My BPDex story(ies)

[Depression = 72% of members]

First of all, I want to thank all those stories I have read on this site. You have helped me immensely to understand the confusion of dating someone with BPD and although its only been a month has greatly advanced my healing process. More importantly you have helped me see my own pattern as a narcissistically damaged person, who has core damage from childhood by an emotionally unavailable mother who I acted as a confidant too.

I started dating my BPDex about 8 months ago after we were introduced by a friend. At first everything was amazing (sex, her intuitions about who I was and my interests, all the fun things we did together), we just seemed to click!  I had never met someone as kind, gentle, and caring as her.

I avoided all the major warning signs: the very strange way she hung on my every word, her impulsive need to have sex with me as soon as we started dating, the seemingly endless supply of drama in her work and family life, as well as an extremely abusive ex, who destroyed all her hopes and dreams for “true love” (until me of course).
But the feeling of euphoria was something I had never felt like before although I've had several long-term relationships. The intensity was unbelievable and I wanted to be around her all the time (at first).

Then things started getting strange about 5 months into the relationship:
1. Random outbursts or overreactions for me like not texting her for four hours when I was at work
2. Accusations that I didn't care about her and that I was a terrible person
3. Refusal to say sorry when she called me “pathetic, stupid, liar, that she didn’t love me, etc.”
4. Blaming me for everything (she literally told me once that “everything negative in our relationship was because of me”).
5. Rudeness to service staff and people of “lower class” (in her mind).
6. Her lack of friends or long-term relationships
7. Most importantly, she gave me an STI when we first got together, which I foolishly believed was a result of her abusive, cheating exBF (her only other sexual partner). I am not a sexually promiscuous person and have always been in monogamous relationships so this was very new territory for me. This added to the complexity of my compassion and manipulation by her.

My confusion at these events led me to withdraw from family, friends (not like me at all), and focus on my work, which I realize now was a coping mechanism to get away from her.

The more I think the thing holding me in the relationship was the horrible drama in my BPD-ex’s life: a stroked mother, chronic pain from a terrible accident that almost crippled her as a child (which had led to prescription drug abuse), and her constant financial issues related to her mother’s healthcare. I have come to realize that some of this was exaggerated although I have evidence that much of it was not, but her manipulation game was strong, and my feelings and her terrible treatment of me was always secondary to her situation. I was unfair. What I thought was my love for her was not real. I was idealizing who she was not who she actually was. The type of person she really was and how she treated me could not be someone that I or many others could ever really love.

In my defense, I did set some very strong boundaries around how we should be acting in a relationship, and I wouldn’t give her money and this made her tread much more carefully then I think she would have with someone a little less experienced or confident as I am ( I am a successful professional). When she would blowup at me and try to engage me in yelling matches I would be silent the next day, waiting for her to cool down and talk rationally.

This I know now is a horrible thing to do to someone with BPD, although relatively normal in other relationships I have had (especially for me, because I say stupid things when I am mad and have learned I should cool-off before discussing disagreements).

As with most BPD stories the ending was a compete blindside. A rather minor argument and day of silence turned into a complete vanishing act by her: deleted from social media, blocked phone numbers, etc. My attempts to reconnect were meet with cruelty and coldness that I could not fathom at the time. Very painful. And of course, the timing of the breakup was right before her birthday, which is symptomatic of BPD’s (she used this as part of a “you ruined my birthday” argument post-breakup).

