Dear anita,

While reading your last post i realised the limits of speaking about complex topics via text. This meaning that there are things i would need to correct, but i understand that its enough now.

I want to thank you again for helping me to understand trauma and ptsd so much better and i appreciate you sharing parts of your own experiences.

I am still grateful for the hours you invested to write long and thoughtful posts.

Its a good thing that you are here to help and support people in difficult times.

Wishing you all the best,

Ed

*once again sorry for questions you cant answer.

I would really appreciate your input.

Ed

Dear anita,

I just cant understand how the person you described would accuse me of cheating all the time. Isnt it controlling when someone wants to know where you are and who youre with and wants to check your phone?

Why would this person accuse of me of using her only for sex? or saying that i would not be interested in her life anymore when she locked me out of her life?

Why would this person be the defensive one in arguments, saying things like ,,thats just who i am” when i tried to tell her how distressing it was when she accused me of things instead of talking calmly about these insecurities?

Why would this person angrily accuse me of not wanting her anymore when i wouldnt want to have sex?

Why would she be such a different person with other people around her when compared to being with me?

I just dont understand. Did i really misjudge everything?

Dear anita,

i understand everything you wrote in your last 2 posts. it seems that following your argumentation, i really was wrong all along.

“it seems like you think that all through that one year, in her mind, she was clear about what she was feeling and thinking but she kept it away from you, and in so doing, she was lying to you… all through the year.”
– more context for this is that she started the year and her shutting down by telling me that she thought about breaking up, but decided against it. she promised me to explain this to me at a later date, but never did, even after i reminded her 2 months later. this whole year and her shutting down was difficult for me to see neutral, when an unexplained threat of breaking up was looming over everything.

“But reality is (and it would be especially true to her because you described significant depression on her part), that people’s thoughts and feelings change over the course of a year” “How could she tell you clearly what she was feeling when she wasn’t clear herself?”
– i know this from my own experience and i never expected her to be absolutely clear about anything. i wanted to know how could be there for her.

“Maybe she wanted to please you and thought that she would be able to handle you sleeping very late into the weekdays, so she said “no problem”. Later, after some months of being alone for many hours each weekday, she changed her mind.”
– i dont know if this is important, but it was about weekends, not weekdays.

“but you didn’t give her credit for being human and therefore not thinking clearly when anxious and depressed herself.”
– i gave her so much credit for that, by accepting the difficult things i experienced with her, like accepting her jealousy, helping her regarding her habit of self-injury during the first year, supporting her when she wanted to end her self-proclaimed alcoholism. i didnt judge her for any of that, i just wished for not being judged in return.

“I don’t think that she gaslighted you when she told you that everything would be fine, and similar things she said, because most likely confused, depressed and distressed, she wasn’t clear herself, and she didn’t purposefully tell you something that she clearly knew was untrue for the purpose of causing you to doubt your own reality (which is what gaslighting is about).”
– you are right, i cant determine any malicious intent in her behaving like this. its just difficult to not picture it this way when one asks about things regularly to be sure of everything being good and then being handed a list with the same things you asked about being named.

“and what I believe to be your inaccurate projection of their behaviors- their gaslighting- into your ex-girlfriend?”
– i understand your point. i have had many situations where i asked myself the same thing and reflected about my feelings being true, thats why i tried to talk to her about it. sadly she wouldnt help me to understand things.

“she was lying to you… all through the year.”
– no i trusted her. it was the moment i received the list when my perspective changed and made me question things.

“It is neither possible or fair to .. sort of invade her brain and decide what her brain should think and say at any moment in time.” – i never controlled her. i wanted to know what was happening to her to understand. i couldnt continue the relationship when she behaved like i told without explanation.

“You can author Fiction, but you can’t author Reality: you can’t decide what her feelings and her thoughts should be, how aware she is at any moment to what she feels, and how clear or confused she is at any time.”
– this sounds again like control. i never wanted to decide anything for her and never did. i only asked for literally anything to help me understand.

“Handing you the list does not mean that she thought less of you, or that she wanted to hurt your feelings.”
– but she did hurt me. even when i tried to explain that to her she didnt give any more context or explanation about the list or anything else.

““Does that mean that I was the one who made her depression worse?“- that one, I don’t know. I am guessing that from one point on, you didn’t make it better.”
– i always was afraid of this. i read so many articles about and definitions of bpd and codependent personality disorder, i used many hours of my therapy to consult my therapist how to support my ex with these possible diagnoses. but i got it wrong i guess.

“Maybe when she talked to you before, too often you got defensive, took what she said very personally, and/ or criticized her: telling her that she should have said things the way she did, that she should have said things differently.”
– reading this really hurts. i was always honest about my feelings when we talked about difficult topics, but i never blamed her or criticized her. when i got defensive, i always apologized directly after. i always thanked her when she spoke her mind and explained things that were difficult to her. even when she hurt me with things she said, it told her to not be afraid to be honest with me, because i wanted to hear what she felt, even if it hurt me.

i am very interested in your input regarding these items. please dont mistake the tone in my writing for anger, i am just extremely sad writing this.

still grateful

Ed

Why would she tell her friends about how she was feeling but not me?

Dear anita,

You cant answer that question, i know.

I would like to continue our conversation.

Ed

* the content of the quotation marks are direct citations of her words when she gave me her list.