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General Breaking up with someone with c-ptsd

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Hi all,

I joined the forum just for this.

Firstly, I want to acknowledge the journey each of you is on. While I do not understand it, I do empathise with you.

I am recently (two months or so) single after breaking up with a woman with C-PTSD. It has been pretty challenging, life-changing, and actually opened up a lot of doors for me personally. I feel a bit stuck in the doorframe of one at the moment though and maybe talking here will help.

Where to start... well it was a short and intense relationship - four or five months. In that time we met and a month and a half later moved to a new city and started living together.

This person is amazing in many, many ways and I believe in her ability to heal 100%.

Her trauma is multiple sexual and the raping has occurred from many men and extended into adulthood. Her mother was largely absent when she was younger and is an alcoholic. Her father lived in a different country. She was placed with her grandparents at an early age and also lived in foster homes. She left home as a young teen, was a class-A drug addict at a young age (heroin, meth), got off it on her own, discovered pole-dancing, became a stripper, became a sugar baby, and all throughout this tried to balance a tier of dysfunctional and split apart pieces.

When I met her she was rebounding from another recent rape, and had tried to kill herself a month and a half earlier. I was immediately drawn to her and a very intense connection grew very fast. Our meeting was filled with a lot of power, love, synchronicity, etc... She was all lined up to begin a course of EMDR and seemed pretty excited about it. She had stopped stripping and was living off a government benefit, within her means, but seemed humble within that.

So off we went... I was in a high paying job and loved to spend money on her. I wanted to make her happy. It was my main intention. Plus, I loved watching this intensely beautiful soul come to life. It touched me. Our sex was very trusting, deep, and powerful. She let me into her heart very quickly and it had never happened to her before. That made me feel pretty good about my quality.

When she told me that she had C-PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Bipolar I somehow didn't even care. I looked into it and I thought, "If we can stay in this heart space, we are going to have an amazing life." So we did.

It is worthwhile pointing out right now that, after meeting with a psychologist who specializes in C-PTSD since we broke up, I realize I have Secondary PTSD and that a bunch of trauma from significant women in my life has kind of impacted upon me and my body. I am learning a lot about this, and of course this is why I feel stuck in the door frame a bit.

Secondary PTSD is a real mother though, as you cannot heal the thing that disturbs you. Even now, this last partner's trauma - not even my own - effects me.

I should have known something was up after we had spent a few nights together. After a real loving night, we were talking in bed about politics. I made the mistake of shutting off from her in the heart and speaking at length about my perspective on how love, God and politics overlap and I knew it wasn't her perspective. While I was talking, she was lying in my arms. When I came back to being present with her, I knew something had shifted. The next morning she seemed strangely distant. She buttoned my shirt, sent me off to work. Later that day I received a message on FM messenger. She unequivocally broke up with me and offered no room for return. It was cold, officious and lacked any humanity.

I was devastated - I was absolutely enraptured by this woman. I cried on the way home and thought, "OK life, you brought me her and now she has gone. Well, I will find a way to move on." Even after a short period of time, this woman had stolen my heart.

I asked her if we could catch up a week later as I had started to doubt a lot of things about myself. Basically, it started a pattern where I am today, where I think that it is my fault, even though I know better in my mind. That is my own stuff, but it's a real mother also.

So, we talked and fell back into each other again. A month and a bit passed. We spent a lot of time together. No arguments, just getting to know each other. I decided to move away as my work contract had ended and she decided to stay and start her six-month EMDR therapy. I was moving a few hours away by plane to a city where she wanted to move to eventually. I looked forward to flying her back and forth to catch up. We talked about her moving over after her therapy. She was so excited by it, she hoped it would take the nightmares away.

Well, after being in the new city for a week I asked her if she wanted to move here with me in the near future and she said yes. I guess she really trusted me. I was elated. We started to make packing arrangements. She sold her furniture, which was pretty big for her as she was so poor. She was planning to leave and not come back. She must have been in a pretty vulnerable space, hoping that life had finally delivered her the ace card after a lot of painful experiences.

A week before she arrived it got a bit stressful due to the packing and the shifting, and dealing with some pretty strange and vague behavior from her, which I later came to understand as her disconnection method when she feels overwhelmed. In that time, we had a very minor disagreement where I felt it was best just to take charge and solve the problem. This freaked her out; always vigilant for the imbalance of power in the environment, she started to ask herself if it was a good idea. Yet she came anyway.

