Ex and Borderline personality d/o and no contact

[sfindependent]

*** I am a mental health clinician, and despite being enmeshed in this toxic relationship, emerging from it has been challenging but eye opening. Saying I think she has borderline personality is stated with utmost care and mindfulness about keeping my biases at arms length and focusing more on the clinical symptoms she's manifesting. I was just too hor*y to see the forest for the trees. **

Slowly emerging from this relationship after a trainwreck of a night with my ex/ex friend, I am struggling with NC. 

It's been years of hate and control. I didn't see it until recently. the guilt trips, the "you don't care, you lie" statements, the vitriol and the constant misinterpretation of my actions and believing they're intended with malice. She always said "you hurt me" or some variation of being hurt by the things I do, regardless of how mundane or innocuous it could be. Granted, I did my own f ups, such as being not being mindful of her requests i.e. hang alone etc. I know I have my own growth to conduct. I myself have told her I felt like walking on egg shells with her, on how sensitive she is to everything. 

That being said, there's been a lot of chaos in our relationship. One thing that stood out was that her mentioning "why are you the only one who does that, and only to me? you're super nice to your friends but when it comes to me, it's lying and being unsupportive and catering to their every whim" < --- almost verbatim, but the gist is the same.  She's right. While I do have my own failed relationships, they are far and in between. Most of whom are also not great people who affected me in my daily life. And my faults, as a recently diagnoses ADHD'er, I've worked on/ working on with mindfulness and therapy. I have for the most part, have great relationships now with my current partners (i'm ENM) and my lovers. Obviously there are challenges, but it's mostly loving and my friends i've kept, have learned to appreciate my imperfections associated with my ADHD (forgetfulness, being late constantly etc). For the sake of being clear, I did a time line on this post so you can see the transition. 

09/23 I had a huge "breakup" fight with my ex friend/ex two weeks ago. I thought i was being explicitly clear about my plans and my intentions and with my "making sure she's comfortable at a party" but it ended up with her accusing me of playing her, lying to her, being manipulative and deserting her in a party, while with my other online friend whom i just met in person that evening.  

09/24: Because of this outburst, the hate texts and angry calls started.

09/28 it hit a point where she started demanding my friend's phone number to "tell her we both got played" naturally I said no i won't give her her number but she ended up finding it in one of the screen shots I had sent her. It was chaos.  Sometime during this period, Ex eventually connected with my friend.  Whatever Ex said to convince my friend to share screen shots of our convo I have no idea. But ex showed me later on that screen shot and said "ive multiple evidences of you telling her this" It was a screen shot of me venting to my new friend that I felt my ex has a mental health issue. 

09/30 Sometime during this period, Ex eventually connected with my friend. she managed to get my friend's number from a screen shot I had sent earlier. Whatever Ex said to convince my friend to share screen shots of our convo I have no idea. But ex showed me later on a screen shot and said "ive multiple evidences of you telling her this" It was a screen shot of me venting to my new friend that I felt my ex has a mental health issue. first of, it's none of her business what I talk to and who i talk to people about, but I told her "would you have rather me speak with people we know about how I feel, or a random stranger?" she obviously didn't believe that or thought that was a better option. Funny though, is that she's been telling me she's been telling everyone about what I had done, and i'm here just keeping things under a lid as best I can to save our faces from embarrassment. I offered to go to a mediator or counselor to see if our communication could be worked on but her response was "why so you can lie and make me look like the bad guy?" I never win and with BPD's, you never will. 

10/05 We havent reached out to each other at this point. I ended up blocking her completely because I feel no matter how apologetic I am, or how mundane something was, it will always be a big deal for her. She will always be mad at me one way or another. and besides, if she's told her parents about me, what else is there for me to come back to? SHe's managed to make everything I do, bad for her, or at least an attack against her. I cannot keep trying to convince someone oi care about them or that I'm not lying to them, or being explicity explicit all the time. It's exhausting. 

And yet, i'm still here ruminating over my loss over a friend still. I can't shake off the feeling that I should have announced my no contact and offered her a final "if you wanna get better you know what I am willing to do" kind of email. I dont know. I know it's pointless but I feel that, despite me and friends telling me to focus on myself rather than her, she's not in a great place. 

