Hi CraZXperience and
Here's how I see your situation:
You (you and your BPD therapist) started off in a professional-client relationship: she was your therapist, you were/are her client/patient. There are rules for how these kinds of relationship are supposed to carry on and your BPD therapist is well aware of these rules. If she broke any such rules, that is between her and her professional peers (and whatever relevant governing entities to which she answers). As her patient, I would not hold you responsible for any potentially inappropriate behavior on your part because... . well, it was her responsibility to maintain the integrity of your therapist-client relationship.
That's the context of your relationship.
As for the sub-text, I think it is this:
You both sensed an opportunity to work out deeply personal issues with each other. And they were not necessarily the same issues.
In July of 2011, I began therapy because I was recovering from depression after being involved in a serious accident where my best friend died and also childhood abuse. I was referred to this therapist through a foster care agency that provides long term therapy to current and former foster youth. I had been in and out of the foster care system as a child. The moment I met her there was an instant supernatural (the best way I can describe it) connection; later she would tell me she knew we were connected the first time she heard my voice over the phone.
I don't know what your deep personal issues are (which probably pertain to your relationship with maternal figures). But when you describe your "instant super natural connection" that made me think of how I felt about just about every single person I've ever suspected of having BPD in my life... . starting with my mother. I was instantly and deeply drawn to these women because I needed to work through my issues with my mother, through them. Maybe this is similar to what you might be going through. Maybe not.
The short version of my issues is this. Through these BPD women I courted, I was trying to earn/win/acquire the maternal love that was always outside my reach. And the truth that eluded me for many decades of my life was that my mother was/is incapable of loving me the way I needed a mother to love me. And I needed to come to terms with this truth. I certainly needed to stop trying to squeeze water from the rocks I was desperate to love and have them love me back.
After 13 months in therapy, I sensed something was off, while she had always been caring, she started acting different. I had to start processing therapy in my personal life rather than processing my personal life in therapy. I came out and asked her if she cared about me and she said yes, then I asked her if her feelings were romantic... . she paused long and hard and then said no.
We started having contact outside of the office, her partner and her would have me over for dinner, we would hang out, she would babysit my niece that I have custody of, etc. She assured me she had maternal feelings for me. In the beginning we did very mother/ daughter type things. She began having dreams about me constantly and after pushing her, she shared with me that they were intimate type fantasies. Within a month we began acting out her dreams in her office and home.
To make a long story short we began a relationship.
Now I think people with BPD (pwBPD) are exceptionally gifted in some respects. Gifted such that they might excel in professions such as therapy. And so long as your BPD therapist was able to maintain an appropriate emotional distance from you, her personal issues (presumably her BPD) would not interfere for the most part in your professional relationship.
It seems to me that after 13 months of therapy, she lost that objectivity. And although you were seeking to initiate a romantic relationship with her in order to work through your (unconscious) issues. She might have already chosen to work through her issues by engaging you in a more significant (i.e., intimate/familiar/familial) manner. As I understand it, pwBPD's issues reside in how they related/interact with their most intimate relationships and this could include "mother/daughter type" interactions. Romantic interactions, I believe, are secondary to what they are drawn towards in these kinds of relationships.
It was chaotic from the beginning- my boyfriend at the time found the text messages she was sending me and told my adopted family. She hated that they hated her, although I convinced them not to report her. She was always accusing me of cheating on her. No one male or female was allowed to look at me because she was convinced I was cheating. Anytime I wanted to spend time with my friends she would freak out (its horrible but my friends didn't want to hang out with a 40 year old and I didnt want to hang out with my mother figure). She was jealous of my new older female boss because she was sure I would want a different mother figure. She also made sure that she became very important to my toddler niece (her relationship with her was always very appropriate).
The interaction you describe, fit my understand of pwBPD. On the one hand, they seek out intimate/familial interactions. Yet these same interactions trigger their disordered feelings such as fear of abandonment. As she grew closer to you, as you became more of the "family" she wanted for herself, her disordered fear of abandonment started to accelerate. Such that she saw potential betrayal and abandonment when it existed primarily in her mind.
This is the primary issues I believe pwBPD are trying to resolve, get past: their intimacy vs. their disordered fear of abandonment. The problem is that the manner in which they choose to work through these issues (via intense and unstable interpersonal relationships) are often very unproductive.
This went on for 9 months until I reached out for help. I do extremely love her to this day, whether she loved me or not is questionable.
I think she loved you. But what I call into question is how capable she is at dealing with the consequences of that love in her disordered mind. PwBPD have intimacy issues such that I wonder if it is even possible for them to be in a functional, adult, interpersonal relationship, without any skills developed in recovery.
We continued contact and remained close and then in January she started dating 40 year old men-- WHAT?-- he's an ex from 20 years ago and has moved in with her at least temporarily (he ended up leaving her and getting some other girl pregnant way back then). He is actually the second in 3 months, they have only been together a month.
Again, from my understanding, the specific nature of their romantic interactions (e.g., sexual preference) are secondary to what motivates them in relationships. It may also be that for her professional survival, it would be to her advantage to put up some kind of smoke screen, distortion campaign, to protect herself from her liabilities.
She ended up cutting off contact with me for the most part saying she is angry with me for my behavior and that some people in my life that have since found out are out to get her. Of course while all of this is going down the Board of Psychology is investigating the relationship- they have interviewed lots of people in both her and my life, but of course they need me to sign a release to go after her. I have been sitting on the release... . I don't really know what to do. I understand her diagnosis and feel horrible for her and think she really wanted to help me and lost her insight. I really do love her, I would do anything for her, although I have agreed not to contact her. I am not just hurt because of me, but I cant understand how she could leave my niece- I mean she changed her diapers for an entire year, spent time with her, cuddled her, etc.
I don't know how you should handle the release. This is up to you. There is the question of whether or not you are the only one to have gone through what you have gone through. :)o you feel wronged by her? What does your current therapist think?
I just don't know anymore- was anything real?
It was real. But for pwBPD, their issues are different. The way they attach and detach from others are different from how non-disordered people attach and detach.
Is she really happy with her 43 year old man (its so opposite of a 24 year old female?
She wanted to try to work through her issues with you in order to be happy. I think for pwBPD, when their core issues relates to intimacy broadly speaking, I don't think it makes that big a difference if it's a 43 year old man, or a 24 year old woman. :)o you think you would be happier with an older woman, or a younger woman, or a man for that matter? I don't think it's the context that's important to you, it's the subtext.
Everyone believes she is going to come back to me once things die down, they just hope I will be healthy enough when she is.
Maybe. But here's what's troubling me. If things die down and she does come back into your life. And you let her back into your life. I think at that point the trouble will only start to brew. Then again there's just as good a chance that you find a similar kind of "connection" with someone new. In any case, it is worthwhile to investigate what is motivating you when you feel those deep and intense feelings -- keep your therapist handy. It may save you a lot of heart break and pain.
You are in the right place.
Best wishes, Schwing
