Glad to finally be here

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi All,

I'm sure you can imagine, like a lot you, finding this place and all the resources around BPD and other personality disorders has been quite a journey.

After the most challenging, confusing, most crazy intense years of my life - I am still very much in the early stages of understanding  (or not as the case may be) what has happened and what happens next, but I'd love some help and to share your experiences.

I'm sure I will have a chance to tell my story at some point, but I wanted to say hello and introduce myself and have a look around.

[Ithoughtitwasrea]

Hi All,

I'm sure you can imagine, like a lot you, finding this place and all the resources around BPD and other personality disorders has been quite a journey.

After the most challenging, confusing, most crazy intense years of my life - I am still very much in the early stages of understanding  (or not as the case may be) what has happened and what happens next, but I'd love some help and to share your experiences.

I'm sure I will have a chance to tell my story at some point, but I wanted to say hello and introduce myself and have a look around.

[Mutt]

Hi Ithoughtitwasrea,



I would like to welcome you. Here's a little back story that I'll share with you. I found this place shortly after my ex wife left and I didn't know about personality disorders. I felt isolated and thought that I was going through something that nobody else understood. I thought I was going crazy. I'm glad that you found us

[LingeringNoMore]

Welcome!  I love this site.  I left my exh w/BPD 7 weeks ago.  We had a big ole drama and I finally said I would leave but was TERRIFIED that he would commit suicide.  I went to work and found this site.  It has helped so much. 

There is recovery to do... .my own life to reclaim but I am on my way and am feeling joyful.

So glad you are here.

LNM

[Ithoughtitwasrea]

Thankyou for your kind words of support.

Should I include my story in this thread or start a new one?

Would people be interested in hearing?

[heartandwhole]

Thankyou for your kind words of support.

Should I include my story in this thread or start a new one?

Would people be interested in hearing?

Hi Ithoughtiswasrea ! 

I'd like to add my welcome to Mutt's and LingeringNoMore's.  I'm sorry to hear about the challenging and confusing years that brought you here, but I'm so glad you found us. 

Yes, please do include your story in this thread, and feel free to start new ones as questions or issues come up. We are very interested in hearing your journey, Ithoughtitwasrea!

Here are a few questions to get you started: How long were (are) you together with your partner? What kind of contact do you have now? Has your partner been diagnosed with BPD or another personality disorder?

Keep writing, it really helps to let everything out. We're here to support you. 

heartandwhole

[Dhand77]

I recently found this site and about BPD in general. It has been an amazing resources. I feel like I know my exBPDgf waif more than she even knows about herself. Thanks to this site, I'm now 3 steps ahead of her and her disorder.

I'll never be recycled. I'll never let her feed off of me emotionally again.

Thank you bpdfamily.com. Your stories, your help and the pain we've all shared is going to help me break this cycle on my end.

No Contact, until the day I die.

[Ithoughtitwasrea]

So, this is going to be a long one... .grab yourself a coffee or a cup of tea and I'll try not to ramble.

I'll make up the names and ages to keep it as anonymous as possible.

I met 'Jenny' a year ago. I was single, and had been for quite some time. She was quite a bit younger than me, she was 22 and I'm 29. She was this bright, bubbly, beautiful young lady who walked into my life with a bang and I'd never met anyone like her. She was smart and funny and a real bubbly, happy go lucky girl who everyone loved. She is a very intelligent girl and does very well academically, and has a very successful career in Music (very high functioning). I instantly fell for her, and I think she fell for me too - although she was in a relationship and neither of us are the type to cheat, so we stayed as friends for a few months.

One day she came to me for advice, as she was having 'relationship issues'... .turns out she had basically just decided that she didn't love this guy anymore and was done with him. After weeks of umming and ahhing she broke it off with him over a text message* (more on that later) and proceeded to emotionally give him the guillotine treatment. She cut him off and spoke to him and everyone else around her as if he never meant anything to her. His reasonable pleas for an explanation etc were met with hostiliy and a harshly delivered 'go away, I'm done with you' approach. Something I never really paid attention to, as I didn't know the guy, or anything about their relationship. How naive that seems now!

