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The most difficult feelings for me are the tenderest ones. I have learned to set aside the intense intimacy with my ex as hopelessly destructive, but I was fond of her -- and I remain fond of her -- for reasons that i believe cannot be boiled down to the BPD dynamic. I am often reminded of the things in her that could not be feigned. It was those things that drew me to her in the first minutes of conversation, even if it was the BPD seduction that kept me in long after the big red flags went up. I know I have to detach from her for my own well-being, but I also believe that it is important to cherish those things that were real.

I've spent the last few days going through my old correspondence with her. In four months, we exchanged roughly 250,000 words (a long novel). The exchange took two main forms: long rambling wordplay and personal disclosure. (This was on top of the 400+ hours we spent together in person, also always with wordplay and personal talk.) This record of art and humour staggers me. I cannot write it all off as a phantom of BPD.

The writing and wordplay could not be feigned. She was highly literate. She herself wrote reams upon reams and had done so since very young. She showed me piles of notebooks full of writing, some of which she shared with me: poems, bits of novels, one-liners. I was blown away by her diction, concision, imagery, humour, mood. Looking at some of it again now, I remain astonished by her gifts and her massive output.

Beyond our conversations, there was much else that could not be feigned, such as her facility in art and abstract math.

She also had savant traits that could not be feigned. We discovered a remarkable similarity between her savantism and my experience of the manic phase of bipolar illness. (Yes, I have bipolar, and I treasure the milder forms of mania beyond anything else in life.) We discussed the similarity at length. She even helped to induce in me some of her distinctive savant experience, enough to show me that what she was describing was real. I can't share this story publicly (too personally identifiable), but it is the most poignant part of the relationship. Much of our talk and play turned on the commonality. Several weeks after she and I parted for the second and last time, a religious teacher of mine, knowing nothing of my ex, remarked that my experience of mania was similar to savant experiences. I was gutted all over again.

But I am posting in Detaching, not Conflicted, and I am indeed detaching. In time I will let her go, but I can't bring myself to blacken her memory. I did not have the years-long experience with the disorder that some here have had. I witnessed enough to believe that my ex has it on the more severe end of the scale. I am sad to discover the depths of what she struggles with, but her disorder does not diminish her profound gifts.

So this is not me gearing up to recycle. I have had these same feelings of fondness several times. Each time I revisit them, voluntarily or otherwise, I realize that I can't ignore my tenderness toward her. Unless she tries to recycle, the remainder of my grief is just a matter of time. The ebbs are more often, the flows weaker.

I grieve still, but now it is a settled grief. I can read our correspondence and see the hazards I was blind to. I can also see the good that prevails in spite of our hurts. She is a gifted young creature. She and I got along because of our wounds and because of our gifts and also, in some cases, because our gifts were our wounds or our wounds gifts. I love her and miss her, and I wish her the very best in life. I regret that I cannot be there to see her grow. I need to set my mind to my own growth and let her be.

I know exactly what you mean re the fondness for what someone really was, as a friend, for the shared interests that were clearly not mirroring. And that is very difficult to detach from. Apart from anything else, it is that part of them which is and was normally functioning rather than disordered.

What I would suggest, having read all the posts about people feeling empty, is that you replace a few things before you detach. I don't mean line up your next romance, but certainly try to pursue some interests or learn something new, and keep them secret from your partner so she does not take part in them, so they are purely for you. From what I'm reading, if you can have a new focus lined up before you detach, it will be a lot easier.

Thank you, Julia, for affirming that there is something real in her. I needed to hear that.

I love the suggestion to pursue something new, something that's just for me. She got very deeply into my psyche and into everything that I had thought central to my life. I'll need something compelling to compensate for that, and I have a few ideas already. Thank you. Yours is good medicine.

Hi Beggarsblanket,

I can relate to your feelings. My relationship was long and it was an intense mix of darkness and light, intimacy and rejection.

For good and bad it shaped my life and who I am. Trying to erase it or just focus the darkness feels disrespectful and dishonest to both myself and to what I experienced.

Over time I have gradually learned to reconcile the good and the bad and see myself and my ex with compassion.

These feelings are not always consistent and this process that taken time and patience.

But I've learned to accept that feelings of regret and sadness can coexist with feelings of genuine connection and love. When we demonise our exes - we are also denying and rejecting a part of ourselves and I don't think that helps us to heal or grow

Good luck

Reforming

I'm glad you mentioned compassion. I've been so mired in this stuff that I wouldn't have thought of it myself, but compassion is where I want to end up. I also want strength: the strength to ignore her if or when she contacts me again.

Thanks for your story and your insight. This is an exhausting process.