Ever Date A Cutter/Self Mutilator?

[TheMeatloafJuggler]

Looking for a bit of advice/input and probably a bit of support here. A few recent events made me rethink that relationship and made me want to really learn from the experience in a whole new light.

 

I was in a year long relationship that ended about three years ago. The girl, "Sally" gave off a ton of red flags. Many I just ignored, but I shouldn't have. Many, I rationalized, but I shouldn't have. Many I saw, but I made the choice to be invested in her without doing the proper due diligence in getting to really "know" the other person before rushing into a commitment.

 

I rushed into it. I accept my choice in that matter. It was a poor choice. And it was a reflection on what I valued and how I valued myself ( or didn't) We met and we were in a commitment in about 2 months.

 

Red Flags I Ignored

 

1) She had a boyfriend for three years ( that ended about a year and a half before she met me). She told me that during that time, that she wished she hadn't dated him because there was another guy who was interested in her at the time. She apparently liked him but her then current boyfriend said you need to cut contact because this isn't cool, so she did. But she resented her then boyfriend for it. Now, with clearer eyes, I see she was in a commitment but had buyers remorse, she let another guy get close to her and talked on the phone with him and hung out with him despite being in a commitment. The "other guy" even apparently came to her family's house for dinner a few times.

 

2) While she was with that boyfriend, she told me during a party, she got drunk and made out with a gay guy in the shower. "He was gay and I told my boyfriend at the time and he didn't think it was a big deal and he just laughed it off" I didn't say anything, just listened. But deep down I knew it was all fuzzy. I'm not gay, but I suspect gay guys don't make out with heterosexual girls. A bisexual guy? Maybe. Which makes it even murkier. And did she even tell her boyfriend? And if she did, did she tell him everything? And did she even tell me everything?

 

3) In the third year of her relationship with her then boyfriend, she cut him off sexually. Instead of breaking up with the guy, she just stayed and cut him off ( probably seeing if he'd dump her or give in to her demands) When he broke up with her, she tailspun into depression, then dated three other guys for four or five months, then got back together with her boyfriend. She then broke up with him about nine months later. Only now do I realize that her problem wasn't that he broke up with her, it was that anyone would dump her. So she got him back just to dump him ( i.e. power play)

 

4) When she finally broke up with her boyfriend, she ended having sex with a club owner the first night she was broken up, it was the first time she met him although she said she had talked to him online a few times before. Now I realize that she had probably been scoping out who the next guy would be for a while.

 

5) She ended up sleeping with the club owner and 3-4 other guys in rotation in the same 3 month span. At one point, one of the guys she was sleeping with, she started sleeping with his best friend too, but neither of them knew at the time ( so she says, I suspect guy number two knew) So those two best friends confronted each other then confronted her about it. She said " So what, it's just sex" and kept sleeping with them.

 

6) She moved out of state for work. Where she proceeded to start sleeping with a guy who did work for her company ( not direct coworkers, he was like a contractor) She found out later he had a girlfriend and a child (by that girlfriend) so she said she couldn't do that anymore. Finally she said she relented and gave the guy oral sex later one last time, even though she knew he had a girlfriend and a child by that woman. That's all what she said, who knows the truth.

 

Then I met her. She is actually a very personable and interesting person, you know, besides the lack of morality and sexual discretion.

 

I was with her for a year. In that year she would constantly harass me about the fact that other women were interested in me and pursued me romantically. I make pretty good money, I have a good career, I'm a decent looking guy or so I've been told.

 

She had constant panic attacks and would demand that I not go out with friends lest "other women are going to try to get with you"

 

During the last three months, she cut herself three times. The first two times, she called me, crying hysterically, telling me she cut herself because she was so stressed out and having panic attacks. She learned quickly that threatening to cut herself could be a tactic to get me to comply to her demands.

 

I thought things were getting better as she went on medication and into therapy. I told her she could never threaten me again with cutting herself to get her way.

 

Finally, she went hysterical one night on the phone because I had been working a lot of late and she wanted to see me and I said I couldn't that night. So she got really upset and said she was going to go drinking and get drunk, that she was going to go sleep with some other guy ( the guy with the girlfriend and kid) and that she was going to cut herself again. Her last words to me were, "I'm going to cut myself, hear me, I'm doing it right now"

 

I told her I had to go. I never spoke to her again. I could no longer cope with her, I was at my own breaking point. The self harm thing was too much for me to bear. She was clearly not sane nor rational (then again I chose her and stayed with her, so what does that say about me?)

