[lightbulb_cake]

I'm sorry that this is so long. It's a complex matter and any more summarisation would be inaccurate, but I think you'll enjoy reading my story. A filmmaker actually wanted to make a documentary.

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Half an hour ago, my mind was flooded with emotions of seizure-like intensity. It was so intense that I started moderately dissociating. I just read through some old traumatic messages between me and my ex, and that started all sorts of extremely intense emotions: guilt, remorse, feelings of worthlessness as my identity (still!) felt attached to her, splitting, forgiveness, resentment...

Back when we were together, I faced those episodes (and freak outs) on a daily basis. Sometimes there were a trigger, sometimes they just sporadically appeared. I almost can feel when something is 'due' and it seems to be on a timer.

Let me give you a very brief recap of our relationship.

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Meeting our soulmates

We met on the internet. She was actually a camgirl in the US. I'm in Australia. I offered her a moderate amount of money as a gift. We started talking and we found out we really got along personality wise. She says my generosity and intelligence attracted her. She was with another (abusive) boyfriend at that time. We were both around 20 years old. I'll call her Aria.

I stayed up all night to talk, and I have never ever felt more connected in my life. We spent probably 8 hours a day just texting or calling. We thought we got along really well. I took some days off work, and bought a plane ticket to the US to meet her for 4 days. We had a blast. I told her that I loved her.

At the airport waiting for my flight back, we texted about how much we miss each other. We started talking about dating. I was immensely attracted to her. She had really high hopes for her. She felt I was the only one who listened to her; the only one who was willing and wanted to understand her. I felt the same. We've only been texting for a month and a half. But everything felt perfect. She told her friends how excited and how happy she was. "I've never seen her as happy until she met you". I felt the same, and I felt my life now has a purpose and meaning. I felt like my self sense identity had finally existed.

Aria told me reasons why I shouldn't date her. She said she's been diagnosed with borderline, bipolar, anorexia, and more. I promised her that I accept her for who she is, and we even made Google Docs of coping strategies / skills / "if this, do that".

She decided to move to Australia to start dating me. This was my first relationship. I got a new apartment for us. I got her tickets, and we planned dates and even talked about how we'd parent our kids. I started telling my friends about her. A few friends became very alarmed.

First, at Aria moving to Australia and not having her friends/family, and how I'd be her only support network. Then, I told my friends that she said things like "if you broke up with me, I'd probably end up killing myself". That didn't alarm me, but it alarmed them. 'Emotional blackmail'. A friend told me that I was in for a world of hurt if I didn't break up.

I wasn't sure what to do. I was extremely conflicted. But I defaulted to 'love'. That's something I kept defaulting to in the relationship...

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1.5 months in, and we're living together

She got to Australia, and things didn't go so well. I'm really comfortable over text, but in real life I'm pretty awkward. She felt trapped, financially and geographically from not having her friends and family anymore. She started being distant, and dropped everything to do modelling to try and make an income. Things were awkward, things were very uncomfortable. It was nothing like we imagined.

I had an idea. Thanks to family and work, I'm relatively wealthy. I offered to give Aria a very very substantial amount of money, as a no strings attached gift to show my love. She accepted it. She felt more comfortable and less stressed / trapped.

But things were still rocky. She would point out faults and be upset at me, for things that I was surprised she'd be upset for. She usually wanted me to make up for something. We had some fights, and I was scared of breaking up. Detachment by then, seemed like it would hurt unimaginably already. I was really, really scared, and that made me almost offer to buy flights for another overseas female friend if they'd come and comfort me if we broke up. That was hurtful, disrespectful, dumb, and I'm not proud of it at all. She got really upset, and I promised to change and make it up for her; and I tried really hard. Emotionally, I was being very stressed.

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The seeds of distrust

A strange internet person messaged me, and we started chatting about random stuff. They asked about my relationship and my then gf. I answered, but I started being creative and I made up things about her; saying that she was emotionally abusive. What my friends said kinda stuck to my mind, but part of it was venting a bit and wanting emotional relief and sympathy.

It turns out that Aria asked a friend (who I didn't know) to message me, and to see what I said about her. She was furious and really upset. I felt like something more was to it though, and looked through her phone. I found out that she was also trying to pay someone on craigslist to tempt me into cheating on her, so she could 'have a reason to break up with her abusive bf'.

Meanwhile, she was on Tinder and she says it's one of the few ways for her to meet new friends. I wasn't really comfortable.

While I was stressed/anxious/pressured and did questionable things to comfort m, I would never cheat. I confronted her, and it ended up with me apologisng and promising to do something grand in a week and make up for her.

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Travelling, Breakup, Rape

We went travelling around the world. Indonesia (which was great! we went to an active volcano, went horseback riding, and immersed in Indonesian culture!) and Chile.