When she finally calmed down enough to talk to me two weeks later the results were typical. She insinuated that she had a new boyfriend (not sure if true or not). And instantly she had all these close friends who she was hanging out with and she was having so much fun without you (we hung out almost everyday when we dated). She made clear she wanted to be friends and when I said that wasn’t possible because of how she had treated me she became silent. She then said she would date me again as long as I changed my “attitude”. We left on good terms and promised to keep the line of communication open that day and I woke up the next morning with a measure of closure and relief. Later that day I received a stream of abusive texts and phone calls. The afternoon was filled with me blocking different phone numbers and ignoring a text message from her that told me she would violently hurt me if she ever saw me again. I was, and am in some senses still confused by such ‘crazy making’ behaviour.
Since then (two weeks ago) there has been NC (blocked and deleted her from all social media) but there has been strange phone calls early in the morning on one day and attempts to add me to Facebook by an account that look like they were made by a young child which I suspect are hers. While I feel very sad about the situation and know there will be no real closure I am relieved to have escaped, although I am somewhat scared that I will run into her and have been avoiding all my regular hangouts.
Reconnecting with friends and family (especially my father) has helped make huge advances in my mental health, and reduced significant anxiety. Talking about this problem helps me get away from the idea that I was the crazy or abusive partner, which is all part of the BPD manipulation. Reading the stories about BPD on this and other websites has also been a great experience as I realize now that I am far from alone.
So I mentioned above that I had less intense relationships before.
But there is more to this back story:
What I realized only after dating this BPD-ex and lots of research is that at least  two major relationships were also with people with varying PD symptoms, one may have been BPD but hid it better, while the other was definitely a NPD like myself.
I realize now that I had been dating women who I was “rescuing” my entire life and my own PD (I have issues of Narcissism, although from the criteria I am not a full-blown thankfully) was critical in not only inflaming conflict but laying the seeds for the destruction of the relationship (although in these other cases I left after feeling burned out and used). I can’t just blame my current BPD-ex or the others for my part in this and I need to change to be with the type of partner I actually want to be with, not the “fixer-uppers” I have dated, who I can protect my own insecurities from.
What I have come to realize and how this relates to my childhood and my parents was something I had never imagined. In a strange sort of way, this last very terrible experience was the best thing to ever happen for me from a relationship perspective as I have finally been jerked out of a terrible pattern. For years I have wondered why it wasn’t “my turn” to find the “right person” and the hard truth is I didn’t deserve that person because my image of myself is so wrong. This made me lower my standards and be blind about who I picked for romantic relationships.
I have a few things to say to those of you badly damaged by a BPD-ex and have narcissistic issues from core damage.
Just remember that you are a good person! You may have been injured emotionally as a child and you may have said and done things to your BPD-ex that you are not proud of. But if you are a narcissist like I am remember that you tend to “think” more than you “feel” your emotions (this whole rant I am doing to share my words of wisdom are a perfect example of that). The reason you were frustrated, depressed, and eventually angry in the relationship with your BPD is because your emotions, needs, and wants were not important in the relationship at all. In fact, your needs were only valued with the BPD is trying to manipulate you.
Don’t hate your BPD, just feel sorry for them. And if you are much stronger than I am stay with them, play there games, and resolutely defend yourself from their attacks. If not, come to realize your own part in the process and look to change your “rescuer” complex. The more I look at the red flags of my major relationships the more I realize my relationships would have ended if I had followed the red flags properly as I saw the BPD and other PD signs:
-first relationship of 4 years would have been 1 week.
-second relationship of 2 years would have ended the second date.
-third relationship of 1 and a half years would have ended in an hour.
-fourth relationship of 8 months would have never happened at all
I must take a huge responsibility for my part in continuing these relationships. I damaged these people further by trying to rescue them. What I should have done is let them be themselves, and because I cannot put up with disrespect and cheating should have moved on quickly.
I need to love myself properly before I love others. One way I am trying to start is to right a simple list of things people with narcissistic injuries do to others and how I should avoid these things in my daily interactions to the best of my abilities. I read it every morning now (two days in) to remind myself of what I need to work on, instead of blaming my BPD-ex for all my life’s problems. I am tired of being a victim to myself and I need to take responsibility for my own actions.

Hope this made sense to some of you and I would be happy to here responses or comments!

All the best! And keep fighting for you!

[marti644]

First of all, I want to thank all those stories I have read on this site. You have helped me immensely to understand the confusion of dating someone with BPD and although its only been a month has greatly advanced my healing process. More importantly you have helped me see my own pattern as a narcissistically damaged person, who has core damage from childhood by an emotionally unavailable mother who I acted as a confidant too.

I started dating my BPDex about 8 months ago after we were introduced by a friend. At first everything was amazing (sex, her intuitions about who I was and my interests, all the fun things we did together), we just seemed to click!  I had never met someone as kind, gentle, and caring as her.

I avoided all the major warning signs: the very strange way she hung on my every word, her impulsive need to have sex with me as soon as we started dating, the seemingly endless supply of drama in her work and family life, as well as an extremely abusive ex, who destroyed all her hopes and dreams for “true love” (until me of course).
But the feeling of euphoria was something I had never felt like before although I've had several long-term relationships. The intensity was unbelievable and I wanted to be around her all the time (at first).

