BPDFamily.com

As a preface I will warn you that my username is rather indicative of my persona: I am at least a little indignant and I am at least a lot tongue in cheek, or perhaps vice-versa. But I suppose flippancy is a coping mechanism like any other, and as such this text will include some naughty words such as fudge, frick, buttonholes, marbles and bum.

Brace your buttonholes. You have been warned.

I'm a young adult with low self-esteem but a seemingly contradictory nature; I possess immensely strong conviction, confidence and compassion. In addition I'd like to think I'm highly emotionally intelligent, as well as fairly adept at debate and discourse despite being a complete ditz. I know when I'm in the wrong and I know when I'm in the right.

That's pretty much why my relationship with the subject of this post ended, and it's how I managed to (mostly) get over the relationship in a fairly short amount of time. It took maybe 3 months overall and I started healing properly about a month in after 2 weeks of NC.

I'd love to fill you guys in on the whole shebang from start to finish but I've written that before and it's at least 6,000 words, so I'll just focus on the end times which is a story in its own right.

In March we argued a little, although it was partially my fault. In April the relationship was crumbling, presumably because of my initial slip up in March, but she still said she loved me. Then she started to lash out at me about anything and everything in a way that was not especially fair. Then in May it was completely over.

The reasons stated varied every time she talked about them. I've heard everything from the typical 'you don't understand me,' to the almost funny 'I think it's good to have a sense of humour but not the jokey kind,' to the more reasonable 'I think we're toxic for eachother.' On that last point I would argue that it's more she's toxic for herself and thus anyone who gets too close is toxic for her, especially given that at another point she said she felt we'd hold eachother back because we enjoy eachother's company too much (how the hootenanny is that a reason for a breakup?). Another great reason was that despite referring to me as her partner, being committed, talking about moving in together and saying she loves me for however many months, she said I'd made her uncomfortable when I started defining us as being in a relationship. I mean really, what the frick is that! Presumably she was disassociating from feeling like she had to commit even though she was committing, and calling it a relationship broke that for her? It’s pretty typical BPD behaviour to hurt before you can get hurt, right? Anyhoo.

Those are actually probably the more pleasant reasons stated. She would dig up arguments that had ended a long time ago and then tell me to 'please stop arguing hahaha' in this 'you're abusive' kind of way if I tried to defend myself. I also bore the brunt of a lot of condescending and hurtful remarks that insinuated I'm a terrible and ignorant human being who cared less about her views than a narcissistic ex who sexually/emotionally abused her (she wasn't making it up - he's legitimately nutterbutters) which messed me up a little to say the least. But I always kept my cool and rode it out, although I made sure to articulate how it made me feel which was interpreted as guilting and manipulation rather than earnest attempts to communicate with her. To me it was more of a 'you know you're hurting me, right?' rather than saying anything out of pure vindictiveness. Specifically I compared her disassociation from me to the terminal illness and death of a close friend, and how it felt similar to that sudden 'oh.'

If you don't know what I mean by that, when it becomes evident someone won't survive and you probably won't ever see them again, that's what you feel when you realise that even though they're still around they're basically already gone. All the things you'll want to share with them - moments, conversations, laughs, life, whatever - it's all gone in the space of that 'Oh.'

The main thing that ended it was a philosophical debate, and while I'm hesitant to mention the specifics here as per the community guidelines around politics, the basic summary is that I believe in sociology, illusion of choice, that people are bad because of x, y, z and not because they're inherently bad and incapable of being good. I believe that the majority of people with prejudiced or binary viewpoints can be educated and change their views with the right social settings. Naturally and ironically that didn't fit well with her own black and white views of people (despite her being friends with someone in a gang >>>who was convicted of voluntary manslaughter<<<, talk about getting away with murder) and somehow I became the bad person. I still typically believe that forgiveness and compassion are more productive than anything, even though there are some people you can't help. We'll get to more of that after the lengthy synopsis is done.

