was i used/abused, screwing with me, or was it mental illness?

[talula]

so.......

i am so confused. i have known this guy for 3 1/2 years now, and my head has been so messed up the last 2 1/2.

it's a long story, complicated. but this guy, he was with someone else when we met. we connected, because of our life problems, or maybe like soulmates, etc.

anyway, the woman he was with was pregnant. he stayed with her, moved away. we began talking again. then, he just wanted to be friends at the end of 2009, which hurt me tremendously, because i was there for him alot, any time he called.

 

then a couple months later, he told me that he got the woman pregnant again, and i was hurt and mad at him. then, he told me a couple months later that he had been with two other women. i think he was purposely pushing me away. i quit talking to him and he said he was "hurt".

 

then, he was suicidal, etc. i couldn't handle it all. or, i'm not sure if he was faking it to push me away.

 

he told me that she was a sociopath, etc, from the beginning said she was evil, manipulative, controlling, etc.

 

he was mad at me, and quit talking to me for months, then contacted me again, with a "sign" which i did not respond to. then contacted me again, wanted to work things out - yet.....he didn't say sorry first, said he was "lonely", not sure who he was with or who he was, then tried to have phone sex with me. then, i laid into him about hurting me...we fought by text about what happened - i was still angry with him about hurting me, he was angry at me for hurting his "wife". neither of us forgave the other...

 

i was depressed at the time (i think psychotically) and couldn't think well (still not able to see the situation clearly), and so it was all kind of not real to me. or too much pain.

 

anyway - i'm trying to figure out - is this all because this guy is mentally ill (schizophrenia maybe?), or was he purposely abusive?

his "wife" called me and told me that he had mental illness.....and that he begged her to not abandon him (which that with the who am i leads me to think borderline personality disorder).

 

so, i'm not sure if one or both of them is lying to me. if the reason he "cheated" with me and on me was because of mental illness, or because he's a psychopath.

now, it seems like they genuinely love each other. so - his mental illness is better?

i gave this guy so much, i talked with him through his problems, etc.

 

i wanted to find out - was i just purposely used, or was this all because this guy can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy (apparently what schizophrenia is?)

[Downtown]

Talula, welcome to the LoveShack forum. I agree that the behavior you're describing sounds closest to strong traits of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). Only a professional can determine whether the traits are so severe as to meet the diagnostic criteria. Yet, even when those traits fall well short of the diagnostic threshold, they can easily undermine friendships and marriages. Significantly, it is easy to spot the nine red flags (i.e., the symptoms or traits) for BPD when you've known the man for 3.5 years, as you do.

he begged [his exW] to not abandon him (which that with the who am i leads me to think borderline personality disorder.

BPDers (i.e., those with strong BPD traits) have two great fears, abandonment and engulfment (from intimacy).

is this all because this guy is mentally ill (schizophrenia maybe?), or was he purposely abusive? ...his "wife" called me and told me that he had mental illness.....

Of course, it is possible that your exBF suffers from schizophrenia. In your description of his behavior, however, nothing you said indicates schizophrenia traits, which would cause the man to lose touch with PHYSICAL reality -- e.g., being so delusional that he thinks, for example, that air planes are spying on him or that TV news anchors are speaking to him personally. Instead, what you've described is a man who sees physical reality just fine. What he has a distorted perception of is other peoples' intentions and motivations. This type of distorted perception is a hallmark of BPD traits because they cause a person to have a black-white view of other people. That is, BPDers categorize everyone as "all good" or "all bad" and, in just 10 seconds, will recategorize someone from one polar extreme to the other based solely on a minor infraction or innocent comment.

 

Another reason that BPD is far more likely than schizophrenia is that the lifetime incidence of BPD is roughly ten times more common than schizophrenia. I therefore believe the behavior you describe is that of strong BPD traits, not that of a crazy person. Like having "schizophrenia," being "crazy" implies being out of touch with physical reality.

then, he was suicidal.

It is common for high functioning BPDers to experience "suicidal ideation" and threaten suicide as a way of controlling you, but it is rare for them to make good on that threat. Actual suicides are very common, however, among the low functioning BPDers. As to your exBF, if he is a BPDer he almost certainly is high functioning or you would not have been dating him for many months.

i'm not sure if he was faking it to push me away.

Generally, a high functioning BPDer threatens (or "fakes") suicide to control you or to pull you closer -- not to push you away. When a BPDer gets engulfed from too much intimacy, he will push you away by creating an argument over absolutely nothing -- something so trivial that you later have trouble even remembering what all the fuss was about.

he told me that [his exW] was a sociopath, etc, from the beginning said she was evil, manipulative, controlling, etc.

