Hi folks,
Not too sure what to say here, but I figured it would be a good place to communicate and see if others are experiencing a similar situation or experience.
I've been with my partner now for just over two years. We met on Tinder as we both were getting over long term relationships. Over the course of the first few months, things went reasonably well. We fell quickly for eachother and generally enjoyed a smooth relationship. Then, after 6 months, I moved to California with her. We started fighting a lot more and things could occasionally get abusive on her end. But it never resulted in injury, and I rationalized it as her being a passionate fighter, and as she was much smaller than me, I never thought she would be able to do any damage. During this time, we often fought and argued about our future. She wanted me to commit to marriage and frequently asked me to procure a ring - at this point, I was enamored and thought that she could make a lasting, stable life partner. So I told her that the ring would come soon, and that I just wanted to be stable in my own life before I asked her to marry me ( I was applying to graduate school and was uncertain about where I'd be in the coming months.)
I was accepted to a program in Colorado, and made the move out east. During this time, she was continuing her studies in California, so we would be long distance for a semester (about 5 months). The first weekend I was in Colorado, she asked me not to go out or do anything so that we could talk. Friday night, we spent all night talking and everything was fine. Saturday night, my new lab invited me out to happy hour so that we could meet and get to know eachother. I told my partner, and she promptly called me and berated me for abandoning her. But after we calmed down, she agreed to let me go out for a little bit. So I went out, and left my phone in my jacket pocket. When I checked my phone after about 2 hours, I had a stream of calls and text messages saying that we were broken up and that she couldn't understand how I could just abandon a person like that. I was distraught. I should mention here that the threat of breaking up and temporary breakups were a frequent argument technique on her end - but seeing as this was our first fight and argument in dealing with long distance, it felt more real. I called her and we tearfully made up. The semester went on like this, back and forth, for the entire time we were long distance. It never occurred to me that this could potentially be BPD - I only thought she was an introvert who could occasionally get overwhelmed and anxious.
After the semester, she followed me out to Colorado and things somewhat stabilized - we still fought and went through the breakup-get back together cycle, but it was less frequent. During this time, she only hit me once. However, in her time since shes been here, she's threatened suicide several times, going so far once as to search the house for bleach and sprinted out with a knife and driving away in her car. I called the police and they found her calmly talking to a prospective graduate advisor at the local university. After this incident, she angrily told me that I shouldn't call the cops next time, that I "should know that [she's] too narcissistic to ever kill [herself]". At this point, I started questioning whether this was normal introverted behaviour. I implored her to speak with a therapist again (in her past relationship she spoke often with a counselor who prescribed her medication to help with depression - she didn't like the way the medication made her feel so she's been hesitant to return.] She agreed, and went to a handful of sessions before she said she felt better. Indeed, for the most part, our relationship was generally stable after she spoke with a counselor.
An unexpected side effect of being in a relationship with her has been me distancing myself with my lab and friends - when I hung out with these people, she would get angry and say things like "you don't care about me" or "you're going to leave me for them aren't you?" But she resolved to be better, so I attempted to slowly ease back into things by inviting friends over for board games or out to drinks. She always refused because she felt too anxious. In an attempt to buffer against overt aggression and to stay sane by speaking with a friend, after our lease expired I suggested that we move in with my best friend and former roommate under the guise that it would result in cheaper rent for all of us, and that he had a great dog
. She agreed, largely in part because it was indeed cheaper and they got along well. So far, this has helped immensely, as passionate disputes are infrequent and the mood of the house is friendlier.
A few weeks ago, this whole thing reached a fever pitch when we had a few friends over for a popular bike party hosted by our town - it goes that we all dress up in ridiculous costumes, drink early in the day, ride bikes in a parade, and then head downtown for a big concert. It's one of the highlights of my community, and I looked forward to having a good event (because last year mine was cut short because my partner didn't want me out drinking and hanging with friends.) I was convinced that this year would be different because we were together and we agreed not to drink too much. The parade went off without a hitch and we had a blast. Then, we all came home and some friends asked if we wanted to play video games. I wanted to, and I offered a chance to play to my partner so she wouldn't feel left out, and she promptly ignored me and stormed off to our bedroom. I followed her and she berated me for abandoning her and not considering her family, etc. She was very upset and angry and I asked what we could do to work it out. She refused and continued to fume. In my mildly drunken mood, I said something very mean along the lines of "I knew you would do something like this today." I shouldn't have said it, but it was something I had genuinely feared. As expected, that set her off.
