The recycling battle

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Hey guys, I'm kinda sorta new to this forum and I've posted a few times. I'd like to share some more of my story and possibly some advice for others. At age 17 I met my so called cluster b ex girlfriend. I fell in love with this girl and I was head over heels. Not knowing anything about BPD or any of the red flags, I let some of her actions slide. She'd treat me like I was the best and only thing in her world and than shed treat me like utter crap when I'd want to hang out with my friends and such. To make a long story short, I was with her for nearly a year and a half. We broke up last year in June. Early this year in February she randomly contacted me after 8 months of no contact. As others have told me on this board, they can strike at any unknown time. Unfortunately I gave into her lies and her apologies and I let her hangout with me. From February to now , she has been on and off with me, telling me she loves and misses me, and than she completely hates me. About two weeks ago she contacted me. We were in a stage of no contact and she started to beg for me to come back to her. She sent me so many messages for nearly 4 days and I kept ignoring her. It came to the point where she started to follow me and she waited in front of my house. I finally gave in and let her back into my life once again. Unfortunately I never learn from what happens and here I am again sitting in a pile of my own crap. She decided she didn't want to be with me, after chasing me around and stalking me, telling me she loves me. She even promised me she wouldn't change her mind. I really love this girl but Im just at the point where I give up. What every one has told me on this board was totally correct. After 10 or more recycles and trying to deal with her, nothing seems to work. Im 20 years old now and somehow I lost all my confidence and my urge to talk to other girls. For some reason I can't even talk to others girls. Fortunately Im not as sad or depressed anymore as I was before when we first broke up. I know I have many years to live, but it seems like it's taking for ever to find someone else and to even move on. I wish this process was easy but for some reason a part of me is still stuck.

My only advice to others on this board is that things will never work out with these type of people. I wish I could say we could work things out, but these types of people will never really change, unless they really want to. If anyone reads this please take my advice and try not to fix things and move on. It really helps if you just shut them out of your life. But anyways thanks to anyone who reads this or responds.

[Subaruboy]

Hey guys, I'm kinda sorta new to this forum and I've posted a few times. I'd like to share some more of my story and possibly some advice for others. At age 17 I met my so called cluster b ex girlfriend. I fell in love with this girl and I was head over heels. Not knowing anything about BPD or any of the red flags, I let some of her actions slide. She'd treat me like I was the best and only thing in her world and than shed treat me like utter crap when I'd want to hang out with my friends and such. To make a long story short, I was with her for nearly a year and a half. We broke up last year in June. Early this year in February she randomly contacted me after 8 months of no contact. As others have told me on this board, they can strike at any unknown time. Unfortunately I gave into her lies and her apologies and I let her hangout with me. From February to now , she has been on and off with me, telling me she loves and misses me, and than she completely hates me. About two weeks ago she contacted me. We were in a stage of no contact and she started to beg for me to come back to her. She sent me so many messages for nearly 4 days and I kept ignoring her. It came to the point where she started to follow me and she waited in front of my house. I finally gave in and let her back into my life once again. Unfortunately I never learn from what happens and here I am again sitting in a pile of my own crap. She decided she didn't want to be with me, after chasing me around and stalking me, telling me she loves me. She even promised me she wouldn't change her mind. I really love this girl but Im just at the point where I give up. What every one has told me on this board was totally correct. After 10 or more recycles and trying to deal with her, nothing seems to work. Im 20 years old now and somehow I lost all my confidence and my urge to talk to other girls. For some reason I can't even talk to others girls. Fortunately Im not as sad or depressed anymore as I was before when we first broke up. I know I have many years to live, but it seems like it's taking for ever to find someone else and to even move on. I wish this process was easy but for some reason a part of me is still stuck.

My only advice to others on this board is that things will never work out with these type of people. I wish I could say we could work things out, but these types of people will never really change, unless they really want to. If anyone reads this please take my advice and try not to fix things and move on. It really helps if you just shut them out of your life. But anyways thanks to anyone who reads this or responds.

[Confused108]

Wow this just gave me a flashback of my teen tears with my ex! 1987. Same crap love you/ I don't/ hated me . 26 years later comes back and then pulls the same $hit on me again as 42 year olds!  Same thing promised she would Never leave me!  Broke my heart all over again! You are right... Don't let these ppl back into your lives. It will just be the same thing over and over again. The only ppl getting hurt is us! Stay clear of them at all cost!

