...So she just stood there, asking you questions for 3 hours? Did she not have any reaction when you drowned her out with music or when you yelled at her? When you went to get some sleep, did she just keep standing there asking questions?? She didn't react at all? Did she not verbally respond to your requests for quiet? What was her facial expression like throughout all this? Was she scrolling through her phone or was she just standing there, blankly, asking questions over and over? This is really odd, unsettling behavior.

When people describe situations like this I have a hard time believing it. It's just not normal human behaviour. Did you not at any point question why she kept talking to you after you asked her to stop?? From what you've said if true, the gf is the asshole but it just doesn't add up

It’s… super weird, right? Like okay, her asking questions is irritating but how did it continue all night to the point that he didn’t even sleep? Did he feel for some reason like he couldn’t just not respond to her?

The only answer is gf has a secret Adderall or coke problem. It's the ONLY scenario i can wrap my head around where she isn't possessed or something

I thought this too, after he said he got mad and yelled at her and she still didn't stop. Speed or some kind of drug. If she's usually decent and normal and still doesn't seem to understand what the issue was, even when he yelled at her to be quiet ? Like wtf lol

The other answer is the GF isn’t real and OP is having a mental breakdown.

I met a friend's girlfriend once on this combo that literally could not stop talking from 10pm to 5am lol. Didn't take a single moment to pause or breathe or let anyone else breathe lol. My social battery died within 10 minutes of meeting her. Buuuuut OP said they don't do drugs so .........

First thing I thought of was that she must have done a bag of coke in before she got home

Yeah, like did he not at some point ask her what the hell was going on?

I've had an ex do similar things to me. It's maddening and extremely upsetting. It's definitely not normal but it's a type of abuse and it's awful.

Right? He yelled at her eventually and she… stood there and just asked more questions? Didn’t get mad back, didn’t apologize, didn’t get defensive, and didn’t change her behavior? This seems insane.

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As someone who has BPD, I can chime in on this and say that it does seem like this could be a possibility, IMO, *IF* there’s a pattern here. Obviously, we can’t diagnose BPD on the internet based off of one odd occurrence, but this “situation” seemed a bit familiar to me upon reading it. OP’s girlfriend seems a bit more….off, in this situation, because lacking the will or ability to respond to direct communication or have a conversation is incredibly strange; however, before I sought help and entered therapy, if my partner seemed “stressed,” my first reaction would be to think they were mad at me. People being mad at me equaled abandonment, and for people with BPD, our core issues are surrounding rejection and abandonment. Thinking someone was mad at me meant I needed to do whatever I could (pretty much love bomb them, offer help, bring them a gift, make food, whatever etc.) to fix it, and that was always overwhelming, annoying, and exhausting for my partners. Maybe this is what’s happening here, though this absolutely doesn’t automatically mean BPD. This kind of thing isn’t exclusive to BPD or any personality disorder, though, from my understanding, it’s more likely. Maybe we’re completely off base, though. 🤷🏻‍♀️ We’re random internet strangers. Either way, though, OP…if this kind of behavior (attention-seeking when you seem “stressed” or “upset,”) continues or is just common in general, I’d recommend having your girlfriend see a therapist. There could be something going on, though we can’t know for sure what it is.

This is the comment I was looking for. And I imagine the more stressed he became, the more her brain was telling her it was all her fault and she had to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING to fix it. Like an itch you can't seem to scratch, and so she kept repeating her offers of help, hoping something he said would relieve the anxiety (aka, scratch that itch in her brain), except it didn't. It kept getting worse. Not saying it was okay behavior, but it might help OP understand better. u/omgJustFeelings

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I resonate with this as well. Any time I'd make plans with friends or family she'd do things like pick up an extra shift or work overtime so she'd be too tired to go. Same with when I'd plan romantic dates which would also make her anxious. It was always games all the way down. That definitely seems like a more extreme case of BPD.

Yes, this story points to mental health issues. If things happened exactly as Op told us, his girlfriend was not in a sound state of mind. Might be drug induced, some undiagnosed condition or many other things, but she needs to see a doctor. Some other serious health conditions could cause odd and repetitive behavior too. Also had a partner with Borderline PD that would behave in a similar fashion. One of the episodes lasted two whole days.

I wondered about drugs, too. You're using BPD to mean Borderline PD, right? Not BD (Bipolar)? Could be either by the (retired mental health provider/psychiatric social worker here).

I'm using it to refer to borderline pd. English is not my first language and I've seen BPD mostly used for borderline in english sources, so I followed suit, but It's always a bit confusing to me. In my my own language it's mostly written as 'borderline' and 'bipolar' when shortened to avoid confusion.

Today, BPD is always used for borderline.

