What was her post-break-up behavior about? A chronicle.

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

Hi all!

This is my 2nd post on this site. I want to thank you all for being so supportive -- you guys are wonderful.
I've shared my story in the "reversing a break-up" section, titled "Left my wife for BPDgirl, only to ruin my life". It's a lenghty post, in case you feel like reading it, it's here:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=356431.0

In a nutshell: I've been living in a marriage in which we were each other's best friends and connected intellectually extremely well, however, our marriage were lacking in many basic factors. Then, an emotionally "troubled" coworker appeared in my life, gave me everything I craved for in my marriage, convinced me to leave my wife and choose her... which I did... and she flushed me down the toilet a few months later.

Still trying to understand her behavior, I need your help, insights and inputs regarding what happened after she discarded me, and I also need help regarding what should I do.

I will write this in a timeline/chronicle style.

Mid-april, she discards me in an awful way. I'm not going to go into details about this, your typical BPD-style break-up over pretty much nothing. I've tried to stand my ground and preserve my dignity, which she didn't really like. As I arrive home to my place after the break-up, she sends me a huuuuuuge wall of text with extremely hurtful things, then blocks me everywhere.

Next day, she takes all of my stuff (we were living at her place) to my mother's house because I was working. My mother asks her why is she breaking up with me, she says all kinds of stupid and false things. My mother says these are probably untrue, and that she should go to therapy like I do. She erupts like a volcano, stands up to leave, tells my mother "how dare you", says extremely nasty things about me ("I'm the most toxic person on Earth"), almost attacks my mother, her partner, a tall & well-built guy has to stand between them. She shuts their front door that it almost breaks off.

That weekend, my mother takes my stuff to me. My expensive suits are in a paper bag like dirty laundry, she probably stepped on them too to squeeze them in the bag. She sends back literally everything, even the little gift card I hid under her plate when I brought her to Florida in February to celebrate her birthday at a rooftop restaurant in Miami. Of course I paid for the whole trip myself, it was a Christmas gift to her. Grateful girl, huh?

For a few weeks, I feel relatively OK. My friends tell me that however, if I get drunk, I ask them all the time "am I a bad person? She always said I'm a bad person? Am I really that bad?" -- I even cry once when asking this. I start attending a Non-Violent Communications course, as she totally made me believe that I'm a violent, aggressive person. Which is untrue btw.

Mid-May, my separation anxiety is going up. I find myself walking around the area where she lives. I sit in a restaurant and bingo -- I see her as she leaves somewhere on a Friday evening. She seems agitated and stressed out, no matter how well she is dressed. It makes me feel good for some weird reason. I want to see that she is suffering. That she's not OK. "She cannot get away with cutting me out of her life and playing a big part of ruining my marriage" -- that's what I'm thinking. But at the same time I start to miss her. Like crazy.

I start going closer and closer to her place every evening. Of course, staying at a safe distance. (I know I was a creep to do this). To my surprise, she is always at home and alone. I can see her from her kitchen window. Instead of elated post-break-up behavior, she is wrapped in a blanket, walking around her apartment with no lights on, seems depressed. It makes me feel good that she's struggling and home alone. Maybe I should write her a letter?

End of May, I write her a letter. My most sincere, honest love letter. Three sections: first -- I'm so thankful that she is such a fantastic person and that she appeared in my life and showed a much better way to live (). Second -- everything is my fault, my violent communication led to the break up. Third -- I'm learning Non-Violent Communications so if we reconcile we can start on a new basis ( at me). 10 pages. Pink paper. Handwritten. "Sad dalmatian puppies hugging each other" sticker included. Reply? Nothing.

10 days later, I send her a long list of things I miss about her. From big things to small, cute details. "I miss it when you say/do XYZ". 6 feet long list, rolled up like a shopping list. Delivered by yours truly, to her door, playing the role of a postman, while she is at work. I wander around her area while she gets home. She arrives, sees me from a distance. Goes up to her apartment door, finds the list, starts running after me. I know it can't be good. Looks like rage to me. I start running in the opposite direction. My heart is beating in 200 bpm. I get away. An hour later, she posts an Instagram story of a picture of Frank Sinatra smoking. We have seen the original photo in Miami a few months ago. I know it's for me. Is it a good sign -- I can't stop thinking about it.

