Do you really think that people who are permanently attached to another is a negative thing?
I am fairly traditional, it is how I was raised. I do think it's a good thing to have someone in your life who is always a part of it.
I agree with Cromwell I’ll give you the same advice as my T gave to me work through this stuff, process it, grieve it but have some fun too. You have something in common and if you enjoy each other’s company or conversations why not do it again? Maybe it’s not going to a r/s you’ll have to find out what her story is by getting to know her hold off judging her until then but if anything there’s you could make a new friend.
Ya I think she may be worth at least having a lunch date with! She is a very busy gal though with two jobs so it may be difficult but we shall see. I am thinking of going through my pictures as I believe I have pictures of her dad. Actually on my wall are pictures of his aircraft on a practice run dropping a load of fire retardant and he is the captain of it.
She said she is not a city girl (yay, I am not a city boy) and she wants a cabin in the woods. Yay, it is what I want too so I high fived her right then! At least she has goals and wants; my xgfwBPD could not articulate any dreams, goals, wants or anything like that.
It may not lead to anything but maybe make a new friend if nothing else.
Only a professional can give her a diagnosis maybe she has it maybe she doesn’t maybe she has it with many overlapping mental illnesses. What matters is how the BPD traits affect your r/s with her? How do her behaviors affect you? Is it a positive or negative experience most of the time?
She is not diagnosed, or never told me. She said something once to the effect of "I am not normal". So she knew something was up, or she knew and never told me. She had high anxiety about 90% of the time. OCD as well, bit bipolar sometimes too, or maybe it was the BPD or co-morbid bi-polar. My X-wife was bi-polar so I know a bit of it, and she was similar some of the time.
A thing with my xgfwBPD is she would stonewall. That was a common thing she would do. Just shut down communication. From 200 normal texts a day to 10. It might last a day or two, a week, and one time 6 weeks. I would wonder if we were still a thing or broken up or what. I didn't know what was going on. It was hell.
A lot of the time, I would say it was not a positive experience. Before we were actually "dating" it was really good. After we became "official" after a time it seemed to go downhill. More anxiety. She was often crude and insulting about things. Made me wonder.
Think about growing up in the world around you those early experiences are a part of you later on in life how easily can you differentiate your experience that’s normal to you vs one that’s abnormal? This is what you know you’re programmed this way to you it’s normal she may not know that she has a mental illness yes the behaviors are driven by the disorder but it’s not carte blanche for her if you have a mental illness you still have a responsibility to get better.
From what I know of her, early childhood was emotionally rough as her parents divorced at 3. That means all the pre-divorce stuff happened when she was a toddler, infant, or even pre-birth. She would pick up on the toxic things occuring between her parents and probably had a lot to do with reduced emotional growth; which as I understand BPD, is exactly what it is: underdeveloped emotions.
Her dad died she was 15 and her husband passed away she was 27. So there is a lot of abandonment from men in her life via death. She had a series of relationships in her teens after her dad passed. From what i am learning of BPD, I think this is almost a classic case. Now I am no psychiatrist so really I can't say.
I think she knows she has something but is not doing anything about it. I encouraged her to go for grief counselling as I thought a lot of it was a result of that. It probably didn't help but I think the main issue is BPD or some such thing. She knows it. I told her several times to get help. Once she said she would, but then never acted on it. Ultimately she can only help herself.
I know her current r/s will fail. Maybe then she will get help. More than likely move on to the next guy. It seems she can't be alone and must be in a r/s. Serial monogamy I think it is called. She may contact me when it is over, but I doubt it now.
I do not hate her, if anything I pity her. I do love her on some level yes as I don't hate her. But I need to leave it at that and move on. I need to look after myself.
How are you feeling today?
Not too bad today. Yesterday I went for a drive and geocaching; as that is something I like doing and had not done much while in the r/s with her. I need to do things like that, get out of the city for a while. Today did some running around. Tomorrow I may dig through my pictures to see if I can find the ones of the new gal's dad from years ago. I will show her and maybe see about a lunch date.
