Don't know what to call this post, Just hoping some reads it.

[Iamdizzy]

 After posting on here for about 2 weeks, I must thank seeking balance and Val87 and you all who post on my topics for asking and helping me realize why I stayed with her and believe when I say it's a battle in my mind, I feel so stupid but I take it in stride and see this as a process of healing... . I hope!

This is hard for me to write but for whoever is willing to read this, I truly thank you.

My uBPDex was a victim of rape according to her. She stated this all within perhaps a few weeks of meeting her, she told me this occured some years ago. I was taken back since I've never dealt with such a serious issue before. During the first few months, things were great and I didn't see any serious BPD rage. I even thought that perhaps she handles/deals with this quite well since she has had numerous boyfriends and years have passed, not to mention she's extremely sexual sometimes lacking boundaries. Over my 2 year long relationship, she has told me about her rape in such graphic detail that I had IBS, insomnia, and just horrible nightmares. I wasn't ready to hear such things that early in the relationship. She even said it without any anger or anything but with a sort of battlescar/ victim type of attitude.

I've let so much slide because of that. I felt pathetic. Whenever she would rage at me and devalue me as a person I excused it.  Little did I realize that that the so call victim is now an abuser. Every time I wanted to just RUN the hell away which was everyday, I just got mental pictures of her being raped since that's basically a weekly topic... . I couldn't do it, I couldn't be yet another horrible guy that hurts her. I never dealt with it in my life, I was naive. I couldn't just leave, she made me feel like I was carrying her happiness/ recovery on my shoulders and I hated it. I don't want and never intended on being a knight in shining armor, I just thought she could handle it emotionally at that point in time so I foolishly got involved.

After I broke up due to some real horrible thing she did/said, I felt as if I was betraying a person who was in a coma and I just pulled the plug.  I hated the pressure she put on me. I expressed it numerous times but to no avail. I hated how she devalued me and told me how much I've hurt her, more than any guy, more than the guy who raped her. Although, you could say I sacrifed my own mental health for her wellbeing".

Now, as horrible as this may sound, I see many flaws and things that just do not add up in her past stories, including the sexual abuse.  But it's not about her, it's about me. Had she not told me that and behaved that way, I would of left within a matter of weeks. It's completely unacceptable to do that. I always saw her abusers raging at me whenever she would be angry towards me, I didn't see HER as the only abusing me, I always saw her abusers  :'(  I guess what I would want to know if there is someone out on this forum who has gone through this, knows my pain, maybe even understands how hard it is/was to just get up and leave. Now? I have no problem telling someone that I cannot be with them because I have no professional experience in handling such issues. I don't accept any abusive behavior from anyone, I have respect and love for myself. It's just the severity of her issues that just caused me to falter.

[Iamdizzy]

I forgot to mention that I did not bring this up with any of my family members /friends out of respect for her. Every arguement we got into, I would be left alone, isolated and that's when her friends would come in and side with her. Make me feel as if her erratic behavior is OK and excusable while my behavior (a normal reaction to her craziness) is unacceptable and basically I just need to be more accepting of her and whatever she throws out. After a while, I guess you could say it's learned helplessness. I was isolated and then fed nonsense by her friends a double whammy. There was always a voice in my head "IT'S NOT RIGHT THIS ISN'T NORMAL! GET OUT" I always supressed it because of what happened to her.   I hope I can get over this self loathing. Taking it all in stride.

[123Phoebe]

Iamdizzy, what you've written pretty much lays out my entire relationship with my mother.

She didn't tell me she was raped, but from a very early age I've known of the abuse she suffered from her mother.  I was a little kid hearing this stuff.  And when I'd get upset with her about something, she'd either lay on the guilt of how much better I have it than she did, or she'd threaten to do to me what her mother did to her.  It was just craziness, looking back.  And it's gone on well into adulthood in various forms.

Like you, I excused her behavior.  I felt so bad for her.  I let a lot slide.  It has affected every single one of my romantic relationships.  I excused behavior.  I'd feel bad and a let a lot slide... .  I was a rescuer and didn't know any better until I did.