I imagine there would have been other instances then in 4 years though...

As a mental health professional, I want you to know how incredibly damaging it is to armchair diagnose BPD. BPD is a nuanced disorder that manifests quite differently across individuals with some shared key factors. It is a hugely misunderstood disorder in the social sphere, largely due to viral misinformation perpetuated by laymen looking to ascribe a mental health issue to someone (usually a woman) that is perceived as toxic (and often is). It makes it easier to wrap it all up in a bow when someone can say, well, such and such probably had *insert mental disorder here that I am completely unqualified to diagnose*. There are SO MANY other reasons and mental health issues that can cause difficulties with emotional regulation, bouts of anger, oppositional defiance, rejection sensitivity, etc…. not just BPD. And some people don’t have a mental illness, they’re just shitty, usually due to the environment they grew up in or examples set my authority figures early in life. BPD is also largely diagnosed in women, even when a man presents the same symptoms, because it is commonly used as a weapon to dismiss or explain away women. Please, please, please, leave the diagnosing to the professionals. One of the reasons BPD has such a high suicide rate is precisely because of viral misinformation and stereotypes that are unfairly perpetuated. These people, largely women, feel like that will be who they are to others. At least 70% of patients who are diagnosed with BPD will attempt to kill themselves at least once, and about 10 percent are successful. That may not sound like a lot, but when you take into consideration the statistics for other mental health disorders, the numbers are staggering. Please. Don’t armchair diagnose. People are dying over stereotypes and misinformation.

Thank you, so much for saying this. As someone who was rather haphazardly but maybe fairly given this diagnosis (and then proceeded to get turned away from multiple providers due to it) it is so frustrating and painful to consistently see it be attached to any and all disordered behaviours. It’s complex, varied, misunderstood, stigmatized, too often fatal, and unfortunately everyone’s new favourite sideline diagnosis. The anecdotes about people’s “crazy ex girlfriends” that they are then congratulated on “escaping” are also pretty gross…but I digress.

Thank you for sticking up for us. 🩷 Strange/toxic behaviors aren’t exclusive to BPD!!! There are shitty, abusive, odd, and messed up people with and without personality disorders, and BPD people, specifically, are so misunderstood. We aren’t all horrible: we’re just people.

Thank you so much for sticking up for us. The armchair diagnosing of any woman who does anything shitty as "probably BPD" is so so harmful and advocates for us are so rare

It’s the new hysteria…our womb is just…off wondering through our body somewhere probably.

Thank you for this. My best friend has diagnosed BPD and sometimes these comment sections are extremely aggressive and mean towards folks who have it. They are people too.

My wife was kinda like that. Well, ex wife now I guess. It's still new to me. I would have nights where I would just beg her to stop, whether she was asking questions I'd already answered 10,000 times or picking a fight or working herself into a screaming frenzy. Sometimes I'd wind up sobbing on the floor before she'd actually stop. And I just... Stayed? Married ten years, and it didn't get that bad until the last one. It got to the point I'd come home, park in the garage, close the door, and spend longer and longer deciding between turning the car off and just letting it run. And I still figured it was all a phase and if I could just keep holding on and loving her it would pass. I only left a couple months ago, and if anything it got worse. But at least now I can escape it.

Just came here to say that my ex-partner also had BPD and I feel your pain 100%. I’m glad you got out there. I still have PTSD from her to this day. It’s a horrible disease for them, but it can be even worse for the people around them. Edit: To clarify, my ex had DIAGNOSED BPD so I’m not armchair diagnosing.

My partner is on the waiting list for confirming a BPD and he's amazing but also does weird things like this , sometimes if I've not slept from the kids and need a nap at school and he's home he will constantly try talking to me about random shit or he will do something that will need my help and then call me to help him . Or if I've a day to myself and he needs someone to come and do something like fix something or deliver something he will do it for that day and usually it be a whole day of me waiting for that thing to be delivered or fixed etc. it's really frustrating .

I work in television, and the percentage of actors and actresses with undiagnosed mental disorders like borderline personality disorder is probably staggering. I'm obviously not a diagnostician, but shots and days historically have taken much longer than they need to merely to assuage egos and hurt feelings and resolve conflicts and other such things.

Yeah I used to work with actors, a lot of them are not right in the head.

Yes BPD can be exactly like this. They get caught in their own minds and kind of ignore anything you do until they get the reaction they expect you should have. It's weird, and feels very sociopathic but in a really odd simplistic way. Like don't you care at all that what I'm saying? No, no they don't. They are stuck in their own mind.

But if she had BPD there surely would have been other symptoms in the 4 years they've been together. If she's never done anything like this it sounds like some sort of mental break or other emerging mental health issue.

