I feel free

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I have been bad at maintaining low contact or no contact. She of course has been almost completely silent except for one cruel, cold phone call a month after she left. So she's gone from Dec 22 on, didn't know what the hell had happened to me. Realized how it was not just me she'd abandoned, but all her friends from past 6 years (we were together 2 and a half of those), including her best friend for whom she was to be maid of honor (wedding one month from now). In the five months since she's been gone, she immediately moved across country to live with her boyfriend from high school, an equally damaged person she had not seen or talked to in seven years, but said he was the love of her life, etc.

One of her friends was discussing it with me the other day, and I have been going out, meeting new people, dating, etc. And all of a sudden the friend tells me how cruel she's been to one of our kinder, more sensitive friends whose mother had cancer, who had been reaching out to my BPDexfiancee just to talk to her as friends, nothing to do with me. She was ignored, or got one word answers to texts, phone calls rejected, etc. And the friend finally said that the kind gentle friend had exploded to her, "who the hell does she think she is? If she ever shows her face here again, I will slap that b___." And then I realized, I don't have to talk about her anymore, everyone here was hurt by her, and is in the same boat when it comes to being replaced, everyone here knows she is damaged goods, and everyone knows that life can never go back to anything good and decent with her. They're all done with her, and I realized that I was as well. I didn't even feel a thing. The trash has taken itself out, my life is good. And it will get better.

[Heldfast]

I have been bad at maintaining low contact or no contact. She of course has been almost completely silent except for one cruel, cold phone call a month after she left. So she's gone from Dec 22 on, didn't know what the hell had happened to me. Realized how it was not just me she'd abandoned, but all her friends from past 6 years (we were together 2 and a half of those), including her best friend for whom she was to be maid of honor (wedding one month from now). In the five months since she's been gone, she immediately moved across country to live with her boyfriend from high school, an equally damaged person she had not seen or talked to in seven years, but said he was the love of her life, etc.

One of her friends was discussing it with me the other day, and I have been going out, meeting new people, dating, etc. And all of a sudden the friend tells me how cruel she's been to one of our kinder, more sensitive friends whose mother had cancer, who had been reaching out to my BPDexfiancee just to talk to her as friends, nothing to do with me. She was ignored, or got one word answers to texts, phone calls rejected, etc. And the friend finally said that the kind gentle friend had exploded to her, "who the hell does she think she is? If she ever shows her face here again, I will slap that b___." And then I realized, I don't have to talk about her anymore, everyone here was hurt by her, and is in the same boat when it comes to being replaced, everyone here knows she is damaged goods, and everyone knows that life can never go back to anything good and decent with her. They're all done with her, and I realized that I was as well. I didn't even feel a thing. The trash has taken itself out, my life is good. And it will get better.

[fromheeltoheal]

Reading your post, it reminded me of quite a few people I've known, myself included at times.  If we are living a false self, showing up in a way that is appropriate for our circumstances or is an attempt to be who we want to be, but it is not our authentic self, living from our core, as time goes on it gets harder and harder to maintain that 'self' and eventually we pop, change our lives entirely, move, change friends, whatever, and we may just do it all over again with the new group and circumstances, or say screw it, too much work, and just start living authentically.  I've done that before and I've known many others who have, and I also know people who are living a false self at a low level, just cruising along, so they never get to the point of popping.

So anyway.  Throw a personality disorder in there, someone with an unstable sense of self, and there is no 'authentic' self, so a false self is mandatory, and since attachments and fear of abandonment are everything to a borderline, someone with the disorder would get very good at being who they need to be, a 'chameleon' in a sense, although chucking it all away and fleeing might start sounding like a really good idea, maybe the only one, when emotions get too strong and can't be regulated.

Seems you're angry Held, using 'damaged goods' and 'trash' as descriptors for her.  That's OK, it will pass, there are stages we go through in detachment and grieving.  What are you doing to manage the anger?

[ReclaimingMyLife]

I don't know, Heldfast, I am not sure I hear the anger in your description.  Maybe it is there as you suggest, heeltoheal.  But it feels to me more like Heldfast has gotten clear confirmation that her behavior wasn't personal or about him.  Confirmation that she has damaged and abandoned so many relationships - including bailing on being maid of honor duties one month from now - and that Heldfast was, sadly, no exception but neither was he singled out for this bad behavior.  So maybe there is anger (if so, probably some legitimate anger) but maybe there is just awareness of the truth of the situation.  At the least, this sounds very directionally correct to me.  Just my two cents!

[Heldfast]

Mostly anger at how she treated outsiders, the friends she abandoned. I feel nothing but compassion for her. It will be a very hard life for her. She has left behind so many people who genuinely loved her. The mask she left behind was apparent to all. The trash is not her, but those aspects which were for me and still are for her, the self negating feelings, the impulsive abandonment, the intense idealization and equally powerful devaluation, the knowing that the best part of herself is her sexuality, because their is nothing more real of hers to give. It will be harder for her then me. It is her choice.