Nothing you haven't heard a million times

[cyqueenzstyle]

Hi,

Sorry if this is in the wrong place or whatever. I don't use forums much, but I joined for the support. I'm a doctor (resident) who dated this nurse for over a year and had the typical experience (idealize/splitting/Devalue/push pull/ high/loss, losing myself and self worth, addicting hot sex, unwanted pregnancy and abortion, cheating and lying about cocaine use. I became desperate to the point where I even put a ring on her finger and it still wasn't enough to keep her from the back and forth. She couldn't give me the satisfaction at the end of saying she'll be my girl officially for more than two weeks before breaking up again. So now we've been no contact since December 21, 2016 with the exception of silently seeing each other on passing in the hospital. It ended with her dad (divorced after cheating on her mom nevertheless still the apple of her eye) telling me that if I contact her again, he'll call the police. This was in response to me reaching out to him for help in caring for her use of cocaine which I hadn't realized was nearly as frequent as it is. He weirdly flipped his anger on me. So now we're done and I don't expect to ever hear from her again and I'm wondering if my grieving will end and my mourning will eventually cease and I will go back to normal. Any support is appreciated. Thanks for reading.

[Mutt]

Hi cyqueenzstyle,



I'm sorry to hear that. The push / pull behavior from a pwBPD can feel like crazy making behavior the non disordered partner. Many of us can relate with you, you'll see a lot of similarities if yo read different posts but its our story and it helps to get it out with people that get it.

You mention that she's the apple of her father's eye? You, her dad and your ex make three people in a drama triangle, a pwBPD will cast themselves as victim, sometimes rescuer and rarely persecutor. Her dad is rescuing his daughter and you're cast as persecutor. You're a Dr, you're a compassionate person so you're just trying to help her. The best strategy is to stay in the middle of the triangle without taking either polarized sides.


Escaping Conflict and the Karpman Drama Triangle.

Surviving a Break-up when Your Partner has Borderline Personality

[Lucky Jim]

Hey cyqueenzstyle, Welcome!  What makes you think that your exGF has BPD?  It's painful to break up with a pwBPD, as many here can attest, but in the long run you may find yourself grateful to have gotten out when you did.  In general, a BPD r/s is not built to last, for the reasons you cite.  My suggestion: return the focus to yourself and try to figure out what is the right path for you.

LuckyJim

[oshinko maki]

Like you can't force a horse to drink, you can't force drug treatment. Just like many refuse BPD treatment.

If you do hear from her again, would establishing any kind of relationship with her again be the right move in the long run? Risks outweighed by rewards?

You may also want to investigate your ethical or legal obligations stemming from knowledge of her drug use and any effect of it or potential effect of it on work.

[schwing]

Hi Cyqueenzstyle and

I'm a doctor (resident) who dated this nurse for over a year and had the typical experience (idealize/splitting/Devalue/push pull/ high/loss, losing myself and self worth, addicting hot sex, unwanted pregnancy and abortion, cheating and lying about cocaine use.

One of the most confusing aspects of this disorder (in my experience), is how a person with BPD (pwBPD) can be so high functioning is some or most contexts (i.e. professional life), and yet have such dysfunctional/disordered behavior in other specific contexts (i.e. that of familial and intimate relationships).

Also, I think addiction behaviors (i.e. cocaine use) can serve as camouflage for the personality disorder.  PwBPD seem to have less issue identifying with problems such as Bipolarism, or addiction... .but if you try to tell them they might be suffering from borderline personality disorder then they will shoot the messenger and the messenger's family.

She couldn't give me the satisfaction at the end of saying she'll be my girl officially for more than two weeks before breaking up again. So now we've been no contact since December 21, 2016 with the exception of silently seeing each other on passing in the hospital.

This is another aspect that took me a long time to grok.  My best model for understanding this behavior is to imagine pwBPD as suffering from a kind of PTSD. Only instead of reliving specific memories, they are re-experiencing the feelings associated with their trauma.  And as I see it, sometimes their actual trauma can be imagined if not real (some sufferers seem not to have a traumatic background). What triggers their PTSD is being in intimate and familial/familiar relationships.  Relationships that trigger them more (maybe more intimacy? maybe more familiarity?) evoke more trauma and more disordered feelings.

So on the one hand, she really did want to be your girl, to be the mother of your child, etc... but all that intimacy/familiarity cost her. In her mind, it made you the cause of all her pain.  But only because she had projected all of that buried trauma onto you.  And this is why you could never be "official" for very long.

What can allow you to associate with a pwBPD with minimal issues are (emotional) distance and formality.  :)on't be too close. Don't dismiss.

It ended with her dad (divorced after cheating on her mom nevertheless still the apple of her eye) telling me that if I contact her again, he'll call the police. This was in response to me reaching out to him for help in caring for her use of cocaine which I hadn't realized was nearly as frequent as it is. He weirdly flipped his anger on me.

Maybe her father has inappropriate anger.  But maybe she communicated a very different picture of your relationship with her father. Think "distortion campaign."  Sometimes it's lies.  Sometimes it is their experience reimagined in a manner that relates to the source of their disordered feelings (i.e. original trauma).  You don't know.  You won't know. Only her dad knows what she told him. Maybe someday you'll find out. Probably not.

Her father has spent all her life trying to figure out how to help out her daughter... .unsuccessfully.  You probably have a better understanding of her issues than he. Family members of pwBPD have parallel but different issues with disordered family members; take a gander at the "children/relatives" sections of the board and you'll see.

Family members can be in greater denial than people who only date pwBPD.

I became desperate to the point where I even put a ring on her finger and it still wasn't enough to keep her from the back and forth... .

So now we're done and I don't expect to ever hear from her again and I'm wondering if my grieving will end and my mourning will eventually cease and I will go back to normal.

I think you will need to grieve over the relationship you thought you had but did not.  And you will need to grieve while knowing that the person didn't really die but is still walking and talking around your life -- this isn't easy. There is finality in death.  And in a more "normal" ending of a relationship, there can be mutual understanding.  Here, you'll find none of that.  What you need is to find a way to reconcile all the various cognitive dissonances that are dancing around in your recollection of this relationship.

You are in the right place.

Best wishes,

Schwing

[lovenature]

Welcome cy

You will be able to mourn and grieve on your journey to freedom, total NC is the best way to get yourself back. I found that the more I read and learned about BPD, the clearer things became, and once I learned enough about the disorder I shifted the focus to me and why I stayed in an unhealthy relationship-very painful but necessary. Don't expect recovery to be linear; try to roll with the ups and downs.