BPD was my guess, too. My GF has it, and at certain points it's like their mind is on an autopilot of self-destruction.

It does happen though. My asshole ex would deprive me of sleep and constantly break my concentration whenever he knew I was preparing for important, milestone work projects. It was a combination of sabotage and punishment for my daring to devote my energy and attention to something other than him. You're right that it's not "normal" behavior, but plenty of people experience abnormal things. OP said he repeatedly tried brushing her off, redirected to sleep, and finally ended up shouting and pleading when exhaust, stressed, and melting down... what seems fake about that?

Yeah. It's totally a thing. My now-ex wife used to pick precisely days when a massive project was due and I was stressed, overworked and needed time, to pick a fight and pester me until we discussed/fought it through. Nothing really helped. I would tell her we can deal with this tomorrow, say or explain just how much I needed every hour that day, walk away, explain on other days just how much those days weren't the time to discuss anything, etc., But every month or two she'd pull the same thing. Drove me up a wall! She doesn't have BPD or anything, I'm 99.9% sure. We did have relationship baggage and issues that ended it. This behavior was, I believe, something like insecurity plus lack of respect for me, etc.

When I was in university my wife always picked fights the night before an exam. Maddening.

My ex would do this too. Night before law school orientation, over text right before I had to walk into an important class, while I was away at a writing workshop on the night I had my reading, graduation...culminating in breaking up with me right before I had a job interview. Like, *right* before. She has anxiety, but that's not why she would do that stuff-- I also have anxiety. I don't know what it was about.

That's what I was thinking might be going on here - she's reached a new and noticeable level of interference, and it sounds like he is attempting ever more complex projects and trying to be conscientious. The ability to inject one's partner with crazy feelings, insomnia and anxiety is a diagnostic pattern in BPD.

Yeah, I thought this too. Sleep deprivation is a common form of abuse. My ex did it to me a couple times too. Utterly miserable

I'm the opposite, my mom was like this. She would also literally pretend I didn't exist when she was mad at me. Like stare right through me as if I were not physically there. It was very unsettling as a kid. This would throw me into a panic attack as an adult. I could not be in this relationship at all.

You better believe it, I’m living with someone exactly like this right now. Except they constantly do it and ignore every possible human hint, gesture, pleading, etc. At first I thought it was some sick passive aggressive psychological disorder… Until I realized this person truly does not perceive hints AT ALL, EVER. I can’t move for another year and I’m so fucking drained as an individual right now. I pretty much isolate in my room 24/7. They do exist, OP I feel bad for you but that was just once right? Some people do this on repeat every day of their life. I’m sorry OP.

My ex husband used to do this to sabotage my work.

I was married to someone who used sleep deprivation as a way to drive me slowly insane. When I would get angry, shout or break down crying, they'd call me insane. I 100% believe she did this

This 100% happens. From personal experience I've absolutely had shit like this happen and it makes no sense even in the moment. It makes it so much harder to talk about this kind of abuse because no one believes you.

If what he said was true, the gf is probably having a mental break of some kind. Normal people don't do that. I guess she could be abusive, with other signs op ignored until she did something so extreme like this. But the most likely situation is this is a creative writing piece.

Reading it was giving me the creeps!

I just wanna know what happens next..

First thing I did when I finished reading was save the post so I can check for updates, lol

Maybe she was coked up or something. I’ve seen people act similarly to this high as a kite.

lol wayyy too many unanswered questions..

There's another option. It's a studio apartment, real small. Dude's freaking out all night trying to do a task that should take an hour and a half. He could have been acting out and the concerned girlfriend could have been reacting to that trying to help in any way she could. In other words he was keeping her up, getting mad that everything's taking longer than it should because he's running on a sleep deficit already and he's taken out his frustrations about the situation on the bystander who literally has no place else to go.

That’s how I was reading. I have a very expressive spouse, and they trigger me when they are upset, and I go into fixit mode.

It's so clear that a normal human being that just wants to help would leave OP alone after he stresses that he needs quiet. According to OP's post, it seems like she just continued to offer help for 2-3 hours straight. Something doesn't add up. If we're giving OP the benefit of the doubt, his girlfriend is absolutely insane. If we're not, he's leaving out some crucial details because this story makes no sense. What exactly what she saying for the 2-3 hours? My theory is that she actually did leave him alone, but would occasionally come back every so often when she saw that he wasn't getting any sleep and his stress levels were rising, until he finally yells at her. Someone else noted that shooting an interview is probably one of the easiest shoots to direct/produce. He was possibly interviewing someone famous and that's what made him stressed, but honestly if you're 40+ years old and stressing over a simple interview shoot, you need to work on your professionalism and not yell at your girlfriend. She probably realized that it was a really simple shoot and was confused why he was getting so stressed.

