things were going great she was willingly spending time with me . . . even spending days at my house even when I was at work. Her son is in summer camp . . .
Hi there,
The push/pull, hot/cold, apologetic/accusatory cycle sounds very much like BPD. I highlighted a couple of things that stand out to me in your post. I notice that your girlfriend seems happy when she's relaxed. It seems to me she's relaxed when her adult obligations and responsibilities abate, such as when she has time to hang out in your home all day, and when her son is in summer camp. She might have felt like she was on summer vacation! And that's when you see her good side.
The pwBPD in my life really likes to be "in transition," between obligations such as going back to school or starting a new job. She really likes to be on long-term "vacation," with barely any responsibilities, living rent- and responsibility-free in someone else's home. When she's not working, studying or helping out around the house, she seems happy from time to time. She spends most of her days napping and in front of screens. But the second she has some obligations, such as starting a job, finding a new place to live, helping someone else for an hour, or facing an unexpected expense or unfamiliar administrative process, she feels totally overwhelmed. And when she's stressed/confused/required to work, she's very irritable and seems barely able to function. She typically lashes out over nothing, picks fights, acts passive-aggressively and dredges up past grievances that have absolutely nothing to do with the current situation. Does that ring any bells? She'll blame the people closest to her for making her feel this way. You're not paying enough attention to her. You're not giving her enough money. You're not helping her. You're not recognizing the distress she feels (as a mind-reader would), and she feels aggrieved. She's basically tired out, scared, stressed, feeling incompetent, feeling overwhelmed, feeling unloved, not the center of attention, not doted on enough. Then her negative thinking takes over. She assumes that any second you're not with her or paying attention to her, it's because you're into someone else. She doesn't care that you have a job and need to make money--she doesn't understand why you can't "drop everything" to attend to her needs while you're working. She demands constant "proof" that you put her first, as if all the nice things you've done for her in the past aren't proof enough, and she's completely forgotten them.
Another issue I've seen with the pwBPD in my life is wildly unrealistic expectations. She wants a fantasy-type life, but not put in the effort to achieve it. She demands too much devotion from friends. She wants expensive things, without really understanding how unaffordable they are. She wants what she wants NOW. If she can't get her needs met immediately, she tends to give up, and then lash out at the people closest to her for failing to meet her needs. She adopts a victim mindset, thinking that everything is other people's fault. And the sad part is, this victim mindset keeps her stuck in a negative thinking rut for a very long time.
My advice? Try not to take her lashing out personally, hard though that may be. Typically her anger will be misplaced. Even she will admit that sometimes, that she doesn't really understand what she's upset about. Or maybe she understands, but she's too ashamed to admit it. I think she feels intensely insecure, incompetent and shameful for lashing out at you. She feels worthless, like she doesn't deserve you. And so she might preempt a break-up from you by breaking up with you first. Sometimes she'll misinterpret something you did and make you out to be a monster. That's disordered BPD thinking, which sees things as extremes, all black or all white. She takes everything uber-personally and feels hurt, and she's letting you know how much she hurts inside. It doesn't make sense unless interpreted from a purely emotional standpoint.
