I need to know what I experienced

I’ve recently come out of an abusive relationship that lasted 7 years. During those 7 years I witnessed many disturbing things, some of which clearly pointed to some sort of mental health issue but I never found out exactly what was going on. I’m hoping someone on here might be able to shed some light on what I lived through. I will list out some of the things that happened during the course of those 7 years. It’s really long, so I hope you can get through it. Obviously you will have to assume I am telling the truth and not exaggerating.

In the beginning she was the best person I had ever met. I fell deeply in love with her. But quite soon into our relationship there were signs that she was not the person I thought she was.

Extreme jealousy and insecurity

My partner was extremely jealous and insecure. She kept me awake every night for several months until the sun came up, questioning me and accusing me of being in love with my ex-girlfriends, all of whom I had no interest in and had not seen in at least 10 years. The jealousy and insecurity lasted the entire 7 years.

On one occasion she questioned me on the colour of a woman’s hair in a film I had seen before I met her. She asked, “Is it blonde?” I replied, “Well, it was light” She then punched me in the face. So she punched me in the face because I watched a film with a blonde woman in it, about 10 years before I had met her. Incidentally, this was information she had gotten from me during the beginning of our relationship when we were talking about films, when I thought she was amazing. It turned out she was storing everything to use against me later on.

Physical abuse

My partner hit me regularly. There was a period where she hit me every day. The physical abuse came with the jealousy. One weekend in particular, she kept me awake between the hours of 11pm and 6am over two days in a row, so 14 hours in total. She attacked me multiple times during those hours and maintained a constant hostility. She kept me awake every night for months, it’s just on those two particular nights she was more physically abusive too.

Paranoia

A few examples of her paranoia include misinterpreting my facial expressions. She regularly thought I gave her dirty looks, but I did not. Several times she thought people were talking about her in cafes and restaurants. She thought people were saying things like “That scary woman” and “That ugly woman”. It was all in her mind as she is not scary-looking and is actually extremely attractive.

On one occasion she thought the couple sitting in front of us on a train was smirking at her. She became so upset that she turned purple in the face and started ranting about getting off the train and pressing the emergency stop button. It got so bad that I actually approached the couple in front of us to ask them why they were smiling. It turns out they liked the smell of the food I was eating and was smiling at that. I never thought for one second they were actually smirking at my partner.

On another occasion on a train, my partner sat opposite me and became paranoid and jealous when she could hear the voice of women talking in the seat behind hers. She turned purple in the face and started trembling and her eyes welled up with tears. She pulled her coat over her face and sank down in her seat until her back was on the seat and legs were stretched out. When she moved her coat from her face I was shocked at the state she was in. She was literally purple and shaking, with eyes stark wide open.

Self-harm

On several occasions my partner repeatedly hit herself in the face with her clenched fist. One time she did it so hard that her cheek bone swelled up massively and her eye was blackened for a fortnight. She hit herself so hard that she grunted with every punch, much like the way female tennis players grunt when they hit the ball.

Threats of suicide

On several occasions my partner threatened to kill herself. One time, over the phone, she threatened to kill herself and I could hear her popping pills. Then she hung up the phone and didn’t answer again. I was left with no choice but to call for an ambulance, just in case. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself had she ended up dying on one of those occasions.

Psychosis

On a few occasions my partner screamed and ranted late at night for seemingly no reason. It could be right after we had had a nice evening watching TV with no arguments in between. I would have to go downstairs to sleep on the settee whilst she was upstairs screaming the place down. Some of the things she ranted made no sense. She came into the living room and said “I can’t close my eyes and you know it!” She said a lot of other things too of course, but that’s one thing that stood out to me. I had no idea what she was talking about.

Another disturbing thing she did a couple of times was rip off her clothes and start jumping up and down whilst shoving items inside herself, all whilst ranting nonsensical things to me. Her voice sounded maniacal and disturbing. Her eyes were wide, with the whites showing really large at the bottom. This would happen for no reason other than the paranoid thoughts she was having. She also said very hurtful things during these occasions, such as “I’m going to go down the street naked and find someone and have sex with them. I’ll video it and send you the video. Would you like that?” Her language was more colourful though.

During these episodes it was as though she was a different person. I’ve even wondered if she had dissociative identity disorder. She seems to have no memory of some of the things she did.

Manipulative and sly

She called me a pervert for saying that she looked sexy in stockings. She was very hostile even though I was only trying to give her a compliment. On several occasions she called me a pervert for things that were not perverted at all. She said things like “You probably watch porn when I’m not around, don’t you!” and she sounded very hostile. When I asked her if she ever watched porn, she laughed and said “Don’t be ridiculous!” or words to that effect. At a later date, after being subjected to months of abuse and being called a pervert every other day, I sneaked a look on her computer and found that she had been regularly watching very perverted porn and had even done searches for sex between humans and dogs. Yet apparently I was a pervert for calling my own partner sexy in stockings.

