Welcome to the community, and it's good you found this place. I think those of us who have been in relationships with pwBPD can help others make sense of which way is up, and what it means for us as people to have experienced something like this. I have a couple thoughts on some things you've written below...
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She opened up one day and took off her long sleeve shirt, which she always wore and she had about 15 self harm scars on each arm and some on her legs, too.
She told me she used to cut herself and that she also previously had an eating disorder.
She was in therapy and on medication, so she was being proactive about healing her wounds.
I just tried to make her feel as non judged and as comfortable as possible and never asked any questions.
Some days she was super cheery and the next day, or sometimes the same day, her mood would shift and she would be quiet and withdrawn.
One day, she came over and was in tears and her anxiety was so bad, she was shaking.
I spent the day with her just to be there, but she would not say exactly what was bothering her and then she needed to be alone.
This happened frequently, she would be so upset, need her space, then I wouldn't see her for a couple days.
Then she would come over and she was upbeat.
Not to be overly dramatic, but when I read this part, I thought of a horror movie like Alien, where the parasitic xenomorph is out there, probing for weakness, and looking for a point to attack, LOL. She was testing you, to see what you'd tolerate.
I think this is one of those "red flag" moments in your relationship with her, where she showed you what a mess she was, and watched carefully to see whether you'd accept it, or run like hell. You accepted it. The next thing you'd experience would be her attempts to see how she could manipulate you into doing things she wanted, or foregoing things you liked to do, as a show of how committed to her you could be. Hence the later comment attempting to blame you for her own poor behavior.
I reached out 2 months later (she wouldn't answer her phone) so I texted her and asked what had happened, "why did you disappear"?
She apologized for ghosting me and said that she had a lot going on in her life and that she needed some space.
She also threw something in my face - she brought up a question I had asked her - about birth control, which she was taking when we dated - she said she felt very disrespected... it kind of felt made up.... I don't know.. so I apologized and just said I wish you would have told me this - we could have worked it out... no response...
This is just a classic attempt to deflect from her own lousy behavior - ghosting someone she had been intimate with - on to you, and force you to take the blame for it.
I noticed this all the time; BPDxw would do something untoward or uncalled for, and then insist it was my fault because she "
felt" that I was being rude, or "
wasn't committed enough" or [insert other wholly-made-up-or-heavily-embellished-event as an excuse].
I said, "that's fine, you don't owe me that. what's not fine is the ghosting. You did it once to end our relationship and you did it again now. you clearly have no respect for other people's feelings. We're done"
This is good! You have a boundary - not getting close to people who don't respect other's feelings - and you enforced it fairly and consistently.
Had you been dealing with a mentally healthy, mature adult, and not a disordered one, she would've responded with an apology. Period. Not one with any conditions. And if she had any sort of excuse for her behavior it would've been one that made logical sense & didn't attempt to shift blame on to you or someone else. Regardless though, you wouldn't have been made to feel somehow responsible for her own behavior.
Shortly thereafter, she posted pics other and some guy on her social media.
Pics of them hiking, cuddling, etc., then she removed only those pics.
Then she would repost them, leave them up for a few weeks, then delete....
I suspect (which seems confirmed by this part) that she was "playing the field" and dating (at least...) one other guy.
Of course, a person doesn't have to have a personality disorder in order to cheat, but cheating and a "pattern of unstable relationships" are two of the diagnostic behaviors of BPD (link:
https://bpdfamily.com/content/borderline-personality-disorder)
There's also a behavior some have dubbed "
monkey branching" ... which you can look up online, as there are a lot of sites documenting it, but basically it's forming new relationships while still in one, and swinging between them, without letting partners know of the intent or what the monkey-brancher is doing.
I still wonder what would have happened if I had said something differently, I don't even know what.
I've been replaying the tape in my head since the last time I saw her...
She has not come back and I doubt she ever will.......
The thing that messes with my head the most is the thought that she's gone to therapy and gotten better and now some other guy is getting all the good stuff in her that I missed out on....
I don't know.....
My $0.02: she was playing the field to see who provided the "best" long term "safe" option for her. If another guy was richer, better looking, more exciting, etc. she would've been drawn to that, but you being tolerant of most of her flaws (until you drew the line at ghosting) meant that you were "safe" - a safety net for her to fall back on when nothing else was going on, or the other guy stopped accepting her behavior.
If you want to know what would've happened if you said something differently, read some of the threads on this board of people who married pwBPD, their long term struggles, and their desperation to get out, having spent years of their lives miserable, having to constantly reassure the pwBPD of their commitment, becoming estranged from their own family and friends in the process (the pwBPD will inevitable feel "threatened" by any other relationships in your life, even familial ties), enduring many forms of abuse by the pwBPD, from emotional and verbal to even violent abuse in some cases, as the pwBPD looks to control the non-disordered partner completely by any means necessary.
And as far as the worry that she's going to go to therapy and improve her behavior and mental state are exceedingly rare. And the chances that improvement will be lasting and long term are even more rare.
Instead of wondering what could have been, look at it this way: you heeded the warning signs and didn't fall into the pit many others, including me, have fallen into.
I'd echo one thing
Pook said: the problem wasn't you. The problem was entirely that she has a behavioral disorder, and nothing you said or did was going to change that.
