Need help coping

[Venny]

Hello everyone,

I have recently finally ended my relationship of almost 5 years with my BPD partner. It is hell. I have been roped back in twice and feel even worse each time. Everything is out in the open now in terms of her having this disorder and the more I try the more it pushes her away. I have forced myself to give up and break all contact but its something I never wanted to do. I love her... .or so I thought. I loved the image of her. I am open to any and all advice on how to make sense of all this and how to recover from this abuse. I think she has cheated and at the very least is definitely with someone new now. SHe blames me for it all. Admitedly, I am far from perfect but I feel like I was pushed into acting the way I did out of desperation. I literally had no choice. We would talk about neverything she would admit to what she did and then literally the next day she would be lying acting shady running away ect as if we never spoke about anything.

[scgator]

Hello everyone,

I have recently finally ended my relationship of almost 5 years with my BPD partner. It is hell. I have been roped back in twice and feel even worse each time. Everything is out in the open now in terms of her having this disorder and the more I try the more it pushes her away. I have forced myself to give up and break all contact but its something I never wanted to do. I love her... .or so I thought. I loved the image of her. I am open to any and all advice on how to make sense of all this and how to recover from this abuse. I think she has cheated and at the very least is definitely with someone new now. SHe blames me for it all. Admitedly, I am far from perfect but I feel like I was pushed into acting the way I did out of desperation. I literally had no choice. We would talk about neverything she would admit to what she did and then literally the next day she would be lying acting shady running away ect as if we never spoke about anything.

Hi Venny, welcome to the family. I'm sorry that you're going through this. Since you're asking for advice mine would be to keep coming here and sharing with the family - we've been through the same and can understand, probably better than friends or family. You're ex sounds a lot like mine - she played the cheating/lying game with me, said she did/didn't/did/didn't and accused me of cheating with all sorts of people. I came on here and vented and listened and learned and in the process learned a lot about myself. I haven't seen my ex in 10 months now and the last communication I got was pretty much 5 months ago - Christmas texts saying how much I was loved and missed and too bad I couldn't stand by my words. I didn't reply and blocked her.

I've made friends, started living life, dated for a short while, and am now buying my own place. It's been a long 10 months and she is still in my head - I fight the urges to reach out all the time but I made myself a promise that I wouldn't go back and I intend to keep that promise. All of this is something I never intended to do. I thought I'd always be with her and if it didn't work out at least we'd be close friends. So much for that. Eventually I realized talking with her, texting her, thinking about her, trying to be friends with her, all of that, was just keeping me stuck in the "what if."

Time does make things better but so does confronting all the internal things - what drew you to her, why you stayed when the wheels started falling off. I did my own love bombing with her - I was hooked and had found my soulmate. I felt like I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her and that I'd never leave her no matter what - and I said those things and made what I wanted very evident. We talked about marriage. But then the equation changed with the addition of emotional/physical abuse, threats, lies, manipulation, push/pull behavior and general crazy-making. Part of why I was stuck is that I couldn't forgive myself for making a mistake in judgement and doing all I could to hang on to my soul mate. I'd said I'd never leave her so what was I thinking? I couldn't leave, I had to stay, I mean I'd said so. Well, that mindset sure didn't work and in my opinion just made things much worse on both of us.

Sorry if I'm bouncing around here. I haven't been on in awhile so I'm kind of replying to you and venting a little at the same time. Sometimes when the ruminations kick in I'll read up on some of the posts as a reminder of where I came from and how far I've come in in a year. You need to celebrate the small victories starting with the most important one - you took the steps to protect yourself and got out.

Stay strong, find a good therapist and lean on the good people here who know what you're going through. It's a tremendous help.

[Thrive]

Hi Venny

My advice is to recognize you have been under a lot of stress, and are probably very traumatized, and brainwashed at this point.

Be kind to yourself.

Think of it this way: these relationships are like joining an occult.  You are conditioned and your reality gets distorted. This is what brainwashing is.  Lots of reinforcement, resulting in lots of behavior modification.  You begin to REALLY believe in mind boggling scenarios like: it's totally legitimate for someone to go bananas and sleep with their significant other's best friend because you forgot to pick up milk on the way home!

Anyone would react that way--right? Right?

Rest, stay close to any kind and loving people you know, and realize this will take time to heal from.

Write on the boards, and talk about what's in your head. Everyone here is in the same boat.

You are not alone.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey Venny, Welcome.  Thrive put it well.  Many of us have been through the same experience and understand what you are going through.  Your story is quite familiar because it follows the same pattern of countless BPD relationships that people describe on this forum.  You are definitely not alone.  The first step, in my view, is to shift the focus to yourself, as Thrive suggests, and start caring for yourself again.

LuckyJim

Thrive: It is like joining a cult.  I sometimes joke and say that my Ex put a "spell" on me, but it's not far from the truth.  Yes, I was brainwashed and manipulated to the point that I lost myself for a while there.  Not fun, believe me.

[cc 69]

Hi finding yourself is the most important thing right now ... being true to yourself and beleaving in yourself are the tools that work we feel so lost and taking up with the through of our BPD we forget about the most important person. ... It's not a quick process what we all wish for but building back your self esteem and focusing on yourself will help you on this long road ... .

[Venny]

Thank you all for the comments. I guess what I struggle with the most is that she is still in the city and I run the very real possibility of seeing her fairly often. I haven't spoken to her in a week at this point. Have deleted everything and anything to do with her but it pissed me off that she gets to just be around and likely with someone new. She moved here for me and then ruined my life and is now staying? I know I need to essentially move on and get over it but the lingering question is how?  What are the steps? How to I reconcile this is my head and be ok with it? To be honest, I am very tempted to expose her truth if she doesn't leave and I want to say that much to her. She is a teacher and should not be given drug abuse ect. I do not want to even think like this but it sucks that as I struggle to move on I will see her and yhen be right back at square one... .thoughts?

[once removed]

hi venny and

your desire for justice is natural, and i recall my own desire to expose my ex. nothing seemed fair, and to be honest, i wanted her to know what i knew - that she hadnt "gotten away with" anything.

i put it to paper, and expressed it creatively. in doing so, my anger and justice fantasies werent in vain, i made something out of them that i could be proud of. there are lot of ways to use anger productively, that was mine. what might be yours?

as for steps? find yourself a good therapist. if youre depressed, see a doctor. read and work through

the bpdfamily Lessons. gather a library of two or three books on BPD with an emphasis on healing (i personally recommend The Journey From Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson, although it is not about BPD specifically). post here. read others posts, share and relate with members who have or are walking in your shoes. it helps to talk and to not feel so alone. practice self care. spend time with friends and family, and people that make you feel good about yourself; if you had friends that went by the wayside during the relationship, get in touch with them. expect dramatic ups and downs (you are healing from a traumatic experience). develop and maintain routine. find yourself through your old hobbies, and try to find new hobbies/practice new skills (this rebuilds confidence and self esteem).

i think thats it in a nutshell, but know that it all takes time, and its what you do with the time that counts.

the anger and justice fantasies will pass. i found that when i worked through them, those feelings morphed into a clear conscience and profound sense of inner peace.

additional info here:Surviving a Breakup With Someone With Borderline Personality Disorder