I think my ex might have borderline and the realization keeps me up at night

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Hey everyone, I'm new here, never before realizing I might have needed it. By chance me and a friend were talking about BPD, she was helping her boyfriend who is a doctor to prepare for a test, and I recognized so much of the traits from my last relationship, so I started to read up on it and got even more and more convinced. I'll have you know she is not diagnosed, this is just based on observation and reading up on it on the Internet.

So lets start from the beginning. Me and my ex girlfriend met about 3 years ago, and we got of to an intense loving start where she would tell me she loves me within a couple of months (we were not a couple at the time), she said however that she wasn't ready for a relationship but we kept hanging out. Later in march 2015 we got in a fight about something stupid which made her block me and remove me altogether from social media, which made me try to move on. A few months later she got back in touch, at the time she was casually seeing some guy but there was still tension between us, eventually she would move on to another guy at which point I made some distance. Eventually, she rejected him aswell and we finally became officially a couple by October 2015 and moved in together shortly after. Things were great, she was extremely loving, we had similar interests and we both loved eachother very much. However I was in a bad place workwise and by spring 2016 I was on the brink of exhaustion (boss bullying me, stressful work environment etc), I finally got off that job and into a new career path, and shortly after my girlfriend started distancing herself, started hanging out with friends who were doing drugs, would not come home some nights without even calling me and treating me very rudely. And this wasnt a gradual shift either, it was almost as if it was overnight. Eventually she broke up with me, while saying she needs time, and she is sure we will be back together because we are meant to be together. During the following months she was sleeping around with a bunch of different people, she would keep it on the downlow but eventually she would tell me. I realized I couldn't take it and eventually we broke of all contact. This lasted for about a week because I saw she was posting deep emotional stuff on social media etc, and she had realized her feelings for me were rekindled but she was so scared to open herself up to someone even though I always treated her well and always respected her for who she was.

So we got back together in august 2016, and again things were great, she would even tell me if I proposed she would have said yes, talking about how she has never wanted to have kids before but with me its a different story. Again things went bad for me careerwise (my new boss bullying me) but I got out of it a lot faster this time around, and by the time I got out she was still very loving. But then again, the shift, as from nowhere came around, she would tell me her feelings were waning, this was by spring 2017, I think april or may? We would fight a lot, she would go out clubbing with a common friend of ours literally every weekend, even when she had a weekend off she wouldn't have it when I said I wanted to spend it with her, saying our friend who was recently out of a break up needed her support (despite the fact that they would go out clubbing literally 2 times a week for a month without me questioning it). Eventually one night after going out clubbing she had met up with a guy from Snapchat and they had made out which she claims was an accident because she was trying to kiss her girl friend (which I'm ok with), and she came straight back home to me to tell me about it, crying and totally in despair, I told her I forgive her since she came back right away telling me about it aslong as she promise me never to talk with him again (since he was taking advantage of the situation), which she did, considering it to be self explanatory.