 

She left me a message a month later saying she hated me and she hoped I would die. She screamed into the voicemail for 5 full minutes then hung up.

 

I have to be honest. I am so ashamed. I really am. There's a part of me over the last few weeks, trying to focus on working on myself and figuring out what I value and why I made the choices I did, that had to say, "Did I think so little of myself then that I picked someone like this?"

 

Don't get me wrong, don't get me wrong, I probably made mistakes too. I made bad choices too. I probably could have done a ton of things better to be a better boyfriend at that time. But I never threatened to cut myself. I never cut myself to try to get someone to comply.

 

Looking back, I realize she wanted what she wanted when she wanted it. And that's all that was important. Whenever she said she was sorry, she wasn't really sorry, she was sorry for those actions having consequences, not because she hurt me.

 

I realize now, who I pick and who I stay with, that says something about me and how I see my life and how I live my life. And how I value myself. I stayed for lots of reasons, and it was a long year, I think I stayed because I loved her ( or I thought I did) and I didn't want to abandon her. But in the end I felt like I did.

 

I've come to ask, has anyone else here dated or been long term with a cutter/self harm/self mutilator? How did it all come about? What did you do? What did you learn? How did you cope? What would you change about your choices? How did you finally let go?

 

Thanks in advance for any sharing, I am looking for some input and other perspectives here.

 

TMLJ

[SoulSearch_CO]

Holy shiznit. There is SO much more here than just a cutter. I have self-harmed in the past, but her behavior goes beyond that. She used it for attention and manipulation. She sounds severely mentally unstable. Most cutters (from what I've read of other people) use it to cope and are generally ashamed of it. It's not generally used to manipulate people.

 

Good heavens. Based on your post, I'm going to ask...Have you considered the possibility that she could have Borderline Personality Disorder?

 

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/borderline-personality-disorder-fact-sheet/index.shtml

She has some of the CLASSIC symptoms of it:

 

 

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. [Not including suicidal or self-injuring behavior covered in Criterion 5]
   
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
   
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
   
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving). [Again, not including suicidal or self-injuring behavior covered in Criterion 5]
   
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself.
   
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
   
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness.
   
8. Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
   
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms
   

[dreamergrl]

Yes I did, about three years ago.

 

I met and got to know him, we bonded quickly. He eventually revealed his past, that he had once had a coke problem, and also a cutting problem. I was weary, but after a few months of showing no signs or issues, I let myself get closer. Over time I grew to be insecure. He had been friends with many girls that he was with sexually in the past, had gone out behind my back with another girl he met online... we had broken up after that. I should have stayed away, but I didn't. I let him back into my life. One night we were out with a few other people. I wanted to stay out, he wanted to go home. I was enjoying being around friends that I hadn't seen in a while and he knew this. But we ended up going home, I resented him for wanting me to leave my friends (I had told him earlier I wanted to spend time with them, and he was welcome to come along). We got into a fight, ended up going to bed. I woke up to him locked in my bathroom. I got the bathroom unlocked. I saw him with a knife in his hand, slicing up his wrist, shaking, and mumbling he couldn't take so much stress.

 

I should have left, but by this time we had been together for a while, and I thought maybe things could be better for him and we could get past it.

 

Another time I went to go see a friend. Only to have him calling me constantly checking up on me. I never cheated on him. However, he had it in his head that I did. Needless to say, we went away for a weekend with a set of mutual friends. AFter being out, we went to our hotel room, only to have him grab my phone, scream that I was a cheater, head butt me, and flew me across the room.

 

I left him.

 

Then about 5 months later he started dating a pregnant 20 year old (he was 28 at the time), she had the baby, he signed the birth certificate, they got married, and as far as I know he's happy. Go figure.

[Charles1978]

One of the girls I am currently dating revealed to me that she used to cut herself. Also, she had an eating disorder, became very ill because of it, and was put in a mental hospital. Now, I'll admit that it has me wary of the situation, as we have only been seeing eachother for about 6 weeks. But she seems completely normal, and she talks to kids about her experiences. So, it seems that she is dealing with her past in a constructive manner. But I do worry about her having these issues again. It wasn't that long ago (2yrs) that she had these issues, and some of them were brought on by breakups. I've been distancing myself recently... not really because of this, but because I need some space. I'm looking forward to the responses in this thread, because I have no idea what to expect in this situation. She seems ok now.

