Four weeks with NC today!
Woo-hoo! Good for me!
However, to more clearly define “NC” she has not replied to my last e-mail for four weeks (“ghosting” me) – ghosting an e-mail that was three-fourths supportive of her and her constructive, beneficial choices (i.e. therapy, her renewed focus on school, and generally supporting her strength, courage, and ability), one-eighth stating the confusion I had regarding her contacting me after she had “ended” our relationship, and one-eighth asking her what she wanted and/or needed from me.
(I will not initiate contact with her, or try to get a response from her when she has not replied to one of my communications. F**k her and her godd***ed games!)
NC is more than not speaking to or emailing, texting, messaging with a person. It is also not secretly looking them up on social media. NC is not meant as a game, as a "let's see who can hold their breath the longest" or an emotional blackmail tool. NC is not a goal in itself either. It is just a tool that helps you to detach from someone as you heal from a breakup.
These four weeks have given me an excellent opportunity to learn more about BPD, which is something she never told me about; I had to figure that out on my own, as an ancillary effect of some of the other experiences she claims to have had. She told me about multiple rapes (once at the age of eight, and multiple times with her last BF), emotional abandonment by her parents, both of whom she alludes to as being alcoholics, her dad being narcissistic, her being diagnosed with PTSD, and having extreme nightmares (both from her last BF), and a host of other horrors, but never BPD. However, I strongly suspect, based on the criteria and behaviors, that her behavior is more fully indicative of BPD than anything else, not that I fully discount everything about her other claims.
Maybe she never told you about having BPD because she doesn't know this is what she might have. Many pwBPD are diagnosed with other illnesses such as bipolar or depression by professionals, either by mistake (tests for BPD are not full proof as they are made by people and the results are interpreted by people) or on purpose as BPD has such a bad name that professionals don't like to tell their patients that's what they might have.
Although I have finally put the pieces of the puzzle together, and I think I have a better idea of what she is dealing with (and subsequently what I have been dealing with), I am still up in the air about what would be best for me and her (both of us) if she contacts me in the future.
Over the last four weeks, I have thought of her potential contact as being more theoretical than anything else. But I suspect that she is trying to bake up some BS with a mutual acquaintance of ours tonight (i.e. inviting her over for “Wine Night” only to try to very subtly pump our acquaintance for information about what I may be saying about her, and/or to give our mutual acquaintance “information” (e.g. “I’ve met the love of my life,” or “I’m dating so-and-so who is [insert whatever BS she thinks I may feel inferior or insecure about here],” or telling our mutual acquaintance about some sort of horror that I inflicted upon her) that, when reported to me, may facilitate an emotional response from me, which, if I did respond, would tell her that I and the mutual acquaintance were talking about her, and also give her what she wants (an Emotional Response Cookie) without her initiating contact, which would put her in the driver’s seat and give her control of the communication.
Pffft! F**k that game!
However, failing any response from me (emotional or otherwise), she could also follow up and decide to send me a breezy e-mail (i.e. one of her BS tests) designed to find out whatever I may have heard, or to drop – what she thinks is – some unforeseen BS bomb on me (again, “I’ve met the love of my life,” or “I’m dating so-and-so who is [insert whatever BS she thinks I may feel inferior or insecure about here], etc.” or what, for the next seven and a-half months, could have a real impact on me, “I’m pregnant,” or whatever other BS she can dream up) in the hope of getting sort of Emotional Response Cookie from me then.
If she pulls any of the above BS moves on me, I know what I will do. However, this woman can be (at times) amazingly subtle, in fact the most amazingly subtle person I have ever met, and I have met some exemplary masters of mind-numbing subtlety.
Here is my real worry: what if she contacts me again with absolutely no BS whatsoever? My reaction to that is what I need to figure out, and for which I need to have a solid game plan.
I know: the fact that I am thinking in terms of a “game plan” doesn’t really speak well of me, either. But that is what our relationship was/is(?) to her: an effin’ game, a very subtle chess game. Also, maybe I am having a knee-jerk reaction here, and seeing things that aren’t really there, but after four weeks of NC, I am starting to entertain the possibility that the Wine Night, with our mutual acquaintance, is an even more subtle, Bobby-Fischer-sacrificing-his-queen chess game.
