I want to engage here but am frightened to post

[RisingAboveAll]

I am greatly benefiting from reading the posts on this site and the educational materials. I am also really terrified to post details of my relationship, because I am afraid that my BPDex might be here. I don’t know if I should say diagnosed or undiagnosed because although she was hospitalized as a child and teen and diagnosed long ago she does not accept or claim the diagnosis at all. She is convinced that I have a personality disorder, although my therapist has reassured me many times over the past years—including today— that this is not the case. However, my ex has routinely said I have borderline personality or narcissistic personality, and I’m abusing, manipulating, gaslighting, and harming her—always these claims in response to my efforts to leave the relationship.

These words are said in between desperate and frantic attempts to prevent my leaving her, and in the devaluation phase before I am told that I am the love of her life, she wants to get old with me, no one has ever understood her like I do, etc.

I have now been out of the relationship for about a month and tried to go no contact, but relapsed into texting about the relationship and fighting this past weekend.

 I am really really really really done with this relationship, and with being with someone who hates themselves so much, hates all my friends, makes fights and enemies everywhere they go, can’t do basic self-care or home care, is a financial wreck,, cuts themselves while watching porn, dissociates, gives the silent treatment,  uses drugs daily and angrily attacks me with dehumanizing words and arguments anytime I think, say, or do something different from what she wants. No, I do not want that life.

 I am not saying all of the beautiful things about her which I truly love, like her artistry, affection, intelligence and sexual desire. I also love and desperately miss her child that I was very connected to. I miss her even though it was such a hellscape.

I don’t want to blame her or BPD for everything, because I am also a trauma survivor and I did a lot of fawning  and manipulating her to get her to like me and stop attacking me. I kept getting back together with her even when I knew it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t hold boundaries with her. I had my part in keeping this awful relationship going. But I was trying to get out over and over again for three years, and I’m finally out.

I’m still vulnerable, though. I haven’t blocked her on my phone or email. I still feel the need to know if she reaches out, or to be available to support her if she feels like committing suicide. I still want her to love and approve of me. I wish the person I’d fallen in love with was real. I keep hoping somehow we can be friends, though the dozens of times I’ve tried to shift the relationship to a friendship all failed.

I guess the issue I would love help with is that I am really afraid to get into it and start posting the details, because I’m afraid that she’s going to visit the site and read the messages. She’s convinced, now that I’ve broken it off for real, that she was the victim of severe  abuse. Has anyone else dealt with this? I mean, I know pwBPD accuse others of this frequently. Should I conceal and change details in order to be safe? Am I okay to open up? Thanks for any insight or help you can provide.

[Rev]

Hi RisingAboveAll,

Welcome.  That is a really great question.

One of the things that is possible is to private message people. Those of us who are ambassadors and up have been here for a while and have been vetted.

I will alert the others and seek their advice.

In the meantime - feel free to send me a private message.

Sound good?

Rev.

[SinisterComplex]

First and foremost...welcome to the fam.   Second, I can understand your concerns, but the point here is to remain anonymous and just share and vent and truly help one another. I encourage to not be deterred from posting here. Make sure your screen name wouldn't be obvious and when using details be as forthcoming as you can so we can all help you, but of course be cognizant of what you are saying so as a just in case you don't put yourself in jeopardy.

This is a place where we do help one another but also protect privacy so there is a still an air of confidentiality.

So please share as much as you want to and vent you have to. In the meantime please be kind to you and take care of yourself.

Cheers and best wishes!

-SC-

[Rev]

And just like that, Sinister Complex is has offered support.

Thanks SC.

Rev

[RisingAboveAll]

Thank you Rev and SC. I need to change my screen name tonight to be more anonymous. I appreciate the encouragement.

[Rev]

You should have received more help by now.

Rev

[SinisterComplex]

You should be good to go now. Feel free to share and ask whatever questions you want or need to. Additionally, I want to direct you to our tools section...

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?board=36.0

You are going to find a lot of useful information here.

Cheers and best wishes!

-SC-

[Rev]

I am greatly benefiting from reading the posts on this site and the educational materials. I am also really terrified to post details of my relationship, because I am afraid that my BPDex might be here. I don’t know if I should say diagnosed or undiagnosed because although she was hospitalized as a child and teen and diagnosed long ago she does not accept or claim the diagnosis at all. She is convinced that I have a personality disorder, although my therapist has reassured me many times over the past years—including today— that this is not the case. However, my ex has routinely said I have borderline personality or narcissistic personality, and I’m abusing, manipulating, gaslighting, and harming her—always these claims in response to my efforts to leave the relationship.

These words are said in between desperate and frantic attempts to prevent my leaving her, and in the devaluation phase before I am told that I am the love of her life, she wants to get old with me, no one has ever understood her like I do, etc.

I have now been out of the relationship for about a month and tried to go no contact, but relapsed into texting about the relationship and fighting this past weekend.