Within 24hrs of their breakup, she was in my bed kissing me. She told me that she had had feelings for me for a long time but never thought the feeling was reciprocal. It felt incredible to hear that she had feelings for me and made me feel amazing. Things progressed very quickly and we fell head over heels for each other, spending as much time as humanly possible together, hanging on each others every word, completely besotted with each other. She made me feel like nothing I have ever experienced before. I loved her like I can't explain and we'd told each other within weeks how we felt and talked about our future together like it was inevitable! Life was perfect. We were so happy!

Early on in the relationship when we got physically intimate, I noticed she had scars all around her bra and knicker lines and we had a frank conversation about her background of self-harm. She told me she has been sexually assaulted in her late teens but it was no big deal and that she had been through bouts of cutting and suicidal ideation for years. The scars were old, there was nothing fresh about them, so I had no reason to disbelieve her and we put it to bed. She didn't like talking about it and she said that she had never told her family or friends, and didn't ever want to. She made me promise not to tell anyone and said she was coping fine recently, I trusted her and of course kept my promise, even though it troubled me worrying about the girl that I loved.

I guess in hindsight I started taking more note of her behaviours from then, but never linked them with any kind of BPD or any other mental health issues, because I wasn't very clued up on them at the time. She was incredibly high functioning and seemed like a really happy, confident woman - why would I doubt that? She had a huge group of 'friends' but none with any kind of long background, lots of superficial relationships, loads and loads of male and a female friends, a massive social profile and social media presence, a real selfie-taking, attention seeking type personality, but I always put that down to her personality and nothing more. Being an introvert, I didn't understand it, but it didn't strike me as anything unusual.

The first major incident happened while on holiday together in the first couple of months we were together. We'd planned a dream holiday and were having the most amazing time until one night something really messed up happened. We were in a bar with some friends and having a great time when this guy appeared... .

"JENNY?"

She looked incredibly uncomfortable and panicked. They obviously knew each other, but she clearly didn't want him there and it was so awkward. She told us that they were friends from back home but she was clearly lying and then proceeded to introduce us as her 'friends', myself included. It was so painful and she completely embarrassed herself and us to the point where we ended the night and went home. I pulled her up on what had happened and she panicked again, admitting that they had seen each other and dated for a bit, and that she panicked and didn't know what to do so she just introduced me in the way she did to get rid of him. We ended up having an argument about all sorts of stuff and she panicked and lied her way into a corner until I left the hotel room and went for a walk to clear my head. When I got back to the room she was gone. To cut a long story short - she told me she had been trying to find a window to jump out of in our high rise hotel!

Needless to say this ___ed me up pretty badly. I was absolutely distraught at the idea of the girl I loved more than anything ever killing herself and we stayed up all night sobbing and promising to put things right. She made me a promise that she would never ever hurt herself again and would get help. Within hours, she was fine, back to her normal self, again I overlooked this as I was just happy to have 'Jenny' back happy and safe again. A theme that would play out for our whole relationship... .

As the weeks and months passed, life was like an absolute rollercoaster. The highs were like nothing I could ever describe. We were so in love! But her behaviour was so narcissistic and bemusing that it messed with my head. Any questioning of her inappropriate behaviour was always turned into a massive deal and it was always turned on me:

I didn't 'like who she was'.

I must have trust issues.

I was crazy.

I needed to see someone.

I was imagining things.

She didn't see any of her behaviours as inappropriate, so it must be me.

I clearly didn't love her.

I was clearly too good for her or she wasn't good enough for me.

All that stuff.

