Hey BPDfam,
Been a while since I posted but I lurk from time to time. Cool to see all the growth--some of the people who were just coming to terms with their breakups when I first joined have moved into more mentor roles and of course there are a lot of new faces (it
does get better; it
will take a lot of work).
For those that don't know my first story, it's pretty much summed up here:
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=281522.0 (plus some tips that worked for me for navigating your breakup).
Anyway, it's been about 4 months since the end of my 'official' r/s with my BPDexgf; 3 months since the end of our physical r/s; and about a month since the end of our cohabitation and my BPDexgf blocked me from social media and took NC into her own hands. I didn't have any hard feelings and thought we could be friends from a distance--but NC is probably best for both of us. I also realized my exgf had BPD about a year into our 2 year r/s--read up on it, figured how it was gonna end, and then promptly forgot
(but in the back of my mind I think I knew it was coming the whole time).
My break up was a lot cleaner than most of the ones here--I had time throughout each stage to process my emotions along the way. And, with the help of the resources here (and some awesome posters and several other sites, I definitely didn't have to go through it on my own.
But 4 months more or less marks the start on my journey from my final un-enmeshment. It's definitely been a journey--and for those of you just starting out, this'll definitely be THE hardest thing you ever go through--but it can get better. Things that helped me: getting back in the gym, sitting down and figuring out all the possibilities my life could take, pursuing those possibilities, forgiving my exgirlfriend, forgiving the disorder, forgiving my mom and dad, forgiving myself. I also read
a ton--everything I could, which is essential to keeping your mind grounded and took up meditation (highly recommend). But it was ROUGH. I've always suffered from depression and had some ridiculous notion of masculine stoicism since I was three (mom definitely leaned on me 'as the man of the house'--and the relationship with my BPDexgf surfaced
all of it. That's what you're really up against here--all of your feelings of inadequacy, all of your vulnerabilities, all of the pain you didn't have the tools to deal with as a child.
YOUR BPD-EX DIDN'T BREAK YOUR HEART--THEY JUST SHOWED YOU WHERE IT WAS ALREADY BROKEN. It's so much easier to blame them; facing those problems is hard and we've all developed
years of coping mechanisms not to. But that's where healing is. I won't lie, there are some days I hate my ex, hate her for throwing away what we had--but that's just proof that my journey's not done. It's very hard not to project my thought processes, my morals, etc. onto her; but she's not like me and I can't hold her accountable. :)eep down I still think my ex is a beautiful person and as much the victim of the disorder as I am. But at the end of the day
I'm the only person I'll always have to answer to. If there's anyone to hold accountable it's
me.
I wish her all the best, but that's all that I can offer her--a detached hope that things work out for her. I'm grateful for the experience I had with her and the memories we've made, and I'm grateful to have gotten away intact.
Personal Update
So that was kind of a general overview of where I am, but I'll offer some highlights from the last month or two:
1. Within a week of my exgf leaving the house and moving across country, I got a sudden rush of feeling. I don't know how to explain it, but I basically became reacquainted with who I was before I met her. There were a lot of awesome qualities that had vanished over the course of my relationship--so slowly that I didn't even realize they had happened. It was really cool to get to know myself again--of course, I've matured a little bit, but there's a lot of joy in my person that I had allowed myself to be dependent on her to supply.
Of course, some of my less admirable qualities that I had to control during my relationship also reappeared--and there were several times that I really had to reel myself back in (seeking validation from other girls, etc.).
2. While my BPDexgf lived with me those last few weeks, I basically isolated myself. One, I didn't want to trigger her jealousy (which, even though she had my replacement on the low, was still in full force). And two, we met at a restaurant where she still worked--and there was a large overlap in our social circle. If there was a smear campaign, I wasn't in the mental space to deal with it. After she left, I reconnected with my old coworkers/bar regulars. They were really empathetic--some of them even confided in me that they knew something was a little
off about our relationship. Apparently, even to the end, my BPDexgf spoke well of me; and I was glad to be able to return the favor. I also got to know some of the girls that I wasn't allowed to talk to during my relationship
and some of them, once they didn't pose a nuclear threat to the sustainability of my relationship, turned out to be pretty cool. The whole thing felt like an exercise in normalcy.
3. I don't think rebounding is the solution. I
almost fell into old patterns. A lot of girls I used to talk to started showing up as soon as my gf and I broke up (interestingly, it was almost exclusively other girls that in retrospect I suspected might've been Cluster B). One night I was drunk and went through my contact list--good move, right?--and started texting all these girls. Like I said, old patterns. It felt good, after being replaced so suddenly, to know that these people still remembered me and valued me.
Anyway, I ended up meeting with one that was the most obviously BPD. Good move, right? Like I said, healing is a journey. Can't say my intentions were all that pure. I met her about a year before I met my BPDexgf, and we always had a lot of chemistry--she had a bf at the time and at first I was trying to seduce her, but I decided her bf sounded like a good guy and going after girls in committed relationships wasn't something I wanted to do anymore (glad I realized it at 21; still have some regret about the years before that). So we became friends--and I had a front row seat to borderline behavior, though I didn't know what that was. She actually helped set me up with my BPDexgf.
So this should've been a recipe for disaster--I hadn't seen this girl in two years. Anyway, it wasn't anything like I expected. In those 2 years, she had stopped doing drugs, had another failed relationship, realized that she had issues with serial monogamy and had remained conscientiously single for the past year. She actually brought up Borderline Personality Disorder and confided in me that she probably had it--or did have it. When I first met her, she would've been 9/9 on the DSM-IV; now, from what I could tell, she might be 2/9. Now, I know that's supposed to be more or less impossible according to traditional thinking on BPD--especially since she hasn't undergone any sort of therapy--but if she was putting on a show for me, it was certainly a convincing one. I should qualify that she has done a lot of meditation, practices mindfulness, is more or less a genius and very self-aware. Luckily, she had better boundaries in place than I did; and we hung out a couple times after that and just
talked.
It was really cool. I think she's more or less in the same place in her healing as I am--but she was able to explain a lot of the thought processes that had driven her borderline behavior, which was really beneficial to me. But also the realization that here were two people that when they met were totally toxic, and bonded on that level; and here they were 3 years later much healthier people, and bonding on a healthy level. I relocated shortly after--and, on my end, I wouldn't be interested in pursuing anything romantic with her but it just seemed like a sort of quintessential moment in my recovery.
Sorry if I rambled, but just checking in. Wishing you guys all the best. Probably not going to be actively participating in the forums all that much, just because I feel like this is something I need to move on from, but I will make an effort to come here regularly to at least check my PM's if anybody needs to get in touch.
