As a nonBP I’ve done things I’m not proud of. Responded to things too aggressively. Not held her when she was sad bc I was hurting too. Things I would never do under “normal” circumstances. Things that hurt my exwBPD. Real or imagined. Things that have “crushed” her and taken her “will to live”. I feel guilty. I feel her pain. And of course she felt pain that was 100x what a normal person would feel. I care about her and despite a heartfelt apology I still had these things thrown back in my face in the end. I never cheated on her or lied to her or degraded her as a person. In fact we had several conversations about her past sexual history and I never once made her feel bad about it. 

But, I don’t know where to begin to forgive myself. It’s really deep. I’m a good person. I don’t do things “to her” in a vacuum or maliciously and in at least one case she was a willing participant. The chaos and the emotions that came from the instability of her disease affected how I treated her in return. She was absolutely no angel and has no insight on her volatility bc she has no understanding of just how unhinged she was. No frame of reference.

That fight or flight reaction i got isn’t rational and when I was constantly under attack i was bound to make a mistake eventually. Mistakes of course were lorded over me forever and were brought back at all the worst times. Seemingly, my ex never applied the same pressure to herself when evaluating how toxic she was towards me at her worst and what it did to me. Never held herself to account and applied the same unforgiving attitude. 


I smiled and sat there at our final lunch together and i listened to all of her grievances without a semblance of self reflection on her part. No acknowledgement for the hell I dealt with.  It was all about her and her feelings and what I did to her even when she was accusing me of being selfish. The ultimate irony. I served tables for a decade and kept my resolve and forced a smile on my face and told her she will always hold a special place in my heart even though I doubt she’ll ever feel the same way despite our 1.5 years together. 

It was hard but I feel like in the end I was the only one that was held to account for the chaos that WE were a victim to. Her disease stole a beautiful opportunity from us and I’m bitter and resentful about that more than anything. It’s just hard to forgive myself when i look back and it feels like I’m the only one that made mistakes.