Relapse, panick attack

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi guys, I get panick attacks today, I'm in the middle of one.
I have been perfectly OK for weeks now, I even thought I was permanently over it. My trigger was to see a beautiful photo on Instagram of where she lives now, Edinburgh, our dream place .
I know it's all in my head, I know I have to focus on the now and my purpose, I know she is just a fantasy in my mind, I know all that but right now I wish reality was so different. I want to see her face again, I want to hear her laugh, I want to talk to her like I used to.
I am at my lowest point since my relapse and can hardly breathe and I feel stupid.

[daze507]

Hi guys, I get panick attacks today, I'm in the middle of one.
I have been perfectly OK for weeks now, I even thought I was permanently over it. My trigger was to see a beautiful photo on Instagram of where she lives now, Edinburgh, our dream place .
I know it's all in my head, I know I have to focus on the now and my purpose, I know she is just a fantasy in my mind, I know all that but right now I wish reality was so different. I want to see her face again, I want to hear her laugh, I want to talk to her like I used to.
I am at my lowest point since my relapse and can hardly breathe and I feel stupid.

[daze507]

I went for a run, I feel better, much better.
I've also decided that in a few years, like between five or ten, when I will be 200% over it I will sell everything and move there too.
Not because she is there but because it also was my dream and there is not reason that could not happened anymore because she has fullfied her part of it. If we bump into each others, the way she will react is not my problem, the place is not hers.

[JNChell]

Panic attacks are awful to experience. I’m glad that you’re feeling better. They’ve landed me in the hospital a few times because I thought I was having a heart attack.

Please remove the feelings of being stupid from your mind. You are not stupid. You are human, and you have feelings. You are missing your ex. I imagine that it’s pretty hard to see your ex in a place that the two of you talked about making plans for. The important thing, in the here and now, is to center and calm yourself. How are you feeling?

[daze507]

Better JNChell, thank you very much. I managed to calm myself. Here and now, it's the only thing that matters, ruminating over the past in pointless, we deserve better than that, far much better.

[JNChell]

Very good, my friend. You know, it’s very easy to look at what they’re doing via social media. Trust me, I was very obsessed at one point. Trying to figure out a seemingly double life. Maybe you can take a break from social media for a while. I promise you that every time you look, it will cause you pain and upset. It will hurt you. Many of the members here will attest to that.

I understand the confusion that is attached to the end of these relationships. No closure, so we go looking for it, but we only find things that cause more pain for ourselves.

[daze507]

I am not looking at her social media, I know she has Facebook but have never checked on it after our breakup. I had her on LinkedIn, where I forgot to remove her at the time and for some reason she didn't remove me and this is the very reason why I relapsed and why I know she's moved. Without that damn social I would not have thought about her again and I would not even know about BPD in the first place. Don't ask my how and why but after the breakup I managed to move on without closure quite easily, why I can't do it again after 2+ years is a mistery. Now she's really blocked so that won't happen again.
I talked to an other ex a few days ago (I am in good terms with most of them, the BPD is the exception) and she told me pretty much the same thing, she said:
"You envision her in a beautiful and luxurious gothic apartment in the city center while surrounded and admired by tons of people while the reality is that she is most probably sharing a flat in the suburbs with some students and she's alone and because of the quarantine."
She also said:
"You know you can live in the most beautiful place in the world, if you are miserable in your head, your life is still miserable and at the end of the day, if all is a fakery you life is too, no matter how confidence and happiness you display."

I think she was right. For some reason we tend to put these individuals on a pedestal, we tend to think they are living the dream without us and that we were the only reason they were stalling. It funny isn't? It's like their fake persona is still the one we see even after they left, we don't see the real one, the yelling, crying, begging and clingy one, the little child she wouldn't show to no-one but us. It think it shows us how deep their poison impregnated our minds.
When the bad moment come, we must remember who they really are, they are not who we think they are, they are not these shiny perfect beautiful individuals. They never were.

[JNChell]

I understand what you’re saying. It is very easy to put them on a pedestal. The feelings were so intense and intoxicating in the beginning.

I think that your friendly ex gave you some good advice. It’s true, we can be anywhere, but we can still be miserable in our minds. A change of scenery is very temporary.

