Am I the one with BPD?

[PhoenixRising15]

I'm so confused.

I've been raged at, kicked out, then begged not to leave, completely painted black, then white... . everything seems to fit for my ex

Then, the last letter she wrote me where she seemed to have "found the light"... . proclaimed she knew she had problems and needed time to work on them... .

On her social media profiles, she kept up this appearance, just her and girlfriends, having a good time.

But through my friend's account I found other pictures of her with men... . And I'm the one jumping to conclusions.  I'm the one raging and going crazy jealous (all to myself... . expressing nothing to her... . haven't spoken with her in a week).

In a moment of clarity, I blocked her phone number, so that I wouldn't be sitting wondering when she would call me in crisis.  It has given me a little solace, and at the same time, I'm terrified she'll call, find out she's blocked, and go on a rampage. 

Why do I care about what she does?  Why am I freaking out about this person, when I know in my heart they DID NOT CARE ABOUT ME!

I see from the very beginning, all the mirroring.  I was the emotional caretaker from day 1.  My needs were never a priority.  Yet somehow I take solace in the fact that she is going to at least some small length to not put pictures up that would directly drive me away.  Rather, I'm almost glad she's being sneaky about it?  Like she cares about me somehow, if she would do that... . She's said before that she's always worried about driving me away and that's why she's lied... . even when she's done things wrong.

I feel like I'm going crazy.  Like I should see those pictures and be like... . sneaky little witch, I've caught you again, and I'm done for good.  That's how I felt when I blocked her.  And yet now, I somehow feel as if she still might care for me.  Might not have done any of the things in my head that I've made up.  But I know her well enough to know that she's impulsive and would sleep with a man to seek validation.  Why wouldn't she?

WHY DO I FEEL SO CRAZY?  WHY CAN I NOT JUST LET HER GO?

I've managed to look back and see her as both good and bad.  See her two-faced (or multi-faced) nature.  She's a true chameleon.  She is whatever her friends want her to be, whatever her mom wants her to be, whatever I want her to be, but only in front of that person.  She switches constantly.  I know I can't trust her.  But I WANT to.  I want to practice radical acceptance and say ok, she's sick, she can't help it.  It's just sex.  It's driven by low self esteem and need for validation and her behaviors are all about shielding her shattered almost non-existent sense of self.  And yet somehow I hate myself for this.  I know I deserve better than radically accepting things that are so hurtful to me. 

I know this is all about me.  I know when I was going through my own turmoil, I wanted to be radically accepted.  I wanted to have the person I am being TO her.  I want to be the person I needed at those times.  The problem with this crazy way of thinking is that I ended up okay, because I sought help, when enough people left me and relationships went south, when my life went all to hell and I couldn't tolerate it anymore. 

I fantasize that this is what she will do, that this is what she wants, but nothing points to this, despite her claims of knowing she has a problem and knowing she wants to seek help and be better.

A week away from me, and by all accounts, she's right back to her crazy self.

I'm exasperated.  I'm exhausted.  I'm terrified of giving in.  I'm terrified of not giving in.  I've lost faith in people in general.  I don't trust anything anyone says.  It's like I'm back to day 1 of recovering from my own childhood trauma, where everything is a danger, and I have no idea what is right, wrong, up, or down.

Do I have BPD?  Do their traits really leach out onto us if we stick around too long? 

[purpleavocado]

I can relate, as I've had the same thoughts. A close friend who knew the situation kept assuring me that I don't have some kind of disorder, it just feels that way from dealing with the craziness at such close range for an extended period of time.

Trust me, anyone going though this feels crazy at one point or another. Doesn't mean you have a clinically diagnosable disorder. But if you feel out of control or hysterical, please do seek help! Now is the time to care for you and put your needs first, and you deserve it.

[Octoberfest]

Then, the last letter she wrote me where she seemed to have "found the light"... . proclaimed she knew she had problems and needed time to work on them... . 