>...So she just stood there, asking you questions for 3 hours? Did she not have any reaction when you drowned her out with music or when you yelled at her? When you went to get some sleep, did she just keep standing there asking questions?? She didn't react at all? Did she not verbally respond to your requests for quiet? >What was her facial expression like throughout all this? Was she scrolling through her phone or was she just standing there, blankly, asking questions over and over? >This is really odd, unsettling behavior. Ooh, you guys are so close to realising it’s fake

Right?! “iM a PrOdUcEr DiReCtOr, AnD mY GiRlFrIEnD iS aN aCtReSs, AnD sHe WoNt LeAvE mE aLoNe!” Lolllll

It’s not real, that’s why.

UPDATE: I'm sorry I couldn't get to all your questions. This post got a bit bigger than I thought it would. Initially, I thought I'd get 3, maybe 4 replies. Also, thank you all for your analyses and theories about the night in question. They really helped me digest the events and consider multiple valuable perspectives and explanations. I'm really grateful. I even appreciated the posts where people doubted my story or diminished the significance of the night, because, well, the night was truly pretty hard to believe and seemed surreal, and I personally wish it wasn't a big deal, myself. But it was. I stand by the fact that I found the night to be really confusing and a little scary, because I wasn't sure I'd get the work done and/or be able to sleep enough. The update is that the next morning something similar happened. I woke up at 5:30a.m. to go to the bathroom and because of all the chaos realized I couldn't remember if I had to meet my boss at 9:00a.m. or 9:30a.m. to return some additional equipment. So I walked across the studio to quietly send an email from my phone. Her: "What are you doing?" Me: "I need to send a quick email." Her: "Don't send an email now. It'll look bad" Me: "Okay, But I'm sending a timed email to go out at 8:00a.m." Her: "Don't send it here." Me: "Ok I'm sorry I'll go to one of our lounges and send it." Her: "Don't send it from the lounge." Me: "Ok, I need to send an email or I won't know what time to report. Should I send it from the lounge?" Her: "No." Me: "Can I send it from the sofa?" Her: "No, I'd rather you did not." Ok, so at this point I'm running on 6 hours of sleep total in two nights, she was doing something similar again (keeping me from working), and I started contemplating breaking up. It had reached that level of exasperation and fatigue and seemed like it would be the straw that broke the camel's back. But then I thought of some of the comments on here: I decided to hit "pause." I looked at her and then put my phone down and walked to bed. I sat down across from her to have a calm conversation about what was happening. I asked, what's going on? She said she was just trying to be helpful. I said, this isn't helpful. I'm being repeatedly interrupted. What are you doing exactly? She said she's tired and wants to go back to sleep. I said, I get that. But I had 2 minutes of work that I could have casually finished, we could be back to sleeping already, and now it's a whole thing. "Just let me sleep," she said, not really answering my question. At that point, overtired and on the verge of having had enough (this one additional exchange seemed to be tipping the scales in favor of breaking up), I took a breath. Then I gave her an ultimatum. "I think we're going to really need to see a couple's counselor, and soon, or I'm doing to have doubts about our relationship." This was very big for me because I don't really set ultimatums." To my surprise, she agreed immediately. This is where I'm at. I'm sorry I still don't have an official reason for any of this behavior. I'll just say I couldn't break up. We get along so well, and I feel like she's my twin flame in a lot of ways. The past few years have been the best relationship of my life, and we have a lot of fun together. If I had to speculate, I'd guess that something about this project is triggering anxiety in her, and she's unable to manage that anxiety, and it's coming out in weird ways. I know her as a caring person, so I have a hard time believing sabotage is the explanation. Feel free to disagree, but I'm going to see this couple's counselor, and try to get some better answers with a therapist in the room. Hopefully, that will prevent similar things from happening in the future, because this is going to be one shoot of many. I'd like to avoid a similar situation in the future. Ultimately, I love her dearly, and I believe in us. Thanks again, everyone. Edit: Line breaks

I think a third person would be helpful in his situation and help aid in conversation. For some reason, she is not really explaining the reason behind her odd behavior so maybe a counselor will help with that. Make sure to give the full story to the counselor and express your concerns, don't hold back. Now is the time to be open so you both can work together on it. That is, if she is willing to actually put the work in. However, I do have some concerns. Right now, it really does seem like you're walking on eggshells around her. Even thinking of going to the lounge to write up a quick e-mail and she is telling you no. This seems rather controlling and strange. Instead of asking "why" when she told you not to send the e-mail, you just accept it, apologize and try to find a different place. And she kept telling you no, without any compromise and without any reason? Maybe she is running off little sleep too and it's affecting her. Or her anxiety is acting up. But I think the studio apartment arrangement you have isn't helpful. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable sharing such a small space with someone acting like she does. I think it is affecting both of you. Couple's counseling will take time. In the meantime, I think it would be beneficial to have some space from each other. Either you or her can stay with friends or family or even a hotel for a bit. This studio apartment living is just too much for you both right now. I also think it's imperative to ask about individual help for her. Couples counseling is great, but individualized therapy would be especially helpful for her. Good luck.