It’s been 2+ years since your BPD ex. What do you think is causing these emotions?

[clvrnn]

The friend you have seems very insightful and is correct. Our minds often tell us the things that we're afraid of, and not the reality. It's good that you don't check her social media - that takes a lot of strength, so you should really be proud of yourself.

[daze507]

It’s been 2+ years since your BPD ex. What do you think is causing these emotions?

I really don't know. The fact that I went with someone else soon after the breakup probably helped a lot but then I was single again and I was super happy this way, I was not thinking about her at all.
Then I saw that notification in LinkedIn saying that she had found a new job, not only in my town but at also at five minutes walk from my place and that is already an incredible coincidence.
At this point, my mind started running, I was thinking "I will probably bump into her, we will catch up, we may even have a go at it again" so what I did is that I answered the notification on LinkedIn saying exactly that: "Congrats for your new job, it looks like a very interesting field".
What happened at this point is that:
- She did not answer my congratulations (while she did to everyone else).
- Something like a week later, her status showed she had left the job (basically she worked there for only two months) and was now located in Edinburgh.
I know looks like a huge thing but knowing the BPD impulsivity I wouldn't even be surprised she left everything here because of my message, it's like she fled urgently something, maybe she was already on the edge, maybe something went wrong at her new job, I will never know.
Note that at this point I still had no idea about what BPD was, what happened is another incredible thing. I was browsing the web about some videogames or something like that and I misspelled a word and an article about BPD came up to my screen so I read it and it was a huge revelation, it basically explained everything. It's like something or someone sent me a message here to show me the truth, what were the odds that would happen precisely during that moment?
From that point on, I became obsessed and I started to do my research about the disorder and ended up on that forum.
It was almost like going back to the breakup point, the attachment and the bond had been reistablished and I began to be obsessed while reconstructing everything in my mind and I hated (and still hate) what I was understanding. So this is my story.
Now I know, I know that nothing of what is in my mind was real, it was all a fake. Still I have to get that poison out of my mind, I will make it eventually, there's no way I give up, I want to detach the same way I did it before.

[daze507]

It's good that you don't check her social media - that takes a lot of strength, so you should really be proud of yourself

Thank you. I know it would not bring anything good, quite the opposite. Also, I think I just don't want to know, I want to forget.

[l8kgrl]

It was almost like going back to the breakup point, the attachment and the bond had been reistablished and I began to be obsessed while reconstructing everything in my mind and I hated (and still hate) what I was understanding. So this is my story.
Now I know, I know that nothing of what is in my mind was real, it was all a fake. Still I have to get that poison out of my mind, I will make it eventually, there's no way I give up, I want to detach the same way I did it before.

Hi Daze, it's good you were able to move on quickly after the initial breakup - I'm sure being in a new r/s at the time helped with that.

I guess I'm of the mindset, though, that if there was pain there that you couldn't or didn't address at the time, it's still there under the surface, which may be why you feel that that bond was later "reestablished" when you learned about her move and started learning about BPD, and why feelings are coming up again now? What do you think?

To me, there's a fine line between dwelling/wallowing in the past versus moving on too quickly without processing what we just went through. The happy medium is probably slightly different for everyone...
 

[l8kgrl]

BTW, the comment about how they are still (unhappy) despite how things may look on the outside was super helpful to me.

I am SO guilty of comparing myself with others and always feeling that I'm coming up short. Also assuming that my ex is off somewhere, deliriously happy with my replacement, when in reality I know that he is unhappy. Because he's an unhappy person.

I don't know what it says about me that that makes me feel better, but it kind of does

[daze507]

Hi I8kgrl, yes that was the explanation I came up with too, the circonstances at the time allowed me to put everything under the carpet very fast (still needed 2 weeks of mourning too) and it worked very well however a simple trigger was enough to bring everything to the surface all at once. Damn trigger, if only I had not forgotten to block her on this site.

I'm glad my comment helped and it's the reality, we are the best person to know it is because we saw both versions of them, the happy super confident version and the other one, the depressive insecure clingy paranoid one. We saw behind the immaculate mask and I am sure that factors plays a lot with the fact they don't want to have anything to do with us anymore, they know we know and they cannot stand that.
I feel the same as you, maybe it's because we it demonstrates that what happened had nothing to do with us. If they are still miserable without us, it exempts us from our guilt. It's a proof all their accusations of us being this or that, it was bulsh*t.

