Cross Post - Getting over a BPD

Hi,

so I have recently gotten into a process of getting over a BPD.

I don't think any frame in the world can get you over this clusterfuck of emotions that happens after you get off somebody with a BPD disorder. Especially if you don't see it coming.

Reading previous posts I noticed a lot of TRP men come here in the anger phase of the BPD breakup.

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What follows is a crosspost from BPDlovedones. Hope it helps anybody who is in this phase right now.

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You're struggling to get over your ex because of this cocktail of abuse tactics

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I hope in writing this, I can help you too... Written in bullets with tags in case you want to skip to particular points and use the terms to search for more resources. I am empowered now that I'm able to name and recognize these abuse tactics.

People with BPD have no sense of self and no self esteem, so they use you for both, and in doing so, you lose yours. Don't go back.

I know you are in a lot of pain. Please take care of yourself. Through manipulation and abusive tactics, your ex has brainwashed you into thinking that you need them for love and validation, and that they are the only ones who can provide them. This is horseshit. You are enough!

Why it's so hard to get over an exwBPD

• Lovebombing and euphoric recall

  • Your relationship moved lightning fast. Your ex imitated your behaviors and adopted your interests, making you feel like you were perfect for each other. Your ex "had never felt like this before" and you "made them want to get their shit together." Your ex made you feel like a goddamn god, lavishing you in extraordinary affection and praise, yet in a weirdly competitive and evaluative way. You were "the greatest person ever." You felt like no one had ever "loved" you so much and no one else ever could.
  • Beware! This controlled you and made you dependent on their validation, and made you forget your own inherent worth and greatness outside of your ex. You miss them because you crave the validation they used to give you. Euphoric recall means your brain romanticizes the drug-like highs, and as a coping mechanism blurs out the abuse and the prolonged feelings of dread, worry, anxiety, and depression your ex caused you.

• Trauma bond disguised as intimacy

  • The sex felt like the best thing ever. You think about it a lot when you miss your ex. You miss your ex's cute affection and the way they looked at you. People with BPD cope with emptiness with the drug that is sex, and what you thought was good sex was really just intense sex made intense because of your ex's desperation to be wanted and loved. Maybe your ex weaponized sex, initiating it when they were feeling bad or using it to distract from relationship problems. And you realize, creepily and unnervingly, so much of your ex's affection was childlike adoration/idealization that came from your ex needing you to take care of them.

• Inconsistency and walking on eggshells

  • You experienced new highs then suddenly new lows. You got addicted to the highs because warm water feels hot right after cold, and you never knew how long the high would last before your ex's mood changed. Without a moment's notice, your ex would turn into a distant and different person, sometimes for a couple hours, sometimes for a few days or even a week. They gave attention when they needed it from you, yet were often aloof and difficult when preoccupied with something else, and making you feel like you were bothering them. Your ex often hyped up their huge ego, but sometimes you would get glimpses of heartbreaking self-hatred.
  • They'd blame their inconsistent affection on their mood, say they were pushing you away because they're scared of getting hurt, or dismiss it as their "personality" or a "normal" ebb and flow in a relationship. You learned to tiptoe to try to avoid spontaneous angry eruptions. You felt sorry for their mental health problems and also beat yourself up for being insecure.

• Codependence

  • You became their caretaker and you were used as a drug for their acute emotional and often physical pain. Your ex overshared past heartbreak and trauma very early on, so you quickly became their primary emotional support. You felt bad for them and worried constantly so you bent over backwards to put their needs before yours. You gave 200% of your attention because you were anxious about them cheating or doing something reckless if they got bored.
  • (My ex would say stuff like, "When I was stressed, I used to imagine snorting a line of coke, but now I just imagine holding you" and "I feel like I'm going to die if I don't see you!" I used to think this was romantic, but now I realized I was just another coping mechanism. I'm a person, not a drug. I got into a bad habit of dropping everything to attend to her when she was feeling low. I couldn't trust her to be by herself, and to avoid being alone she often hung out with and flirted with other men who "wanted to be friends" because she liked their attention.)

