Yes, I belong here. And need help. BPD relationship over - still confused

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Hi,

I've posted here on a different boards, and got some really good advice. I read the FAQ on the different boards and going to post here. I ended a BPD relationship (fiance, basically common-law for a year). It was long coming and took awhile.

We are no communication/clean-break. It was actually quite recent. But again, I read what this board is about and this is about me. Make sense of me. But of course that has to a lot with moving on from that relationship and I do question it. So, I start referencing to much about her behaviors, or actual events or things I can't change, then guide me back on track.

Currently, I'm very confused emotionally. This weekend I started cleaning house. Literally and figuratively. It seems weird to basically just erase someone out of your life, but that is what I need to do right now. Basically I feel like I'm on the verge of an existential crisis: questioning the very foundations of my life, however, not whether my life has any meaning, purpose or value.

Hmm, movies I've thought of recently: Blade Runner, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Manchurian Candidate, Total Recall.

I've been caught up in someone's pathology slowly at first then very quickly since we met just after my Birthday in 2012. Knowing what I now know makes me question everything. I mean it was real because I felt and did those things. But I realize that in some sense I was living a lie or living a fantasy. It makes me question my own mental fitness. I grew so much with all the positive affirmations, and was also damaged by all the hurtful things and craziness. The roller coaster ride.

I've read the link on Ending/Moving on from a BPD relationship and it is helpful. I see a therapist every 2 weeks to talk. I've told and talked about it to some key people: my mom, two of my brothers, an old-ex girlfriend, a co-worker who is a physician. I don't know what to say to my 9-year-old son, who was involved in this too. I will keep it simple but I can't say anymore after her absence last week, that she is just busy at her work (office a.k.a other residence from first attempt at me leaving - set up June 2014).

I also made contact with someone I almost dated instead back then. I told her some things and I actually got very positive feedback. And I know it is too soon but we had a thing and it was sabotaged, quite literally by BPD and my reaction to it. In fact almost drove the relationship with the BPD person into being. Too soon? right? But I just want to get on with my GD life! I'm 48, single with a son 1/2 time and lonely. I really just want to live a normal happy life with regular happy people and I don't feel I can wait on it for a few years.

I'm really trying to take all the positives and move on. I feel urgent about this. I don't feel I should wait or ruminate on things too much. But it is very hard not to question many things right now. Occasionally, I feel on the edge of breaking down and yet many aspects of my life have never been better.

I had so much to write but now I'm at a loss.

Suffice it to say I'm really having problems with the fact that I don't know what was real and not part of the BPD-process in the last two years. Maybe I don't need to know but I need strategies for figuring out the day-to-day know and maintaining a grip on my own self-image. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself, but it makes me question my actions (now and then) and my thought processes. Really, my sense of self is itself shakey.

Thanks,

wayfarer

[wayfarer]

Hi,

I've posted here on a different boards, and got some really good advice. I read the FAQ on the different boards and going to post here. I ended a BPD relationship (fiance, basically common-law for a year). It was long coming and took awhile.

We are no communication/clean-break. It was actually quite recent. But again, I read what this board is about and this is about me. Make sense of me. But of course that has to a lot with moving on from that relationship and I do question it. So, I start referencing to much about her behaviors, or actual events or things I can't change, then guide me back on track.

Currently, I'm very confused emotionally. This weekend I started cleaning house. Literally and figuratively. It seems weird to basically just erase someone out of your life, but that is what I need to do right now. Basically I feel like I'm on the verge of an existential crisis: questioning the very foundations of my life, however, not whether my life has any meaning, purpose or value.

Hmm, movies I've thought of recently: Blade Runner, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Manchurian Candidate, Total Recall.

I've been caught up in someone's pathology slowly at first then very quickly since we met just after my Birthday in 2012. Knowing what I now know makes me question everything. I mean it was real because I felt and did those things. But I realize that in some sense I was living a lie or living a fantasy. It makes me question my own mental fitness. I grew so much with all the positive affirmations, and was also damaged by all the hurtful things and craziness. The roller coaster ride.

I've read the link on Ending/Moving on from a BPD relationship and it is helpful. I see a therapist every 2 weeks to talk. I've told and talked about it to some key people: my mom, two of my brothers, an old-ex girlfriend, a co-worker who is a physician. I don't know what to say to my 9-year-old son, who was involved in this too. I will keep it simple but I can't say anymore after her absence last week, that she is just busy at her work (office a.k.a other residence from first attempt at me leaving - set up June 2014).

I also made contact with someone I almost dated instead back then. I told her some things and I actually got very positive feedback. And I know it is too soon but we had a thing and it was sabotaged, quite literally by BPD and my reaction to it. In fact almost drove the relationship with the BPD person into being. Too soon? right? But I just want to get on with my GD life! I'm 48, single with a son 1/2 time and lonely. I really just want to live a normal happy life with regular happy people and I don't feel I can wait on it for a few years.

I'm really trying to take all the positives and move on. I feel urgent about this. I don't feel I should wait or ruminate on things too much. But it is very hard not to question many things right now. Occasionally, I feel on the edge of breaking down and yet many aspects of my life have never been better.

I had so much to write but now I'm at a loss.

Suffice it to say I'm really having problems with the fact that I don't know what was real and not part of the BPD-process in the last two years. Maybe I don't need to know but I need strategies for figuring out the day-to-day know and maintaining a grip on my own self-image. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself, but it makes me question my actions (now and then) and my thought processes. Really, my sense of self is itself shakey.

