Trouble Letting Go

Hello All,

I have recently received a diagnosis of PTSB, Depression, and Elements of BPD and HPD. I'm struggling with something that I realize has been a life long issue with me. It takes me a long time to let people in (life and heart) and then when I do if it does not work out I feel wholly empty, and I can't let go cause the idea that they don't want me is to painful. I panic, struggle, obsess, obsess, obsess, and have little ability to keep in perspective the fact that the person who is leaving my life, may not be good for me. This has happened very recently to me. Here is the background. I had a romance over the last year with a man that I work with. This man pursued me for four years. He told me I was his everything "the whole package." When we got together I had already fallen for him. Something that never sat comfortably with me was the fact that he always needed to engage in explicit fantasy and high risk ( of being caught ) sex all the time. At work, in cars, at the beach, on the phone, anywhere but a bed. There is much more but I won't get into it. Its so weird for me to put this into words. We are grown people in our forties- I could not get my head around his need to spice things up - when we had not had sex yet, and I am no prude.

Last year this time, before we had gotten together, we were in a park sitting on a bench, in the middle of the night and I had my head on his chest and was telling him how wonderfully gentle he was (I loved that) he grabbed me off the bench swung me around and said "I don't have to be gentle, I don't have be gentle at all." I was triggered - I had been raped by a boyfriend when and I was 15 - and thought I had it dealt with. I started to cry and I told myself I'm gonna die, he's gonna kill me, and its my fault. He said he wanted to "spice things up" and apologized. Nothing was ever quite the same after that cause I thought there was something I didn't know about going on behind the scenes.

Fast forward to this January. I'm getting ready to leave work on sabbatical from 6 months. On the last day of work I see him, and he is a changed person. He's short with me, and has no time at all for me. This is a 360 as he was always accommodating, generous, and available. Our communication changes almost immediately from many times a day to cold/ distant. Long story short my head is still spinning. When I ask what happened I don't get a straight answer. Its 5 months now and we are done- but I feel totally hollow.

How do I deal with the abandonment trauma- not necessarily from this - but its my habitual way of reacting. how do I start looking after myself? How do I stop being caught up and move on.

Kaly -

I can make some guesses as to what happened based on what you wrote, but they are just guesses.

Possibly you got involved with someone who was expressing with you sexual fantasies he has had for a lifetime, but hasn't felt safe expressing with others. I suppose it's possible too that he has his own self-esteem issues, which is ironically why disordered relationships can sometimes be very intense, but also fragile.

It sounds like you indulged him in his fantasies, but were never entirely into them to the same degree; actually you wrote it made you uncomfortable but it doesn't sound like you expressed that all along. In any case it sounds like he had formed the impression that it was safe to express the public displays of sex, and I suppose got the impression that you were into it too.

All I can do is guess that he also has some repressed rough/dominant sex fantasies, or thought for whatever reasons that is something you wanted, but in any case as you wrote, that was a turning point.

Before continuing, there is a reason why the book 50 Shades of Grey has sold the insane number of copies that it has, yet despite the reality, many people who have rough/dominate sex fantasies will not admit it. For the vast vast majority of them I believe it's just fantasy, they have no real wish to be hurt, but that's the way humans are. Another generalization - for BPD types the idea that normal people's wants are in conflict can be tough to get ones head around; BPD types often have deep seated beliefs in black/white purity, and any 'black', or any sense that others are emotionally conflicted, raises fears of abandonment and betrayal.

Anyway it's possible that in his mind he was taking a huge risk throwing out the 'rough' sex fantasy, and that his own self-esteem/ego is much more fragile then was obvious. Your reaction (which was also entirely reasonable) may have triggered his own black/white reaction, and so he went from one extreme to another extreme (shutting down) too. If he has his own cluster B like issues, it might also be that once he shutdown there was no going back for him.

It really does sounds like you also may have gotten involved with someone with BPD like issues, and it was very intense. Two cluster B types can have very intense relationships because on some level they understand each other better than others. Unfortunately the relationships often end because of the issues too.

I guess going forward the lesson is that it is important to express your boundaries all along. That it's okay to have boundaries, and that others typically will like us even if we have them. That way there is less likely to be those extreme moments of surprise. The hard part about that is for those of us who believe to be loved we have to morph into something others want, we're likely to do that, repress how we really feel, and then BAMN, it builds up and it all comes out in a big rush.

Best wishes,

X