So it ended fully because of that philosophical debate where her ideas of perfection were shattered. It left me feeling extremely abandoned and disillusioned considering she was so torn up about leaving the abusive ex and yet she left me at the first sign of trouble. Also, she'd even started talking to her ex again in a rigidly 'friends only' context, but I didn't really understand why she was interested in speaking to him at all given that not only did he abuse her, he harrassed her for MONTHS after their relationship ended, until she eventually threatened to call the police and blocked him. I tried to tell her I thought it was better to let sleeping dogs lie given the way he’d acted and she told me I was being oppressive. We're not even talking about someone she even liked very much, we're talking about the kind of volatile guy who'd tag her in posts saying 'you can unfollow me but you can't unswallow me' and aggressively called her pieces of anatomy whenever she wouldn't immediately obey him. I’ve attempted to rationalise it since then and I’d guess it’s more likely that because she idealised him and suffered for him she feels the need to enter some kind of delusional state where he’s still someone she likes? She needs to feel like she didn’t make a totally bad choice even if she’s forced to acknowledge it was at least partially a bad choice. Or maybe it gives her feelings of control to keep people on a leash and reduces her anxiety?

I began finding fault in myself and my actions despite (you might have some genuine shock here) her acknowledgement that she was being abusively critical of me, as well as my own feelings that she was just finding or creating faults wherever she could. She seemed to be pinning that on me or making excuses at the same time, though: 'It's only you who brings this out of me' and 'I don't mean to but I lash out at the people I love' kind of thing. It seems like she's fairly good at introspection and awareness to the extent of knowing what she’s feeling and what she does, but she's not able to comprehend what/where her actual problems are and why they occur.

Because of those kinds of statements, and because of the general situation, I was desperately clinging to hope that things could get better and that it was all just a horrible misunderstanding. I knew I'd never had any malicious intentions towards her, I knew I had no intentions to use her, I knew I wasn't a bad person generally, and I thought given all that I could get her back. Rationally, to me, I felt we were a good fit despite having some differences in opinions, but back then I didn’t realise how much of a toll the passive aggression was actually taking on me. It's only after recovery that you realise how your insides are supposed to feel.

She stopped speaking to me or I stopped speaking to her for a little while, but only about 1-2 weeks later we were speaking again. I'd made it clear I still loved her. I was convinced I should leave, so I sent her an amazingly perfect (and I do mean to toot my own horn) love letter/eulogy that towards the end stated I didn't want to stick around to see everything I'd ever wanted go to somebody else. But she convinced me to stay. Less than a week later she's telling me she thinks she's met the one. I was questioning her as to why she was telling me of all people, and (!) she said her ex was being funny with her about the guy she'd just met, and some other dude friend was saying he was in love with her, and she didn't know who else to turn to. But she has family. She has other friends. Why me, given the circumstances?

I'd had a huge surge of adrenaline at that point (lasted hours and at first was literally shaking from the shock since it was a total blindside) but somehow still managed to stay dignified and cool and just kinda went 'welp, time to get outta this crazy space!' I gave her a little advice and wished her the best, then left with my eyeballs practically being pushed out of my head under the weight of my perplexed brow.

It seemed wrong that she'd told me initially, but it wasn't until an hour afterwards that I realised how much worse it actually was. She would've had to have told her ex about the situation BEFORE she'd told me. And why even tell him at all, knowing what he's like? Not only did I feel like she was treating me as second best to the obnoxious ex, I started to feel like maybe I was part of a much more complicated web of being used. I call it sapping. She breaks up with someone when her insecurities become too much for her to handle, she demeans and disassociates, then she returns to the dreaming prey for the sake of 'friendship' or even 'seeing how things go' and is able to sap all the same attention and investments from her lovestruck/lustful victims without any of the same commitment on her end. She was also entering a cycle of entering problematic situations, getting positive attention and then stating it was crisis, then getting more positive attention from me as a result of that crisis, which she’d then state was part of the crisis and have stresses and guilt alleviated by me yet again. Crisis.

That was really the start of my path to recovery. I'd known her before we got involved, and the thing that influenced me to say I had an interest in her (if not feelings) was a conversation where she stated she didn't think she'd be able to push away (both literally and metaphorically) the next person if they were abusive. I'd taken her pain as my own and I definitely didn't want her to get hurt again, so I figured I liked her, I might as well tell her, and if things went well I knew I would never hurt her and she'd be safe.