Try not to beat yourself up.  You cared.  I cared.  And that's not a bad thing at all.  We just need to learn how to take better care of ourselves now

[seeking balance]

You did the best you could with what you knew... . try to be gentle with yourself as you process your emotions.

It is very hard to realize our own good nature led to our own abuse... . there comes a time when we put someone else's worth above our own.  We all do it in BPD relationships until we become aware of the dynamic.

Many people have had trauma in their lives... . healthy people tell new people these things once a level of trust is established.  Blurred boundaries from us or them is common and it really does set in motion a dynamic that is too close too fast... . enmeshment occurs.

Be kind to yourself, and learn from it as phoebe says.

Peace,

SB

[willtimeheal]

Iamdizzy

I stayed with my ex BPD for over four years. Over the course of those years I watched  her put me on a pedestal and then take great joy in knocking me off. When we met there was a voice in my head that told me to stay away but she was just so beautiful and memorizing. I crossed lines and boundaries I never thought I would cross.

She was raised by alcoholic parents. Her father was  physically emotionally and verbally abusive. Her mom was and is a drug addict. Her entire  family basically drinks or does drugs. She was an alcoholic when I met her. She talked about her childhood and how tough it was and then how her ex cheated on her. In high school some boys attacked her. And when she was  going to get married again he left her at the alter. What a.horrible life.

I was sucked in by her struggle and her beauty. She persued me and didn't let up. In the beginning it was great. We laughed had fun and just enjoyed being together. But as the relationship progressed she got very possessive of me. She got angry if I spent time with friends and always accused me of cheating on her. Then the emotional and verbal abuse started. The name calling and put downs. I would have never tolerated that from anyone else but I felt guilty. I didn't want to be another person who walked away or who let her down. So I took the abuse and it cost me my self esteem and it isolated me from my friends and family.

After four plus years she walked away from me. I had no idea. She set up a whole new life for herself while I was taking care of my mum when she got sick. She contacted an old friend and within two weeks he moved in with her. I heard from her 11 days ago. She says she love  me and wants to be with me. It is so hard because I really love her and want her. I struggle with what to do every day. My therapist asks  me what drives me to her because I would never put  up with that behavior from anyone else. So that is what I am trying to figure out. why am I addicted to her?

I do understand your story. I stayed because I didnt want to walk away and cause more pain to the person I love but in the end this person almost  destroyed me. Everyday is a struggle for me to get through.

[DeRetour]

Iamdizzy,

Hey. Just letting you and others on this thread know, I too had dealt with a similar thing with my ex.

Within the first couple of weeks of dating, I learned about her parents - both 1st generation immigrants who were away from home a lot of the time - work and, later I learned, her dad drank a lot at nights. She described them as emotionally unavailable as well. I could see how much her mother passive-aggressively had control of how she felt. She hated when anyone was upset with her, but if it was her mother, she got incredibly anxious. Her father apparently had a violent temper and once got taken to jail when she was 12, for domestic violence. On top of this, he regularly said demeaning things like, "Oh... . you don't need to eat that! hahaha! (implying that she was fat and that ladies shouldn't eat too much).

Well, in addition, after a couple of months of dating, I had gotten the sense that she had had some kind of trauma. I don't know, there was just something I could sense. Sure enough, I was correct - she confided in me that she had been raped when she was a teenager, by someone she trusted.

I hope this isn't too offensive or too much info for anyone, but... .

sometimes when we had sex, especially in the beginning, I could hear just a bit of anger beneath her passion. As we got more intimate and progressed into a relationship, this sort of phased out. But, I have to say, it sometimes was a little weird. Let's see, how else did this show up? Well, generally speaking, she seemed to have a lot of distrust. None of my previous relationships had this kind of drama. It's as though things were revealed little by little, until it was too late. I have been asking myself the question too: what was it about her that made me feel as though she had me under a spell? I mean, I was head over heels in love. But that's another thread.

