Heartbroken in many ways - Long story (Part 1-2-3-4)

[Jackal]

PART 1 – MORE BELOW
Hello everyone,

First of all, God bless this website/forum, and the very patient, kind and loving "caregivers" out there. Thank you all for being so caring, and investing yourself in your relationships in ways that most people would not even want to deal with. From what I can see and hear, as soon as people find out, they want to run away from people with such disorders, and they don't care to discover what they have to offer, sometimes and often times they can show incredible talents, with the intensity that they are known for. Based on my recent first experience with someone with BPD, it indeed seems to be very complex and it most certainly leads to very sad situations, which I have been going through for the past few months. For me, it goes beyond a simple heartache, which I also have had in the past a few times. I am heartbroken to have lost sight of the woman of my life, even before the relationship ended, as I was suddenly getting devalued for no valid reason after giving my all, and I am even more heartbroken knowing the full story of that person, and the struggles that remain for her in the coming years, and the fact that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it; it needs to come from within herself. I am so afraid that it will not end well for her. I feel tremendous empathy towards her, which she completely dismisses and even rebukes, which I will explain later.

If I may, I want to get part of my story out there. I felt the need to exchange with people who went through the same thing as me, or who are familiar with the illness. Yes, I do have a great support system around me, but of course they are all glad that the relationship is over, and they are very supportive and validating of me, and they remind me that I should not doubt myself about being a good guy and whatnot. That is amazing and very helpful to me, but I still felt that something was missing. That is what I'm hoping to get from posting here, and perhaps I can help some people myself. Of course I’m hoping the process will be therapeutic for me.

How we met and how I knew she potentially had a BPD

So there we go - I will try to make this as short as possible, but as everybody going through this knows, there is no short or simple story about being with someone with BPD. This is just my opinion, but I believe the worst situation you can encounter is someone that is NOT diagnosed yet, and that is in total denial; that is what I went through. How can that happen you will ask? Well, I met this lady on a dating website and on our first date out, we went for a long walk which was completely amazing. It had never happened to me in my life, but she was able to knock me off of my feet with exciting stories, and I was simply struck by her brilliance and her seemingly caring nature, not to mention her incredible beauty. She also rapidly began telling me heartbreaking stories about her childhood and her difficult relationship with both her parents. She was smart enough not to go too deep on the first walk not to scare me off, but it did not take long before I knew all the horrible stuff she went through. Sexual abuse, and pretty much all types of abuses. Somehow, during the initial walk, we got onto the topic of our medical history because I was telling her that I went through some tough times with my physical health, and that I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful doctor guide me to full recovery. That is when she began to tell me that she was currently in the process of challenging her medical files, to have some stuff edited out of it. Later on, I got to understand that the reason she thought about looking at her medical files (which apparently, was unusually enormous in size) was because she was also going through a legal battle towards 2 young individuals who had sexually abused her, and she was worried that some excerpts from her medical files would compromise that effort. During the initial walk, she said that apparently many doctors wrote in her file that she potentially had a BPD - they had never discussed it directly with her, so she found out when she read her medical file herself. Of course, she was completely in disagreement that she had this mental illness, and she wanted this removed from her files. I was so charmed by her that I thought, wow, indeed this lady seems completely normal and a sweet loving person, with tremendous intelligence, sharp and intense. However, I was no fool and I kept this as a red flag - to be validated later. So that is how I met a lady who I can almost safely say has a BPD, but is not officially diagnosed, and refuses to admit that she has it. The doctors clued me into it, and after doing a lot of reading and based on my experience with her, it is a perfect match to BPD, with some narcissistic traits and several others, OCD being one of them as well. Also, my neighbor helped me to identify that she had BPD, and that was extremely helpful.

