Help Going Crazy Tonight over my EX BPD

[outside9x]

HI,  I haven't seen my EX BPD girlfriend in 9 months.  Yes there was contact and 3 months ago she begged me to come back.  I held firm, that time and almost met her. 

Then on V-Day she sent me a sweet Text.  I just answered her back  by saying thanks.

I been going on with this wonder and pretty women and she loves me, and I think I do love her.  I say think, because I still have my BPD on my mind and she of course was a knock out, and very shapely.  Yes she had everything done.

So, after a nice Sunday with my girlfriend, my brain with south, and I started to drive to my BPD house.  As I was driving I was thinking what would I say, ok, lets try again, or you have rage issues and your constantly go into fits of it and make stuff up and banish me and treat like hit.  etc.  I mean what words could resolve this, and if she really could love, she wouldn't have done all the crappy things she did, so many things.  No one that could care of love would do that.

So, anyway, I was close by and I should have of turned around, but didn't and drove past her house to see that she had a visitor staying the evening, and I knew she was up in bed.   Now, gee I know she has been dating of course, me too, (I am sure many guys would date her it just a question of how healthy they are and how long she last.  )  She going thru 4 engagements, and 3 marriages, no close friends, basically no family member will communicate with her.  She financially set.   I hurt so badly I stupidly looked at her FB page to see who it could possibly be .  Stupid and more obsessions, but now I am kinda shaking and missing her, but knowing too, the same thing would happen even if she really wanted me back. (She knows I am a long term relationship) The drinking, the commanding, then the fun, then the popping Xanax, smoking more drinking and rages and devaluation, yet, I cried out for her, and yet, I slept over night at my girlfriend house looking at how pretty she is, we went to mass together and held hands and looked lovingly at each other, and I do this!  I do care for her, and love her yet drawn physically to this person who would just make my life so misery.  It's pure body heat and not love, I know.

I am so ready to call her in a few days.  At least I didn't phone her or text her.  That's the only smart thing I did. 

I know back about three months ago she was truly sorry and admitted to being mean and cruel, but I also know we broke up several times, only for the cruelty to start again. She used other excuses then about being on the wrong meds.   Oh boy obsession to someone who would treat you like crap is terrible.  Maybe I just can't handle a normal loving relationship, and going there tonight was really a stupid thing to do and just hurt me more.  I know their emotions run all over the place and are bad, but right not mine is too, and I feel like I am on fire and almost want to cry.  My friends have help me but no one is around.  I feel like giving in.  I really do this is painful!

I know she wanted badly and pleaded and pleaded,  I read many stories of BPD doing the same and then BAM same outcome.  I need strength to overcome my weakness for someone who could ruin my life and ruin my chances with this wonderful girl who truly loves me and does things for me.  Wait for helpful words or a kick in the pants.  Thanks dying right now!

[outside9x]

HI Sorry, for the numerous grammar mistakes,  my mind not focusing of course!

[Want2know]

Hi outside 

Just read your post.  Are you still feeling this way today?

I know we all have had moments after the initial break up where we wonder if we could go back and make our relationships work.  It seems you have a lot of reasons why NOT to go back, but only one why you want to.

There are many articles and workshops on our site that are worth reading to help you with how you are feeling now.  The steps in 'Choosing a Path' (to the right of the screen) are a good start.

Here is a link from one of the suggested readings about how to survive a break up:

https://bpdfamily.com/bpdresources/nk_a109.htm

As the article states, disengaging from this type of relationship is hard - that initial attraction and the feelings that surrounded that are difficult to let go of.

The good thing about what you did the other day (driving by her house, responding only briefly to her text) is that you can move on from that and do what you know is best for you now.  Is this something that you want to work towards?

[outside9x]

Hi Want to Know,

It is something I want to work on to not be addicted to her charms and sexual appeal.  Many things entrapped me,and her ways but she is a medium to functional BPD person.  I don't think she could ever worked for someone let say in the office, it would be too stressful, and luckily she works from home 1 client and not that busy.  MOney she has. 