[Aussie0zborn]

Glad to hear you have finally realised what a waste of time your efforts were and identified it for what it was. Not glad to hear that you are stuck in a rut.

While you're not feeling you are up to talking to other girls, why not take this time to work on yourself? Gym, body building, that sort of thing. Google "manosphere" and see if there is anything there you relate to or can adopt.

The idea is to further develop so as to be able to identify and reject anything that is not healthy for you. You are young enough to do it as there is a whole lifetime ahead of you. Good luck.

[JQ]

Hi Subaruboy,

Welcome to the group, I feel for what you've gone through, but I'm glad that you found us.  Since your new, I would encourage you to read the references at the top of page & to the right of the page to help you learn more about BPD and more importantly learn about yourself.     From your brief description you are no different then a lot of those here including myself. We are codependent or recovering codependents, aka care givers, perfectionist, Knight in Amor, Sheriff with the shiny badge. By learning about you, your history and why you got to where you are can you stop the recycle of relationships that are not healthy for you. Most of us have been where you are, and it'll get better, it always gets better.

My story isn't much different then yours as a young man around 20. Before internet, before Google, before this site were even thought of, I just thought she was in the end, Batsh!t crazy.  I fell in love with a young woman who was amazing lover, full of energy, full of life, etc. etc. ... .so I thought at the time.  Her father sat me down one afternoon, and told me he wanted me to know a family secret if I was thinking about marrying his daughter. He told me that her mother had been admitted to a mental ward in a local hospital several times and once was for up to 6 weeks. BPD wasn't widely known at the time, all he could tell me was that she was mentally ill and that the docs told him it would very likely be passed down to at least one of his 3 children. She started to exhibit those same signs that he saw so many years ago. She was one of 2 children that inherited the genetic mental illness. I commended him for telling me such a secret to which he told me, "I don't want you to live the same hell I have with her mother for 30 years".  Soon after that exBPDgf blew another gasket and raged at me. We broke it off and this time it was for good. I ended up leaving the state and nearly 20 yrs later she still tries to continues to insert herself in my life.

Fast forward to present day. I recently "3 yrs ago" met up with an old high school friend and things were great but wouldn't you know it, she had BPD, she told me as much and that she had been in and out of mental health professionals office for over 25 yrs.  It was a turbulent couple of years but with a lot of education, a good T who specialized in BPD/Codependent r/s, a lot of home work, this website, a lot of reading I learned why I was a codependent, how I got there and the things I could do to make a change in my life so not to repeat the past.

We need to take an active role in our own healing, education, and moving forward from our own respective BPD r/s.  You seem to be on a good path, you've learned what BPD is but still need to do a lot of home work on yourself. Like you I lost my confidence in talking to other women for what was a long time. My guidance to you echo's Confused108 guidance and that is to get out and start to physical, emotionally, mentally work on yourself.    

Get out in the morning for a walk, a run, a bike ride. A mile only takes you 15-20 minutes on a slow day. It'll help burn up some of the stress, anxiety you're having. It'll help get some of the good endorphins running in your body too. Make sure your eating right, nothing good can come from junk food except a lot of extra weight.  Be sure you're getting some sleep. REM sleep is so important to your mental & physical recovery from the day's stresses. If you're having trouble getting to sleep, try a noise machine and some melatonin. Don't worry it's not a drug and you can find it in the vitamin isle in the grocery store. When you're under such stresses as you are, your body produces less of this natural hormone and you might need to supplement it. Start off with 5mg's and see how that works, I take about 20mgs a night to help be fall asleep.

Next call up an old friend you haven't talk to in awhile and catch up. this is good for your mental & emotional repair. Get out to a movie with them, get a good burger & a beer, not that fast food kind but a really good burger.  Learn to appreciate the small things again, go do a comedy show, weekend road trip to see your favorite sport team play or just get out of town. But get out of your place and start to embrace life again!       

Our stories are similar, but you know what? There are a lot of us here that have similar stories and we've all moved forward, we've all learned and educated ourselves and we'll all tell you that it gets better!  It always gets better! 

J