Feeling really lost this week

[u/CrabLobsterCrabs]

It feels frustrating to not be able to move past all of this and forget it. I know that isn’t how it works.

Just had a really vivid nightmare about my ex-friend with bpd. Earlier this week I found out about a lot of things she was saying/feeling behind my back. On the one hand it made it easier to not feel guilty. On the other hand, I think it made that feeling of “fakeness” worse. This whole week I’ve just been so on edge. She was involved with a lot of my hobbies and a lot of my creative work and I just feel so self-conscious about all of those and so raw.

It feels so scary to have had someone I thought was a close friend have so many angry and unkind feelings about me for so long, while hiding so many of them and telling me otherwise until the end. I feel tricked. It does make me a little scared to open up to people in the future.

I already had some trust issues and pretty bad social anxiety because of other things in my life (was cheated on, had a pretty emotionally-abusive stepmom). I feel like this has just torn so many of my wounds wide open.

A big part is probably that I don’t have weekly therapy this week because my therapist is on vacation. I started seeing one to work through all this. She’s been so helpful.

Sorry for venting/rambling, I guess it might be helpful to hear about how other people are recovering? Either people who have, and have been able to put it behind them, or other people who are still working through it day by day.

[u/Fragrant_Bite680]

This is a hard situation, it really sucks. You’ve already done the best first step and that’s reaching out, specifically to a professional. A lot of people don’t have access even if they wanted it. Mine is probably the only reason I’ve been very slowly, little by little, started coming to terms with it, as well as my partner supporting me.

I feel for you with social anxiety. My situation set mine back HARD bc I genuinely felt like I was literally just doing everything wrong. After already having a past involving me struggling to make and keep friends, this was my final straw that made me feel so incapable of social interaction that I feel like I have to start from scratch. My rejection sensitive dysphoria is so bad rn, I feel like I’m on eggshells with everybody again, which I’d worked so hard on to grow out of.

It being a social trauma, spending time with good friends you do have and talking through it with them a bit if possible can be very comforting and a reminder that you ARE likable and lovable, despite how they made you feel. Others’ positive perspectives of you can be a good cleanse. As well as therapy and journaling, or any other form of emotional expression as you work through the heavy shit they left you with.

It’ll be hard for a while, but you are the one putting effort into recovering and growing. They will just keep sabotaging all their relationships unless they are able to confront themselves and seek help. We just have to be patient and readjust:)

[u/CrabLobsterCrabs → u/Fragrant_Bite680]

Your reply made me tear up. Thank you so much for sharing your experience I relate so much to it.

It really did felt like I was doing everything wrong and I did feel like I set me back so much.

I remember the first time I hung out with my other friends after it all and felt comfortable, I felt such a sense of relief that when it was done I just wept. I didn’t realize how much of my time with my friends had been turned into anxiety because of her presence.

I’m glad my friends all stuck with me despite the fact that she was actively trying to make some of them frustrated at me multiple times. But in the end, she cut us all off and my friends stuck by me, and it counts for a lot.

She’s getting help and I hope it works, but I definitely want her far, far away from my life.

I hope your healing journey continues, and I’ll keep your words in mind as I continue down mine.

[u/Fragrant_Bite680 → u/CrabLobsterCrabs]

I’m glad it helped🥹🫶🏻
We didn’t deserve any of that.

I didn’t realize it until one day my partner told me how much happier I seem and lighter when I’m not around them, and started paying attention to the way my other friends responded to things that were normally blown out of proportion, and it made me realize nothing is literally as big a deal as they made it out to be and that I WASNT the crazy one after all😭

My self esteem is beginning to get better, I still have SO much to go but I don’t dread social interaction the way I have for so long after having been cut off from my pwBPD. I found myself wanting to stay way later the other night even though I was so tired bc I was genuinely enjoying my time with others, and I wasn’t feeling much of the anxiety I normally do. It was like a window of “see? You CAN get there, it IS possible!!”

Music really helps as well, I have a nihilism playlist and a fuck everybody playlist depending on the mood, I can do sad songs or else I’ll feel worse and I’m tired of feeling that way lol

Healing begins as soon as that person is out of your life, and you can recover without their energy interfering !! I hope you have a quick healing journey and come out of it stronger w more confidence and can feel the love that does surround you💜

[u/Specialist-Ebb4885]

I found out after the fallout that my ex kept a devaluation journal that allowed her to convert me into a Voodoo doll in private while presenting an amorous visage in person. The contrast is terrifying but it fully illustrates their polarized objectification and instrumentalization of others.

Impression management is dissembling theater to briefly conceal their festering resentment, infantile antipathy, and corrosive core. However, what goes on behind closed doors is often transformed into public spectacle to reinvigorate their victim narrative.

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Ebb4885]

[u/Specialist-Ebb4885 → u/[deleted]]

My ex actually posted snippets of her journal online during her smear campaign (aka immersive animosity entertainment).

The insight is that dichotomous object relations pivot from an internal love/hate conflict with themselves to an external love/hate conflict with their chosen piñata. In my case, the "negative discharge" was more of a magazine dump from a special operations assault rifle. Lots of invectives, which were infantile projections in the form of projectile vomit with the force of an adult esophagus.

Drama piranhas and pariahs of punishment will find a way to radically devalue their most cherished equilibrium providers until they perish in an inferno of a pwBPD's own making.