We fought and argued long after my friends had left for the concert. In fact, when they left, the fight escalated and she proceeded to hit me and beat me, she took off her clothes and implored me to have sex with her, telling me that "if we were through then you'd better f*** me good. F*** me, c'mon, do it!" etc. I just kind of curled into a ball and yelled stop over and over again. Eventually she stopped, and then said something like, "well if you're not going to fight back then I'm going to fight myself" and proceeded to beat her head against our wall over and over again until her nose was streaming blood. She saw the blood on her clothes and on me, and sprinted outside. I was in shock. I didn't know what to do, so I called my roommate. It was too loud at the concert for him to hear me, so I hung up and debated whether to call the police. I noticed the blood on my arm and I just broke down crying. At this point, she came back in and tearfully apologized and held me. I told her that I couldn't do this any more and that I wanted to break up. She apologized and said that she would get help and go to therapy. We talked and agreed to try it out again. The next few days were kind of a blur to me. I was in a daze, I didn't know what had just happened. I was depressed. While I felt like this, she had asked me why I hadn't gotten over it yet, why I wasn't open to openly loving her yet. I just said I didn't know, that I don't know how to feel.
It was at this time that I wrote down a list of all the symptoms and agressions she'd showed against me over the last two years, and discovered that BPD was a nearly identical match to what I'd been experiencing. I learned that giving her love was a great solution, and not defending myself when she made irrational claims that "I didn't love her" and that "I was going to abandon her". It almost felt like an immense feeling of relief, knowing that there was a term I could assign to her behaviour, and things I could do to mitigate against the worst of the conflict. Things went well for the next few weeks. I was especially trying to remain balanced and calm, as I was taking the LSAT soon and had been studying for months. The week before the test, everything was going well and I was very confident that we had found a working solution to some of the most wrong issues in our relationship. Then, the night before the test, we took a relaxing walk so that I could clear my head and we could get outside for a bit. She then broke down and cried and yelled at me why I couldn't be a better listener or understand her perspective, and that I was going to move away from her. (The conflict started when she asked if she could borrow my phone to record video for a class assignment, and I suggested that she use our video camera instead because it would be more effective overall and more convenient for me). I tried to take deep breaths and tell her that I loved her and that I wasn't abandoning her, but it reached another fever pitch. There were no abusive moments or suggestions of self-harm, but it still phazed me.
I took the test this last Saturday and know for certain that I performed very poorly. It wasn't entirely her fault and I don't want it to seem like I'm blaming her for everything that went wrong, there were loads of other factors. But taken together, this last month, with the parade, the fights, and the failure for me to perform properly on perhaps the most important test of my life, led me to the feeling that I can't just comfort her way out of this. It's led me to ask a few big questions: Should I stay in this? Should she be with someone who can better help her? Am I to blame for these episodes? Am I at risk of being arrested if she runs out into the streets covered in blood and crying? Am I at risk of being seriously injured if her fits of abuse involve a knife or another weapon? I'm simultaneously scared, dazed, exhausted, and altogether uncertain about where things are going. As I write this, I am in my pajamas on the couch in the middle of a workday when I should be in lab working, completely unable to concentrate or work because of everything that's happened over the last month. Am I being overly critical of her? She's a lovely person and I don't think these moments define her. I am very much still in love. These questions just plague my mind and I have a deep pit in my stomach with the uncertainty of the next week, months, and years potentially. I just don't know what to do.
If you're still reading after all of this, thank you, you're a champ
I didn't mean for it to go on for this long, but it felt nice to write everything out in one place. There is so much more than what was written, but I'll leave it at this for now.
Thank you so much for your time, and I hope to hear from your perspective and opinions, or not. In any case, it's nice to have a space to write out my thoughts.
