"I wanted to know why I´m not enough for you"

[NamelessMan]

Hi everyone. I´ve shared so far a lot about my story, but there´s one piece that still I haven´t talked about in this forum. It happened on May 13, it was the last time we talked. It was a descend into human madness and somehow I felt relieved after that, but then I got worse, and worse and worse. I´ll explain in detail what happened:

It was 8:15 pm. I was at the barber when I received a phone call. When I finished getting my haircut I looked at my phone. I was her. She never calls out of the blue, she always asks on whatsapp first if she can call. I was surprised to say the least, it had been one month since our last conversation that ended with her crying claiming "I´m so sorry that i can´t give you what you ask for". Anyway, I called her back:

"Hi, did you call me?"
"No, It was just a mistake"

That´s when I took a deep breath to control my first impulse. Instead, I just said

"Okay, bye"

And I hunged up. I kept walking on the street when I received three text messages from her. It took her 5 minutes to erase them, but I could read them. She was asking me the following:

"I wanted to know why I´m not enough for you?"

I guess you can imagine how I felt when I read that. I mean, how on Earth can a person who has left you, who has broken up with you twice can come three months later and ask you that? I got both anxious and angry. I couldn´t understand anything. So, when I got home that evening we talked. We where on the phone for 2-3 hours and this is what happened.

"Hi, why do you think that exactly?"
"It´s just that I can´t understand how is it that you want to be with me if I´m not your type"

I never said I had a type. I just said once months ago that I thought wavy hair was fine (she has wavy hair) and that also some women are ok with a fringe. I´ll continue, it just got worse:

"Are you again wondering about the girl who drew a portrait of my demised dog?" (long story short; she got mad at me due to one girl I just saw once in my life and before being with her)
"Not just that. I know there are more"

I was shocked. She was telling me I liked another girl I didn´t know about! I asked her:

"What do you mean?"
"You do like this girl in my class!! I know that"

Let´s call this girl Barbara. She claimed that I felt attracted to Barbara, a girl to whom I have never talked to, because she had the physical traits and features that I once described. The reality is that the only thing this girl has is a fringe and she somegow reaches to such conclusion. She also said that, since she has to see Barbara everyday in class, if she is in a relationship with me she can´t be comfortable in class knowing that I feel terribly attracted to Barbara. I said that all of that is made up, that it wasn´t true and it was all in her head. Her response was

"How can you tell me it is all in my head?! I know it is true!! You said (something made up in her mind)!!!"

This was absolutely crazy to be honest. She once gave pancakes to an ex of her (she´s been in 5 relationships and she´s just 22) while being with me, but I am the one that was cheating/attracted to someone else. She then started to say that I knew she wasn´t comfotable with those comments about other people´s physical features, and yet I never stopped making those kinds of comments. The reality is that I just said that once, and I always told her how much I liked her and what i liked about her. But still, I started to doubt about my own reality, because I couldn´t remember saying those things, like at all.

The conversation followed. At that time I wanted to work things out, and so I told her that. She said that I had disrespected her when I told her what I thought about her behaviour (I wrote it in another post), that I never listened to her. The reason I never listened, according to her was that when she got mad at me for something she was making up, I should be able to know why she was angry. That her getting mad is enough for me to know (i.e. I have to be  a mind reader). I said that i wanted to make the effort to work things out, and her response was

"Is what I´m asking even an effort!!!?"

And I also said that, according to what i said about her behaviour, that if it were the other way around, she could be honest with me, that I wouldn´t get mad at her for telling me how she felt about my behaviour in case it were necessary. Well, she responded me calling me names and saying that I was justifying disrespecting her.

It was like talking to a 5 year old. The conversation ended with her saying the following:

"I´ve been thinking for a while if I am the problem, because this has happened to me many times"

I couldn´t believe what she just said. But then she said

"No!!!! Both of us are the problem!!!"

I haven´t heard from her since that day. Like I said at the beginning, I felt relieved. I was feeling guilty, carrying a baggage for what I said when I communicated to her that her behaviour was not ok, that she needed help and that I wasn´t responsible for her emotional state. After that, I saw that she kept making things up, even worse than when we were together. So clearly, it was never about me, even though she kept putting the blame on me for her making everything up. However, I felt like in her mind she had rewritten the whole story. One week before the break up she told me she was very happy with me, that I treated her very well and she wanted to be with me forever, but now she was saying that I was just "attentive", just that. That I didn´t listen, that I said things that bothered her even though I knew those things bothered her, that I had failed her, etc. I was the bad guy, even though I gave everything I had, I tried over and over to make her feel loved, heard and understood, losing myself in the proccess. I started to think I was a failure, that I was a monster. Weeks went by and I didn´t know anything more about her and kept wondering what was the point of that phone call, because I couldn´t understand anything. At all.

Now I don´t the place I stand anymore. I don´t even recognize myself when I look in the mirror.