My helpful neighbor that had an ex that had BPD

Indeed, life can be extremely well built. I had just moved back to my hometown from several years in another province (Canada), and I ended up moving to a wonderful apartment and neighborhood. I quickly befriended my neighbor, who was the owner of this beautiful historical house that we shared. We shared many common interests; fast cars, trading the stock market, business, food and wine, exercising/running, name it. But this is not what would prove to be life changing for me. Before I even met my ex, my neighbor/now very good friend was telling me that he was heartbroken, so I assumed that he was separated. He said it was complicated. He said even though he had been a perfect gentleman with her, she was very angry with him and no longer wanted to talk to him, and the relationship was up in the air. It was not clear if it was over or not, but most likely over. Once we got closer to one another, he began telling me more details, that she was in fact diagnosed with BPD and that it was very difficult. I had a vague idea of what BPD was at the time, but I figured it was a mental illness and I sympathized with him. He told me he had to seek psychological help himself during the relationship, and still to this day. I completely understand now. That being said, once I began experiencing strange behaviors and situations with my ex, my neighbor was instrumental in getting me to realize that she most likely had a BPD. Once again, I am so thankful that life put this person on my path at exactly, precisely the right time. It is almost a scary coincidence, as I had never really had anyone around me that would have spoken to me about BPD. It is pure destiny at work here, in my view. Everything that my neighbor was telling me about his ex, was a perfect match with my-then girlfriend, even small details about her. For example, they both had a life plan that they would update from time to time (in scrapbooking format, with pictures of what they aspire to be, or what they aspire to have). BPD people tend to be very intense and overachievers, so it fits with this trait. Based on my understanding, they need to fill the void that is present within them. He also told me that his ex warned him not to communicate any details of her life and struggles with other people, and especially not to communicate that with members of her family or people around her, and generally to keep it all quiet to himself. My ex also did exactly that, and I almost had to swear not to do it; it was done in a very controlling and intense manner, almost desperate, as if her life depended on it. In my view, this is related to their image that they are trying to portray to the world - they do not want it tarnished. That is why they tend to overachieve and be so intense; they feel alive by doing so. Then one more thing is that as I mentioned previously, she was very angry with him even considering everything he did for her, and she absolutely wanted nothing to do with him anymore at the end of the relationship - same thing with me. I was devalued as far as being the equivalent of the devil himself; even after all I did for her. Just to name a few things I did; it is just money, but after just a couple of months of relationship, I went ahead and paid private medical exams for her (we have a public health care system in Canada – so normally it would have been free, but I paid a large amount to make it faster in the private sector). I financially supported her and bought all of her food and consumables for a large part of our relationship. I drove her to the hospital in times of need, which to me is just the natural thing to do, and miss days of work to help her out. I terminated my work contract one month in advance, dismissing a termination bonus and other perks so that I could help her with her physical illness and be able to support her full time (not her mental illness, which we absolutely never discussed and was the elephant in the room). One week before my final day in the office, she announced to me that I was not fulfilling her needs, and that I was doing absolutely nothing to help her, and she wanted to end the relationship. I was completely mystified, but I jumped on the opportunity to take the exit, as heartbreaking as it was.

About the relationship itself, I read everywhere that the first moments of the relationship always feel like heaven - the woman of your life. It happened to me, and it lasted a good 3 months; I don't know if that is long or short, but it was great while it lasted. I had big plans and big hopes for the relationship to evolve into something much greater. There were some hints of strangeness along the way, but the rest was so great that we easily moved beyond whatever happened. She seemed to be on a baseball inspired system of "3 strikes, out", so I was still on my first strike for most of the little displeasing details and quirks of my person! So during the first few months, I was still good for a couple more strikes...!

Strange situations that happened that led me to believe she had a BPD

Rapidly, she began saying that I was not doing enough, that she was doing too much. This was really not my first relationship, and I was completely baffled by her statement. I thought she was a little trigger happy there, and in fact, before she told me that, I was patting myself in the back thinking that I was doing a great job helping out around her apartment, and being a general nice guy. I respected her very strict rules of not leaving ANY water on the countertops (a single droplet will be spotted and is too much), of only stepping on her extremely small carpet at the entrance when entering her apartment, so that no water is left on the ground, and for serving food separately, and not mixed, within the plates. That is all fine and for me it was reasonable (although a bit extreme sometimes). In hindsight, those were other hints of potentially more severe mental health problems – those could all be considered as obsessive compulsive behaviors. So as for what I did, I prepared meals, either alone, or with her help. I took out the trash, made sure my clothes were folded and not laying around, to keep my luggage clean and to basically seamlessly leave no trace behind and be clean and tidy. Apparently that was far from enough. Also, one week, I arrive at her apartment on a Friday evening, all excited to see her. I can tell something is going on – she is preoccupied. Suddenly she tells me that I changed, and I can tell she is also disappointed. She also tells me that I’m taking her for granted. Then I tell her that I’m not sure I understand – it had only been about 2 months. So much went on in such a short time, that we were not even able to find a routine or a regular pace to anything. So how could she conclude that I had changed? We were still having a blast together, and I still consider this to be part of the “good” period with her, but this is kind of how the devaluation phase started. She was beginning to see small things that were not living up to her unrealistic expectations. She said I was no longer surprising her with fully prepared meals of new recipes – well, we had been seeing each other at her place mostly, and remember, we had only been together 2 months at that point, including Christmas break where we went to see family members of both families. We were not together full time, as I was working from my apartment sometimes. I eventually did do more work remotely from her place, but again, we were not at my place. I was more or less comfortable monopolizing the kitchen. And in 2 months, I did not have a ton of opportunities to do it, and I had done it, but she was not seeing it at all. I was slightly concerned by her rapid statement that I had changed, because I thought it was really premature and uncalled for. We were having a perfectly great time – how could it be more perfect or why seek an improvement already? I could not see what she was seeing at all and I could tell that there was something very strange in her thought process. That evening, she put together a sharable list of things that we swear to abide by, such as not taking each other for granted and very specific things. She asked me to contribute to the list as well, which she had already put probably 30+ items on it…