A week later, I ask my best friend (they know each other) to talk to her. To tell her I'm a mess without her. That I'm suffering. That I need her. That I'm addicted to Xanax since I'm without her. Great idea, right? They chat online for 1.5 hours, I'm anxious like hell. Then, he says that he's really sorry but things are not really good. Copy-pastes the whole conversation. Typical BPD rage & engulfment. She hates me, comes up with all the petty minor things I said during the 1.5 years "together", blames me for everything, even says that my handwritten letter was "all about myself and my needs", I'm self-obsessed, etc. My friend asks her to at least tell me that it's over or talk to me one last time so I can get closure. She is not sure, not planning to ever communicate with me again, she says. I collapse like a building. My friend comes to my place, we get really drunk. Next day I cry in the office, contemplating jumping out of the window. Luckily, I don't.

I learn about what "no contact" is, and plan to apply it to get her back -- I learn about these get-my-ex-back coaches, etc. Wow. That's the way to go I guess. I don't know yet that with people with PDs these things don't work the textbook way.

10 days later, while scrolling though old conversations, I see that she'd unblocked me on Facebook. Wooow. I get super anxious. Maybe she will rage at me one last time as my friend asked her 10 days ago? I'm anxious for a bunch of days, waiting for her hateful messages. But nothing happens. She's just unblocked me. I spend each day watching 100s of no contact + get-your-ex-back videos and reading countless articles. Maybe it's working with her?

On July 1, while reading a no-contact success story (what a surprise), I get a notification from Instagram that she is "available on the platform", meaning that she unblocked me on Instagram, too. I can't believe it. Just wow. Does she want me to reach out? I view her profile. It seems like she is in a much different state of mind like weeks ago when I wrote her the letter, when she was depressed and at home. She is HAPPY. Happy selfie nr.1, nr.2, nr.100, weekend getaway with her best friends, happiness, happiness, happiness. She wants to rub it in my face? To show me that she's over me and doing better than ever? I can't understand it. I was just about to put out an IG story. She views it. Whaaaaaat? I can't believe it.

All of July is about her viewing my IG stories. Sometimes within minutes. Rarely missing one. She never follows me back, so she has to manually search for me each time. I never reciprocate though, "sticking" to no contact. (Of course I view them via an anonymous profile viewer). Sexy selfies, happy summer holiday pictures, just pure awesomeness. She has anorexia and even appears skinnier than before on her summer holiday pictures. More selfies and stories than ever before, all content is about her face+body in a pretty narcissistic way, broadcasting her life like the CNN. I put out stories more than usual too, but not extremely.

Early to mid-July, she also starts helicoptering around where I live. Her new workplace (started working there a week after the break-up) is relatively close to where I live, but until mid-July, she has taken a different route to work that's actually more convenient for her, and avoided my metro stop like the plague. Until now.
As I'm going home one day, I see her going down the escalator. Wow. Heart goes 200 bpm. She doesn't see me. Next day I feel like an addict, I want more of this thrill, I plan to be around the escalator at the same time. Yes, I see her again. But she's on her phone, doesn't see me. Next day, I plan the whole thing again, but I wait around the metro itself and there she comes! She catches me standing there like an idiot, then I start walking towards her, trying to act calm and composed, but she's really good at reading my face. She starts waving at me with the saddest puppy eyes you can imagine. I simply say "hello" then hop on the escalator. I think I did a "good job". I'm not so sure about that now.

Beginning of August, three things happen:
- I start allowing myself to think that I'm not the crazy one and not everything is my fault. I read about covert narcissism and suspect that she is one. Then, a week later, I also read about BPD and everything starts falling into place. (My therapist said she thinks she is BPD when she discarded me, but of course I didn't believe her at the time.)

- She disappears from my Instagram story viewers. I remember the exact story she watched last, me at a cool b'day party of a friend of mine. Although, as she disappears, a user with my name appears -- my first name and family name, follows nobody, followed by nobody, no posts, pictures, anything. Starts watching my stories, then blocks me and disappears from Instagram altogether. At first I think it's some guy who has the same name as me. The second time I realize it must be her. (To this day, the story-viewing by this mysterious user continues.) One day in August I share a pic of two drinks in a bar she loves going to, I've been there with a friend but it looks like it's a date. The mysterious user views it every hour that day (!), then disappears/blocks/whatever. Wow. I must've upset her. I feel that dopamine kick again.

