one week down

[kc sunshine]

So it's been one week since I last saw my BPD ex, two weeks since we officially broke up, and three weeks since we last were together. My physical anxiety symptoms have reduced somewhat, but I'm still ruminating a lot, especially about the last few weeks of mean stuff. I guess my mind still needs to wrap itself around it all-- how someone that just weeks earlier was so loving could turn so heartless. Also, I'm still having trouble working. Hopefully I'll be able to turn that around this week. Did other people have trouble working as well? Any hints on how you get yourself back to it?

[empathic]

Yes, I got a brief surge of productivity when moving out (about four weeks ago), but I'm now ruminating a lot again. I guess it will be worse like this before it gets better. There's so much emotional stuff to go through not to mention practical issues.

I have brief moments of feeling happy but think a lot about the kids. I think it will be eaiser when we have a schedule in place.

Trying to exercise and keep busy in other ways. Have a trip with the kids ahead that I'm looking forward to.

[DazedD40]

Don't make the mistake I made and allow the charming to kick off. I did that on week 3 and any progress I started making, like getting focused at work went out the window as I allowed her to again emotionally abuse me and foolishly lead me back in to the bedroom.

I'm now No Contacr with her after I told her I couldn't do the dance anymore. I can't focus on myself if she's still in my life. I've recognised this so I'm trying to take myself back so I can start focusing on what I need to do.

I think that's the o my way for me to survive.

[seenr]

I'm the very same as you KC.

7 weeks since the split, 8 since we were together physically. Went from being called ':)arling' and praised to highest heaven, her putting her arms around me & us having a lovely family dinner, to being physically attacked.

Like you, work was very difficult. I work in IT and spent days on end staring at the screen just hoping for something in life to stimulate me. I joined a single Dad's support group, who have been excellent. Like Empathetic, I am exercising and have planned a couple of trips with my Son. As my own house is rented out, once my ex attacked me I had no option only to go to my parent's. They were upset to see me, a 42 year old man, literally broken. I now need to think about renting somewhere else but mentally I feel very weak at the moment.

I unfortunately need to see my ex whenever I collect or drop my Son home to her. I don't look at her, do not speak. That is not to be nasty, I simply cannot take in what has happened.

So that is me after 7-8 weeks. Give yourself a chance - sounds like you too have been through a lot.

[seenr]

Good advice from DazedD40

Earlier in our relationship, my ex used to do that to me - attract me back with the most erotic lovemaking possible. As the years have rolled on she realised that one big button to push was saying 'I don't love you any more'. As hard as that is to hear, now I realise she has said that 3-4 times and a few months later has said 'I love you' or something to kick off a conversation about us.

And like DazedD40 I think I need to focus on me too. I've started to have nightmares (3 this weekend) and I know from experience that is the start of my brain clearing out some toxic stuff. I had one at 4.30AM Saturday morning, woke, googled the meaning of it and was quite upset. But I know it is my subconscious processing things.

Breakups from BPD's are very difficult. I'm glad we can chat to each other here.

[pseudotsuga]

I am six weeks in (from a breakup that I am not fully able to admit might be actually real this time... .after 8 years of him leaving and coming back, and my sucker of a heart - knowing better with logic yet believing opposite with all my emotions - welcoming him back every time) and vacillating between weird emotional denial-numbness coupled with frantic keep-busy-so-you-don't-feel-anything-productiveness and helpless utter heartbreak inability to do ANYTHING. One of my main jobs is to work from home - as an artist and a writer. And, I can do neither.  I try to keep busy and try not to drown completely in the rivers of pain. But... .the voice in my head that knows I will be better off without him is louder now than ever before... .and it won't let me go back to him. So I binge-watch away another sleepless night, drink more whiskey, and hope that sleep will find me before the sun rises. And, I hope that maybe, somehow, the universe will magically bring me a friend to talk to about all my pain. (But I have lied, by omission, about the pain and emotional abuse of my relationship to all my friends for so long that I don't even know how to talk about it now. So I feel like I am dying inside. And no one has a clue.)

I hope you find peace faster than I.

And, I hope we all feel better a year from now, when the pieces of our lives can be picked up and put back together... .

[rfriesen]

Yes, complete non-productivity for weeks at a time, just surviving at work until things get better. And very, very slowly they have. But I'm three months out and I still am functioning at maybe 40% -- and even then my ex is on my mind constantly. Sometimes, I have to step back and force myself to see the comedy in it too! I'm in my late 30s, have had several longer term relationships that I think were very positive, loving, and, while a break-up after years together is never easy, I think I've always had decent break-ups too. I thought I was long past the age when I could lose my mind over someone and then be so heart-broken after having to walk away.

But it's an addiction. I'm gradually waking up to the fact that my relationship with my ex really fits the description addicts give of their inability to stay away from their object of addiction. And it might be same for my ex -- although I have no idea what goes on in her head (crazy, since I used to feel I never knew someone's every thought so well). The few times my ex and I hooked up after our final break-up, it was like a black-out. Not that I didn't remember or wasn't aware what we were doing, but it's like I just shut down the sane part of my mind (that had promised to move on), dove back in for that insane high, and afterwards kept thinking, "What was that? What are you doing, knowing that this is a disaster and fires up all the ruminating again? It makes you miserable."

Anyway, long story short -- yes, it's been very hard to focus on work or anything else since the relationship ended.

[seenr]

rfriesen

What a great post. Almost word for word agree 100%. I can't get my ex out of my head either. People who haven't had this type of relationship do not understand. They say things like 'plenty more fish in the sea' etc.

Well there are, but none of them give that drug you mention, that intoxicating drug of being around someone like a firework. Vastly exciting but who then can blow up at any stage almost without warning.