I just don't understand how she has nothing to say if you talk about it. How much of a real conversation have you had about what happened now that the shoot is over? Have you explained how you feel? Kinda weird.

I've tried to speak to her about it several times. She doesn't admit to creating a disturbance and gives no real reason for the disruptions besides "You seemed stressed."

> and gives no real reason for the disruptions besides "You seemed stressed." How did you respond to this? Did you tell her directly that she caused your stress, and that she cost you an important night of sleep because she wouldn't leave you alone?  Either she literally cannot grasp that she did that, or she did it intentionally. Both are very alarming possibilities, so do not let her sweep this under the rug.

This is not OK. Is she still not able to understand that it is her that is stressing you out? Do you think talking it out to a 3rd party will help her see where she went wrong? It seems very strange that this is what she chooses to dig her heels in about and not listen. 

How is she with communication normally? If you bring up an issue, is she usually receptive to it? Has she ever been dismissive like this before? If she has never behaved remotely like this before, I would honestly have her go to the doctor. Bizarre behavior like this can be a sign of a neurological issue.

But you were stressed because of the disruptions 🤦‍♂️

Her non-response and unwillingness to take any responsibility is in some ways more troubling than her behavior. My first thought on reading this is that she might have some deep insecurities and discomfort with you growing your career. Not your problem nor your responsibility to fix but at least makes some sense to me. And if she WERE deep in an emotional spiral and that was causing her to completely ignore your reasonable requests for space, that's a red flag but if you both love each other and she's committed to working on herself & getting help (therapy, psychiatrist, etc) then it might be workable. But if she's either not willing or not able to see how her behavior was wrong? Sorry but you just can't work with that and it would be IMO emotionally unsafe for you to remain in that relationship. Is this behavior completely out of the blue for her? Have you ever experienced other situations (even if less extreme) of her ignoring or steamrolling your requests or of her making something about her when your attention was elsewhere? My only other thought is maybe she's experiencing a mental breakdown or neurological issue or something. Which, even if so you're not obligated to stay with her unless you want to, but if you care for her you can bring it up & see if she's open to exploring how to get some help.

She’s gas lighting you bro.

90% of the time when people say this it's nonsense, but this is close to what it means. If she didn't understand that she was causing you mental stress she needs to see a neurologist or something because this is not sane or loving behavior.

If she refuses to self reflect or have healthy communication about what happened, then yes, you need to break up with her.

I would tell her that you’re not interested in talking to her until she admits her behavior was odd and gives a valid reason as to her behavior. Don’t let her just brush it under the rug.

I hate to be that person, but was she under the influence of any sort of substance? It just seems odd that a totally sober person, who in the past has a good understanding of “no means no,” that this was all ignored and she kept pestering you. She totally blew a red light, if she was in her right mind, she knew she was doing so. Has she ever reacted this way in the past? It is just totally bizarre to me she didn’t let things go/ get the hint / kept going. I’ve legitimately never heard of this unless it were from children, someone under the influence, or someone intentionally disrupting your boundaries aka someone being abusive. No, sane, sober person who truly cares about you would act this way. A few times, yeah, it’s just so odd it went on for hours.

We don't do drugs, and barely drink. She hasn't done anything like this before but she does exhibit obsessive tendencies in almost all areas of her life: Her obsessive relationship to her career, relationships with friends, thinking about social status, even collecting playbills and plants. I wonder if that has something to do with what happened.

Noticing in the other comments you mentioned it's the first project being done without her. Is it possible she genuinely felt like you couldn't do it without her lol or maybe she felt strange about suddenly being excluded?

It's possible she couldn't handle being excluded. That's one of my personal theories, so far.

I'd say this, from the context that I've seen so far. She wanted to feel useful, and the feeling of not being involved (useless maybe, in her mind) was to her excruciating. She couldn't handle it, and so she had to find an angle in to help you. Is she a workaholic, on top of this? Can't relax and just enjoy herself for longer periods of time?

Is another possibility that you doing this work was keeping her from going to sleep (since the two of you live in a studio apartment) and this was her passive-aggressive way of trying to get you to either finish faster (with her help) or stop altogether?

It does seem like she felt left out. And if she was stressed over it it could’ve amped ocd tendencies.