Risky/criminal behaviour

On one occasion, during a period of jealousy, she walked into her local Asda superstore in a bit of a rage, even though I had done nothing. In the store she went to the electrical goods isle and pulled a hoover off the shelf and let it bounce along the floor, then just walked off.

She also periodically stole from the store. I found this out by accident. We were placing our shopping onto the conveyor belt at the checkout. I went to lift a bag we had brought from another shop and she stopped me. It turned out she had hid an item from the makeup isle underneath the bag in the trolley. In retrospect I remember her taking the trolley off me for a minute or two during shopping then she gave it back to me a minute later before going to the checkout. I found that odd at the time, but once I saw the makeup item hidden underneath the bag I worked out what she had done. So she was shoplifting without me knowing whilst she was with me.

She was also taking cocaine without me knowing, but she later told me about this.

Toxic and negative

She was nearly always negative. Every day she would endlessly list out all the bad things I had done. She would complain and cry all day. When I mentioned the bad things she had done, she denied it all. She either had no memory of the things she did or was lying.

Dishonest

I was on the phone to her on Guy Fawkes Night at the beginning of our relationship when I heard a man’s voice. She said it was the window cleaner calling around to collect payment. But her behaviour was extremely odd. She started panicking and ranting over the phone as she paid the man. I thought “What must this window cleaner be thinking?”

Several months later she told me that it wasn’t the window cleaner but a kid delivering drugs to her house. But I know this was also a lie because the man I heard sounded at least in his late 40s. He was no kid.

There was a definite push and pull going on in the relationship. She would be nice for a period, then nasty for a period. The nasty periods lasted longer than the nice periods.

Nobody knew any of the above was happening. She was completely friendly around everyone else. She is very charming around other people. She convinced everyone that I was causing trouble in the relationship and turned her family and friends against me. To this day they still don’t know the truth.

I will say that I was far from perfect myself in this relationship. I had my own insecurity issues, especially during the period after I found out she had lied to me about a man who had called around her house with drugs. But my behaviour on the whole was nowhere near as bad as my partner’s. She did however push me to the point of cracking later on in the relationship, after years of being harassed constantly over issues that were not real. As for my own insecurity issues, she trained me not to question her. If I ever questioned her I would pay for it by being kept awake for a week or more. So I learned never to question her. It was not worth the hassle. She even used the fact I no longer questioned her to insist I no longer liked her. So it was a no win situation.

There is probably a lot more to tell but hopefully there is enough information here to be able to take a guess as to what was going on. My first guess was that she has Borderline Personality Disorder. The fear of abandonment was definitely there. That’s why she threatened to kill herself so often. But none of the videos I have seen with people who have filmed themselves during borderline episodes look remotely as bad as what I witnessed. I also thought she might have fragile or covert NPD. Her behaviour fitted the description of trauma bonding. That’s why I’m finding it so hard to move on now. Incidentally, she discarded me several months ago without even a goodbye after 7 years. She simply disappeared overnight. From calling me and texting me dozens of times a day, she just vanished.

So, what was going on?

Welcome to the forums!

Well, if nothing else, I'd say she was Nature's way of saying 'Do not touch'

Severe BPD certainly comes to mind- I might be mildly Borderline, but that's a level I don't even want to think about. It seems as if a good number of people with BPD can act fairly psychotic....

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20425279/

Abstract

Early views of borderline personality disorder (BPD) were based on the idea that patients with this pathology were "on the border" of psychosis. However, more recent studies have not supported this view, although they have found evidence of a malevolent interpersonal evaluation and a significant proportion of BPD patients showing psychotic symptoms. For example, in one study, 24% of BPD patients reported severe psychotic symptoms and about 75% had dissociative experiences and paranoid ideation. Thus, we start with an overview regarding the prevalence of psychotic symptoms in BPD patients. Furthermore, we report findings of studies investigating the role of comorbidity (eg, post-traumatic stress disorder) in the severity and frequency of psychotic symptoms in BPD patients. We then present results of genetic and neurobiological studies comparing BPD patients with patients with schizophrenia or nonschizophrenic psychotic disorders. In conclusion, this review reveals that psychotic symptoms in BPD patients may not predict the development of a psychotic disorder but are often permanent and severe and need careful consideration by clinicians. Therefore, adequate diagnosis and treatment of psychotic symptoms in BPD patients is emphasized.

I've never had severe psychosis, but sure, I've flirted with delusion, paranoia, etc. Really though, sounds as if she's seriously messed up. Has she ever seen a professional? We can't diagnose here, but I'm leaning towards BPD with psychosis, over NPD. Before I got very far in it, I was muttering 'BPD' to myself.

