Why Couldn’t I See it After 8 Years?

[Augustine]

Amazingly, this is my second relationship with someone afflicted by this condition in thirteen years, and when the second relationship commenced almost eight years ago, I congratulated myself, thinking that I’d finally overcome my penchant for BPD.

It’s been over for 1.5 months since my breakup, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t put all the pieces together until today:

-Self-harm: In times of stress she’d punch her forehead, and shower herself in abuse; She’d pick all the skin off her thumbs.
-Hypersensitivity measured in atomic distances, and always suspected me of harbouring some form of ill will towards her.
- Convinced that I was communicating with other women whenever I was on my phone.
-Her method of problem solving was to verbally abuse me until it led to an argument.
-Inability to self-sooth.
-Raging and anger episodes
Etc.

I ended the relationship, as it was becoming too unwieldy to manage anymore, and the arguments and rage sessions were wearing me down.

She responded by calling the police, and claimed that I had been abusing her for many years. 

It wasn’t a hardship to leave, let me tell you; however, being vilified was a hard blow, as I was never anything but committed to her unconditionally. 

Why was I so blind? I’d been through much of this before in my previous three-year relationship with another woman,, but this recent one was far worse.

I have been struggling with this-really struggling-as it was humiliating having the police involved.  They didn’t charge me with anything, but did confess that they viewed the call as being a non police related matter.

Amazingly, she attached herself to someone else in the last four months.  She had made a new female friend, and they were getting along wonderfully well, and I was very pleased for her and her budding friendship…at first.

It later emerged that the new friend thought that she was King Arthur’s Queen Guinevere in a past life, even writing a book on the subject.  The more times I met the new friend, the more worried I became, as she definitely wasn’t “right” and the new friendship was predicated on my partner being this person’s narcissistic supply.

My partner revealed that her new friend only spoke about herself, and was tiresome company,  but my partner was utterly devoted to her before long.

My ex had a very poor relationship with her narcissistic mother, so I was thinking that this outcome wasn’t looking all that great.

The friend read me like a book, and definitely saw me as a threat.

Anyway, I digress…I’m out, and I’m staying out.

I’m just amazed by the fact that I couldn’t see the signs years ago.

[Collaguazo]

-Self-harm: In times of stress she’d punch her forehead, and shower herself in abuse; She’d pick all the skin off her thumbs.
-Hypersensitivity measured in atomic distances, and always suspected me of harbouring some form of ill will towards her.
- Convinced that I was communicating with other women whenever I was on my phone.
-Her method of problem solving was to verbally abuse me until it led to an argument.
-Inability to self-sooth.
-Raging and anger episodes
Etc.

Hi Augustine, except for the self harm, my ex did exactly the same. She started to show this behavior after 3 months of being together and it got progressively worse over time. We were together 11 months.

I must admit I was also blind (maybe I was overwhelmed and couldn’t really process what was really happening) until my psychiatrist told me she most likely has BPD. Then everything clicked. I must also admit that I was too ashamed to share what was going on with friends and family so I couldn’t get a different perspective on things.

I guess that if I hadn’t been seeing a psychiatrist I would have been trapped for way longer in the relationship.

I am really sorry you had to go through that experience with the police. My ex threatened to do it once and expose my “abuse” in social media. She also humiliated me with her sister by saying that I cheated on her.

If I may ask, how long was it before she started to display her BPD traits?

[Augustine]

Within the first few months, the minor traits were there for me to see.

The out-of-the-blue raging started in the second year.

The horror of witnessing her punch and verbally abuse herself started in the third year.

In the last two years, it was continuous chaos.

The traits/behaviours seemed almost inconsequential at first, and I believe this led to an intermittent adaptation, as the odd behaviour is then seen to be a one-off given the long period of time between episodes.  

In the last year, she was barely recognizable anymore, and arguments, raging, etc., was just my daily bread and butter.  She truly could no longer function, and I was responsible for doing everything related to the maintenance of the house, including a renovation.  

I would imagine that you behaved much like I did: maintaining  a stiff upper lip throughout it all, and never uttering an unkind word about her. I would have been too ashamed to draw anyone’s attention to her behaviour, or my acceptance of it.

I highly commend your decision to speak with a psychiatrist, as your outcome would have been significantly less than optimal otherwise. I really wish I had followed an identical path, saving myself many years of hardship.

In the end, I was a broken down wreck, and leaving was not a difficult decision to make.

[Augustine]

Hi Augustine, except for the self harm, my ex did exactly the same. She started to show this behavior after 3 months of being together and it got progressively worse over time. We were together 11 months.

I must admit I was also blind (maybe I was overwhelmed and couldn’t really process what was really happening) until my psychiatrist told me she most likely has BPD. Then everything clicked. I must also admit that I was too ashamed to share what was going on with friends and family so I couldn’t get a different perspective on things.

I guess that if I hadn’t been seeing a psychiatrist I would have been trapped for way longer in the relationship.

I am really sorry you had to go through that experience with the police. My ex threatened to do it once and expose my “abuse” in social media. She also humiliated me with her sister by saying that I cheated on her.

If I may ask, how long was it before she started to display her BPD traits?

May I ask you about your attachment style, and the kind of relationship you had with your parents?

I’m firmly in the Anxious/Preoccupied side of things, and my mother was both emotionally detached, and intermittently smothering, with distinctly narcissistic traits.

[Collaguazo]

May I ask you about your attachment style, and the kind of relationship you had with your parents?

I’m firmly in the Anxious/Preoccupied side of things, and my mother was both emotionally detached, and intermittently smothering, with distinctly narcissistic traits.

I have a good relationship, they have always supported me. My dad was overprotective/nervous sometimes which caused some friction between us until I was able to get my own place.

In general I am fairly independent and prefer being alone. However, when it comes to romantic relationships, I don’t open up easily with other girls but when I really like the person(which is rare), I can get quite enthusiastic and eager to establish a bond. Hence why with my exBPD things got very intense and we quickly established a strong connection, partly also because of her mirroring. I lowered my defenses quite early into the relationship.

I went out today with a group of friends but came home early. I still feel a strong attachment to my ex and I am definitely not ready to get back into dating.

It’s been a hard and difficult healing process so far. Still no contact from my side since we broke up, but there are moments of weakness when I really feel like reaching out to her.

[Augustine]

I went out today with a group of friends but came home early. I still feel a strong attachment to my ex and I am definitely not ready to get back into dating.

It’s been a hard and difficult healing process so far. Still no contact from my side since we broke up, but there are moments of weakness when I really feel like reaching out to her.

Yes, it’s a phenomenal bore waking up each morning facing the spectre of another day devoted to healing from the trauma.  It gets old fairly quickly.

Even when you discover the line of best fit that matches all the data points in your quest for answers, it doesn’t provide a great deal of solace, as other questions naturally emerge.

All this expenditure of time and energy is so much like tilting at windmills.

In my instance, why was I so doggedly committed to someone who , by their behaviour, demonstrated their complete lack of faith in me? Why would I ever welcome that back into my life again?

These are the only two questions worthy of our consideration.

I’m very, very alarmed by the fact that I deliberately blotted out all the extreme negatives in order to sustain the self-deception. 

It wasn’t until the final month when, head in hand, I’d mutter, “I can’t take much more of this…” when overhearing her on her latest rage in another room.

It was such a miserably black, and hopelessly sterile existence.

This horror will pass, and you will meet someone else.  You/we just have to be scrupulously honest in our assessments the next time.