At the end of my rope

[Rameses]

A quick history.

I broke off an engagement with my BPgf 5 months ago.

During that whole time there was only a 9 day stretch where she did not try to reach out to me.

I blocked her from my phone so she could not text or call.

She would call me from other numbers and *67 so it would show up on my phone as "private number",

so she knows that I know it was her, I never answered it.

Everytime there would be a few days in a row of NC from her, I could feel myself start to fall into a hole.

But as soon as she would reach out and make that contact... . BAM... . I instantly felt better and that would sustain me for a few days,but then I would feel myself begin to go down again waiting and anticipating that buzz(contact) from her, and inevetibly it would always come.

Well, two weeks ago she emailed me as said "If you want me to stop contacting you just put "stop", so I did, and since then all

I got in 2 weeks is a couple of "private number" calls, one was 6:15 in the morning.

So here I am, I feel like she has finally done it, she is tired chasing after me (I don`t blame her, I never responded to any of her efforts to contact me), I`m sure she has a new guy and she is gone.

I am not doing well at all, I have fallen to the bottom of the pit, lower than I have ever known in my life.

I see a psychiatrist for meds, I see a psychologist for thereapy, I work out at the gym everyday, I eat pretty healthy, I pray and go to church every Sunday, and yet I feel like I am in this cycle of pain, it just surrounds me and sucks the life out of me, and I`m really tired of it, and have run out of options.

And I believe it all stems back to the fact that she has stopped contacting me, and the real brunt of the fact that the relationship is over is now hitting me, after 5 months, and I`m not handleing it very well.

It`s the first time I really feel that she is gone and the lonliness is overwhelming.

ALL I WANT TO DO IS CONTACT HER, the one option I never in 5 months.

And I`m afraid if I do, she will see that I am weak and vulnerable and broken, and she will take the power and use it against me.

I`m 52 yrs old, I have never felt such devastation and pain in my life!

[eniale]

Very sorry for your trouble; I have been there.  Although it has been 5 months, you are now just at the very beginning of NC.  It is very, very tough, but it WILL get better.  Glad to see you are in therapy.  Also take a look at the topic "Clinging to the words you loved to hear" on this site.  It helped me greatly.  I know what you mean about never having been hurt this badly.  pwBPD are masters of the hurt.  Read up on Trauma Bonding.  It is the reason breaking this tie is so difficult for you.  Others have done it; it is not easy but it can be done.  I just had brief contact from my ex after 4 months NC.  I would never have gotten in contact with him, and was sure I would never hear from him again.  I was wrong.  We exchanged a few brief emails -- I wanted to get a few things off my chest.  I did and now have not heard from him in a week.  He never said "I'm sorry" never apologized.  Incapable of it.  I was doing great after 4 months NC & now doing o.k. and know the "feeling great" is slowly returning.  It is a cat and mouse game with them.  They are really sick and only they can help themselves, don't think you can help her, change her.  Keep reading on the subject.  Get all the support you can out of this site.  Keep going for therapy and above all else, I would strongly suggest you NOT contact her.  She will kill your soul with her mind games.  It is hard at first not to keep looking for that contact, and usually once you are o.k. with it, they will contact you again.  No contact at all with them is the only way you will eventually find permanent peace of mind.  Good luck!

[Rameses]

Thanks eniale, It really helps to have someone reinforce NC. Because right now it's the only thing I can think of to take this excruciating pain away. But I also know it's the very thing that will rip any scab off that may beginning to form, quite the quandary.

But my mind wants to rationalize it couldn't possibly be that bad with her, compared to this pain I'm feeling now. It is just so discouraging to think that this woman has so much power over my life.

I just really need to know if this is normal to be feeling this bad this devastated this catatonic after five months, I mean it feels like it just happened yesterday.

I really don't mean to be melodramatic but it's real bad, and of course Saturdays and Sundays have always been the .

The scary thing for me right now is, if that phone rang right now I would pick it up and answer it, that would be the first time in five months, I have never felt that way before. In five months she probably has called over 100 times,  And I never was tempted to answer it, so something has definitely changed.

[eniale]

