Her swing from mega, always right, narc to depression monosyllabic bore

[Trog]

Hey

I havent been on these boards for a couple of weeks, been busy with work and at the gym and learning the language of this country, I've been feeling better actually since contact (though limited) came back after some initial confusion.

She started this year by asking me to come back and say she wanted to be together but not doing anything about it which I found quite irritating and called her out on it. She then started ignoring me and now is not ignoring me but isnt really saying anything of interest and is actually just asking questions like "how are you?" and any conversation I enter into her with she replies in a word or two and says she is depressed because of her medication.

This could well be true, and is actually doing me a huge favour in my healing because she's not the vibrant, confident and lively woman (although super irritating and abusive at times) I fell for. I have really mixed feeling about this because on the one hand she seems to be genuinely depressed and that is really sad, on the other, her conversation is so dull (perhaps on purpose on her end) that I don't really feel like I'm missing much, if I only had this last few weeks to go on, I'd have no interest in her at all because she has nothing interesting to say. I suppose this is a kind of good news for me in my healing but I also feel bad for thinking that way and I'm also concerned she's playing me on a game of some kind (as history would indicate).

Did any of you witness this total transformation from a BPD/narc partner?

[HappyNihilist]

I'm glad you've been feeling better, Trog. It sounds like you've been keeping yourself busy.

There could be several possible reasons for your ex's change.

She says that she's depressed. Borderlines tend to struggle a lot with negative emotions, and depression (or depressive episodes) isn't uncommon. Some medications can cause mood changes, too. I struggle with depression myself, and I know that I'm withdrawn and not overly communicative during bad times.

It could be that she's in a more detached-protector mode now with you. She doesn't want to get into potentially emotional discussions, so she's trying to avoid that territory.

It could be that this is her "real" persona - just her with no mirroring, and no love-bombing, etc. Maybe she's just a bland, disinterested person.

It could be a game. It could be an attempt to get you to feel pity for her and try to draw her back out. It could be her way of "punishing" you for "calling her out." It could be that she's purposely acting boring to push you away.

There are many possibilities, and they're not mutually exclusive.

The important thing is how this makes you feel. You say that this contact has made you feel better and helped you in your healing, which is a good thing. Don't feel bad about your thoughts.

You say you're worried that she's "playing you on a game of some kind," based on your history with her. There's a quote floating around the Internet that caught my eye recently - "I don't trust words; I even question actions; but I never doubt patterns." Even if this contact is not a game, her patterns indicate that she can't avoid game-playing for long. Is that something you want in your life?

Do you feel like you want to continue contact with her?

[Trog]

Well right now there doesn't seem a lot of point in contact. I get nothing out of the stunted conversation, if I try to be amusing or joke, be a friend like she requested of me there's no reply - its like having a one way conversation but in a way its making me more and more disinterested, if that's her purpose, well, I guess that works for both of us, if she's genuinely depressed, well that's sad but she doesn't seem to want any help from me anyway and neither am I likely to give much help. Perhaps the reality of our situation has hit her and she's given up, well, that's good for me too.

The other possibility of it being a game to rope me in, she wont keep this tactic up long as I'm not feeding into it, with every day that passes I'm more OK with her not being around which in the end is what we all want. I don't want her to be in real depression and distress but I guess its just not my concern and there's a lesson in that for me.