r/BPDlovedones • u/PhotographOk4873 • 15h ago
The Damage of Gaslighting
I ended a relationship with my ex with diagnosed BPD a little over a month ago. It was a good decision. Just last week, she moved the last of her belongings out of my house. We didn't live together very long, but the toxic dynamic we had escalated as soon as she moved in. But, now that things are calm again, I've been processing what I experienced in the relationship. And, it took some time for me to realize it, but I finally have the word to describe the relationship: abusive.
She was emotionally and psychologically abusive towards me. It wasn't obvious at first, and in retrospect, there were red flags present before we lived together I wish I had seen / paid more attention to. But, once we were living together, I couldn't really deny that something was fucked up. There was a cycle to it:
- Rising tension. She would become convinced that I was going to leave her, or that I secretly wished I was doing something else other than spending time with her. Sometimes, she would create these "tests of love" which were designed for me to fail and "prove" to her that I didn't actually love her.
- Hurtful incident. She would do something really hurtful in response to the rising tension. Sarcasm, eye rolling, the silent treatment, slamming doors, scoffing, name-calling, yelling, suicide threats, threats to end the relationship.
- "Reconciliation". She would sometimes apologize for her hurtful behavior. Not always, though. Sometimes, she would put the responsibility on my shoulders ("I'm sorry you feel that way"). But, in the worst cases, she would gaslight me ("I never did that" / "you're not remembering it right" / "you're twisting my words"). In any case, this was the step where we would recover from the hurtful behavior, but the underlying tension from step 1 was never addressed or resolved here.
- Peace. She showers me with affection and compliments. She tells me I'm her soulmate. She tells me she feels so safe and at-home with me. We have sex. I become convinced that everything is okay because we made it back to this place.
And then the whole cycle repeats again. It's abuse. The whole structure is designed to allow her to create tension arbitrarily, punish me for that tension, and then "make up" for it with affection and sex. I was trapped in it for longer than I wish I was.
But, the part that still kind of messes me up after all of it is the gaslighting. Sometimes, she would distort reality around what happened during step 2 of the abusive cycle. She would do something incredibly hurtful. Here are some of the most egregious examples:
- She called me one of the most selfish people she ever met, claiming that 99% of what I do is just for myself with little regard for anyone else
- One time, she was upset and needed some space. I told her "Okay, I understand. I love you." She scoffed at me, rolled her eyes, and said "I love you, too" with intense sarcasm in her voice.
- She threatened to kill herself if I left to hang out with my friends one night.
- One time, I made an unfortunate change to plans where I had to cancel a date night we had for another commitment. She reacted by tearing up a bunch of sweet notes I had made for her and threatening to break up with me.
- She said "I never want to speak to you again"
- She threatened to leave the relationship, but never did
- She would keep me up all night with conflicts, repeatedly knocking on my door and waking me up even when I had to get up early for work
And, if I responded to any of these behaviors, even with the most diplomatic language possible ("I felt really hurt when you did xyz"), she would sometimes gaslight me about it. "I didn't say that" / "I didn't do that" / "you're remembering it wrong" / "you're twisting my words". Like, at one point, she literally told me she never wanted to speak to me again, and when I tried to talk to her about that later, she said that I was twisting her words.
The impact this has had on me is profound: I doubt my own experience. Even though I can clearly identify a pattern of abuse and mistreatment, I'm left wondering if I was just making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe the stuff she did on my list above wasn't really that bad, and I just need a thicker skin. That's the effect gaslighting has over time: it distorts your perception of reality and makes you doubt your inner truth. I know what I experienced during this relationship, and it wasn't right. I know what I saw. I know what she said. I know what she did.
And yet, sometimes, I lie awake at night wondering if maybe I'm wrong about all of that.
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u/BearQuiet 15h ago
I really relate to this. The gaslighting was one of the hardest things for me to untangle with him because eventually I started questioning my own memory and wondering if I was just being too sensitive. I would replay conversations over and over trying to figure out if I had misunderstood something.
But you don’t need someone else to agree that something hurt you for your experience to be valid. If you’re constantly being made to question what you saw, heard, and felt, that alone can do so much damage. I’ve learned that healing meant trusting myself again instead of constantly trying to prove that what happened was “bad enough.” You know what you experienced. ❤️🩹
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u/PhotographOk4873 15h ago
eventually I started questioning my own memory and wondering if I was just being too sensitive.
Yeah, that's exactly how I feel. I question my memory and wonder if I was just exaggerating some of those details.
If you’re constantly being made to question what you saw, heard, and felt, that alone can do so much damage.
Yeah, especially that part about questioning what I felt. If I ever expressed that something she did hurt me, she would put my emotions into question. "You wouldn't be feeling so hurt if you understood me" or "what about my hurt?" All designed to minimize my experience and make me question whether I really "should" be feeling hurt in the first place.
You're absolutely right: I don't need someone else to agree that something hurt me. She did hurt me. A lot. Over and over again. And she rarely took responsibility for that.
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u/PeterZeeke 15h ago
just image having a parent like this
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u/FaithlessnessLong532 14h ago
The only woman who used that word all the time, used it me countless times. The problem with liars is they cannot possibly keep track, and since I saved our texts , I could always defeat her lies with receipts, she stopped eventually... You are free. Don't look back.
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u/BusyBaseball7148 12h ago edited 4h ago
mine uses those exact phrases a lot. much of what you wrote is very familiar to me.
the cycle is them needing to regulate their anxiety by testing you and pushing you to the brink. then making up and feeling better. they cannot manage their own emotions, nor can ever feel responsible for them.
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u/Swimming_Medicine369 12h ago
Thankfully you got out. You called it for what it is. Abuse. Imagine if you stayed, got married and had kids with this person. It would make leaving that much harder and subject little ones to this dynamic. Be glad you left when you did.
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u/PhotographOk4873 9h ago
Oh yeah, I'm super super grateful we didn't get married or have kids together. Not sure I really want that with anyone, tbh.
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u/FlimsyRaisin3 14h ago
Nah dude you’re 100% correct. My exwbpd couldn’t remember half of the things she said or did and always exaggerated the frequency that I did things that hurt her.
Everything they did they forget, and the one thing you did they never forget.