I need help understanding...

[jebediah]

...the past six years of my life.  Thank you to anybody that responds. 

Around six years ago I went back to college. I met a girl in class and about the third night of class as we are walking out to our cars to leave, she asks me when I am going to take her out to dinner.  I thought, well she is cute so why not right now.  We met up at Wendy's that night.  When we sat down to eat I could tell that she was very depressed and down so I asked her what was the matter?  She unloaded her entire life story on me.  Her mother had been married three times.  The last two men that her mother was married to molested her when she was a young girl and a teenager.  Her mother told her both times that it was her fault and that she should have not fallen asleep on her mothers bed.  Both times she made her daughter apologize and hug the men.  Moving on, she became pregnant in high school and gave birth to a boy and gave it up for her mother to raise.  She acknowledges that he is her son but does not spend much time at all with him and really only talks to him when she is visiting her mother.  Since the age of 18, she has been married and divorced three times. She was in the process of getting her third divorce when I met her at the age of 29.  With the first two marriages, she gave birth to a daughter with each man.  At the age of 27, she decided to give up total parental rights and visitation so that she could move away out of state with a guy she met.  When she returned home from out of state, she went into her third marriage and was in the process of divorcing him when I met her.  I was very scared of getting involved with her and resisted for months. I didn't want her to know where I lived and would not tell her. She would call and show up at places that she knew I was going to be at. I really started to feel sorry for her and she was very nice to me.  Slowly I started to let her into my life and eventually she moved in with me.  About three months after moving in with me, I came home one day from work and all of her stuff was gone. To make this story a little shorter, this went on and on for nearly six years. She would leave and come back, leave and come back. During this time she cheated on me, gave me HPV because of it, and tried to cheat on me with other men who had the better sense to stay away from her. I know all of this because they were men at my college. The one guy she did cheat on me with was a total loser who was married and his wife was getting cancer treatments.  From day one I was so good to this girl. I helped her purchase gifts for her girls when she could not afford them. I put gas in her car, I let her live with me rent free until she could get back on her feet financially after her third divorce. I don't understand how someone can be so callous to someone who was so good to them. About two months ago we were living together for about the third time and I could tell she was getting ready to bolt again. So I told her it was over and that I could not do this any longer. I told her I was going to purchase a condo and that she needed to make arrangements to go her own way.  This has been really rough on me and I think that maybe I am crazy because of it.  Why would I care about someone who treated me this way for so long? Why can someone you are so good to be so bad to you? We never fought, I never once even called her a foul name.  I have read a lot about this trying to understand why she behaves the way she does.  I think she has a Borderline or Histrionic Personality Disorder. The only thing she is really lacking is violent outbursts, however she has had them in the past.  I think she never got violent with me because I never pushed those buttons in her like others did.  She has always been very promiscuos.  She has been with a lot of men.  What do you all think? I just want to understand that there was nothing I could do for her.  I went to two different therapists with her but it always seemed like they were just a shoulder for her to cry on for 45 minutes.  I could never understand how she was not declared as having a personality disorder.  It was always her talking and them listening.  They put her on lexapro and one tried to put her on an anti-psychotic but she would not take it.  Any thoughts on why she acts this way? I never understood why she would leave me all of the time when I was so good to her.  Others have told me, if she can leave her children, she can leave you easily which makes perfect sense.  Any thoughts you may have would be welcome.  Thank you for helping me try to understand this.

[sakoz]

I'm not a clinican. You want to understand 'her'? How about understanding your involvement?

[jebediah]

I'm not a clinican. You want to understand 'her'? How about understanding your involvement?

I do want to understand her because she has really damaged my faith in humanity.  I don't understand how a person can hurt so many people in their life.  I understand what you are saying though.  Why was I involved with her when she treated me that way?  Why did I get involved with her to begin with.  Everybody *after the fact* said they would have run for the hills when they first met her.  I always thought, should this girl never be given another chance because of her past history? Turns out, probably not because she just repeats the behavior.

[sakoz]

She can't damage your faith in humanity; she's one specimen. Did you overgeneralize your experience with her?
Faith is belief; beliefs are thoughts. Who controls your thoughts and which ones you believe? There's always alternative thoughts to choose and the option of which ones to belief; unless operating from 'conditioned thought system', then your past is in charge.

I don't mean to be flippant, but I use metaphors, analogies. If you find a 'bad' peanut in a bag, you don't throw away the whole bag.

[voodoo scientist]

Don't listen to sakoz. Sometimes, I wonder how he sleeps at night, knowing that vulnerable people might take his uninformed advice to heart. Other times, I like to think his insanity stems from long term sleep deprivation, but that might be a just-world fallacy talking.

OP, it's very normal for a person like you and a person like her to get together. If you think about it, you or someone like you satisfies a lot of needs for someone like her, and to some extent she likely satisfies some needs for you or someone like you, so it's a fairly probable event. It's not your fault that she behaved the way she did to you, at least not in the sense that her behavior was a reaction to your behavior. It's just how she behaves, and the way she behaves was a factor in you eventually being attracted to her, just like the way you behave was a factor in her being attracted to you.

She likely suffers from multiple disorders and frequent abnormal behaviors that aren't necessarily pathological, and it would likely be an exercise in futility for anyone - even a skilled clinical psychologist or psychiatrist - to try and understand her within the context of a DSM diagnosis, because her case is so severe and compounded.

You're hardly crazy. There was absolutely, unquestionably "nothing you could do for her" in any realistic sense. The only thing you "could have done for her" was fundamentally mold your personality and preferences around hers. That would've been crazy - it's doubtful that it would have been in the interest of your happiness to do so

If you try and get detailed enough, you can spend the rest of your life trying to figure out why she did what she did, because that's just how complex a single human mind is, especially in extreme cases like your girl here! Try to think about all the things you did right that will carry over to future relationships with less obviously dysfunctional girls - patience, nonconfrontation, empathy and all those other complex skills you had to exercise are all much, much more effective when you're using them on someone who's capable of using them back.

[sakoz]

jebediah; let us know what you 'make' of what I wrote in my #3, so we can see if voodoos verbosity is justified. 

[sakoz]

voodoo scientist has "a way with words" ( he seems to take his role of Pied Piper very seriously). What he does not have (yet) is understanding the consequences of misusing words.
He diagnosed/categorized jebediah as 'vulnerable', along with a host of other readers. He diagnosed/categorized me as folllows; "Don't listen to sakoz. Sometimes, I wonder how he sleeps at night, knowing that vulnerable people might take his uninformed advice to heart. Other times, I like to think his insanity stems from long term sleep deprivation, but that might be a just-world fallacy talking."
 Observer Effect; Diagnosis Effect, Categorization Effect
In earlier times, to be diagnosed as 'mentally ill' was a stigma. Such diagnosed people were treated/regarded as 'different' from normal folks; even after being 'cured'. Just like released prison inmates are still regarded as 'jail-birds' (although that's changing somewhat). Categorization of any kind carries connotations.
voodoo indicates how he regards jebediah and some other readers and me; he reacts to his own beliefs rather then to the fact of who we are . Should his advice be taken seriously?

jebediah; voodoo wrote; "it's very normal for a person like you and a person like her to get together."   "like" you and her? What's he implying? You are two "peas in the same pod"?

[xynthal]

what you need to understand is that this chic is spiraling in a self sensed state of absolute uncontrollability... you could be just that anchor that allows her find a sliver of peace in life... she has made decisions that made sense to her and that she perceived were her only options... if you love her and love being with her... then fucking be there for her above all else... if she leaves you then that's what she needed... ... ...

xyn...