Emotionally unstable personality. And I say covert narcissist. Somehow I had such a strong feeling that I understand everything he's been going through. Everything sounded like taken from my own thought script. And why I wanted to sacrifice myself just to show him that it's not like he thinks it is, that it's not true that people leave and actually forget him because he's not real? Why did I want to show him that I believe that he's real and I'll never forget him like others do? That if we break up I'll not just cut contact and ignore him, no matter what he does? I wanted to prove him that it's possible that someone accepts him and loves him, not necessarily in a romantic but a human way (that is way more important).
And leaving him and cutting off is precisely what I've done now - so I've behaved exactly like the people before me, like I sweared I never would.
Why was I before on that other side of the glass and now I'm here?
One day I wrote to the author of the CPTSD book asking why after reading that book I have even more emotional flashbacks than before. And he replied something that was first surprising but now I think it's logical, and may also explain why I was so desperate to show my ex boyfriend that the world is not a bad place. He wrote sth like "maybe the inner child saw that there's a chance of resolving the childhood traumas and it gets louder". What if everything that I wanted to show my ex is a misdirected attempt at helping myself? Because I'd never allow myself to help myself? What if this is why it felt so strong and so desperate? I just met someone with very similar problems. Yes there was something very odd about this attraction, it felt like something I just have to do for the sake of my own experience, whether it will be good for me or not.
And now a thought experiment. Take what I wanted to tell him, thing by thing, and tell it to myself. Makes me wanna cry.
And now, take the energy and commitment I was putting into this relationship and direct it onto myself, knowing that it was me who should actually be the real recipient of this.
Take the moment of him being content and happy that I imagined so many times and imagine myself content and happy. Yes, I think that's it.
It's actually sad. That all I wanted for him is actually what I need, not him. That he just enabled me to consciously want it, just for another person. I've abstracted him. Objectified. Used for fitting into my puzzle. I didn't see a human in him.
... but maybe it's not a big loss, as I'm not even sure if there is one.