Straight off the plane, I saw her and fell in love with her all over again. We had found an amazing house, a mansion really. But she seemed distant and vague.

In that first ten days of living with each other, I wasn't really present. I was all over the show, trying to balance a new job, a new house, new furniture, but most importantly a new relationship with someone who was acting different than when we were in our last city, very different.

Understanding C-PTSD now, I understand what was happening with her. But to me, I just started getting more anxious as I could feel the presence of trauma and anxiety and started trying to solve it in different ways. I am pretty empathetic, I didn't realise how much until we broke up.

Anyway, after ten days - while I was out - she sent me another message on FB. She was leaving to go stay with her estranged father. It was too intense. She was scared and in fear. She asked me not to contact her.

BOOM. I died, in a way. And I let her go. That was the second big dose of trauma I experienced with this person. There was more to come.

See, she had me believe that she was a genuine empath. And she is, but she has this button that flicks and then she is the coldest and most distant, punishing force I have met. I guess she was punishing me for all of the things that have hurt her. It was grossly unfair and I, deep in my ridiculous healer complex-secondary PTSD-in love combo was in her palms completely by this point.

Obviously, she needed the power. She needed to have the power in every situation together, Even changing her perspective on something was a big thing. She was scared that I was playing with her head. I only see this now, in hindsight.

Well, I let her go, and hey we started talking. She was very much in love too, she was so triggered by my behavior in those ten days, in my self-absorbed and self-centered, disconnected behavior. I don't blame her either, and I took it like a sack of rocks on my back.

I started flying her back and forth from her father's house. She told me that all she wanted was to heal, to be with herself completely, to have a strong physical routine (pilates, yoga, bar, weights), to dance (only pole), see a psychologist, start EMDR and get better.

I supported her in this, started sending her some money etc... whatever I could afford.

After a month or two she made a big decision. She wanted to come back.

Mind you, it was getting pretty hectic at her father's house.

I suspect in a way she may have been using me? Like, despite the fact that we had a connection, I was putting in the heartfelt commitment and she was like a cat with a ball, playing with it and seeing what happened. When her situation was no longer good enough for her, she decided to move in.

During this time she had become convinced that I was a Narcissist. By now, I was kind of lost and started to listen to everything she had to say completely. Probably not a good idea... So, I tried to "cure" my narcissism. I knew something wasn't right with me. In hindsight, what wasn't right was that I was trying to make things better for her. This was a big error, and in therapy since I can see how I have done this many times.

So, the decision for her was whether she trusted me to get over my "narcissism". Now, I find it remarkable that not once did she address her own fear and behavior. Neither did I point it out. I knew it would just push her away, and I wanted to heal with her.

She moved in and two weeks later she was gone. Same method, a FB message while I was at work. It had become a theme now.

The first two times I broke cleanly with her. This time, no, not so much. Her mother followed up with a few threats of physical violence by gang members. I left out the part that she grew up in a gang family.

So, what triggered her? Two things.

One, I suggested one day that her mother's neglect was a contributing factor to her C-PTSD but that at the same time her relationship with her mother was her blind spot. She would do anything her mother asked. She had this thing where she would just become the vessel for another person's will all over again, just like when she was a kid being abused.

I gently mentioned it in a few sentences. She looked at me strange and asked me to go on. I thought, "Oh, I know this is big and I am so happy she is letting me share my thoughts." So I talked for five minutes or so.

Once we had broken up, she told me that a "darkness had entered the room when I spoke" and that I was trying to separate her from her family.

Secondly, a few days before she left I bit her. We would bite each other playfully all of the time, in sex, on the bus, in the kitchen. It was kind of cute. We'd had a small fight that day and, for some reason, later on in the night I bit her but not on her shoulder like normal, on her arm. She yelled in pain and pushed me away violently. Long story, this triggered me off myself, I couldn't respond empathetically. I went outside and calmed down, walked back in and she was gone emotionally. We didn't talk that night, she ignored everything I had to say. She "knew" that I was intentionally trying to hurt her. There was no changing her mind.

So, now I was the physical abuser. Or maybe I wasn't. She was confused. I'd never hurt her before, or any other woman ever.

Yet, when she left she told me something that got to me. She said, "I am scared about what you will do to me once I have nowhere left to go." I was in shock! "Do" to you? "Yeah, like physical abuse."

