BPD or Complex PTSD? My Struggles and Reevaluation of the Relationship

[cosmonaut]

This was originally part of another thread, but I'm starting it as a new topic to avoid derailing that other thread.  This is many of the thoughts I've been having lately as I rethink many of the assumptions I've had over the past 2 years.  This is many ways me processing, but thoughts and comments welcome.

One of the things that has never changed for me is my concept of who my ex is.  Learning about BPD has given so much more context, but it hasn't ever changed who I believe she is.  I struggle with this here, because sometimes I feel so out of step with what others here experienced.  I at times wonder if my ex even has BPD at all.  In some ways, she is very unusual.  Such a hermit.  So shut off from life.  So distant from everyone.  I never saw the mirroring.  I never saw the fluid identity.  What I saw was a refusal to allow anyone to draw close.  And I think that must be unusual among pwBPD - people who crave attachment.

I don't think many people know my ex.  Very few, actually.  And that's because she does wear a mask to the world at large.  She has walls within walls within walls.  I have never met someone who craves so much time alone.  She doesn't do the internet.  Rarely texts.  Doesn't go out.  And yet she is unfailingly kind, warm, and courteous to strangers and all the people she keeps at such distance.  At her work, the girls would beg her to come out with them - and she never did.  Not one single time our entire relationship.  She told me that she has so few good days when she was feeling well that she would rather just spend them with me.  She had so many people who wanted to be her friend, but she just wouldn't let them.  They were never allowed in.  At the same time, she took such tender care of the people in her care at work.  She had rave reviews from her employer and coworkers.  She had numerous letters that were written by patients to formally thank her for the depth of her care.  She was an angel to a homeless man that she and I were working with to try and help him get on his feet.  She was so kind to him.

None of them ever saw who she was beneath that mask, however.  The pain.  The shame.  The addictions.  The eating disorder.  The self-hatred.  The incredible sadness of an incredibly damaged soul.  Nor did they see the depth of her faith.  The strength of her spirit.  The passion of her love.  Her hopes.  Her fears.  Her dreams.  All of these things she shares with no one.

I still feel so incredibly privileged to have been allowed in.  To know the real her.  I know she gave me a precious gift.  She told me as much.  She told me she never trusts anyone.  Once while she was reflecting back, she said that when she met me she just had this feeling that she could trust me, and she couldn't explain why.  She said she felt safe.  Like she could talk to me.  And she couldn't believe it, because she doesn't feel safe with men.  Flattery?  Maybe.  But I don't think so.  I think what she said aligns with everything else about her.  All the evidence says that she really doesn't trust anyone.  That she doesn't feel safe with anyone.

For me, the question of who my ex is does not trouble me.  What really troubles me still - even haunts me in a way - is how carelessly I handled that emotional safety that she once felt.  Perhaps our breakup was in the cards from the start.  It's possible.  But I can also see so many times when I hurt her, let her down, broke her emotional trust.  And I regret it.  I see now that any relationship has to have emotional trust and that once it is gone there is no saving the relationships unless it can be rekindled.   It is the lifeblood of relationships.  We have to feel emotionally safe and accepted with our partner.

Since BPDs are "disconnected" from their true self, they have these "fusional" fantasies to find the perfect partner (that's why she let you in, initially). However, at some point the disorder wins, so fear of engulfment and trust issues kick in. You really couldn't do anything, don't beat yourself up on this.

What first tipped me off to BPD was that my ex seemingly broke up with me out of nowhere, without reason (she said herself that this had nothing to do with anything I had done, she still loves me, thinks that I was an amazing boyfriend, thanked me for how much I had made her feel safe and loved), and then went completely silent.  One of the last things she ever said to me was "we'll talk soon", and we never did.  That is still one of the most distinctly BPD behaviors.  I increasingly wonder if I am incorrectly seeing BPD when she is a better fit for complex PTSD.  While I was with her, I had attributed her problems to PTSD.  She did too.  We had discussed it numerous times.  When I discovered about BPD, I thought I had previously been wrong.  Now I have been wondering if I was more correct initially.  In some ways she just doesn't fit the "typical" pwBPD.  Of course, everyone is unique, BPD is a spectrum disorder, and there can be comorbidity.  Still, I wonder.

