5 months BPDbf free

[Perdita]

Hello all    Been a while since I've been on here.  I needed to take a break from the board in order to take my life back; didn't want everything to be about him as it had been.

Well, I am 5 months free of my BPD ex bf.  No contact.  Nothing. I changed my phone number almost immediately after the break up.  It was a very ugly breakup with him threatening to sue me over bs (how dare I confront his drug addicted girly on the side! Horrible of me after keeping my silence for 2 years!).  He got very petty, very vengeful.  I decided not to play into his stupid game.  I full out ignored him and continued with my life. 

I've been focusing on myself.  Have lost about 8-10kgs (17-22 pounds) and have about 5 more to go before I am back at the weight I was right before I got involved with him.  My muscles are toning up nicely too.  I'm back to doing the things I enjoy now that I have so much free time on my hands.  Feels fantastic to no longer be the free maid service and nurse to an utterly ungrateful person.  I am getting back to being me again and I love it!

Not that it has been all easy.  There have been times that I have had terrible mood swings thinking about how much I put up with and how cruelly I was treated.  I have been made out to be the villain when all I ever was was good to him, stupidly always putting his needs first.  I guess those mood swings will still pop up every once in a while for some time to come.  For the most part I have to keep reminding myself that he can paint me black to everyone he knows, but he and I know the truth (although I am sure he is trying to convince himself that his "truth" is the truth... .). 

From what little I do know it sounds like karma is slowly but surely taking care of him and the creeps he unfortunately surrounds himself with.  That is another thing I have had to come to terms with.  I could never understand why he chooses such rotten company.  Now I realize that it really is a case of birds of a feather.  I just didn't want to see it.  It would have meant admitting to myself that the guy I fell in love with never really existed and I wasn't ready to do that.

I still have a lot of work to do, but I am getting there. I have thousands of photos of him, but I don't look at them and some days I can barely remember his face.  I remember bits and pieces, but can't put it all together into one face.  Isn't it strange how things can change?

The way I see it, I thought he was a sweet little teddy bear, but he was more like a shark surrounded by other sharks.  I was in their tank for too long and they sure had more than a few bites out of me.  Now it is just them and with me gone they've been turning more and more on each other.  Good.

That's me right now.  5 months on and counting.  It can be done.  Once you are out of the fog things become clearer.  Even the manipulations that I thought I was already all aware of have become clearer.  I see now that I was treated even worse than I had though and believe me I knew I was being mistreated.  It gets to the point where you don't trust your own previously good judgement anymore.  You are led to believe that you are to blame for everything.  It can make a person feel crazy, but you are not the crazy one.  You are dealing with someone that has very deep rooted issues that began long before you ever met that person.

[ReclaimingMyLife]

WOO-HOO, Perdita!  Congrats on your great work of getting your life back.  These success stories mean so much and give me confidence that I will also get there. I have put on prob 10-15 pounds since the b/u but am ready to take it off.  So glad you are succeeding.  Thank you for sharing!

[Perdita]

Thank you, ReclaimingmyLife!  I am glad my post has helped you. 

I use to read messages on this board when I was still on the Undecided one and I just couldn't see myself getting to this place.  It seemed so hopeless.  I realize now that it seemed hopeless only because I had lost myself in the r/s.  Everything was about keeping him happy.  How to find new ways to keep him happy, how to improve on things.  Before I met him I use to work out 1-2 hours every day, but had no time at all for this once I became involved with him.  This is how we lose ourselves.  One thing after the other and soon they have all the control.

You can lose that extra weight too!  I am fitting into clothes again that I haven't been able to get into in 2 -3 years!  Feels fantastic.  Some days I get lazy about the exercise (am doing great with the diet part).  You know what I do on those days?  I picture him seeing me somewhere, on me looking wonderful and him realizing that I am back in control of my life.  He has lost control over me!  I have to confess that lately I find myself admiring my newly toned body in the mirror.  Checking out those muscles.     It is proof of how far I've come.  A  reminder of how hard I've worked every day to get to this point.  You can do it too! 

[ReclaimingMyLife]

I picture him seeing me somewhere, on me looking wonderful and him realizing that I am back in control of my life.  He has lost control over me!  I have to confess that lately I find myself admiring my newly toned body in the mirror.  Checking out those muscles.     It is proof of how far I've come.  A  reminder of how hard I've worked every day to get to this point.  You can do it too! 

Your post is awesome.  Thank you.  You are right.  I can do it too.  How fabulous for YOU to be admiring YOURSELF in the mirror instead of wanting/needing his mirroring/idealizing.  WAY TO GO, PERDITA! 

[Perdita]

You are so right.  What a change to be admiring myself!  I guess we have to become our own hero.

So far I've made it through the first 2 stages of moving on.  First I had to physically remove myself from him and go no contact.  Stage 2 is the hard part though.  Really accepting in my heart that he was not going to show up on my doorstep with a bunch of flowers, on his knees and say "I've been such a a$$!  I realize how good you've been to me and how lucky I am.  I also know how much I've hurt you and for that I am deeply sorry.  Please take me back.  From now on it's all about you, babe!"  not.going.to.happen. I had to accept that to be able to really let go.  It is an ongoing process though, but I keep telling myself that I am not going to stop moving forward.  There is no going back now.  Once the fog lifted I  realized just how much of myself I had sacrificed. 