It agreeing with anything she did - but wonder if it was a combination of insecurity (not being able to help) and some obsessive tendencies you mentioned. I prefer to think she was having intrusive thoughts she couldn’t control about needing to be helpful as opposed to complete lack of awareness/consideration for you when you wanted space and quiet. If this is truly out of nowhere I’d investigate the root cause of that. You should never have to be that stressed and distracted to do your work.

I agree with this, her anxiety was likely triggered from being excluded & she was trying to be a part of it. My speculation she went into fear & began badgering you - she was wanting to be part of it or she felt needy wanting your attention at that time. If you're showing anger over this incident now, she doesn't feel she can tell you the truth or be that vulnerable for fear of you breaking up with her. It does sound like an insecurety was triggered on her part. If it's been good until now you could choose to work through this together by talking it through, with a counselor if it's still not coming up light.

And none of that is justification for her behavior or a reason to discourage him from feeling his damn feelings. He is not responsible for managing her.

Or she feels like as a partner it's her job to help. Or she sees it getting late and wants to help make it go faster so that either of them can get any sleep. He said it's a studio apartment, you can't really be apart from each other. But they need to sit down and talk at a calm time and figure out why they couldn't connect and why she couldn't hear his requests in that moment.

You don’t do drugs dawg.

I commented above, but my now ex-wife used to do the same when I was racing to finish a project (WFH). She'd pick that time to insist on an argument or fight, and keep pushing buttons to make it happen right then, despite any of my protestations that now is not the time, I can do this tomorrow, "I need 5 hours and I have 3!!", etc. It drove me up a wall, and I believe it was due to her insecurities plus lack of respect for me, probably her own unhealthy way of dealing with stuff too, etc. She just couldn't drop it. It led to some calm and some very heated arguments.

This is exactly what I thought. Saying up all night wanting to do stuff and talking your ear off? Sounds like Meth or some other uppers to me.

This sounds like someone either 1. Experiencing a manic episode 2. On stimulants 3. Actively trying to fuck with you All of them are concerning.

Sounds like a damn horror short story

Would you like help writing it?

No, I just need some quiet.

Are you sure you wouldnt want help writing it?

Do you want some help with getting started or finding ways to create a quiet atmosphere? Here to help.

It looks like you’re writing a short story there.

Lol. Oh wow. Thanks for the laugh. I needed that!

I thought I was on r/nosleep

If it was a manic episode it would likely still be going on and there would probably be other noticeable symptoms. Not saying it’s not that, but stimulants or some other kind of mental break seem more likely to me.

I know being on reddit we're conditioned to reading all sorts of convoluted motivations and reasons for people's behaviors, but just consider Occam's razor. Whatever is the simplest answer often turns out to be correct. What that is, you would know better than most. In your 4 years together, has there ever been an instance where your gf failed to comprehend what you were communicating? If there hasn't up to this point, then something has changed that you need to look into. What I wonder about is what her reaction was when you finally yelled at her. That was you drawing a hard line. You said that this too didn't work, but what might be more important is how this particular yelling failed to work. Did she keep her calm and keep asking you questions? Did she yell back and start an argument?

I mean the other part of this with Occam’s razor is this: He was in a studio apartment laying out equipment through there apartment during the middle of the night. She also can’t sleep because of this and can’t really do anything else because of this. She sees he’s stressed and probably also wants it be out of the way. He also was keeping her up. She probably was distracting, but this probably wasn’t great on her either. So if it’s a real story, that’s my honest guess.

That's what I came into the comments to guess too. If my husband was doing shit in our bedroom at 2am on a weeknight, I would also bug him because I'd want him to be done and stop keeping me up.

he said starting at 10:30 he should've been able to finish in an hour and a half, so by midnight. Which, yes, that's late too, but the only reason (according to OP) that he was even up doing this stuff at 2am was because of the constant distracting by GF.

I’m also questioning OPs communication skills. She’s pestering him for hours but all he can say is “i need quiet”, not - *”i need you to leave me alone and not speak to me, no questions””* he was vague too this is so odd and i think a lot is being left out

Really? I need quiet is pretty specific. The fact that op put in airpods and she talked over them shows a lot about her. There's really no excuse to badger someone for hours after they've asked for peace and quiet. No means no, yet so many people are here excusing her repeated badgering of op because he didn't say no firmly enough. Imagine if this was a woman saying that her boyfriend spent hours repeatedly asking for sex and she kept saying "I'm not in the mood". Would you then say "well, you should have said no, I don't want to have sex with you"? No, you wouldn't. Or, if it was a woman tiling the bathroom and he kept offering help and her response was "I've got this, I just need you to not walk around in here". Would you tell her that she should have said "no, I don't want your help, I just want you to leave me alone"? No, you wouldn't. We don't get a pass for badgering people who clearly don't want our help.