• Triangulation

  • You constantly felt not good enough and in competition with others. Your exwBPD had a fishy ex situation or two, red flag friends trying to get with them, or a new love interest that started during or immediately after your relationship, or all of the above. To make things ickier, players in your ex's fucked web knew about each other. This is not the same as healthy polyamory. This is manipulation designed to control attention by making people jealous. Maybe your ex fed the jealousy by also bragging and oversharing past flings and partners.
  • (My ex started seeing me immediately after a past relationship of hers ended, but for a long time she was talking to both of us simultaneously. My ex told her ex about me and I was also used for emotional labor process her breakup.)

• Projection, gaslighting, and blaming

  • Your ex did these so much that you felt crazy, and lost your sense of reality and felt isolated from the world. Your ex attacked you for the problems that they actually have. Your ex gaslit you by saying "I never said that" or "you're just insecure." Your ex often lied to themselves as well, denying realities and rewriting histories to make facts match their feelings, sometimes blaming you if they felt bad but couldn't figure out why. Sometimes it would be "your fault" when your ex fucked up.

• Hoovering...

  • People with BPD will keep their exes around and this can be a multiple years long process. Don't fall for the trap. They hoover, poking you from time to time with grandiose romantic gestures of love, but their words won't match their actions. They make you sad and remind you of the good times, but a telltale sign is that they won't actually do concrete actions towards getting back together. They just want to know that they still have control over you and that you still love them...

• ...and discarding

  • Then they suddenly forget you exist, when they have found someone new to fill their void and found another triangulation that satisfies their drama. You feel destroyed because you thought your connection was special, when in reality your ex treats multiple partners in such a way. Please know that although the need that you filled has been replaced, you are not replaceable! And even if your ex is eerily replicating the same relationship patterns, you are special, because no one is you. Discards fuck with you because of the competitiveness, insecurity, and jealousy that your ex purposely stirred in you! Ironically, the stronger and wiser you become, the less attractive you become to your ex, because you become less susceptible to manipulation and they hate you because they wish they could derive self-worth from themselves as you can. Do not let your ex's discards strip you of your dignity and your individuality.
  • (My ex has kept exes around for multiple years post-break-up, hooking up with them as needed and then discarding them.)
  • (Post-break-up... my ex lovebombed me and said she'd "move to be with me" to get back together because we were long distance. It was a manipulative statement that tugged at the heartstrings even though she had no intent of actually moving, but I fell for it. Suddenly, she discarded me and ghosted me for a week, running off with a friend with a girlfriend, who had also been threatening during our relationship. My ex gaslit me, saying I was insecure and denying ever saying she wanted to get back together. But she visited, we had toxic makeup sex, and I forgave her. We weren't back together, but we were on-and-off no contact and she hoovered for a year while simultaneously hoovering another ex, giving and asking for affection yet insisting we weren't together yet expressing jealousy at my new dating life, all constantly interrupting my healing process. A few months ago, she said she broke up with her new boo because she wasn't over me. That statement cost her nothing to say, but set me back months. Weeks later, my ex was back together with her boo and I was discarded again. I was crushed because "replacement" was creepily similar to me in appearance and lifestyle. I thought my "replacement" was "better" than me, due to my ex's reliance on external validation and performance measuring for self-worth rubbing off on me. Now, I am more than fine :) and I feel bad for my "replacement," who must also feel inferior to me due to my ex's triangulation of us. We are distinct people and no one is comparable, but my ex made us both feel inferior.)

More warnings about getting back together

• You can't help them have a healthy relationship, and it is unhealthy for them to strive to fix themselves just for another person. It has to come from within them. Maybe they will get a little better, but this is a process that takes many, many years, and along the way they will cause infinite hurt. It's not worth the risks to get sucked back in, especially when your new relationship will have so much baggage and broken trust from the old one right from the get-go.

  • They will shame you for setting boundaries (when I brought up problems, my ex would cry things like, "Can't you see how much I love you?" and "you're a terrible person for not trusting me, you have trust issues! You're so insecure!")
  • They will avoid responsibility. Mental health problems do not give someone a right to be abusive. (I worked for a year to get my ex to see a therapist, and after an exhausting saga, she went to a single session and concluded she didn't need it. She didn't take responsibility for her mental health, but then blamed her abuse on her mental health, without changing a thing.)
  • They will continue being restless and reckless without being able to relax. They view healthy relationships as boring because they are addicted to instability, and they will create drama to distract themselves from their inner turmoil and to get you to react to "prove" your love for them. They will do whatever it takes to chase excitement and appear exciting, and thus impulsively put themselves in sketchy social situations or dangerous environments.
    