- My boss wants to talk to me. He shares two weird stories: on the last day of June, he had a phone call with her about some work-related thing. I asked him if they talked about me, he said yes, but my ex was "not really open to get back together" -- to put it mildly. She unblocked me on Instagram the very next day. Maybe she did the unblocking out of guilt? I begin to see this pattern: someone close to me talks to her --> full-blown BPD rage and engulfment, she "hates me and never wants to hear about me anymore" --> she unblocks me on a social platform. Happened with my best friend + Facebook, happened with my boss + Instagram.
Also, my boss said that 2 weeks before, while I was on holiday and there was a team building event, as my team exited the office building waiting for a cab, she was waiting on the corner alone, and my team talked to her. She didn't know I was on holiday that day, but apparently showing up 10 feet away from my office on a workday while she knew there'll be a team-building event (one of her flying monkeys is a coworker of mine) makes me think that she wanted to at least see me. But she missed her chance as I was out of town that day.

So yeah, that's pretty much it. This mysterious *myname* user still watches everything I put out, then somehow disappears from Instagram altogether, and I'm 99.9% sure that it's her. I know nobody who'd be interested in creeping at my content in such a way. Why would anyone. Plus, she always said that she looves stalking people, heck, even followed the best friends of my ex-wife 2 months (!) after my divorce with a fake profile of her cat that's died like 3 years ago, and told me like she was proud of that. Crazy, right?

What do you think these behaviors were about during the summer? Do you think that the heartfelt (lame and harmful) letter I wrote + me bending backwards somehow messed her up and boosted her ego? What was her story-viewing probably about? Native American-style smoke signals for me? Out of guilt? Or just wanted to rub her new "happy" life in my face, so I'll view her profile and feel hurt? I haven't contacted her to this day by the way, and I'm not planning to.

I know it's a messed up story and I think you can feel that I'm detaching, but still, there's a small side of me that still feels something for this woman and I also want to understand her -- if that's possible with pwBPD.

So, any input, insight or personal story you guys have would be very useful!

Thank you so much!

[nowaves]

Hi all!

This is my 2nd post on this site. I want to thank you all for being so supportive -- you guys are wonderful.
I've shared my story in the "reversing a break-up" section, titled "Left my wife for BPDgirl, only to ruin my life". It's a lenghty post, in case you feel like reading it, it's here:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=356431.0

In a nutshell: I've been living in a marriage in which we were each other's best friends and connected intellectually extremely well, however, our marriage were lacking in many basic factors. Then, an emotionally "troubled" coworker appeared in my life, gave me everything I craved for in my marriage, convinced me to leave my wife and choose her... which I did... and she flushed me down the toilet a few months later.

Still trying to understand her behavior, I need your help, insights and inputs regarding what happened after she discarded me, and I also need help regarding what should I do.

I will write this in a timeline/chronicle style.

Mid-april, she discards me in an awful way. I'm not going to go into details about this, your typical BPD-style break-up over pretty much nothing. I've tried to stand my ground and preserve my dignity, which she didn't really like. As I arrive home to my place after the break-up, she sends me a huuuuuuge wall of text with extremely hurtful things, then blocks me everywhere.

Next day, she takes all of my stuff (we were living at her place) to my mother's house because I was working. My mother asks her why is she breaking up with me, she says all kinds of stupid and false things. My mother says these are probably untrue, and that she should go to therapy like I do. She erupts like a volcano, stands up to leave, tells my mother "how dare you", says extremely nasty things about me ("I'm the most toxic person on Earth"), almost attacks my mother, her partner, a tall & well-built guy has to stand between them. She shuts their front door that it almost breaks off.

That weekend, my mother takes my stuff to me. My expensive suits are in a paper bag like dirty laundry, she probably stepped on them too to squeeze them in the bag. She sends back literally everything, even the little gift card I hid under her plate when I brought her to Florida in February to celebrate her birthday at a rooftop restaurant in Miami. Of course I paid for the whole trip myself, it was a Christmas gift to her. Grateful girl, huh?

