Hey all, I've been super busy with work and school stuff (2 weeks to go to my masters!) and haven't checked the board in awhile. I wanted to say hi and let everyone who may be wondering (anyone?) that even though my ex and I are still occasionally talking its still perfectly...normal (if such a thing is possible
). No love bombing, no drama. Its been nice to be able to bounce ideas off him regarding tech stuff. I don't ask about his life or who he's dating (neither does he) and I keep myself busy. He hasn't tried to use me as a therapist. In some ways I'm kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop but I also am working on just being present in the here and now and not worrying myself into a tither about stuff that may or may not happen (super hard for me). All in all, I am proud of how far I have come and how strong I feel in this**.
Having said that, I
have been thinking about things recently (because, of course I have). Now, he told me months ago that he believes he is BPD (undiagnosed) and I do feel like he fits 7 or 8 of the symptoms...and some of the patterns are there (major love bombing, abrupt discard, finding someone new immediately) but I have
always been struck by the fact that the rest of our relationship and breakup were nothing like what others experienced. I know "Quiet BPD" isn't an official diagnosis or term but I started reading up on it and it makes sense - that he turns things inward rather than outward. I am unsure if he has the depression aspects of BPD but I know that he feels a lot of inner turmoil and inadequacy that he doesn't show to the world. And he has a few narcissistic traits. The boy has issues.
Does this even matter? Probably not. It helps me to align things in my head, to understand what happened and to know what to look out for in the future (including my own patterns and issues), and to really align in my own head what I do and do not want in my life -- I am an analyst after all
. And I am glad that I have a forum of people who understand, most people don't.
I also still 1000% feel that the fact that he cut me off and went no contact was the best thing that could have happened and I still encourage NC, especially for these volatile relationships I keep reading about. It was the only way I was going to get my own head on straight. I am trying an experiment here, to see if we can somehow maintain a friendship of sorts - I know it won't/can't be the same as it was before we dated. But of all the things I missed about him it was our talks, the fact that we have some of the same interests (the tech stuff, really the only thing he wasn't mirroring back in the day
) and he is smart and someone I can bounce tech ideas off of (I literally have no one else to talk to about this stuff...I've tried and people just look at me blankly and zone out. Sigh). I know I can't count on him for a lot of things that I would expect to be able to count on a friend for and that makes it pretty easy for me to keep him at arms length. And, should things take a turn, I
do know how to block him. I know that I have to protect
myself first and foremost.
**side note, anyone looking back in my history will note that within just a couple weeks I went from being in agony about him trying to contact me to suddenly feeling like we can be friends. I actually think that a lot of that strength I suddenly achieved came from some new meds - I haven't gone back on my antidepressants (which did nothing but numb me) but I was prescribed thyroid medicine (T3) off-label for depression and started taking methylated B vitamins for a faulty MTHFR gene and have seen such a major improvement in my mental health that I am in shock at how much better I feel. Its crazy.
