Going full no-contact is so hard

[Janie Starks]

Hello everyone  this is my first post! I came here cause I feel so lost. Can anyone relate to my experience?
I broke up with my bpd boyfriend 2 days ago after a relationship of 2 years. Things got harder and harder until the point he was being physically and sexually abusive, other than psychologically. I broke up with him and I blocked him everywhere but I keep feeling like I want to go back.
I'll be very honest cause there's no point in lying here... I thought I could have handled this but it's so hard to keep myself away from him; I know I'm doing the right thing for my well-being, still I cannot ignore this feeling that without him I'm going to be nothing and he's the only one who truly cares about me, I feel so guilty and so mentally drained, I feel like I should give him one more chance, though he already proved me wrong so many times. It's like having two different ME in my head. I really want the best for him and for myself, I want to get better, I want to be the fearless girl I used to be. It's been only 2 days away from him but it feels like I've been fighting a war against myself for a month.

[marv1995]

Hi Janie! I think you'll find that almost all of us on this board have struggled with no contact. Go easy on yourself. I've been no contact for two and a half weeks and I struggle every day, others on this board have been NC for months and years and still struggle, but it gets easier. You mention he was abusive, I would suggest looking into trauma bonding if you haven't already. I am also trauma bonded to my exwBPD. Every single thing you are feeling, I am also feeling so know you are not alone.

[Janie Starks]

Thank you Marv, I spent the day reading about trauma bonding and so many things clicked. Honestly I think that what is helping me the most is seeing my feelings from a biological point of view, as the role that hormones play in creating addiction to a person.

I'll quote some explanation here, I hope it will be helpfull to you and other people that are feeling the same way 

Hormones can be powerful reinforcers. You only have to look at dopamine’s role in addiction to find support for this.

Dopamine has a similar function in trauma bonding. After an incident of abuse, the period of calm that often follows can ease your stress and fear.
Apologies, gifts, or physical affection offered by the abusive person serve as rewards that help reinforce the rush of relief and trigger the release of dopamine.

Since dopamine creates feelings of pleasure, it can strengthen your connection with the abuser. You want the dopamine boost, so you continue trying to make them happy to earn their affection.

Physical affection or intimacy also prompt the release of oxytocin, another feel-good hormone that can further strengthen bonds. Not only does oxytocin promote connection and positive feelings, it can also ease fear.

Physical affection from an abusive partner, then, might dim distress and emotional pain, making it easier to focus on the positive treatment.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Janie! 

Hang in there. When I first separated from my now exH, my greatest fear was that I would go back to him. The magnetic draw (which was trauma bonding for me) was like an addictive pull. It is beyond hard, but it is do-able. Reach out for support here and to others that you trust to help you get through those times.

The hope that they will change, if we just give them on more try, is sadly an illusion. You can observe from afar, and if you see true heart change, then you will know that they're really trying to change.

One day at a time.
 
Wools

[B53]

JS,

I’m so sorry that you are going through this! I think many people on this site understand the pain that you are feeling. It is the hardest thing many of us have gone through. Even without the pain from the trauma bond, breaking up by itself is extremely painful, then top it with trauma bonding and that is a whole lot of hurt.

This a part of an article about how a breakup physical effects people.

When a romantic relationship ends, our brains work tirelessly to rewire our associations with our ex-lovers.

Similar to cases of drug addiction, falling out of love can entail a physically and emotionally painful withdrawal period. In fact, addiction to another person appears to parallel drug addiction anatomically and functionally. In a 2012 review of social attachment, love and addiction, researchers identified numerous areas of neurological overlap between love and other drugs.

Not only do we utilize some of the same neurotransmitters and regions of our brain to maintain these addictions, the researchers found, but we also exhibit the same “reward-seeking” behavior when we do not get our fix. The difference (or at least one difference) is that love is a socially acceptable form of drug addiction.

I have been NC for about six months now and am doing fairly well. Once your body detoxes, you are more able to look back on the relationship using your head, not your heart.

If you can afford it, talking to a therapist familiar with BPD will really help as well as reading and posting here.

The guilt part is difficult. The people here talk a lot about FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). You did not cause this and you can’t love someone out of it. No matter how mentally ill someone is, it doesn’t give them the right to abuse others. Sometimes all you can do is save yourself.

Hang in there. There are videos on YouTube, read articles on BPD and  grieving a relationship, post, read post. There are a lot of people here that will do their best to help you through this. It does get better!

