Have I doomed myself?

Ok this is going to be lengthy and quite complicated. I'm going to describe it the best I can. I will start this off by talking about my alcoholism and substance abuse. At the age of about 14 of 15 I started drinking every weekend with friends. This later led for smoking pot and using other various drugs every so often. I went through some brief periods of acute depression in my teens but none of these really seemed to last very long, and I don't feel these episodes really changed my personality in any significant way. I had a close group of friends and for the most part was quite happy. I didn't really have any anxiety during this time either. I did however towards the end of high school have a bad breakup which increased the amount of drinking. I also continued smoking weed up until about the age of 21.

At the age of 22 I moved to Florida with a girl I was seeing. That relationship only lasted a year. The breakup wasn't so bad because I also had a good group of friends to support me. However I was still drinking quite often and going to clubs on a regular basis. I moved back home shortly before the age of 24. This is when I started isolating more and started having problems with anxiety. My drinking still continued, but this is when I started drinking alone. I also started have bouts of moderate depression and this was also when I first started cutting to deal with these feelings. I struggled during these times to maintain consistent employment. I would jump from job to job. At times I was only able to work part time.

Then at about the age of 27 I entered into another serious relationship. This person had major mental illness. She had schizo-effective disorder and bpd. I tried to help support her the best I could and didn't really have much depression at this time, however my anxiety issues continued to grow. This relationship became toxic and I started using prescription pain killers and benzos with my girlfriend. Towards the end of the relationship I experienced a nervous breakdown and started cutting again. I became severely depressed and my anxiety got to the point of paranoia. After the relationship ended I have never bounced back. My depression and anxiety has continued and become quite severe at times, requiring hospitalizations for cutting and suicide attempts. Or because I was having suicidal thoughts.

Okay so this is what I have been worried about lately and have also contemplated in the past. Did my exes bpd rub off on me in any way? I have recently been diagnosed with it, but I've had doctors in the past say I could quite possibly have this. I'm also been diagnosed bipolar II in the past, as well as having social anxiety. I never have really talked to my doctors about my exes bpd for fear of them thinking I have made all this up in my mind somehow. Although I don't really feel that to be quite the case. I am thinking I should have talked about this sooner but I didn't out of fear of not being taken seriously.

So I guess the real question is did I do this to myself, or is it that I always really had it and had been masking it so long with substances and it didn't fully manifest itself for me after dating this person. I don't feel like it is something I did just to get attention. I'm not sure why things got worse in the way that they did. It really confuses me. I've been consistently struggling for almost 8 years and am so sick of it.

Hi ne0natas,

I doubt anyone can know what came first, and possibly it's a combination of an inclination toward depression, use of drugs (you mentioned drugs including alcohol that can cause severe depression, but should get better once you stop), and your relationship fall out.

If the relationship fall out seems like the key turning point, this forum and other forums on this site are full of stories from people who feel depressed and anxious for months, even years after a relationship with someone who has a personality disorder. These relationships can be devastating, in great part because those of us with self-esteem issues can get drawn in because everything seems so ideal at first, and then... the slow and complex devaluation period, the confusion of what's going on, mixed with our tendency to feel sorry for the disordered partner (i.e., to feel that it's somehow our fault) and the eventual break-up(s!).

In a certain sense the person who you were before such a relationship started does die. On the positive side it's also an opportunity to be reborn (metaphorically speaking). From your post it really seems like you feel this was/is the key turning point, and that you've not talked about it with your doctors. I can relate to 'out of fear of not being taken seriously'. There often is no way to explain what happened to someone who hasn't been through a relationship with someone who is disordered.

If you feel okay with it, it might help to write a bit more about what happened here.