Confused, hurt and every other emotion you can think of.

Hi, I am an individual that suffers from Bipolar, and recently I came out of a relationship with a person I suspect has a Narcissistic personality disorder. They are the one who left me and I am confused and broken hearted at the moment even after four weeks on after they disappeared on me and went home to live with their mother and father. This is my story.

Three years ago I met this amazing guy. I mean, he really rocked my socks. SInce the first day I met him in town I was absolutely infatuated with him. That is, I hung on every word he said. It felt like love, it felt like something I had never felt before. If you have ever had that feeling where you have felt something is almost unreal and you are the luckiest person alive, this was one of those moments. Little did I know that below the surface was a person that was appealing to every insecurity I have ever had. Very deep insecurities from my childhood - the desire to be loved, and to have security, and the over all fear of abandonment.

The first four months of the relationship were amazing. I mean, it felt like true love and this person was "the one". When you are in this moment you are completely oblivious to everything around you, in fact it is even worse, you even start to shut off the world around you. In a sense you become isolated and this person becomes the only thing in your life through your own choosing! I am sure some of you can recognise the danger in this already. Putting your eggs in only one basket is setting yourself up for failure. If for some reason the rug is pulled out from underneath you, you are left with nothing. Having nothing makes you simply do one of two things, run back to the person and comply with every demand they have, or you collapse in a heap and loose your $#%^. Both outcomes are not particularly good for both your mental and physical health, and you can end up in a repeating cycle.

Lets face it, we all have an ego, and we like to feel important. While our ego is one of the things that keeps us confident, it can also be our own worse enemy. When it is over stroked, we can be trained into behaving in ways we never thought possible just to get that next fix. The biggest danger is, we are rarely aware it is even happening. Quite simply we just start to feel good, but we are completely unaware that we are actually developing a dependency on the person who is stroking us. This is what was happening to me over the several years I was in the the relationship. I began depending on them to inspire me and make me feel good rather than looking within myself. Over time this gave my partner tremendous power over me, and in the end I began to loose even my sense of self.

I think it is very important that we look at what draws us to people who stroke our ego. At the core they are appealing to a very deep need inside us that is carried over from childhood. When we have stress in our lives and are going through challenging times, the smarter part of us that picks up the movements of potentially damaging people shuts down and the primitive part of us takes control. It is very simple to enter this state - bad diet, poor sleep, lack of exercise are all precursors. Mix this with uncertainty, a waning self esteem and suddenly you are susceptible to loaded relationships where any stroking of your ego will take the spot light from your own life's inadequacies.

This is where self awareness comes in. In order to avoid potential social minefields we need to become aware of how we work as people. The more we understand about how our emotions govern us the more empowered we can be when it comes to protecting ourselves from toxic relationships.

During the first two years of my partnership I was completely oblivious to what was happening to me. I knew I was angry all the time, but I didn't know what at. My physical health began to suffer, my self esteem was constantly sinking, and I was dependent on the feedback from my partner to make me feel good. Suffice to say I was not happy, but I was constantly convincing myself I was. Now that I am on the outside I can see what was happening to me, and in the psychological world the phenomena is referred to as mirroring.

What is mirroring? Well funny enough, it is exactly what it sounds like. We do it all the time to some extent, but in times where our self esteem is at rock bottom, we start to tear apart our own identity. Because we are so unsure of ourselves we begin to become like the person who is injecting us with a false sense of praise. On some fundamental level we clearly believe they hold the answer to our happiness and therefore are convinced if we become like them, we to will know the key to our own happiness. Sadly this behaviour is hugely flawed, and in times of extreme stress we can develop a twisted perspective on what is really happening.

My partner was an incredibly angry person. He hated people, and generally hated the world at large. I on the other hand, under normal circumstances love people and embrace the world with open arms. Sadly though, due to the mirroring effect, I began to develop the same negative out look as my partner. In fact, it got so bad I even got anxiety when I entered the street or caught public transport. People annoyed me, and even the smallest mishaps drove me crazy. Post relationship I began to think perhaps I had a problem with anger, but within only two weeks of exiting, I knew already I was nothing like my ex.

When you are in a relationship and it breaks down, it is very easy to self blame. You begin to look at everything and how the whole relationship transpired. You may even begin to think the breakdown was your own fault. This is where spending time outside the relationship can give you a whole new perspective. As time passes you begin to loose the elements of mirrored behaviour and you begin to regulate back to your normal self. It is at this time you begin to see what really happened, and in my case the relationship drove me crazy and transformed me into an angry and resentful monster.

It is now four weeks out since the initial breakup. Even in the first week of the split I started to see an almost instant increase in my own self confidence. I was getting out more, seeing more friends and family in two weeks than I had seen in over three years in the relationship. Naturally this felt good, and I began to show more interest in other peoples feelings and passions. The truth is, during the relationship I didn't care much for other people other than pleasing my partner to get the small bits of affection he would give me to keep me hooked. In truth, he would starve me of love, and I would respond in ways that pleased him to get more. This is why I often refer to this as the training period, whereby my partner was punishing or rewarding me for behaviours he felt were conducive to what he wanted.

Now I am by no means saying I am perfect, and there are a few things I may have done differently in hindsight, but overall I was a loyal and committed partner who did my best to involve him in my world. I use to invite him out with me all the time with my groups of friends and family, but over time I began to do this less because he pretty much hated everyone I introduced him to. Over time I began to catch up with friends individually, which makes me realise there was a part of me that needed a desperate release from the oppressive ways of my partner.

On the day we split, my partners first attack was in relation to the time I had been spending with my friends. He argued that I was allowed to go out with friends without him yet he wasn't. Now I will admit, I became very frustrated when he would not involve me with his one group of friends. This is primarily because I always made the effort to involve him with mine. On reflection he was taking selective information from my behaviour and turning it against me. Now, if he was going out with an individual I would have had no problem with it, I mean three is a crowd let's face it, but in group situations the more the merrier. In the early stages of the breakup I honestly thought my behaviour was selfish, but in hindsight I know it wasn't. Quite simply I just wanted the same inclusiveness that I extended to him.

At the moment I am writing this article in one of my favourite cafes, and even today I have noticed how much the world has changed in response to me. People are now coming up out of the blue to speak to me, and I am listening to what they have to say. I am no longer angry and actually view the world with a healthy level of optimism.

I know I am angry at my ex now, but it is entwined with a sense of empathy and sympathy, and dare I say it a form of deeper love. The truth is, at his core there are a lot of reasons why he acted the way he did. Most of it comes from extreme pain and suffering that he experienced earlier on in his life. I suspect he is someone who loathes himself and has little belief in his own future. This is a very difficult place to be, and I know this because I was there once to. I would like to think I can still maintain contact with him to help him deal with his inner turmoil. The truth is, I still love him and still want to stand by him. Ultimately I forgive him for his mistakes and his behaviour, but do not feel his behaviour was acceptable.

At the moment I am confused and am not sure which way to turn.

It's pretty tough when you're confused in a situation like this,what about talking with him and seeing if he is willing to change. Nobody changes unless they want to. What are the kind of negative things he has done over this?