The psychological fallout of a BPD relationship

Living the Aftermath of a BPD relationship.

They say trauma bonds feel like love, but what you’re really addicted to is survival. I didn’t understand that for at least half a year. Until after the breakups and reconciliations, the gaslighting, the love-bombing followed by sudden silence. Until after my nervous system had been rewired like a faulty alarm that never shuts off. No matter how sure I am of no fires being present.

Some of you might have a shirt or hoodie lying around. Remenants of your last relationship. Probably left over, accidentally, by your previous partner. Well I didn't get lucky enough to "inherit" a shirt. My souvenir from that relationship is CPTSD. And it’s not poetic, not beautiful, not character building. It’s waking up in the middle of the night with my heart racing. It’s my chest tightening when the notification sound goes off in somebody's phone. It’s the way a look, a shift in tone, even a pause in conversation feels like the prelude to being abused all over again.

Clinically, CPTSD is defined by hypervigilance, dissociation, emotional flashbacks, and a fragmented sense of self.

I scan every word, every gesture, waiting for anger. I read too deeply into everything that's being said out loud. Even by those I trust. Specific regular words make me relive the memories and feel worthless again. Certain smells bring me back to the abuse i experienced at his hand. The sound of a notification makes the hair on the back of my neck stand straight.

And then there’s the quiet, private cost. The way my motivation dried up. The way projects gathered dust because my energy had been spent on managing the relationship, predicting his mood, holding someone else together. The exhaustion giving it's way to insomnia. At one point survival became the only project left.

For months now I've been struggling in silence. Keeping the flasbacks, trauma and turmoil to myself. It has impacted my physiological health severely.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to love without trembling. If I’ll ever make something beautiful without hearing his voice in my head, criticizing or doubting. Sometimes it leaves me wondering if this is just my life now: carrying a ghost, not of him, but of who I was before him. A fragile shell of who i once was walks the earth.

People talk about moving on. But CPTSD doesn’t let you "move". It makes you live inside the same moment forever, the same guilt, the same anxiety, the same freezing silence. And so, in a way, I never left. 

If you're struggling with CPTSD reach out to someone. Don't suffer in 

silence.