She is closing down all communication with me and pushing me away hard

[DeepSorrow]

Hello everyone,

I have been friends with a woman for 7 years and since the beginning I suspected she was BPD. She has had several boyfriends in the time I have known her and it never worked out.

I developed feelings for her in 2015 and she invited herself to my place for a big occasion where it was only she and me present. At the time however I was still completely broken down from a relationship with a another BPD girl some years before. So nothing happened on that occasion with the "new" BPD woman (she has later confided in me that she came to be intimate with me on that occasion).

Then in the summer of 2017 she starts confiding in me that she would much rather have me for a boyfriend than all the other men she has been dating. And that we could be happy together etc. This goes on for over 1 week. As soon as I say I would like to try this also as I am more ready now than in 2015 she backs away and comes up with excuses. 2 weeks later she is intimate with another man and acts like nothing. I was in increasing inner turmoil and confusion after this event.

Fast forward to october 2018. We have been out eating dinner and afterwards as we walk by the water in midcity I tell her about my feelings for her because now I am ready and stronger again after my ex BPD girlfriend. I also tell her what happened in summer of 2017 where she opened up to me about wanting me as a boyfriend. She acts surprised and says she can´t remember any of our conversation because she was  quote "drunk". But she seems happy and surprised and on the way home we make plans about spending new years eve 2018 together and being together as a couple.

2 days after she comes to my apartment and says she hasn´t slept all night because she wasn´t sure what we talked about some days before but if I meant that I wanted to be in a relationship with her? I say yes of course and she says "ok, we will start a relationship when I´m ready" (she was 3 months out of a relationship with an ex at this point). At this point I´m thinking: If she hasn´t slept for a whole night thinking about this she must really have thought it through and be very sure that she wants this.

We had a million plans we had made as friends before this conversation. The day after we "comitted" to try out a relationship when she was ready the trouble began. She was a completely different person towards me than I have ever seen before and everything we had shared in those 7 years of deep, bonded friendship was turned against me. Very personal deeply hurtful things. Then a week later in a very cold manner she cancels all our plans together and tells me she can´t see us together as a couple. I was in deep turmoil but told her I would leave her alone now and let her initiate contact if she wanted to resume the friendship at some point. She did this a few days later and we kinda acted like friends again like in the old days.

Then in the middle of december she calls me one night and we end up talking for 3 hours on the phone about all the concerns she had about her and me being a couple. We have what I feel is good communication and it ends with her saying: "Come to my place now. Then we have sex and will see if this relationship works out!". I go to her place and really show concern for her and don´t overstep any boundaries and take my time and try to read her clues and emotions. For 2 hours I do this. Just as she is ready to go all the way she says :"Now we will ruin the friendship forever!". And then she shuts all down. I realize quickly that we will not be together this evening. I respect this of course and do nothing more.

But she gets increasingly more hysterical until it ends with me having to get her professionel help in the middle of the night (she is in the psychiatric system and is diagnosed BPD). I´m with her all the way throughout the contact with professionel helpers and she seems to apprecaite this, holds my hand and asks for me all the time while the professionels help her.

The day after this dreadful event (but where my morals feel very good for doing the right thing) I visit her and she is completely cold and indifferent and says we just have to forget about what happened (or rather didn´t happen) and just move on. It is from this point on she becomes really abusive towards me. She still uses me for some favors and errands and abuses me hardly in return. Then during christmas she closes down all contact. From christmas till now february 14 2018 I have been scrambling to uphold some semblance of the friendship we had before which was very intense and great in many ways. We have met a few times as friends but every time she all of a sudden changes her demeanor and becomes abusive. I feel like I can´t say or do anything right all of a sudden.

I know now we will never be a couple. She has taunted me and berated me because I didn´t make a move on that first occasion in 2015 when she came for this. She says we know each other too well now and once you are friends it is impossible to become lovers (for me it is directly opposite). I have explained her many times why I was nowhere ready for a relationship in 2015 and that is the reason I didn´t make a move. She doesn´t care obviously.

Anyway conclusion is she is closing down all communication with me and pushing me away hard. She obviously doesn´t even wan´t to be friends now. I´m just so confused and hurting. Why did she open up the subject to begin with in 2017 when she is like this now? I don´t understand any of it. What I do understand is that she has devalued me and painted me black. She has been with many men who wants nothing to do with her as a girlfriend but just use her for sex and these same men are still hanging around to this day and she cycles through them and treats them well and seems to enjoy the attention. It is literally drug addicts and people with similar backgrounds/problems. I am well functioning/well educated and has treated her with utmost respect throughout our friendship and would have done everything for her if we were a couple. Now she is discarding me and treating me very cruelly and it just hurts beyond words.