What do you think about all this? I need some guidance. I´m at a lost.

[PeteWitsend]

What do you think about all this? I need some guidance. I´m at a lost.

Well, first of all, you're trying to understand the thoughts of a disordered person, and because you have an "ordered mind" you're taking the things she says at face value, and trusting she means them, when in reality, it's anything but that.  Case in point, consider this part of the exchange:

...
"I wanted to know why I´m not enough for you?"
...
"Hi, why do you think that exactly?"
"It´s just that I can´t understand how is it that you want to be with me if I´m not your type"

So a second apart, she's saying she's not enough for you, but then claiming you want to be with her?  How could she be seriously thinking she's not enough for you, but then stating you want to be with her? 

After a while, I started to realize that pwBPD use conflict as a means to an end.  I.e. they're not interested in actually making sense and resolving anything, they're using their words as a club to beat you into submission.  The intent is to put you on the defensive and get you apologizing and confused over which end is up, so they can "rewrite" your memory and force you to accept the reality they want. 

This next exchange, GAH!  This brought back painful memories for me. 

... I said that i wanted to make the effort to work things out, and her response was

"Is what I´m asking even an effort!!!?"
...

I've been in two relationships like that, where I was trying to talk, and they'd take one word I said out of context and use that to derail the conversation.  It's insidious!  And it's so frustrating... it's the opposite of trying to "work things out."  I think, along the lines of what I was saying earlier, it's an attempt to keep you on your heels, and reacting to them, rather than zeroing in on what the hell their problem is, and why they can't articulate anything consistently.  If you do manage to ignore the attempts to derail the conversation and pin them down on the issue and their behavior, you'll likely see them escalate - e.g. interrupting what you're saying to start screaming at you more or less incoherently until you shut up, or they'll hang up, or run away.  You're never going to get them to admit their behavior was the problem.

You have two options here: ignore her (politely or impolitely, it doesn't  matter), or keep running on this hamster wheel everytime she reaches out or attempts a recycle.  But if you choose the latter, at least understand that it's not going to change.  "This time" is not going to be different.

[Under The Bridge]

"I´ve been thinking for a while if I am the problem, because this has happened to me many times"

This is the repeating cycle - the hamster wheel -  and no doubt has happened in all of the five previous relationships she's been in. Sadly it doesn't change, no matter how much we think that we will be 'the one' who makes the difference.

BPD's excel at taking things out of context and especially creating whole fictitious stories around totally innocent actions. This is their insecurity. You talk to another girl, however innocently, or even get caught looking at someone in passing and a whole fantasy is then created by the BPD that you're up to no good.

It's totally draining to try and cope with this and make them see reason, because they simply can't see it. We can't control their thought processes and their own 'world'. You eventually realise that you're in a repeating cycle and nothing you do can change it. It took me four years to finally realise this; I'd hoped for a miracle change in her which never happened - in fact, she got worse.

As PeteWitsend says, it eventually comes down to choosing to remain in the cycle which, without professional treatment, will happen again and again or putting yourself first and letting go totally of what was a toxic relationship that didn't benefit anyone.

[CC43]

Hi there,

My read of the situation is that your ex misses you, or maybe she just misses being in a relationship and getting attention.  But because she has BPD, she is has a few traits and habits:

*She's extremely insecure
*She creates drama and volatile relationships everywhere
*She feels she's always a victim and blames others for causing her problems
*She's easily upset and triggered, and she actively looks for (or invents) reasons to be upset about
*Her thinking is generally negative (assuming the worst of others and herself), as well as highly emotional, which manifests as disordered and seemingly illogical thoughts

So "conversations" with her tend to devolve into false accusations and circular arguments.  She seemingly deliberately misinterprets whatever you say in your defense, because she sees everything with a negative lens, and she'll project ill intent onto you, no matter what you do.  Even if she initiated a break-up, she has a victim mindset and will blame you nonetheless, and she'll concoct some irrational rationale, too.  It may be that she LIKES arguing with you, because that way she gets your attention.  For her, negative attention is still attention.  If she's really vindictive, she might try to PUNISH you for making her feel bad, in a misguided attempt to make her feel better.  For pwBPD, her distorted thinking might make her believe that causing others pain will ease her own, or at the very least teach you a lesson, so that you get a sense of the pain that she's feeling.

You might be reminded to avoid JADE, which stands for Justify, Argue, Defend and Explain.  When someone with BPD gets riled up, their emotional brain overtakes them, and they can't think rationally.  If you JADE when they're like this, they feel misunderstood and get even angrier, and they can spin out of control.  Sometimes the "conversation" can devolve into a tantrum.  Cue the storming off and silent treatment for an extended period.  She'll never apologize, because in her mind, everything is your fault.  She's really insecure and she'll always think you like other women more, no matter how much you reassure her.

Just my two cents.