I blamed myself. I began to think I was going crazy. That I must have some underlying issues. That she was perfect and I was just ___ing things up for the pair of us. Anytime I stuck to my guns and went with my instinct and intuition - it was met with threats of suicide or absolute meltdowns trying to turn it around and get the sympathy and attention she craved. It absolutely broke me! I lost my whole sense of who I was. I lost my self awareness. My pride. My confidence. My values. I questioned my beliefs and my history and my family and friends, I became a shadow of my former self. I had constant nightmares and flashbacks thinking she was going to kill herself.

She told me I needed help, and I went to see a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with clinical depression and an anxiety disorder. I was put on medication and had to tell my friends and family and my work, I went on leave from work and life just went downhill from there.

In between threats of suicide and manipulative behaviour, she would carry on her life as if nothing was wrong. Still very high functioning, still telling my friends and family how I was struggling and how bad I was coping. She made me believe that I was going crazy. I didn't want to live anymore. I was broken beyond belief and I felt so isolated not being able to tell anyone about her issues because I was so worried she would hurt herself if I broke my promise.

I ended up such a mess that my family took me in to look after me. Within 48hrs I had a text message from her, saying that she couldn't be with me anymore... .Nobody could believe it. She refused to talk to me or my family, she went no contact and then proceeded to go around telling all her friends that she left me because I was emotionally abusive and not to talk to me because I was a liar and she was worried I was going to hurt her!

In the meantime telling me that she misses me and kisses my pictures before she goes to bed at night, and she's saving my space in her bed for one day because she still wants to be my wife and have my kids one day!

I've spent the last couple of months off the meds and felt better immediately. I never should have been on them in the first place imo. I've had a chance to speak to a couple of mutual friends and they have been given the chop by Jenny too now that they know the truth. Just deleted as if they were nothing.

Her social profile and social media presence looks as though absolutely nothing happened, like she ran over an cat in her truck and kept on driving, she hasn't even looked in the mirror to see if I was ok. She tells our friends that life is great without me and she goes on like I never even existed. Like I never meant a thing. It's so incredibly hard. I've never experienced such a lack of empathy in my life. It's destroying me.

Slowly I'm trying to get my life back. Trying to eat. Trying to sleep amongst the nightmares and the tears. Trying to see friends and stay busy, but it's so hard. She's drilled so far into my head that I still love her despite knowing full well what she's done to me, and that's terrifying in itself.

Only in the last couple of weeks have I spoken to friends and doctors and social workers and therapists and suddenly things are starting to make sense... .hence why I'm here.

From the reading I've done and the medical professionals I've spoken to, it would appear that she has some form of narcissistic personality disorder or BPD but I guess I'll never know. She's lied to just about every one there is to lie to, and I can't ever see her being straight with a psychiatrist to the point where she'll get the help she needs.

Her life is great apparently.

She's very successful.

And if that means destroying a few people's lives aling the way, even those that love her and try to help, then i guess that's a sacrifice she's willing to take.

That's my story.

I'm glad I found this place and I hope I can find some help here to get my life back after all this.

[JerryRG]

Hello Ithoughtitwasrea

I went through this for 4 years, I hope things get better for you.

I still blame myself because things were so confusing and my ex would never admit to any wrong.

Keep working hard to get well, it is a struggle, this has made me stronger in a way and broken me in many other ways. Maybe I needed to hit bottom to realize how sick my ex and I were so I could seek out the help I needed all along?

Life is a mystery, sometimes the things that seem the worst can be a blessing in disguise

[Ithoughtitwasrea]

Thankyou for taking the time to reply JerryRC.

It would appear that most people here have been through some really tough times as a result of their personal relationship and end up going througj very similar processes with the breakup and aftermath.

[heartandwhole]

Hi Ithoughtitwasrea,

Those were some emotionally harrowing experiences you described in your post. I'm glad you have been speaking to professionals and researching BPD. It helps, especially in the beginning, to understand that we weren't crazy, that there was in fact a strange pattern to the behaviors we saw in our partners.

BPD occurs on a spectrum, and is often co-morbid with several other disorders, so anyone with the disorder or traits will display symptoms that can vary greatly in severity.