Sorry for the long post. I just don´t know what to do... .I guess I am asking if there is any way to salvage our friendship. And if not how do I get my life back after this?

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Gemsforeyes]

Dear DeepSorrow-
Welcome to our BPD community.  I’m really glad you’ve found us, but deeply sorry for the sadness that brings you here.  I can feel the pain and confusion through your words... .

Please know, so many of us have stood where you stand; and it seems this is not the first time you’ve experienced this BPD pain.  After the break-up years ago from your ex-BPD girlfriend,  what kind of healing did you do for yourself?  During that relationship, were you aware of her BPD? 

Now, the title of your post... .”Why did she do it?”  My friend, according to my experience with my long-term uBPDbf (undiagnosed BPD boyfriend, today ex), this is pretty normal behavior.  Loving, caring, warm, beautiful, explosive, hateful, abusive.  Repeat.  Of course until I realized what it was, I didn’t know how to handle it.  Some people say it’s the BPD’s “fear of intimacy” - they blow when they feel like someone is getting too close.  From what I can tell, mine just cannot regulate his emotions at all; and has zero empathy for how his behavior may impact the one closest to him.  And then the BPD forgets the behavior.  But pieces of their victim are left scattered.  I guess for a time we all disassociate when the abuser forgets and the abused forgives. 

I found this wonderful site and community about 3.5 years into my relationship, when I was a shadow of myself.  So broken and tired and sad.  And I’ve allowed him to take me back to those feelings repeatedly.  Not much these days, though.  That’s what I control... .that’s what YOU control.  YOU.

DS, there are a few things to understand.  There is a high likelihood that most folks in your friend’s orbit are or have received similar abusive treatment as you from her.  It’s pretty standard.  And pretty painful and destructive.  Just read other posts here.  I also asked my BPDbf if he’d done this to others.  He replied that he does it to everyone (except his current employer).

Finally, getting your life back and salvaging your friendship with her are NOT mutually exclusive.  I happen to think that regaining your balance and having compassion for yourself is the first step.  Perhaps take a breath, knowing you have been a good and supportive friend to her.   Now for a time, you may want to be that for yourself.  Have you ever spoken to a therapist about the dynamics of a BPD relationship? 

This site offers a wealth of information to assist in understanding your feelings and BPD better.  Give yourself some space from her for a while if you can.  Read, rest, spend time with other friends and family, rebuild yourself.  She’ll be there when YOU’RE emotionally ready to create some boundaries for her.

Because DS, if you want this friendship to last, it needs to change.  And that change will need to come from you. 

Please stay with us.  Talk to us as much as you need to... .this is a safe space.

Warmly,
Gemsforeyes

[DeepSorrow]

Dear Gemsforeyes,

Thanks alot for your answer.

Regarding my exBPD who was also my first gf I didn´t know about her BPD for the first 9 months where everything was heaven. After that there were some very extreme episodes that got me started on putting together all the pieces of the puzzle. Long story short: ExBPD was undiagnosed when we met but I got her into the psychiatric system where she got diagnosed with BPD and received 3 years of intensive therapy. This therapy and my support meant she could now function in a relationship but then she left me and found another man and they have been together to this day and made it work. Ouch.

You can imagine how broken I was after this experience and years of hard work and selfless sacrifice and strong feelings of love and I got nothing but heartbreak and sorrow in the end.

I was in therapy at a pscyhologist for 4 months after this. But otherwise I have mostly educated myself from BPD ressources on the net to try and move on with my life. I am thinking about going to therapy again after the recent events with the new BPD woman. I will probably call my medical doctor one of the coming days about this.

This is also why it hurts so much with my current BPD female friend. Because she was a big part of helping me through the sorrow from exBPD also. I told her everything and she was so understanding and non judgmental. Not only about my exBPD but also my very abusive childhood with mental and emotional abuse from my disordered parents. All the while - through years of these conversations - she told me of her current and former boyfriends who all had put her through the same things and horrors as I had been through. They were alle psychopaths and narcissists etc. by her own words!

I realize now that she was probably mirroring me hard the whole time and that probably all of these "psychopaths" and "narcissists" were nice guys like me and that she was the one doing all of the bad things. It was every one of these deeply shared secrets about my exBPD and my abusive upbringing she turned against me the very day after we had comitted to giving the relationship a chance when she was ready.