 I am really really really really done with this relationship, and with being with someone who hates themselves so much, hates all my friends, makes fights and enemies everywhere they go, can’t do basic self-care or home care, is a financial wreck,, cuts themselves while watching porn, dissociates, gives the silent treatment,  uses drugs daily and angrily attacks me with dehumanizing words and arguments anytime I think, say, or do something different from what she wants. No, I do not want that life.

 I am not saying all of the beautiful things about her which I truly love, like her artistry, affection, intelligence and sexual desire. I also love and desperately miss her child that I was very connected to. I miss her even though it was such a hellscape.

I don’t want to blame her or BPD for everything, because I am also a trauma survivor and I did a lot of fawning  and manipulating her to get her to like me and stop attacking me. I kept getting back together with her even when I knew it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t hold boundaries with her. I had my part in keeping this awful relationship going. But I was trying to get out over and over again for three years, and I’m finally out.

I’m still vulnerable, though. I haven’t blocked her on my phone or email. I still feel the need to know if she reaches out, or to be available to support her if she feels like committing suicide. I still want her to love and approve of me. I wish the person I’d fallen in love with was real. I keep hoping somehow we can be friends, though the dozens of times I’ve tried to shift the relationship to a friendship all failed.

I guess the issue I would love help with is that I am really afraid to get into it and start posting the details, because I’m afraid that she’s going to visit the site and read the messages. She’s convinced, now that I’ve broken it off for real, that she was the victim of severe  abuse. Has anyone else dealt with this? I mean, I know pwBPD accuse others of this frequently. Should I conceal and change details in order to be safe? Am I okay to open up? Thanks for any insight or help you can provide.

Hi RisingAboveAll

Thanks for this testimony ...  

There is much about this that resonates with my own personal story.  Yes - the par that I put in bold - yes that happened to me a lot in my relationship. If she was ever in a position that she really felt she needed to apologize, which would rarely happen because apologizing was so beneath her, then I was in for it at some point down the line and history would get rewritten.

My relationship tipping point was the financial mess our home was in - something that in my culture is considered so shameful that the shame of that was enough to propel me past the shame of being an abuse victim.

Yes it is normal to still care for a person, even as an abuse victim. There's alot of stuff behind why. Suffice it to say, that many of our feelings for a person are stored in our bodies. And so, even though our minds know the relationship needs to end, our bodies need time. We need to let our bodies catch up to our minds. And those times can be emotionally turbulent.

SC has directed you towards some tools that we have here. I encourage you to check them out. They will help you modulate the turbulence and ramp down the suffering it causes.

Hang in there. You've come to a really great place. Reach out any time.

Rev

[RisingAboveAll]

@Rev, thank you for these words and the welcome. Looking at my body’s process of letting go and healing as being different timeline from my mind’s process is a really good idea. My body has gotten me in trouble with her again and again even as my mind knew.

Her feelings toward the world and everything in it are of hopelessness, nihilism, negativity. So it makes sense her feelings toward me are in that framework now that I’m not her golden rescuer and perfect person.

The financial mess also spurred me to leave — she filed for bankruptcy without telling me, I found out from mail in the trash. Thank god we did not marry. I had no idea she was $100k in credit card debt and not paying her bills.

One day we were looking at a beautiful sunset and she told her child, you should enjoy this now because when you are grown up the world will have been totally destroyed and humans will all be fighting over air and water and there won’t be any trees or beauty on the Earth.. The sky won’t be beautiful anymore when you are a grownup.

I was so shocked — I said, the sky will always be beautiful. Please don’t scare him with this idea of a future apocalypse. She got very angry and would not speak to me for two days…

[Rev]

The financial mess also spurred me to leave — she filed for bankruptcy without telling me, I found out from mail in the trash. Thank god we did not marry. I had no idea she was $100k in credit card debt and not paying her bills.



I was so shocked — I said, the sky will always be beautiful. Please don’t scare him with this idea of a future apocalypse. She got very angry and would not speak to me for two days…

Yep... resonates. We did marry and fortunately, the laws in my part of the world meant that I was protected from her previous debts, given that we were only married 18 months and we had never merged our finances.

My younger stepson was developing severe hypochondria - severe in the sense that it was impeding his ability to function. That was a direct result of his mother's tendency towards catastrophizing.

Keep on venting any time. 

Hang in there.

Rev

[silentlyscreamin]

 I wish the person I’d fallen in love with was real. That sums it all up in one short sentence.

[SaltyDawg]

I wish the person I’d fallen in love with was real. That sums it all up in one short sentence.

I can't agree more.  This is one of many pearls of wisdom that I have read on this site.  I love it.

With regards to the sunset comment, the more pollution there is in the atmosphere, the prettier the sunsets, and as you said "the sky will always be beautiful" -- it's just as illogical and irrational a BPD is.

Do stay NC with your ex.  My exSO was likely NPD and she did try an suck me back in a few times [ a.k.a. h o o v e r i n g]; however, that was replaced by my current uBPDw - opposite personality type, but just as painful in a much different kind of way.

With regards to my pwBPD seeing what I post, most of it, I hope she sees, so she can see the kind of pain she has inflicted.  However, I don't think she will do this, but if she does, it will open a door for me to talk about it, and we can both hopefully grow emotionally from it.