Is this normal ?

[Laurielynn]

Hi all!

Just wondering if this " normal" for the healing period?Seems I should be past this...   I've been doing really well, I thought... .and all of sudden, tonight .out of nowhere... .. I'm at work and it hits me like a mother load. I feel really sad... .so many questions keep popping up in my mind, that have never been answered... I want to know... .I still want to know... .like why did he get so angry when I pulled back, because my gut was telling me he was cheating? Why did he act so committed... and say I was the only one, when he was lurking on dating sites, and when I confronted him... .called me every awful name imaginable ... ? Saying on a Monday, I need to see you, there are so many things I want to say... and I want to start over... and make this work... only to say when we got together, ( Friday) " I can't make a commitment to you" ( I wasn't asking for a commitment ... .all I wanted to know was if u were in or out"...
That very weekend... he said " I know I'll regret it later, but I can't commit to you"
WTH?  What possibly could make a person go from one extreme to another? .Then I said fine... let's go our own way... and he threw a fit! Threw my luggage across the room...
For you more senior members here... does this sound psychotic?  Or was this guy a sociopath? It really messed with head! I haven't dated anyone since... over a year ago... and he has been two major " relationships" one a week and half after I broke up with him. He went to pleading with me to give him another chance, to change... then a few weeks later, I was missing him ( the good him) he said he never really was into it...
how can people go to and from such extremes without knowing how crazy this is? Sometimes I feel so broken, like I'll never heal
Anybody else go thru this yuck?

[Julia S]

Yes, I think this is normal.
On his side, the extremes are about seeing the world in black and white. So he can only see the options of a committed relationship or being a distant friend (questionable whether he can see you as any sort of friend once you've been in a relationship).
Basically, his emotions are unstable. When he seems more OK, he may well simply be in 'detached protector' mode, numbing out from reality. Anything emotional - particularly anything to do with a relationship where his emotions are involved - will send him off balance again.
Does he know it's crazy? Probably yes. Particularly if he's fairly high functioning and able to keep a job, and appear OK to people he isn't or hasn't been in a close relationship with. But part of his way of coping will be to numb out and not think about it. He's able to tell you he can't be in a relationship - my friend with BPD was able to do this - in a lucid moment. And on an intellectual level he knows what will happen if he does, in terms of his emotions going out of control. He's able to start up a new relationship probably because he hasn't yet become emotionally involved, or is on a temporary high.
His moods are likely changing so frequently that he can't hold onto one idea or way of thinking, but will change his mind and feelings back and forth, hating himself for it.

From your point of view, he will have projected all this turmoil onto you, along with transference of feelings of blame towards people from his childhood. So you have the fall out of his mixed up mind to deal with, along with the lost relationship. And it's very difficult to describe this to anyone who hasn't been involved with such a person, because they just view it as they would a romance with a normal person.

I think this is an indication of why therapists need therapy themselves. And they find pwBPD notoriously difficult to treat and to cope with, even though they're trained to do so.

[Pretty Woman]

Hi Laurielynn,
    I am almost two years out and I still have these thoughts. I still wonder if she ever thinks of me. After my final discard, she never reached out again. We broke up many, many times in a four year period and she always came back.

It took about a year before I stopped shedding any tears over her. While I still wish she would reach out, I know I would never be able to respond. She just isn't healthy for me and I much more to lose if I allowed her into my life.

You will get there. There is no set time for healing. As long as you are not constantly wallowing you will eventually get past this.

It looks like right now you are wondering how he can sustain a new relationship when he couldn't with you. You need to pull the focus off him.

Why does it matter? He was horrible to you. You deserve better.   This all takes time but you need to try to re-focus your thoughts off him. That's where we get stuck.

It doesn't matter how psycho he acted. He was psycho. He treated you poorly and you are better without him.

What do YOU want, Laurie? If you wrote a list of the attributes you want in a significant other, and then wrote a list of your exes attributes would they match?

PW
 

[lovenature]

Hey Laurie

Yes I have gone through the "Yuck" you described.
A person can go from one extreme to the other, making no sense to how we perceive human interaction and relationships when they have a very serious mental illness; what you describe sounds more like BPD than the other cluster b disorders, but only a professional can make a diagnosis. I have learned that the disorders do cross over (cohabitate) with one another, except for anti-social (typically called psychotic). BPD does differ significantly from NPD, even though the traits typically cross over.

Keep reading, learning, and posting.