Need help and no idea what to do next

[another1]

So, where do I even start? Near 5-year relationship - extremely intense relationship as I'm sure a lot of you have had. So many impulsive and untrustworthy behaviours at the beginning that had so many red flags (stealing, lies, sudden changes of plans) but she could also be the most caring and adoring person you could imagine. I believed the caring and adoring person was the "real her" and that the impulsive, cruel, explosive side was something that we and I "could fix" and I was so wrong. We went through Graves disease (fixed), ADHD (medicated), and then CPTSD and CPTSD is where it gets weird. She ended up recovering memories of a childhood sexual assault (where the perpetrator changed three times from different people in her young life) during an MDMA trip I guided (MDMA was a last resort because nothing else worked)...

I loved her so much and still love her, we travelled the world together and the highs were so incredible together. I really felt like there was nothing we couldn't tackle together, but then there were always the explosions and they kept coming more and more towards the near end of our relationship. 6 hour, 10 hour, 12 hour fights until 6am that didn't make any sense. Being in the car with her and her creating a fight because "it feels safer to be fighting than to be silent". She would manufacture fights and I could never understand why, I tried Gottman therapy, both of us in individual therapy, I tried EVERYTHING on earth to make this better and just couldn't. I started having anxiety attacks and thought it was work stress, sleeping pills I was taking, etc, everything but her. We realized we had become co-dependent and moved out to try to do more individual therapy and then do couples therapy. Then our couples therapy session was so full of gaslighting I had a 9 hour panic attack afterwards. I reached out to one of the top psychologists in my city for a second opinion. She tells me "I shouldn't tell you this but what you are almost certainly dealing with is BPD and you need to get your affairs in order to leave this because it is not going to get better".

The psychologist explained everything to me, the need for my partner to have me match her emotions (no matter how unhealthy) to "feel heard & seen", the devaluation cycle (my partner had BLOWN up prior workplace relationships and all of her past childhood relationships beyond repair), the explosive rage.

The final straw for me came when I got back from a trip. I was living out of an Airbnb looking for an apartment while she was living with her parents, and the Airbnb I was about to check into wasn't livable - I asked for her help and she wouldn't come to help me at all even though God knows I had given almost all the help I humanly could to her...

My friends in the city helped me, I basically told her I was going to handle everything related to getting my own place. A single day later? The texts start... "How can I help? I really want to help!", "love you & miss you!". Two days later? Voice notes "I just feel like you don't understand how much I care about you and how I want you to know I'll be there for you, if you told me where you were right now I'd come visit you."

...

I can't unsee this behavior now, I know she's BPD and has been toxic to my health. Yet I still find it so hard to end it. There is a part of me that is PLEASE READing researching specialized couples therapy with BPD partners to try to make this work. I loved her so much and I feel like right now that I am detoxifying from a drug like heroin - crying spells, anxiety, feelings of dread and general sickness / body pains... I have never had a breakup like this and I haven't even broken up with her yet...

For me I need to get my place of living stable (this weekend) and some family out here and then I will have the final conversation with her. But I know now that "final conversation" will not be final for her, she has kind of stalked me in the past and part of me is honestly afraid of her (hard to say as a man) and her stalking me or making something up publicly...

For those that have been through this please help me with the following:

1) What would you do in my situation for the breakup? I know I have to end this relationship even though a ton of me still wants to keep trying especially because she is acting so sweet now. I think I wait until I get set up in my new apartment

2) Tell me about these withdrawal symptoms and how to cope with them. They are awful. How long do they last? What do I do to allay them? I am like willing to check into a detox facility if I need to.

3) The meaning of the relationship. No normal person would be as cruel to a partner that was as good to them as I was in this relationship. It feels like none of this means the same thing to her as it did to me and our "love" for her means something very different than what it does to me. Like she "loves" the hell out of me right now because I'm basically ignoring her... That isn't love to me... How did you create the story and meaning of your former relationship with the pwBPD? It feels to me like I had a relationship with an alien who just didn't feel the same things as I did? I know she loved me but her biology is just so different from mine. This is the most confusing part to me.

[notrightinthehead]

Welcome to this informative and supportive space. You are not alone.  Many of us have been through the wringer like you.
Get as much information as you can on what you are dealing with. Start here https://outofthefog.website/traits/

Abandon all hope that your partner will ever change for the long term. There will be changes for a short while when necessary but the real person will come back, sometimes with a vengeance.