Thank you and thanks for replying so quickly! I didn't expect a reply so soon.

Going by the excerpt you shared it certainly sounds like it could be severe BPD. Yes, she has spoken to her doctor and apparently was diagnosed with bipolar. But my feeling is that her doctor is probably completely unaware of most of her behavioural traits, considering she denies most of it herself. She has been prescribed mirtazapine along with some other pills which I cannot recall the name of.

I also think there were signs of psychopathy in the mix. For example, she would often cause trouble when we were out. On one occasion we were walking through my local town and she was sobbing and generally complaining about this, that and everything. I tried to console her but she looked inconsolable. I mean, she was really upset. This was in the daytime with no alcohol involved. This continued for a while until I could no longer cope. In a huff I walked ahead of her, muttering to myself. I looked up and caught her reflection in a large pane of glass at the bus stop. She was clearly smirking behind me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. For ages she had been sobbing and inconsolable, but as soon as I had walked ahead of her when she thought I couldn’t see her she was smirking behind my back. I found that very disturbing, like she must be some kind of psychopath or sociopath. Maybe that’s part of BPD as well? I know some people on YouTube mention a link between covert narcissism and BPD. Maybe that would explain this almost psychopathic lack of empathy, or lack of care for another’s feelings - literally driving me insane, making me believe she was inconsolable, whilst secretly smirking behind my back. This is very similar to calling me a pervert and pretending to be a prude, whilst secretly being extremely perverted when I’m not around.

So it seems BPD might explain it after all then. I suspected it might have been BPD when I first started researching the subject but wasn’t sure due to the severity of some of her behaviour.

Anyway, thank you very much for helping me! It’s been driving me mad for quite a long time now.

I don't understand the personality disorder 'clusters', but I think there is overlap between BPD, NPD, and maybe AsPD- someone correct me if I'm mistaken in that. I'm nowhere near being NPD or AsPD, but I can see a few little traces of those traits in me, maybe a little more than normal- or maybe I'm just hyperaware, or just like to beat myself up over things. I'm OCD, and so I'm real good at overthinking things.

No human being- certainly no human you're not blood kin to- I mean, we're stuck with kin to an extent, right?- seems to me, is worth living rent-free inside a person's head, when it's been an abusive relationship. Not to say I don't have compassion for someone with a serious PD; but just after a certain point it's like 'okay, time to move on'. I hope you find yourself able to do that. Also that if she pops back in out of 'nowhere' (which I think is likely, from other stories I've read here), that you'll be enough past her to be like, 'Um, nope I'm good thanks anyway'. And resist any attempt at charming herself back into your life- you don't need this; no one does.

Yes, I believe there are several different PDs overlapping in the case of my ex.

Like you I also see certain traits in myself. I'm socially a little awkward, a bit of a loner and I think I also experience the fear of abandonment, but not as intensely as my ex. I have insecurity issues too, but again, nowhere near as intensely as my ex. One massive difference between me and my ex though is that I realize when I've done wrong and will apologize, whereas waiting for an apology from my ex is like waiting for a politician to admit they were wrong about something

I'm not sure she will reappear in my life as she text me last week to tell me she has met a wonderful man. I suspect she met him before she disappeared, since going from contacting me dozens of times a day to disappearing overnight was really out-of-character for her. She can't go a day without attention. So she's already starting the cycle again with a new man. That might be a blessing. I seriously doubt he'll remain a wonderful man for long.

Thanks again for speaking with me! It's really helpful to hear someone else confirm how messed up she is, as after being in it for years you start to question yourself and wonder if it was all your own fault somehow. I keep thinking that all her behaviour was because I wasn't gentlemanly enough, because I didn't go to the bar often enough and sometimes let her go to the bar, or didn't pay for the drinks every time and went Dutch. There's definitely room for improvement in the way I treat women on dates I suppose, I could roll out the red carpet a bit more. But I'm not sure that justifies harassing someone for 10 or 11 hours a day every day for months and hitting them around in the middle of the night. Well, I hope not anyway!

No I'd say her actions were a bit out of proportion.

I just thought I'd pop back into this thread to mention that she did actually start contacting me again a few weeks later, this time to complain about her new boyfriend and to tell me they had stayed at the Lake District - information I hadn't asked for but was obviously an attempt to make me jealous as we had planned to visit there one day.

Silly me, I lapped it up when she said she missed me, but after a few phone calls including two 1 hour long calls she disappeared again. This started happening almost every week, she'd call me one day then ignore me for the rest of the week and leave my texts unanswered. It seems she just calls me when she's bored or lonely, then discards me again when she no longer needs me. This is making it so hard to move on. I'm extremely depressed actually. I know I should stop any contact with her but it's so hard. If my phone rings I jump like a dog when it's owner comes home. I wish I could forget about her.