My BPDex, after our final breakup (meaning the last time I caught her cheating on me, because she did so throughout the entire 9 months we dated with multiple people), told me a month later that she "had been in a bad place" while she was dating me, but she was better now and had figured it out.  Found out yesterday she has been again, for the past several months since we split, dating 2 guys at once.  They don't just "find the light".  It takes YEARS of intensive therapy and rewiring of HOW THEY SEE THE WORLD.  Think about that... .

But through my friend's account I found other pictures of her with men... .  And I'm the one jumping to conclusions.  I'm the one raging and going crazy jealous

Why do I care about what she does?  Why am I freaking out about this person, when I know in my heart they DID NOT CARE ABOUT ME!

She did care about you.  Just not in the way you think. My BPDex used to tell me ALL the time how much she loved me, how much I meant to her, how I could never understand how much she loved me.  The truth is she felt all those things about the way I could make her feel.  She felt that way about the feelings of warmth, and love, and being wanted that I provided her. In the case of my BPDex, she isn't far enough along the emotional development line for it to matter WHO is that figure, who is providing those feelings, just so long as they are being provided.  It explains her interesting choice in partners (drug dealers, loser greaseballs, etc).  When you were providing those things to her, she did love you.  But as soon as you set your foot down, or drew a line, you were no longer providing what she needed.

  Yet somehow I take solace in the fact that she is going to at least some small length to not put pictures up that would directly drive me away.  Rather, I'm almost glad she's being sneaky about it?  Like she cares about me somehow, if she would do that... . She's said before that she's always worried about driving me away and that's why she's lied... . even when she's done things wrong.

Sorry, but I think you may be fooling yourself here.  Mine did the exact same thing.  The truth is not that they hide these things because they "care" about you.  They hide them because they don't want their worlds to collide.  It must be EXHAUSTING for my BPDex.  She lives double, and even at one point, triple lives, dating different men. Who knows what, who sees her where, who she tells one thing but not another, it is A LOT to keep up with.  Not a way I would want to live for sure.  They hide those things because they have to... .if they didn't people would see, people talk, and you would catch wind of it.  It has nothing to do with protecting your feelings.  It has to do with the reality that if she got found out, you would leave (at least, in theory. I certainly didn't for the longest time, and this EXACT scenario played out SEVERAL times).

I should see those pictures and be like... . sneaky little witch, I've caught you again, and I'm done for good.  That's how I felt when I blocked her.  And yet now, I somehow feel as if she still might care for me.  Might not have done any of the things in my head that I've made up. 

WHY DO I FEEL SO CRAZY?  WHY CAN I NOT JUST LET HER GO?



I've managed to look back and see her as both good and bad.  See her two-faced (or multi-faced) nature.  She's a true chameleon. She is whatever her friends want her to be, whatever her mom wants her to be, whatever I want her to be, but only in front of that person.  She switches constantly.  I know I can't trust her.  But I WANT to. I want to practice radical acceptance and say ok, she's sick, she can't help it.  It's just sex.  It's driven by low self esteem and need for validation and her behaviors are all about shielding her shattered almost non-existent sense of self.  And yet somehow I hate myself for this.  I know I deserve better than radically accepting things that are so hurtful to me. 

There is a prevailing theme in this... .It isn't that you see the "good" in her, and that is what is keeping you stuck. Trust me, I said the exact same thing for the longest time.  It is how I justified to everyone (who were all shaking their heads incredulously that I was staying after each blow) being in that relationship.  I think closer to reality is that we stay because if we left, we would be giving up on our vision of our BPDex's.  It is absolutely true that I wanted my BPDex to be someone that she wasn't.  I have ALWAYS wanted a connection with someone, I had never dated before, so when my BPDex came into my life I snatched her up and hung on for dear life.  In an interesting way, that relationship had little to do with who my BPDex and I were as people in each others eyes.  As I have discussed, she loved me and dated me for how I could make her feel.  Well, as hard as it may be to admit, I loved her and dated her because she filled a role that I had always wanted filled, nevermind how UTTERLY unqualified she was to fill it.  It is bizarre... .I preach and practice loyalty, honor, and integrity.  You can ask my friends, they are sick of hearing about it.  Yet I dated someone for 9 months who had NONE of those things... .The person I made chiefly responsible for my happiness, the person who my life revolved around, had NONE of the values that I cherished so. I even knew a month into dating my BPDex that "this is not someone I want to end up with or marry".  So why did I stay for another 8, through all of the cheating, and hurt, and lies, and abuse?  THAT is the question, and each of us here have a similar one to ask ourselves.  The answer lies within ourselves.  Our BPDex's filled a need or want in our own lives, and by discovering what that need or want is, we can better avoid falling into the same trap.

