that empty feeling when your relationship is over ...

Hi all again.
I've registered now. I didn't want to come across as being a HPD myself (taking what I can from you all and then giving nothing in return ... LOL).

What I have noticed after leaving my hpd-ex g/f 6 months ago and now am finally getting to the point were I can get on with my own life, is that when I run into people on the street that I haven't seen since I started going out with my ex-HPD, when they ask me "so what have you been up to lately?" .... I find I have nothing to say about anything except for ... "well, I went out with this girl, she was a manipulative game player blah blah blah...."

I've realised that she sapped so much attention and energy from me that I was basically living for her existance, to support her massively insecured personality, to be there only for her and her needs alone. This is why, by the time I made my desicion to leave her, I felt so empty, ... like I was a shell of my former self. I didn't even feel like I knew who or what I was.

Imagine (I know you all can), when she started with the crying, the temper tantrums, the guilt trips (as she always had done during the relationship) just how confused I felt. That last sentence I know was a bit rhetorical, I know you all felt the same way when your relationships ended with your ex-HPD's.

To pile more crap on top of that, while trying to recover from the emotions, stress, emptiness and guilt of leaving her (I still didn't know at that point she had the HPD), here she is "stalking" me ... continually texting me, calling me, dropping off stuff on my front door, mailing letters, conveniently running into me in places I know she doesn't go to but she knows I go there, posting packages etc.

I don't know how (I think my own family helped me a lot here) but I am just so glad I had a shred of ability to be able to ignore her for the most part and NOT respond to her constant attempts to get back with me.

I think it would be almost and I will say ALMOST impossible to have an intimate relationship with someone who as HPD ... even if she/he had already been diagnosed with the disorder and both people were fully aware of the situation and what was required to be done.

Why .... because from what I have heard and read, the one in the couple which does not have the HPD must be fully on guard all the time, be vigilant, constantly assessing their emotions and reactions, setting boundaries, attempting to enforce those boundaries, confronting the HPD when the line has been stepped over, trying to make the HPD person accept resposibility to grow and learn, make them accountable, show them to look inside themselves and confront the reality of their situation.

This is what parents do for a child but the child will usually grow into a reasonably well adjusted person. For the most part, most children do. But a relationship with your child IS different to the one you should have with your adult life-partner!!

All this effort while trying to have an intimate, meaningful, adult and mature relationship!!!! A relationship where there should be mutual trust, give, take, comprimise, sharing, individuality for each person and togetherness for the partnership.

I might be weak (I don't really think so) but I can't go back to her and won't go out with another HPD again. I understand that couples have problems in relationships, but it would be ALMOST impossible to come out the other side of a long term relationship with a HPD and NOT suffer from some emotional issues yourself.

Treatment should really be left to the professionals in unison with family members, (ie brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers - as long as the one doing the helping was not one of the people involved in any prior abuse or emotional trauma during the HPD's childhood.)

The reason initially I came to post this here today is to tell you of my "shell of my former self" discovery. Did any of you have similar "discoveries" or realisations?

"I might be weak (I don't really think so) but I can't go back to her and won't go out with another HPD again. I understand that couples have problems in relationships, but it would be ALMOST impossible to come out the other side of a long term relationship with a HPD and NOT suffer from some emotional issues yourself."

No, you're not weak.

It would be weak (understandably so as they build such a tremendous parental love obsession in their victims) to go back to an HPD that hurt you.

Anyway in the book Emotional Vampires the author says determining if your particular emotional vampire is worth the effort to try to make the relationship work is all up to that person to decide if she is worth it ie all the trouble it will bring that man emotional and otherwise.

I'm in agreement with you. Its not worth it.

We can't save them, only they can save themselves through desire to change.

"The reason initially I came to post this here today is to tell you of my "shell of my former self" discovery. Did any of you have similar "discoveries" or realisations?"

Oh yeah but thats to be expected after being manipulated by a sociopath like this.

For a long time you think you've met the love of your life and then out of nowhere she turns on you and acts like you don't exist.

We get PTSD from it as our world view crumbles and we realize a whole lot of things...

1. She never cared about us.
2. The character she created for us of that perfect girl never existed
3. She lied to us a lot and even if we suspected something we wrote it off as paranoia because we were hypnotized by her act.
4. We don't know who we are anymore because her act caused us to be so in love with her, our entire focus was on her happiness and not taking care of ourselves and getting our own needs met.
5. Finally we realize that her sudden betrayel and abandonment of us combined with her never being the girl you first thought she was to begin with is really all like the unexpected death of a family member which adds even more to the awful trauma these girls inflict on everyone they get involved with.

thanks KontrollerX,
...its up to that person to decide if she is worth it ie all the trouble it will bring that man emotional and otherwise.

I actually think with my ex deeeeeeep down she is a nice person and she might be worth it, but at what cost to me?? I don't want to spend the next 10 years of my life having a patient as a partner (as in I'm the "live in doctor" and "crash test dummy" at the same time).

Best case scenario would be that she got better and I would end up an emotional and nervous wreck. That is no way to live life!