A broken heart is the worst feeling you can ever feel.  Remember, she has been trying to make contact for 5 months, and you resisted.  Now she is trying something else because you showed her you were strong.  But I am certain she will be back.  The work you have to do now is to find out why you feel you need her so much.  You need to concentrate on YOU, NOT HER.  Google Trauma Bonding.  It is very, very powerful.  People with BPD can really mess up your head, get inside it.  It happened to me.  I went 4 months NC and it was devastating at first.  You are just now beginning, since she has been making efforts to contact you.  If you stick with it, the wound will bleed (the excruciating pain you are feeling now), but then it will heal.  But not if you pick at the scab that will form, by getting back in contact with her.  My ex contacted me after 4 months; he had cheated on me and said "Can we be friends?"  I emailed back that I was going out of town & would get in touch when I returned.  He had the nerve to reply "Glad to hear from you.  Close friendship can be very fulfilling."  I replied "Close friendship impossible due to unresolved issues I do not wish to discuss at this time but short "catch up" emails o.k. with me."  He said "OK, just don't want to lose contact with you."  I should not have responded, but I had my own agenda, wanted to get something left unsaid off my chest.  He then said he was in a "serious relationship, but not a day goes by that I don't think of you; I know now I have great affection for you and greatly under-valued you when I was your S.O., hope to be a better friend."  Not a word of apology, not even "I'm sorry for what I did... . "  And how screwed up is it to say you have a serious relationship with someone, but not a day goes by that you don't think of someone else?  See how sick they are?  I have feeling his "serious relationship" is taking a slow nose dive & he took me out of the box he placed me in to see if he could recycle me.  At that point, I got off the email I was planning, telling him he hurt me badly, that he asked faithfulness from me but could not give it in return, showed no respect for me & did not value trust I had in him.  Ended with ":)o you have any idea how you hurt me?"  Silence from him.  You see, BPD is a shame-based disorder.  He cannot face his own actions & take responsibility.  I haven't heard from him in a week & don't expect to.  I can tell you contact did set me back... . a little... . but I am getting stronger every day & soon will be back to where I was when he contacted me.  It took me 4 long months to get there, and you are just starting!  Let yourself feel all the pain; it is necessary.  I wrote furiously in the week after he cheated on me, got it all out on paper, looked at every scenario.  My own experience:  the first 2 months were the hardest; last 2 months getting better every day; and then he makes contact.  I figure it will take me another week now to get back to where I was.  Definitely know NC is the way to go if he ever contacts me again.  A friend told me contact at 4 month periods is common; to expect possible contact in Oct.  (We broke up in Feb., he contacted me in June.)  So you may yet hear; please do not use the time to "live in hope!"  Educate yourself about the disease, research Trauma Bonding, see your therapist, you will need that very much for a while.  And use this site; it helped me very much, especially in the beginning.  You are dealing with a very serious mental disorder.  I know that may shock you, it did me; I just thought he was a difficult person but things were getting better.  I didn't know the terrible blow that was coming.  Stay strong, you WILL get over this.  You need support from friends, family, therapist, research, anything you can use to help you heal from this terrible pain.  And it is terrible!  Good luck. 

[delusionalxox]

Oh Rocky I am so with you on this and understand entirely and completely what you are talking about.

I have now managed NC for 6/7 days with BPD ex ( I THINK... . as was so ashamed of my final text forgiving him, saying sorry for what I did wrong and basically wanting him to text me back some closure... . none of which I got). No contact from him for 2 weeks (the day of my abortion when I basically begged him to explain why he had done and was doing to me what he did; his answer being that I had sent him too many 'texts and emails full of horribleness'... . which I had been doing because I was so utterly hurt and bewildered at his abrupt switch from proclamations of eternal friendship to silence and one-liners.

I had asked for some money back and what to do with the stuff he had dumped here including stuff belonging to his phD supervisor. I got told 'you will do this again and again and so I am  not going to reply to you any more and I really mean it'. To my repeated anguished attempts at contact on the day of the abortion I got only 'you have damaged me very much. My nights and days are filled with the terrible things you have said and done to me' (!)

I had gone literally crazy with the split and you know what, I feel a bit like your ex today... . I feel like stalking him. Keep wanting to call him, to get closure which will never come. Keep looking at photos of him on his friend's facebook pages.

It somehow hurts more that he did not even bother to block me on skype and facebook. I think I have injured his highly narcissistic ego too much and he has totally written me off forever.

That being said there is no way I would call someone 100 times so maybe I am not the crazy I feel I am often right now  . I guess she was trying to intimidate you and force herself into your consciousness, as with those books she sent you. She may of course also be suffering very much herself. I don't know your story before the split but I am sure you  had very very good reasons to end this.

I just empathise so so much with what you say about falling apart yourself when contact from them ends. Ex tried to win me back and contact me obsessively during our scores of splits. When I left him it was always for good reasons eg he had followed me around my house screaming in my face and through the bathroom door where I often locked myself in in order to escape him.

This is the first time in three years that I have not heard from him. I realise in a sense I WANTED TO BE STALKED. It meant that he cared. It meant that there was still a chance :D (sorry, I know it is not really funny, but it IS funny).

She may well  have come to her senses now and done the sensible thing or simply given up after her long final extinction burst.  But I know so well how you feel.

You are never alone with a stalker :D someone is always thinking of you.

I am not criticising you in any way but I think that we have to look at what in us responds to this terrible and bottomless, impersonal need of theirs not to be abandoned. You did a very good thing resisting for 5 months. Far better than I would have managed. I would be trying to be 'friends' with BPD ex now if he called, I think, and probably being sucked back into the mire of madness which even he no longer wants.

It is the toxic dance of needing to be needed by someone whose needs go way beyond what we can provide, that we have to deal with. I am nowhere near it and today I share that sharp deep pain you are feeling.

You have been so strong and you will stay strong.

[bpdspell]

Hey Rocky,

I know it doesn't feel like it but you will come out stronger if you just hold on for one more day and one more day after the next. Right now your fortitude is being tested but its up to you to dig deeper to tap into your healing place.