I will try to follow your advice, Gemsforeyes, and focus on myself for now. I have no other choice really since there is no contact from her side.

Thanks again for your answer

[Gemsforeyes]

Dear DS-
Some things are so hard to say.  But we have to say them.  Sometimes the things are pointed out FOR us in therapy (that was done recently for me); and sometimes we try to help our friends here see things.  Maybe as a possibility.  Something to look at in our search for answers and to just get a grip.

Four months of therapy was a start, but you likely know now, a drop in your bucket.  I had done therapy before... .during problems in my marriage, and for a short period of recurring nightmares in young adulthood.  No one ever really asked about my years growing up.  I am 61... .a fact I can barely wrap my mind around.

The therapist I began seeing in September 2018 has begun diving into my childhood, and although we dispute certain labeling, it seems I DO head toward certain types of relationships.  The familiar ones.  Ones that are not the healthiest for me.  There is still a very “sensitive child” in me.  I tend to cower, and I view love as protective and angry.  That’s not normal.  How do you view love?

At this point, I deeply wish I had known what I know now... .would have saved years of heartache.  But no one says “Hey look at your childhood!  Let’s clean that out before you step onto another land mine!”  But DS... .you CAN work through these things, these issues with a therapist, and reshape your vision of healthy love.  I’m old and I’m doing it.

You know you’ve likely hit the truth in saying that your friend’s statements about abusive boyfriends may very well have been her mirroring your very difficult past.  However many BPD’s come with these “stories” from their past r/s, where they are the “victims”.  Mine did.  They don’t normally disclose that they’ve done the real damage to people.  Had you ever asked her if they tormented her so badly then why had she gone back and allowed the recycle with these men?

You have given your best to others.  I am deeply sorry for the pain you must have felt around your exBPDgf.  If she has truly done her work, she does likely quietly acknowledge that you saved her.  Now there’s you.  It’s hard for people like us to show that compassion for ourselves, I know.  But if you don’t go in, you cannot find out.  Sometimes I pretend I’m someone else.  Then I’ll help myself.

Warmly,
Gemsforeyes

[theuproar]

This is also why it hurts so much with my current BPD female friend. Because she was a big part of helping me through the sorrow from exBPD also. I told her everything and she was so understanding and non judgmental. Not only about my exBPD but also my very abusive childhood with mental and emotional abuse from my disordered parents. All the while - through years of these conversations - she told me of her current and former boyfriends who all had put her through the same things and horrors as I had been through. They were alle psychopaths and narcissists etc. by her own words!

I realize now that she was probably mirroring me hard the whole time and that probably all of these "psychopaths" and "narcissists" were nice guys like me and that she was the one doing all of the bad things. It was every one of these deeply shared secrets about my exBPD and my abusive upbringing she turned against me the very day after we had comitted to giving the relationship a chance when she was ready.

This behavior is so characteristic of the disorder, though.  She was there for you, attentive, loving, compassionate... .and that's what draws you in.  My BPDgf did the same through the first three or four months of us dating, and then suddenly flipped the script.  I had just gotten divorced, and she selflessly offered herself to me.  I could talk to her about anything.  She generously gave me her time, a shoulder to cry on, I play music and she came to all my shows, and she was even generous with her body.
 She's been emotionally abusive ever since. 

As for that other paragraph I quoted, she may have been mirroring.  But maybe not.  It's hard to parse out the truth with pwBPD.  They are very perceptive of other people's behaviors and can often accurately identify them, but refuse to openly be introspective about their own issues.  And it hurts when they use your own issues as ammunition against you.  My BPDgf used to do that A LOT (I have very severe anxiety) and still does to an extent.  Her knee-jerk reaction for anything unpleasant to her is to blame it on my anxiety (happened just this morning!). 

You really have to accept the way things are.  And then if you manage to find your way back into a relationship with this person, you have to grow the thickest skin in the world.  Be amazingly confident and sure of yourself.

[DeepSorrow]

theuproar,

Thx for your answer. I will definitely try to be stronger and not so sensitive if/when she returns. I said alot of stupid and confronting (but not untrue) things out of the stress of the whole situation while we were still in contact and the drama played. I can imagine these things are part of why she shuts me down now.

Also your comment about the modus operandi of BPDs in how they play the empathetic listener I really needed to hear. Unbelieveable that I didn´t see it coming from 10 miles away with the new BPD woman. This was the also the way my first BPD girlfriend lured me in.
 

[once removed]

I will definitely try to be stronger and not so sensitive if/when she returns. I said alot of stupid and confronting (but not untrue) things out of the stress of the whole situation while we were still in contact and the drama played. I can imagine these things are part of why she shuts me down now.

was this the last contact that you had with her? how long ago was it?