She was not the richest person, so of course I was very happy to help her with the financial aspect. As I mentioned previously, I did not hesitate to buy her groceries, and to pay for everything we did when going out on activities and whatnot. However one day, I can tell she is very upset. So I confront her and ask if she is OK. It turns out she is upset because I have been using, in her opinion, too much of her protein powder, and that it costs a lot of money and that she would have to purchase more. I was a bit offended by that, because I had purchased it along with everything else in her fridge. So if I understood correctly, I had to purchase hers, and purchase mine for my own consumption? I made her realize that this did not make sense, but this was early on in the relationship and it definitely raised some flags for me. She was not able to compute the “big picture” at all, and it was completely self-centered.

END OF PART 1

[Jackal]

PART 2

Strange situations that happened that led me to believe she had a BPD (Continued)

My ex also came to a rapid conclusion that I had lied about my identity and the fact that I was caring about my health and fitness. To prove her point, she says that I pick fast food over healthier options more often than not, contrary to what I was saying at the beginning. Indeed, before I met her, I was in excellent shape and I was ready to run a marathon. It was canceled due to COVID, and I had successfully maintained my shape for a long time, up until I met her. I don’t want to blame everything on her, as nobody forces me to put food in my mouth, but it was very difficult for me to accept that she might have cancer, and further to that, that she potentially had a mental illness. Of course, I had to keep the mental illness part of it entirely to myself, and it was making me very sad and anxious to see her slowly disappear and change in front of my own eyes, at an increasingly rapid pace. It is absolutely true that I was tempted by fast food more often than not, and that I had gained a lot of weight in a short time. But she interpreted that as treason, and a coarse lie about my person and profile. She was extrapolating every small decision taken today, on the full length of our relationship and as if it was never going to be any different. She even asked me if that was my modus operandi to let myself go after meeting someone. Maybe my expectation was completely impossible for her to respect, but I would have hoped for more compassion and understanding on her side during this tough time to digest the news about her physical health, and that I would definitely not maintain the pace on my weight gain. After all, we were working out together, and we had begun to run together. We were also very active before she received the diagnosis. Unfortunately, anything I did was often interpreted either as a confrontation towards her, an injustice, or worst an insult to her person (which was never the case as far as I’m concerned).

When I drive my car, I don’t do speeding, but I do accelerate fast; it is my way of driving since forever ago. Of course, when I have passengers, I don’t do it as hard, but it is everything but slow. I’ve always had fast cars from a young age, and I love it. Unfortunately my ex wanted to control that as well, apparently due to different events that happened in her youth – her father drunk driving and menacingly fake to go off the cliff, or straight into the lake. I understood and sympathized with that, however I had to drive my car as safely and respectfully towards her that I could. At the slightest acceleration that would exceed her expectation of what a rapid acceleration is, she would go through the same merry-go-round of emotions. She would go; I told you I don’t like it, don’t you respect me? Why do you do it again? You REALLY don’t respect me! I told you this morning, and you do it again this afternoon. Obviously her sensitivity level would vary, depending on mood and other factors. I would feel controlled in many aspects of my life, including my driving. Believe me; I was careful, I was really careful. But at some point, it was inevitable that I had to drive and do what I had to do, and accelerate faster, what my car is easily able to do without much effort. Imagine that, I was disrespecting her every single time! Not a fun thought at all. Nobody ever told me anything about my driving, to the contrary… On the timeline of events, the comments/intense emotions about my driving were probably the first things I noticed that were very unusual, because quickly I got to drive her around, understandably.

