Hello, I have been a reader of this site for approximately a month now. I feel so alone and really need some help. I'll try to give some backstory.
I dated someone for 2 years. As you can imagine and I'm sure no surprise to any of you reading this, the relationship was incredible to begin with. All of the typical "never felt a connection like it", "I've found my soulmate", "I finally feel seen and heard". It was truly a love I have never experienced. Deeper and more powerful than anything I could have ever imagined. We were inseparable. I cannot describe the intensity of the connection, the love I felt and the sheer electricity between two people. No surprise to any of you as I say.
Fast forward two years and I was discarded in a 10 minute conversation. Just gone like that completely out of the blue. No warning. No explanation. No answers. My entire world shattered. Post breakup it was made clear by my ex that she did not want to be together but would allow just enough to keep me hanging on. I still love you, I don't want to lose you from my life, I think about you etc.... sheer confusion from me as I tried to rationalise a) why a seemingly incredible relationship has ended with no real reason and b) how the person can say they still want me, are attracted to me, wants to continue engaging in sexual activities, still loves me and doesn't want to lose me etc but yet then say I don't want to be with you.
It's now been 7 months since this breakup. I have been incredibly fortunate and I am seeing a psychologist. A man who as it happens, is an expert in PD and at the very top of his field. He put to me that my ex has BPD. It was an absolute revelation. I cannot describe how much the pieces just fell in to place. I had read lots about attachment styles and had tried to make sense of what had happened through those lenses but nothing really made sense of the complexity and nuances within the relationship dynamic and the breakup. Now I do not want to fall in to the category of someone who has self diagnosed there ex. My belief about BPD is coming from an experienced psychologist and me now looking back at the relationship for what it really was.
My ex had experienced significant childhood trauma. I shall not go in to details but let's just say it was significant. I have read many posts here about peoples relationships and encounters with BPD and quite frankly it astounds me the community of people and the support everyone shows each other.
My ex never presented with classic rage symptoms. It's made it easy for me to play down that this is indeed still a person with BPD. I am struggling immensely, beyond words to realise that I was manipulated, lied to, played and emotionally and psychologically abused by this person. My ex very much played the victim and manipulated. I feel I haven't given much justification as to why or how is am certain that I was involved with someone who has BPD. I find it hard to explain in any sort of succinct way. Partly because I can't seem to form functioning thoughts to even begin to process all of this. But partly because it was all so nuanced and subversive.
The relationship began with fireworks as described above. I was enamoured. Very quickly it became apparent this person had serious mental health issues. She admitted a diagnosis of PTSD. Struggled with anxiety, deep depression, reported flashbacks, couldn't sleep, multiple trains of thought going in her head at all times. She told me the voices were always screaming at her, mostly to kill herself or to lash out at people who were trying to be nice to her. Previous suicide attempt (so she reported), dissociation, and psychosis. Now given the trauma she told me about from childhood. All of this made sense. I never questioned it. I couldn't delve deep in to something so traumatic and so I never probed. I just understood and accepted these things and the struggles she had. All because the love I felt from this person was INCREDIBLE. She told me very early on, only weeks in to the relationship of a second trauma. A very serious allegation that had happened to her. She'd been seeing a therapist about this but the therapist had said they couldn't help her with this incident because she needed to go away and work on herself first. I never questioned it. I was completely suckered in even so early on. The relationship continued and became increasingly one sided in the sense that I would run around after this person and care for them non stop. Migraines so bad that they would put her in bed for days on end, anxiety so intense it would prevent her from going outside, depression so bad it would again put her in bed for days on end. All the while I never knew the cause of these issues and always put it down to the intense trauma she had suffered. All of it I tolerated because I was getting just enough of that incredible, incredible love and physical affection that became like a drug. She often told me that she could not articulate how she felt in words and may never be able to say certain words but that her affection never lied. And whatever it was I felt, I just knew she felt it too because it was palpable, electric, it was so intense and amazing. It was impossible for me to feel this without it being reciprocated. She was creating this feeling.
She used to talk about her ex, he was abusive, he had anger issues, he was controlling, he never allowed her to see friends or family. At one point even accused him of sexual assault. I believed it all. I also forgot to mention that when we met she was still with him. She ended her relationship to be with me. Anyone else seeing a pattern? I now know without a doubt that the ex was none of the things she told me he was. But again I believed it.