Then things started getting strange about 5 months into the relationship:
1. Random outbursts or overreactions for me like not texting her for four hours when I was at work
2. Accusations that I didn't care about her and that I was a terrible person
3. Refusal to say sorry when she called me “pathetic, stupid, liar, that she didn’t love me, etc.”
4. Blaming me for everything (she literally told me once that “everything negative in our relationship was because of me”).
5. Rudeness to service staff and people of “lower class” (in her mind).
6. Her lack of friends or long-term relationships
7. Most importantly, she gave me an STI when we first got together, which I foolishly believed was a result of her abusive, cheating exBF (her only other sexual partner). I am not a sexually promiscuous person and have always been in monogamous relationships so this was very new territory for me. This added to the complexity of my compassion and manipulation by her.

My confusion at these events led me to withdraw from family, friends (not like me at all), and focus on my work, which I realize now was a coping mechanism to get away from her.

The more I think the thing holding me in the relationship was the horrible drama in my BPD-ex’s life: a stroked mother, chronic pain from a terrible accident that almost crippled her as a child (which had led to prescription drug abuse), and her constant financial issues related to her mother’s healthcare. I have come to realize that some of this was exaggerated although I have evidence that much of it was not, but her manipulation game was strong, and my feelings and her terrible treatment of me was always secondary to her situation. I was unfair. What I thought was my love for her was not real. I was idealizing who she was not who she actually was. The type of person she really was and how she treated me could not be someone that I or many others could ever really love.

In my defense, I did set some very strong boundaries around how we should be acting in a relationship, and I wouldn’t give her money and this made her tread much more carefully then I think she would have with someone a little less experienced or confident as I am ( I am a successful professional). When she would blowup at me and try to engage me in yelling matches I would be silent the next day, waiting for her to cool down and talk rationally.

This I know now is a horrible thing to do to someone with BPD, although relatively normal in other relationships I have had (especially for me, because I say stupid things when I am mad and have learned I should cool-off before discussing disagreements).

As with most BPD stories the ending was a compete blindside. A rather minor argument and day of silence turned into a complete vanishing act by her: deleted from social media, blocked phone numbers, etc. My attempts to reconnect were meet with cruelty and coldness that I could not fathom at the time. Very painful. And of course, the timing of the breakup was right before her birthday, which is symptomatic of BPD’s (she used this as part of a “you ruined my birthday” argument post-breakup).

When she finally calmed down enough to talk to me two weeks later the results were typical. She insinuated that she had a new boyfriend (not sure if true or not). And instantly she had all these close friends who she was hanging out with and she was having so much fun without you (we hung out almost everyday when we dated). She made clear she wanted to be friends and when I said that wasn’t possible because of how she had treated me she became silent. She then said she would date me again as long as I changed my “attitude”. We left on good terms and promised to keep the line of communication open that day and I woke up the next morning with a measure of closure and relief. Later that day I received a stream of abusive texts and phone calls. The afternoon was filled with me blocking different phone numbers and ignoring a text message from her that told me she would violently hurt me if she ever saw me again. I was, and am in some senses still confused by such ‘crazy making’ behaviour.
Since then (two weeks ago) there has been NC (blocked and deleted her from all social media) but there has been strange phone calls early in the morning on one day and attempts to add me to Facebook by an account that look like they were made by a young child which I suspect are hers. While I feel very sad about the situation and know there will be no real closure I am relieved to have escaped, although I am somewhat scared that I will run into her and have been avoiding all my regular hangouts.
Reconnecting with friends and family (especially my father) has helped make huge advances in my mental health, and reduced significant anxiety. Talking about this problem helps me get away from the idea that I was the crazy or abusive partner, which is all part of the BPD manipulation. Reading the stories about BPD on this and other websites has also been a great experience as I realize now that I am far from alone.
So I mentioned above that I had less intense relationships before.
But there is more to this back story:
What I realized only after dating this BPD-ex and lots of research is that at least  two major relationships were also with people with varying PD symptoms, one may have been BPD but hid it better, while the other was definitely a NPD like myself.
I realize now that I had been dating women who I was “rescuing” my entire life and my own PD (I have issues of Narcissism, although from the criteria I am not a full-blown thankfully) was critical in not only inflaming conflict but laying the seeds for the destruction of the relationship (although in these other cases I left after feeling burned out and used). I can’t just blame my current BPD-ex or the others for my part in this and I need to change to be with the type of partner I actually want to be with, not the “fixer-uppers” I have dated, who I can protect my own insecurities from.
What I have come to realize and how this relates to my childhood and my parents was something I had never imagined. In a strange sort of way, this last very terrible experience was the best thing to ever happen for me from a relationship perspective as I have finally been jerked out of a terrible pattern. For years I have wondered why it wasn’t “my turn” to find the “right person” and the hard truth is I didn’t deserve that person because my image of myself is so wrong. This made me lower my standards and be blind about who I picked for romantic relationships.
I have a few things to say to those of you badly damaged by a BPD-ex and have narcissistic issues from core damage.
Just remember that you are a good person! You may have been injured emotionally as a child and you may have said and done things to your BPD-ex that you are not proud of. But if you are a narcissist like I am remember that you tend to “think” more than you “feel” your emotions (this whole rant I am doing to share my words of wisdom are a perfect example of that). The reason you were frustrated, depressed, and eventually angry in the relationship with your BPD is because your emotions, needs, and wants were not important in the relationship at all. In fact, your needs were only valued with the BPD is trying to manipulate you.
Don’t hate your BPD, just feel sorry for them. And if you are much stronger than I am stay with them, play there games, and resolutely defend yourself from their attacks. If not, come to realize your own part in the process and look to change your “rescuer” complex. The more I look at the red flags of my major relationships the more I realize my relationships would have ended if I had followed the red flags properly as I saw the BPD and other PD signs:
-first relationship of 4 years would have been 1 week.
-second relationship of 2 years would have ended the second date.
-third relationship of 1 and a half years would have ended in an hour.
-fourth relationship of 8 months would have never happened at all
I must take a huge responsibility for my part in continuing these relationships. I damaged these people further by trying to rescue them. What I should have done is let them be themselves, and because I cannot put up with disrespect and cheating should have moved on quickly.
I need to love myself properly before I love others. One way I am trying to start is to right a simple list of things people with narcissistic injuries do to others and how I should avoid these things in my daily interactions to the best of my abilities. I read it every morning now (two days in) to remind myself of what I need to work on, instead of blaming my BPD-ex for all my life’s problems. I am tired of being a victim to myself and I need to take responsibility for my own actions.

