since last weekend.

Not fooling me anymore

"I'll love you more than anyone (except your mom)" ... .and then "there was a 'window' for us to be together, now it's too late". Uh what.

I was told to 'grow up only teenagers drink protein shakes' (im 34 she's 24), this after watching her drink a protein shake the previous morning.

One of our last conversations before our last break she said her teeth hurt and were digging into her cheeks and she felt like a vampire. (how ironic)

I was texted 'I want a baby' 2 days after her having an abortion. Now that one hurt

My reaction to the strange things was generally to stare like a deer looking into headlights and then dismiss the statement. In retrospect, I wish that I would have tried to understand more about the genesis of such statements. They didn't have to make sense to me logically, but I should have tried to understand the emotions behind them.

I think that lists like this can be useful if we stop to answer once removed question about how we react. We can use them as a means of taking inventory about who we are and how we treat others.

its kind of double edged. sometimes a strange sounding thing can be a strange sounding thing, and doesnt have much to do with BPD.

strangest thing i heard from my ex? after we broke up she (accidentally?) sent me ":)OGGIES WENT WALK N SAY WOOFY". theres not a lot to be gleamed from that really other than "strange".

my reaction? i ruminated about it for days.

I'll take a stab at that.

When my ex said things that set off alarm bells for me -- such as telling me it was okay for me to draw a boundary, because he would not abandon me (which was obviously his fear projected onto me), or saying that being in love with me felt like a return to childhood trauma, or when he would lose his mind over me being late or having to cancel plans -- or when I said I was worried about our difference in age (me being 6.5 years older) and he offered to pay for me to have plastic surgery to retard the aging process! -- and a zillion other things like that -- my reaction was twofold:

- I applied the breaks in my mind.

- I sensed that he was a puzzle I needed to solve.

In other words, push/pull within myself. Probably showed it outwardly, too. I feel now that the whole relationship started to wobble over this stuff, and the wobble got worse and worse.

Well, I was talking, specifically, about the strange things that were said that had anything to do with the r/s. If my x had said that about the dogs though, I would have known exactly what she meant.  lol Her strangeness was one of the qualities I found most attractive about her though.

My x and I frequently (and by that I mean almost daily at the end) had argument that revolved around her saying something that I found completely strange and lacking in anything that resembled reality and/or sanity. It wasn't until it was too late that I realized that I was listening to the words rather than what she was experiencing internally that sparked the comment.

Ah, yes, this is exactly what I did and had the same result. That's what I was saying about just looking at the words and not the emotions behind the things that she said that struck me as odd. I tried to understand the logic behind them when there was none that I could comprehend.

great insights. in a lot of ways, i think this explains a lot of the ruminating that we do post relationship. maybe there wasnt even an opportunity to do so during the relationship.

yes, looking at the emotions behind them as opposed to trying to understand the logic (or otherwise through our own lens) can yield answers, or failing that, satisfy our psyches need to construct a version that we can process and understand.

My ex once wrote something strange. I’m presuming by mistake but he literally wrote out his thoughts whilst texting me. We’d broken up, but his father became ill so he asked me for support which I readily gave, he then changed his mind. One morning he changed his mind again and texted me saying he needed my support after all and I immediately tried to help him. We were conversing about his dad when he suddenly wrote something like “no, don’t do this. She’s not here for you”. I didn’t understand at the time and asked what he meant, but didn’t get any answers. In the end it all turned into a horrible text battle with him not wanting support again. Push/pull and my emotions boiled over. It was only much later that I’d realised he’d ‘voiced’ his private thoughts. His competing thoughts. I’m learning about BPD so I understand it a little better now, at the time I was just baffled. Now, it makes me feel sorry for him and I feel guilty for not handling the situation better.

I remember my exgf being rude and mean and I left to get away for a few hours, later she said ":)id you ever stop and think that leaving was the last thing I wanted you to do?

See, I don't find that strange at all. What was your response to her?

I've been lurking on the forums over the past few years, it's really helped me a lot - thank-you everyone.

With that said, I've got to contribute to this one with a few zingers from my uBPDEx:

1.) ":)id you know that 90% of people our age do cocaine?"

2.) After mentioning to her that I don't like the way she talks to me sometimes and that other people have commented on it: "You talking to other people about our relationship is as bad as me going out and f****** someone".

3.) I knew something wasn't quite right all along, so I never really approached the concept of marriage (we were only together for a year - far too early in my books even if things were great). However, along the way "I want a Disney World Fantasy wedding at Disney World". I explained that not everyone can afford to go to Disney twice a year or go on cruises. Also explained what the average/median income was in my country. She was surprised by this!

4.) "I'm all alone in the world by myself"

5.) "There is only today"

6.) I had delayed getting too physically intimate with her for the first month or so. She was aggressively pursuing physical intimacy. Shortly after we were intimate "I think this is a relationship of convenience, you are just with me because it is easy for you"

It was a few years ago, but these are some of the major ones that stick out in my head. Honest to say, they made me feel very uncomfortable.

My x said the exact same thing to me; pretty much verbatim.

Looking back, I can see that she was afraid that her mask had cracked for the other people. She felt scared, vulnerable, and betrayed. At the time, I was flabbergasted though and had no idea how to respond to that.

I remember my exgf being rude and mean and I left to get away for a few hours, later she said ":)id you ever stop and think that leaving was the last thing I wanted you to do?

More strange things. We were at a function with few tables so we joined some women and talked happily with them for a while. Later, in a rage he started to insult me saying I'd disgusted him talking about oral sex with complete strangers! Suffice to say that never happened!  At the time I was a little shocked,and I tried to defend myself, but really had no time to process as I was reeling from the rest of his rage. I remember bringing it up later but he glossed over it. I still have no idea why he said that, but I do believe he thought he heard it.

Another time his plumber helped him push his new oven in place. Suddenly, he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the bedroom. He asked me if I thought the plumber was simulating sex whilst pushing the oven and that he believed the plumber was attracted to me! I reassured him that no, he wasn’t simulating sex. I knew it was very odd at the time, but I just figured I could handle it.

I still don’t know what to make of these things. I thought I could cope with them. Knowing that he seemed to hear and interpret things in strange ways didn't scare me or anything, and didn't make me love him any less. I just wanted to understand. I would still like to understand. I’m not even sure if these things are BPD traits or something else.

The reason why I brought it up is because I've read about how many people with BPD/traits tend to behave like a kid emotionally.

And when I looked at it from that perspective, it made me wonder... ."wow, what is/was she up to when she said that?" I've spent a lot of time with cousins a lot younger than me at one point in my life. As a babysitter, their words sometimes hint at some things they were up to/hidden messages, however bizarre or silly they may be.