BPDFamily.com

 

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Many of you know my story. But my story is not so much what this is, but rather, our story, something only we, all of us here understand and are completely confused about at the very sametime.  The reality that only we, who have fallen under the dark spell of someone with BPD, or even more so, someone with BPD co-morbid with NPD - simply put -unexplainable.

Our tragedies, which we suffer from, seem to all sound the same, to us. The affected. We read these posts here, on blogs, self-help forums, searching for answers. We read these posts, and all we see are reflections of our own experience, echos of our own haunted memories.

We feel so often, the posts we read we could have written ourselves. Your words are my words, and my words yours. All these words, filled with sadness, and regret, and a longing we know deep inside will never be fulfilled, are our collective descent into a dark and lonely prison from which we can't break free.

When I now look at myself in the mirror, I no longer see the man I used to be. Confident, optimistic, full of life and love to give, a guy filled with wonder, and curiosity, no, now all I see is you.

And yet all the while, we remain completely misunderstood in our real lives. Misunderstood to the point where we don't know where to start, or how to even explain. Even our best digressions of how hurt we feel, or our version of the facts, seem both obvious and baffling in terms of what we should do, to those we reach out to for help.

We long for what we have lost, we long for who we used to be, but more so than that, we long for the future we spent so much time building up in our minds and hearts, dreaming of what our life should have been- no-- would have been, if not for something we cannot even understand, or put our finger on. A problem which does not listen to reason, a cry for help that is not met with empathy and understanding. A problem which robbed us of who we were and who we were supposed to be.

Their advice seems logical. Move on. Why are we hung up, so hung up, so utterly held hostage by these people, our minds held captive by their illness, why we simply don't get on with our own lives... .like we should.

But the illogical side, the addiction, both chemical and of the mind, and physical, both in the literal sense of our addiction to their touch, and born out of, manifested from our psychological inability to kick this bad habit.

I sometimes think, having loved a person with BPD, a girl who I spent 5 years of my life loving, and being tortured, belittled, ignored, manipulated by, is a curse I did not deserve.

But the fact that our loved ones, the people we reach out to in real life, the people we have isolated ourselves away from, because of our relationship, the friends we have lost, the family relationships strained, because they simply can't fathom why we don't do what is obviously right-- make me wonder if they have ever really been in love. They may say they have, or are, but have they really, felt the rush, the unbelievable rush, the landslide of love that crashed into our hearts, leaving it beating, but buried and broken, buried alive.

Our problem is that our love, our obsession, our infatuation, with our partners or ex-partners, is that the love that developed was love in heroin form. So amazingly wonderful, the feeling we never thought possible, that state of mind filled with ecstasy, fragmented memories in our head which echo over and over, memories which we simply should have never let into our minds. Because as good as it was, no-- no good nor any other word can even come close to describe it-- but whatever it was, it was, in hindsight, beautifully toxic beyond anything we've ever experienced. A something, both physical and spiritual, that we should have not touched. As if we were allowed to touch the softest warmest loveliest object we'd ever placed our fingers on and wrapped our souls around, how nothing had ever come even close to how it felt and feels, and suddenly it was taken away, and burned into oblivion, stolen from us, it is not coming back.

Our relationships changed us. And words cannot describe that state we get so stuck in. If you haven't lived it, if you haven't walked in our shoes, you simply won't understand why we can agree that of course, we should move on, we would love to, but we can't.

How often I just wish I could Eternal Sunshine of my Spotless Mind her out of my head, gone and dead forever, so I could be free.

Did they not in some ways murder us, the person we were, and in cold blood, and for their own selfish reason alone-- simply, they murdered us just to watch us die.

One can die in many ways, and yet, their heart still beats and beats and beats.

When they murdered us, did they not take away all we had? The true crime of our homicide, is they took away all we would ever have and all we would ever be. And were acquitted. They walked away free.
 

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I assure you I can understand totally where you are at.  I also feel gutted, empty, broken, directionless, lost as do many of us. 

But I have to ask myself this. 

Did they take it away or did we allow them to take it away? 

Why did we give them the power to inflict so much damage? 

What did they take that we cannot regain? 

Can anyone really take from us that which cannot be taken?

"They" will never be free of their disorder.  It is a lifelong sentence and one we no longer have to live with the consequences of.

Well in my case, as I've posted about earlier. My ex-girlfriend, whom I had been with for over 5 years, I had never been unfaithful, had in fact for the final 4 months we were together been building a whole new relationship with another man. Having unprotected sex with him (and possibly others based off comments she made).

The last time we made love, something seemed off, and I asked her - directly: Have you been with someone else?

She responded: No, I have not, not at all.

We made love.

So yes, she did steal something from me. The emotional pain and fall out from that was horrendous.

I may get criticism for saying this; but I consider what she did (the last time we made love): Rape.

Rape need not be violent. It need not to involve date-rape drugs. People can be raped by fraud, or deceit. These are actual legal and criminal terms which are just now starting to be used and applied in court.

I asked her a direct question about infidelity. She lied, why? In order to obtain sex from me, something she wanted at the time. I consented to sex based on her lie, which she knew was a lie and would of course influence my decision to have sex. (Of course I wouldnt have).

Fraud is defined as wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.  Financial aspects are not required. Personal gain can be anything. Sex. A promotion. Social Status. Personal gain is any item, tangible or not, that the person defrauding seeks to obtain.

Rape is simply defined as sex which is not consensual.

Because fraud requires, by law, that there be "intent to deceive on the outset", meaning, the lie was told with the intention to gain what she wanted, my consent based on her direct lie was rendered invalid. I did not consent to unprotected sex with her while she was having unprotected sex with other men. Period. It is WHY I asked.