I wanna be there for my friend but what can I do? I feel backed into a corner. I feel i shouldnt have blocked her. I feel I shouldve done more.  

 

 

[Batya33]

If you want to be there for your friend then give both of you space from each other.  You don't need to focus on yourself -you already do - you simply need to accept that the two of you don't play nicely in the sandbox and you are the wrong person to help her in person.  She has access to mental health resources if she chooses to be.  I hope you extricate yourself from this needless drama.  

[SooSad33]

5 hours ago, sfindependent said:

And yet, i'm still here ruminating over my loss over a friend still. I can't shake off the feeling that I should have announced my no contact and offered her a final "if you wanna get better you know what I am willing to do" kind of email. I dont know. I know it's pointless but I feel that, despite me and friends telling me to focus on myself rather than her, she's not in a great place. 

I wanna be there for my friend but what can I do? I feel backed into a corner. I feel i shouldnt have blocked her. I feel I shouldve done more.  

No, blocking her is fine.

You cannot do anything more for her.  Is now up to her to consider any prof help... this is not on you.

You two are done now- then be done!

Stop trying to 'prove yourself'.  Is like talking to a wall- agree?

IF you want to say things, do it but don't send!  This is why I journal.  I 'vent' regularly, lol.

 

In time you'll come to accept what is.. and the yearning to 'try' anymore will lessen.  So yeah, back off totally now and focus on YOU.

 

[catfeeder]

I'm sorry you're going through this. This woman doesn't respect you enough for you to be of any help to her. She has the same resources available to her as anyone else, so move yourself out of your own way, and recognize that you can't 'cure' her.

Physician, heal thyself.

[Wiseman2]

11 hours ago, sfindependent said:

*** I am a mental health clinician,  friends telling me to focus on myself rather than her, she's not in a great place. 

 Listen to your friends. Focus on your own mental health instead. Quit diagnosing your friends and GFs.

It's not your job to worry about her mental health. She'll be fine once you move on with your life.

Carefully reflect . You actually want to be there for your own reasons. Not to save anyone.

[smackie9]

All you need to see is that the situation has been toxic. Instead of analyzing the crap out of it, taking up so much of your head space, just walk away and move on. The reality is, in life you can't get along with everyone. Some personalities clash, some are just naturally toxic/high maintenance. My mom is a bi-polar narcissist. We don't get along, she treats me like crap, but her friends thinks she's this wonderful person. I know she will never treat me any different no matter what I do. It's just the way it is, I can't fix it so I just leave it, avoid her as much as possible. You need to accept you can't always make thing work with some individuals, it is what it is. Accept and free yourself from this mess. 

[sfindependent]

Thanks people. I feel, even at this time if the emotional abuse of being told that my love wasn't enough, or that I didn't care, and me constantly having to prove it, is valid. 

I wanna reach out and reason with her but 7 years of trying to give reason to my actions, whether it be unintentional or non-personal, has not yielded any changes in her mindset. 

When she reached out to my friend, that felt like a turning point. 

I was having a private conversation with someone and she invaded that space, no matter the topic of my conversation. And regardless of what I had told my friend about the ex, should have been private. She should have know better. To her "youre talking crap about me,to your friend who you barely know?" She felt disrespected, but to me it was the better option than talking to someone we both knew and cam affect their relationship. 

Anyway, regardless. Given my distant view of how toxic this was, why do I still have these feelings of trying to prove myself to her?

[sfindependent]

On top of that, she's an adult. If she felt uncomfortable with the situation, she could have left, taken a break, walked around, anything! And yet she chose this path. Speaks more about her maturity than anything else. I know for a fact I would have left or have done something else if I were in her position. 

[Wiseman2]

4 hours ago, sfindependent said:

On top of that....

Let go. She's not your headache anymore.

[Batya33]

4 hours ago, sfindependent said:

On top of that, she's an adult. If she felt uncomfortable with the situation, she could have left, taken a break, walked around, anything! And yet she chose this path. Speaks more about her maturity than anything else. I know for a fact I would have left or have done something else if I were in her position. 

So what ?  You do you. And you do you apart from her. You two don’t play nicely in the sandbox. It’s not fair and it’s not pleasant but you chose to continue interacting with a person who was not stable and seems to have some mental health issues. 

