I feel trapped - on verge of nervous breakdown

[CharWood]

It has been about a month since my BPD ex has moved back home - she is on the lease; so, I have no choice. She has been staying in our guest room sleeping on an uncomfortable Wal-Mart Futon. Her behavior since she has been home is ----mindblowing. It's unpredictable. Nonsensical. Self-damaging. Hurtful and abusive towards me. ---I do not know what to do at this point. I would REALLY love to talk with someone who has been through a similar situation to mine and get some advice on what I should do.

I do not even know where to begin... .in the 4 years of us being together, I have never ever seen her go off the deep end quite like this. Though, she had an episode back in early 2014 with a watered down version of this bad behavior.

Her life has become nothing but her low paying job, drinking almost every day, making impulsive purchases and meeting losers off the internet. She spends most of her spare time talking to strangers she has met on the internet and impulsively going to their houses late at night to drink with them and im guessing - engage in promiscuous sex. IT MAKES ME SICK. This is not the woman I have known her to be over the past 4 years. This is the first time in 4 years I have ever seen her engage in this promiscuous behavior. It kills me. She has done this 3 times now. The other 3 times she went on a date but came home by midnight. She is doing nothing to go back to college and get her degree and seems unconcerned with the fact that her life is a COMPLETE MESS. she is actually delusional, test driving Mercedes benz on her day off saying its a dream car that she will have one day! are you kidding me? She has been talking about getting back in school for the past 3.5 years since she flunked out of college, with no effort on her part to do anything to get back in.

She is abusive to me. She minimizes our 4 year relationship saying "its in the past", she says her feelings for me are gone. Personally attacks my looks (I look the same as the person she was attracted to in the first place, so it is puzzling to me) She does not want to work on the relationship and basically asserts that she wants to just be roommates.

However, she has gone through my text messages and cell phone; gets angry when I receive text messages and grills me if I go somewhere out of the house; brings up women friends of mine in the past she has been jealous of and goes into a rage; flips out when I point out that I find another woman attractive and starts talking about what she needs to do to make herself more attractive; begins to cry or tear up when I react to her leaving the house and behaving like she does or when I tell her that I no longer care for her if she doesn't care about herself and that I plan to exit her life and ghost myself to her; everytime after she comes back from being gone all night or a date, she tries to cling on to me and get me to spend time with her and gets angry and combative when I do not wish to speak with her or engage her; takes showers in my showers rather than the guest room and leaves her dirty clothes in my bedroom; has gotten in to my bed 3 to 4 times either because she "just had too much to drink" or "the futon is uncomfortable", even getting completely naked one time; makes comments including me as a part of her future (us living together, things we would do); when she senses I will move back out of state home or to a city closer to my family and her family, she gets upset and says that she will follow me and that she will go with  me... .She has even admitted about 6 times over the past few weeks she has BPD and needs help or therapy. She said that we moved out of state together to run away from our problems and we should have just fixed them back home. But then will quickly shift and say, I don't need therapy, you are the crazy one and that our relationship is in the past and nothing is wrong with her, its all my fault.

I don't get it. What does she want? If she no longer has feelings for me and does not want to work on herself or us, I plan on breaking the lease, leaving the house and exiting her life so she can go find a replacement, as it seems she is desperately trying to do on plenty of fish every day. SO, I dont understand why she even stays here, why she looks for replacements here if she doesnt like it here, why she wants to follow me wherever I move to and why none of her replacement attempts are working out! It seems like she will be close to normal and be lucid for a couple of days at a time but then randomly start acting weird and leave the house... its a pattern. And one of the guys she met on there, she has spoken badly of and put down... .yet I suspect she still hangs out with him? it is soo confusing. Also, I have seen her profile and the person she describes she is looking for fits the exact description of my personality and likes, dislikes, interests... .its bizarre. It is like she is trying to find another version of me.

And, she even complained to me that one of these idiots she met wasn't acting like me and doing the things I did to respect her when we first started going on dates... .

I told her yesterday that there is a good part of her deep down, despite the BPD... and that part of her is what drew me to her and made me fall in love with her. I told her that I feel like she is killing that part of her and giving up on herself and she said that she did give up... .that she plans to try and address what is going on with her when she gets back home... she insists that we will be moving together still. Some days she treats me like her closest friend, as she used to when we were together but other days I am no better than just a stranger or roommate to her or a piece of dirt on her shoe.

