My (25f) gf (27f) walked out on me in January. Since then she’s been a different person. Cold, without emotion, paranoid, seems to not be able to communicate or understand basic asks. She has lost all our mutual friends in the area. I did not talk to them because I did not want people to pick sides, but she has ruined her relationships with them separately. She is obsessed with new people and has new “best friends” now.
I saw her to split up our mutual stuff (we lived together for years so there is a lot of it) and all the emotions came back. I miss her so much. I care about her so deeply and I am so worried for her. Logically I understand that she is not okay, and whether or not I contributed to her not being okay there was nothing I could have done to make it better. I may have been able to prolong the relationship, but she has been a train hurtling to the cliff for a long time now, and whenever I warn her of my worries she just adds more fuel to the train. Her mood swings were becoming frightening, and although she knows she has problems she consistently does the worst thing she can do; avoid them and dissociate.
Emotionally I am a wreck. I don’t know how to stop caring so much about her: every morning I wake up drenched in sweat after dreaming that she has disappeared so suddenly from my life. I feel the wind go out of me several times a day when I think of something I want to tell her and then realize I can’t tell her. I am so hurt that she emotionally replaced me. I am trying to stay busy and find meaning in my life, but all I feel is deep hollowness and confusion.
Any advice from people who have recovered?
It's normal after any break up to feel loss, grief, sadness, longing, and, sometimes, even anger. Not only does a relationship require intermingling ourselves with someone else, not just physically but emotional, but it also triggers a flood of chemicals in our bodies that are as potent (and often the same) as in drug addiction.
That said, the difference between the break up of a normal and healthy relationship and one that is not normal and unhealthy if not toxic is that the former allows some hope for growth and reconciliation. Two people can break up, go off on their own, maybe date other people, and then come back with the realization of what they'd given up with each and, more importantly, the wisdom and fortitude to do better.
That does not happen with a not normal and unhealthy relationship. The closest you can get -- if you dare -- is to work with someone else to try to get them into recovery. They are never going to cured, but if they're in recovery, they might be able to learn to make better choices and to have some control over how they express themselves and why.
So, while you are going through the withdrawal of no longer having someone in your life you were once close to, you have to remember not just the good things that cause us to miss people but the bad that cause us to break up with them.
In a normal, healthy relationship, when the bad tilts too far, it smothers the good. And so we break up. In a situation with someone with BPD (or anxiety, C-PTSD, and so on) is that what we think of as the good is so powerful (because that person often manipulates us or demonstrates behaviors that mirror us), it overshadows the bad.
But it's the bad you have to remember. And the threat of the bad is never going to go away, not even when they're in recovery.
So, it's fine for you to mourn the end of the relationship. It's fine for you to care about someone and to wish them will. It's even fine for you to want them to get professional help. But you can't forget the bad. That's what will allow you to focus more on yourself and your recovery than on them and why you miss them.
You also want to work on developing other relationships, if not romantic then friendships and otherwise. Connecting with people is important, though the degree changes according to personality. Some people are fine with a few others in their life while others need scores. You might also meet with a therapist to get professional feedback.
To heal, you have to focus on your own life and not someone else's, not in a selfish way but in a healthy way. Be good to yourself. Heal.