So to say that she murdered me, stole, etc- yes I feel like she truly did destroy a part of me. I don't really want to go into too many details, but needless to say after consulting with lawyers I have been given the opinion I could have case against her in civil court due to these acts.

Now, that said, had I not asked her directly, but rather "assumed". This would not apply. Which is why cheating is not rape, nor is it against the law. Because you assented based on assuming they were not not having sex with other people.

But if you directly ask, and they lie, and immediately following you then consent to sex; technically fraud has been committed. The fraud therefor allows for a claim of either rape by fraud, or at the very least- sexual battery.

I've been told I should report it to the police. But I am not looking to start a war, nor do I really want this very humiliating experience public. But if I did report it, and the police/DAs took any interest in it and pursued it, she would be in criminally legal hot water.

Again, not to side track here- but yes the final act she did against me was a form of murder; at least for me. And I feel raped. I truly do. I was tricked into sex. Sex that could have killed me.

And I now see her for a word I never though in a 1000 years I would use to describe her. A rapist.

I'm still on the hook of what to do. Pursue a civil case for emotional duress, battery, personal injury, therapy costs, etc, or if filing a police charge is the way to go. Or both. I'm taking time to consider options, and gain opinions by counsel.

GB2OC, I'm so sorry you're struggling so much, and that the ways you were violated are so sharply felt. Metaphor is a powerful expressive tool.


There is a literal and a metaphorical definition. The literal definition is the second one you mention.

You consented to sex with your ex--just not non-exclusive sex. The sex was consented to; the nonexclusivity wasn't. You feel that you were raped in the metaphorical sense, and that is terrible, but not the same thing--in the same way that you were not literally murdered, since you are here telling us about it.

I point this out not to be argumentative but because it is very, very important to those who have been raped that what happened to them is clear to others.


Another consideration is the psychic cost to you of maintaining a tie with her--which is what you would be doing. Will that make it easier or harder for you to detach and get back the space she's occupying in your head and heart?

Goingback - I relate to so much of what you have written and that overwhelming sense of sadness is so consuming.

I am still being tormented/emotionally tortured by my BPD but of all the things you wrote the part I agree with most is how much the relationship changes the person on the receiving end.

I feel my soul has been sucked out, I feel constantly agitated, nervous and afraid.

The lack of self-confidence you mention is something I am really experiencing now.  My BPD has deliberately sought to humiliate and ridicule me sexually (telling me she isnt attracted to me, threatening my with rape, telling people I'm impotent, that I dont turn her on etc).   I have no idea now how i could be in a realtionship with anyone else because i have been so broken down by the dream turning into a living nightmare.

I had to pause and cry for a bit after "... .it is not coming back"

Thank you for doing what I couldn't do, putting my feeling into words in that way.

I feel the same way and I felt the same way.

I remember when we broke up last year and I couldn't be away from her any longer. When I finally saw her again, even though I missed her so much and I already loved her so deeply, she was even prettier then I remembered, my heart could barely survive her proximity. When we kissed it was a thousand times better then my first kiss or even orgasms with other women, I felt my brain twisting and firing in a way that I cannot even describe. God I miss her so much. Sometimes I wish I had a terminal illness so just that I could be with her until the end.

I was actually going to watch this movie for the first time yesterday, but I got upset and afraid, I missed her so much, I had to stop mid way so that I wouldn't stay up all night.


I can try to answers these:
1. We gave them the power, we wished and begged they did the best, they did the opposite.
2. Because we have an urge to give the power to someone but we can't give it to anyone and so when we find someone who can take it, we give it to them.
3. When I can answer this question, I will be smiling happy and will only come to these forums to help others and not myself.
4. I really need to answer "3." properly in other to answer this one. I like to correlate true love to the quantum entanglement: In quantum physics, entangled particles remain connected so that actions performed on one affect the other, even when separated by great distances. The phenomenon so riled Albert Einstein he called it "spooky action at a distance."

I'd like to thank you all for your kind replies and heartfelt thoughts, not just for my entry today, but for the hundreds of entries I have made here on the forum for almost a year now.

You have all helped me in ways which I could not count, and for that I am grateful. Thank you all for listening. Thank you all for offering advice and words of encouragement and care.

I believe now it's time I sign off from this forum for a while. I'd like to express my gratitude to Skip and the the site Moderators, fromheeltoheal, once removed, C.Stein, and so many others, for making this place available to the so many of us who came here so confused and unaware.

I have learned all that I can, or better put, I have learned what I need to know to move forward. I have shared my story, our story, which for me has come to a close.

A part of my healing must include letting my catharsis go.

I am sure so many of you feel the way I do. That I have said so much, but feel I haven't said a word at all.

Perhaps that is what they leave us with. Our epic novella with the final chapter missing, the pages torn out, a story with no end.

I need to put it to rest, and to forget.

I'm sure I'll stop in and say hello. And I will be making a contribution to the site to help it keep going, to keep helping, all those souls who are affected, are being effected, and for those who have not yet encountered the person that will turn their life upside down.

Thank you. For listening. I wish you all, peace.

GoingBack2OC

I wish you the best, I hope you can get better soon and since you can't add a chapter to that book anymore, be able to start a new one, making sure that there is a possibility of this one being completed.

This.

I am an empty shell of the confident, growing, assertive person that she actually fell in love with. I do not know how long it will take me to get back to being close to who I was after these past couple of years.

The question was asked what did they take that we did not give them? We gave them nothing more than you are supposed to give somebody in a relationship. Yeah we gave it, but with every intention they were going to nurture that. Now how do we show that trust to somebody else in the future? Not just romantically, but friends and family too?