[Wiseman2]

On 10/5/2022 at 5:51 PM, sfindependent said:

*** I am a mental health clinician, and  I think she has borderline personality 

[sfindependent]

Like, I know things arent gonna get better. But why am i bent on trying to make it better when i'm the one pulling the weight? 

I don't see her trying to past her "emotional reasonings".

"i feel this" I felt that".

I do not like invalidating thoughts or feelings, but when she accuses me of something I do not do, or have done by mistake (she thinks it's intentional) or when "you don't care" when I forget something she requested.... or forget a memory... she interprets it as "i don't care" when I've told her several times "my behavior isn't exclusive against you. I forget things and I try not to. But i can't. i can't control my memory". And it is really bad. i forget whole conversations, whole activites, and to her, these are all against her when it's literally towards everyone. my memory makes me feel shtty but i try to make it up by being present and thoughtful when I can. it's cliche, but in my head if 'remembering' is a love language, i try to make it up by acts of service or words of affirmation. 

Anyway, i feel like a failure for not being able to care for her and for the downfall of our relationship. I have way more successful relationships I'm trying to cultivate, but i can't help but have lingering feelings about my failures in this one. 

[boltnrun]

1 minute ago, sfindependent said:

but i can't help but have lingering feelings about my failures in this one. 

You work in mental health, correct?

What would you recommend to a patient who presents with these symptoms?

[Wiseman2]

11 minutes ago, sfindependent said:

I don't see her trying to past her "emotional reasonings".

"i feel this" I felt that".

Unless you are charging $250./hr., get her off your couch and out of your headspace.

 

[Batya33]

It sounds like you get some benefit out of continuing to analyze her and your interactions with her. What benefit is that ? Is it a need to be “right ?” Can you just accept that you two aren’t playing nicely in the sandbox without ascribing fault ?

I’m not sensing that your primary goal is to help. If it was perhaps you’d send her some links to resources if she asked.  If. 

why are you so focused ? I mean eventually you might figure it out and have an a ha moment. For now I’d amass tools of what to do when you find yourself ruminating about this and overthinking.
 It might be redirecting type stuff or mantras that work for you or whatever.  I have my tool box so I don’t overreact when my son pushes my buttons. Including preventative ones cause I know he’s likely to try when it’s time to get up and get ready for school. for example. I often have to tweak the tools or switch it up but seems to work for me so I can control my reactions if not the feelings. 

[sfindependent]

Thanks people. 

I do wanna help, but honestly I don't think its my place to help and give her resources and such. It would most likely trigger her rather than think im being a friend.

 

to put in context, when we were talking, I had a hard time pin pointing out why it was so difficult to talk to her especially when she's distressed. It was always arguing about how things made her feel and I always felt bogged down because no matter how I agreed or argued or tried to communicate with her, her emotions were at the forefront of her argument. She said I made her feel invalidated. Convos would go "that made me feel..." "thats not what happened". And so on. For her her feelings are true and used it constantly as her compass in life. Looking back at the breaking point of our relationship, she insisted I left her alone when I promised I wouldn't. And I didn't, not until she made me mad and I had to walk away for a few minutes. To her, that was enough excuse to say I left her and me prove her wrong. I mean, how can I argue with someone that thinks that way? I mean if she felt uncomfortable, she could have had a variety of responses to let us know she was upset but her choosing this path and blaming me for how she felt alone and breaking my promise etc seems a bit targeted. Its like she cant process her own feelings in a healthy way. 

I cant for the life of me figure out how to talk to her. Which is why, asking what I would do if I were my client, I'd say go no contact and let my positive energy flourish rather than be bogged down. 

 

[boltnrun]

2 minutes ago, sfindependent said:

asking what I would do if I were my client, I'd say go no contact and let my positive energy flourish rather than be bogged down. 

And here's your answer.

[Batya33]

1 hour ago, sfindependent said:

I cant for the life of me figure out how to talk to her

And you don't need to figure it out, right?

[Wiseman2]

11 hours ago, sfindependent said:

I cant for the life of me figure out how to talk to her. 

Try not to distract yourself from your own issues by treating her as your project. You both know you're not helping her. Find something more productive to pour yourself into. You're doing more harm than good.