Generic Sadness

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

Hey guys. Today is day 50 of contact with my uBPDexgf.

Today I feel a general sadness that I can not shake. I am trying very hard to do so, but I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle against it. I know that I feel sad, and I'm not trying to deny my feelings, so I'm just letting it happen, not fighting it. I can not contain all the memories of the good times I had with my ex right now. Knowing that I can not have those back... .at least not for a long time (if she ever decides to reach out to me again, which her calling campus police just to tell me to leave her the hell alone makes it clear she wants nothing to do with me), and that it's completely out of my control... .that's really starting to wear on me. It hasn't been a particularly bad day or anything. I went out to dinner with a friend of mine tonight. So I don't want to over-exaggerate the situation for anyone reading this. I'm alright, and I'm doing better. Just sad.

How did you guys feel around your 50 day mark of no contact? I'm trying to ascertain if I'm on the right track or not by seeing how others were doing around day 50.

Do y'all ever have days where you just can not seem to shake the memories? Days you can not shake the sadness?

Thanks


Reece

[Reecer1588]

Hey guys. Today is day 50 of contact with my uBPDexgf.

Today I feel a general sadness that I can not shake. I am trying very hard to do so, but I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle against it. I know that I feel sad, and I'm not trying to deny my feelings, so I'm just letting it happen, not fighting it. I can not contain all the memories of the good times I had with my ex right now. Knowing that I can not have those back... .at least not for a long time (if she ever decides to reach out to me again, which her calling campus police just to tell me to leave her the hell alone makes it clear she wants nothing to do with me), and that it's completely out of my control... .that's really starting to wear on me. It hasn't been a particularly bad day or anything. I went out to dinner with a friend of mine tonight. So I don't want to over-exaggerate the situation for anyone reading this. I'm alright, and I'm doing better. Just sad.

How did you guys feel around your 50 day mark of no contact? I'm trying to ascertain if I'm on the right track or not by seeing how others were doing around day 50.

Do y'all ever have days where you just can not seem to shake the memories? Days you can not shake the sadness?

Thanks


Reece

[sun seeker]

 Reece

I feel you bud. I do have days of sadness. The generic part doesnt register with me.

It seems for me anyway that the days of sadness now are a build up , and when my cup runnith over it floods my mind.  But it gets less and less. It truly does. If you do the work.

I chose not to count days of n/c. Not healthy for me.

If are truly n/c sounds like you are, and you are doing the work .then you are on track. Ive seen another thread by you about healing time.  The number of days are not relivant here. We all heal as fast as we are supposed to . Try not to focus on how long. I used to do this and it was doing me no good.

I totally understand that you would like to know if you are healing properly.  Bro you are doing excellent.  Just keep up the good work and the positive vibes . You are right where you are supposed to be with your healing. We are proud of you bud. Hang in there.

[JPH]

I think you're doing great. I definitely had sad days when I was where you are right now. I was still trying to wrap my head around BPD and was trying to absorb as much information as I could to understand what I'd experienced. One of the hardest things was accepting and understanding that the good times (and there were some) were so overshadowed by the bad times (the raging, jealousy, demands of my time, energy, etc.) that it hardly justified the abuse I endured. I wanted to hang onto the good memories and the good things about her, and for so long I ignored or justified the bad at a tremendous cost to my identity, self-esteem and health.

It's a process, and it's neither easy nor quick. Don't be too hard on yourself. There will be more days like this one ahead for you, but I promise they will be fewer in number until they are no more.

[Reecer1588]

I think you're doing great. I definitely had sad days when I was where you are right now. I was still trying to wrap my head around BPD and was trying to absorb as much information as I could to understand what I'd experienced. One of the hardest things was accepting and understanding that the good times (and there were some) were so overshadowed by the bad times (the raging, jealousy, demands of my time, energy, etc.) that it hardly justified the abuse I endured. I wanted to hang onto the good memories and the good things about her, and for so long I ignored or justified the bad at a tremendous cost to my identity, self-esteem and health.

