Were you scared/afraid of your BPD ?

[CooperD]

Hi folks,

Still processing the pain/fall out of the realtionship with my BPD and one theme that keeps re-occuring is that I can definitely say I was afraid and scared of my BPD.   Was anyone else actually scared/afraid of them ?

That may sound pathetic considering she is only 5.1 feet high (1.5 metres) and weights about 50kg.  I also work in law enforcement,  am trained in various different types of self-defence and am used to dealing with high intensity situations.  However I can honestly say when the switch went inside of her she scared me more than anything I have ever faced.

She scared me on multiple levels (physically / emotionally / financially).

She was physcially abusive with punches towards me on several occasions and I was scared one day she was going to stab me in a moment of rage - to the point of me remembering having to hide the knifes. 

I was afraid that I was going to one day come home and find that she had killed herself or badly hurt herself.  She told me a week after marriage that she wanted to die and also told me that I would find her one day hanging from my ceiling.   i also witnessed her punching herself in the face and also cutting herself with a pair of scissors.

After she told me she was going to falsely accuse me of raping her I was afraid of ever being intimate with her again and could no longer perform because I was scared she was going to make the threats again.

I was afraid whenever she was present with my friends because each time she had been she had lashed out at me in front of them and tried to humiliate me.  Telling my friends I was on the bad list, that I didnt like sex and that I am selfish.

She scared me financially with how recklessly she would spend her own money and then expect me to do likewise on her.  For example I sent her 300 dollars ro pay her internet but she told me I had only done it so that I could remain talking to her.   I wanted to buy her a dress as a gift but she told me ahe only wore dresses that cost 1000 dollars plus. I wanted to buy her a ring but the only ring she would accept had to cost several thousand more than I could afford.

I will post more later but I can definitely say I was afraid of her.

[valet]

Hey CooperD, sorry you went through all of that. My ex was never physically violent but she was incredibly manipulative towards me and really changed how I perceived myself in the world. I went from being pretty confident to always feeling like I was wrong... .and believing it.

To answer your question, my ex scared the hell out of me at times. What was really terrifying was when she would dissociate. She looked so strange, like a blind, loss child in the middle of the forest. It wasn't even 'her'.

In the end, however, I don't think that it was her that was scary, per se. The scary thing for me was that there were moments in our relationship where it felt like she was just absent, even if we were in the same physical space.

I hope things get better. Hang in there.

[sad but wiser]

Hello,
Yes, my ex scared me on multiple levels.  I would feel sick driving up to the house. I felt afraid he would stab or shopt me some night, or poison me.  He accused me of wanting to kill him, and it scared me that his mind even worked that way.
  He weighed about eighty pounds more than me and could have snapped my neck in a rage.  He scared me when he would rage and it scared me he was alone with the kids at times. 
After we divorced, I sold the house as the court order said, gave up my job and moved far, far away without telling him.   I paid his spousal support through an old bank account that had our old address and sent the checks by post to a friend who would take them out of the outer envelope and put them in the mail so it would have a local post stamp.  Even my children did not have my exact address.  I was afraid of his reaction once the support period ended. 
Was I afraid?  Yes.  But too smart to tell a monster I knew he was a monster.

[beggarsblanket]

I wasn't afraid of her when I knew her, but I was afraid of her after our first split, and I am even more afraid of her since dumping her the second time. I woke up this morning with the chilling realization that she knows where I live. I hope nothing comes of it. I hope my fears exceed the reality.

[CooperD]

Sad but Wiser i'm really sorry to hear your story as that does sound very frightening.  I agree with your comment about not telling a monster you know their a monster.  It was the approach I had to take with the BPD in my life because I was afraid if she knew how I saw her (ie that I had rumbled her facade) she would take things to an even greater level of extremity.

[JerryRG]

My ex beat me up, tried to get me to crash while driving, had crazy friends she was going to turn on me. Threw things, stole my stuff just to aggrivate me.

I think the thing that hurt the worst was if I were really hurting and really needed her, she would get this look of indifference in her eyes like she was enjoying watching me suffer.

I'm not suppose to judge, but wow, what a rotten soul she was. I would have died for her and yet she laughed at me when I needed her most.

How sick was I to be with her? Now that is scary.

[Melster12]

Im very scared. He is 6'2 and 200 pounds of muscle. He was also a sherrif and is uncle is a detective. So happy he dumped me and told me he is "officially done" with me.

[woundedPhoenix]

I was never scared of my BPDex... .Until one time after half of day of sudden yet gigantic black-splitting turmoil i closed myself off completely, my shields totally up, she started to bring in bigger and bigger threaths to get under my skin.

- threathening divorce
- threathening to run off with the car and drive into and accident
- I know you are just as bad as ex X (extreme sociopath) and i will uncover the truth about you... .
- I will knock your computer to the floor
- I will tell "the truth" to your kids
... .
... .

i responded with only one simple response every time:  "whatever you feel you have to do"
I thought she was bluffing, that it all was power-play, and i felt i needed to call her bluff to end the devaluation madness that had started.

She went on for hours like that with new threaths... .And then she said:

- "I will swallow all pills in the house"

And almost on autopilot - as she never went through with any of the previous threaths - i repeated "whatever you feel you have to do"... .to only realise half a minute later... .she had actually counted pills just a few days earlier
So i ran into the livingroom, to find her with pills already scattered on the table and her swallowing some more away.
I gave everything i could that night to minimize the damage and she made it through

THAT moment i started to become Afraid of my BPDex.
 
- not only because of how she had tried to verbally destroy every facet of me, my kids, my character, my past that day.
- not only because of how she could spin so out of control to actually go forward with a suicide attempt.

but mainly

- because i instantly realised that things had ran so much out of control that i wasn't able to still think clearly and keep good judgement
- 3 very difficult weeks ending in a day of extreme devaluation had brought me in a dissociation-like state myself

And especially

- I said "whatever you feel you have to do" to my Wife, who struggled with suicidal ideation and threathened "to take all the pills in the house"
- I became scared of my own reaction to her behaviour

For a year, every moment of the day i felt extremely guilty about that one sentence, blamed myself that i wasn't thinking clear in the moment.
If i could erase one sentence from my past it would be that one. I screwed up big time, and i was very afraid i would land in the same situation if i really ever stood up to her again.

It's only now that i can see the enormous pressure i was under then, and also show compassion for myself, that it was an extreme combination of factors.
That it was me who had suffered verbal abuse that whole day, that i tried to fight it of the only way i saw possible at that moment. In fact i didn't even fought... I deflected.
And that i totally didn't realise the deeper workings of a BPD illness

Still, it could have ended her life and that brought the fear in... .