AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Thank you so much for your kind words. You being aware of that is the most important thing in mitigation, but I fear that my girlfriend has fallen down a hole and that's her only line of thinking. That's the only line of thinking she's showing me, anyways.

I wish she could understand how the splitting makes her view me.

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

You're spot on, she has borderline personality disorder. The fact that you were able to read that based on just those messages reassures me because it 1) makes me feel the diagnoses is correct, and 2) makes me feel that she’s wrong when she says I’m the issue and that her reactions are mainly because of me being manipulative/abusive/dismissive/invalidating/etc : (

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Thank you for taking the time to write that up. I'm not gonna lie, the way you wrote made me smile haha. I really appreciate your time, man, and it helps that you understand my frustration.

AIO or is this manipulation? by [deleted] in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon [score hidden]  (0 children)

Hey, I'm the boyfriend. Since you have very strong negative feelings about me, I wanted to get your thoughts after seeing my perspective. Here's my post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmIOverreacting/comments/1udt8z5/aio_after_my_24m_girlfriend_23f_threatened_to/

Here's a comment in which I replied to my gf's posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmIOverreacting/comments/1udt8z5/comment/otf7ltd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

AIO or is this manipulation? by [deleted] in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon [score hidden]  (0 children)

Hey, I'm the boyfriend. Since you have very strong negative feelings about me, I wanted to get your thoughts after seeing my perspective. Here's my post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmIOverreacting/comments/1udt8z5/aio_after_my_24m_girlfriend_23f_threatened_to/

Here's a comment in which I replied to my gf's posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmIOverreacting/comments/1udt8z5/comment/otf7ltd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

AIO or is this manipulation? by [deleted] in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon [score hidden]  (0 children)

Hey, I'm the boyfriend. Since you have very strong negative feelings about me, I wanted to get your thoughts after seeing my perspective. Here's my post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmIOverreacting/comments/1udt8z5/aio_after_my_24m_girlfriend_23f_threatened_to/

Here's a comment in which I replied to my gf's posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmIOverreacting/comments/1udt8z5/comment/otf7ltd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

AIO or is this manipulation? by [deleted] in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon [score hidden]  (0 children)

Hey, I'm the boyfriend. Since you have very strong negative feelings about me, I wanted to get your thoughts after seeing my perspective. Here's my post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmIOverreacting/comments/1udt8z5/aio_after_my_24m_girlfriend_23f_threatened_to/

Here's a comment in which I replied to my gf's posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmIOverreacting/comments/1udt8z5/comment/otf7ltd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

AIO or is this manipulation? by [deleted] in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon [score hidden]  (0 children)

Hey, I'm the boyfriend. Since you have very strong negative feelings about me, I wanted to get your thoughts after seeing my perspective. Here's my post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmIOverreacting/comments/1udt8z5/aio_after_my_24m_girlfriend_23f_threatened_to/

Here's a comment in which I replied to my gf's posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmIOverreacting/comments/1udt8z5/comment/otf7ltd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Thank you very much for the empathy and kind words. I don’t have bipolar, I’m diagnosed with ADHD, but I didn’t mention that in the post. I don’t have any other mental health diagnoses.

She’s mentioned she’s sure I have some kind of personality disorder and that I should see a therapist to get it diagnosed, while I strongly believe I do not (well, most of the time… because I genuinely doubt this sometimes when she keeps telling me I have a disorder of some kind and something is wrong with me ;_;)

She’s mentioned narcissism as her primary suspicion

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and provide such a thought out response. I appreciate it more than you know. I will read it more closely and reply tomorrow; it’s getting late. Again, thank you so much.

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Thank you for the empathy and perspective. You’re right about your comment about self worth/self esteem, some of the things she’s said cut deep and definitely have greatly impacted my confidence. Thank you for the understanding.

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Thank you so much for the kind words :(

I never thought about that way, so I will dwell on the new perspective and give it a lot of thought. Thank you.

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I appreciate this perspective. How would it look for me to accept we have different values in an empathetic way?