He likely is now making you out to be the devil, just like he did that with respect to his exW. Because a BPDer is convinced he is "a victim" -- always a victim -- he is equally comfortable with you (and his exW) being either a "savior" or a "perpetrator." During the first six months of your relationship, for example, you were his "savior," thereby validating his false self image of being the perpetual victim. After all, if you were saving him, he had to be a victim in need of being saved. After that, however, you mostly were perceived as the "perpetrator," a role that also validated his self image of being a victim. That's why he was usually blaming every misfortune on you.

i was depressed at the time (i think psychotically) and couldn't think well (still not able to see the situation clearly.

If you were only depressed, consider yourself very lucky. It is common for a person who has been dating a BPDer for over three years to feel so utterly confused that she fears she is going crazy or losing her mind. This crazy feeling is so notorious among the ex-partners of BPDers that those ex-partners have coined a term for the BPDer's crazy-inducing behavior. It is called "gaslighting," which is named after the classic 1944 move Gaslight, in which a husband (Charles Boyer) tries to drive his new bride (Ingrid Bergman) crazy so as to have her institutionalized, allowing him to run off with her family jewels.

if the reason he "cheated" with me and on me was because of mental illness, or because he's a psychopath. ...now, it seems like they genuinely love each other.

Because you believed he genuinely loved you, and you now believe he genuinely loves her, your exBF cannot be a psychopath. This is so because psychopaths are incapable of loving anyone and they view people only as objects. BPDers, on the other hand, are capable of loving people, albeit in an immature manner (unless they undergo several years of therapy). If you would like to read more about typical BPDer behavior, I suggest you read the discussion in GreenEyedRebel's thread. My posts there start at http://www.loveshack.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3398735#post3398735. If that discussion rings a bell and you have any questions, I would be glad to try to answer them or point you to online resources that can. Take care, Talula.

[talula]

wow, what an amazing response, thank you. i actually know alot about BPD (though confused, i have trouble making sense of things). my therapist hinted that *i* may have BPD. i never labeled myself that way, just as having alot of trauma and healing, and i have somewhat been able to see cognitive problems or how i am different.

 

but this is confusing, yes. i couldn't keep up the psychological "games" to have things straightened out. i knew of the idealization-devaluation-discard cycle and the drama triangle and tried, but just not able to do it, and don't even know why i tried. i thought i loved this guy, but also came to hate him (after more of his self showed), and couldn't make sense of him or my feelings. so i guess that possibly makes me bpd. or just too confused at this point. thank you for not judging.

[Downtown]

Talula, in every field of the medical sciences, "disorder" refers to a disease that you either "have" or "don't have." This is not true of BPD (or any other PD), however. Although psychologists call it a "disorder," BPD is not a disease and therefore is not something you "have" or "don't have." Instead, BPD is simply a set of behavioral symptoms (i.e., traits) that -- like body temperature and body aches -- are traits that every human being exhibits. Hence, as is true for temperature and body aches, the issue is not whether you have BPD traits (everyone does) but, rather, whether you have them so strongly that they undermine your LTRs with loved ones.

 

If you do have strong BPD traits, you are a member of a fairly large group. A 2008 study of nearly 35,000 American adults found that 6% of the population has a lifetime incidence of BPD at the diagnostic level. Yet, even when those traits fall well below that level, they can easily destroy a marriage or friendship. Hence, when you add in those folks having strong BPD traits (below the diagnostic level), you may be talking about 9 or 10% of the population -- a prevalence that is higher than that of left handedness. It therefore is not at all uncommon for one BPDer (perhaps you) to find herself dating another BPDer.

 

Over the past year, for example, I've been communicating regularly with a BPDer friend who went through many years of treatment to learn how to manage her BPD traits. She nonetheless ended up in a two-year relationship with a man whose traits were worse than hers. So she had to walk away from that toxic relationship. Although BPDers usually end up in relationships with codependent caregivers like me, many end up in relationships with other BPDers because they are caregivers themselves. I mention this because your continued involvement with another BPDer suggests that, like me, you may have very strong caregiver traits too.

 

Moreover, if you do have strong BPD traits, your ability to see such ego-syntonic traits in yourself is a rare gift. I would be surprised if as many as 1 person in a 100 BPDers has sufficient self awareness (and ego strength) to be able to do that. I mention this because it implies that, if you do have strong BPD traits, your chances of being able to stay in therapy long enough to control those traits are excellent. The dismal success rate for BPDer therapy is not due to the lack of good treatment programs but, rather, to the BPDers' unwillingness to seek therapy and stay with it. Significantly, that likely is not a problem for you. I therefore applaud your remarkable degree of self awareness, Talula.

[yulaw911]

Hey Downtown, Homebrew said i should talk to you regarding my situation with my ex. If you could please look at my thread and provide your insight it would be so greatly appreciated.

 

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t283513/

[Downtown]

Yulaw, I just read your thread and agree that your exGF seems to exhibit strong traits of BPD. I am leaving for work now but will post a response in your thread tonight.