This is so difficult to do.
The time I thought had meaning, the days, the weeks, months, the keeping track of what has happened as though it has meaning trying to determine what will happen next. That kept me running in circles, waiting and hoping. There are no rules with mental illness, nothing predictable, everything a rational person needs to form logic, no comparison.
Kicked out viciously 12/19/2018 after 3.5 years of abuse, accepting the abuse because of love forgiveness and hope for a change followed by 5 months of craziness, extreme turmoil, good and bad, textbook stuff from the mentally ill.
Well even though she met someone right after I left and we still saw each other on and off with continued abuse, she seemed to pick the company of the other guy as time went on.
The frequency that we communicated, texted, met up and shared something resembling "nice" became far and few between.
Well, I did something that is not for the faint of heart...as I was in the "hope", love and determination confusion, I said I won't be with her now...that turned into, "I'll be with her later in the future and I'll dream about it now". I stalked her and her boyfriend last Sunday, her work picnic that she begged me to go to about a month prior. I was shaking, almost passing out, pushing myself to do something so childish yet I kept pushing to see, I was obsessed.
Well, I got my wish, I saw them together and it all became real, I saw them take two cars towards her home and I texted her and she answered right away as though she was not doing anything, I was in traffic two cars away, hers in front, his behind and me, and we texted back simple things and it was all so normal to her. after the local traffic, I went on my way, numb basically.
I texted her about an hour later and she texted me back, I was doing it to see that she won't go off channel while he's at her home (I wish he knew this, but it's not my responsibility), nope, she is taking breaks in between responses telling my she's cleaning, cooking etc., he's in her cocoon while she is texting me back downstairs. Her bedroom is the place she has always cocooned regardless of what's occurring at home, a safe place, I don't know. This went on for a few hours on and off, I wanted to be annoying and see what she does, nothing, as if she's home just chilling, that wasn't the case. I stopped and went back into my zombie state and tried to sleep. I imagined she did that with me also, but I'm not hung up on it, doesn't matter now, the self torturous ruminations are subsiding...
Monday! Something came over me that took a few days to realize, seeing them together, her texting me on the side, her normalcy in doing so and the fact that she is not the person I had been with all this time, she was her now, the real her, not the one she HELPED me imagine her to be, and not just imagine at the time, she was a put on, a sham.
The slowly building indifference that took some real soul searching to realize what I'm feeling, what is this painful but oddly good feeling,
indifference.
We shared some texts Monday, nothing involved or emotional in context and then I started getting some strange texts regarding being friends and wanting to help me. Okay, I'll play along...
Yes, let's be friends, but please define our friendship so there's no confusion or the boundaries are known so we can remain friends (It's a dangerous game I was playing because I can't win this). Several times we went back and forth with no response regarding that but she went on to met me know that she analyzed me and basically said because I have childhood trauma and wasn't loved, I'm an empty being latching on to any woman just to fill my void and she's going to help be able to love truly someone else in the future, not how I pretended to love her. She really went on in this text and it seemed as someone else wrote it as I know her conjecture, syntax, mistakes and all the nuances of her texting...only at the end did I understand hit was her. After labeling me with many "cluster B" traits with some trauma bonding (I initiated of course) symptoms and the threat of not getting help from her will leave me alone and unloved for life...
I giggled, I couldn't wait to tell my T.
As I was recognizing this strange indifference and wanting it to flood me which it wasn't as quickly as I wanted, I didn't argue or contradict anything, I just kept on with my "game", I said, "I'm so grateful that you'd like to help me and offering friendship, let's talk, I have many things to say".
I was going to use this indifference to the max and see if it holds up, again, dangerous given what I've been through.
That stopped the texts...that was at 10 am. I have a pen pal that's going through the same as me and I bless the day she reached out, she doesn't recognize that she has been a pillar even when we both communicate our confusions, truthful confessions, our regressions, we stay together on the base of friendship, we validate and listen, we learn. She is helping and I wish to help back double.
Me and C, my pen pal were on the phone about 10:30pm and B (my mentally ill ex) called. For the first time, I didn't shake, tremble, have some sort of adrenaline and I did not answer, I felt that indifference again, no message, no texts, I told C that's she calling and it was while I was talking about her which freaked us both out. Normally I would have picked up no matter what was happening, I would have dropped a newborn baby (dark humor-of course I wouldn't). I did not feel inclined to answer out of indifference, not anger. Well me and C finished our conversation and I got ready for bed, about 11:30pm I got a text, I thought it was C, It was B saying, " I thought you wanted to discuss stuff", 2 minutes later, "good night", I responded, "good night", nothing more. That was Wednesday, saw my most amazing T on Thursday that is a trauma therapist that mostly works with combat veterans and prior to that, worked both sides (the ones that have it and us) of the "cluster B" disorders...today is Saturday.
Since then I will share all that has gone through my mind.