At the beginning, my ex was in denial also about her physical illness. She was continuing to exercise hard with me, and she was not stopping. At some point, she hit a wall and seemed to realize what was going on. Understandably she was very emotional. I had spent many days at her place, and I had scheduled to leave for my apartment, because I have some commitments I have to respect. I have to shovel the snow off of the driveway for myself and my neighbor – this is the agreement I took with him. I was worried because, there was snowfall and I wanted to make sure everything was clean etc. So let’s say on Monday end of day, I was about to go home and my ex is very emotional about her health. She is crying and she is extremely anxious. We spoke, and I attempt to reassure her. I hug her hard, and I ask her if she will be OK, and she answers that yes, she is a strong woman. Perfect, so a bit later, I hit the road to go home and shovel the driveway. I arrive home, and indeed, I have to do my shoveling work, which I do. Suddenly, I receive a call. It’s my ex. She is very angry and disappointed. She told me that if I had been in this condition, that she would never have left me like that. So I try to explain to her that I have some commitments to respect, but I stay cool and I say no problem, I understand your need for me to be there with you, I will finish what I have to do here and immediately come back to you (I lived about 30mins from her place). As for me, I had understood her request, and I was satisfied because the driveway was now clean and I had respected my commitment. I did not make a big fuss about it, and I immediately complied and told her that I was on my way shortly; I did not need to stay at my apartment for other reasons, because I could work remotely at the time. Unfortunately, I heard about this story for a very long time, that I left her alone in a moment that she really needed me. This event certainly added other “bad grades” to my file, even considering that immediately after cleaning the driveway, I went back to her. She was alone for maximum 2 hours. According to her, I had not supported her, and this was her conclusion even once I got back to her place. I could not get rid of it anymore. I understand that a lot of people let her down in her past, but I found it very difficult to go through from my point of view, especially because I loved her so much and of course it was not my intention. Understandably I must take care of my commitments! And truthfully, after spending so much time at her place, I was ready to go back home in my own stuff, which is understandable after a long time spent away from home.

I am a stock market investor. I communicate to my ex that it could be interesting for her to invest one day. After some insisting from her part, I tell her how to proceed to open an account that will allow her to make some transactions. Of course, I tell her about all the risks involved, and that she will need to be extremely careful. I was slowly teaching her about the basics, so that she could eventually start investing. Suddenly, she announces to me that she decided to do a test transaction. A quantity of 1 at a price of $15, she says. I tell her that it is an excellent idea, so that she can familiarize herself with the platform etc. Unfortunately, the reality was much different. She had decided to put ALL OF HER SAVINGS into an extremely risky stock, a “momentum stock” as they have become known which are very volatile and move fast. I would have advised her never to invest like this, certainly not as her first transaction! This is a prime example to show that she also liked to put herself in perilous situations. I had to get her out of trouble, because she was not able to sell her position, as she had no idea how to use the platform. Thankfully, she got back most of her money, but what a lesson for her (and for me!). I could not understand what pushed her to do that. She morphed into a different person, desperate, completely overcame by the events that were unfolding. She was someone that put herself in a vulnerable position, knowingly. In other words, it could not end well. She acted against all indications, by pure impulse. I still don’t understand. After that, she absolutely did not want to talk about it. She was ashamed. She did not want me to explain to her what happened and what is a momentum stock. She did not want to hear anything about it anymore and she was not accepting what she did. She even mentioned, what did I get myself pushed into? This is strange because of course, she is the one that precipitated everything and ended up in a bad spot. She was definitely not ready to invest, and much less in this manner.

My ex arrives at my place on a Friday morning, because she had decided to take a day off. She was super excited, as I was, but I had to work for part of the day. The day before, I make sure everything is perfect for her arrival and I do the groceries to make sure we have everything for some fine dining and a great time. The same morning, I clean the place up so that it smelled good, I shave, I shower, I put some nice clothes on, a nice polo and some clean, brand new jogger pants. After all, I want to be comfortable for my time working remotely. She arrives, and I am all smiles and so happy to see her. I run to the door to welcome her and help her out with her stuff. Immediately, she begins staring me down and spots the jogger pants and the merry-go-round starts again! She goes; you don’t think that I deserve better than jogger pants? You don’t respect me? And you, if you arrived at my place and I was like this, what would you say? Maybe for you it is acceptable, but for me, I don’t want this in my life. If for you it’s OK, good for you, but for me, I don’t accept that. So my answer was to point out the positive things that I had done. I said look, I put on your favorite polo shirt, I clearly cleaned up the entire place, I shaved short like she likes it (I don’t), I had planned everything for lunch and the fridge is full of goodies, etc etc. Once again, she only saw the negative from her point of view, and this experience was going to dictate how the rest of the weekend went – and it really was not great. On the same day, I tell her that I have an interview soon and that I am going to go get a haircut, to be at my best. She takes it completely the wrong way out of nowhere, and she goes; you would not have done it for me, but for your interview, yes? I could tell she was resisting the urge not to explode as she usually did. Once again, I had difficulty believing her reaction, which was completely uncalled for.