It's a process, and it's neither easy nor quick. Don't be too hard on yourself. There will be more days like this one ahead for you, but I promise they will be fewer in number until they are no more.

The hard part about it, JPH is this. Notice I type "uBPD", that's because there's no diagnosis. And I'm not one who could ever make one. I registered for this site so sure that everything I was reading lined up with me. Now-a-days some does, some doesn't.

All I know is this: Other than my brother, who joined a religious cult; I have never witnessed someone like her just completely lose her mind. I mean literally, within the course of two months or so, it was like she was losing her mind. Some of the emotional/verbal abuse had always been there, but it was never anything I couldn't handle. All of the sudden it was every night. It was every day. It was nearly all of her text messages. I just couldn't comprehend how someone could so quickly go from loving you to erasing you from their lives. It is this fact I can not cope with yet. She went from being one of the sweetest, sexiest, most compassionate girls I had ever known to a complete stranger. I went from being her whole life to her nothing. And she told me as much " I'm glad I made the decision to eliminate you from my life" All of the sudden she and her crazy mother becomes so ohhhhh concerned about me killing myself! Oh yeah, she really cared if I was dead or not. Uh huh. Right.

Just Completely ignorant of the fact she was the cause of my misery!  

I mean JPH literally it was like witnessing her losing her mind. I just don't know how else to describe it. It was like (not overnight) she turned into this cold, aloof stranger who acted like she'd never met me. I just can not wrap my head around that. I mean did I screw up? Of course. But I've never seen someone take my screw ups and so viciously use them against me before in my life. It was like everything I did was just pissing her off.

And she always just sneaked it in there too.

I begged her over and over again "just tell me what's wrong when I'm doing it so I can fix it!"

But over, and over, and over again she just kept sneaking it in there. Nothing I could do was ever right. Nothing I could do could ever make her happy anymore. Every last little thing just bothered the hell out of her. And I was just completely powerless to stop it.

She kept passive aggressively making me feel like a screw up every single time she came around me until finally I snapped at her.

And I did guys. I snapped at her hard. I've never felt my blood pressure boil like that last time I saw her.

She just kept doing it. All I ever asked her to do was "Please don't make me feel like a screw up" and she just kept doing it. Over, and over and over again subtly and passively until I became the bad guy and kicked her ass out of my house. She just kept sneaking it in there how I always always screwing up until one night I just couldn't take it anymore. I mean it, I just couldn't take it anymore.

And I don't know why I feel such remorse for this girl. I do not know why I even give this damn girl a second thought. The same girl who made me feel like a screwed up human being over and over and over again passive-aggressively until I lost my temper. I don't know why I even give her the time of day.

All I did was love her, treat her with affection, pay attention to her, make her feel like the most special girl in the world, I let her talk to me about anything, I let her into my world, my family, my everything. And what did I get in return? Huh? What did I get? I got to feel like I'm a messed up human being. Like I'm just such a screw up that she won't even recognize my existence anymore. Like I'm the one who just ruined her life. Like her whole life is just ruined now because of who? Well because of the screw up, of course. The "Immature, clingy, overbearing, disrespectful, belittling, inappropriate joke making, over-sexualizing, sorry ass who needs to grow a pair human being that is Reece."

And just in case any of you were wondering, she called me every single one of those things and more.

Well I don't deserve that. I was a good person to her. No, I AM a good person. I am not screwed up. I can not believe I let this girl make me feel like such a screw up for so freaking long.

And no. She didn't pull a disappearing act on me. And no, she doesn't do drugs or drink or have impulsive behavior. And she has never threatened to hurt or kill herself. So fact is, I don't know if she's BPD or not. But she's messed up because what she did to me wasn't right. I didn't deserve to have someone do all that bullcrap to me.

I don't know why on Gods' green Earth I still want to hear from this girl. Life will be better when I don't.

I am so sorry for those who read this. It was just venting.