I also had to practice radical acceptance. It is almost a necessity when involved with someone with BPD. The things that I rationalized, minimalized, and was in denial over that she did... .it is unbelievable. I should have been gone at week 2, but I just had to venture deeper into the rabbit hole. 

pwBPD are incredibly alluring... .almost like sirens.  However, just like sirens, the sweet song masks a much uglier side underneath.  You don't miss or want your BPDex back.  You want the idealized version of her in your head back.  But she never existed in the first place.

[PhoenixRising15]

Thank you.

Thank you both for replying.

I didn't realize how isolated I had become.  Today I went out to a big football game, and I was interacting with people, and I saw real people, normal people interacting.  I saw just how easily she could see what I wanted and tell me exactly what I needed to hear to keep me around.

It's funny that you mention loving how I made her feel.  She actually said that exact thing to me.  She said you make me feel loved in a way that I've never felt before.  I was proud of that.  Proud to be able to love her through all the bullS__T and I told her so.  I said, I see the real you.  I know you're better than this. And I loved her anyway.

The answer was always within me though.  She never was any of that.  She put up a front because it got her more of the kind of love she liked from me. That which she never got from her parents, her father, any of her exes (or so she told me, but god knows thats probably a lie too).

I finally gave up today.  I took the last letter she wrote, the envelope it came in, the box, the book, and the journal she gave me so we could write each other when we werent together and exchange them in 6 months.

I threw it all in the trash.

I was holding on to her words.  Every one of them.  And not watching her actions.

I was so afraid that if I threw those things away and she did come back she'd be even more dysregulated than before and I'd lose her all over again.  And yet just by keeping them here they were haunting me.  HAUNTING ME.

Just throwing them out I feel better.  I can let go of the vision of what my hope of all hopes is.

I can just get to loving me, taking care of myself, getting what I need, because she was never ever going to give it to me.

I think I read somewhere here that it starts getting better when you want it to.  I understand it now.  It's a decision I made that I deserve better than a letter and a few empty promises.

It's sad.  Sad to think I let myself get so beat down that I believed anything she said and held on to that hope, rather than taking what things were at face value.  I was so good at that before, and I intend to work every day to get back there.

[Learning_curve74]

I was holding on to her words.  Every one of them.  And not watching her actions.

I was so afraid that if I threw those things away and she did come back she'd be even more dysregulated than before and I'd lose her all over again.  And yet just by keeping them here they were haunting me.  HAUNTING ME.

Just throwing them out I feel better.  I can let go of the vision of what my hope of all hopes is.

I can just get to loving me, taking care of myself, getting what I need, because she was never ever going to give it to me.

I think I read somewhere here that it starts getting better when you want it to.  I understand it now.  It's a decision I made that I deserve better than a letter and a few empty promises.

It's sad.  Sad to think I let myself get so beat down that I believed anything she said and held on to that hope, rather than taking what things were at face value.  I was so good at that before, and I intend to work every day to get back there.

QuestioningFaith, I believe you did a brave thing. 

Please remember that hope is still important. We have to decide if we're hoping for the right thing: do we hang onto the small, tiny and false hope that somebody else has the power to make us happy and fulfilled or do we choose to believe in the hope that things will get better after we let go of that somebody else?