I really came to love her (happened not long after that), but wanting to stop someone from getting abused is not a good reason to start a relationship with them.

I believed this at the time, and it's been reaffirmed far more now: if someone doesn't have the self-respect to at least TRY to fight those problems, or to think that they can try, then there is something wrong. Saying you'd allow yourself to be helpless, especially after having made a mistake once, is almost like inviting the abuse. And in a way I wonder if she'd been subconsciously flirting with me and trying to make me see her as vulnerable and in need, but maybe that's crazy of me. There were instances before I mentioned my interest where some female friends thought she was flirting with me, but she claimed innocence when I asked about it later down the line. There are also instances where she'd been... .not flirtatious, but not actively discouraging of certain attention from guys. I might’ve tolerated a lot more than most people would but I'm generally pretty chilled out and trusting so I don’t really know - my main concern from the start was more that she was idealising me, and I also felt that there were reasons to love me but they weren't the reasons she did love me.

Anyway!

So I went no contact for months. She tried getting into contact with me 2 weeks after I left and I blocked her. I've moved on, I tried to establish something with someone else but interestingly enough (assuming it was the truth) they’re still involved with an ex. Isn’t everyone? But I have still moved on despite having some lingering feelings, attraction and resentment surrounding her. Presumably that’s mostly because I never wanted to use her/hurt her and as a result we never slept together despite apparent desires from both parties being there, which brings back the feelings of worthlessness and idiocy when she seems at least somewhat content to sleep with the complete dongs who don't respect her boundaries.
Looking at things from a basic psychological perspective I'm fairly majorly non-conformist compared to most folks. I'll do things based on my own sense of decency and justice and typically formulate my own ideas about things. Could that magnify the feelings of worthlessness, since being non-conformist I stick to my convictions, whereas she (having traits of BPD) attempts to ingratiate herself by doing things that make her feel uncomfortable but loved by people who won't accept her any other way? Does she allow them to proceed because it allows her to sustain the illusion that she's in a good relationship with someone who cares about her? It always seems to backfire on her, though, so does that really make sense?

Anyway again!

Recently she attempted to get into contact with me through a friend, then found a way to contact me directly to tell me how sorry she was and that I'm the only person who's ever understood her and truly thought she's wonderful yadda yadda yadda. There was a 'thank you for everything' in there too. She said she'd like to catch up, even if it was just the once, because I was someone who was important to her and she really regrets losing me.

I came to the natural conclusion: She's just broken up with a d-head and she's realised that I'm her best shot at a fulfilling relationship. Which sounds good, but given her personality I'd approximate that a better description is that she just wants me to give her everything she'd like from a relationship without any of the effort or general interest being extended.

And yet a part of me thought and still wants to think it could easily have be genuine - we're young people, she was going through stress at the time, 3 months seems like a reasonable timeframe to come to the realisation, she's not been diagnosed with anything except anxiety, and most importantly of all my ego and common sense tell me she's right and I am the only person who's ever understood her.

So, out of morbid curiosity, hope that she's stable or maybe just because she'd complimented me, I once again found myself in her company.

Aaaaaannnnnd she is not exactly stable. Or at least... .lucid. She is, however, downright audacious.

I started talking to her in the morning. There's very little catching up. She asks me no questions, and she says about two sentences (genuinely two) about what she's been up to without me making an effort to probe. 3 months in two sentences seems like bull, but I can get at least a paragraph out of an afternoon (surprise surprise) so maybe that's just a matter of personal bias and loquaciousness.

When she does talk, it transpires her relationship has started going downhill and her boyfriend hits her dogs, doesn't seem to enjoy her company, yadda yadda yadda.

On the same night she gets broken up with. That part surprised me, but apparently it was due to her insecurities and anxiety. And I didn't feel sorry for her. She was giving me all this poor me cow-ploppings, saying things like 'I never want to fall in love again,' 'I always give all my ickle heart' (I mean really) and 'I feel worthless.'