For a few weeks, I feel relatively OK. My friends tell me that however, if I get drunk, I ask them all the time "am I a bad person? She always said I'm a bad person? Am I really that bad?" -- I even cry once when asking this. I start attending a Non-Violent Communications course, as she totally made me believe that I'm a violent, aggressive person. Which is untrue btw.

Mid-May, my separation anxiety is going up. I find myself walking around the area where she lives. I sit in a restaurant and bingo -- I see her as she leaves somewhere on a Friday evening. She seems agitated and stressed out, no matter how well she is dressed. It makes me feel good for some weird reason. I want to see that she is suffering. That she's not OK. "She cannot get away with cutting me out of her life and playing a big part of ruining my marriage" -- that's what I'm thinking. But at the same time I start to miss her. Like crazy.

I start going closer and closer to her place every evening. Of course, staying at a safe distance. (I know I was a creep to do this). To my surprise, she is always at home and alone. I can see her from her kitchen window. Instead of elated post-break-up behavior, she is wrapped in a blanket, walking around her apartment with no lights on, seems depressed. It makes me feel good that she's struggling and home alone. Maybe I should write her a letter?

End of May, I write her a letter. My most sincere, honest love letter. Three sections: first -- I'm so thankful that she is such a fantastic person and that she appeared in my life and showed a much better way to live (). Second -- everything is my fault, my violent communication led to the break up. Third -- I'm learning Non-Violent Communications so if we reconcile we can start on a new basis ( at me). 10 pages. Pink paper. Handwritten. "Sad dalmatian puppies hugging each other" sticker included. Reply? Nothing.

10 days later, I send her a long list of things I miss about her. From big things to small, cute details. "I miss it when you say/do XYZ". 6 feet long list, rolled up like a shopping list. Delivered by yours truly, to her door, playing the role of a postman, while she is at work. I wander around her area while she gets home. She arrives, sees me from a distance. Goes up to her apartment door, finds the list, starts running after me. I know it can't be good. Looks like rage to me. I start running in the opposite direction. My heart is beating in 200 bpm. I get away. An hour later, she posts an Instagram story of a picture of Frank Sinatra smoking. We have seen the original photo in Miami a few months ago. I know it's for me. Is it a good sign -- I can't stop thinking about it.

A week later, I ask my best friend (they know each other) to talk to her. To tell her I'm a mess without her. That I'm suffering. That I need her. That I'm addicted to Xanax since I'm without her. Great idea, right? They chat online for 1.5 hours, I'm anxious like hell. Then, he says that he's really sorry but things are not really good. Copy-pastes the whole conversation. Typical BPD rage & engulfment. She hates me, comes up with all the petty minor things I said during the 1.5 years "together", blames me for everything, even says that my handwritten letter was "all about myself and my needs", I'm self-obsessed, etc. My friend asks her to at least tell me that it's over or talk to me one last time so I can get closure. She is not sure, not planning to ever communicate with me again, she says. I collapse like a building. My friend comes to my place, we get really drunk. Next day I cry in the office, contemplating jumping out of the window. Luckily, I don't.

I learn about what "no contact" is, and plan to apply it to get her back -- I learn about these get-my-ex-back coaches, etc. Wow. That's the way to go I guess. I don't know yet that with people with PDs these things don't work the textbook way.

10 days later, while scrolling though old conversations, I see that she'd unblocked me on Facebook. Wooow. I get super anxious. Maybe she will rage at me one last time as my friend asked her 10 days ago? I'm anxious for a bunch of days, waiting for her hateful messages. But nothing happens. She's just unblocked me. I spend each day watching 100s of no contact + get-your-ex-back videos and reading countless articles. Maybe it's working with her?

On July 1, while reading a no-contact success story (what a surprise), I get a notification from Instagram that she is "available on the platform", meaning that she unblocked me on Instagram, too. I can't believe it. Just wow. Does she want me to reach out? I view her profile. It seems like she is in a much different state of mind like weeks ago when I wrote her the letter, when she was depressed and at home. She is HAPPY. Happy selfie nr.1, nr.2, nr.100, weekend getaway with her best friends, happiness, happiness, happiness. She wants to rub it in my face? To show me that she's over me and doing better than ever? I can't understand it. I was just about to put out an IG story. She views it. Whaaaaaat? I can't believe it.