Thank you all so much, I can feel y'all's support every day,



Reece

[JPH]

It really doesn't matter whether there is a diagnosis of BPD. The bottom line is that she treated you very poorly and does not seem like she has the capacity to contribute to a healthy relationship. I've got news for you about her belittling your efforts and always finding something wrong: nothing you could've done would've been good enough... .and she would always find something to complain about (even if she had to fabricate it with her imagination). I was raged at for applying my car's parking brake on a flat surface. And when I found out she'd cheated, she blamed me for it because I didn't "fight for her." That's right: her cheating was my fault. See what you had to look forward to further down the road?

Your experiences were very real... .with or without a formal diagnosis. And how they can just walk away as if we were perfect strangers is cruel and heartbreaking. I assure you it's not the behavior of a rational, healthy individual who's able to love and be loved. Rest assured that, based on your description of her behaviors, the outcome would've been no different with anyone else in your shoes. It wasn't personal. A tornado that happens upon a building has no malicious intent to specifically target that building. The building's just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Allow yourself to have bad days. You're OK.

[Reecer1588]

I will mark down day 50 (today) as a bad day and look forward to what I hope will be a good day tomorrow.

Yeah JPH I really appreciate your tempered, thoughtful reply to my venting.

I'd like to hear if anyone relates to my experience with what I vented about, I love reading stories wherein people relate to me.

Thanks all


Reece

[DDMoo2013]

I think you're doing great. I definitely had sad days when I was where you are right now. I was still trying to wrap my head around BPD and was trying to absorb as much information as I could to understand what I'd experienced. One of the hardest things was accepting and understanding that the good times (and there were some) were so overshadowed by the bad times (the raging, jealousy, demands of my time, energy, etc.) that it hardly justified the abuse I endured. I wanted to hang onto the good memories and the good things about her, and for so long I ignored or justified the bad at a tremendous cost to my identity, self-esteem and health.

It's a process, and it's neither easy nor quick. Don't be too hard on yourself. There will be more days like this one ahead for you, but I promise they will be fewer in number until they are no more.

The hard part about it, JPH is this. Notice I type "uBPD", that's because there's no diagnosis. And I'm not one who could ever make one. I registered for this site so sure that everything I was reading lined up with me. Now-a-days some does, some doesn't.

All I know is this: Other than my brother, who joined a religious cult; I have never witnessed someone like her just completely lose her mind. I mean literally, within the course of two months or so, it was like she was losing her mind. Some of the emotional/verbal abuse had always been there, but it was never anything I couldn't handle. All of the sudden it was every night. It was every day. It was nearly all of her text messages. I just couldn't comprehend how someone could so quickly go from loving you to erasing you from their lives. It is this fact I can not cope with yet. She went from being one of the sweetest, sexiest, most compassionate girls I had ever known to a complete stranger. I went from being her whole life to her nothing. And she told me as much " I'm glad I made the decision to eliminate you from my life" All of the sudden she and her crazy mother becomes so ohhhhh concerned about me killing myself! Oh yeah, she really cared if I was dead or not. Uh huh. Right.

Just Completely ignorant of the fact she was the cause of my misery!  

I mean JPH literally it was like witnessing her losing her mind. I just don't know how else to describe it. It was like (not overnight) she turned into this cold, aloof stranger who acted like she'd never met me. I just can not wrap my head around that. I mean did I screw up? Of course. But I've never seen someone take my screw ups and so viciously use them against me before in my life. It was like everything I did was just pissing her off.

And she always just sneaked it in there too.

I begged her over and over again "just tell me what's wrong when I'm doing it so I can fix it!"

But over, and over, and over again she just kept sneaking it in there. Nothing I could do was ever right. Nothing I could do could ever make her happy anymore. Every last little thing just bothered the hell out of her. And I was just completely powerless to stop it.

She kept passive aggressively making me feel like a screw up every single time she came around me until finally I snapped at her.

And I did guys. I snapped at her hard. I've never felt my blood pressure boil like that last time I saw her.

She just kept doing it. All I ever asked her to do was "Please don't make me feel like a screw up" and she just kept doing it. Over, and over and over again subtly and passively until I became the bad guy and kicked her ass out of my house. She just kept sneaking it in there how I always always screwing up until one night I just couldn't take it anymore. I mean it, I just couldn't take it anymore.

