Trying to understand Ex-Girlfriend's Destructive Behavior

I am 28yrs old and recently came out of a year long relationship with a woman (23) that ended pretty badly and I can't help but try to figure out what happened to her. There were many signs of her destructive behavoir but I didn't realize until the end just how severe they were. I'll list them because I could write a book about this:
1) She told me she had had 20 sexual partners, she's 22 at the time.
2) When we broke up for the first time she said she felt guilty being with me and said that I was too good for her. She also reiterated many times that "I am not a good person." This was the 1st major sign because I'd never had anyone say to me that they were a bad person.
3) She always said that she doesn't get emotional about sex, would rather have no emotional attachment and sex to her is more of a conquest.
4) She said that liked to get a guy to be into her and then sleep with him, she felt she had won the battle
5) She kept 2 blogs, one private, that I could never read that detailed her sexual history and exploits
6) She's pretty much addicted to blogging online and I think it's a way to express herself annonymously without her friends judging her (but I don't know).
7) She would become very clingy as we got more serious, I was always into her, but I always felt she was almost pushing me away.
8) She had mentioned to me that her friend (I've met the friend but was obviously never allowed to ask about this) was molested as a child and was a cutter growing up. From the moment she told me this I thought it could have had something to do with her but I didn't think it was on me to press this.
9) Although I would always tell her that I thought that cheating was the worst thing one could do to another person...
POST BREAKUP (remember ex-girlfriend) I later found out...
10) that she had cheated on me with 3 different people and that while she was living with me she was sleeping with the new guy (she's with him now) behind my back.
11) The most amazing thing about the cheating is that I suspected it until I confronted her twice and she looked me straight to my face and told me that nothing was going on
12) She moved across country to 'get a new start on life' but moved back a month later.
13) In our revalation talk I never got the sense that she was that sorry, she said that she made poor decisions and that she was emotionally done after one of our fights. However, I found out she was cheating on me pretty much the whole time because...
14) I've actually read some of the personal blogs (she doesn't know this and although it's not right, I'm pretty computer savy, and couldn't help it) and she doesn't express any remorse just saying that sometimes this is what girls do. If you really think you could help I'll be happy to send you transcripts but won't post them here.

I always knew she had low self esteem and she admitted she was very selfish. I'm not a psychologist but could see that early on. I thought she was pushing me away because of her impending move, but now I'm not so sure. I just thought it was because of some past bad relationships and always figured that if I treated her right that she would see that there are guys out there that care. I also told her that she deserved someone (me or anyone else) that would treat her the way a woman should be, with respect and adoration, and I adored her most of the time (sometimes she would drive me nuts). She would always say that she's not the type of girl who would ever cheat but after the manipulation and cunning she did to fool me I'm sure this isn't the first time.

What I need to know is (and it's partly because of my own selfish nature) having read this, what the heck happened to her? Who hurt her? At first I thought bad past relationships but now am almost certain she was either molested or raped. From what you've read, what do you think? Again, that's why I wanted to get someone's personal or professional opinion.

PS - When she was caught I did not lash out at her and did not degrade her. I told her that I forgave her and wished her happiness in whatever she was going to do. Although I don't want to be with her, I truly feel sorry for her and only see this pattern continuing with very bad results and I don't want that to happen to her. I feel as though there's a good person deep down in there and made the age old mistake of trying to change people, I now know it doesn't work.

Comments?????

Sounds like a personality disorder to me. She may very well have been abused or neglected when she was younger, and she has a very distorted idea of what intimacy is supposed to be or what a healthy relationship is. Sadly you are right in that this pattern will most likely repeat itself many times until something motivates her to change. As long as she is young or attractive or smart or manipulative, etc. t here will always be guys out there who will fall for her, and she will always use them to feed her needs. Just be glad it will no longer be you. Learn your lesson and move on... many people spend years in emotional entanglement with people like this, hoping someday they would really win the other's love, not realizing that the other doesn't really know how to love. There is help for her out there but not until she really wants it and even then it will be very difficult.

A lot of the things you have listed are things ive seen before, but never so many rolled into one.

