Need advice/help on what to do with my BPD ex-girlfriend

[FallenOne]

Hello,

Where do I begin? I certainly have a lot to tell. I'll sum it up with the most important parts.

I was in a relationship with a girl who's diagnosed with BPD and PTSD for nearly four years. We broke up multiple times during those four years. The most recent breakup was just last month. The one before that was in March. And before that in February of 2014... She has a childhood history of sexual abuse (from her brother) and verbal abuse and neglect from her parents. It was one of those situations where they told her she was lying about it, and it was ignored, and allowed to continue...

When we started dating, it was wonderful... Six months later her true colors started coming out and I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea what BPD was or what any of the signs and symptoms she started showing meant... I had no idea what it was or how to deal with it...

Over time she began to tell me more about her disorder and her childhood. I soon began to understand more and more, but by the time I really understood what her disorder was and how to deal with it, I had already made a lot of mistakes, handled situations improperly, and caused breakups to happen.

I'm sure you can all imagine what she put me through during the time we were together. I don't need to explain the behavior patterns. Anyway, we were living together for a year, from March of 2015 until March of 2016. Near the end of our lease, her behavior, self-destructive tendencies and mental abuse were too much for me to endure. I reached a point where I couldn't handle it anymore and considered breaking up with her. It reached its peak when she was put into inpatient mental health at a nearby hospital. After consulting with family, friends and even doctors, I was told that this may be the best environment to break up with her as she can't hurt herself or cause any harm. So I ended it with her while she was in the hospital, and moved out. I moved all of her stuff back into her fathers house where she is living now...

When she got out of the hospital, she contacted me about some bills and things we needed to take care of. She also tried to get me to "talk" to her a few times... Multiple times she contacted me and said "can we talk?" and each time I simply said there was nothing to talk about and that we need to move on...

Fast forward three months later... In June of 2016 I began to miss her intensely, and she had just messaged me a few weeks before this which really got my feelings stirred up, so I decided to contact her back... She responded almost right away and asked if I wanted to meet and talk, so I agreed. She had been seeing someone (a female) for about 2 months, but literally the same day we started talking again, she broke it off with this girl and came back to me... We talked for hours about everything from our problems, to mistakes that we made, just general chit chat... I asked her if she had any hard feelings toward me about the breakup a few months earlier and she assured me that she didn't and was over it (that was a lie).

It was like the relationship had begun all over again... It was fantastic and I was soo happy... .The chemistry between us is like some kind of drug. I can't explain it. She doesn't even do anything extra special compared to anyone else I've been with, but when I'm close to her, I feel an intense feeling of passion and desire.


This feeling faded much more quickly this time around... .It took nearly 6 months the first time... This time, only a few weeks went by and she was already showing signs of being irritable, cold, distant, angry, etc...

This was on and off all summer... She almost broke up with me multiple times, but I convinced her to stay... When I asked her what was wrong and why she was being this way, she explained to me that "I betrayed her and abandoned her and she doesn't know if she can ever trust me again". I can't say I blame her, afterall I did leave her when she was in the hospital, and I expected her to have hard feelings over this...


Last month is when things got bad. She broke it off with me out of nowhere after being especially affectionate and warm just days before. She broke up with me over the phone, told me to drop off her things and not to speak with her... So, for three weeks I didn't speak with her...

She had me blocked on all fronts (facebook, phone, social media) and I had no way of contacting her, so I wrote her a letter. All I did in the letter was get my final thoughts out, ask for some sort of closure, and apologize for all of the mistakes that I made and not understanding her disorder sooner so that mistakes could have been avoided...

She contacted me via text message as soon as she got the letter, and while she seemed very angry at first, a day later she decided to meet with me and talk... She says that she feels numb, that she can't trust anyone, and she feels heartless. These are her exact words. She's also being extremely destructive... She's been binge drinking, taking more of her meds than necessary, sleeping all day... She got back with the girl she was seeing while we were broken up, and admitted to physically hitting her on a daily basis... .She's been engaging in this destructive behavior ever since she broke up with me. She says she doesn't feel like she can ever trust anyone ever again and that she doesn't even have feelings for this girl. She said she still loves me... She said she wants to talk more, but keeps putting it off...