One of the things that bothers me is that there wasn't the hook in forming an attachment.  In fact, she was very hesitant to form a relationship.  She told me she didn't think she'd ever get married again.  This is a woman who was in her late 20s at the time.  She said that she had so much baggage, and she felt like she was permanently damaged goods.  It took several months of my pursuing before she even went on a date with me, despite her willingness to speak pretty much daily - often late into the night.  Once that happened, we were soon very serious about each other, but she was not a seductress.  She told me later that she was very attracted to me, but was scared of being hurt again.  There was no real hook.  No desperation to attach.  She really does not let anyone in.  I've seen her very curtly shut down men who hit on her.  They screwed up.  I know I was given a rare opportunity, and it's because we had this connection for reasons neither of us truly understood.  It just happened - we clicked from the start.  So, in terms of the fusing - I just don't know.  It may have never happened.

So, this also makes me wonder if nothing could have been done.  One of the most difficult, but eye opening realizations I've (very) slowly come to realize is just how much I hurt her.  How much I messed up.  How much I allowed my issues to harm her.  I think this would have been true in any relationship.  I can't say I was a great boyfriend anymore who did nothing but shower her with love as I once thought.  A boyfriend who did everything to save our relationship.  I was doing active harm, and I didn't even see it.  Contrary to what I once thought, she had excellent reasons to leave me.

I know that ultimately this isn't about our ex.  In the end this is about us.  I still wonder what might have happened if I had been wiser.  Had better emotional intelligence.  Had dealt with my own issues better.  Was this inevitable?  I'm not sure anymore.

And yes, many BPDs are indeed amazing individuals: full of potential and talents, yet with huge psychological issues which make relationships with them unbearable in the long term.

It is so hard to accept they're both extremely good and bad, isn't it?

Yes, it is very hard to deal with loving someone who is so damaged and who struggles so much.  It broke my heart; still does.  She really is an amazing person.

cosmonaut

Your posts have helped me a lot to understand BPD point of view and how they think. But I think that you are too focused about their feelings. I think you are still in the FOG, feeling guilty, although in most of your posts you say to the other members that they are not guilty.

I dunno, man.  I hear what you are saying, and I don't necessarily disagree.  I'm certainly rethinking the relationship and I am seeing things through new eyes.  I'm definitely making some connections that I hadn't before.  Our situations are heavily entwined in discussing my role in the relationship.  I do believe that, more than not, neither of us is truly to blame for the relationship failing.  I do feel that it is tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.  Life is very messy like that, and sometimes terrible things happen to people despite the best of intentions.  We both certainly made mistakes, but they were mostly honest mistakes.  We live in an imperfect world.  I believe two people can deeply love one another and not be able to make the relationship work.  That's a very hard truth for me.

I remember my ex telling me even before we started actually dating that she needed a lot of alone time, and that this had caused problems in other relationships in the past with friends and partners.  There would be times even then when she didn't answer calls or texts for a day or two or three.  It's hard to know exactly why.  She claimed that she was sick and couldn't talk (and she was - this is indisputable); she has chronic illness that often flares and it's fairly debilitating.  At first, I believed this implicitly, but as the relationship progressed and in the second year the silent treatments became far more extreme, I began to feel that the claims of illness were being used as a cover story.  Her mother also told me that her illness was her favorite excuse in life.  I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.  But what really strikes me now is that she told me from the very start that this would happen.  She told me she would need times alone.  And yet, somehow, I managed to forget that and to become increasingly concerned and frustrated by the silences.  That's on me.  I can't hold that against her, no matter how hard it was for me to handle.  She had been completely honest with me, and I should have been going in with my eyes open.  It was my own insecurities and neediness that was the larger problem.

I also had some significant issues of jealousy about her marriage.  I'm not proud of that at all.  It is one of my deepest and most shameful regrets of our relationship, and I wish I could take it back more than anything.  I know I hurt her terribly.  I can't imagine how awful it must have made her feel to have me making an issue of something she felt was the worst mistake of her life.  She had trusted me with one of her most painful and traumatic experiences and I had betrayed that trust by holding it against her.  My ex got married very young to a really terrible man.  He turned out to be horribly abusive.  This is almost certainly true, and not any sort of painting black.  She has traumatic brain injury and seizures as a result of his violence against her.  I've been to the neurologist with her.  It's real.  He was also, at least at the time we were dating, incarcerated for grand theft auto.  He has also had police reports about his violence  (sort of goes to the depth of my obsession with him that I looked this stuff up, doesn't it?).  She was scared to death of him.  He had held her virtual prisoner in her own home, and when she finally fled her told her he was going to kill her.  She lives to this day in horrible fear that he actually will.  And I held all that against her.  I twisted myself all up that she had married such a monster.  I think it made me feel that I was somehow the lesser for it.  If she had married someone so awful, then what did that say about me?  And I felt that I had been robbed, in a way, of what should have been rightfully mine.  It's incredibly possessive, isn't it?  It didn't fit my narrative of what true love was supposed to be, and I blamed her for it.  This is also despite the fact that I myself had been in a nearly decade long relationship before my ex.  The hypocrisy is undeniable.  This again was not in any way her fault.  This was me.  It was my warped thinking and my emotional issues.  I mostly kept it in, but every once in a while it came out.  There was one particular time when we were having an argument and she had said something that was actually kind of innocent, but had still really hurt me.  I immediately retaliated in brutal fashion by making an unforgivable comment about her marriage.  I can honestly say it was the worst things I've ever done.  I will never forget the look of shock and pain on her face.  I had cut her to the core.  She forgave me for that, and I am not sure that I deserved it.  She never held it against me after that.