So yes, I'm familiar with this particular dynamic as well. Take care of yourself, okay?  

Edit: Sorry, something I wanted to add to this - she didn't bring up her rape but maybe a three times in our relationship. But... . she would often talk about how "crazy" or "messed up" she was. She'd talk about her self-esteem being low and how important it was for me to help her as her partner. So, of course, I wanted to do as much as I could to support her. And, she really had a way of pulling at my heart strings at times. I mean, I could see so much pain. Yet, I knew I didn't want this to be a defining thing in our relationship. So yes, there was definitely manipulation at times.

[Learning_curve74]

I guess what I would want to know if there is someone out on this forum who has gone through this, knows my pain, maybe even understands how hard it is/was to just get up and leave.

Yes. BPDex told me she was abused as a kid and raped. I believe it and believe she has probably been raped more than once. I also learned she had BPD and "guilted" myself into not wanting to be another person abandoning her. Unfortunately, people who are very caring and sympathetic are the ones who are most likely to get drawn into the web of a pwBPD. I was stupid and thought I could help save her when she is really the only one with the power to change her own life.

Look at the Karpman Triangle: www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fixing-families/201106/the-relationship-triangle

Basically the BPD starts out as the Victim, and we start as the Rescuer. Then one person may get angry and blowup therby becoming the Persecutor. The other person can shift into the Victim or Rescuer role in response. We can often move around and keep switching through the different roles in the Karpman Triangle. In the article, it's mentioned that a relationship is healthier when it involves two Adults that are on equal footing in power and responsibility for themselves -- rather than moving through the different roles involved in the Karpman Triangle, the Adult is outside the dynamic of the drama triangle.

Moving through the Karpman Triangle is a lot of drama and hurt. You realized it when you understood that your pwBPD became the Persecutor and you became the Victim.

[Trick1004]

Your not alone in your situation. The first night I met my ex she pretty much told me her whole background and it was ugly. Stories of abusive ex-boyfriends that she still was in contact with, a number of other men who she hung around with that were just lowlife's, tons of alcohol and drug abuse, two abortions (the most recent a few months before I met her), a psychotic episode a couple of years before, horrible relationship with her family (the first time I met her dad he called her a "wreaking ball in life" etc... .

The thing was I had rough past as well that I was eventually able to move on from. It took me several years to deal with all the crap my step-mom put me through and I'd had my own past of drug and alcohol problems. I guess the difference might have been I didn't want to destroy other people with my issues until I had come to accept them.

Initially, I never even saw the r/s progressing at all, but she lived next door to me, I was between jobs and we frankly had a great time getting drunk and sleeping together. Eventually though the love-bombing started from her and she told me she wanted to get better and quit going down her self-destructive path.

I gave her a lot of leeway, I figured I'd seen some ugly stuff in life before and had come out of it relatively unscathed. Maybe she just needed someone to help her along and show her what a loving r/s could be like. For awhile things were good, she repaired her r/s with her family, got back into school and finished her undergrad, and the rages against me were happening less and less frequently. I honestly felt she had turned a page and I thought all the crap I put up with was going to pay off long-term.

I couldn't have been more wrong. Her abuse just became more subtle because she saw on multiple occasions how ready I was to walk away from her blatant, obvious disrespectful behavior. Though it was more subtle it was no less damaging to me. It just made it easier for me to excuse since it wasn't as bad as the things she had done to me before and "hey things were getting better".

I kick myself everyday for not listening to those initial gut feelings I had about her. I invested and gave up 3 years (glad though it was only that much) of my life trying to make our r/s work. I am seeing now that being with her would have never made me happy, I would have just been more and more beat down the longer I stayed with her. Towards the end I think some kind of self-preservation mechanism kicked in for me. I was depressed and felt so emotionally drained that I started throwing up boundaries and pushing back against her. It must have surprised her and she walked out on me and r/s.