Have you been comfortable with mourning and grieving your feelings?

I ask this cause in the first few months of NC I did exactly what I read on these boards to do. I joined a gym, I ignored the blocked and private calls, I got a therapist, I went to church... . it all felt perfunctory as I did my best to preoccupy my thoughts and block my most unpleasant feelings. I seethed and resented my ex. How did he unravel into this living nightmare? I blamed myself. I felt unbearable shame for being betrayed and deceived.  But the one thing I refused to do was sit with my sadness.

But feeling our feelings is the kicker that get's us over to the other side of our stuckness. Not feeling my feelings is exactly what keep me stuck on a treadmill with no power.  I was shooting myself in the foot when it came to the healing game cause I truly believed that my sad feelings: my abandonment pain, shame, and hurt would kill me once and for all if I gave myself the permission to feel.  

I did everything to avoid sitting in the pain of my darkest reality: that I felt unlovable, unworthy, broken, and unimportant.

There's a huge misconception that time heals all wounds. But this isn't true.

In my opinion it's how we face our pain: with courage and truth that helps us to get to the other side of freedom from being validated by a mentally ill person.

I carried a 3,500 brick of abandonment pain left over from childhood way into my adult years. And it colored every relationship I ever had. Time didn't heal that pain and neither did achievement, material things or success. It was surrendering to the mourning and grieving of what I didn't receive as a child that finally allowed me to stop carrying this brick. I finally started allowing the tears, and the primal screams to take over me. I screamed in pillows and I even bought a baseball bat for my pillows to release my own pent up rage, anger, hurt. We owe it to ourselves to find a way to get the untrue narratives and the abandonment pain out of us.

Being broken isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes it's necessary to experience this deep pain by walking through it and knowing that there's true healing on the other side of it.

I'm a firm believer in what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Being out 5 months is proof of that. Right now your feelings are right beneath the surface... . crying out for your full attention, validation and respect. Give your feelings what they need so they can finally be given a proper resting place.

Personal message me if you desire... . and keep posting on here.

Spell

[winston72]

I ask this cause in the first few months of NC I did exactly what I read on these boards to do. I joined a gym, I ignored the blocked and private calls, I got a therapist, I went to church... . it all felt perfunctory as I did my best to preoccupy my thoughts and block my most unpleasant feelings. I seethed and resented my ex. How did he unravel into this living nightmare? I blamed myself. I felt unbearable shame for being betrayed and deceived.  But the one thing I refused to do was sit with my sadness.

But feeling our feelings is the kicker that get's us over to the other side of our stuckness. Not feeling my feelings is exactly what keep me stuck on a treadmill with no power.  I was shooting myself in the foot when it came to the healing game cause I truly believed that my sad feelings: my abandonment pain, shame, and hurt would kill me once and for all if I gave myself the permission to feel. 

I did everything to avoid sitting in the pain of my darkest reality: that I felt unlovable, unworthy, broken, and unimportant.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[pari]

I have gone through months of recycling, only to find out that my ex was sleeping with someone else. It was my golden chance to finally cut all the ropes. I did but it drove me insane. Instead of forgetting about him, I kept thinking about him all the time.

I figured out how much I had trained myself to keep exBPD happy and to take care of him, ignoring myself. To the point, when my own happiness was depended on him, even after he cheated on me. It was my own illusion that he needs to be take care of and that he needs me. But guess what, I was wrong. After I got NC, he has been rocking. After I found this out, it took a big load off my head. That finally I can focus on me because he is no more my responsibility.

You have been so strong for 5 months, I am sure you will be stronger now. Don't give up on yourself. During a relationship with BPD, we give them so much power. They are in control of our emotions even after a breakup. It's time to take charge of your emotions and start taking care of yourself.

I write a lot to let it out of me. I also talk to myself in mirror. When my mind wanders off to him, I ask him to leave my space. Articles and Advice on this forum kept me sane.

Find peace. It's all inside you. You just need to look.

[Billa]

I have gone through months of recycling, only to find out that my ex was sleeping with someone else. It was my golden chance to finally cut all the ropes. I did but it drove me insane. Instead of forgetting about him, I kept thinking about him all the time.

I figured out how much I had trained myself to keep exBPD happy and to take care of him, ignoring myself. To the point, when my own happiness was depended on him, even after he cheated on me. It was my own illusion that he needs to be take care of and that he needs me. But guess what, I was wrong. After I got NC, he has been rocking. After I found this out, it took a big load off my head. That finally I can focus on me because he is no more my responsibility.

You have been so strong for 5 months, I am sure you will be stronger now. Don't give up on yourself. During a relationship with BPD, we give them so much power. They are in control of our emotions even after a breakup. It's time to take charge of your emotions and start taking care of yourself.

I write a lot to let it out of me. I also talk to myself in mirror. When my mind wanders off to him, I ask him to leave my space. Articles and Advice on this forum kept me sane.

Find peace. It's all inside you. You just need to look.

yes, exactly... .