Honestly I never thought I would get to this point. Yet here I am.  It can be done.

[ReclaimingMyLife]

I so understand your desire to see him show up on your doorstep and say all of those magical words.  But here's the thing.  My ex said so many of those things (minus the flowers!).  So many promises of love and a willingness to do anything for redemption.  But what I know is that those are just words.  When push comes to shove, the tender promises and pretty image of an imaginary future is ultimately, just that, imaginary.  He could not or would not execute those promises.  Not long term anyway.  The "go f*ck yourselves" would come back.  The isolation.  The rage.  Hell, it never even left.  Because after a lot of promises and pleading, he'd quickly cycle to rage calling me evil and so many other things.  Promises are just promises.  If there had been a real change it would have shown up in his behavior. 

So yes, you said it best: 

I guess we have to become our own hero.

If we will, we can!

[Madison66]

Perdita,

Way to go!  Five months is HUGE and it sounds like you are successfully taking your life back and gaining a great deal of wisdom from what was once pain and grief! 

I'm more than 18 months out of a 3+ year r/s with uBPD/NPD ex gf.  I struggled early on after the b/u (I finally walked from the r/s after I couldn't take any more chaos and abuse) and made some mistakes along the way.  There was a period of time up until about 9 months out that my ex gf kept trying to break n/c, but all I can say is that I had a force within me that would no longer allow me to fall back into the abusive r/s.  The greatest r/s that I salvaged and deepened during that time with with "me"!  Like you, I got back into taking care of myself and then really jumped into some cool renovation projects on my 110 year old house.  And, I also believe in Karma!  About 10 months after the b/u, I met a fabulous non PD lady who is surprising me everyday that the love and kindness I always wanted in a r/s can really be there with the right person.  I look at r/s completely different from how I did four or five years ago. 

18 months out and I still come to this site from time to time to help with awareness.  I still have some struggles in my life which keep me stretching and growing.  Gone are the days of co-dependency and people pleasing.  Good luck with your recovery/detachment and here's to "living, loving, laughing and growing"!

[Perdita]

I so understand your desire to see him show up on your doorstep and say all of those magical words.  But here's the thing.  My ex said so many of those things (minus the flowers!).  So many promises of love and a willingness to do anything for redemption. 

My ex did those things many times in the past, flowers included.  Every time I hoped that he really meant it, that he understood.  Every time I was let down by him.  That is what I meant by having to let go of that dream.  Not the one of him saying those thing, but of him saying it and following through with it.  He doesn't think he is sick and there is nothing I can do about that. 

Part of the problem, of course, is that a lot of people in their lives (most even!) don't see what we see or experience what we do with them.  That is part of the reason why it is so easy for the BP to paint us black to others.

:-(

[Perdita]

I'm more than 18 months out of a 3+ year r/s with uBPD/NPD ex gf.  I struggled early on after the b/u (I finally walked from the r/s after I couldn't take any more chaos and abuse) and made some mistakes along the way.  There was a period of time up until about 9 months out that my ex gf kept trying to break n/c, but all I can say is that I had a force within me that would no longer allow me to fall back into the abusive r/s. 

Madison, well done to you too!  It takes a whole lot of courage to get out and stay out.  The most important thing is to just hang in there long enough until one gets to that place where you are out of the fog.  That is the message I want to convey to those freshly out or about to get out. Once the fog lifts everything becomes clearer and it becomes easier to stay out.  That is the force you are talking about that you had in you. You were finally able to really see all the pain this person had caused you.  That is when we start to find our inner strength again.

The greatest r/s that I salvaged and deepened during that time with with "me"!  Like you, I got back into taking care of myself and then really jumped into some cool renovation projects on my 110 year old house.

YES!  That is fantastic!  That house sounds like the perfect project as well!    Doesn't it feel wonderful to be doing something for yourself again instead of investing so much into someone that was all about herself?  We've got to turn that love back to ourselves.

And, I also believe in Karma!  About 10 months after the b/u, I met a fabulous non PD lady who is surprising me everyday that the love and kindness I always wanted in a r/s can really be there with the right person.  I look at r/s completely different from how I did four or five years ago.

That is wonderful that you have found real love with someone that can reciprocate.  Personally I have decided to stay away from relationships.  I am in my 40s and feel I don't have the energy and time to risk losing it again.

18 months out and I still come to this site from time to time to help with awareness.  I still have some struggles in my life which keep me stretching and growing.  Gone are the days of co-dependency and people pleasing.  Good luck with your recovery/detachment and here's to "living, loving, laughing and growing"!

That is very key what you said about people pleasing!  Very important point for those of us getting out of a relationship with a BP person.  I have been reading up on this recently and taking it all in for the first time.  I have been a major people pleaser.  To the point of being nothing but a doormat.  You probably also know by now that the more you give to try and please everyone the less they care about or respect you!  It's sad, but true.  Putting an end to this people pleasing thing is probably the single most important thing we can do once we've left the r/s. 

Thanks for the well wishes, Madison.  I wish you the very best too in your journey.