What should I do here? I want to re-establish trust with this girl... I'm assuming that since she is talking to me, this is a good sign? Our relationship was balanced for a very long time, and I know enough about her disorder to deal with it, and I'm willing to deal with it. I want to be a supportive and patient with her. I am not a highly emotional person and I feel like I'm strong enough to help her manage this.

However, I'm confused about some of her choices and behavior...

Why is she dating this girl she has no feelings for if she still loves me? Why has she been on a path of destruction since she broke up with me? Why is she doing this to herself? Why is she talking to me if she feels betrayed by me?

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

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[Mutt]

 Hi FallenOne,
 
 
 
 I'd like to welcome you to bpdfamily. I completely understand how displacing, confusing and emotionally distressing it feels when we break-up with a pwBPD. I'm glad that you decided to join us, many of our members can relate with you and offer you guidance and support. It helps to talk to people that have gone through this and we'll be able to sort this out with the helps of others, you're not alone.
 

I had already made a lot of mistakes, handled situations improperly, and caused breakups to happen.

Don't take the lion's share of the blame. A r/s takes two people, regardless if the person is disordered or non disordered. We're not professionals, we don't have professional training to deal with a difficult personality disorder. I recall someone saying that treating a pwBPD is fascinating, difficult and intense. That said, a professional may deal with your ex for a few hours a week tops, while we have to deal with our exes 24/7/365.

The chemistry between us is like some kind of drug. I can't explain it. She doesn't even do anything extra special compared to anyone else I've been with, but when I'm close to her, I feel an intense feeling of passion and desire.

There's no need to explain. A pwBPD are emotionally arrested at the age of a young child and express their feelings like a young child too, a pwBPD are emotionally intense and the idealization phase of the r/s is not found in r/s with non disordered partners.
 

This feeling faded much more quickly this time around... .It took nearly 6 months the first time... This time, only a few weeks went by and she was already showing signs of being irritable, cold, distant, angry, etc...

 A pwBPD have rigid thought patterns and see the world in black and white with no grey areas and don't see people as an integrated whole, good people have bad qualities and bad people have good qualities and they often overlook the little quirks at the onset of the r/s and put you on a pedestal and as that perfect image of you begins to erode, they see only bad qualities, perceived or real and devalue you and knock off that same pedestal that they put you on, the fall can be long and devestating.
 

Why is she dating this girl she has no feelings for if she still loves me? Why has she been on a path of destruction since she broke up with me? Why is she doing this to herself? Why is she talking to me if she feels betrayed by me?

 A pwBPD don't have a fully developed self are scared of the world and need an attachment, unstable attachments is a core criterion for BPD, lastly a pwBPD don't trust themselves and don't trust others, they're hypervigilant with rejection, they anticipate that everyone in their lives will reject and abandon them.

BPD BEHAVIORS: Splitting

[Aussie0zborn]

Hi Matt and welcome. I'm confident you'll get good advice here and learn a lot about this disorder. I found this discussion forum way too late but it allowed me to understand what I was so unqualified and inexperienced to deal with.

Your story is similar to mine in parts and so I would like to comment on two points :

"I asked her if she had any hard feelings toward me about the breakup a few months earlier and she assured me that she didn't and was over it (that was a lie)."

Yes it was. My experience is that they resent you greatly for it and it gives them the impetus to strike you a savage blow when you least expect it. In other words, you are mostly likely setting yourself up. Remember, a person with BPD has an acute fear of "abandonment" even if they cause it themselves and once you prove you are capable of it they will never trust you again. In my case, I was "punished" for it. I say "punished" because in her mind that's what she succeeded in doing. In my mind, it doesn't matter... .I've got her off my back, dodged jail from her false allegations and I've moved on.

"She says she doesn't feel like she can ever trust anyone ever again"

This is your cue to "prove" yourself to her and to submit to being her punching bag for when she gets, as you say, "irritable". This is a highly manipulative tactic and yet you sound like a smart guy. Think of what you would need to do to not let her feel this distrust. And when she hints that she's feeling it, what would you need to do to allay her fears? It's a full time job and if you miss her hints, you know what will happen.

Why would you subject yourself to this?