I do believe in radical acceptance. Not the common definition of acceptance that implies approval, but acceptance similar to the one practiced in Buddhism: Acceptance is clearly seeing and acknowledging what is now, exactly what and where you are in this exact moment. When you do this without attaching value or judgement, you can see much more clearly. You see it is what it is, but without attaching approval or disapproval. Then when you truly see your situation clearly, you can then make whatever decisions you want to make with a clear mind. To me, radical acceptance is actually more for us than for the pwBPD or others.

I fell in love with a pwBPD who said certain things and did certain things; I said certain things and did certain things. That is who she is, and I am who I am. If I see these things without the filters of hate, anger, fear, shame, disappointment, longing, or hope, now I can make clear choices about what I will do instead of reacting in pain from suffering.

Maybe this only works or makes sense for me.    Best wishes to you.

[Ironmanrises]

I'm so confused.

I've been raged at, kicked out, then begged not to leave, completely painted black, then white... . everything seems to fit for my ex

Then, the last letter she wrote me where she seemed to have "found the light"... . proclaimed she knew she had problems and needed time to work on them... . 

On her social media profiles, she kept up this appearance, just her and girlfriends, having a good time.

But through my friend's account I found other pictures of her with men... . And I'm the one jumping to conclusions.  I'm the one raging and going crazy jealous (all to myself... . expressing nothing to her... . haven't spoken with her in a week).

In a moment of clarity, I blocked her phone number, so that I wouldn't be sitting wondering when she would call me in crisis.  It has given me a little solace, and at the same time, I'm terrified she'll call, find out she's blocked, and go on a rampage. 

Why do I care about what she does?  Why am I freaking out about this person, when I know in my heart they DID NOT CARE ABOUT ME!

I see from the very beginning, all the mirroring.  I was the emotional caretaker from day 1.  My needs were never a priority.  Yet somehow I take solace in the fact that she is going to at least some small length to not put pictures up that would directly drive me away.  Rather, I'm almost glad she's being sneaky about it?  Like she cares about me somehow, if she would do that... . She's said before that she's always worried about driving me away and that's why she's lied... . even when she's done things wrong.

I feel like I'm going crazy.  Like I should see those pictures and be like... . sneaky little witch, I've caught you again, and I'm done for good.  That's how I felt when I blocked her.  And yet now, I somehow feel as if she still might care for me.  Might not have done any of the things in my head that I've made up.  But I know her well enough to know that she's impulsive and would sleep with a man to seek validation.  Why wouldn't she?

WHY DO I FEEL SO CRAZY?  WHY CAN I NOT JUST LET HER GO?

I've managed to look back and see her as both good and bad.  See her two-faced (or multi-faced) nature.  She's a true chameleon.  She is whatever her friends want her to be, whatever her mom wants her to be, whatever I want her to be, but only in front of that person.  She switches constantly.  I know I can't trust her.  But I WANT to.  I want to practice radical acceptance and say ok, she's sick, she can't help it.  It's just sex.  It's driven by low self esteem and need for validation and her behaviors are all about shielding her shattered almost non-existent sense of self.  And yet somehow I hate myself for this.  I know I deserve better than radically accepting things that are so hurtful to me. 

I know this is all about me.  I know when I was going through my own turmoil, I wanted to be radically accepted.  I wanted to have the person I am being TO her.  I want to be the person I needed at those times.  The problem with this crazy way of thinking is that I ended up okay, because I sought help, when enough people left me and relationships went south, when my life went all to hell and I couldn't tolerate it anymore. 

I fantasize that this is what she will do, that this is what she wants, but nothing points to this, despite her claims of knowing she has a problem and knowing she wants to seek help and be better.

A week away from me, and by all accounts, she's right back to her crazy self.

I'm exasperated.  I'm exhausted.  I'm terrified of giving in.  I'm terrified of not giving in.  I've lost faith in people in general.  I don't trust anything anyone says.  It's like I'm back to day 1 of recovering from my own childhood trauma, where everything is a danger, and I have no idea what is right, wrong, up, or down.