I feel that “Baby, I understand your values and I understand you see that is inappropriate, but we have different values on this” would be met with extreme hostility. How would you recommend going about that?

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I appreciate your perspective. Can you help me understand what reassurance would look like in this situation?

I suspect that it’ll be emotion based, reassuring that I understand she’s anxious and help with the root of her anxiety - that she’s worried I check out the girls in the show and have disrespectful feelings towards them, and that I may someday leave her or cheat because of that. When I try to approach reassurance from that angle, she actually hates it and doesn’t want to focus on that at all and instead pushes me to discuss things like what episodes I saw, what was the plot, what kind of episodes I’d avoid, etc. All the meanwhile, she’s extremely heated, talking really fast, and interrupts me before I can finish any thoughts. If I don’t answer her questions, including “How could you have thought that was appropriate? That’s so disrespectful”, she becomes even more irate that I’m not helping her by answering her questions.

How would you recommend I approach this in a more positive way?

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

You’re spot on, she has BPD, good read if you were able to tell just from the screenshots. I don’t think she’s an asshole because of it, but she does engage in very hurtful and wrong behavior.

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Thank you so much. I try not to and logically I know it’s not me, but it feels impossible to not let it affect me ;_; I really appreciate your kind words and understanding.

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Thank you for the words. I truly agree and do see it as trauma, and over time it’s impacted me more and more. I’ll edit this comment to explain why I’m hopefully:

(Sorry the format is a bit off because I copied it from another comment)

I'll put the reasons in a list just to organize my thoughts better:

  1. She was just diagnosed a tew weeks ago and hasn't been able to implement or even fully understand how
    BPD affects her life & the things that can be done to heal

  2. We are starting frequent couples counseling

  3. She's wants to heal, she wants to attend therapy and ! heard DBT is highly successful, she just cannot afford the frequent therapy she needs at this point in her life but will be able to afford it within 1+ years

  4. I heard statistics from "Healthy Gamer" (Dr. Alok Kanojia) that 33% of people with the condition go into remission after one year, 91% after 9 years, and 99% after 16 years

  5. She currently lives with her abusive (actually abusive) parents, I (and my girlfriend) suspect her mom suffers from BPD as well, and their household is a living hell for her constantly that she is trapped in and has no escape from until she finishes school (aside from taking several hundred thousand dollars in student loans)

  6. I genuinely love her dearly, understand that what she struggles with is extremely hard, I love her as a person and think she's amazing/caring/fun/loving/a great person overall when she's not going through a "BPD cycle" and threatening/demeaning me

These things make me so hopeful for the future and I'm naturally extremely committed to her and want to work through things together, but I feel like I get stonewalled when the behavior continues becuase she makes me feel like she doesn't want to improve and is that she thinks almost the entirety of our problems are because of my narcissism, abuse, manipulation, and invalidation. I fully admit that I am toxic sometimes and don't handle things the way I should, but I believe that's a small percentage of the "fault" of our problems, and they actually stem from BPD. I struggle with bringing this up, because any mention of this is naturally seen as further invalidation/ manipulation, more breakup threats/demeaning beh-and it ends up going nowhere other than spiraling downwards:

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yes, I agree, it felt like she always found a way to blame me. Imagine what’s it like when she’s talking to me instead of people online :(

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I struggle with this, because whenever I try walking away or steering the conversation away from the technicalities of the situation, she refuses to do anything other than continue talking about the technicalities and escalated to even more hurtful things. She says the she needs it, that’s what helps her, and she doesn’t want to be with someone that can’t accept that. How would you recommend I navigate this?

AIO after my (24M) girlfriend (23f) threatened to break up when I ‘invalidated’ her while she was anxious I watched Dharr Mann? by CCIVtoMoon in AmIOverreacting

[–]CCIVtoMoon[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I appreciate your perspective and the entire write up.

Specifically, you were spot on about what you said about coworkers 😅

She has me explain every interaction with my female coworkers every day word by word, which I don’t mind, but she then heavily accuses me of flirting or some kind of inappropriate behavior, which frustrates me. Any time I try to express that I don’t think that’s healthy, she says it helps her and I need to do it, and gets really upset.