    • (My ex dramatically exaggerated every story, painting every experience as a life-changing adventure or scandalous conflict, and I thought I should stick with her to have a "fun" life. She felt miserable during and after any low key or sober evening. I think she was insecure in her personality and conversational abilities, and she spent a horrible proportion of our "conversations" bragging about past flings and drama or using me to work through her emotions, rather than asking me questions and getting to know me.)
  • Their unstable self image makes it impossible to plan a future with them. You shouldn't have to sacrifice your own paths to try to accommodate someone who's values and interests change constantly based on their moods.

• You're addicted to the idea of your ex, but the reality doesn't hold up -- Through the drama and codependence your ex created in your relationship, you built a habit of thinking about them all day, and you need to recognize and break that habit post-break-up. You might nostalgically recall the "romantic" highs, but remember these artificial peaks aren't enough to actually build a foundation for a long-term functional relationship.

Important reminders for healing

• You will find love again

  • I've noticed many on this sub worry they will never find anyone they connect with as much. To give a few reminders... you are emotionally exhausted from being in a toxic and abusive relationship, so give yourself ample romance-free time. Through your ex's splitting cycle of idealization and devaluation, you became desperate for them because you wanted stability, and through their own addictive personality problems, you became addicted to them.
  • I think that people with BPD find and exploit empathetic people who are sensitive, caring, and selfless, and who are romantic but for one reason or other lack the experience to recognize unhealthy power dynamics in relationships or are subconsciously drawn to them. But, now you know better!

• Don't let your ex's network make you doubt yourself and don't compare yourself to your ex

  • Maybe your ex instantly rebounded with many hookups and a new serious partner. People are drawn to your ex because their childlike energy and unpredictability is addictive and enchanting. Your ex keeps options open because they can't survive without feeling wanted. Just because you don't draw that same kind of attention, doesn't make you less attractive or mean you will be alone forever. Your ex's friends might support them unconditionally and not believe the abuse. Toxic relationships allow people to take out all their personal baggage on one person in order to remain more functioning in other aspects of their lives. Your story is real and valid!
  • (One of my greatest struggles was with a mutual friend, who didn't believe me and contributed to me feeling insane. I learned to own my truth and realized my ex was a different person to friends versus partners. My ex's friends were obsessed with her, but I realized they only bought into her bullshit because they were personally getting something out of it. Her friends were ex-flings who still wanted her validation, men with bad intentions, and non-confrontational folks who liked her energy and social life.)

• Feeling conflicted is normal

  • It's common to oscillate between sadness and anger, and guilt and feeling sorry for them yet also regret and shame for letting yourself be treated badly. Please be kind to yourself and know that this is part of the process. Your mind and heart are trying to sort out the endless whirlwind of confusion your ex put you through, and it makes sense that your reactions match their constantly changing actions. It's not your fault you have whiplash! But you cannot get closure with an exwBPD. Every time you reinitiate contact, you restart the healing process, and they'll act different every time, sometimes appearing grown and changed, other times appearing to have regressed dramatically. Don't torture yourself.

You will get better!

• It's been a living hell of a year and some change, but I have been making strides in recovery and am confident I am not only back to my old self, but have grown into a better self with more confidence, maturity, and an eye for bullshit.
• Take care everyone. You've survived getting pummeled and mindfucked. Don't be hard on yourself for not knowing better and getting into the relationship, but do be accountable to yourself now and don't look back.
• Edit: damn, thanks for all the engagement and I'm really glad this could be helpful. I wanted to add... for awhile, I did feel broken and depressed in realizing that a lot of what we think of as "romantic" (you know, movie shit) is simply dramatic and unhealthy. I think I became more cynical yet also more wise and optimistic. Learning about super shitty behavior has made me more able to recognize genuine kindness. I started therapy to interrogate my susceptibilities to fucked relationships and learn to advocate for myself. Still working on it but... through building self-reliance I can avoid using people for my own needs as my ex does, and I can get to know a person as a complex human, not an idea or a drug. I'm learning to do things for myself, enjoy activities and hobbies just for myself without external validation, and cultivate my own self-worth, which sadly, my ex may never learn to do. There's a way up, I promise. Much love.

Edit: the tldr is actually NEXT