Do I have BPD?  Do their traits really leach out onto us if we stick around too long? 

You do not have BPD.

Why?

You are posting here.

In bold.

My exUBPDgf at the end of round 2 of relationship also claimed to have "found the light"... .

She started reading a self help book.

And telling the entire internet world populated by her enabling family and so called friends... .

That she was in "personal development."

They all applauded her.

Told her how wonderful she is for doing that.

All in the while... .

She was treating me... .

The one who really knew her... .

Like absolute garbage.

Yet to everyone else... .She was "wonderful."

I watched all of this.

I broke down in tears as my mind overloaded trying to understand the complete contradiction i was witnessing.

Yes. I knew she had the disorder.

But watching all of that... .and realizing... .

It was only me who knew.

No one else.

I was alone... .surrounded by enemies.

I witnessed the "two faced" nature you refer to... .

When she morphed into that other side... .

There really was no interacting with that side of her.

It was like trying to talk with a complete stranger that you are supposed to know intimately... .

That hates you... .

Loathes you... .

Is disgusted with you... .

And only you.

And not long before that... .

Was the complete reversal.

There are times i try and shut out that image of her... .

Of that other side... .

It was so awful.

[Emelie Emelie]

There are times when I think I have some BPD traits as well.  But I think the only one I really share is fear of abandonment.  Since he's "dumped" me I have had some tough feelings to deal with.  There are times I literally feel crazy with the grief and the desire to reconnect with him.  The only thing that's saved me is that I know that I cannot continue a relationship with this man.  Doesn't mean I don't love him and miss him and feel nuts about it sometimes.  But it's what's prevented me from walking back through the teensy cracks he has opened.  The ironic part is he seems to have a sixth sense about when I feeling stronger and starting to detach and then he reaches out.  As much as I cannot deal with the thought of him with someone else a part of me wishes for it so he'll leave me alone.

[PhoenixRising15]

Emelie,

I have read your other posts.  Hold on to that part of you that wishes he finds another.

It KILLS me to think of my ex with another man.  KILLS ME.  But I had to deal with it.  She did it to me when we were trying to work things out.  Now she is trying to hide it from me, after she promised not to, promised she needed some time to herself.

Check my other recent post. 

Just like you, I didn't reply and suddenly she is trying to worm her way back in.

The thing I have to keep reminding myself is that's not about me, she doesn't care about me.  She cares about how I MAKE HER FEEL.

If she isn't getting that from me, she begins to feel very very scared.  Because we, who have gained intimacy with them, are now gaining the strength to see them for their real self and walk away.

Please, I beg of you.  Feel that strength in yourself.  Trust your gut again.  Look back to the other times when he has tried to worm his way back in.  Ask yourself if those times were ever about you or your well being.

And just keep coming back and posting.

[twester65]

There are times when I think I have some BPD traits as well.  But I think the only one I really share is fear of abandonment.  Since he's "dumped" me I have had some tough feelings to deal with.  There are times I literally feel crazy with the grief and the desire to reconnect with him.  The only thing that's saved me is that I know that I cannot continue a relationship with this man.  Doesn't mean I don't love him and miss him and feel nuts about it sometimes.  But it's what's prevented me from walking back through the teensy cracks he has opened.  The ironic part is he seems to have a sixth sense about when I feeling stronger and starting to detach and then he reaches out.  As much as I cannot deal with the thought of him with someone else a part of me wishes for it so he'll leave me alone.

Thanks, Emelie. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's felt there was some sixth sense going on. His reappearances were so uncannily timed that I began to suspect that my apartment, computers and Internet connection were bugged. They may have been (he's a capable hacker); but probably weren't (I'm equally capable at IT security). But I actually developed a bit of paranoia.

I've also wondered if I was the sick one. I think I probably was (maybe am), but I don't have BPD. Thanks for raising the question, QuestioningFaith, and to everyone who replied. It served as a good reminder for me that, in spite of my issues and maladaptive behaviors, I am actually a fairly well-developed person, emotionally speaking.