Few weeks later she tells a friend of mine at a party, while I'm sitting next to them that she had been going to the movies with him just a few days after the make out incident, at which I rage up, but she was sure she had told me she was going with him (she did not, she said she was going with a friend, not mentioning who) and that she has no recollection of promising not to talk with him anymore (because drunk) and the fact that he apologized for making out with her. This lead to a fight, which led to her breaking up with me but I don't make much of it since I assume she will come back again like she did the last time, the day after she wrote about how that weekend was the best of her life (because she got to party with her friends), but it really hurt me since she also dumped me. We kept hanging out as friends, still being somewhat romantic etc but this was mid june and she was going to a festival late june and july she was going to work a month out of town, and after that we were going to see where we stand on our relationship. Turns out though that on this festival she sleeps with 3 guys, one which was 19 (she is 25 and has previously said she'd never get a younger boyfriend) and she keeps talking with him all the time. The last day she was in town before going away for a month we were going to see a movie and go to a restaurant and during all the trailers of the movie and most of the time waiting at the restaurant she was snapping with this guy, which I call out on because it was our last night together, this is when she tells me about how she ___ed the guy on the festival. Eventually we get into a new fight, but we reconcile during the night. We even have sex actually. Then the next day she leaves for her out of town work. I try not to write her too much, trying to give her space, whenever she writes she would be emotional, sending loving gifs, smileys etc, even more so than she would when she was home, seeming even to miss me a lot. I'm trying to keep some distance not to seem too eager. She even tells our common friend not to put up snaps with me because it makes her sad thinking about me. Eventually after a couple of weeks she stops messaging altogether, and since I'm giving her space I don't message her either. She even removes me on snapchat. She contacts me again when she gets back (by this time she has moved out to a new apartment). I had bought her flowers and I promised to take her someplace cheap to buy new things for her apartment since I had a car. During the ride she talks about how great this guy from the festival is (the 19 year old), and I question her about him and her intent. She says there is no way they will ever get together, they even talked about it. So I asked her about us, and she said she didnt think of it even though she promised she'd take that month to think about us and what she wants). Eventually she tells me she had gone to visit this guy (he lives 5 hours drive away from our hometown) during her work out of town, that's why she removed me from Snapchat. However she still wants us to keep our break-up a secret, not letting our families know, not removing official status on Facebook because when/if we get back together she's afraid what my friends and family would say about her leaving me once again. I reluctantly agree, wanting nothing more than to get back with her eventually. However it gets more and more obvious about her infatuation about this new guy, and our common friend tells me about it too, how she talks about him almost as if he's a drug she's addicted too. Eventually she would hide our Facebook status to please the new guy's parents who questioned why someone who is in a domestic relationship would spend the weekend with him (he lives at home so she even met his family). I still keep fighting for her though and we keep hanging out as friends for the duration of august and september, doing lots of things together. Eventually though on a road trip I find she has this new guy and her as her screensaver on her phone and it breaks my spirit. She realizes and ask me about it, and we get in a fight about it. She still keeps claiming she would never be in a relationship with him, how she doesn't want to be in a relationship with anyone but if she had to she'd rather be with me. I can't take it anymore though and she suggest if I can't be her friend maybe we shouldn't be in touch at all until I feel better. I agree. By the end of the road trip I stay by my apartment asking her if she wants to say good bye to my cat (my ex was around almost since the time I got my cat), but she couldn't. So we just sat in the cat, crying our eyes out for half an hour. Eventually I drive her home, I follow her in (her new apartment) for a while, both unable to stop crying, but eventually asking her if she'll be ok. She says she won't she can't make it without me. I reassure her that she can. This is by the beginning of september. And none of us try to contact the other for 3 weeks, then her best friend messages me asking if she can pick up her cat and the last of her stuff, so I say its better if she messages me herself so we can work it out. I spend the day packing up all her stuff in my apartment trying to make sure not to miss anything so she'll have an excuse to get back to me, and she picks it up. I'm sure that when I hug her before leaving she dries some tears of. I myself am on the verge of crying when she came to pick her things up. A couple of weeks later I text her friend that I found some more things and her friend comes to pick them up. Since then (late september/early october) I have made no efforts of contacting her at all, and neither has she. By the end of october I saw a tag she made of this new guy on how she wants to send him kisses, even though I had unfollowed her on Facebook. This urges me to unfriend her altogether. Its too much, and we hadn't talked in a month regardless.

Lately I've started to think about her a lot, a friend of mine who has BPD and had my ex on Facebook told me that without my knowing she had messaged her about a month ago (mid october?) asking her what the heck she is doing walking away from me and how she must be an idiot, she had never seen me so emotionally invested in anyone or anything in my life, and she's known me for 9 years, how she can relate to her feelings and the things she's been through etc. My ex eventually replies with how she realizes she is an idiot, but she can't keep up the conversation because now she's crying, and then blocks my friend. And then a week ago her sister messages me, asking me how I'm doing and telling me that she (my ex's sister) is getting investigated for BPD. And then there's the conversation I had with my friend this weekend that tied everything together, and how I eventually ended up here. When I started reading up on BPD I just felt really sorry for her, how I'm punishing her double because what she did to me is out of her control, and shutting her out altogether probably puts a lot of stress on her and must feel horrible (it does to me), I even opened up a conversation window and wrote hey, without sending, before stopping myself. I wrote her sister, asking her if she gets investigated and if she can relate some of the things they say to her sister if she could suggest to her sister to get investigated aswell, because I recognize a lot of the traits, she said she would.