I was a mess, too, after my breakup, but things really do get better—you are definitely not alone in your feelings. It's normal to still feel love and care about your ex partner, even with all the pain that the breakup caused. Be gentle with yourself. Healing is non-linear and takes time, patience and compassion. We're all here to walk with you, if you want to take that journey. 

Have you seen this resource here on the site? It helped me so much when I was in the throes of my breakup:

Surviving a Breakup with Someone Suffering with Borderline Personality Disorder - 10 Beliefs That Can Get You Stuck

The Lessons to the right (sidebar) are a great place to begin the recovery process, when you are ready.

Right now, I'm glad you are trying to get more sleep and take care of yourself physically. It's really important. Is there an activity or fun/relaxing thing you can do for yourself today or this week, that would feel like a real treat? Extra TLC at this time can help a lot.

Keep writing.

heartandwhole

[gotbushels]

Hi Ithoughtitwasrea 

Glad to have you on the board. I'm looking forward to hearing more about your story and development

gb

[Ithoughtitwasrea]

Thanks for your replies everyone, much appreciated. Great to feel that support and also a little scary that so many of your stories on here are so familiar! I genuinely thought I was going crazy and was very nearly admitted after going through hell with her.

It's quite harrowing reading some of these stories and articles thinking "Oh my god... .that's her! That's exactly what happened and exactly how I feel"

It's such a relief in some ways but also forces acknowledgement on so many other levels realising that so much of the relationship was lies and deciept and manipulation and that I was likely used for her to get what she needed from me and then I was disposed of like a broken toy.

I guess it will take time to come to terms with all this.

[Ithoughtitwasrea]

So... .

I went in to see my psychotherapist today. I mentioned that I had joined this forum and been reading up on BPD and other personality disorders and been reading all your stories and experiences.

I mentioned how much of a relief it was to hear that other people had been through the same and to finally read something that shouted out at me "that's her!"

He admitted that he had had his suspicions about her from what he had seen and the pattern of her behaviour but that he wanted me to make the first move in terms of suggesting such a diagnosis. He obviously said that he can't diagnose her but he said that her behaviour and our relationship pattern is classic of someone with a personality disorder... .

Funnily enough something that 2 psychiatrists have also now mentioned that they think the same.

You know what's ___ed up?

I still love her. I think I always will.

Despite everything she's done, I know that she's not well and she's not happy and I really hope she's ok one day.

[gotbushels]

Ithoughtitwasrea it's normal to feel conflicted after fresh breakups. Also, it does feel nice when the professionals tell us a thing or two that provides a confirming effect on what we suspected.

Regarding your statement on love:

1

I ended up such a mess that my family took me in to look after me.

2

Within 48hrs I had a text message from her, saying that she couldn't be with me anymore... .

3

Nobody could believe it. She refused to talk to me or my family, she went no contact and then proceeded to go around telling all her friends that she left me because I was emotionally abusive and not to talk to me because I was a liar and she was worried I was going to hurt her!

4

In the meantime telling me that she misses me and kisses my pictures before she goes to bed at night, and she's saving my space in her bed for one day because she still wants to be my wife and have my kids one day!

If she actually has BPD traits, you're potentially going to have a lot of these sorts of things. Do you like this kind of thing? I'm just emotionlessly asking. I'm wondering how this makes you feel.

Within 24hrs of their breakup, she was in my bed kissing me.

1

If you heard this about a woman you don't know, how would you describe her? Try to refrain from using "should" or "should not" statements, that is, try to refrain from judgements in your description. What does this tell you about the type of traits she has? This might seem emotionally jarring to you, so it might help if you envision that I'm asking you in a manner like an emotionally blank participant.

2

If you observed the person kissing her as a different man, but in the same circumstances, how do you feel about that man?


My sympathies to you 

[Ithoughtitwasrea]

GotBushels - Thanks for.your reply.