It is important to mention that I had hit the total package here – from our first month of relationship, she was also investigating a physical illness that she potentially had, involving a carcinoid syndrome, or in other words, a cancerous tumor that was secreting something that they were able to detect in her bloodstream. When it started to get more serious and she started to get physical symptoms like low blood sugar, low energy levels, etc, it also exacerbated anything related to her BPD. She was already hypersensitive, and it made her extra-hypersensitive! For example, she had asked me for a Tylenol, but unfortunately I did not have any. I told her hey, it’s a nice day, let’s take a short walk to the pharmacy and get some, it is about a quarter of a mile away, a very short walk, you can almost see it. Oh my goodness – it took nothing more to set her off. She goes: What? Didn’t you listen when I said I had no energy? You don’t care? You don’t respect me? So then I realize I set her off again, so I quickly backtrack and say oh, well you don’t have to come with me, I can just go and grab your pills and come back, after all that’s the purpose, to get your pills more than the walk itself. Nope, I was not getting away so easily. She insisted – why did I even think about bringing her out on a walk? According to her, it was obvious that she could not walk a quarter of a mile. What I need to mention here is that a few weeks before, when she did not have her carcinoid diagnosis yet, we were working out together really hard and she was in excellent shape; she is a very fit person, about 120 pounds tops, and muscular/firm build. I was confused that now all of a sudden; she could no longer walk a quarter of a mile! She was super emotional about it, she began crying and I had to explain myself for about an hour, if not more, no joke. It totally ruined the perfect day we were having prior to that. She was ready to leave my apartment and go back to her place, had we not discussed, and had I not tried to reassure her that I most definitely cared about her and listened to her.

I believe during the same weekend, my ex needed solar cream at the pharmacy. We were already on the road for other stuff we needed, so I drive her to a nearby pharmacy which happens to be near my sister’s place, literally 2 streets away. That is when I have the idea to ask my ex if she wants to meet my sister for the first time, and go visit her real quick. Super angry, she immediately makes the reproach that it is completely obvious that she is not at her best with everything she is going through and the way she was dressed (which was totally fine), that I had wanted to be at my best to meet her family, so why did I not let her be at her best to meet my sister? I instantly see that my ex is uncomfortable and I decide to abandon the idea; I did not care for it, it was just an idea because we were literally 2 streets away. No problem at all, it will be for another time. That is when she enters the pharmacy to get her solar cream, and it takes an eternity. I don’t understand why. She ends up arriving, and I see that she decided to buy a piece of clothing so that we can go see my sister. She imposed it on herself even though we had already decided to abandon the idea. Totally panicked and not in a good mood, she decides to change her clothes in my car, on a busy street downtown. I tell her not to stress herself, that we would go see my sister some other time. Honestly I was completely stressed out by what had just happened and super anxious, and I was continuously thinking about what had just happened, which I was finding super strange. Again I was debating in my mind or rather getting more and more convinced that she had a mental health issue. But the pain was not over yet. Suddenly, as I start the car to begin the journey back home, which is a short 5-10 minutes away, she tells me that she is extremely thirsty (due to her physical illness) and she asks me to stop immediately to get her a water bottle. Still completely flabbergasted by what just happened with the “almost-visit” to my sister’s, I try to rapidly think and see where I could stop for water. I ask her if she is fully certain because we are about 5 minutes from my place, and it will take roughly the same time if we just wait to arrive! Again, oh my goodness, it did not take more than that to cause quite a story again, that I was not respecting her, that I was not fulfilling her needs and that I was minimizing the way that she felt. Meanwhile, while continuing to drive, I end up driving past a gas station, and without waiting any further, I stop so that she can get her water, and she does. Back to the car with the water, of course the drama is not over yet. She is super angry, and hammers that I don’t respect her. I tell her that we stopped, and she now has her water, so what more does she want? I had understood her request, but then I begin explaining that I was stressed out and did not know what to do instantaneously; the easiest way for sure was to go straight home (this is downtown, so not always easy to park). So basically in a nutshell, we were going to the pharmacy to fill her needs (solar cream), but I don’t fulfill her needs and I don’t respect her? Once again, her expectation was that I accept to stop for water without asking if she could wait any length of time. In her mind, simply because of that, it was all over and it was a negative outcome no matter that she got her water or not. I had failed the test.