At that point I'm sassing and losing my excrement internally, thinking 'ARE YA CRAZY? I'M YOUR EX! You broke me, you abandoned me, you made me feel worthless. You want to stay with a dude who HITS DOGS? When you told me he broke up with you I wasn't sure if I should be saying sorry or congratu-fudgin'-lations! You once told me the only thing I could do to lose you was kick a puppy - is hitting dogs some kind of loophole or what? You broke up with me - and in the process compared me to a rapist, a terrorist, and a stuck up pretentious prejudiced ignorant fudger for saying that people need better education. You're talking to me about this like I'm some kind of idle therapeutic sock puppet and not someone you're completely aware you could have (or could have had) something pure with, and someone who sincerely wanted to have something meaningful with you. Every moment I let myself talk to you is an act of disrespect unto myself.'

But I won't let myself slip. I don't want to unleash a torrent of frustration on her, at least not in a way that's not productive. Part of me thinks that I might be able to get her to listen to me this time, and even though it's not really my responsibility after she steamrolled me, I do feel like I'm more qualified to help her through her internal issues than anyone else is. But maybe that's just because I can find that peace and confidence and whatnot? Maybe it's the belief in my own ability to overcome issues that's being projected onto her? All coming back to the non-conformist internal locus of control thing.

Earlier on I stated that saying you'd allow yourself to be helpless, especially after having made a mistake once, is almost like inviting the abuse. But I also stated that I typically believe that forgiveness and compassion are more productive than anything, even though there are some people you can't help. You never know if someone can be helped unless you try, so where do I go from here?

What do you guys think?

Do I have a responsibility to try to help her, do I confront her about her obvious patterns and behaviour, or should I just try to find a way out? If it's the former, is there a way I can do it effectively given how the logic of someone with traits usually works? I can remember trying to convince her I think she's attractive and asking her why I'd be showing her affection if I didn't think that, and she replied 'you might've just done that because you love me, not because you find me attractive!' It's really bizarre how severely context can elude someone who doesn't want to be convinced of the truth.

Anyway, I'll leave it here. If anyone's actually made it the whole way through, congratulations! You're a real star.

Cheers,

Mister Righteous Indignation

Well, I did read it all. I am not sure what to answer though. Were you just wanting to vent? Are you looking for advise on how to handle her? Looking for support to stay NC?

I did see one question about helping her. Unfortunately, you most likely cannot help her until she is ready to help herself. I equate this to an alcoholic. Until they face they are an alcoholic, there is no way to work on quitting being an alcoholic.

You have a way with words and seem to be very in touch with your own feelings. Keep writing! It is certainly cathartic.

A mix of all of those things. I'm happy to receive anything! I'm a rambler by nature and it's a complicated issue, so I'm really just trying to clarify my own stance on the subject. Helps to have other people's opinions because it allows you to determine your own stance on the subject more easily.

It's also just nice to be in a situation where people might be able to relate. Like a lot of people I'm not in a position where anyone close to me would really understand the frustrations, unfortunately.

I can't hep but feeling like I'm doing a bad thing right now, in a way. It's like watching a spider trapped in a glass - for the first time you can see its belly while it scrambles, and even though it's panicked you're fascinated at the same time, so you just watch. I'm wondering if I'm just sticking around because it makes me feel better to see her nature exposed, reinforcing that I was right to leave. Doesn't quite seem right from a moral standpoint.

And she does seem to want to change or improve, but at the same time I have a nagging sensation that she wants to be miserable. It's like she gets into these bad situations because having something good and losing it would be worse than having something bad, pretending its good and losing it. So maybe her apparent want to improve her anxieties and emotional states is just part of the victim complex?

Hi Mr.R.Indignation-

And Welcome!


You elucidated the situation well, and in a nutshell, can you tell us what would be the goal and what would be the motivation for helping her, forgiving her, confronting her?  There are a few possibilities, and can you dig a little there?

Loving the username, Heel to Heal!

Nutshell: Symbiosis, Opportunism, Curiosity, Duty.

Moral obligation to help another human being when I potentially have the means.


Symbiosis:

As I stated, I have low self-esteem, and I tend to feel guilty about hurting people. I spent at least two months questioning my sanity on and off, so even though she's using me for an ego boost, I'm also using her for an ego boost. I like the affirmation that the pain wasn't my fault.