[DeepSorrow]

once removed,

The stupid things I said was from she "dumped" after talking about the relationship and after the middle of december where she wanted me to come over in the middle of the night. We saw each other for the last time 3 weeks ago. There has been no initiation on her behalf since the middle of december. All contact and meetings have been me initiating.

I said things like I was okay with us not being a couple after she dumped me because "I had to protect myself now". She reacted strongly to this.
And a few instances where I tried to protect her in certain circumstances by telling her to do something and she went VERY antagonistic just for the sake of it I feel.
And then I have mentioned the whole affair 2-3 times after she said she did not want to hear about it anymore. Not out of malice but out of the enourmous stress where I lost some of my usual social skills because I was so confused.

[once removed]

its difficult to maintain a friendship in that sort of environment. likely, she feels judged.

so when was the last time the two of you spoke, and what happened?

[DeepSorrow]

Dear Gemsforeyes,

Thanks for your questions: I view love as all-consuming. I know I´m codependent because I wan´t to be lost in a secure and secluded world with only me and my love.

As for my exBPD she has actually told me that her new man has saved her and said: "Do you remember when I told you I had BPD?" So no credit for me there sadly.

[DeepSorrow]

its difficult to maintain a friendship in that sort of environment. likely, she feels judged.

so when was the last time the two of you spoke, and what happened?

Yeah, this is what I fear also.

We met 3 weeks ago where I said something to her about moving over to not be hid by a man on a bicycle as we walked in the forest. She instantly became irritated and told me she could decide for herself! I said: "I knew you would say that. I have learned from what we just went through" (Where we argued alot over things like this).
Also she talked about how shy she is (which is one of her lies because she is the life of the party everywhere and constantly talks up people and make new friends all the time). I answered: "I don´t think you are. You are good at getting to know people". This one in particular was also because I know now how she has lied to me about many things. Sort of saying: "I´m beginning to figure out how you really are and you can´t manipulate me anymore". This is probably one of the worst things you can say to a BPD (or anyone) I feel?

If I have to analyze myself it is stress and maybe also alot of pent up anger about the whole situation and how it went about. She doesn´t take any responsibility for it. I contacted her 2 weeks ago but was told she is very very busy now and no time. So that´s that I guess.

I´m actually truly sorry about saying those things and wish I could give her an apology. But I fear if I contact her with that it will just push her further away still.

[once removed]

the anger and frustration are pretty understandable. she hasnt been a peach.

it seems possible to reestablish a friendship here, but its in an awkward spot, and a bit fragile.

in some ways, she has a point: the transition from friends, to partners, back to friends, is rare, certainly possible, but difficult, and usually undergoes some changes; doesnt look the way it did before.

in a lot of ways, you need the same tools as you would as a romantic partner. you need a firm vision of where you want to lead the relationship, and what is out of bounds. if you want to be just her friend, then dont try to be her romantic partner too.

people with BPD traits do easily feel judged. a validating environment works best, (related to what i said above), supportive, but not over stepping. difficult to do if youre feeling a lot of resentment toward her. youll need an outlet for that, and also if you arent clear on whats in bounds and out of bounds, your expectations and resentment will likely build.

short term, youll want to stop the bleeding, the arguments, the fights, and get back to having fun together. that will, hopefully, give a friendship space to bloom.

things can look different depending on whether you want her as a romantic partner or a friend. have you decided?

[DeepSorrow]

things can look different depending on whether you want her as a romantic partner or a friend. have you decided?

I just want her as a friend. I´m sad for her but I think she is too afflicted to ever have a romantic relationship with anyone that will work. And I just can´t take any kind of abuse anymore. I was already pretty sensitive in that department from my exBPD from years ago so I probably don´t have the strength to be "a rock" for someone with BPD ever again in a romantic relationship.

It´s just been one long bad spiral since I told her about my feelings. I KNEW 3 weeks ago before we walked in the forest for the last time that I should keep my big mouth shut! I thought about it on my way to her place. But every time there has been drama for the past 3-4 months I get so stressed and anxious that my head is already spinning when we meet up. This time with NC its worse than ever. I must try and control myself.

This board and all your answers help me alot right now. Thx all.

[Sandb2015]

Deep sorrow,

“ Your last pwBPDex”

Can we say there was some residual damage there that may be effecting you now?

Is it possible there were some unresolved issues?

Just a thought.

It’s tough, write it out, post and read.


Scott