END OF PART 2

[Jackal]

PART 3

Strange situations that happened that led me to believe she had a BPD (continued)

I tell my ex that I showed my sister a picture of her, because she had requested to see one. I told her that I picked the picture where she does a cute grimace, which I find really beautiful. I tell her thinking that it will be a positive news, and my expectation was that she was going to tell me that she was eager to see my sister, or something like that. What a mistake I made! She panics and says, I can’t believe you showed her this picture! It does not make any sense! Without asking me first and you show the picture where I do a grimace? It was the end of the world. Once again, she brings back the same argument that I wanted to look my best to see her family, but that I had prevented her from being able to do the same with my sister, that it was not respectful at all, etc. I swear, we must have talked about this at length for over an hour. After 15 minutes, I had enough and I thought the discussion was redundant, but she was insisting more and more. We hang up eventually. She calls me back 5 minutes later because there was another thing she wanted to clarify (about this topic again!), I could not believe it. After 15 minutes, I found the conversation started being super weird, but after more than an hour, and a call back, this is the first time I told myself, wow, she is completely crazy. My neighbor had told me that for BPDs, image is very important. They are empty inside, and attempt to do so much to make it appear as if they are a certain way. I had just stepped on this.

Another strange event also happened at my place. We were having a perfect day – made the perfect meal together, were having the best discussions around the best glass of wine. At the end of the meal, I instinctively push my vegetable, a broccoli if I remember correctly, with my finger towards my fork. It all happened quickly and spontaneously, as I’m in the comfort of my own home, and I was not bothered having perfect table manners; I honestly did it without even noticing. Suddenly, she completely SNAPS. Oh my god! You touched your food? You don’t respect me? Would you have done this at a restaurant? No? Then why are you doing it here? Certainly that is because you take me for granted and you don’t respect me. And she goes on and on and on. In an instant, she forgot about the perfect day, the perfect meal, the perfect discussions, the perfect wine… It was all gone in her mind – only the broccoli mattered. Once again, we must have discussed it for over an hour, and it totally ruined our day and evening. My reaction at that moment was probably one of the worst – I had an uncomfortable smile, the kind of smile that you are looking around to see if there is a camera recording, as if you are part of a prank or something. Like this cannot be serious or happening. I was not laughing in her face – but that is how she interpreted it; that I was belittling her feelings and observations. It made things a lot worst for me, and I had to do a lot of “rowing” to get out of trouble there. Once we got to some kind of agreement, I was super uneasy and I remember thinking, that’s it, I am now fully totally convinced that this person has a serious mental problem. My own anxiety began shortly after – I was now walking on eggshells almost permanently, even when I was working from my own place.

Another situation I would like to share is also about meal preparation, and began with my arrival on a Friday evening as well. Again, I could tell she had stuff to discuss with me. She is seeing a psychotherapist, who advises her on how to approach her social challenges. He advised her to tell me about her expectations and limits, and to name her needs, which she does. She tells me that because of her physical illness, she is no longer able to prepare meals for herself, and to do pretty much anything in the house. So she is expecting me to do… EVERYTHING, however she does not define everything, and I’m kind of hoping she will pitch in and help with small tasks, as she is still fully capable of moving around easily. However, I still totally get what she is telling me, and I am happy to help her through this difficult time. The next morning, around lunch time, I try to ask her what she would like to eat. We needed to go shopping, so I tell her, maybe we could grab something on the way there, or on the way back? Then I propose various restaurants. She tells me that she had chicken in the fridge. I wanted to spoil her with the restaurant food of her choice, but fine, if she prefers the chicken, I have no problem with that at all. I will prepare lunch and do a recipe that we both really like. Without wasting any time, I get to it without asking her to do anything. She goes her own way, in her bedroom or something. At halfway during the meal prep, she arrives extremely angry in the kitchen and emotional, telling me that I had not listened to her the day prior, that I do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for her. I was dumbfounded because I was preparing lunch as we spoke! Not to mention, I had taken care of all of the other tasks, the dishwasher, trash, and other minor tasks in the morning. She insists that normally, according to her expectation, I should have begun preparing lunch on my own WITHOUT her mentioning it. That’s what was bothering her – she had to mention it. I could not believe my ears, because clearly that was not the process that happened at all in reality. It’s not like I knew I had to prepare chicken, and did not do it until she asked. It is completely different. It is as if she had a pre-built scenario in her mind, where I was supposed to instinctively look in the fridge and see the chicken, and decide on my own to prepare it. Like I said, that was really not what happened. So at this point, it was really not her first episode of craziness (I hate to use the word crazy, but it was beginning to pop in my mind more often towards the end of the relationship), and I had decided that if she went over my limits again, that I would leave her apartment. I was kind enough to finish cooking the meal and once done, I put my jacket on and started gathering my stuff. I wanted to end the relationship right then and now. Then this is when she began to be visibly in distress, and seemed to be having a panic attack (breathing heavily and fast and crying). Obviously I am able to understand that I cannot leave a person like that, so I reassured her and we spoke. We spoke a lot. I ended up deciding to stay, but I knew deep down that she would never digest the fact that I had dared put my jacket on, and to give up on her like most people in her life. Even if we had found our relative calm back in the immediate situation, I knew I had once again been downgraded/devalued, which would not leave any hope for our relationship in the future…