[daze507]

Or maybe, we just don't like to see them happy because it makes us paint ourselves even more irrelevant and worthless (if more that it is already is even possible).

[daze507]

I spoke to my brother today, he made me felt so much better. He reminded me that the world is so full of interesting and healthy people that the simple fact of focusing on a person of your past, who not only never really was that person but who was also extremely unhealthy, incapable of adult love, unstable, chaotic and toxic did not make any single sense. He told me that it is no more than self-torture at this point, the bro is always right.

[Attic]

I'm sorry to hear you are going through some of these painful ruminations and other thought processes many of us have gone through.  The panic attacks are overwhelming. 

It is a gauntlet and sometimes you are going to get knocked on your ass.  Important thing is you get back up and keeping running.  

I'm glad to hear you are feeling better with things.  Be sure to keep yourself busy and keep exercising and treating yourself really very well.

[JNChell]

I think that your brother has very valid points, but it sounds like you still have some healing and processing to do. Man to man, I’ve been in more than one of these types of relationships, and the reason for that is because I never took the time to reflect, process and heal. Each relationship became worse at the end of it. It’s a cycle just like we describe here about pwBPD. It’s not exclusive to them. Knowing that doesn’t diminish any pain or protect us from these memories, flashbacks or nostalgic feelings when they show up out of seemingly nowhere.

It’s ok that you’re having these feelings about her. Especially when it comes to Edinburgh. I get that 110%. Your feelings should also be telling you that you still have things to work through when it comes to her. First, do you want to reach out and test the waters with her, or are you done and wanting to move on?

[daze507]

I'm glad to hear you are feeling better with things.  Be sure to keep yourself busy and keep exercising and treating yourself really very well

Thank you Attic. I am doing that and it helps a lot, talking to people about it is also hugely helpful because it brings back some sense in you. Sometimes we think and think and we lost track of reality, ironically we do exactly what the BPDs do. The difference is that other people can stop you unlike the BPDs.

I think that your brother has very valid points, but it sounds like you still have some healing and processing to do. Man to man, I’ve been in more than one of these types of relationships, and the reason for that is because I never took the time to reflect, process and heal. Each relationship became worse at the end of it. It’s a cycle just like we describe here about pwBPD. It’s not exclusive to them. Knowing that doesn’t diminish any pain or protect us from these memories, flashbacks or nostalgic feelings when they show up out of seemingly nowhere.
It’s ok that you’re having these feelings about her. Especially when it comes to Edinburgh. I get that 110%. Your feelings should also be telling you that you still have things to work through when it comes to her. First, do you want to reach out and test the waters with her, or are you done and wanting to move on

I know JNChell that I have a lot of work to do on myself.
The cool thing is that I am not interested in relationships anymore, like I said above I was super happy as single before the relapse, I have no doubt it will be the same again once this story is settled.
So there's not many risk to end up with another BPD or NPD or who knows what at this point. My quiet, peace and freedom comes first now.

The non response and going miles away without saying anything was a clear enough response for me. She wants to start from scratch and leave all her past behind, that includes me and who knows how many other dudes who came after, I have to respect that, me writing would only be a further annoyance for her, that's very clear and it's ok.
Additionally, it would make no sense, I know exactly what happened and I am sure she knows it too even if she will never accept it so no need to bring everything back again.
She's moved on, I must only do the same, work in progress... 

[JNChell]

I understand. Keep posting and interacting with the other members here. Your story helps all of us.

[once removed]

a trigger like this can be a good gauge of where we are in our detachment process.

when my ex and i broke up, i would look at her facebook, and i couldnt even see anything but her profile picture, but if she changed it, it didnt matter what it was, it would send me into a total tailspin, for literally hours.

sometimes these things happen, and there isnt necessarily anything right or wrong about it when it does...we talk it out, we reflect, we work through it, and i think thats a bit of healing work.

seeing the same thing might just trigger you less next time.

[daze507]

Yes Once, it's not fun, especially when it strikes when you expect it the least but like you said it is part of the healing process and we have to deal with it.