These are only a few of the things that I know are my issues.  There's also my bipolar disorder, my FOO issues, my abandonment issues, my trying to fix her, and on and on.  I'm not sure that's being lost in the FOG.  What do you think?  I think it's me needing to really take a sobering look at myself.  To be perfectly honest, I think it was me who was the worse partner.  I had always thought it was her.  I don't anymore.

[Should I stay or...]

These are only a few of the things that I know are my issues.  There's also my bipolar disorder, my FOO issues, my abandonment issues, my trying to fix her, and on and on.  I'm not sure that's being lost in the FOG.  What do you think?  I think it's me needing to really take a sobering look at myself.  To be perfectly honest, I think it was me who was the worse partner.  I had always thought it was her.  I don't anymore.

If I may speak from my own experiences; a person that has been in therapy for PTSD for over a year, and one that's dated a girlfriend that was diagnosed with Bpd during our relationship.

What I have learned from being in therapy about my PTSD is that I'm unconsciously seeking a safe harbor. A safe place to call home. Unknowingly wanting to be out of my fight or flight response into the arms of another that will finally protect me.

So, I unknowingly enter into a relationship with a BP, who is unknowingly in more interior turmoil than I. She was never in therapy, never knew her issues, never had introspection. Just blame. She was running from herself and I wanted her to stay. What a predicament, I want permanency, safety and she was running... .Running from the relationship that was easier to be with out than being culpable if she stayed.

Who was more at fault? I'd say neither one of us alone; but we are in a relationship, and have the responsibility and culpability to the protect the others psyche in an adult relationship. If we don't know who we are entering into any relationship than we are part of the problem if it ends. Unfortunately for me, she never wanted to stay in therapy, therapy that we agreed to attend together.

[Mutt]

Hi cosmonaut,

Great topic. I enjoyed how articulate and self aware that your thread is. I hear regret and I hear wisdom. It sounds like you have learned a lot about yourself and relationships. My advice cosmonaut is to find forgiveness for yourself.

[Turkish]

So, this also makes me wonder if nothing could have been done.  One of the most difficult, but eye opening realizations I've (very) slowly come to realize is just how much I hurt her.  How much I messed up.

This is something that I think most people fail to realize (we'll excuse the extreme DV cases). It's hard to in the beginning being hurt badly, often to our cores. I hurt mine, especially when she was in her depressive episodes. She would tell me afterwords. I resented being the "therapist" again as I was in my childhood to my mother. My FOO issues. Not my Ex's fault.

How much I allowed my issues to harm her.  I think this would have been true in any relationship.  I can't say I was a great boyfriend anymore who did nothing but shower her with love as I once thought.  A boyfriend who did everything to save our relationship.  I was doing active harm, and I didn't even see it.  Contrary to what I once thought, she had excellent reasons to leave me.

It sounds like she leaves everybody. She's cut herself off from real intimacy out of fear of being hurt. The trouble is, real intimacy involves pain now and then, as well as love. Above all, forgiveness. Can you forgive yourself that you were not perfect?

[lm911]

I agree with Turkish.

Cosmo, you say :  "To be perfectly honest, I think it was me who was the worse partner.  I had always thought it was her.  I don't anymore."

From what I have read, I do not think that this is true. Of course everyone of us to be blamed for not making the relationship work, because it takes two persons to form a couple. But as you know from books and researches - it is very difficult to have a long and happy relationship with a borderline. I think you did your best at that time, you did not have the information about the disorder and even if you knew it would have been very difficult to follow the steps to maintain a relationship. You should know that you are not responsible for her behaviour and that she is a miserable person due to the fact she is BPD, not because of you. On the other hand even if we agree with you that you were the worse and you are the one who has to be blamed for most of the troubles in your r/s - who is this going to help - you feel guilty and that is. You say that this is just a sober point of you, but you are usting too much emotion rather than facts. Again you here you are again, thinking and thinking about your role and where is she - is she thikning about this too? Has she made any clear conclusions like you do? I do not think that. I think that you did your best, but it did not work, sure you have your problems, but the fact that you are writing this amazing post, shows you are not the one who has to be blamed.

