Hi lily,

This sounds a lot like an experience I had (which you can read about on my previous posts). Like you, I was tied up in knots trying to figure out what I had done wrong for a long while, and in the end… it was true what people said, it was just him.

In fact, having read and learned a lot about BPD and vulnerable narcissism in the past little while, I think I can determine with decent accuracy that the person I knew had some of this going on (he even suggested as much, about the BPD).

You are approachable, open, and friendly. Don’t let his gas-lighting or manipulation of the situation make you doubt yourself.

And like Inky said, you will indeed be shocked when you are treated with basic decency with the next person you date. An important step in my healing and letting go of my bad relationship was being around happy couples who treated each other with kindness and love. Even if these weren’t destined to be ‘forever romances’, the work toward commitment was there. It helped me to see that what I was expecting from my ex was totally within reason, that I wasn’t, as I’d worried, being clingy or demanding. Relationships, all kinds of relationships, take work.

Here’s a quote from Aldo Leopold I came across which, although it relates to ecology and environmentalism, is pretty apt for relationships, and it helped me to think through it in my time of need.

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

You could think of your brain as the biotic community in this case.

– LW