Oh, we broke up in Chile. She said we weren't working out, she was freaking out emotionally and upset at how I didn't respect and appreciate her; I was freaking out too. I was upset at her browsing of Tinder, and how often she talked to a friend and they talked about how they loved each other. It was kind of a mutual break up.

A couple of days later, she was raped in Chile. I offered to be there for her, and we started being together again. She flew back to Australia. She insisted for me to quit my job; my work friends/managers/colleagues were being more and more alarmed at me being detached, emotionally-not-ok, and they told me I was being manipulated.

To my mind, I believed the last person I heard from. I'd be convinced by my friends (or manager, who I had a good relationship with) that I needed to break up with Aria for my mental wellbeing. But then I'd talk to Aria, and I would feel immense guilt for the previous times when we fought and I broke up with her; especially with her borderline personality disorder and fear of detachment. There were so many flip flops. I wasn't sure about leaving my job though, because it was the only other thing I cared about (other than Aria) in my life. If I left, my self identity felt dependent 100% on her.

After the rape, I agreed to quit my job. I took too many days off travelling anyway. On my last day of work, my manager spent six hours talking about healthy relationships, their life experiences, and why + how to break up with Aria. I broke up again, over text.

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Cheating and stealing

At this breakup, she was back in the US for a couple of weeks to be with friends / family again. She drove to LA. To be honest, I wasn't the best boyfriend, and I've done lots of things I wasn't proud of. I was freaking out all the time, over detachment, and I was the one who almost randomly broke up with her.

One day, someone stole a lot of digital money from me. I started tracking it down, and to my surprise traces led back to Aria. I did more digging, and I found irrefutable evidence. She went through my computer, and recorded passwords while I was asleep.

While digging, I also found out she was cheating on me. And I found out she was telling my friends how naive I was, and how she's an expert at manipulating me and getting me to do/believe what she says.

I was really, really upset, but I was almost relieved because this gave me a cause to ask for the unconditional money I sent her (in the beginning of the relationship) back. Because she stole more.

I will always remember our phone call that night, where I confronted her. It lasted 3 hours, and she said she was feeling really not OK and did very unhealthy things to cope. I told her we're done. She overdosed on a couple bottles of pills and an ambulance had to be called. She promised to make it up for me; she promised to have sex with me (I was still a virgin); and she sent all the money back. I was really upset, really emotional, but I was a bit relieved that I had more control and leverage in the relationship -- something I didn't feel like I had before.

I flew to the LA, and reunited with her again in the hospital emergency room. We went travelling around the US and Mexico. We visited her family for Thanksgiving. I've had so many unique and great experiences. We also fought a lot, and we had a lot of freak outs, mostly my freakouts. I also ended up getting a bit tired of travelling, and wanted to have more of a purpose in life, and considering being with each other... the neutral baseline instead of something positive to celebrate. I didn't know about my identity then. It was shattered already. And I was under a lot of stress. I'm sure she was too, maybe even moreso than me due to financial constraints. But we've had some really positive times travelling and experiencing life, and some really unique and memorable experiences.

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Freakouts got worse

We travelled for a few months, but my freakouts kept getting worse. It was one sided. I think I had so much resentment, so much anger, and when something triggered my emotions, it would burst.

I did a lot of hurtful and emotionally abusive things. I freaked out over small things or random triggers. When freaking out, even if I wasn't that emotional, I (half)consciously tried to make myself more upset, and I would refuse amends or apologies, and ask for Aria to make things up.

To me, it felt like that when freaking out I couldn't 'lose face', lose power / control, and it felt that were an explicit set of guidelines / reactions that I had to follow. I felt dissociative, and I felt that what I did in my freaouts were out of my control, even though I know I was conscious. But my mind just wouldn't let me end freak outs, and my mind led me to exaggerating hurt and suffering for the both of us.

Looking back at some of the messages I sent her, and the ways I acted, I'm immensely guilty and remorseful for how I emotionally hurt her. Freakouts kept increasing in magnitude, and Aria felt like she was walking on eggshells and couldn't express her feelings or thoughts because my mind would always find some way to turn it around to her. I couldn't have fault.

This me scares me. I know there were a lot of circumstances that led up to it, and it is my borderline. But still. And I didn't take responsibility for it; and haven't even up to the very end of the relationship.

I can't exactly know how she felt, in her position. At that point, I was selfish and almost only concerned with myself. But I know that my freak outs were traumatising on multiple occasions... at least as severe as how traumatised I have been feeling.

But after freak outs, we'd make up (i.e. she would apologise for everything), and we'd be best friends again... but it didn't last, and both of us knew freak outs were an inevitability.