In terms of the "conquest" of sex thing, it could be a few different things, possibly that she is suffering from a sort of dillusion about being useless, and sex is something she is good at, and when she sleeps with a guy, she feels like she has accomplished something.
Another thing, someone a knew who was quite a slut, would make out, and sleep with a lot of guys explained it to me as a sort of distraction from reality, when they are chasing a guy, and in the process of getting with a guy, its all they have to think about, their problems go away and they focus on the guy.
The problem with both of these is that its a temporary sollution an it makes things a lot worse, they will loose even more respect for themselves as they see themselves becoming more of a slut. But it just means they will do it even more.

As the the second point, about when you broke up, it sounds like she had a fair bit of realisation about who she was, probably a bit of time alone and thinking about everything. She might not be a bad person, but her self esteem would say otherwise.

Clingy but pushing away, probably means she was scared of being hurt, could explain the unatachment with sex, possibly messed around by a lot people, used and what not, it can create a lot of mixed feeling, like not wanting to trust people and get close to them because you feel they may just leave you

Her cheating on your sounds like the same dissociation with sex and commitment.

moving away sounds like a typical thing a lot of people do. they want to try and get better, and so try to distance themselves from everything that might remind them that they arnt ok. this could mean changing their appearance, cutting hair, dumping boyfriends and friends, and moving away.

and with the blogging thing, and no remorse, people can actually tell themselves they arnt doing anything wrong by cheating, this usually occurs when people have friends or family who cheated a lot, they grow up thinking its ok, that if theres no emotion, it doesnt matter.

not sure if that helps at all, and i welcome anyone to question/challenge my thoughts, just my thoughts on the matter

No remorse for hurting people around her.
avoiding responsibility for behavior.
minimizing what she does as if its no big deal.
major slutness and "using it as a personal distraction".
talking so much about "a friends" private personal stuff so freely, indicator of living in others' lives, i.e. drama creation.
when confronted, pulling the "poor me" card and never really accepting what is told to her.

All red flags to me of something that I've unfortunately had to go through completely blind.

so, narcissism, psychotic like (believing in this fantasy world where she is everything and everything else is just to satisfy her).

You're in deep into her games now, believing the best of her (of course there is a person in there, but the one you see now is a persona built over the real one) is not the wisest idea.

Having been down that road myself, and having been much like you are now with a particular individual, its probably best to look up the histrionic personality disorder forum which you can find here:

http://psychforums.com/viewforum.php?f=143

When you met her did:
She make you feel special like you were an amazing person?
She immediately within a few days to a few weeks talk about very personal things that in hindsight seem unusual for someone to just unburden to someone they barely know? (like her cutter and abused "friend", mine told me she was abused and I found out from others she is a cutter, described as being very dramatic and pity seeking, also damsel in distress type)
She seem to have an unusual amount of "bad" things happen in her life, past or current?

I got the same thing. I'm too important, and she didn't want anything bad to happen to me by being around her. lies.

anyway, its good to see you aren't into the bitter stage yet, you'll likely have a quicker progression and come out of it better for yourself. she, like anyone, deserves someone to both stand up for what they believe in, and keep compassion towards them, but not be willing to throw themselves under the bus they make for themselves, because that simply reinforces their behavior and causes more bad blood down the road.

The reason we are susceptible is because of our own flaws in perceiving the world, our own egotism, and such.

I hope you can work through this to your best benefit.

on personality disorders:

just like sexualization of contemporary society by example and the deluge of so many sexualized images, its my view that we also create melodramatization. we see it all the time on TV, and imitation is a basic instruction in all animals, unfortunately for those people living in places with so much variety and only one constant "way of life" that they can see all the time. when we have no strong ties to a community (neighbors increasingly are strangers to each other, and who knows who anyone is?) the most influential things are the most consistent things.

of course, Plato's republic basically quantifies and proves the same things about drama and negative music and plays and such being poisonous. the christian bible relates a passage of a type of woman which fits histrionic to a T.

good post.

Aesopful wrote:No remorse for hurting people around her.
avoiding responsibility for behavior.
minimizing what she does as if its no big deal.
major slutness and "using it as a personal distraction".
talking so much about "a friends" private personal stuff so freely, indicator of living in others' lives, i.e. drama creation.
when confronted, pulling the "poor me" card and never really accepting what is told to her.

All red flags to me of something that I've unfortunately had to go through completely blind.
.

Sounds like my current ex! Crikey. In fact that is HER. Scary. How did her doctor/specialist not notice this?