[Reforming]

Hi Cosmo,

Very good post and lots of good responses from other members. You're clearly very self aware and very empathetic to your ex and others, but you seem to really struggle to forgive and accept your own humanity. We're all imperfect. I would chime with what Mutt has said about working to forgive yourself.

One of the things that has never changed for me is my concept of who my ex is.  Learning about BPD has given so much more context, …...

I can relate to a lot of this. My ex is capable of great kindness and generosity and in many respects she doesn't fit the profile of many of the BPDs described on this site. But she can also be terribly destructive and cruel. I've struggled for a long time to reconcile the two, but I've finally come to accept that these two extremes are part of who she is

I don't think many people know my ex.  Very few, actually.  And that's because she does wear a mask to the world at large.  She has walls within walls within walls.  I have never met someone who craves so much time alone.  She doesn't do the internet.  Rarely texts.  :)oesn't go out.  And yet she is unfailingly kind, warm, and courteous to strangers and all the people she keeps at such distance.  At her work, the girls would beg her to come out with them - and she never did.  Not one single time our entire relationship ….

My ex is high functioning and to my knowledge highly respected and well liked at work. She was also capable of acts of real generosity to work colleagues, strangers and her partners but generally she was most generous there was no real intimacy involved. In public she wore a mask and only really revealed who she was to me. She didn't like social media, texting and when she came home she frequently retreated into a shell and could be very socially avoidant.

What does all this mean?

I don't doubt that she developed these unhealthy behaviours and coping mechanisms for good reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that they are unhealthy and destructive to her and to whoever she is in relationship with.

I still feel so incredibly privileged to have been allowed in.  To know the real her.  I know she gave me a precious gift.  She told me as much.  She told me she never trusts anyone.  Once while she was reflecting back, she said that when she met me she just had this feeling that she could trust me, and she couldn't explain why.  She said she felt safe….

My ex said similar things and I tried my best to be worthy of her trust

But I did and said things that broke it. Why? Over time I felt overwhelmed by her secrets and her pain - as the hope of healing or improvement seemed to steadily diminish. At times her pain and darkness triggered my own vulnerabilities and I felt overwhelmed and powerless to help her get better. I accept that I tried the best I could, but I have my own frailties, we all do, and trying to help her while accepting her unhealthy behaviour just made things worse for both of us.

I think she needed to be confront her pain and trauma with someone who had the skills and objectivity to help her heal. I couldn't do that and I don't believe it's really fair or healthy to expect a romantic partner to heal your wounds.

For me, the question of who my ex is does not trouble me.  What really troubles me still - even haunts me in a way - is how carelessly I handled that emotional safety that she once felt.  Perhaps our breakup was in the cards from the start.  It's possible.  But I can also see so many times when I hurt her, let her down, broke her emotional trust.  And I regret it….

I agree that emotional trust is so important and so very easy to destroy. I hugely regret my the mistakes and the harm I did. But lets acknowledge our own humanity and accept that we all make mistakes in relationships and even for the very strongest of us sharing your life with someone suffering from a serious mental disorder presents huge challenges.  I try and temper acknowledgement of my mistakes with some compassion for my weaknesses and an appreciation of my strengths.

What first tipped me off to BPD was that my ex seemingly broke up with me out of nowhere, without reason (she said herself that this had nothing to do with anything I had done, she still loves me, thinks that I was an amazing boyfriend, thanked me for how much I had made her feel safe and loved), and then went completely silent.  One of the last things she ever said to me was "we'll talk soon", and we never did.  That is still one of the most distinctly BPD behaviors.  I increasingly wonder if I am incorrectly seeing BPD when she is a better fit for complex PTSD….

As you probably know there's a substantial body of thought that believes that BPD is a type of complex PTSD. Do you think this would change the outcome of your relationship?

Diagnosing a PD is incredibly tricky, even for a very skilled clinician. There are lots of reasons for this. Co-morbidity is very common which means that a diagnosis is rarely clear cut. In her book The Narcissistic Borderline couple Joan Lachlkar's, a highly respected and experienced therapist writes;

"Since narcissistic/borderline traits, states, and characteristics are not clear entities and tend to vacillate, diagnosis can be elusive. Ironically, when the borderline progresses in treatment, he or she becomes more narcissistic (there is nothing worse than a narcissistic borderline). In addition, an individual may exhibit both narcissistic and borderline characteristics simultaneously, further confusing the issue. It is challenging enough for therapists to diagnose individual personality disorders"

We're not clinicians or healers and even if we were it's almost impossible to help someone heal when you're romantically or emotionally involved...