Hope this made sense to some of you and I would be happy to here responses or comments!

All the best! And keep fighting for you!

[FallenOne]

As with most BPD stories the ending was a compete blindside. A rather minor argument and day of silence turned into a complete vanishing act by her: deleted from social media, blocked phone numbers, etc. My attempts to reconnect were meet with cruelty and coldness that I could not fathom at the time. Very painful.

This is exactly what mine did to me. Same exact thing. Word for word. She did this a total of 3 times in 4 years. The most recent was December 19th.

A few days after the disacard, she filed a restraining order based on false allegations... .

[joeramabeme]

marti644

Welcome to BPD Family!   

That was an extensive post and I related to almost all of it.  So glad to hear that you have been doing some research and have an understanding of her dynamics and just as importantly, your own!

I realize now that I had been dating women who I was “rescuing” my entire life and my own PD (I have issues of Narcissism, although from the criteria I am not a full-blown thankfully) was critical in not only inflaming conflict but laying the seeds for the destruction of the relationship (although in these other cases I left after feeling burned out and used). I can’t just blame my current BPD-ex or the others for my part in this and I need to change to be with the type of partner I actually want to be with, not the “fixer-uppers” I have dated, who I can protect my own insecurities from.

This is really well said.  Have you read the book; Stop caretaking the borderline in your life?  It addresses this topic very well and provides valuable insights into they why it happens, and how we can stop repeating it.

Best, JRB

[marti644]

Thank you Joeramabeme! Your and everyone's support here is so important and is helping my healing process significantly.

I haven't heard of that book thank you for the suggestion, sounds great I'll get it! I have just found "walking on eggshells" gonna pick it up soon!

[Careca9]

This is exactly what mine did to me. Same exact thing. Word for word. She did this a total of 3 times in 4 years. The most recent was December 19th.

A few days after the discard, she filed a restraining order based on false allegations... .

ha, its so weird that they do the same things and they have set trends as to how it all unfolds to a point... .a day of silence turning into a complete vanishing act. deleted from social media, blocked phones. attempts to speak met with anger and cold emotionless responses. i never knew the breakups are usually before major events so that also ticks another box for me. and it happened to me on the 19th... .

[joeramabeme]

I haven't heard of that book thank you for the suggestion, sounds great I'll get it! I have just found "walking on eggshells" gonna pick it up soon!

Walking on Eggshells is also an excellent read.  I will be curious to hear what you have to say about it.

Best