But anyway, I tell myself the several breakup which she did were all cruel of course and based on wants and needs or imagination.  I been through them enough to know she cries and tells me how we belong together for life, and she is so well built (lots of comestic surgeries etc) and very senusual, so with the pleading and crying and that great body, I crumple.  The dream girl, the fantasy, that not real.   Yet so demanding that it's  bottomless bucket, and then does things behind my back or is flippant and basically pushes me away until as always, I am ready to leave (ABandoment  fears) then cries and cries, but just reverts back to stupid and mean stuff, and me being too defensive to know better, I try to defend my actions or tell her she wrong about a conversation that never took place.  Even if I am write per evidence, she say I am a right fighter.  I never yell etc, I just want this beating to stop.

Many times (without the knowledge of how to handle it) I did do the right thing and clamly would say I am leaving because this is unreasonable, and go.  Those times seem to work after a coulple of days and she be fine, and no mention of stuff, but something else would take its place.  The last time we got back together in late 2012 she was very nice for about 2 weeks, then slowly, she had 3 big rage events over 2 mths over nothing and during a loving time (both times) where we were gazing into each others eyes saying how much we loved each other over dinner, then within seconds getting mad because I wouldn't cut my hair the way she likes it, (my hair is maybe medium length at best and lucky I have hair, or I asked her to go on vacation, (I would pay) but she raged over that saying she worried about money and getting a job.  She is financial set for life and even now just does the same thing.  Most girls even if worried would have said, Sweetie, I don't know if I can go.  I am very worried about finding a job, I need money.  And after that rage, though not needed, she have a complete face lift, chin lift, and eyebrow lift.  Well known doctor, had to cost well over $20K.  Well, you get the idea.  Both incidents turned into her screaming at me in the car and punching me in the car while driving.  The punches weren't hard but it stupid.  The 3rd time, without me even saying a word, she just ran out of the car, after  calling me a hiting liar, about what I don't know, plus I don't lie to anyone.

So, yeah, I would like to learn the tools to move her out of my mind.  The physical and emotional attractions and her ways lure me back, and of course she is sincere at the time, but I just have to believe her mental illness (even though she admitted it's her fault to drive me away) will probably not get better, and yet, I tell myself at times, I could possibly learned these new skills I read and it could be.

Right now she is with someone, and I too, but I don't love the BPD because she kind.  I know it's purely a physical and somewhat emotional atttraction that I need to get control of. Yes, I need help and sometimes want to just give in knowing it would be hell

Thanks

[Waddams]

One thing to remember is that people don't just stop unhealthy behaviors and habits, be it addictions, abuse patterns, self sabotage, etc.  They have to admit they have an issue, and seek one form or other of help, commit to it, stick with it, and through hard work develop and retrain themselves to replace old behaviors with new behaviors.  If you just try to stop, but don't develop something new, you just a leave a void where eventually old habits will return and fill that void.  To prevent that, you have to fill that void with something new.

Your ex-, while admitting fault for past items, I don't see where she has stated how she is going to change and not do those things anymore.  What is she going to replace old unhealthy behaviors and habits with?  How is she going to do it?  What help/support is she going to get to do it?  Is she committed to doing it simply to improve herself regardless, or she saying she'll do it to get back with you?  If there isn't a true committment to herself for improvement, then it won't stick.

Remind yourself you are healthier and deserve and can find a relationship with someone healthier as well.  Relationships aren't about how attractive she is and how the she makes you feel when she turns on the charm.  It's not about the personal gratification you get from when she has you split good and the idealization is flowing, or from the sense of studliness that comes from the hot sex. 

On a side note, I'm pretty convinced my BPD's "act" in bed was really more a show for me to draw me in more than real for her.  I think a lot of BPD women never turn off their act to idealize you, and part of that is an act during sex to make you feel like the hottest man on earth and draw you in and keep you drawn in tightly.

Instead, relationships are about partnerships and fulfillments that are bigger than your own self.  A pwBPD (or a lot of other PD's) that isn't getting help and making true progress in their own healing just isn't capable of it because they aren't capable of prioritizing anything or anyone as bigger than themselves.