The next morning, it goes relatively well but I still feel that she is digesting what happened the day prior. That evening, my ex does not feel good. Her heartbeat is irregular and she feels weak. She calls her sister, which is a doctor, and her sister suggests that we go to the hospital even considering the covid lockdown and the late hour to measure vital signs. Without hesitating, and without delay, reassuring her about the lockdown and the fact that we have the right to go to the hospital, we jump in the car and we go until the late (or early) hours of the night (3-4AM). Everything went well, the vital signs were good and we did not have to justify our presence on the road. Considering the late hour, I write to my boss saying I will have to miss half a day of work; no problem, it is my pleasure to do it for my girlfriend who is ill. We were very tired, and we must have slept until 11AM. I then make sure that she has everything covered, and I prepare her a breakfast. I tell her that I must absolutely go back to work, and I had to drive back home because I had not brought my laptop. So I decide to leave after preparing her breakfast. That evening, she tells me she cannot talk, because she is tired and that we would speak the next day. I still feel that something is going on. I had told her that she could call me anytime she wants if she needed anything or if something was going on with her health, and that she should not hesitate the next time she needs me. The week prior, she had needed something and decided to ask other people instead, without calling me at all. I did not understand because I could have done it, and I was totally open to do it, had she called or texted. That being said, the very next day, she calls me around Lunch time but unfortunately I miss her call as I was extremely busy in wall-to-wall meetings until the mid-afternoon hours. I then notice that she called me earlier around 12:30pm, but that she did not call me back or leave a text message or anything. She used to call me sometimes during lunchtime just for a chat, so I figured it was just that, and that we would discuss in the evening, so I continued with my busy work day. At 5PM, she texts me asking if I saw her call; I tell her the truth, that yes, I did see her call but only in mid afternoon but that everything seemed to be OK and that I had figured we would speak in the evening. Obviously, she found another excuse and we did not speak that evening. The next time we spoke, 2 days later, she was announcing to me that she could not accept this anymore that I was not fulfilling her needs, that I could not stop justifying myself, etc. She wanted to end the relationship. This is when I saw my opportunity for a smooth exit, and I accepted her conclusion without a fight. Imagine this – she mentioned that for me to fulfill her needs, I would have needed to wake up early to prepare her breakfast, ALONG with preparing lunch, filling her car with gasoline, and fill up her large water bottles that were all dried up. It’s true, I had promised to fill up the large water bottles, but that was before the need to go to the hospital until 4AM came up, and me missing half a day of work. The situation had completely changed, and I was planning to return to her place later after work, had she needed more help. I never put gasoline in her car – that was one of the things she was still paying. It’s not about money, but I would never have thought of that at all, as it just wasn’t our routine. She handled making sure her car had gasoline… She was angry that she had to ask friends to come and help her, even though she did not even try to reach out to me at any point in time (except that one missed phone call at lunchtime). Believe me, I would have helped her 100%, it would have been my pleasure. I am not a grumpy person at all and always willing to help. It is as if she was laying traps, only to help prove her point that I was not respecting her, that I was not fulfilling her needs. For me, that was really the last straw, to tell myself that this woman really had a mental problem, and that a good guy like me really did not need this in his life!