Relationships for pwBPD are not games. I think you really should read up a bit more on BPD. Yes, pwBPD can play games, can certainly come across as playing games, but the main driving force is always impulsive reaction to emotions. Perhaps your ex has some complicating co-morbidity mixed in but most likely what comes across as games to you is emotional survival for her. That is not the same thing.
You are spending an awful amount of time predicting what she might think and do and what your action then might be. Guess what? You'll never be able to look inside her head and understand her thinking or predict exactly what she will do. If you could, there would have been no reason to breakup...
So. She could according to you:
- (indirectly) contact you with an overtly obvious BS story to obtain an Emotional Response Cookie
- (indirectly) contact you with a subtle BS story to obtain an Emotional Response Cookie
- contact you in a breezy way
You think you are prepared for option 1 and to some extent for option 2. Option 3 worries you.
Of course there are also other options:
- she doesn't contact you ever
- she does contact you but not in the near future but in 26 years time like what happened to someone else on this board
So. Are you nervously going to wait for contact even if it will take 26 years? And why are you so focused on who is in control? Is it a game to her or to you? Because it seems like it is a power struggle to you. Who can do NC the longest, who has the best game plan, who can be most non emotional in their communication. It is like you are trying to prove you are in control.
And basically she still is in control because you're planning all of this while she is off doing something else. Having wine.
After reading the heart-wrenching stories, told by so many folks on this forum, I am strongly leaning toward NC with her.
However, I am still inclined to think (perhaps erroneously) that by keeping some sort of “life-line” open to her, that my continued support and non-abandonment (albeit with absolute boundaries, and a clear redefinition of our potential relationship) may be of some benefit to her at some point in the future. It’s so extremely hard to walk away from another human being who is suffering (particularly someone about whom I care, and in whom I am invested). Again, all theoretical – I think that maybe my support and non-abandonment in her life could one day have the slightest chance of being the tiny difference in helping her to make a positive, beneficial choice in her life that may, in turn, lead to other positive beneficial choices in her life, that may ultimately lead to her having a happy, fulfilling life where she can achieve her full potential.
How exactly are you supporting her if you are hatching game plans? What support where you planning to email her back is she emailed you a 'BS' email? Or if you heard through the wine acquaintance she was dating someone else which you obviously would feel upset about? Do you really want to support her to see her happy at some point with whomever or to get back with her yourself? And do you understand that support is not enough to help a pwBPD learn how to manage their BPD behaviour? Do you truly understand what it takes for a pwBPD to get anywhere near any management of their behaviour? How many years of therapy? Do you understand BPD cannot be cured? That at it's very very best the easiest managed behaviours can be taught to be managed after years and years of therapy?
And (I'm going to be blunt here) how narcisstic it sounds that you think that where everybody in her life (she herself, family, friends, lovers, therapists) has failed to turn her life around you are able to do so? Just by being on the fringes of her life? Seriously? What godlike creature are you?
That small chance is what gives me pause; it is the tiny voice in the back of my head that advocates for me NOT to opt for full NC.
But what the hell do I know? I can’t truly be objective about this.
No, you can't and you're not. There is a lot of subtle anger in your post. You see her as playing games, as wanting to hurt you by making you insecure by dating someone else. I think you are actually afraid and jealous she will date someone else, at the same time you say you understand BPD and you do not want to abandon her, yet you are fighting her without words for control, you obsess about what she might do next in communicating with you, but you don't want to go NC because your sheer presence albeit in the distance might make her make better choices in life.
Any guidance to help me see this with more objectivity would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
I think you need to be really honest in why you are hesitant in going NC. Is it for her or for you that you don't want to do it?
I think you need to be really honest in how you are (not) communicating (with her). Is it she that is fighting for control or is it you?
I think you need to be really honest about how you really feel about her. Are you just the supportive friend or are you deep down really angry and jealous?
I think you need to be really honest about yourself and why you are doing things. Are you doing things out of the goodness of your heart or because you have the narcisstic idea you can save people where all others have failed?