Is her communication full of "I messed up, I'm so sorry, I screwed it up so bad... . "... . it's a guilt trip aimed at you combined with a pity party for themselves.  Trying to make you feel pity for them and give in the guilt (FOG'ing you really) to come back.  It's part of the abuse cycle, plain and simple.  Check out the Duluth Model of DV Intervention Power and Control Wheel (just google it, you'll find it).  You'll see the whole cycle laid out plainly and be able to identify it easier.  Then you'll realize even her reaching out now has selfish and feeling sorry for herself type motivations behind it and isn't about you.

In the meantime, it also helps to occupy yourself with other things.  Don't just sit around ruminating.  If nothing else, find a good book and get lost in it.  Otherwise, get out, go do things with others or even by yourself.  Distract yourself,and eventually it will sink in that you deserve and can get better.  The longing for her will subside.  NC really is for your own healing first.  It's hard but it gets easier, then it gets wonderful!

[outside9x]

Hi Wadams,

Thanks so much for the insights and the tips and how they view.  After admitting that stuff, she said she went to a counselor.  I don't know if it was one time or several.  I know every once in awhile she would go but mostly to get her meds.  She did say, she was trying to find out why she psuhed me away so hard.  (Well we know it's abandoment issues is a big part and being a BPD the other)

I never told her she was a BPD but hinted.     The last time we broke up, she blames it on wrong medications that made her act insane. (went back and nothing changed!)  SO anyway she knows she pushing away, but even with all the bad treatment I had  at the end I found her on a dating site.  We were exclusive.  I asked her to remove herself nicely and told her it really hurt me.  At first she said yes, then, she said, "That no one tells her waht to do or say"! That was pretty harsh and cruel , no concern for my feelings.  I flipped that around and told myself that if I was on the site, I be on my knees begging for her to forgive me for being so stupid and hurtful.  SO, I see how little she cares about me.  Yet , she wants be back, but the time to treat people nice, is when you have them with you.  I am so afraid she do the same thing, and she most likely is dating anyway but did reach out.  I sure though she knows I am dating and this might be nothing more than a power move.

[Waddams]

I have a BPDxgf that claimed to have been in a kinds of therapy in multiple states where she'd lived in the past.  She had a psychiatrist she'd see every 3-4 or 6 months.  It was really just get her meds.  She claimed dx with rapid cycling bipolar and OCD.  The doc had her on effexor and seroquel.  Effexor is an anti-depressant.  Seroquel is an anti-psychotic tranquilizer.  I didn't know what seroquel was at first and took me a while to have the thought to look it up.  She told me it was just an extra thing to help the anti-D be more effective.

Basically he had on her the cocktail that seemed to come up in several articles for BPD, paranoid schizophrenia, etc.  I think she lied about her diagnoses.  Not an evil thing, just a sign of the shame and embarrassment she likely felt about it.  I think she just went and got her meds, didn't take anything else seriously, and then eventually started varying dosages on her own, and supplementing with xanax and a little oxyicotin (i got a script for it after fall off a galloping, bucking horse that resulted in rib injuries and a concussion) she stole from me and booze.  You can imagine the results.

Point being, if she's not being open about true therapy and drug treatment and is being avoidant or otherwise squirrelly about her treatment, she's being disingenious in some way, and isn't taking her recovery seriously.  Until she does take it seriously, she's a trainwreck and will take everyone around her down with her.  Telling her she's BPD won't go well.  It didn't w/ my BPDxgf.  They are already ashamed that there's something wrong with them.  They know it and that they can't control it deep down.  Being confronted with it just makes them feel worse, helpless because they can't control it anyway, and they react in rage.  I think it's really their own rage they carry about their issues, but when sparked, they direct it at whoever is closest.

[outside9x]

Hi Waddams,

I totally agreed with what you said,and she had a bushell basket of Xanax and use to give some to her mom and me.  I had a extreme headache, and like a dope, I took it, but only once.  Yes, she was on Anti-depressants which didn't bother me, as many people are, but combine that with smoking grass and drinking Scotch, and you got a lot of chemicals floating around there and depending on the mood, Bam!