More about my ex's background, her (and her sister) were brought up in a negligent family, with a sex addicted mother who was never home, they were poor and didn't have money for food, and all in all she didn't get a lot of love from home. I found this checklist:
I often feel “empty.”

My emotions shift very quickly, and I often experience extreme sadness, anger, and anxiety.

I’m constantly afraid that the people I care about will abandon me or leave me.

I would describe most of my romantic relationships as intense, but unstable.

The way I feel about the people in my life can dramatically change from one moment to the next—and I don’t always understand why.

I often do things I know are dangerous or bad for me, such as driving recklessly, having unsafe sex, binge drinking, doing drugs, or going on spending sprees.

I’ve attempted to hurt myself, engaged in self-harm behaviors such as cutting, or threatened suicide.

And all of those check out for my ex. Not sure if she has it but it sure seems possible.

There are some things I'd like to know, because it might help me moving on, and I realize the only one who can answer these questions are her, but maybe someone with BPD or who has been in a relationship could give a qualified guess.

Did she ever really love me? Some sources I found says BPD love is very different from how non-BPD love.
Does she still think about me?
Does she love this guy, or is he just a rebound because we were getting to close or other reason, and if she does, will it last?
Is it likely she will try to get back in touch with me?
I shut her of completely because she chose this other guy over me, am I overacting, do I hurt her significantly?

All my friends and family tells me to let her go and move on, while most of her family wants us to get back together because we were so good together, and I was so good for her. I'm unsure what her friends think about me. When I found out about BPD I finally had a focal point  and a possible explanation and I really want to give us another try if she could get the proper help and I get the proper knowledge, however I don't think it would happen if I get back to her, I'm still sure she is infatuated/in love with this new guy. If she gets back to me however, there might be a shot.

Any BPD or non-BPD advice is welcome! This keeps me up at night... .

[Fursten]

Hey everyone, I'm new here, never before realizing I might have needed it. By chance me and a friend were talking about BPD, she was helping her boyfriend who is a doctor to prepare for a test, and I recognized so much of the traits from my last relationship, so I started to read up on it and got even more and more convinced. I'll have you know she is not diagnosed, this is just based on observation and reading up on it on the Internet.

So lets start from the beginning. Me and my ex girlfriend met about 3 years ago, and we got of to an intense loving start where she would tell me she loves me within a couple of months (we were not a couple at the time), she said however that she wasn't ready for a relationship but we kept hanging out. Later in march 2015 we got in a fight about something stupid which made her block me and remove me altogether from social media, which made me try to move on. A few months later she got back in touch, at the time she was casually seeing some guy but there was still tension between us, eventually she would move on to another guy at which point I made some distance. Eventually, she rejected him aswell and we finally became officially a couple by October 2015 and moved in together shortly after. Things were great, she was extremely loving, we had similar interests and we both loved eachother very much. However I was in a bad place workwise and by spring 2016 I was on the brink of exhaustion (boss bullying me, stressful work environment etc), I finally got off that job and into a new career path, and shortly after my girlfriend started distancing herself, started hanging out with friends who were doing drugs, would not come home some nights without even calling me and treating me very rudely. And this wasnt a gradual shift either, it was almost as if it was overnight. Eventually she broke up with me, while saying she needs time, and she is sure we will be back together because we are meant to be together. During the following months she was sleeping around with a bunch of different people, she would keep it on the downlow but eventually she would tell me. I realized I couldn't take it and eventually we broke of all contact. This lasted for about a week because I saw she was posting deep emotional stuff on social media etc, and she had realized her feelings for me were rekindled but she was so scared to open herself up to someone even though I always treated her well and always respected her for who she was.