And I don't know why I feel such remorse for this girl. I do not know why I even give this damn girl a second thought. The same girl who made me feel like a screwed up human being over and over and over again passive-aggressively until I lost my temper. I don't know why I even give her the time of day.

All I did was love her, treat her with affection, pay attention to her, make her feel like the most special girl in the world, I let her talk to me about anything, I let her into my world, my family, my everything. And what did I get in return? Huh? What did I get? I got to feel like I'm a messed up human being. Like I'm just such a screw up that she won't even recognize my existence anymore. Like I'm the one who just ruined her life. Like her whole life is just ruined now because of who? Well because of the screw up, of course. The "Immature, clingy, overbearing, disrespectful, belittling, inappropriate joke making, over-sexualizing, sorry ass who needs to grow a pair human being that is Reece."

And just in case any of you were wondering, she called me every single one of those things and more.

Well I don't deserve that. I was a good person to her. No, I AM a good person. I am not screwed up. I can not believe I let this girl make me feel like such a screw up for so freaking long.

And no. She didn't pull a disappearing act on me. And no, she doesn't do drugs or drink or have impulsive behavior. And she has never threatened to hurt or kill herself. So fact is, I don't know if she's BPD or not. But she's messed up because what she did to me wasn't right. I didn't deserve to have someone do all that bullcrap to me.

I don't know why on Gods' green Earth I still want to hear from this girl. Life will be better when I don't.

I am so sorry for those who read this. It was just venting.


Thank you all so much, I can feel y'all's support every day,



Reece

Hi Reece,

I have been following your posts for sometime and have been really encouraged by your expressions and just wanted to remind you that you are not alone in your feelings.

I am going through something similar and although my exBPDgf had a drug problem and suffers with depression. I spent a significant time helping her recover and get away from the drug abusive life and friends/location and helped her organise her life and maintain her employment, supported her in reconnecting with her family and as she started to get a semblance of her life back she began the push pull behaviour! I was a confident happy go lucky person who was raising two sons from a divorce which was amicable and not an issue for my relationship with my BPDex.

When I look back now I feel that most of my time was spent as a carer, I was overly understanding and supportive and at the time did not need anything from her as she couldnt cope with even minor stresses of running a household. She would beg me to stay with her whenever he behaviour became too much for me, but like a fool I stayed and fell in love with the promises she made even when the reality was far different and that makes me mad with myself.

As soon a she had recovered from her drug problem she began acting really weird, taking random guys numbers, starting emotional affairs at work and withdrawing from me giving me just enough to keep me there... .I ended things with her and kicked her out... .I was completely a shadow of my former self... .dejected, depressed, lost my motivation... .but within 6mths I had got it back, new job, new friends, dating again, was really happy... .then she came back... .and I let her inas I felt sorry for her... .more fool me! This time she strung me along for a year and then meets some random guy and moves him in with her while hanging out with me and sleeping in my bed? Just when I thought we were getting back... .but I realise now that she is really sick and nothing had really changed... .it was all in my mind not hers!

What I am trying to say, after my venting, is that they are users out of their BPD need and we are just objects for them to use, thats why they can detach and attach so quickly, but for us we mourn the loss of what we thought could have been if they were a normal person.

I have been sad everyday since I went NC in january. She has contacted me for what I consioder to be bs reasons but I still miss her, I am so angry at her and angry at how it makes me feel

[Reecer1588]

I have been following your posts for sometime and have been really encouraged by your expressions and just wanted to remind you that you are not alone in your feelings.

This means a lot to me. Sometimes I do feel like my venting/descriptions of what she did to me, and how it makes me feel, are not able to be related to the people here. Being 19 years old and a college student means I'm in a very under-represented demographic here. Hearing that you do relate to what I vented about, well hell I'll just say it, it means a ton. Whenever anyone here says 'I relate to that' it means a ton. It means I'm not losing my mind, frankly. What I wrote as response #3 on this post was the first time I just straight up vented exactly what she did to me and how it made me feel. It's probably one of the most significant (aside from my introduction) posts I've ever written on this website. I mean it's exactly what she did that made me so upset. It's exactly how I felt and continue to feel.


