That is what it feels like breaking up with someone with BPD. My heart goes out to all of you.
At first the plane takes off , steep and high.. then there is the turbulence .. but you think hey , its only turbulence ..only to figure out there is one engine missing and there is no cabin oxygen.
I am in the stage where I walk around in a blanket with one sock on, with second degree burns.. away from the crash site.
He presented it to me on a tray: he was diagnosed with BPD a few years before a met him.
He told me he could have suicidal thoughts, had a problem with fear of abandonment and anger. I was head over heels in love with him when he said it...the only justification I can find for me not to see it as a red flag.
I loved the way he lived, his sensitivity.. his passion. he said a lot I was his 'ideal'.
(I think we all idealise our new love at first, bpd or not, because it is a human thing to go on what we know and our brains fill in what we not know yet. And what we don't know yet is a lot, in the beginning.
We fill it with our own desires, wants, fantasies. However, the difference I found is
non BPD people don't devaluate ... or 'split'). The splitting is the thing that makes even the strongest person weak.
A few weeks in, red flag one: I started noticing he had many conflicts around him... and non of them were his fault. He was the victim of a world that was unkind to him and he didn't understand why.
He was in a lawsuit with someone he worked with and was about to enter another one against his flatmates (who wanted him out, I don't know what happend there).. there was a pending conflict in his family, his ex-employer.. and he had a train of ex relationships that didn't last longer than a couple of months.
I, in a love coma, thought he just needed some guidance and we we Bonnie and Clyde. He was 'it' we were 'it'.
And we were! we could handle anything together it seemed. we were together almost 24/7 in bliss.
Until red flag two: the anger turns to YOU. ( which it will, inevitably)
First time at his house I cleaned his windowframes and watered his plants before I went home so that he could come home and feel nice. Instead he called me up angry and said ' we needed to talk' .. ' you must think I am a DISGUSTING person! ' he said. Apparently by doing so I had made him feel disgusting (red flag three) . ..It took me 45 minutes to explain it was love, not malintention, before getting through to him. I was alarmed, but loved him so much I let go.
The anger became more frequent from there.
When I didn't call in time, or at the desired moments he would react vengeful by not answering at all anymore or send me print screens of his busy schedule. Or just sulk and disconnect, sometimes for days.
When I was on the phone too long with a friend he would express feeling rejected and jealous. Whenever I did anything without him he would say: I want to be the one to do that with you!'.
He wanted to do everything together (red flag four) and when I say that I mean
everything.
I thought it was sweet at first, so we went and did everything together. Until I realised that was his fear of abandonment and a sense of control more than it was love.
When I didn't or couldn't he would disconnect completely and when I would get a hold of him eventually he would say things like: 'I don't like living in this world any more' or or ' you probably think I am A PIECE OF
PLEASE READ' or 'I do this to restrain myself'
The last one makes sense, since when he would let his anger out he knew it would be explosive. But I felt it anyway and it started seriously destabilising me as well.
I became anxious and worried about him getting angry and started walking on eggshells. I was even afraid when my friends would call because I knew when he would call when I am on the phone I would have a problem. Even when I texted him while being on the phone (which I ALWAYS did .. that I would call right back and who I was talking to) it would end up in an argument.
My trust started crumbling. I started feeling scared and trapped.
The lows started out weighing the highs, we were just three months in.
Two weeks ago things climaxed when I expressed I had a really hard time trusting him and I told him the BPD scared me too and we really needed to talk about it. I was afraid of him ' being just like my mother'. ( different story but a clue to why this happened , clearly).
That night he barged into my house, furious..( probably fear of rejection?) there was no way to connect to him.. we argued and he got verbally aggressive and he eventually, pushed me.
For me that was a limit.. I told him to leave. I sent all his stuff back a few days later.
After one more confused sms text chain after ( I was the one being confused.. wanting to fix, take all blame in order not to lose him, when I knew it felt so wrong and so ill, he was already feeling so much shame and rejection he was on another planet) .. I blocked him and we have been NC since.
So, the plane crashed. I am in the aluminum foil blanket on the side, happy to still be alive but traumatised and burnt.
I feel I can hardly move. i doubt myself, I can't grasp what happened and trying to stop loving him and not to unblock him.
and more important I hope when I get this processed I can start looking at myself.