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The final breakup

Both of us did MDMA once. We both overdosed and had to go to the ER. It was stressful. After the physical overdose symptoms wore off, I had a ~48 hour period where I felt off. I felt aggravated, freak-out-prone, but I also felt like I didn't care about living. And dissociation.

I think my resentment over LA/cheating/etc, plus the serotonin imbalance, plus borderline freak outs, transpired into me trying to kill myself in front of her while telling her how awful she was. I think. I don't _exactly_ remember what happened.

I know the gist, but I have definitely suppressed detailed memories of those nights. I forgot about those nights entirely until I started reminiscing and writing this post.

Later on, Aria says that hurt and traumatised her immensely. I'm certain, and I can only feel a fraction of the remorse I'm supposed to feel, before I have to pull my mind back otherwise I will enter an emotional loop and dissociate again.

She then went back to the US and said she wanted some more friend/family time to recharge. She described it as been that she's a well, and I've drank all the water out of it. So she has to fill it up.

It didn't take a day before I fought over something that made me freak out, and my mind + me kept exaggerating the freak out. Aria begged to call me, but I'd refuse. I'd say "we're over. it's done." even though I didn't want the relationship to be over; I said it as a power / leverage / hurt thing. Aria kept saying how sorry she is, and how sorry she is for hurting me that much. She wanted to fly back to Australia. I declined. She sent a final apology message, shut off her phone, and went to LA.

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Second chance?

I promised to change, and I still thought of us as soulmates. After a month of infrequent contact where she said she still wanted to be with me (but 'not right now'), we agreed to meet in Costa Rica. We flew there, and things were a little bit awkward... until I went through her phone and found out that in LA she was cheating on me with a guy, who was a friend she met in LA the first time.

She also cheated on me with that guy the first time she was in LA, which she repeatedly denied. I suspected so, but never had hard evidence. Through talking to her friends, I found out that Costa Rica was a plan to get money under false pretenses. I was really upset, and ended up doing vengeful digital things.

I've been building my life together again in Australia. I've had to get a lot of therapy. One thing my therapist suggested is writing a stream of consciousness and get the repressed memories out, so I can reflect upon and process. This is part of it.

Thank you for reading.

[Skeezyks]

Hello cake: Thanks for sharing your story. I see this is your first post here on PC. So... to PsychCentral… from the Skeezyks! May the time you spend here be of benefit.

PsychCentral is a great place to get information as well as support for mental health issues. The more you post, & reply to other members’ posts, the more a part of the community you will become. Plus there are social groups you can join & chat rooms where you’ll be able to connect with other PC members in real time (once your first 5 posts have been reviewed & approved.) Lots of great stuff! So please keep posting!

[Lonlin3zz]

I cried reading this.

[bluestar1]

It's really just a very long and convoluted way basically to say - *I never received love and it's a pattern and seems like other people also have experienced this*.

Yes. With all the sorrow, after the tears have been shed - after learning what love is not, we do need to learn now what love actually is.

[lightbulb_cake]

Originally Posted by bluestar1

It's really just a very long and convoluted way basically to say - *I never received love and it's a pattern and seems like other people also have experienced this*.

Yes. With all the sorrow, after the tears have been shed - after learning what love is not, we do need to learn now what love actually is.

That's definitely a core element of BPD.

Sometimes I wonder if the relationship's scars have made by BPD worse...

But in any case, it is what it is. Dealing with it isn't easy nor fun, and when I start to dissociate from overwhelming emotions my mind quickly jumps to suicide, but I've been getting better, and I'll get better.

*hugs everyone*

[Lonlin3zz]

Originally Posted by lightbulb_cake

That's definitely a core element of BPD.

Sometimes I wonder if the relationship's scars have made by BPD worse...

But in any case, it is what it is. Dealing with it isn't easy nor fun, and when I start to dissociate from overwhelming emotions my mind quickly jumps to suicide, but I've been getting better, and I'll get better.

*hugs everyone*

Dealing with doesn't mean avoiding or be passive about it, it means facing yourself and look deep like you're removing the layers of an onion.

It's not fun to deal with it, it's the process of getting better. Let the emotions pass by, and focus on rising up again

[lightbulb_cake]

Originally Posted by Lonlin3zz

Dealing with doesn't mean avoiding or be passive about it, it means facing yourself and look deep like you're removing the layers of an onion.

It's not fun to deal with it, it's the process of getting better. Let the emotions pass by, and focus on rising up again

I wrote four letters, of gratitude, apology, anger, and forgiveness today in a Starbucks.

Tip: Keep your stomach empty, because when my intense emotions lead to dissociation and I felt nausea, I threw up.

But I feel like I've gotten something out of my body ...