I'm feeling tremendously unstable

[confusedshrink]

I'm a 49y/o gay mixed race MD with a great career and wonderful friends and family.  its been firmly established that I have a "type;" good looking, tall borderlines float my boat .  I've had 3 long term relationships  (all with guys I am confident did not have BPD.   Equally dispersed in between these 3 relationships (1, 6 and 6 years respectively) have been much shorter intense relationships with guys who had BPD.   And I'm a trained Psychiatrist though I don't practice or see patients- unbelievable, right.  Hand to God, this is the truth.   I have amazing parents , grew up upper middle class and my parents were happily married for 50 years (my Dad lost his battle with pancreatic cancer 4 years ago) . I just was jettisoned from a very intense 3 month relationship with brilliant (chess player) guy 15 years my junior who was out on his own at 17, so trust me when I tell you his emotional maturity in many ways was that of a contemporary.  A variety of complicating factors allowed me to discount my gut feelings that he had BPD; however my instant intense attraction and feelings of intimacy in and of themselves are diagnostic for me of his personality d./o (never reacted this way to the normal relationships I've had and always react the same way to the BPD guys for whom I fall).  In reviewing the extensive text messages over the past three months it was all so predictable and textbook with an unusual and unexpected wrinkle of his recent conversion to Christianity and the amazing insights and intellectual discussion we had about God, religion etc.  He moved in with me at my urging as it made economic sense and was helping him get back on his feet with his once successful IT business.  2months of chaotic situations, me realizing I had strong feelings for him, him forcing me to reveal this to him , being rewarded and then mercilessly humiliated and metaphorically punished for the admission, etc.   interspersed with amazing bursts of wonderful times and memories being made.    Unbeknownst to me when he was done with me, he began slowly week by week moving out; when I urgently needed his financial help to make my rent this month, I understandably looked to his otherwise inexplicable waste of income he insisted on engaging by having rented hotel rooms in a city less than an hours drive away, to focus on his clients (but which became places for him to abuse substances in secret - while I had personally supervised him detoxing off these medications, there was never any judgement on my part and no requirement or boundary saying he wasn't allowed to use in my home).   Without going into the whole sordid story suffice to say that when I took steps to locate him and ask for his assistance  he refused to help - this is when he informed me he had moved out, that he had no money to help cover the shortfall , etc.  He then pivoted to painted me as an irrational obsessed stalker boundary-less monster, etc...which over the course of days transitioned into the narrative that he'd been in a drug induced psychosis, that I was a good but damaged person, and that we had been in a codependent relationship and he was going to cut the communication cord (but also that he was headed back to rehab - a fact I now know was a lie, too) and that he would be re-contacting me to work the relevant step(s) in the AA model of rehab).   Before allegedly cutting the cord and blocking me (not sure he has actually blocked me) he neatly summed up our relationship as co dependent, that i needed to work on me, never acknowledging any of the litany of lies he told apologizing for characterizing me as a liar,  saying that he wanted to reunite with me more than anything but that it would be bad for us b/c ultimately his problems but mostly mine (candidly I'm vain - 20 lbs over weight .. used to be a (/10 objectively now maybe a 6/10 aging a bit and conscious of it, so I have vulnerability about my looks) would destroy us and if I loved him I would leave him in peace. 
I am reeling... its been two weeks now and I cognitively know what happened, I'm so tired of going trough these things but I would also give almost anything to get him back for one night , one day one something.  this site was the first one that I read anything that made sense... in fact in the breakup he almost had me convinced I was co dependent even though I don't think of myself as that , have never exhibited any behavior like that till I met him .  In the past two weeks I've had passive suicidal ideation, cant concentrate for extended periods of time, am demonstrably depressed etc But i cant afford to resume with my therapist as my finances are strained (make tons of money but have no savings and live paycheck to paycheck- I'm  terrible with money) and I have to keep all the sharp knives I'm juggling in the air - I CANNOT let any of them fall., so my point in writing is to vent, to hopefully gain some release of pain and stress by documenting my latest failure publicly and in a safe space and see if there are any here with any insight for me that might help  get me through this  - I've been through 4 or 5 similar situations but no where near this intense and 'm barely making it. 

[forevermagenta]

Hi confusedshrink,

Welcome to the site and thanks for sharing your story. How are you doing now?

In the absence of a therapist, as you mentioned, I am not sure how much snooping around this site you have done, but there there are so many resources at the top of this discussion board. A few months ago, someone shared and rekindled interest in a user named “2010”’s posts. I can speak for myself when I say I spend days, at every opportunity, devouring their words. I haven’t gone too far down the self-examining of bein co-dependent path, but in my reading of Caretaking of the Borderline (believe that’s the title), a variety of caretaking styles were laid out which I found helpful - to see the distinctions rather than a blanket understanding.

The shock of it all is a lot. And I can imagine it being all the more dizzying when on repeat.

[once removed]

i never ended up seeing a therapist, as much, and as often, as i recommend it.

i did take antidepressants, and i took all kinds of supplements.

it sounds like youve been experiencing a lot of adrenaline, throughout your relationship, and after it. it really leaves the body and mind in a pretty precarious position. while neither antidepressants or supplements can "heal" you, they can definitely make all of this a great deal more manageable, and get your body and mind a bit more back to normal.

it really hurts extra to be on the receiving end of, essentially "its you, not me".

[Purplerain23]

Welcome I understand and I can truly relate to these feelings. I can only share my experience strength and hope . I go to coda because there are all sorts of ways to be codependent including compliance patterns not just control patterns. And this is more my poison . I’m intelligent dominate in business raised give wonderful daughters strong in my Christian Faith have a BS in social psychology and did half the coursework for my PHD and have a masters degree in practical theology... but yet I still let a man with so much less to offer manipulate and reduce me to nothing . Control me and leech off of everything and then tug. Around and project his shortfalls in me. The push/pull and devaluation of the BPD splitting will destroy even the strongest person because in my opinion it’s a shock to the system and too hard to process and in my case triggered my PTSD. Which was my downfall he realized if he could render me powerless he controlled the narrative. This went on 3 years ... but in radical candor all my relationships had a similar arc and all with a narcissist, addict, and lastly BPD. I am the common denominator and it’s not that o have a broken picker . It’s something called repetition compulsion . I am doing the deep work to face the truth ... I’m trying to recreate my relationship with my father where in the end someway somehow this really intense personality type of man loves me and is safe.( No matter how much I’m educated about Family of Origins and repetition compulsion.) It took me this last go around to admit this about my dad.I’m accepting now this will never be the case and accepting these bluster b aren’t capable of love... I was groomed from birth to fall in line with these type of men. Good looking , talented , active in church ministry ect . Yet narcissist The only type I fall in love with it seems and I hate it ! I wanted so much to attract a stable godly man and the issue is they are so good at mirroring and love bombing that I don’t myself if any of us got that matter to be taken captive by these bpders . . But what’s my role ... loving too much simply living with all I have and bring vunerable, believing the best in them even though their behavior is horrible and accepting unacceptable things .. I’m looking at my role in all of this not to blame myself but to heal and face the pain and sadness of my experience and repair the myself ... I don’t know how to undue grooming I don’t know yet what to do about that ? But maybe time ? What do you think ? I know you’re early in the break up I call it the “Napalm to the face” phase but when your able to come up for air try to dig into repetition compulsion what are you trying to “make right “ or prove to yourself if you could just get one of these intense relationships to actually work out ?