Title: Hope Post by: Hlinthewiking on September 16, 2016, 04:18:14 PM I'm still trying to detach, I have good days and bad days, I got triggers that put me down... .But I wanted to share something that comforts me and gives me hope in my journey and that could help others in the boards.
My first girlfriend was NPD and it was very hard on me that my first relationship and first experience having sex was with someone like this. I didn't know anything about psychology or personality disorders back then, but I was going to a therapist. I loved her so much, just seeing her would make my heart skip beatings, I thought she was gorgeous, I thought the sex was great and that no one else would want to please me like she did. Now that I know so much, I can see that from the get go she was selfish and problematic, but at the time I was just thinking she was a damsel that needed to be courted and conquered. Things started to get increasingly worse, the pleasing was always one sided and she started to attack friends and family members to the point she was prohibited from entering my mothers house, because she verbally assaulted my mother after my mother confronted her for hearing the verbal abuses my exNPDgf was doing to me. Everything I did was not enough and she had pathological jealousy, she would ask me to delete friends from my Facebook page, some were even family members, I bought us commitment bands at first, that helped for a couple of weeks, then it wasn't enough anymore, then I proposed her in a desperate effort to show her I loved her and I didn't want anyone else. We got engaged and she could only think about her wedding ring. I told her I didn't have a lot of money and she knew, in fact I was barely getting bills paid. She wanted a stupid expensive ring and it had to be it. I started to sell investments and personal valuable items to be able to afford the damn ring. After a while she decided to go to an expensive gym/club membership with me, which in a way I liked, I'm an athlete and I'm very involved in sports, I was very happy that I could do something I liked with her, but I also was the one who had to pay for it. I told her I didn't have the money do it, I barely had amounted half of the wedding ring, so she told me the ring wasn't that important anymore, I could get something cheaper and pay for our subscription. I paid several months in advance for her, but we had different schedules and after a while we had instances where we had to go at different times, but she didn't want to take a bus and go without me driving her to it, so she stopped going and all the money I paid in advance was put into the trash can. She started to verbally and physically abuse me to a point I almost took my life once, I almost purposely ran my car into a tree at high speed as means of desperation, frustration and a way to end the abuse. One day I was driving with her and she started to argue with me about something unimportant, I'm a very calm person and I rarely loose my calm, I always restrain myself, she said I was not a man, it hit me deeply and I told her she should respect me and if she didn't stop abusing me right now she would regret it. That only aggravated it, she said "Oh, so what are you going to to then? Are you going to hit me?... continued abuse". I started driving to her house, when she noticed it she changed completely, when I got there I told her that she was home, she could get of the car now. She didn't want to get down the car and stayed over 2h talking to me inside the car and trying to convince me to not end it, she was very manipulative, she even offered sex acts she know I like, that made me even more anxious but also made me realize how evil she was. We do the same BA in college so she was my class mate, she stayed 2 weeks trying to seduce me and one time I gave in and I was going to have sex with her, but then she said, first ask me to be your girlfriend. That's when I started to attempt NC, which was hard because I was still seeing her in class. After a month of so she tried to reach me on Facebook and told me she missed me and wanted me back. I started to talk to her to see if she changed or felt any remorse about what she had done to me, I said a few events and asked her and she starting to change the subject, so I said no thanks and bye, I never spoke to her again. I cried every day for a very long time, 3 months after the break up I went to a party and a girl picked me up and said she wanted to be with me, when we kissed it felt like I was kissing my mother, so I left. Took me 5 months to date someone, 2 years after the break up I met my exBPDgf and I still missed my exNPDgf, but after a while it stopped completely, now I see her every now and then and I don't feel hardly anything for her, I'm completely free, I can't even imagine how I loved her so much, maybe it will happen again and I will be free from my exBPDgf too. Title: Re: Hope Post by: gotbushels on September 16, 2016, 10:13:38 PM Hi Hlinthewiking
Yes, dating two separate NPD and BPD diagnosed persons seems difficult. I almost got into a motor accident too. Yes there are both good and bad days during recovery and healing. Even after healing from the BPD relationship it would be fair to expect this. I can only imagine what it might have been like being intimate with a disordered person as the first person. But for this reason I can see that seeing a T is a prudent action for you to take. Because of the effects I can see a disordered person having on another through an intimacy like this, I think seeing the T was a good idea. It seems relieving to me that you both worked it out such that she compromised the wedding ring she wanted and you gave her a few months of subscription at the gym. Wedding rings can be expensive and involve significant work to get. I spent on these sorts of things and my relationship was terminated, so perhaps it may comfort you to know that how these situations play out is not completely because of decisions you made. At least you didn't buy and sell the jewellery. Regarding the car accident, while I don't doubt you'll get support in the right direction here, I'd suggest that seeing an appropriately qualified P or T during this time to adjunct your life can help you. I've almost got caught in a few of these situations before. I wanted to care for myself in such a way as to not endanger myself and others around me. I remembered life being more pleasant than focusing almost all the time on avoiding dangers. I saw it such that me being in a relationship with a pwBPD increases these risks. This is true even if there is nothing at issue on your own. Therefore--if it helps--you can look at it as treating the residual risks of having been with this person. Getting involved with such people during times when you are moving your life in and around colleges can be very jarring. I encourage you to see this as a better reason to be even more self-compassionate. :) I look forward to hearing more of your story Hlinthewiking. Title: Re: Hope Post by: Hlinthewiking on September 17, 2016, 03:28:42 AM Thanks for the support. I sought my therapist after a while into my last relationship with my exBPDgf and I'm still going, for the first time in my life I actually knew I needed it without a doubt and after finding out about my codependency issues I think it's really important to me.