One of the things that bothers me is that there wasn't the hook in forming an attachment.  In fact, she was very hesitant to form a relationship.  She told me she didn't think she'd ever get married again.  This is a woman who was in her late 20s at the time.  She said that she had so much baggage, and she felt like she was permanently damaged goods... .

My ex confided in me about her childhood sexual abuse, her first boyfriend's suicide, very painful things that she had hidden from her family. Why did she do that?

On one level is appeared to be an indication of deep trust and intimacy, taking off her mask and baring her soul to. But it was also place an immense burden on me and our relationship. Her confidence carried an expectation that I to protect her and heal her pain. I couldn't and instead I ended up excusing behaviour that was unhealthy and destructive to me. At the heart of it was a resistance on her part to taking responsibility for her own healing and behaviour. Enabling her didn't help her heal and it made me miserable.

So, this also makes me wonder if nothing could have been done.  One of the most difficult, but eye opening realizations I've (very) slowly come to realize is just how much I hurt her... .

It took me time to acknowledge that I had also hurt my ex deeply. I think it can be a very healthy realisation but it needs to balanced with compassion for yourself.

You seem to be setting yourself impossibly high standards. We're all guilty of making mistakes and hurting in each other either through ignorance or when our own weakness and vulnerabilities are triggered. Many of lack self awareness and important communication skills and we only realise it over time from making mistakes. That's normal and human. We're not supermen.

I know that ultimately this isn't about our ex.  In the end this is about us.  I still wonder what might have happened if I had been wiser.  Had better emotional intelligence.  Had dealt with my own issues better.  Was this inevitable?  I'm not sure anymore.

The hard truth is that you won't know, but from what I've read and seen the prognosis is never good unless both partners take responsibility for their own healing.

Do you think she was really read to do that?

Yes, it is very hard to deal with loving someone who is so damaged and who struggles so much.  It broke my heart; still does.  She really is an amazing person.

I'm certainly rethinking the relationship and I am seeing things through new eyes.  I'm definitely making some connections that I hadn't before. I believe two people can deeply love one another and not be able to make the relationship work.  That's a very hard truth for me.

I think this is a healthy realisation though I agree it's still a bitter pill to swallow

I remember my ex telling me even before we started actually dating that she needed a lot of alone time, and that this had caused problems in other relationships in the past with friends and partners.  There would be times even then when she didn't answer calls or texts for a day or two or three... .

Why were your needs less important than hers?

Intimacy and emotional availability are vital parts of a healthy relationship. Your exes admission of being regularly unavailable, which sounds like a very unhealthy coping mechanism, doesn't make it healthy or less destructive to your relationship. Was she willing to work on this? Was she seeing a therapist?

I also had some significant issues of jealousy about her marriage.  I'm not proud of that at all.  It is one of my deepest and most shameful regrets of our relationship, and I wish I could take it back more than anything.  I know I hurt her terribly….

As I said earlier I did and said some very destructive things that I deeply regret, but I can't change that and it doesn't make me responsible for my exes choices or behaviour.

From what you've said she's experienced a lot of trauma and sadness. My ex experienced some awful things too, but confiding them to me didn't help her heal.

In truth I think it did the opposite. I think she was of avoiding doing the work with someone who had the skills and objectivity to really help and challenge her. We're not therapists or healers and someone with that kind of trauma needs to work with a really skilled and experienced professional in a relationship that's not compromised or clouded by romantic attachment.

And this may sound harsh but in retrospect I also think my ex used her trauma as a way of avoiding responsibility for her destructive behaviour. I've been really hurt and terrible things happened to me so you can't judge me or hold me responsible

These are only a few of the things that I know are my issues.  There's also my bipolar disorder, my FOO issues, my abandonment issues, my trying to fix her, and on and on.  I'm not sure that's being lost in the FOG.  What do you think?  I think it's me needing to really take a sobering look at myself.  To be perfectly honest, I think it was me who was the worse partner.  I had always thought it was her.  I don't anymore.

As the other posters have said I think you need to temper your growing self awareness with compassion for yourself. You deserve a lot of credit for your courage and kindness, your intelligence and empathy. You have worked for hard to overcome your own challenges and pain and at the very least you deserve to be with someone who values you enough to do the same.

Thanks for posting

Reforming