I think most of us here dealt with something similar, it is the way BPD operates. I don't get upset at myself about the r/s ending, but rather why I let it continue so long. At the very least I at least now know what the pattern is and am certainly going to avoid these people in the future. 

[Iamdizzy]

Thank you all truly.

As horrible as this may sound, and for a long time I couldn't even begin to entertain this idea as I thought I was betraying a person who "loved" me, but I seriously think that perhaps she may not have been raped or at least it's a diluted story. It's beyond my understanding how a person could tell  a stranger about rape, is quick to engage in sexual acts with men she barely knows, how they use this traumatic story to manipulate their partner, even when we had sex she never had an flashbacks or told me to stop. Lastly, she even got into detail on how her genitalia looked like after  :'(. I'm no expert but this is not normal behavior of someone who has been traumatized by rape. The quick sexual relationship, constant rape talk and it was never about how she could handle it or get better, it was just to talk about it. She spoke about it on thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, every week.

I feel pathetic at times for allowing this. At the same time, I don't know what to feel because who wouldn't let their behavior slide because of having too much compassion.

[Learning_curve74]

I feel pathetic at times for allowing this. At the same time, I don't know what to feel because who wouldn't let their behavior slide because of having too much compassion.

Oh man, I know exactly how you feel. However, I feel that my BPDex played the professional victim, even if all her stories were true. But it is up to her to choose to seek professional help to move toward healing.

Regardless of your ex's past and whether or not she was telling the truth or lying, isn't there a difference between being compassionate and being taken advantage of? I read somewhere else on the board that a therapist said that treating the former partners of pwBPD is similar to treating rape victims. Isn't that scary? 

[MaybeSo]

Actually,

Trauma can look like what is being described here and often does.

It can lead to extreme acting out of sexual behavior and dangerously poor boundaries.

It can lead to constant retelling with a very flat affect (unemotional).

It can lead to dissociative states and odd behavior.

PTSD can look a lot like BPD symptoms and a person can have both.

It cannot be fixed with love or romance.

Unfortunately, trauma can also lead to vicarious trauma for those closest to a trauma victim; professionals are aware of this and are trained to deal with it. The average person

wouldn't know this and might dive into help out of love or concern. It can really affect you.

This then means that sometimes we need to get help for ourselves to deal with the trauma

of having tried to help this very sick individual.

Izzy, if you aren't already, I would strongly recommend you try to see a therapist skilled with trauma or PTSD and share your story.

[Iamdizzy]

Maybeso learning_curve

I figured I have some sort of PTSD and its as similar as treating a rape victim. I knew once she started going into graphic detail about it, after telling her I'm not ready, *sigh* I knew things, I knew I wouldn't be te same for a while after hearing that. I couldn't stomach it it was so painful to hear/visualize that.

[Iamdizzy]

How did you guys cope?

[seeking balance]

How did you guys cope?

Therapy


MaybeSo mentioned seeing a T for you - have you checking into this yet?

[MaybeSo]

Keep in mind, people do heal from trauma.

In deed, we don't usually get through a walk on this earth without having some trauma, whether it's direct or vicarious, relationship trauma or event trauma, whether it's a single event or a chronic ongoing situation, whether it's in childhood or as an adult.

More and more is being learned about posttraumatic GROWTH which is the phenomena where dark night of the soul experiences we go through as humans,  actually promotes growth and a deeper compassion and awareness of suffering for ourselves and others, and that this experience can lend itself to a life that is actually more rich, more growthful and more fulfilling,  than what we may have been living before.

Be careful you don't scare yourself or re-traumatizing yourself even further over the idea of being traumatized or having PTSD.  As Victor Frankl writes, it's not that we suffer trauma,  but the meaning we make of it. That meaning (our story or the narrative we tell ourselves about what has happened and what it means)  is up to us.  

We are wired as human being to survive adversity, heartbreak, grief, loss, even horror.  We are wired to survive and even thrive, because these things are actually a part of life on this earth. It takes time and sometimes working with a professional who can help us to get better.  Sometimes working with a professional is best because... . a friend or loved-one doesn't really know how to 'hold' the story we have to tell.  