I spent a significant time helping her recover and get away from the drug abusive life and friends/location

My ex was not a drug user. Actually I am the one who had a major gambling problem in the past (it's behind me now).

Here is what I will say: My uBPDexgf has always been obsessed with horses. Her group of friends and the people she surrounds herself with are all what most people call "Crazy horse girls" I mean I know it sounds funny but really that's what they are. And the other people that she surrounds herself with are either: Losers (weasel type guys) or people who just aren't of your normal disposition. Sometimes it's People (really girls) with low self-confidence, crazy horse girls, Losers or just your plain very shy, reserved girls.

I was her only link to the 'normal' world. Literally. I was it. I'm not a crazy horse person. I've got a strong set of values, I've got good self-confidence, and I'm not a loser.

Now that I'm not in her life any more, from all accounts and from what I've been able to see: She's lost all links with normal, average disposed people. Basically now she just surrounds herself with horse girls. Sad but true.

that they are users out of their BPD need and we are just objects for them to use, thats why they can detach and attach so quickly, but for us we mourn the loss of what we thought could have been if they were a normal person.

While I believe that there were seeds of BPD during our entire relationship, in my case here is what I want to say:

She's 19, right around the age that BPD behaviors really manifest. She was fairly normal (not idealizing or devaluing) for most of our relationship. While not her first boyfriend, I was her first real, long-term intimate relationship. She only started behaving in a really disordered fashion (remember all the passive aggressive gaslighting I mentioned before? Making me feel like a screw-up?) in December of 2014.


Point: I believe that my ex is going down a dark path, and that for whatever reason, she started down this path in December of 2014. The strong push/pull, the gaslighting, the raging, the emotional/verbal abuse all came along in a short amount of time. Even her ex-boyfriend said that he understood that she could be very emotional, but that she was never this bad with him.

You can tell the transformation of my uBPDexgf not only in her behaviors, but in her body and her eyes. Pvt. message me and I'd be happy to show you the before/after pics of her. It's quite remarkable.

I have been sad everyday since I went NC in january. She has contacted me for what I consioder to be bs reasons but I still miss her, I am so angry at her and angry at how it makes me feel

I'm not sad everyday, but I'm sad a lot since Feb 6th (NC started that day). I have heard absolutely nothing from my ex girlfriend. 51 days now (7 weeks+) and not a peep.


Like I said before, hit me up privately and I'll show you just how different she looks before/after December 2014.

Thanks,


Reece

[eeks]

I haven't been counting either, but last contact Jan. 23 (there was another msg Feb 9 that I said I would respond to but didn't, so that doesn't really count)  so that's what, over 60 days?  I hadn't been thinking of him much, I was focused on my own life really, aside from the weird and funny dreams about him.  I still visited this discussion board during that time, not because I was still thinking about him, just because I found it useful as a sophisticated level of discussion about emotions and relationships that I've rarely seen elsewhere on the Internet.

However, during a recent bout of insomnia, I was awake at night thinking about many things including uBPDex.  

I have another man in my life, sort of, someone I've known for about 2 years but we aren't in a relationship because he lives in another province (possibly other reasons, I think he is scared but uses being very busy as an entrepreneur as an excuse... .not sure, haven't spent enough time with him in person to establish that one).  

He has been calling me more often lately, and I might be going to his niece's wedding with him next month.  Even though he seems really interested in me, has better character than uBPDex, better family relationships, more stable finances... .I had to confront the uncomfortable fact that I feel more emotionally attached to uBPDex than to him.

Why?  

He (the "non" out of town) tends, when I am speaking of emotional pain, to give quick advice, platitudes, "the secret to being happy is changing your attitude" type thing.  He cares about me, and thinks highly of me, I know that, but when he says things like that sometimes I wonder if he likes me, or even knows me at all.

uBPDex, even though he was in every objective sense more dysfunctional, and we had quite the drawn out arguments... .somehow, through all of that, in a weird sort of way I think I was connecting with him emotionally more than with the non.  