Thanks,

wayfarer

[Pingo]

Wayfarer, I think what you are experiencing is very typical. These r/ss bring to light so much that we have to deal with.  We wonder who the heck we are now after this experience.  I can relate to wanting to make sense of the disorder.  At some point you will probably realise that it doesn't change anything, making sense of it.  In the end you are left with yourself and your own issues.  My T always tells me you cannot rush healing.  There is no fast forward button.  She says this bc, like you, I feel an urgency. I'm also mid 40's with a s10 I have shared custody of from previous r/s (and a d20).  I also don't know how to help him through this experience, he is grieving and having a hard time with it.  I think it's great you came on this board and want to move beyond the ruminating about the ex and her problems.  I seem to cycle back and forth.  I do good for a while, really focused on myself and my healing and then I go through times when I am angry and just want to rant and rave about the injustice of it all.  I think this is also typical but frustrating.

[H Hi]

Hi

Good on you for writing such a brave post. You have summed it up so well. How can we know what was real and what they meant? They made us feel worshipped and unique, and then they treated us like dirt.

You are right, many questions will never be answered. This is so hard and it will of course make us doubt ourselves and who we are.

Remember that you are strong and that you got out. That is something to be so proud of and draw strength and hope from. You decided not to settle for abuse and hurt. You will heal, be kind to yourself, don't rush, and reach out.

Take care and stay positive

[Sluggo]

Wayfarer,

right on with the sense of loneliness.  I would imagine there was loneliness when you were in the relationship at least that is how I experience it currently.  I find that it is my own codependency that leads to a heightened sense of that loneliness where my life doesn't make sense without the enmeshment of my BPDw and trying to live out her wishes and manage her feelings.  The times I really work on my codep issues is when that lonliness wains.  But it seems like it gets worse before it has gotten better. 

We are all at different stages and it seems you have taken some big steps forward.  Further than I have attempted to this point.  As you have heard before, there are many listening ears here on the board that feel what you are feeling or have experienced it already. 



   

[wayfarer]

Thanks for the messages and advice... .support.

I think I am doing better overall. Relationship with my son has never been better, better even than the first time I ended (but then sort of tried again of course)>

I don't like that I still jumped at a unexpected buzzer call or a letter through the door slot when I was watching a movie with my son.

I did get one email that I read asking for friendship. I was sympathetic but of course don't think it is healthy, possible, or good for either. emails go straight into trash/archive/marked. I only knew about it because I got a (what I assume to be frantic) text about how her seeing a reply about my account not being available. I will block the number on my smart phone next time that happens.

I just delete the txt but saw the 'headline'.

I did read the email before erasing it. Like I said I was sympathetic in a way. I realize it was all about her though. Not even a 'how are you doing?'

I would like to make possible final contact like a coffee in the new year.

I could see being long distance friends in the future. i.e. when she graduates from her PhD and moves back home to the USA.

Nothing else is productive/possible given our history and the damage.

Still, I have the issues of sometimes feeling guilty about it all. I do believe that she is going to therapy now, maybe once a week like she says. But it is a long process. I wish her well. I'm wish she didn't have such a f'd up childhood, etc.

But I can't change these things.

Wondering, and I know I haven't been very detailed. If even meeting her is a good idea? hmmm

And thoughts? Brief examples?

maybe I can relate a specific example to my own and maybe then I shouldn't open that can o' worms. I assume she has assumed I have totally abandoned her already, heart and mind. And maybe that SHOULD be my goal.

Don't know. But I've moved on. Even casually dating a totally new friend. ;?

Not so intense. gentle. No big expectations on either end. Normal. Maybe nothing. But I want anything new to progress normally, serious or not. Not like the last two years. Not like my marriage, which seems a little, at least, almost NPD-codependency. Just meet. Learn. Grow. then if more naturally and normally fall into something.

No big dramas all the time. Gentle. Normal. Safe.

Ta!

-Wayfarer.

Will check back in a while to read responses.

Thanks so much!

[ucmeicu2]

Suffice it to say I'm really having problems with the fact that I don't know what was real and not part of the BPD-process in the last two years. Maybe I don't need to know but I need strategies for figuring out the day-to-day know and maintaining a grip on my own self-image. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself, but it makes me question my actions (now and then) and my thought processes. Really, my sense of self is itself shakey.

wayfarer it was all real.  and it was also all part of the BPD-process.  that is the dichotomy that people with BPD cannot see, we can.  they live in a black and white world,  all good or all bad, we do not. 

your feelings were real!  you loved with all your might! 

she mirrored you, the best of you, and so in a way you fell in love with you. 

her feelings were real too... .bits and pieces, fragmented things, strung together moment-to-moment.  the problem with their "real" feelings is that they're not substantiative.  they are transitory.  like a willow in the wind.  it's not a healthy, mature love that they can give.

so, my best advice, keep looking within... .  accept that it was what it was... .it had it's limitations.  it was not healthy.  it was not sustainable.  and move on.

PS i do not recommend any contact nor do i r4commend trying to stay friends.  thats just a way for her to keep you around for narcissistic supply, and for charming, and for tormenting you when she gets bored.  you will NEVER EVER EVER get out of her what you are seeking in a intimate love relationship.  let this one go.

icu

[wayfarer]

I think I have, although I know I still need to work ... .

Thanks BPD family!