Basically, it is hard for me to decide what to do because I do not want to give up on her. Everyone in her life has... and her mom has BPD so she cannot even be a real mother to her. In fact, her mom encourages self destructive behaviors in her rather than trying to help her. She alienates herself from friends in her life that care... .all her life is right now is seeking replacements or attention from strangers, alcohol and the low paying job she has since we broke up and she left her good job. I am concerned for myself because she has hurt me VERY BADLY. she has broken my heart and every time she leaves the house or flies off into these abusive rages towards me, it breaks my heart more and more. I cannot stay in this house, isolated here in FL away from my family and friends back in the West. I need to get home. It just feels like she pushed for us to move here, behaved herself for over a year and then flipped out and rejected me, abused me, left me, gave up on us and herself and left me holding the bag when we were supposed to come out here to seek better for ourselves and start a family.

I don't know what to do anymore and she is putting me through hell. Is there anything I can do to encourage her to get therapy - I am betting not because I know that she has to fix herself. What will it take for a person with BPD to follow through and get help? How do I handle her promiscuity and drinking--it is killing me to sit there and watch her do this? I have literally dropped about 15 pounds in the span of 8 weeks. I am not sleeping well.  I am so close to just getting a job back home, breaking the lease and leaving her here alone without notice.

Anyone been in a similar situation? I do not know if there is even hope anymore for us and I do not want to continue to be used and abused and rejected by her.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey CharWood, It's exhausting to carry someone else's emotional baggage around, which is what I suspect you are doing.  You are not responsible for your Ex's well being.  It's OK to lighten the load.  There's nothing healthy about lugging around what isn't yours.  It' a way of ignoring/denying your own emotional self.  Suggest you get back to Y-O-U, which is your first priority.

LuckyJim

[OnceConfused]

you feel trapped  because you let yourself feel trapped. 

what do you want to see happen ?

[CharWood]

I guess I do let myself feel trapped.

It is going to be a major pain in the butt and it will take a lot of steps to detach myself, break the lease, find a job and move back closer to home... .to start a new chapter of my life WITHOUT my ex, but it has to be done. That is what I want to see happen.

I wanted my ex to hit bottom and realize that she is not in a good place and seek help. I wanted us to work out. But, I realistically do not see that happening at this point. It is chasing a ghost.

Lucky Jim: I do feel like I am carrying around her emotional baggage and it is indeed exhausting. I feel like I care more about her well being than she does. If she is okay functioning at the level she is now, exhibiting all of these impulsive and risky behaviors... .I will have to be okay with whatever happens to her, as it is her choice to keep living this way and her choice not to seek help. I honestly have done everything I can do for her at this point and it is now starting to affect me in a negative way. Its time to let go.

I have a Skype interview today. So, wish me luck. Taking the first steps to get my life back.

[Lucky Jim]

I honestly have done everything I can do for her at this point and it is now starting to affect me in a negative way. Its time to let go.

I agree w/that, CharWood.  One time my T asked me if I thought I had done everything I could to save my marriage.  I said "Yes."  She said, "I think you have, too."  It was a lightbulb moment. 

It is going to be a major pain in the butt and it will take a lot of steps to detach myself, break the lease, find a job and move back closer to home... .to start a new chapter of my life WITHOUT my ex, but it has to be done. That is what I want to see happen.

Good, you have a plan to get back on your path.  I think it's all do-able, and not as hard as it may seem to you.

LuckyJim

[Ceruleanblue]

I can relate to the fact that she seemed to hold it together long enough to get you moved there, and get what she wanted. BPDh really resents that I still feel that he was totally fake when we were dating, it was classic bait and switch. I mean, if he'd shown me the real him, he knew I'd have run. I'd been very explicit when we first started dating about never wanting to be in a relationship again with an angry man, so he just hid that, and all his other BPD traits.

Much as you want to help her, you really, really have to look out for you. People with BPD don't get better unless they really want to get better, and even then it's really hard. It's hard once you get in this cycle, because they see that we take it to some extent, even though we don't like it, we hang around, take more, and it sort of teaches them that we just might keep taking it. I guess that is why boundaries are so important.

Hang in there and know you are not alone. Can you make an exit plan, move home, and if she does get help, maybe look at working on the relationship then? She clearly is not in a place to be able to have any sort of good or healthy relationship now. Her risk taking behaviors are going to land her in serious trouble sooner or later, sadly.