Did I mention that she left on the day when we were due to move into our first house together? Oh yeah, the timing was brilliant.

So, I let her go again. This time for good. I don't want anything to do with this person anymore.

But of course, I love her. How couldn't I? Despite the fact that I was pretty unfairly treated (God I have only touched the tip of the iceberg here), I saw all of her good, and she is a very, very special person. Or maybe she is just very cute and I am whipped. Who knows?

I was devastated. Luckily I found a place with a friend who has let me stay ever since, I kept a strong physical fitness routine, I started seeing a psychologist for the first time ever (such a great idea!) and gradually began working out how to not take on board all of this persons intense projections about her own pain and hurt.

Sadly (for me anyway), she moved on and started having sex for money through Seeking Arrangement. Maybe she is on drugs again, I don't know.

She had brought up prostitution just before we got together. She didn't see it as a big deal, though she had never done it before. She asked me for my advice (!). She said that she saw herself at a crossroad. One path led to prostitution, lots of fast money, paying for therapy, having nice things etc. The other was a relationship, long and slow, deep spiritual growth, mindfulness, but less money and a slower path.

I guess she made her choice?

I told her how strange it was to me that this feminist who was attuned so deeply to the power imbalances of society, particularly between privileged men vs women, would take money from this very same system and fulfill the power-fantasy of privileged men just so she could get money. She didn't seem perturbed by the idea.

I told her how traumatic it would be, because she had a little girl in her who was frozen and that girl never once got the chance to choose with her heart, with genuine love, who to have sex with; that becoming a prostitute would only maintain that pattern.

So... why am I writing? Well, it was very traumatic for me too, breaking up. Living with C-PTSD. Not really understanding it. Trying to modify yourself to make it better. Taking everything on board. Believing that you are the problem.

After meeting with a psych in the break up period, she popped my narcissism self-assessment very quickly. I started learning about secondary PTSD. You know, if you have trauma, intense trauma, your partner and friend can take this on at an EXTREMELY deep level out of empathy for you? Deeper than you think. With my last partner, she would be releasing trauma a few hundred kms away and I was feeling it. I would lie in bed and "feel" the intense anxiety and pain of her abuse though she was far away. Secondary PTSD, it is a thing.

This person was definitely NOT ready for someone like me and what I was investing; not money or success, but the heart.

In hindsight, I had my own stuff you know? That healer mentality thing, that not knowing how much you are worth thing.

It is scary, to live with C-PTSD, to be that close to it. To see the weather of a shift in personality come in and know that you have no power to change it. To watch a switch flick down and someone's eyes switch into pure protection.

After speaking with my psych, I understand a little bit better about what she was going through, the fear, anxiety, mistrust, depression, desperation, intense hope, crushed expectations, punishment (a LOT of that), escapism...

Anyway, to be honest I had nowhere else to write this.

I hope with all of my heart that you see that this is not an attack on people with C-PTSD at all.

I wish for my friend to find all that she deserves, and that spiritual forces protect her and bring her to healers and situations that are of pure benefit.

It is hard to live with and break up with someone with C-PTSD. However, I am hoping - and am kind of sure - that I can turn it into the best "return to your own love" experience I have ever had.

I feel her most days, it is never a really good feeling.

Much love to all!
 
Thanks for sharing your story, @Subby Rose JE.

It sounds like you are currently working with a therapist. That’s great, and I’d encourage you to continue to do so.

I only wanted to comment on this:
It is scary, to live with C-PTSD, to be that close to it. To see the weather of a shift in personality come in and know that you have no power to change it.
I’m not sure all the behavior you were seeing was only related to the C-PTSD. Borderline PD is a very complicated disorder, as is BiPolar, and you said she was diagnosed with all three. To be actively and successfully managing even one of them would be a challenging task for her; being on top of all three would be very, very difficult. If those diagnoses were all correct, she was severely mentally ill. But - that doesn’t negate the fact that she also may not have felt the same way about you as you did about her.

In the bigger picture, it sounds like an unhealthy relationship, for both parties. So hopefully, it will be something you can eventually move forward from.
 
I have experienced all of that stuff for about 7 years and become codependent as a result of the relationship. I am in therapy because of her cptsd and very close to a final breakup to save my brain from more damage. The only advise is...leave her even if you love her. She will probably never be enough stable.
 
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