Hi Mango_flower,
This is how I feel about life right now - hopeless.
It's ok to feel helpless. Especially if you understand why you're feeling this way right now. You are still reeling from the ending of your BPD relationship. Perhaps, in a sense, you feel abandoned by your BPD loved one. It is normal to feel hopeless after being abandoned.
This is less about the ex and more about me, I think.
It is better to focus on you, than to focus on your ex. This is healthier. But for a while it will be more painful. This is also normal.
See, I always thought love was for other people. I'm rarely attracted to anyone, for starters.
Why would you entertain this myth? You are as deserving of love as any other person. Are you sure you are rarely attracted to anyone? Or are you less open to feelings of attraction for fear that you don't believe you deserve love? In order to gain some kinds of rewards, we must take some risks. Before you can find love, you may have to risk feeling rejected from time to time. Now is probably *not* the time to start taking these kinds of risk. Nurse your broken heart first, and let it heal, before you subject it to some risk.
Secondly, I'm gay, so less of a dating pool out there for me.
Dating is not easy period. But, yes, being gay doesn't really make it any easier. You might consider establishing a good support network for yourself (or reinforce the one you might already have for yourself) before you consider seriously dating again.
Thirdly, I'm quite a complex personality, ditzy yet intelligent, introverted yet extroverted, spontaneous yet like routine, etc etc. People find that difficult I think, as I am so all over the map.
Seems to me that young people these days don't really practice the art of socializing and conversing quite like they once did (perhaps when I was young? ha!); perhaps they are distracted by all them new gizmos and gadgets that supposedly improve human interaction (think "social" media). I think that only when people are better versed in the variety of characters that society has to offer, are they more interested in the more subtle differences between people. Just because people might find you too difficult to peg, shouldn't give you reason to change who you are.
Add in the fact that I witnessed a horribly nasty parental divorce, and had 2 step mothers (one was nice but had severe mental health problems, and was an alcoholic and the other was a nasty piece of work, I think she actually had BPD now I know what it is!) and I guess you can understand why I have never had proper relationships before I met my ex.
That's alright. We all have our own individual trials and tribulations. You are an adult now. You get a chance to reshape the way you want your interpersonal relationships to go; although to some degree you may have to re-parent yourself.
Thing is, she was a bit of a broken person too. Kindred spirits, I guess. Both really grateful we found each other, as neither of us had had much luck relationship wise. It seemed too perfect, too magical. But I started to believe in love. I thanked God every day for bringing me my perfect.
She was broken too. And part of her broken nature allowed you to see what kind of dynamics might suit you. Part of her broken nature, allowed you to get in touch with your broken nature. But her broken nature, by definition, does not allow the magic you found to last. My opinion is that one shouldn't depend upon another person to fix what is broken in us. We should depend upon ourselves to fix us. Another person, might be depended upon to support us through our self-healing, our re-parenting; but they cannot be for us the parent we lack as a child. That is a completely different relationship altogether.
But now I'm alone, and can't ever see that changing. I'm getting a bit sick of people saying "Oh you'll find somebody!". I might, but I can't see it. That's gut instinct, and just knowing who I am.
It may be a gut instinct, but I think this gut instinct is wrong. Some core beliefs such as "I will always be alone" or "I am unloveable" are just wrong. It may take a great degree to re-parenting to change these beliefs, and I think you have this kind of opportunity before. And I think it is worthwhile to changes such false myths, because if you don't, they become self-fulfilling prophecies.
We used to say that we were so lucky we found each other, and how perfect it was, how we both now understood what love was, and we both never thought we'd find it. We're not kids, we're late twenties and early thirties.
Still kids to some. No one knows the future. :)on't sell yourself short by pretending you can see into the future, especially if the future you think you see is bleak. Take a look into that crystal ball, later, after you've spent sometime taking care of yourself, when your feelings are more available to positive and hopeful ones.
She's happy though, with her new gf. Head over heels, it seems. I caved tonight and looked at her gfs/fiancees fb wall (her security settings aren't that high, so I can see a few things but not all). Lovey dovey messages from my ex, similar to the ones I used to get when we were at the giddy heights of love. Except at this point, for us (time wise) things were starting to go downhill. Yet it seems that her new gf is amazing and catering to all her needs, so she hasn't yet been triggered.
She's happy, just as she was happy when you two first connected. And she will repeat her cycle. Granted it won't be exactly the same. But her core issues are still there. Her core issues don't magically disappear as much as she'd like that to be true. Just as your core issues won't resolve without some effort on your part. Her choice is to repeat her experience. You don't see that now, because she now live a life separate from you. But if she's like any of the BPD loved talked about here in these forums, you can be certain that her disordered feelings will turn up again. And she will repeat her cycle.
Which of course makes me feel like I'm the failure, as I let her down. I didn't reassure her enough, I didn't make her feel safe. I detached towards the end, as I found out about some of her past lies. So she ran into the new girls arms. It was never about sex, it isn't that important to her. It's about feeling safe and loved. So I failed.
I think you're being to hard on yourself. Actually I kind of wonder if you're projecting a wee bit.
You feel like you're a failure because you let her down? Who let who down? Who took actions that resulted in the harming of the other (i.e., not safe)? You detached from her because she wasn't acting in a "safe" (for you) manner. You were (justly) protecting yourself from her lies. And then she proved you right by running into a new girl's arms. If she suffers from BPD, she will never feel safe and loved (at the same time) for very long.
If you failed at anything, you failed at curing her of her disorder. Which is what she wanted you to do. Which is what she thinks the new girl has done. But you couldn't. And she can't Because your ex needs to find a way to fix herself.
I should have loved her unconditionally, I shouldn't have been upset about past lies. I should have judged her on the way she treated ME, which was beautiful.
If you loved her unconditionally, you would have made yourself even more vulnerable and be hurt more grievously than you already are.
I feel that I deserve to be alone, I didn't do enough. She doesn't deserve to be this happy though, after her awful behaviour during and after our split... . yet her life seems perfect.
These don't sound like very validating and compassionate thoughts. You "deserve to be alone"? You "didn't do enough"? One does not take care of oneself by being one's own worst critic. They sound like the voices that have been programmed into you by perhaps parental figures who have failed you in teaching you how to take care of yourself.
I'll never commit suicide, ever. I have too many people who care about me. But to be honest, life just feels meaningful and pointless. I never realised it before I met her, as it was all I knew, to be single. I thought I was happy, but now I know what true happiness is, from being with my girl, I realise how empty my life was back then.
Then you learned a valuable lesson. You got a taste of what happiness could be like and I hope that is a motivator for you. You can be the architect of your future happiness, if you endeavor to build it. But first you must demolish the myths that you believed of yourself left over from your life back then.
So now it just feels even more hollow. I go out, I spend time with friends, I do hobbies. But it's just going through the motions. I long to have that connection again, I long to be special to somebody, I long for somebody to just cuddle at night. But I don't do meaningless relationships.
Yes, but meaningful relationships to just spout out of no where. They need to be first potentially identified. And nurtured and cultivated. It doesn't come easy. It shouldn't. The ones that come easily, disappear just as easily.