Opportunism, Curiosity, Duty:

Because, as far as I know, I'm the only person in her life to have actually pushed her emotional boundaries and questioned her enough to develop a deep knowledge and understanding about her, I feel obligated to try to help her become more stable. It's not out of sentiment, it's more like... .if you have a map and somebody's lost, it only makes sense to offer them directions.

There's nobody else who's recognised the BPD traits. So it's that 'maybe' thing - maybe I can help, and if I don't it feels like abandonment. I don't want to get back together with her, but I feel like maybe I can do what I originally wanted to do and help her to stop hurting herself. If I don't try to do that then I'm essentially leaving her to damnation, right?

But maybe it's arrogant of me to think I have the direction. And obviously if she's fundamentally emotionally impaired and still in 'problematic' environments then things won't change.

I did try to help her through the issues in the past, and possibly even made some progress, but back then I was in love with her which meant any punches she threw would connect, so it didn't get too far because problems were being juggled. She's been cheated on this time around, though, so maybe she'll be more open to discussion about idealisation and her coping mechanisms? Maybe it's enough momentum to get her moving in a better direction?

Summing up:

I tried to help once and failed, but I haven't tried a second time yet, and I'd be better equipped to deal with the situation now. If she flipped, it would be unfortunate but not catastrophic.

In general she's an unintentionally selfish person who can't always tell good from bad, but she is able to introspect to an extent, and she is able to at least partially realise when she's in the wrong. Surely that means there's a chance for her to improve and I should try to help?

Is that a completely naive way of looking at things? Maybe I should be taking this to the Conflicted section.

Just come along to rant and update. First three paragraphs serve as a final update of my situation if anyone's interested, the rest is just touchy-feely stuff I need to release.

So!

After a 5-6 day break from NC I could feel myself getting sucked back in despite all the righteous idignation. Even though I don't really want to be with her, I want to be with her.

How is it that I still have love for her?

I don't understand why for the first few days I felt fine, and I was confident that I'd moved on, then suddenly I found myself caring about her yet again despite actually seeing the patterns for what they are.

How am I able to simultaneously think 'not interested' and 'I'd still like to have something with you'?

Anyways. Some posts here, a sensible nature and a few signs from the universe all told me I should get gone for my own good. Last night I had a dream where my penis got tore in half - if that's not a sign that I feel emasculated I don't know what is.

So last night I called her to say goodbye since I didn't feel I could just text 'hey, see ya later and by that I mean never!' Wasn't especially easy. In that moment - beyond anything - all I could feel was that she's like family to me and I don't really want to leave.

Again, why? Why do I feel close to her?

In the last two days talking to her has made me feel a little nauseous and paralysed, which isn't great. I'm hoping that's normal. It's how I felt during her passive aggressive phases, but I think it happens because of feelings of helplessness. In the past I was stuck in circular arguments, this time I don't feel like anybody can help her.

I've got my own issues with anxiety but I've learned to control them, so it makes me feel like I should be able to fix things for her, but it's tough.

She seems stuck with her insecurities, attention seeking and self-destructiveness, and that's been getting to me. And now instead of feeling anger towards her I feel a little resentful towards the universe generally. She's inconsiderate and she's been an a-hole to me in the past, but she doesn't mean to be. She wants safety and security and validation, just like any other person, but she can't seem to manage the emotions. So she'll just keep going around in circles of hurt. It's tragic and unfair.


The other primary thing bugging me at this point is pretty selfish - my own need for validation.

I didn't mind feeling like she didn't care at all - it was a good basis for a 'well I don't need someone like you in my life anyway' kinda attitude. But I don't have that anymore, so instead I'm just really really confused.

I feel the need to be validated because I feel like there's a lack of clarification about what she actually feels. There's a whole lot of feeling going on.

More specifically I feel like she values me, appreciates me and thinks I'm good company; I feel like she likes me on more than just the idealisation level; I feel like she thinks I'm good for her. Yet even though I can see a sincerity in her desire to be around me, she doesn't really act like she values me or other people beyond whoever's currently being idealised.

E.g, I think most people have a friend or a forum that they go to with a problem, but she has a whole network of people. She'll even pop up to strangers. Now that's okay, except she also has prolonged conversations where she's turning down pervy dudes and I'm sure it's just for the attention.

