Wish I knew for sure

So I’m many months out the other side of what has been a multi-year on-again/off-again very volatile saga. It’s been suggested by a couple therapists that she may have BPD. She even told me that one of her best friends told her that she thought she was borderline. It’s never come up between us though.

I feel like if I knew for certain (i.e. if she had been diagnosed) it would make all of this easier to process and I wouldn’t be blaming myself so much. Because as I view things these days it feels like there was something uniquely wrong with me (she would often get very angry and tell me all of the things I was doing wrong… she wasn’t much for personal accountability).

When we came back into each other’s lives after the first falling out she was instantly infatuated with me. Couldn’t stop thinking about me, wanted to to know when she could see me next. Flowers, letters, gifts. She’d insist on paying for my Ubers sometimes.

Then eventually she flipped on me and it felt like I could do no right. She became callous and cruel. And then would say she didn’t argue like this with anyone else, that talking to me triggered her and made her feel like she wasn’t her true self. Which, paired with her constant criticism of me, made it feel like my fault. And it broke my heart because all I wanted was to be with that “true self”. I tried so hard, to the point of abandoning my own needs, to listen and validate and understand her feelings. Only to be told I didn’t care about or respect her experience.

I guess it’s so confusing because from the outside she seems so sweet, loves her friends, a kind and happy person. She seems like a completely different person than the one who treated me so horribly. So was it my fault?

She doesn’t self-harm or have drug addiction issues (she does drink a decent amount). Doesn’t steal or crash cars or destroy things. No suicide attempts that i know of. In other words she doesn’t seem like the full form raging bull of BPD I often read about on here. She has mentioned having a LOT of sexual parters, and is definitely quick to (often irrational) anger. And I know that she’s had a few pretty big falling-outs with people in her life.

It seems likely she has the traits but I just wish I could know for certain. Because without the certainty I feel like I somehow abruptly fell from grace and am now just a source of pain and triggering for someone who is otherwise wonderful and functional. And I feel like discarded trash. And I wind up going absolutely crazy wondering what I did wrong and what I could have done to save things.