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graystreet
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Default Mar 11, 2018 at 01:27 PM
  #1
As someone with BPD, I am aware that this forum is for people with NPD so, if you'd like to move this to another forum, I understand. I have been reading several posts this morning and, respectfully, I come with a few questions because there are a few people on here who have given me some insight into the mind of the individual in question.

My ex? The last time we were together he said it wasn't a relationship, so I don't know if he even is that. We had been friends for 13 years, meeting online through a photography website. He had flirted over the years, but one of us always had a significant other, not to mention I'm in Michigan, he's in Tennessee. In 2016, we talked more earnestly about trying to make something happen. For a few reasons, it didn't, and it ended in us not talking for a while. Cut to this past November, and we started what I thought was online dating in earnest. He came to see me while on a business trip, immediately made plans for him to take time off for me to see him, a trip which I just came back from this past Tuesday. We explosively ended it during that time.

I have a job which allows me to take assignments in other states. This was something he encouraged while we were talking to one another. Basically, to me, we had liked each other for a long time, are old enough to just stop ****ing around, and liked each other enough to just try and make it work if it were in any way possible. And, with my job, it was possible for me to go down there for a few months and get paid for it while we dated like normal people. It seemed like we were in agreement with this.

Before we started something, I told him that if there was even the possibility of someone else, that I didn't want to start anything because it wasn't worth it, long distance. He said he was not involved with anyone. Through it all, I had a weird intuition that this wasn't true, and asked him. He continued to deny it. Of course I found out this was a lie after things ended; I messaged the woman (not even the original woman I suspected). Of course she had no idea I'd just spent a week with him, told me she'd just spent the night with him the week prior, when he told me his son was over. And a few weeks prior to that.

When asked why, he told me it's because I'm a crazy stalker, and that he has recordings and texts of me and will go legal. We had a lot of knock down drag out fights over text, while I was there. It always ended with him gaining the upper hand, me emotionally spent. Looking back, I feel like an idiot, but it was pretty insidious. And I do have BPD. He always said I was so stressful to his life, but he saw a good and pure heart in me, that's why he stayed. My BPD is pretty high functioning and, before this, I was stable. During this, I was not. I'm okay right now, just kinda processing.

I guess the hard part for me is getting in my own way. There are things I remember and realize that it may have been me leading this the whole time, that he just let me do what I wanted and was along for the ride. But there were sweet moments, too. I will say that I was just about out of the relationship a week prior to coming to TN, and he begged me to come. The day I got there, I realized I didn't want to be there, and told him so. He asked me to stay, even in a friendship capacity. I know there are a few things I said to him which brought him to the brink of tears, which he attempted to hide from me. We fought, it got really, really bad...it's a very long story and this is already becoming a novel. But I'll tell you if you want to know.

What is circling in my head is was anything real? He always said, I really, really like you. I have just been so hurt by jumping in head first and need to see how we get on before I jump head first with you. And of course, in light of what he told me about past relationships that makes sense. But I don't think any of what he told me was truth. His last girlfriend probably didn't cheat on him. His ex wife probably didn't emotionally abuse him. But who knows.

I probably haven't given you enough insight into his mind for you to understand that he has NPD...but if you want specifics, I'll tell you. There were some very specific scenarios...him forcing me to hug him on his bed after he'd broken me down during a fight, while I was hysterically crying, after I'd just verbally degraded myself, forcing me to tell him I wanted to stay in TN and why I wanted to stay. If I didn't tell him that, then I immediately had to pack my bags and get out. During this fight, he said I hit him, and recorded me saying I hit him while I was hysterically crying, and he was laughing. (I had pushed him away from me while he was screaming in my face that I am an abusive piece of ****, my hands accidentally slapped against his chest...and I was apologizing for accidentally hitting him; that's what he recorded.) That's one. There are more.
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Atypical_Disaster
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Default Mar 11, 2018 at 05:06 PM
  #2
If he has NPD then it wasn't "real" in the way you define it. Narcissists cannot truly love in the way someone like yourself can, to be capable of love you'd have to be capable of empathy.

Granted I'm going off of limited information here, if you can provide more examples that indicated NPD I could give you a lot more information.

Best regards.
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graystreet
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Default Mar 11, 2018 at 07:01 PM
  #3
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Originally Posted by Atypical_Disaster View Post
If he has NPD then it wasn't "real" in the way you define it. Narcissists cannot truly love in the way someone like yourself can, to be capable of love you'd have to be capable of empathy.