I sure overlooked a lot of things because of her. 

Bottom line is I still miss the fun we had in and out of bed, but don't miss the raging, the craziness, the demands which were just endless and you could never make her happy. Once in the demand mode, it was terrible, and I probably didn't know how to handle it and set boundaries excpet to be defensive like, yes I did do that for you, as she would say I didn't.  It was insane, and many times , I feel relieved to not be with her, but miss still the same.  Yet, with a wonderful girl who loves me and I think I love her, but it doesn't have that pull.  Probably the lack of drama, and of course her killer body!

[outside9x]

Thanks Want to Know2,

Its been hard and at times I get mad thinking of all I put up with, then thinking about how alluring it is when she reaches out and says she misses me and wants to be with me and it's her fault she acted cruel etc, and looking to as a counselor why she pushes me away.  Pushes, I mean more like torture.  She has a mazing figure,and very sexy when she wants to but can be goofy and fun.  Then the real terrible times and I the worst etc, the bad guy, it's alla bout me etc.  It just pours down and without reason or cause. 

If this was the 1st or 2nd big break up, I probably be back.  The last one before this big break up she used wrong medication as her reason for her insane actions.  Sure I wanted to paint her black and crazy, btu realize its a severe illness that might not ever get better especially at her age of 61.  My girl now is kind and considerate, very cute, very well adjusted.  We have fun , and the loving is very good, but emotionally I am still attached to the BPD, and I need to break away or fall back, which  by all history , and by with all my friends say would be a very bad mistake.  Thanks for replying!

[Want2know]

Thanks for your honest replies, Outside.  You are not alone in your feelings.  Many folks on our site feel that the sexual aspect of their relationships was a main draw.

It seems to me that you understand on some level that wanting her back only for that aspect is not healthy.  Since you posted on the Undecided board, do you feel there is a chance that you would get back together with your ex, and let go of your current girlfriend if she were to approach you again?

Another question I have is probably a harder one, as it gets to the core of why you may be drawn to obsessing over the physical nature of your relationship - it's about what you value.

What is it in a relationship that you value and want from a partner?  Can you make a list here in priority order (or as close to priority order as you can)?

[outside9x]

Hi Want2know,

I don

t know.  I mean she begged to come back and meet her 3 months ago, and I said yes, and then I got really afraid , and called her back and told her I couldn't she insisited that I should, many times, I finally told her, I was afraid.  Honest answer. But soemthimes i hurt badly, but ask myself why would I go back to a relationship that at times was so uncaring and brutal, and then the answer I think was I put her on a pedastal, likeshe was a powerful entity, and just hung up on her phy aspects and senual ways.  SHe really didn't go out of her way fro me too much, at times a few small favors.  We enjoyed and yes I was highly stimulated. The relationship not is great, and she pretty, and very caring and understanding.  My family loves her, my freinds do, and she very good int he love making area as well, but yet, like an adddict I have that pull and feelign that I feel or felt only she could do.  Strange I know.

I try to lis t the priorities still at work!

[outside9x]

Hi All,

Now at home but wish the pain would stop .  The pain of me not reaching out to her, to connect, even knowing she can't change much.  That's sad, maybe I have to go through this door. 

So strong to be with her again, and she might just say no now anyway, but still.

Then think about my love so sweet, and to give that up.  Very confused!

[Want2know]

I'm going to be very frank with you.

My guess is you are wanting to be with her so badly because not only does it give you a rush, but it makes your self-esteem sky rocket.  How do you feel about yourself being alone?  Without your new girlfriend, without your ex?

Do you like yourself, who you are, honestly?

Because being less than honest or not striving to be more in touch with the root of your desire is going to keep you in the same boat as you have been.

If you are ok with that, forgiving the abuse for the beauty, then that's your choice.