So we got back together in august 2016, and again things were great, she would even tell me if I proposed she would have said yes, talking about how she has never wanted to have kids before but with me its a different story. Again things went bad for me careerwise (my new boss bullying me) but I got out of it a lot faster this time around, and by the time I got out she was still very loving. But then again, the shift, as from nowhere came around, she would tell me her feelings were waning, this was by spring 2017, I think april or may? We would fight a lot, she would go out clubbing with a common friend of ours literally every weekend, even when she had a weekend off she wouldn't have it when I said I wanted to spend it with her, saying our friend who was recently out of a break up needed her support (despite the fact that they would go out clubbing literally 2 times a week for a month without me questioning it). Eventually one night after going out clubbing she had met up with a guy from Snapchat and they had made out which she claims was an accident because she was trying to kiss her girl friend (which I'm ok with), and she came straight back home to me to tell me about it, crying and totally in despair, I told her I forgive her since she came back right away telling me about it aslong as she promise me never to talk with him again (since he was taking advantage of the situation), which she did, considering it to be self explanatory.

Few weeks later she tells a friend of mine at a party, while I'm sitting next to them that she had been going to the movies with him just a few days after the make out incident, at which I rage up, but she was sure she had told me she was going with him (she did not, she said she was going with a friend, not mentioning who) and that she has no recollection of promising not to talk with him anymore (because drunk) and the fact that he apologized for making out with her. This lead to a fight, which led to her breaking up with me but I don't make much of it since I assume she will come back again like she did the last time, the day after she wrote about how that weekend was the best of her life (because she got to party with her friends), but it really hurt me since she also dumped me. We kept hanging out as friends, still being somewhat romantic etc but this was mid june and she was going to a festival late june and july she was going to work a month out of town, and after that we were going to see where we stand on our relationship. Turns out though that on this festival she sleeps with 3 guys, one which was 19 (she is 25 and has previously said she'd never get a younger boyfriend) and she keeps talking with him all the time. The last day she was in town before going away for a month we were going to see a movie and go to a restaurant and during all the trailers of the movie and most of the time waiting at the restaurant she was snapping with this guy, which I call out on because it was our last night together, this is when she tells me about how she ___ed the guy on the festival. Eventually we get into a new fight, but we reconcile during the night. We even have sex actually. Then the next day she leaves for her out of town work. I try not to write her too much, trying to give her space, whenever she writes she would be emotional, sending loving gifs, smileys etc, even more so than she would when she was home, seeming even to miss me a lot. I'm trying to keep some distance not to seem too eager. She even tells our common friend not to put up snaps with me because it makes her sad thinking about me. Eventually after a couple of weeks she stops messaging altogether, and since I'm giving her space I don't message her either. She even removes me on snapchat. She contacts me again when she gets back (by this time she has moved out to a new apartment). I had bought her flowers and I promised to take her someplace cheap to buy new things for her apartment since I had a car. During the ride she talks about how great this guy from the festival is (the 19 year old), and I question her about him and her intent. She says there is no way they will ever get together, they even talked about it. So I asked her about us, and she said she didnt think of it even though she promised she'd take that month to think about us and what she wants). Eventually she tells me she had gone to visit this guy (he lives 5 hours drive away from our hometown) during her work out of town, that's why she removed me from Snapchat. However she still wants us to keep our break-up a secret, not letting our families know, not removing official status on Facebook because when/if we get back together she's afraid what my friends and family would say about her leaving me once again. I reluctantly agree, wanting nothing more than to get back with her eventually. However it gets more and more obvious about her infatuation about this new guy, and our common friend tells me about it too, how she talks about him almost as if he's a drug she's addicted too. Eventually she would hide our Facebook status to please the new guy's parents who questioned why someone who is in a domestic relationship would spend the weekend with him (he lives at home so she even met his family). I still keep fighting for her though and we keep hanging out as friends for the duration of august and september, doing lots of things together. Eventually though on a road trip I find she has this new guy and her as her screensaver on her phone and it breaks my spirit. She realizes and ask me about it, and we get in a fight about it. She still keeps claiming she would never be in a relationship with him, how she doesn't want to be in a relationship with anyone but if she had to she'd rather be with me. I can't take it anymore though and she suggest if I can't be her friend maybe we shouldn't be in touch at all until I feel better. I agree. By the end of the road trip I stay by my apartment asking her if she wants to say good bye to my cat (my ex was around almost since the time I got my cat), but she couldn't. So we just sat in the cat, crying our eyes out for half an hour. Eventually I drive her home, I follow her in (her new apartment) for a while, both unable to stop crying, but eventually asking her if she'll be ok. She says she won't she can't make it without me. I reassure her that she can. This is by the beginning of september. And none of us try to contact the other for 3 weeks, then her best friend messages me asking if she can pick up her cat and the last of her stuff, so I say its better if she messages me herself so we can work it out. I spend the day packing up all her stuff in my apartment trying to make sure not to miss anything so she'll have an excuse to get back to me, and she picks it up. I'm sure that when I hug her before leaving she dries some tears of. I myself am on the verge of crying when she came to pick her things up. A couple of weeks later I text her friend that I found some more things and her friend comes to pick them up. Since then (late september/early october) I have made no efforts of contacting her at all, and neither has she. By the end of october I saw a tag she made of this new guy on how she wants to send him kisses, even though I had unfollowed her on Facebook. This urges me to unfriend her altogether. Its too much, and we hadn't talked in a month regardless.

