shawnav
 Offline
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Ex-romantic partner
Posts: 8
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« on: September 21, 2015, 05:11:03 PM » |
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This is my first time posting my story anywhere. I've been talking to anyone and everyone I can about it, but most don't have the experience of understanding BPD. It's hard to explain to people why, after all that I went through with my exBPD I'm still aching so bad, still trying so hard to get answers and gain understanding, still attached and almost unable to move on. How does one really explain how emotional trauma actually causes your emotions to be so caught up in someone else that it is the most difficult thing in the world to accept letting go of them no matter how much they hurt you? Emotional trauma seems to make the letting go even harder. How you're almost addicted to them and can't even understand why yourself?
My exBPD and I were only together for about 3 months, but we went through so much together that it felt like a year. And when I say so much, really what I mean is so much fighting! We were constantly fighting, with moments of great clarity after about 2-4 hours. No matter our fights, we could usually get ourselves to a good place. But I would be so emotionally exhausted by the time we got there. Which is, I guess why I was so emotionally traumatized. It was a constant yo-yo, being excited to move forward and then being blindsided by another attack and then so emotionally spent by the end of the next attack. And starting the whole cycle all over again. And trying to attempt to rationalize with him always seemed to make it worse.
Fights would start out of the most innocent of things, whether something I said that any rational person would find completely innocent, or if I made the wrong facial expression (even if I didn't realize my expression had changed!), or the inflection in my voice. Any innocent thing could cause a 2-4 hour fight! He was physically violent, too, which was the piece that my friends find so hard to understand. Why I couldn't just leave him. But I wasn't afraid of him and I would rather be in a hurting relationship than alone. Pretty broken myself, I guess, which is something I've had to evaluate and seek healing for.
Also, the thing about my exBPD is he is living in his truck. He's homeless. The whole time I dated him, he never had a job. Kept talking about these grandiose envisions for him to start his own business, even had a bank card for his business. One day, the business he would be planning would be making car speakers, the next it would be drawing designs for hats, the next it would be fixing up his truck so he could sell it for $45 G's (this was an old 1994 Chevy Silverado, mind you, that he would "redesign into an Escalade". We would make plans for the next few days, or weeks and nothing ever stuck. I would think we were on a good path forward and by the next day the path had changed already.
I gave him a lot of a money, helped him out a great deal financially. When I had an issue with my car that was going to potentially cost me $1,000, I had to tell him that I realized I was so busy taking care of him that I wouldn't be able to take care of myself in the event of an emergency. I needed to stop the bleeding and needed him to get a job to help us both out. I sent that as a text in the middle of the night while I was up worrying. When he got it the next morning, he called me, yelled at me (It was my fault, of course, because I was obsessed with money. Even though, he was the only one receiving and I was the only one giving it in our relationship), hung up on me and then fell off the face of the earth. Never answered my calls, texts, emails, nothing. And being that he lives in his truck, I can't just check his home to make sure he's alive and ok. This is how he ends all of his relationships. The last two (which were actually just friendships, but this is a pattern in any kind of relationship he has) ended just the same. He was constantly talking to these friends daily, hanging out with them, then got mad at one of them and fell off the face of the earth in both of their lives.
So, thus my aching heart. I cry for how I was betrayed (Oh, yeah, I eventually found his truck a couple of months later. He wasn't in it, so I stayed in my car all night next to it until he finally got dropped off by his new girlfriend the next morning. Who, he is already out of a relationship with, just a couple of months later), but yet I cry for how much hurt I know he has to face every day as well. I know he's hurting. This illness is painful for those who suffer from it. I ache for me and I ache for him at the same time.
I do struggle a lot with guilt. I didn't know about BPD when I was with him. When he would start attacking me, I would take it as a personal attack and attack right back. Yelling just as loud as him, sometimes louder. It would have been so much better if I could have just listened and validated his feelings (not confirmed the terrible thoughts he had about me, but just let him get his episode out of him) and then moved on. I wish I had known about BPD then, I wish every day for a second chance with him, I wish I could help him, I wish anyone could help him, I wish I could have a chance to convince him there is help out there for him, I wish he could find healing, peace and happiness, I wish I could hear his voice, see his face, have a chance to tell him I understand, I just wish... .
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