Granted I'm going off of limited information here, if you can provide more examples that indicated NPD I could give you a lot more information.

Best regards.
Thanks for the reply, Atypical.

Hmmm, I'm not sure what to tell you. I don't know if it's just that I've exhausted the subject over the week (it just happened). Or if a lot of it is a product of just knowing the guy as long as I have, and, in light of knowing he lied to me for so long in spite of being asked repeatedly for the truth and understanding that the majority of his behavior in our arguments was akin to abuse, if little things are finally just adding up.

And it really isn't that I'm asking if he had NPD; I think I know what I was dealing with was beyond the bipolar he told me he was diagnosed with years ago.

J exhibits most of the criteria of a covert narcissist, and when I look at a list of "7 signs of narcissism," he fits every one. I commented once on his lack of empathy, only I called it compassion. I became a very depressed and broken person the longer this relationship continued, and there were a few times where I told him that I wasn't doing well, and needed a person to talk to, asking him specifically because I considered him to be closest to me. One instance was after I'd become a little snippy with him. He became very cold, telling me that I'd "lost my privilege" to speak to him on the phone that night. Even after I was frantically texting, and telling him how much that statement hurt, he told me he didn't care, he didn't owe me a conversation. This happened quite a bit, actually. He knew that I struggled with BPD and thus, with abandonment. We discussed this at the beginning of the relationship. However, when we'd get into a discussion, it would always seem that, just as it would become more intense, he would drop the conversation. He said I was becoming escalated, and he didn't validate that behavior. In reality, it was always just the normal progression of an adult conversation about their differences. Whenever he'd leave a conversation, it was inevitable, I would end up text and communication bombing, feeling totally abandoned. This would happen probably weekly, him claiming I was so horrible and stressful, me telling him that if he would just stop vanishing, it would de-escalate the situation.

Everything was my fault. His gaslighting, stonewalling, and, I found out later after I found out about the woman (and, now I'm sure, he had more than just her) ability to lie were off the charts. And everything was everyone else's fault. He always had it worse than everyone else. The week I came to TN, he constantly complained about how horrible that week had been at work, and how he'd just wanted to have a nice, romantic weekend with me. One of the worst arguments, the one where he ended up recording me saying I "hit" him, and he ended up forcing me to hug him and tell him I wanted to stay, was because I was telling him that our conversations tended to always revolve around him being tired and stressed. It was basically that I didn't know how to help him, and I was frustrated that he basically never told me anything about his life (truly, in the end, I realized that I knew nothing about him; I told him everything, he told me just enough to make me believe he was opening up). He told me to shut the eff up, that I didn't know what I was talking about. And I got pissed; I told him that he acted like he had it worse than everyone else. And he said, in total seriousness, "Well...I suppose cancer and burn patients have it worse." What?? He started an amazing job a year ago and is quickly moving up the ladder...and he equates that stress with that?? It was shocking.

I commented more and more that he didn't actually seem interested in anything I had to say. He tended to be slightly condescending, but I don't think even realized he was doing it. The only thing he seemed interested in was when we talked about sex. He pushed even when I told him I didn't want to sleep with him, or when I was uncomfortable. He never forced, just got very pushy, and was irritated when I didn't want to sleep with him. He was annoyed and would. not. let. it. go. when I went to sleep on the couch, simply because I couldn't get any sleep next to him, even though prior to my coming to see him, he told me he didn't mind if I took the bed to myself. When I reminded him of this, he pouted and said well...it's his bed.

I realize this post is becoming long and convoluted, so I'll stop here. There is SO MUCH more. I could talk about how he left me in Knoxville without a way to get back to his home in Maryville, where my car (and my belongings he threw out next to it) was, when we had our blowup and I told him I wanted to leave that night. I could say how I begged and told him Uber was $110 that night (it was, I sent him screenshots) and I only had money for gas and food back to Michigan, and for four hours he left me sobbing on a bench in Knoxville, repeatedly telling me to suck **** to get money, ignoring my friends calling and telling him that I was willing to leave his home immediately, but I needed to be able to get to my car. At the time, I was like, why screw with me for hours? I could have been out of TN by now. Now, I see that he'd been doing that our entire relationship.

