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Caretaking - What is it all about?
Margalis Fjelstad, PhD
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Brené Brown, PhD
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Alan Fruzzetti, PhD
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Author Topic: Surrounded by dysfunctional people... feeling like there's no escape  (Read 381 times)
uhhhhi
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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 1


« on: April 20, 2017, 10:43:23 PM »

Hi, thanks for reading. I stumbled across this site and thought it might be cathartic to participate given my situation... .I'm not sure where to start. I guess I'll start with now.

I've been dating a girl, who I'm 99.99% sure is borderline, for about 6 months. It wasn't obvious right away of course, or I would have run. She just seemed moody and demanding. In that 6 months there have been 16 giant blowouts. I've had to learn to completely hide my feelings, because so much as a solemn glance from me will catapult her into a rage of endless blame, threats, insults, guilting, self-victimizing, bullying, projecting, and table-turning (me having feelings makes her angry-- usually 6 hours straight, and then she stays angry 3 days afterward, until the next fight erupts, either days or weeks later). It's clear now that she is beyond reason or seeing my point of view. We have stopped talking for nearly a week now after the last battle, which is a first. The good times seemed really great and we had a lot of interests and goals in common, but I'm in a stressful time now and she's only making it worse (of course she'll argue the opposite out of fear of abandonment).

Before this relationship, I did a lot of digging on why I attract these parasitic types. I was determined to have better relationships after divorcing a full-blown narcissist who wrecked my finances and mental health last year. Obviously, I failed myself. I read everything I could, and discovered that a lot of descriptions on "empaths" resonated with me. I have a lot of empathy, guilt, shame, sadness, etc that seems to make me easy to manipulate, and a fun chew toy for the toxic personality types. When I started dating again, however, I found several toxic types who were ahead of me in this line of thought and described themselves as empaths too. They do an excellent job of tricking me. In the current case, she maintains that she is one, and the "sensitivity" fooled me, but I realize now that she has no empathy nor sympathy for me/my situation.

This wasn't my first BPD. I had dated one before my marriage who latched on and wrecked my finances and social life with her manipulation and childish tantrums. Something helpful recently happened in this recursive scrutiny-- I started realizing this was all caused by my nice-guy syndrome. I have a hard time saying no or putting my needs first. I dug deeper. My mother was controlling, dramatic, guilting, dogmatic, and never let me have any privacy/boundaries growing up... .she even tried to meddle in my divorce... .so perhaps my mother is borderline too. My father was a hateful, abusive alcoholic who taught me everything I never wanted to be. Thanks to their inability to grow as human beings or create a functional household, I was dealt a bad hand and stunted in social growth. I still struggle with feeling unworthy, which some people like to exploit. I struggled with bipolar depression until I was finally correctly diagnosed at 27. Now I'm 31, so I guess I'm probably dating at a 22-year-old emotional level.

I'm not trying to elicit sympathy, just trying to describe my journey in the hopes that it will help someone else. I wish someone could have just handed me a roadmap on how to fix myself-- and I wish I could save someone else from learning everything the hard way like I did. I'm trying to stay strong and end this relationship (despite the argument that I know will ensue), and hope that I can learn ways to stop attracting these types. Any advice is welcome.

Thanks!


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DaddyBear77
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Gender: Male
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Ex-romantic partner
Relationship status: Divorced
Posts: 625



« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2017, 01:13:36 PM »

Welcome to the bpdfamily, uhhhhi! 

Your story resonates strongly with me and I'm sure, many others on this board. I also dated many suspected pwBPD before diving head first into my 17 year marriage. My finances are also severely impacted by my decision to put a toxic relationship above my own well-being.

I'm sure you've done lots of reading and searching and have discovered many of the things that "keep you stuck" in this pattern. A couple of things that have really helped me are:
Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist
Codependency and Codependent Relationships

Can you share a little more about what has been so attractive about your current relationship? What was the biggest draw for you? Her seemingly empathic nature? Her validation of YOUR nature?
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