Lately I've started to think about her a lot, a friend of mine who has BPD and had my ex on Facebook told me that without my knowing she had messaged her about a month ago (mid october?) asking her what the heck she is doing walking away from me and how she must be an idiot, she had never seen me so emotionally invested in anyone or anything in my life, and she's known me for 9 years, how she can relate to her feelings and the things she's been through etc. My ex eventually replies with how she realizes she is an idiot, but she can't keep up the conversation because now she's crying, and then blocks my friend. And then a week ago her sister messages me, asking me how I'm doing and telling me that she (my ex's sister) is getting investigated for BPD. And then there's the conversation I had with my friend this weekend that tied everything together, and how I eventually ended up here. When I started reading up on BPD I just felt really sorry for her, how I'm punishing her double because what she did to me is out of her control, and shutting her out altogether probably puts a lot of stress on her and must feel horrible (it does to me), I even opened up a conversation window and wrote hey, without sending, before stopping myself. I wrote her sister, asking her if she gets investigated and if she can relate some of the things they say to her sister if she could suggest to her sister to get investigated aswell, because I recognize a lot of the traits, she said she would.

More about my ex's background, her (and her sister) were brought up in a negligent family, with a sex addicted mother who was never home, they were poor and didn't have money for food, and all in all she didn't get a lot of love from home. I found this checklist:
I often feel “empty.”

My emotions shift very quickly, and I often experience extreme sadness, anger, and anxiety.

I’m constantly afraid that the people I care about will abandon me or leave me.

I would describe most of my romantic relationships as intense, but unstable.

The way I feel about the people in my life can dramatically change from one moment to the next—and I don’t always understand why.

I often do things I know are dangerous or bad for me, such as driving recklessly, having unsafe sex, binge drinking, doing drugs, or going on spending sprees.

I’ve attempted to hurt myself, engaged in self-harm behaviors such as cutting, or threatened suicide.

And all of those check out for my ex. Not sure if she has it but it sure seems possible.

There are some things I'd like to know, because it might help me moving on, and I realize the only one who can answer these questions are her, but maybe someone with BPD or who has been in a relationship could give a qualified guess.

Did she ever really love me? Some sources I found says BPD love is very different from how non-BPD love.
Does she still think about me?
Does she love this guy, or is he just a rebound because we were getting to close or other reason, and if she does, will it last?
Is it likely she will try to get back in touch with me?
I shut her of completely because she chose this other guy over me, am I overacting, do I hurt her significantly?

All my friends and family tells me to let her go and move on, while most of her family wants us to get back together because we were so good together, and I was so good for her. I'm unsure what her friends think about me. When I found out about BPD I finally had a focal point  and a possible explanation and I really want to give us another try if she could get the proper help and I get the proper knowledge, however I don't think it would happen if I get back to her, I'm still sure she is infatuated/in love with this new guy. If she gets back to me however, there might be a shot.

Any BPD or non-BPD advice is welcome! This keeps me up at night... .