B53

[Scarredheart]

I thought I could have handled this but it's so hard to keep myself away from him; I know I'm doing the right thing for my well-being, still I cannot ignore this feeling that without him I'm going to be nothing and he's the only one who truly cares about me,

That's something I went through so many times initially. For me I found it was tied to my own sense of self worth. That I felt I had no value without her. That's what caused me to pursue her. It's also what caused me to rebound from my previous ex TO her in the first place. The faster you understand that YOU are important, that YOU are good on your own as YOU are without anyone else, the better off you'll be.

I feel so guilty and so mentally drained, I feel like I should give him one more chance, though he already proved me wrong so many times.

For me thoughts like this were tied to the self worth I mentioned above as well as my deep personal belief that the relationship was important. That I had committed myself to her, and as such I had to do everything I could to save us. The problem with those thoughts when you're dealing with a BPD is, in my experience BPDs can't or won't (or more likely a combination of the two) reason through a relationship like we do. In the moment I believe they truly want to be with us, but that changes moment to moment, feeling to feeling. There is no ability (from what I've seen) for them to consistently maintain the same perspective over long periods of time, which means they can't see you in the same way over the long term. Without that, I can't see how anyone can expect an untreated BPD to be in a stable relationship.

It's like having two different ME in my head. I really want the best for him and for myself, I want to get better, I want to be the fearless girl I used to be. It's been only 2 days away from him but it feels like I've been fighting a war against myself for a month.

This I totally get. I remember telling my therapist that it felt like I was constantly fighting with myself. Like there were two of me. My mind, that for the most part saw the relationship as toxic, and dangerous for me. My mind that saw her actions and her words being in total contradiction with each other. Then there was my heart, that saw the image of the relationship that I wanted to be real, although I knew it wasn't. The image of us being perfect for each other, how our love could conquer everything and that the intimacy was so intense and therefore so much more real.

I remember comparing the two images I had of her like two sides of the same page in a book. I couldn't see them both at once. It was one or the other. The idealized version of her, or the painful facts of what she'd done.  I was constantly "fighting" with myself. My mind totally hated that part of me that wouldn't let go of the dream. I was so angry that any part of me wanted to live in a fantasy.

Eventually this changed, but it wasn't overnight. It will get better. It will get easier. You're in for a rough time, but you can make it.

[Janie Starks]

Thank you so much everyone, it's so comforting feeling listened and understood, though I'm really sorry that you all had to go through this too.

When I think about this relationship I cannot help but believing that it was my fault after all, that I didn't try hard enough and maybe I just overreacted, he's struggling too, after all.
BUT I'm working on changing this, and understand that the mental illness can be the explanation for the abuse, but cannot, and must not be a justification or an excuse for it to happen again.

I suffer from depression, and he kept telling me that I was just being a dead weight and an annoyance whenever I needed to share my feelings with him, so I ended up feeling like I'm only a burden to other people, I isolated myself from my old friends cause I was so convinced that everyone despised me and didn't care enough to listen to me.

I'm lucky and grateful to have a couple of really good friends who always stayed by my side, even though in 2 years I never told them the full truth about my relationship, and I still feel so scared to share some stories thinking of how my ex would react to me unveiling the truth about us.
I was really scared that my friends would be disappointed in me for staying with him, and they would get angry with me for being this "weak", for not being brave enough to leave. I understand now that it's not true, I was just being gaslighted, they genuinely love me and want the best for me.

I'll work hard to stick to NC, read and read and share and learn to appreciate myself again.
It will get better, one day at a time  

[Janie Starks]

That I had committed myself to her, and as such I had to do everything I could to save us. The problem with those thoughts when you're dealing with a BPD is, in my experience BPDs can't or won't (or more likely a combination of the two) reason through a relationship like we do. In the moment I believe they truly want to be with us, but that changes moment to moment, feeling to feeling. There is no ability (from what I've seen) for them to consistently maintain the same perspective over long periods of time, which means they can't see you in the same way over the long term.

That's exactly it, I feel that I have committed to him, that I had to work harder, try harder, be more patience, close one eye because he has an illness so it's my responsibility to take care of the relationship, even if it's at my expenses.
There's no consistent behaviour, and I know that it makes him suffer in the first place, but I remember how both anxious and excited I was whenever I got a phone call from him... will he be loving and sweet or start screaming and insulting me? What will I get today? What mood did he wake up in this morning? Am I worthy of love or am I his enemy today? And so on, it made me so physically sick sometimes I just couldn't pick up the phone, I was stuck.

I remember comparing the two images I had of her like two sides of the same page in a book. I couldn't see them both at once. It was one or the other. The idealized version of her, or the painful facts of what she'd done.

I feel that, the two images cannot coexist in my head, somehow I always end up thinking that I'm magnifying the painful facts letting them eclipse the good loving moments that we had together.