BPDFamily.com

Okay, I confess.  In a moment of boredom and curiosity, I broke no contact last week, and it was a monumental error.

No, I didn’t make direct contact, but I did look at portions of her social media fingerprint.

Honestly, it was a colossally agonizing experience, and I was not prepared for the massive setback that ensued, as it was like revisiting the emotional stages immediately after our separation when the wounds were still gaping and raw. 

There was nothing objectionable in her social media activity at all, but simply seeing her again dredged up all the dismay and apprehension once more.

There was no incentive to contact her directly, nor did I yearn for her company. I was just curious, and I paid a huge price, as my week was characterized by sleep disturbances, nightmares, and an increase in depression. 

What did emerge from the exercise was that it was obvious that she was suffering too.  Even with the BPD, if you’ve been with someone for almost a decade, you just know when things aren’t right, and she was clearly not right. 

I truly grieve for her, because at this time next year, all of this will be behind me, and sealed with a tag stating “Lesson Learned”. She, on the other hand, will dive back into the madness before long with someone else, and her outcome is already set in stone.

That’s the beauty of my stupidity, as you can now profit from my utterly insane mistake.

We're with you brother. Did that, and all these years later I still do it. All of these years later it no longer hurts, but it's more of an *eyeroll* from some things. Detaching takes time, and Detaching from social media is going cold turkey and very difficult. Give yourself some grace.

I had similar past experiences to what you describe.  It causes a setback, but as long as you don’t contact her directly the setback will clear fairly quickly and it ends up being a good lesson of why not to check up on our exes.  There is never any good that comes out of it.  The best outcome is actually that she does NOT try to charm you back again and does NOT contact you ever again because as long as you don’t do the same it pretty much guarantees you will eventually heal.   Part of us wants that hit of validation from an attempted recycle but now that I’ve had a few I can see clearly that nocontact (from
both sides) is the best path.

Thanks, mate, I sincerely appreciate your input.

I must confess that since moving to the other side of the country from her, the pace of the enjoyable aspects of my life has increased ten-fold (sailing, dining, etc.), and I’ve been happily chronicling my new life via Google reviews.  

Knowing her as I do, I suspect she has succumbed to the impulse, and is looking at my social media output as well, and is probably enraged that I’m not weeping naked on the floor in a fetal position over our breakup.  

It’s clear from my brief online foray that we’re both engaged in a bit of juvenile one-upmanship, like two pimple-squeezing teenagers.

Oh, I cannot wait to have this behind me.

From what I’ve seen, she’s a BPD post-relationship raging Basilisk, and as all her emotional needs are now being met by a woman who thinks she was Queen Guinevere in a previous life (You cannot make this sh!t up), she’s leading the life of Riley…or maybe King Arthur given the crazy context, and I don’t suspect I’ll be troubled by her again. 

But it’s BPD, so you never know.

I just find it all incredibly dismaying.  All of our experiences on both sides of the equation.  Mine had the suicidal ideation thing going on for the last two years.  That stuff works on your brain like a Cuisinart.

Any time I read this site and its posts-I find it incredibly validating. I'm not alone in this. My friends were patient listeners, but don't understand the dichotomy of relationships like this. I'm so sad we all have dealt with these things, but happy for the fact we have each others' stories to read and learn from.

I just did this to myself yesterday with social media. I deleted all of my own accounts over a year ago. I was 2 weeks away from a year NC. And, yesterday I made a burner and took a peek. I believe he's moved on and like you, it affected me more than I care to admit. I too can't wait to have this out of my head. If it was an option I think, at this point,  I'd Eternal Sunshine myself.