BPD and Stress

[Pretty Woman]

Did anyone here ever notice they would get dumped while they were under stress?

It seems like my ex would dump me anytime something really hard was going on in my life... .loss of a person (physically like death or a death of a friendship), stress at work, or a stressful trip coming up.

I was really worried about this trip I'm taking next week. We were invited as guests but it was a very expensive trip and I was trying to budget.

All of a sudden I get dumped and told I'm more a friend than anything and she's bouncing off into the sunset with my replacement.

I'm so crippled I can barely pack for this trip. The PTSD is back and I'm shaking. Sleep is the only thing allowing me to escape.

[valet]

Yes, I think that this may be true, but I wouldn't be able to say for certain.

My ex dumped me almost exactly a year after my father passed. I really needed her support, and she gave it, but it might have caused her stress in a way that I couldn't understand. She could barely hold herself together at that time, and all of a sudden I wasn't as emotionally available to support her.

I think maybe 3 weeks later, she broke up with me.

[Allmessedup]

My ex and i recycled many times in the past but there were two major break ups lasting more than a few days.

The first one came shortly after she found out my daughter had to have massive(and life threatening) surgery.    When we got back together (after the surgery was successful) she said she broke it off so I could concentrate completely on my daughter... .somehow I believed she shattered my entire world for my own good?

The second was less than a week after I lost my beloved grandfather.



So major stressors for me there.  Both things required I be away from her for long periods of time and that triggered her massively. 

I am certainly not going to be around to hear her excuses this time again.  She was simply not capable of being there when I needed her the most... .I need more from a relationship than that.

Amu

[cosmonaut]

Yes, it seems quite common for pwBPD to emotionally dysregulate when under stress.  This is because they have such a limited set of coping mechanisms and very primitive, unhealthy ones at that.  They already experience overwhelming emotions that they fight a constant struggle to cope with.  The addition of stress to this storm of emotion is often too much.  Once the dysregulation starts, very often we as partners feel the brunt of it.  The emotional intimacy, already such a trigger for our partners, can become too much and they either begin to lash our or they leave.  It's a very tragic aspect of the disorder.  The important thing to remember is that this isn't our fault.  We didn't cause this and we can't control it.

[Hawk Ridge]

I experienced the emotional abuse and subsequent break ups as the pressure cooker of her reaction to stress increased.  She's going through it with recent death of her mother. I wonder how long it will before she abandons my replacement.

[zipline]

My exGF ended our relationship in March two days after my dad died. The fight that precipitated the breakup was instigated by her on the day we were supposed to have dinner at one of my friend's house - she declined to go because she was too upset. Thinking back, there were numerous times when there was an event or plans that centered around me or my friends, there would be some fight and she'd be too upset to participate. Never seemed to happen when it was with her friends, though. 

[Low C]

What a helpful, cathartic thread.  I'm sorry to one and all who went through these experiences.  I had several similar experiences, being lashed at while I was at low points or while she was under stress.  The most blatant would have been the break up text message I received during my grandmother's funeral, full on victim mode.  The relationship was "unhealthy" for her and she felt bad when she was with me, and good only away from me.  Stress related break up and gaslighting to boot.

I think there is a lesson in it.  I've tried to remember whenever I started to blame myself, wondered if I could have been just a little better and made things work.  It just wasn't possible.  I got some hints that she was thrown off once or twice when I came down with the flu.  As in, me getting sick meant that I had a human body that was vulnerable and that eventually I would die.  My eventual death being just another form of abandonment in her mind.  There was just no avoiding her triggers.

[Pretty Woman]

 Dating her was exhausting.

She would say that about me. 

Once I fell asleep and forgot to bring her popcicles.

She dumped me over that.  Actually changed her number.

I was so tired of the fighting and depressed I slept a lot.  Was I checked out from this relationship... .

Pretty much. She raped me of trust and faith this could ever work.

[zipline]

The most blatant would have been the break up text message I received during my grandmother's funeral, full on victim mode.  The relationship was "unhealthy" for her and she felt bad when she was with me, and good only away from me.  Stress related break up and gaslighting to boot.

Wow. My ex said exactly the same thing to me. Just to add to what I said above, I gave her everything I could to help and support her. I didn't ask for a lot in return and as the relationship progressed I even asked for less. The one event in our time together where I really, really needed support and love and she ends it and evaporates. As my dad was dying, I was trying to text and talk to her and she was rapidly pulling away. I'm not saying she shouldn't have ended it, but my god the way she did it still blows my mind.

[BorisAcusio]

I had several similar experiences, being lashed at while I was at low points or while she was under stress.  The most blatant would have been the break up text message I received during my grandmother's funeral, full on victim mode. 

I'm sorry you had to deal with that, Low C. It's common for pwBPD to break down from life stressors. My ex also started sexually acting-out when I lost my grandmother, she was fishing for male attention on a dating site during my grandmothers funeral, and as I later found out from her facebook history, she went on date with her lover on that night.


Borderlines can appear to function quite well. Their personas can be quite pleasant, attractive, manipulative, exploitative, and seductive. They can appear to be cocky, highly independent, and self-sufficient. They may function well in a relationship until a stressor-such as childbirth, money problems, or illness-triggers a regressive breakdown into a severely paranoid, sexual-acting-out depression.

www.primals.org/articles/hannig03.html