Well I'm glad I'm in one of those good days. The girl I have been seeing for a month with exclusivity had just broken up with me via text message and I'm not even sure why. We had planned on going out today but for some reason before I picked her up she decided to go without me and didn't tell me for 2h when I was trying to reach her to pick her up. We had an argument and she texted me breaking up with me. I was very calm and tried to be respectful even though she upset me a lot by standing me up like this without even telling me. I'm very upset right now, I really liked her, I thought for the first time I had found someone I liked who wasn't in Cluster B. I tried my best, I even made a post TODAY on the "Building Healthy Relationships and Dating" to not make sure I didn't screw this up (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=298889.0). Last thing I want is to relapse back to my exBPDgf after this, I'm just baffled, I can't believe this is happening, she seemed so nice, I really thought I hadn't done anything wrong. Title: Re: Hope Post by: gotbushels on September 17, 2016, 04:27:14 AM It's good to hear that you're finding the sessions useful and you've chosen to keep the T. When we take action to improve something we perceive as needing in ourselves, it can feel empowering.
A sudden changing of mind before a scheduled plan; this doesn't seem to me a good sign of the relationship. You can consider what a appropriate response to that is. I think you acted with grace by being very calm and trying to be respectful. In future, you can consider that there may have been a way to avoid putting yourself in a position to get upset by her. Dating after a pwBPD can be difficult. Try to see that just because she's not mentally disordered may not a fabulous plus point. I understand the "wow she's not nuts, jackpot!" you might be feeling. I encourage you to recognise that and consider your own choices. Self-care may be very helpful during this time. The possible pain from others even after an extremely painful pwBPD relationship is still real. I encourage you to attend to this part of you. :) Title: Re: Hope Post by: Hlinthewiking on September 17, 2016, 11:12:25 PM Well... .Things just keep getting worse... .
So she agreed to meet me today and said she wasn't feeling well yesterday and just "had" to get out of the house and she couldn't wait 20-30min for me, that's why she stood me up. In the end of the day I noticed she was weird and she didn't interact much with me at all, I really want to have sex, she stopped me when I started kissing her. I asked her what was wrong, she then said she didn't sleep home last night and she had slept with another man after all the rest she already had done to me. I'm devastated, I just dropped her in her house, I didn't even know how to act, I feel angry, frustrated, ashamed... .How could she do this to me? I missed her so much, I just wanted to see her and I don't know what's worse, cheating this conflicting feeling of still wanted to be with her but not being able to tonight. When she told me I kept my cool, she was a bit impressed about my reaction, she wanted me to punish her, call her names or what ever, I just told her she is an adult and I didn't believe in this type of behavior, I didn't want her to feel bad, she just made someone who likes her a lot and wanted to spend time with her very sad. I don't feel normal, I should be more angry with her, I should be thinking more of what I'm feeling then being worried about her at the moment, I even apologized when I cried. I know this isn't the place for this, but I really wasn't expecting this, it came up from nowhere and I feel so devastated. I would never expect this from her... I'm afraid to have misjudged her and that she's more impulsive and self destructive then I anticipated. I still think she's not Cluster B, in fact I have been thinking of AvPD the more I know her, just this impulsiveness I wasn't expecting. I completely changed the topic of discussion... .I came her to give hope and I ended up losing mine. Title: Re: Hope Post by: gotbushels on October 01, 2016, 10:45:09 PM I completely changed the topic of discussion... .I came her to give hope and I ended up losing mine. Sometimes when we seek to give hope and then feeling like we want it instead, I think that's normal. We don't always get what we expect.When they have urges to move from place to place and enforce time limits that they set, it's quite obvious that's the other person's issue. When we make plans to meet them and these things then interfere with our plans made, it would make us upset. It helps to ask what we can do to choose to avoid these kinds of things. I had this problem with my ex too. When we desire sex, but the other person doesn't want to provide it, it would make us feel at a loss. This feeling could grow to the devastation you describe when we have a lot of expectations of the other person. It helps to ask what we are expecting from our partner before we set out fulfilling that expectation with them. I think that applies to relationships in general, even if she's not a pwBPD. |