Check out the Toolbox for strategies to protect yourself.

Get therapy for yourself and find out what within yourself makes you stay in such an unhealthy relationship. You might have a look at the book 'Stop Caretaking the Borderline/Narcissist '  by Fjelstad. I found it helpful and it opened my eyes on my own enabling behaviours.

As for your question how long the withdrawal takes - it took me the better part of four years after many years of marriage.  The longer you stay and the more damaged you were going into this relationship,  the longer and more painful the withdrawal.

Stick around and check out the Separating/Divorcing board. You might find stories similar to your own there.

[Lookin 2 B Free]

Welcome, Another1.   I'm glad you're here and sorry for the reason, that you've had to experience so much pain.

I suppose if leaving a PD partner were easy, not many of us would feel the need to come here.  We often hear it's the trauma bonding that makes it so hard to leave.

Not Right has given you some great suggestions.  I will just add that a bit of time and distance away from my BPD/NPDex would always be accompanied by longing for the good times and an inability to remember the bad ones.  So journaling all the reasons I needed to leave, and rereading that when my resolve started weakening, really helped me.  Another thing that was absolutely necessary for me was to finally go NC, though not everyone chooses to do that.  And a trauma T is invaluable.

I think only a professional can advise you on whether or not to check in to a facility, or do some other treatment.  I know I needed support.

As far as the "What was that ?!?" question.  Different people interpret their partner's behavior differently in hindsight.  My understanding is that these PDs come from a kind of arrested emotional development.  So I kind of think of his love as like the love of a hurt, disturbed child, which, of course, isn't the same as the love of a healthy adult.   But if you leave and get some time away, you will find yourself getting a new perspective on it all.  It doesn't come overnight.

Good luck and let us know how you're doing!

[Leonor]

Hi another1, and welcome.

I think your post is heartbreaking but so revealing.

This woman may be charming, exciting, adoring, dramatic, terrible, or calm, peaceful, stable, whatever ... She is not right for you. That's all. She's not right for you. That's sad. But that's o.k.

I'd like to set her aside for a moment to talk a little bit about you. Because what's happening inside if you, the crushed hopes and bruised heart and thirst for what was isn't about her. It's about you.

And until you can look as hard and as long and as committed at you as much as you are at her, you will never be free of the anguish you are experiencing right now.

Some questions to wonder about:

Why were you arguing all night?

Why were you exhausting yourself ?

Why were you staying so long?

Why were you trying to heal her?

Why were you going to couple's therapy?

Now, your answers at first will be "Because she ... (was yelling at me / had no place to go / threatened to hurt herself, etc., etc.)"

That's still about her.

Then your answers will be, "Because I am in love / an empath / too giving / codependent," etc., etc.

That's still avoiding you.

Once you stop blaming her as crazy and abusive or casting yourself as an emotional martyr, and really take ownership for your life, she will recede.  Of course, that's hard to do. Once she recedes, you're just left with you. And that brings up questions like:

Why do you verbally abuse?

Why do you deal drugs?

Why do you play mind games?

Why do you manipulate?

Why do you control?

It's painful. It's ugly. It's much easier to fantasize about rescuing a beautiful but damaged creature with nothing but true love and a dream.

But not only is that a fantasy, it's unfair. She's not a lost princess. She's just a person. And you're not a superhero. You're just a person.

And then your answers will be more like,

"I verbally abused my ex because I wanted (me) to ..."

"I drugged my ex because I wanted (me) to ..."

"I played mind games with my ex because I wanted (me) to ..."

"I controlled my ex because I wanted (me) to ..."

"I manipulated my ex because I wanted (me) to ..."

That is a good time for therapy, just for you. There is a lot of pain and emptiness in a person who would drug his girlfriend in an effort to read her mind. Why did you want what you wanted?

When did you first feel unheard by someone you loved?

When did you first feel confused by someone who said they loved you?

When did you first feel like someone you loved was out of control?

When did you first feel like someone you loved was abandoning you?

Tough stuff. I've been there. And my answers are for SURE way more self-centered and unsavory than yours. But that is a way through.

It may not be the only way. But the feelings will let go once you truly let her go.