[shadowplay]

Holy shiznit. There is SO much more here than just a cutter. I have self-harmed in the past, but her behavior goes beyond that. She used it for attention and manipulation. She sounds severely mentally unstable. Most cutters (from what I've read of other people) use it to cope and are generally ashamed of it. It's not generally used to manipulate people.

 

Good heavens. Based on your post, I'm going to ask...Have you considered the possibility that she could have Borderline Personality Disorder?

 

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/borderline-personality-disorder-fact-sheet/index.shtml

She has some of the CLASSIC symptoms of it:

 

 

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. [Not including suicidal or self-injuring behavior covered in Criterion 5]
   
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
   
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
   
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving). [Again, not including suicidal or self-injuring behavior covered in Criterion 5]
   
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself.
   
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
   
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness.
   
8. Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
   
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms
   

 

She does sound suspiciously Borderline. I hesitate to say she's a bad person, though. It's more complicated than that. People with this disorder manipulate because they believe it's the only way they can get someone to love them. They are deathly afraid of abandonment and will do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening. The irony is that their desperate attempts to prevent abandonment make their fears a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

But the bottom-line is that they will poison any relationship they are in, so it's never a good idea to get involved with somebody like this.

 

I think it's good that you're reflecting on why you were drawn to her. Most people would just say "well, I dodged a bullet with that one" and never consider what part they played by continuing the relationship.

 

It could be a whole host of reasons. Maybe you have savior fantasies, maybe you have low self esteem and didn't think you deserved better, maybe you had a dysfunctional relationship with your mother. Only you (and perhaps a good therapist) can answer that question.

[MusicChick24]

I was the cutter, and I was also a pill popper. My boyfriend at that time had been with me for a year and a half, and he loved me, he stayed with me but he was disgusted with my behavior. I did go over the edge one night and tried to take my life, I crushed him, and I saw what I did to him and I vowed to end those behaviors right then and there, and I did. So that is now three years in the past, my boyfriend and I are still together approaching our four year mark in October.

 

It's a difficult thing to deal with, and the way the relationship fares depends on the persons attitude. We all have problems but I know very clearly had I not decided to change him and I would not be together today, because he would have become completely emotionally drained after awhile and not been able to handle me anymore.

[You'reasian]

Never been with a cutter and self-mutilator, but after reading some of the descriptions, why does a woman date a man who cuts, does coke and other really hard-core, questionable activities?

 

I'm not judging, but I can only assume that cutters/alternative-types/coke users aren't boring and therefore more attractive than the upstanding types?

[SoulSearch_CO]

Never been with a cutter and self-mutilator, but after reading some of the descriptions, why does a woman date a man who cuts, does coke and other really hard-core, questionable activities?

 

I'm not judging, but I can only assume that cutters/alternative-types/coke users aren't boring and therefore more attractive than the upstanding types?

Most people that have those types of acting-out tendencies hold them back until the person they're involved with is "hooked," so to speak. It's not necessarily a conscious ploy to play the person. Most people just realize that not a lot of people want to deal with so much drama. Or it's also possible that said person thinks they can keep it under control with the new person they're involved with - that things will be "different" with this one.

 

But it's also interesting to note how true the saying is that there's a fine line between genius and insanity. Some of the most gifted artists have had mental problems - most ending up accidentally or purposefully killing themselves.

[TheMeatloafJuggler]

Holy shiznit. There is SO much more here than just a cutter. I have self-harmed in the past, but her behavior goes beyond that. She used it for attention and manipulation. She sounds severely mentally unstable. Most cutters (from what I've read of other people) use it to cope and are generally ashamed of it. It's not generally used to manipulate people.

 

Good heavens. Based on your post, I'm going to ask...Have you considered the possibility that she could have Borderline Personality Disorder?

 

 

Thanks for the link. Yes, now that you mention it, I suspect she possibly had this condition. She was seeing two therapists and was on medication by the time our situation had ended.

 

Unfortunately, and I hate to sound crass, I think sometimes I just chalked up her moods and lashing out as PMS or just a certain hard core type of nagging. I mean I'm a guy, I typically suppress a lot in general in terms of how I show my emotions. She, on the other hand, was an open book.

 

If I did learn one thing, it was to see red flags earlier and eliminate people from your heart earlier, it's much harder to see people and be rational and make good decisions when you are already emotionally invested.

 

As to the other posters comments about low self esteem and so forth, I have to say there's probably a good point in that. Picking this specific girl and putting up with her behavior was definitely a reflection on how I felt about myself at the time and how I valued myself. It's not an easy thing to say or accept, but it's the truth.

 

TMLJ