After the end of our relationship, I still went to help her out emptying her dishwasher and sink, prepare meals, and grab some food to eat depending on the day. I was still helping her financially, as I could see her struggle still. We also went for nice walks. I was listening more than talking. She was still very unstable and angry; she had no patience for nothing or anyone. She was not even able to grab an apple that was at the bottom of a bag, because she was not able to find it and get it out. She was tired when people would ask via text or email how she was doing in regards to her physical illness. So that is why on my side, I had decided to keep radio silence and not contact her at all during the following weekend, as I figured she needed some peace and quiet and that she would contact me if she wanted to; I did not want to add oil to the fire and to risk setting her off again. Once again I was walking on eggshells. I was technically no longer with her; she had no accounts to give me, and vice-versa. After a few days, the next message I received from her was to mention that once again, I let her down, and that it was probably preferable to stop seeing each other, that we were preventing each other from “evolving” (her words). At first, she seemed calm but in the following messages, I could tell she was super angry and picturing me as the worst human being on this entire planet. She told me it was entirely my fault if she had decided that, that I chose the outcome myself, that I was responsible for it. Once again, I figured I had enough, and that I would never win with this woman. The same thing would keep happening, no matter what.

END OF PART 3

[Jackal]

PART 4

Conclusion

So why am I here on this forum now? A few days ago, I had the brilliant idea to write her an email. Our relationship ended back in March, and we are now August. I thought the dust had the time to settle, and that she would be open to read what I had wanted to tell her all this time. Her mental illness was like the elephant in the room that I was not ever able to discuss with her, and I had to get it out of my chest, in a caring and loving way of course. Admittedly, even after everything I wrote above, I had a small hope that she would see the light and accept that she had a problem, and that perhaps we could slowly start to reconnect. I read on the BDPfamily website that it is actually a mistake to tell people that they have a mental problem, that it must come from them. I agree that it most likely will not work, and may actually set them off again and get you ostracized. For me, selfishly, it was not a mistake, because I did it for myself and I had nothing to lose. It felt like I had not fulfilled my responsibility with her of bringing up the topic after all this time. I had to attempt it once. It was weighing heavily on my heart and preventing me from moving on. I also had a nice painting that she had made for me for my birthday, and I had no idea what to do with it. Even though I loved it, I could not have it in my face every single day and I had to decide what to do with it. I figured it would become clearer after I wrote to her, and indeed, it did. I ended up bringing it back to her uncle the next morning after she responded.

She did not answer well to my message at all. It was about 6 pages long; I sent it at 10:30PM and by 10:45PM, I already had a very mean text message from her. She was in the same exact mood as months prior. Her message sounded rushed, impulsive, and angry. She totally did projection, and told me that she was the one with compassion about MY mental health, and that I should seek some help. She even called me harmful/toxic, which nobody ever used those words to describe me. I did not sound desperate at all in my message; it was just a very kind message explaining to her what I had been eager to tell her all this time. During our last walk together, I had told her that I had something to tell her one day (without knowing that she would cut me off a few days later), but that I felt that she was not ready for it now and not receptive to it. So in my message to her, all I did was to finally do it. I finally spoke about the unspeakable. When I delivered the artwork to her uncle, that I also loved, we had a discussion. He admitted that her mental illness was the elephant in the room for the whole family, and that they never spoke about it. It was “taboo” to them to speak about it, as it created a lot of conflict and they did not want to be cut off by my ex, who they also love. He was kind enough to tell me that yes, everyone is walking on eggshells, and that clearly she has something going on. It was very reassuring.

I’m only happy now to be free from this burden. I did what I had to do to help her. The rest is entirely up to her, and will probably take a lot of time. This latest episode reopened my wound, but it is the last time now. I know it is best that I move on from this lady, who would challenge me to my deepest core all of my life and it is not the kind of relationship that I ultimately want (and not the kind of mother that I want for my children).

Of course, I am always seeking validation, even though I was lucky enough to have my neighbor and my ex’s uncle to help me in that process, so feel free to comment on the various situations that I described. It is such a vicious cycle, because it leads us caretakers to be in constant self-doubt. It requires us to be mentally super strong; a one-person army. Since my ex is not officially diagnosed, and that she has now put the blame fully on me and pointed the finger at me for potentially having a mental illness myself, it somewhat reignited this self-doubt that I had even though that when looking at the facts, everything points in one direction only. I have had a perfect childhood, with perfect parents who are still together, and my recent ex (before my potentially-BPD ex) who I’m still seeing as a friend, is also reassuring me to ignore her comments as it looks like pure projection. Yet, here I am still looking for more validation…

If you have read through it all, thank you so much. I know it is a lot.

For those still living with someone with BPD, I can completely understand how appealing they can be. If you deeply love that person and when he or she makes you happy, it reaches heights unattainable with anyone else, then the fight may be worth it. Keep your head strong and much love to you all.

Sincerely

Jackal

THE END