All of July is about her viewing my IG stories. Sometimes within minutes. Rarely missing one. She never follows me back, so she has to manually search for me each time. I never reciprocate though, "sticking" to no contact. (Of course I view them via an anonymous profile viewer). Sexy selfies, happy summer holiday pictures, just pure awesomeness. She has anorexia and even appears skinnier than before on her summer holiday pictures. More selfies and stories than ever before, all content is about her face+body in a pretty narcissistic way, broadcasting her life like the CNN. I put out stories more than usual too, but not extremely.

Early to mid-July, she also starts helicoptering around where I live. Her new workplace (started working there a week after the break-up) is relatively close to where I live, but until mid-July, she has taken a different route to work that's actually more convenient for her, and avoided my metro stop like the plague. Until now.
As I'm going home one day, I see her going down the escalator. Wow. Heart goes 200 bpm. She doesn't see me. Next day I feel like an addict, I want more of this thrill, I plan to be around the escalator at the same time. Yes, I see her again. But she's on her phone, doesn't see me. Next day, I plan the whole thing again, but I wait around the metro itself and there she comes! She catches me standing there like an idiot, then I start walking towards her, trying to act calm and composed, but she's really good at reading my face. She starts waving at me with the saddest puppy eyes you can imagine. I simply say "hello" then hop on the escalator. I think I did a "good job". I'm not so sure about that now.

Beginning of August, three things happen:
- I start allowing myself to think that I'm not the crazy one and not everything is my fault. I read about covert narcissism and suspect that she is one. Then, a week later, I also read about BPD and everything starts falling into place. (My therapist said she thinks she is BPD when she discarded me, but of course I didn't believe her at the time.)

- She disappears from my Instagram story viewers. I remember the exact story she watched last, me at a cool b'day party of a friend of mine. Although, as she disappears, a user with my name appears -- my first name and family name, follows nobody, followed by nobody, no posts, pictures, anything. Starts watching my stories, then blocks me and disappears from Instagram altogether. At first I think it's some guy who has the same name as me. The second time I realize it must be her. (To this day, the story-viewing by this mysterious user continues.) One day in August I share a pic of two drinks in a bar she loves going to, I've been there with a friend but it looks like it's a date. The mysterious user views it every hour that day (!), then disappears/blocks/whatever. Wow. I must've upset her. I feel that dopamine kick again.

- My boss wants to talk to me. He shares two weird stories: on the last day of June, he had a phone call with her about some work-related thing. I asked him if they talked about me, he said yes, but my ex was "not really open to get back together" -- to put it mildly. She unblocked me on Instagram the very next day. Maybe she did the unblocking out of guilt? I begin to see this pattern: someone close to me talks to her --> full-blown BPD rage and engulfment, she "hates me and never wants to hear about me anymore" --> she unblocks me on a social platform. Happened with my best friend + Facebook, happened with my boss + Instagram.
Also, my boss said that 2 weeks before, while I was on holiday and there was a team building event, as my team exited the office building waiting for a cab, she was waiting on the corner alone, and my team talked to her. She didn't know I was on holiday that day, but apparently showing up 10 feet away from my office on a workday while she knew there'll be a team-building event (one of her flying monkeys is a coworker of mine) makes me think that she wanted to at least see me. But she missed her chance as I was out of town that day.

So yeah, that's pretty much it. This mysterious *myname* user still watches everything I put out, then somehow disappears from Instagram altogether, and I'm 99.9% sure that it's her. I know nobody who'd be interested in creeping at my content in such a way. Why would anyone. Plus, she always said that she looves stalking people, heck, even followed the best friends of my ex-wife 2 months (!) after my divorce with a fake profile of her cat that's died like 3 years ago, and told me like she was proud of that. Crazy, right?

What do you think these behaviors were about during the summer? Do you think that the heartfelt (lame and harmful) letter I wrote + me bending backwards somehow messed her up and boosted her ego? What was her story-viewing probably about? Native American-style smoke signals for me? Out of guilt? Or just wanted to rub her new "happy" life in my face, so I'll view her profile and feel hurt? I haven't contacted her to this day by the way, and I'm not planning to.

I know it's a messed up story and I think you can feel that I'm detaching, but still, there's a small side of me that still feels something for this woman and I also want to understand her -- if that's possible with pwBPD.

So, any input, insight or personal story you guys have would be very useful!

Thank you so much!