I was hoping for some help from people who have experience of toxic relationships where the person has narcissist personality or borderline personality because I am struggling a lot with how confused I am by my feelings at the moment.
I met a lady who I later found out has borderline personality which explains a lot of her odd behavior, intensity and emotional acting out. She was very lovely to me at first, and later on there was a lot of emotional blackmail and even very abusive and violent behavior along with recklessness such as drinking and self harm threats and so on, but it took a long time for this to all come out.
It was intensive love bombing at first and I was lonely and susceptible to it and she was very quick to want to spend every minute with me. It felt wonderful, she could not do enough for me, fun, listening, caring and seemed to be interested in everything I was interested in. She sort of inserted herself into my life so she was present in a lot of my activities and we would spent a lot of time talking where she would ask me endless questions and was so interested in me and this made me feel really happy and relaxed.
The relationship turned sexual after a few months although I wasn't really attracted to her in that way it sort of happened due to how I started feeling attached with her and she seemed so affectionate and caring with me and there were a few weeks of very nice feelings of being safe and cared about and some very nice sex.
After a few weeks she started being strange with me and wanting very fast commitment and getting very upset and angry if I didn't want to spend all my time with her and she would cry and tell me I was breaking her and so on which made me feel really guilty and a bit on edge so I would give in to her.
I wasn't sure I wanted a "relationship" with her I am not sure how to explain this but she kind of made out we were a couple in front of people and she'd sort of push herself onto me. Very quickly she was monitoring when I was online and having fits of rage at me demanding to know who I was talking to. She wanted to sleep at my place every night and if I said no she would plead with me or even cry asking if she could please sleep in my bed so I could settle her and I felt like she was vulnerable so it ended up taking over.
She then told me she loved me and I said I didn't think I saw her as a romantic partner long-term and suggested we go back to being close friends because I really enjoyed being with her and after that it got very messy. As she had spent so much time with me and had isolated me from really everyone else socially and emotionally, I felt very dependent on her and was seeking to go back to that nice feeling I had initially.
She didn't want that and she escalated her behavior to being really crazy and volatile to the point I was actually really scared of her and was thinking about moving house to another city to escape because I felt completely trapped. I found it very, very hard to leave her though because the relationship drama was sort of addictive.
It was cycles of her being very volatile and frightening, including putting a lot of threats on me that made me ill with anxiety attacks and depression, and then her apologising and saying she loved me so much and going back to the kind and caring version that made me feel safe. It took a really long time, and some really escalating behavior for me to break away from her completely.
Once I did, I felt really relieved at first, but I couldn't break the bond with her for several months and she hassled me to the point of it really concerning friends and family who said it was dangerous and worrying behavior. I sometimes saw that and was scared of her, and other times just saw her as vulnerable and that it was my fault for rejecting her that she was such a mess. I kept trying to look after her and friends were telling me I needed to keep away.
I eventually got complete separation from her after one really scary incident when I realised any contact with her was risky to both of us, and my doctor explained to me that she was not well and was not my friend and didn't love me and I made a big effort to detach. After that it was such a strange feeling because even though her actions were really frightening to me I felt the most intense withdrawal from her. I felt lost without her completely and started to wonder if I loved her and wanted her back.
I am starting to feel better now, as the intense withdrawal has faded a lot but my mind is stuck on missing that nice feeling at the beginning when she was so nice to me and we felt so connected. I have never felt connected like that so intensely and I miss the feeling a lot. I have spent time wondering if maybe I had committed to her, we would have been happy together and my friends tell me I am mad.
I do remember how awful some of the incidents were, and I'm aware she was using emotional manipulation and threats and controlling actions to me and I don't want those things, but I am struggling to detach to the intensity of how it felt when she was nice to me. Friends and family say I am acting very out of character by glossing over her terrible actions and how horrible she was to me.
I don't feel I am in love with her, but feel this sense of loss. Has anyone experienced anything like this? I find it hard to see her in a bad light although it has been pointed out to me that she is my abuser I don't know why I can't see this. I still see her intermittently and we have casual chats. She has moved on with someone else and I hope she is happy but also feel a sense of loss about that. Would no contact make this easier?