Those 4 points you quoted make me feel like I'm worthless. They make me feel like I was in a relationship with someone who used me and left me for dead effectively when she'd finished playing her games. And then came back to reverse over me while I was lying in the road broken.

I can't explain the way I feel. I guess I've just never met anyone that I had those kind of 'highs' with. I've never met anyone who could make me feel that way, in a positive and a negative way. I've never met anyone who I've loved as intensely as I did with her, but I've also never felt pain and confusion quite like it. The whole relationship was intoxicating. It was 'loaded'. It was intense and passionate and destructive and all sorts of other things all rolled into 1.

I guess deep down I saw and I still see, a beautiful woman who is incredibly lost. Someone who will one day, I'm sure, realise that she has pushed away and destroyed the lives and relationships with those people who loved her truly and only ever tried to help her. I just hope, sincerely, that she doesn't realise it too late and do something stupid when she has nothing left around her but the realisation of what she has lost.

[Ithoughtitwasrea]

In response to the questions about the turnaround between relationships on her part, in hindsight that stands out as a massive red flag but at the time I never saw it that way.

I think that someone who can do that shows a huge lack of respect to their ex partner and a serious lack of compassion in that respect. It also shows me that she didn't or couldn't take the time to think through her thoughts and feelings around how and why her previous relationship failed, or take time to reestablish her own life etc before rushing into something else. I think she can't stand to be alone. And I think she saw me as someone who was vulnerable but also fit her profile of a rescuer in that situation and struck while the iron was hot.

[gotbushels]

GotBushels - Thanks for.your reply.

Those 4 points you quoted make me feel like I'm worthless. They make me feel like I was in a relationship with someone who used me and left me for dead effectively when she'd finished playing her games. And then came back to reverse over me while I was lying in the road broken.

I can't explain the way I feel. I guess I've just never met anyone that I had those kind of 'highs' with. I've never met anyone who could make me feel that way, in a positive and a negative way. I've never met anyone who I've loved as intensely as I did with her, but I've also never felt pain and confusion quite like it. The whole relationship was intoxicating. It was 'loaded'. It was intense and passionate and destructive and all sorts of other things all rolled into 1.

I guess deep down I saw and I still see, a beautiful woman who is incredibly lost. Someone who will one day, I'm sure, realise that she has pushed away and destroyed the lives and relationships with those people who loved her truly and only ever tried to help her. I just hope, sincerely, that she doesn't realise it too late and do something stupid when she has nothing left around her but the realisation of what she has lost.

Ithoughtitwasrea thanks for your response. I feel the courage in your text and I encourage you to be strong as you're amongst people who share or have shared your situation.

I'm sorry that you feel all those feelings. That sounds like it was a particularly low point on the rollercoaster of a non in the relationship.  It's normal to have difficulty explaining the emotions sometimes for a variety of reasons. Don't worry too much about your confusion. Very normal.

Your second para describes a significant amount of "high"s on the rollercoaster. That's what I see in what you wrote.

Your third para reads to me that is from your good intentions that you hope or had hoped to have saved her.

Do you feel a need to save her?

Are the highs so high that the lows become easy for you to ignore? Imagine yourself off the rollercoaster now instead of on it. Would you get on board knowing one of the "drops" will sink you into that area of feelings you describe as: making you feel "worthless" and "then came back to reverse over me while I was lying in the road broken"?

[Ithoughtitwasrea]

I guess I don't see it as wanting to save her. I'm the sort of person that doesn't see any human as inherently 'bad'. I think that because she is effectively unwell that one day she could get better and we could have that beautiful relationship that I saw so many examples of during the time we were together.

Is that crazy? I know the likelihood is that she won't ever get better and that our relationship was more than likely an illusion at best. But the good times were just so incredible, they really were. I miss that so badly. I'm sure you can all relate to that?

[LingeringNoMore]

Definitely!  I am like you, I thoughtitwasrea, I thought my husband would get well.  Instead it just got worse.  I definitely would NOT have gotten on the roller coaster.