I also think that the idealization phase feels so wonderful that we non's cannot imagine how the pwBPD can just seemingly - boom - flip a switch and shut it off.  So there's this kind of sudden withdrawal, that leaves us longing and mystified... .with so many unanswered questions!... .in a way that "normal" breakups do not, however painful they might be.  

I have little reason to believe that uBPDex is anywhere other than where I left him.  Almost everyone he described who was in his life on a regular basis sounded to me to be chronically dysfunctional, and disrespectful to him and when he described his attempts to express his dissatisfaction with these people they seemed to give the indication that they had no intention of changing their behaviour.  And yet he didn't boot them out of his life because he felt he had to "be a good friend".  

He is highly intelligent, but resistant to therapy.  He said "it's all BS because when it comes right down to it, you just have to do it" (If that's the case, then why aren't you out there "just doing it"?) So that's more reason to believe he hasn't changed.  

Me, on the other hand, shortly after meeting me he started admitting all these things he was afraid I would judge him for, I thought it was endearing, and actually refreshing because if that's how we feel let's be honest about it and get it out of the way so we can reassure each other and move on to just enjoying each other's company.  However, I did something that I concede was a mistake, and despite my sincere and repeated apologies he seemed to think he needed to not be with me in order to protect himself.  

(I am not going to say what I did because it is kind of a personal thing but I will say that I have shared it with my therapist and 2 close friends who I trust to be honest with me, and they all agree that what I did was wrong, which I agree with too, but that uBPD ex's reaction to it was excessive.  And each said, unprompted, that they thought he was immature.)

Got it?  I'm on a pedestal, then I fall off of it (prove myself human) and I'm unredeemable.  Yet there are these others who in my view are more consistently badly behaved than I, and displaying red flags that indicate they can't be trusted and aren't really responding to him, and they get to stay in his life!  (also, he told me about his most recent ex-girlfriend and she was dysfunctional in every way, lying cheating stealing, and yet he was still pining for her.)

AND YET... .

... .in these thoughts that I am having, it's always ohhh, he dumped me because I am not perfect, he is probably happy now with a woman who is more perfect than I!  Yep, I've just listed out why that's so unlikely, but I can only assume that it's the idealization followed by the sudden flip of a switch, and the subsequent argument tricks (blatantly hypocritical yet refuse to acknowledge it, won't answer direct questions, etc.) and push-pull that leaves us so impacted by these relationships.

So all of that was my long-winded way of saying that it's perfectly OK to have strong feelings about your ex, there are legitimate reasons why this happens, you are not the only one, and please don't compare yourself to the rate of progress or lack thereof of others here... .what you feel is what you feel, and it is valid simply because you feel it.  No timeline, no final exam, no losing the credit if you don't finish on time

[Reecer1588]

I have little reason to believe that uBPDex is anywhere other than where I left him.  

I mean I have nothing to add here except to say same.Crazy horse girl before me, crazy horse girl after me. It's not like that changed. Her entire appearance, her behavior, all the rest of it changed. But the kind of people she surrounds herself with (losers much like you described yours hangs around) are the same, and her horse obsession is the same.

He (the "non" out of town) tends, when I am speaking of emotional pain, to give quick advice, platitudes, "the secret to being happy is changing your attitude" type thing.

Just wanted to say that would irritate the hell out of me. Seriously, it would. I just want to have a down to earth conversation with someone, not the platitudes crap.

... .in these thoughts that I am having, it's always ohhh, he dumped me because I am not perfect, he is probably happy now with a woman who is more perfect than I!  

My uBPDexgf does not have a replacement yet. But I have this exact fear.

what you feel is what you feel, and it is valid simply because you feel it.  No timeline, no final exam, no losing the credit if you don't finish on time

Thank you! Appreciate that.  


I love how people are relating to my reply #3 on here which was just straight-up emotional venting. Really, if anyone else relates to that which I specified on that replay , please please please don't be afraid to tell me!

Thanks for the reply eeks,



Reece