I saw a therapist almost the whole time I was with my ex; so, I had a 'safe container' to share what I was going through. Even so I did start to have some PTSD symtpoms during the worst of it, but everyone does have some PTSD symtpoms when they are traumatised, it only turns into PTSD as in the disorder... . if it we get stuck. Doing therapy helps keep us from getting stuck in the trauma. You don't want to stay there, you want to keep moving forward. When in hell... . keep walking!

[DeRetour]

MaybeSo,

When in hell... . keep walking!

Ah, yes! I like the simplicity of this. Good words to hear right now, thanks!

[Iamdizzy]

Maybe so, that was a beautiful post. I look forward to having post traumatic growth. It scares me to think I might be traumatized. It's just hard. Her rape because a part of my life, her past became my present and future.

I do feel positive that I can get better and after a while things will be better, I will be better

[Iamdizzy]

And no, I currently cannot afford a T. I have a great support group but no one truly knows what it was like, I don't want to get ahead of myself or live in denial but I think I'm strong enough to cope and recover from this.

[Trick1004]

Hell, I now question pretty much everything she told me about her past. I know some of it was true, but can't wrap my mind around why she would keep in contact with an abusive ex who supposedly locked her in a closet for two days.

A part of me wants to talk to her ex before me just to hear his side of the story, for all I know he could of been decent guy she was triangulating (read definition) with me by painting him black. I wouldn't be surprised if she was telling whoever she is with now how abusive and horrible I was to rope the next guy into her world.

Whatever, everyday it becomes clearer how sick her disorder is. At this point I feel less sorry for the r/s ending but more  angry at myself everyday for being in it for so long. I still love her, but even that is dissipating at this point.

I am taking the approach that I can only get stronger having gone through this. It's been about eleven weeks now since it ended. I haven't gone to a T yet but my job offers it as part of the benefit package and I'm going to take advantage of it.

[Xtrange]

Keep in mind, people do heal from trauma.


Be careful you don't scare yourself or re-traumatizing yourself even further over the idea of being traumatized or having PTSD.  As Victor Frankl writes, it's not that we suffer trauma,  but the meaning we make of it. That meaning (our story or the narrative we tell ourselves about what has happened and what it means)  is up to us.  

We are wired as human being to survive adversity, heartbreak, grief, loss, even horror.  We are wired to survive and even thrive, because these things are actually a part of life on this earth. It takes time and sometimes working with a professional who can help us to get better.  Sometimes working with a professional is best because... . a friend or loved-one doesn't really know how to 'hold' the story we have to tell.  

Thanks for that.

I guess some of us re-traumatize ourselves (by rumination). And when we are assessing the damages we think the worst.

[Iamdizzy]

Trick, I often think of the horrible stories she told me about her ex as 3 different versions.

1. It's BPD distorting reality and making an elephant out of a mouse.

2. She has probably made the other guy go crazy, perhaps he had the same thought process as us the " how could I leave her after all she has gone through" and for that, he lost or was close to loosing his mind.

3. She really did date a real huge douchebag because that's what she thought she deserved.

Whatever the case may be, that's her illness and distortion. I cannot help someone who does not want to be helped. I can't because simply put, if they're not willing to look at themselves and realize that they need help, how could I, who the hell am I to do that.

Most importantly, I really want to start thinking about why I thought to stay with her because of her abuse. Is that normal? Would a normal person do that? I know many men would say "oh dude I'd leave a crazy girl like that I don't care how pretty she is! Life's too short for that bs, but how many would truly leave?

[Moonie75]

I know many men would say "oh dude I'd leave a crazy girl like that I don't care how pretty she is! Life's too short for that bs, but how many would truly leave?

"Easier said than done" springs to mind!

[Iamdizzy]

Moonie- yes! Truly, when there is a beautiful woman with an amazing body and a good connection coupled with the sob stories, I believe even the most intellectual men would fall prey.