B has significant "cluster B" traits. B was not who I wanted her to be, never was, the B I see, feel and "understand" now is the one that was always there. I have done research and experienced what only a small part of the population knows, surviving a relationship with a cluster b individual. The terrible part, all I know can't be used for much in my life except helping others and being aware that it doesn't happen to me again.
She was, is and will always be mentally ill. I've also had to remember the traumatic abuse brought on by B over the last 3.5 years that I just waxed over and hid away-----that really s*cked! My video/picture perfect memory is amazing and I forced my self to remember the words, her face, my feelings and response, I had to, like I had to see her last Sunday with her boyfriend that sexually shared us at the same time without either one of knowing at that time.
Hope + Denial I have used hope to my advantage so many times in my life to get through some real difficult times, I could always count on it. It was the only real tool I've used over and over and there wasn't a tool available to help me with this "thing".
I denied everything, the stories I read on Quora, bpdfamily and other places, "that's not her", "that's not me", "it won't turn out this way", "we'll be the lucky ones", "I'm such an ass*ole to pigeon hole her", "she's going through a phase", "when I get my sh*t together, she'll coming running back", "She just got bored or frustrated, she'll remember the love we share", "plenty of people break up, sleep with others and get back together to start fresh and strong", "I'm strong enough", "I'm forgiving enough", I'll always be be there no matter what".
The one statement that rules them all, "I love her enough to sacrifice anything". I almost did, I thought in detail how to kill myself without leaving a mess, how to do it painlessly, I really thought it out and was a day or two away on several occasions.
The guy with a heart of gold that makes mistakes and is no more perfect than anyone else, the guy that really thinks about his own motivations, right or wrong, the conscientious guy, the guy that is considerate, thinks about his effect on others, the guy that has a clear conscience because he reflects and ponders daily about when and how he's been wrong in order not to repeat, the guy that will accept blame for a wrongdoing and apologize with sincerity, the guy that does shine.
That guy was going to end his life to free himself from the pain and hopelessness.
After I past that stage, after thinking about the infinite pain I would leave behind (but not with B), I drove to a psychiatric hospital several times about to commit myself voluntarily, I could see myself getting stuck there making a more difficult world where I had to rely even further on my wonderful Aunt and Uncle, maybe other relatives to help me when I'm "better" and out without income and who knows in what state, I saw myself giving up altogether inside a psych ward and that was what I was fighting.
Ironically, if I wasn't recycled at that time, I might have either killed myself or committed myself. Seemed that more pain and trauma saved me? That was short lived, but I put that behind me so slowly, I was grateful.
I stayed in such a state until seeing her and him on Sunday with all the things an amazing imagination could bring, the sexual ecstasy I gave her, we shared now watching someone else and her reciprocating...going places and seeing the look on her face and the "energy=lovebombing" that I could swear
ON MY LIFE was real. Hearing the promises she made me and could swear
ON MY LIFE were real, being sworn to another, the dreams of the future I could swear
ON MY LIFE she meant and so on and so on until she'd reach out to me and
FORGET everything that happened up until that second she did and run to her, only to get back into the same pattern.
I didn't give up...I promised myself I wouldn't give up and god help the challenger.
Well, I'm letting myself off the hook, I'm not giving up on the person that wasn't that person, I am giving up on the person I didn't know that is the person she is.
The truth.
I won't hold her hand again, we'll never laugh together again, we'll never make love again, we won't do anything we discussed doing as she promised and so did I, I won't die by her side or her by mine.
Nothing was real and whatever she was doing with me will never be known.
I feel only slight betrayal, pain, confusion, crushed, abnormal mental state etc, it's more than a fog lifting, it's a whole lot more and it's very slowly inching towards a healthier place.
B had many traits I didn't want to recognize across cluster B, most definitely BPD and that's how I found this board, major NPD traits also, but there seems not to be an equivalent board for NPD, signs of slight schizophrenia.
I lost compassion, I'm not angry, it's becoming the sour indifference and I know she was heartless and cruel it a way I still can't fathom, she still is and will always be whether she knows or not and there isn't a mental health professional that could honestly say they know either.
It didn't matter how much I mastered the tools and strategies here or how good of a "caretaker" I wanted to be, this had an expiration date I would have never known anyway.
It took me hours to write this, I had some panic attacks during this time, I tremble sometimes, I cry, I force myself to ask myself why and I keep saying to myself I was traumatized by a mentally ill woman.
I welcome indifference more and more, it's the thing that started this healing I think.
I have not gone NC, why should I, she has little effect on me unless she wants to say anything cruel...I'm going to make sure she fades away.
I do think of her here and there and I see a miserable individual that will never feel good the way I will as I'm whole person that knows the difference. She can't learn it, be it or have it and I do not feel sorry for her, I will always try to remember why, that's something I shouldn't have to, but I need to.
Thank you bpdfamily and all the wonderful people that lend their hearts and minds to us, a once newbie, now with battle scars on the inside that can run with the best of them in the most emotionally devastating race no one but us can imagine.