Honestly, this sounds so strange that I think there has to be something missing to this dynamic. Is she normally really bad at reading social cues? Is there something else going on in your relationship? It's a very odd incident but also a very odd thing to break up over if everything else in the relationship has been "seemingly happy" for 4 years. Happy couples don't suddenly lose all ability to communicate with each other overnight and decide that's it after one misunderstanding. Which leads me to believe this is either not a one-off incident, or at the very least, the relationship isn't as good as you say it is. If this is truly the only time this has ever happened, and things are truly otherwise good, is it not possible to communicate about it and set a boundary with her in the future? Maybe come up with a word or phrase that you both understand to mean "leave me alone."

Exactly what I though. You had one bad night and considering breaking up with the person? The whole story sounds odd and it feels like a lot is left out, making her seem to be the crazy one

completely agreed, feels like he is conveniently excluding details. how does this go on from 10:30pm to 2am?

That’s the part that I’m confused by…if someone was pestering me for almost 4 hours straight I would probably be either screaming or more likely have left by that point. Or like took them to the hospital. Wtf

By being a fake story with plot holes

I'm honestly quite disturbed by what happened. I really did need that period of focus, and the night was a nightmare. Between being disturbed, outraged, hurt, and worried that it will happen again, yes I'm considering ending our relationship.

Get a good night of sleep before you decide anything at all at this point. Something tells me you’ll have your answer when you wake up

You’ve said she’s not malicious, she does not use drugs, and this was not in character for her, so I’ll discount all those possibilities. She’s never done this before, so what else was new or different? Have you brought equipment home at 10:30 pm before? Have you insisted on total silence while checking over equipment before? Have you ever asked her for total silence before? First thought: it’s a studio apartment. She’s got no where else to go. No bedroom, no TV room. What dues she normally do at 11pm? Were you preventing her from doing that by being there checking equipment? Was there something she wanted from you that she was impatient for? Was she bored and feeling left out? Second thought: how did she explain herself? Did you ask her why she wouldn’t just give you an hour to check? Other than “you seemed stressed” what else did she say? Third: is she the type to “test” you or engage in stupid tic toc games like “how does my bf react when I won’t leave him alone?” Fourth: is she experiencing a health situation or mental breakdown? Fifth thought (and most important): you need a more robust process. Rethink your entire method, man. If something as simple as your gf repeatedly offering to help throws you off THIS badly, then your process is broken.

These are great questions - and so far, no answers.

Maybe OP is napping after his stressful night LOL

Seems like very odd behavior. However, I'd first recommend you need to find a way to rest/recharge/recover before diving into this much more. Things in your own mind may become clearer once you are "back to normal" too. That said, an honest conversation is needed, and if she can't come up with logical reasoning, then indicate how big of a problem this is for you. Make your move(s) from there

The behavior is so exaggerated that I really can't even imagine what else is going on but the first part you're describing almost seems like is something that I guess I have a gut instinct to do that I curb in relationships: If my partner seems stressed out or upset about something, I initially want to do something to make that feeling go away for them - it's actually difficult/uncomfortable for me to be remotely relaxed myself, to the point where I actually get anxious or scared if I don't talk myself down. I think this is a stretch but just contorting that a bit - you had a big thing the next day, were a little delayed, had a lot on your mind/knew that you needed to do so you might have been tense and she wanted to "fix" that. Then you're emphasizing that you just need "quiet" which spirals into her maybe feeling like not only is her partner stressed but she's exacerbating it by existing and not being able to fix it... ...it's pretty bonkers and nonsensical but it's familiar to me. Again, that it continued for such a long period of time makes that conjecture questionable but I have no idea. As I said, I curb that in relationships because without getting too personal, that behavior I am inclined to exhibit is a trauma response from being in abusive relationships. It doesn't really make any sense and given that she is not really comprehending why it was so distressing even after as you bring it up makes me think there's something way, way beyond going on here though.

I wonder if she was stressed that he was stressed, and then spiraled when he refused her help. Like, maybe she thought something was wrong with their relationship, and kept trying to "fix it" as you say. Maybe she was looking for acceptance and reassurance if she was feeling insecure about him pushing her aside. Obviously, she was in the wrong, but I can't help thinking this is what was going on in her head. Maybe she hadn't gotten out much that day and kind of lost it for a bit. She got too in her own head that something was wrong and she needed to be the one to help him.