[outside9x]

Yes, I agree with the beauty part and not sure about the self esteem because, I will agree that there is something when I am with her, that makes me feel very alive and maybe some of it is the push and pull, and the other is maybe the way she affects me on a sexual level but, I was not like this before, and maybe it's something like what you say but I am not seeing it.  My girlfriend is always telling me how cute or hot I am, and doing it a lot.  I am actually tell her to stop it , because it will give me a big head so, I don't think it's and esteem thing, do you?  Else that would be satisfying and she is very cute, and affectionate, nice shape and very young looking for her age, but nothing like the shape of the BPD and 95% of the population will not be, so it seems its purely physical which makes it really stupid for me, because no one should be treated like that regardless how they look etc and still want to come back for more because of her looks or shape etc.  Even to me that sounds crazy but, so far, that's what it seems like. Willing to suffer over it , and it sounds very stupid yet I want to reach out to her.   I was married for 34 years and yes, did put up with abuse of another kind, so I am wondering myself, but I do like myself, and finding someone to be someone like my present girlfriend was a dream but I met the BPD first, and that opened up new ball of wax. 

She was married 3 years, 13, then 8, well strung it out to 10, for the assets.  The last 2 had big bucks, and paid dearly.  I do not have the cash.  I know she is really over the top. I bumped into an old boyfriend that pulled me aside and said she is really nuts. 

I also do not want to lose my girlfriend because I am stuck in some emotional/mental fantasy that I now have running in my head.  So prayers, friends, advice help, but sometimes I feel like giving in.,  It crushes me, and it doesn't make sense.

Thank you so much.  I being honest.  Though it is embarrassing too.


Jack

[Want2know]

I had read before about you realizing that you probably should not have entered into another relationship without processing your previous relationship. 

Knowing that you can't change the past, how do you feel about letting go of your new girlfriend?

It seems like you are not emotionally available to her.  How do you think she would feel if she was aware of how you are thinking about your ex?  It's really not fair to her.

Basically, you are treating your new girlfriend, as your ex-gf is treating you.  Your ex is not capable of being emotionally available to you.

Did you think anymore about what your priorities are in a relationship?  What you value the most?

[outside9x]

I think I am treating my Ex girlfriend with lots of love, and respect, and we really have fun together laugh, go to church, etc.  I do things for her, and she for me.  She thinks I am always happy etc, and when I am with her, I am.   but your right she would be devastated if she knew I was thinking of my ex.  I did say to my good friend at one point its not fair to her, because I am not a 100%, and maybe I need to let her go.  I did think that, he said no that would be stupid but you need to let the other go and ask what is pulling you back to her knowing her serious condition that will not change, and her obsession with money as well. 

Yes, I did think about it. 1st we care about each other deeply, and we are kind to each other and helpful.  That we can be free to be who we are, relax, have our own friends and common friends.  That when conflicts come up and they will, we would work them out and try to be aware of each others needs and feelings as much as possible.  Mostly, love who they are, as a person.  My girlfriend has all those qualities, I feel I had those qualities and some how caught a bad virus that messing me up bad...   I really feel that.  And your right I am letting the physical ruin things, and I always would laugh at people chasing after things like that, because it has no value yet here I am.  Yet I feel my BPD is not a bad person at times I remember how she treat waiter and clerk badly sometimes and that really bother me.  So she isn't very nice, and even when I went way out of my to help she would scream at me for not paying her enough attention.  Anyway, Maybe my age has something to do with hanging on to that wild fantasy or something.  All I know, is it like a drug, like heroin, you see people on it, who use it even though their best buddy just died of an overdose, because they have to have it anyway, because they like they way they feel on it.  Trust me, things are good when I don't think of her and that's the truth.  It is a chemical high somewhere there, because logically from every possible angle, it doesn't even make sense to me. So, it me that needs to turn this around quickly or just give in, but what I life I would have!

I am seeking counseling as well.  A professional who knows about BPD etc.  That hopefully will help.  I know the problem and solutions lies within. 

[Want2know]

So, it me that needs to turn this around quickly or just give in, but what I life I would have!

I am seeking counseling as well.  A professional who knows about BPD etc.  That hopefully will help.  I know the problem and solutions lies within. 

Yes, they do.  Glad to hear you have some professional support.  I hope you can work through this without giving in.