Typically you'd just ignore them or say 'no, you're a creep,' right? But she'll keep an open dialogue with stuff like 'I'm not that kind of girl,' presumably to get more comments from them about wanting their heads between her legs or whatever it is.

In addition, wherever it's possible she disengages from the idea that someone just wants to sleep with her despite being very vocal about 'objectification', even if it's incredibly obvious that's all they really want. And by obvious I mean things like repeated instances of being sent videos of masturbation after twenty minutes of chit chat.  When I asked why she'd even keep talking to that particular person she said 'they seem friendly!' and 'I thought they'd learn!'

On a different level she has her girl friends, but they're pretty narcissistic and uncaring. So then on the next level she has her male friends who are really more like acquaintances, and they'll typically be more willing to have a little conversation but she's not really close to them.

A lot of her relationships seem shallow to me, but we do have a huge contrast in friendships. I'm social but anti-social; I have one really close friend that I associate with daily one way or another, a bunch of people I get along with really well and see fairly regularly, and then everyone else I generally get along with but don't feel the need to talk to outside of gigs, work, or wherever it is that I see them. The people she associates with are the sex, drugs and toilet bowl drama 'he's not worth it' party-going kind of people as well, seemingly trapped in a state of emotional adolescence, so that's yet another difference in our social groups as I'm more... .grumpy. And by that I mean intellectual, artsy, musical and reluctantly pretentious. Honestly it's bizarre that we managed to meet and become friends in the first place.

In any case! The contrast is that she seems to feel the need to talk to anyone and everyone, but she doesn't have many (if any) close friendships, except for the next bunch!

On the next level she has her family who will almost always support her, but she'll only give them certain details because they're effectively there for her validation. If one of them disagrees with her about something she gets incredibly frustrated and feels disillusioned and picked on.

Then, finally, there's me. She'll talk to me on a closer level than other people and I get the scuttlebutt on 'most everything, but that just makes me feel like King of the Idiots. I get some kind of rank and priority placement as the 'boyfriend but not' and typically I'm used as a vessel for her distress on the subjects that she can't talk about with anyone else. I offer her honesty, humour and I try to promote self-respect. For the most part I know who she is, and even when I'm judging her choices I'm still decently respectful, or at the very least caring. So I'm basically the safe place - her ultimate bastion of companionship and intimacy. Great stuff. How is it that you can be that to someone even though they're also disregarding you at the same time?

That also brings up another question.

Why is it she excuses moral differences like animal abuse, people abuse and generally shameful levels of decency, but not the belief that people aren't inherently bad? I don't get it. How can someone be smart in so many senses but silly in so many more?

She realises her faults to some extent because she makes self-deprecating jokes, and when she talks about the people she's 'in love' with it always seems like she has a bank of things she doesn't like about the relationship, but she's still idealising them at the same time even though she's aware she's unhappy. How can you have a foundation of knowledge and acknowledgements but not put that to use? That question goes to myself as well.

Having said all that, I have too much bias to tell if any of my perceptions are accurate.

Obviously I want to be valued and I feel a relationship with her could work. On analysis I'd say my relationship with her has been fairly genuine and built up. It's only partially been influenced by idealisation and devaluation stages, but somehow because of that it's like she would never try to have anything with me because it's not the perfect rescue she's dreaming of - it comes with an acknowledgement that relationships take a little work and compromise for a greater good. I guess that's part of the black and white viewpoint dilemma.

She's said that I'm the only person who's ever understood her, and there is definitely a chemistry between us, but I have realised that whether or not she has any feelings for me (which she probably doesn't) she lives her life in an extremely obsessive compulsive way. Even if she wanted to try to continue things with me I don't think she would because of that restless anxiety. Maybe because my relationship with her followed a different pattern to her usual relationships I feel that there was something 'more real' between us, but maybe that realness is just like a step up from hell to purgatory rather than anything close to heaven. So that's that, I guess.

Dammit.

Well, I have to say, much of what you just wrote I could have written about my relationship and my ex.

You posed a lot of questions here.  Is the any one in particular that is sticking in your craw?