Anyway. I'm very tired tonight, or I'm sure this would be more concise and articulate.
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Default Mar 12, 2018 at 04:24 AM
  #4
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Originally Posted by graystreet View Post
we had liked each other for a long time, are old enough to just stop ****ing around, and liked each other enough to just try and make it work if it were in any way possible. And, with my job, it was possible for me to go down there for a few months and get paid for it while we dated like normal people. It seemed like we were in agreement with this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by graystreet View Post
I will say that I was just about out of the relationship a week prior to coming to TN, and he begged me to come. The day I got there, I realized I didn't want to be there, and told him so. He asked me to stay, even in a friendship capacity. I know there are a few things I said to him which brought him to the brink of tears, which he attempted to hide from me. We fought, it got really, really bad..
The bit that I cannot understand at the moment is how you went from wanting a relationship with him and wanting to move down there and 'do anything to make it work' and deciding before you got there that you were 'just about out of the relationship'
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Default Mar 12, 2018 at 11:00 AM
  #5
That's because I was tired last night and forgot to add that part to the story.

I already said we fought a lot, and bitterly, but for someone in my shoes that apparently isn't enough when it starts happening gradually. We'd had a specific fight, about a week and a half prior to my coming down, during which he made the statement, "I'm your last resort, but you sure as hell aren't mine." That's nasty in its own right, but given my fears about other women, it was specifically nasty. And also not true--there are other people here. I'd just chosen to cultivate a relationship with him because I thought, and he had given me the impression that's what we'd both wanted for so long. It was the first time I noticed how intentionally cruel he was. I told him it was a statement I didn't know if I could come back from and, though I obviously still had feelings after that point, they definitely cooled. The second fight was a few days after that, and I'm not really going to go into it. It was just another instance of him telling me I basically didn't have the right that night to speak to him on the phone, him going in circles for hours telling me it was a consequence of my actions etc, etc.

Looking back, of course I realize that none of this was normal, that some people may call me stupid, and that my first instinct to leave (which was actually in December) I should have left, that the nasty words aren't normal. But you're talking to someone with BPD from an emotionally abusive childhood. I know all of these things and, in other circumstances I have been able to look out for myself and say what doesn't work for me.

Hope that clears it up some.
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Default Mar 13, 2018 at 03:50 AM
  #6
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That's because I was tired last night and forgot to add that part to the story.

I already said we fought a lot, and bitterly, but for someone in my shoes that apparently isn't enough when it starts happening gradually. We'd had a specific fight, about a week and a half prior to my coming down, during which he made the statement, "I'm your last resort, but you sure as hell aren't mine." That's nasty in its own right, but given my fears about other women, it was specifically nasty. And also not true--there are other people here. I'd just chosen to cultivate a relationship with him because I thought, and he had given me the impression that's what we'd both wanted for so long. It was the first time I noticed how intentionally cruel he was. I told him it was a statement I didn't know if I could come back from and, though I obviously still had feelings after that point, they definitely cooled. The second fight was a few days after that, and I'm not really going to go into it. It was just another instance of him telling me I basically didn't have the right that night to speak to him on the phone, him going in circles for hours telling me it was a consequence of my actions etc, etc.

Looking back, of course I realize that none of this was normal, that some people may call me stupid, and that my first instinct to leave (which was actually in December) I should have left, that the nasty words aren't normal. But you're talking to someone with BPD from an emotionally abusive childhood. I know all of these things and, in other circumstances I have been able to look out for myself and say what doesn't work for me.

Hope that clears it up some.
I am supposing if you are coming from an emotionally abusive childhood you were often fighting with people with whom you were emotionally close to. So fighting with a loved one can feel somehow like it is not totally a bad thing? Maybe you might think you could sort the fight out and be close again and get the healing you are wanting? There is also that reality that if you are fighting you are putting yourelf in a situation where you are more likely to be abandoned than if you were somehow able to manage the situation differently. Unfortunately it is just a fact of life that if you feel a very strong emotion when a person does not give you attention and you respond by saying they should be understanding of your desire for attention because you have BPD it is not likely to work out in your favour. Often if you get involved in your own interests and your other friends, the other person gets less attention then they are wanting and they want to come back to you for your attention. He seems to have enjoyed your attention. Perhaps you two are just struggling to get the balance right?
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Default Mar 13, 2018 at 10:46 AM
  #7
Well, we don’t have a relationship any longer so there is no more struggling. It appears that he was getting the attention he wanted from other women. But, while we were together, I would have said that this sounded kind of right, that we may have been struggling to get the balance right. At least, that sounds like something he’d said to me before.
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Default Mar 16, 2018 at 10:50 PM
  #8
graystreet,
It is very common for someone with BDP (usually female) to be attracted to someone with NPD (usually male).
Just please don't repeat the same mistake and be manipulated.

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