The psychologist I am seeing has put to me that all of the behaviours I witnessed and was subjected to, the victim playing, the inability to care for herself, the self pitying, self deprecating behaviours were intentionally designed to keep me playing the role of carer. The anxiety that prevented so much was designed to create a victim character. The inability she had to ever be introspective or listen to my needs, the inability to ever talk about her emotions. Any conversations that resulted in any sort of emotional response, positive or negative that would lead to panic attacks and complete shut down. The inability to choose her own clothes for work or pick what to eat. Her boasting of sexual promiscuity prior to us meeting. Her complete lack of self identity of which I had completely missed seeing because she was a perfect mirror of everything I had ever wanted in a person. This all backed up in amazingly contradicting fashion that at work she was the most outgoing, gregarious, confident, able person you could conceivably imagine. I always believed I was the only person who saw behind the mask. That the person at home was the real person and the work persona was an act to get through the day. But it wasn't, was it?
My psychologist has now put to me that the second trauma allegation she made could very well be a lie. Or at least a distortion of reality. Something I'd never EVER question in anybody. However I now have a gut feeling that the psychologist is right. Certain details, certain discussions, certain explanation just don't add up. Who the hell was the person I thought I knew so intimately?
I am struggling so immensely in ways I cannot describe. I now know that my ex has BPD and I have become a quasi expert on the matter. Researching, reading, watching and being educated by my psychologist. So I am aware that the love she experienced or showed to me was likely fake in many ways and by design used to manipulate me to fill a void that I never could. But for me all of the ways in which I felt were so real. It has crushed me to realise that the person I love never really existed.
I am destroyed to think that someone I would have laid down my life and died for could have lied to me about such heinous things in order to exploit my biggest vulnerabilities and weaknesses and to keep me fawning over her. It has crushed me to look back and see every interaction and every memory now tainted by the realisation that it was either a lie or a manipulation tactic.
She has since painted me black, telling people I am harassing her. I have not had contact with her for a number of months but I can categorically say I have not crossed any lines. I openly admit I had tried to communicate with her and to fight for the relationship I believed in. But it was never anything that broke any boundaries. I am unsure what else has been said about me but I can only imagine I am the abusive aggressor the same way her ex was.
I struggle to view the relationship this way but my psychologist has put to me that my experiences were and are emotional and psychological abuse and that I am likely traumatised by my experiences. I have nightmares about her. Vivid and intense. I don't know who I am anymore. I genuinely feel completely disconnected from myself. I feel intense emotions but I struggle to identify where they are coming from, what they are and why. I feel like my entire reality is in question. I feel angry at everyone and at the world and I don't know why. Friends, family see this as a normal breakup / relationship and when I try to explain they can't see it or don't understand it. Everyone around me tells me to get over it. I have to work with this person and so I see them almost daily. And I have to face the perpetrator of these horrific things whilst everyone around her pats her on the back for how brave she is leaving the relationship and doing what is right for her and looks at me as the person who needs to get some help for my issues.
I have lost 3 stone in weight, I can't sleep, I have memories of her (positive ones) all of the time, I can't stop fixating on her and the relationship I thought we had. I can't get her out of my head. I am so confused because my emotions are attached to the person I thought she was and I can't forget them but I now realise that they came from manipulation and the person I loved never existed. The cognitive dissonance is unreal. I feel guilt and shame and embarrassment because I recognise that this person abused me and yet I am still in love with her and miss her every single second of every single
PLEASE READing day. This person is an awful person who lied and manipulated and twisted reality and used me and yet I'd give anything to have her back. I doubt myself as to whether any of the things I know happened to me actually did happen. Was it ever real love? Was it manipulation? Was she lying? Did she ever feel the way she pretended to about me? My entire reality is crumbling and I don't know how else to describe other than - I DON'T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE. I am beyond broken. It's been 7 months and I cry every single day. I miss her every single day and yet I don't even know what I miss. I feel like I am going crazy, like I am slowly losing my mind. I feel on the edge of a breakdown.
I do not know how to get past this. I do not know who to forget about her or more to the point. I do not know how to process all of the things that have happened. How could I have been so deceived and have felt things so deeply. I am afraid I will never recover from this.
It now transpires