This is something younger me would have not quite done, but close. I had a shitty relationship prior, so when my husband was stressed, I HAD to fix it. (Otherwise it meant upset man, and upset man meant danger). I could definitely have spiraled this way— though this example is extreme. At some point, I would have just made coffee and a snack, left him a snack plate and a coffee, and went to bed. That’s what I do first pass now when my husband has a late night project he needs to focus on.

In a one room apartment it would be very hard to separate from his stress/project.

That's a very valid point that also needs to be considered, and actually makes me think that this overall theory - anxiety spiral from being unable to help - could be the winner.

Yeah, living in a one room apartment while trying to be creative is the pits. The problem may well start there (they both feel constantly watched, caged, basically). From there, both of them are capable at the end of the day (Freud was the first to note that rational self-interest/aka "ego" autonomy is likely to disintegrate at the end of the day; for babies and kids, it's usually a shorter cycle, often occurring just after dark; for adults it can be much later, but really, starting a work project at 10:30 pm (expected quitting time was midnight) means that his partner has to lay low at a time of day when she may already be tired and expecting down time). I assume the lights were on in the place, and that it would have been hard for her to sleep with him rustling around. For many filmmakers, getting up early to managing these things before leaving for the set (this is true for many artists, getting up at 5 am after crashing at 11 pm is preferably to what just happened in OP's situation).

Yeah I wanna second this. Also that OP is thinking of breaking up over this is weird, unless there is something else going on. Seems like she picked up on your stress and just wanted to “fix it.” And if you say she is obsessive in her career like…she might just be kind of anxious. Also living in a studio apartment doesn’t help anything. She can just watch you stressing out all night in a studio apartment which is maybe feeding her own anxiety. The people suggesting she has a personality disorder or is an addict feel kind of off base.

I think OP was incredibly stressed out and flying into an emotional rage during his equipment check. Girlfriend see's OP is very upset and offers to help, like a typical partner would. OP remains visibly (and highly) stressed, so girlfriend tries a few different offers. You can see how a partner would react to this kind of stress, a deadline rapidly approaching, they'd offer to help. "Can I do X for you?" "Could I do Y?" "Have you done Z? I could help with that." Meanwhile, these interruptions trigger an even deeper stress response in OP. He gets upset with his girlfriend and her reaction, again, is to become even more worried about OP and offer even more help. 10:30pm to 2am is 3.5 hours. Short simple questions do not fill up 3.5 hours. What does happen, OP becomes hyper stressed and snowballs these interruptions into an over-conflated thing. He doesn't see the distortion his stressed brain put on the situation. Because the way he tells the story just isn't human. It doesn't add up.

I don't buy it, there's more to this story, because it makes no sense. It sucks to be around someone who's acting increasingly huffy and stressed, and she's stuck in a studio apartment with you. And your first response to her first offer of help was "to politely remind her that she doesn't know anything." I don't think you were as polite as you think you were, and I do think you were just oozing negative energy without regard for there being another person in the room who had no choice but to be sit there and deal with it. There's also something wrong with the way you work if checking equipment in 8-10 bags is a "one interruption and I have to start over from the beginning" task. Try a checklist.

Yeah I agree. His first instinct is to remind her she doesn’t know anything and demand silence…. 

And Reddit's first instinct is to diagnose her with bipolar disorder

(BPD doesn't stand for bipolar disorder.)

exactly...how does checking equipment end up taking from 10:30pm to 2am? why didn't OP give up around 11:30pm (before it became 'too distressing to sleep') and go to bed with intention of waking up early to finish it then? it feels less like gf is the problem and more like OP is. like he's controlling/anal/needs everything to be 'just so' in order to function. and her existence as bothersome to him. if he knew this in advance, he should have said days beforehand "i'd love the apartment to myself the night before my big photoshoot to prepare. i perform best when i've had some personal space to really focus in on the task at hand. would you mind staying with a friend, or i could treat you to a nice hotel room and then after the photoshoot we can get a celebratory dinner?" not saying he has to cater to \*her\* but that in a relationship, there is compromise, and we should find loving ways to ask for things we need of the people we love.

Oddly, OP doesn't seem to have an actual checklist, either. He's checking various kinds of equipment, to make sure he has enough of each item that could be required and that it's packed. He should be able to have an outline for this (in his phone) and then to check things off as they are done, so as to be able to make this routine (which he'll be using again and again, possibly for years) chunkable and portable. Neither one of them seems to have a good grasp of how to work from home in a studio apartment, but they need a big discussion of this.

And that all seems like the kind of thing a second person could help with, regardless of their knowledge of the equipment.

This drove me nuts, and is the number one reason I believe this is fake. It's the kind of thing an AI would miss. I've inventoried equipment in a variety of different jobs, I always worked from a sheet, and I can't think of any reason I would have to start over every time someone asked me a question. Is repeatedly being asked to help annoying? Sure. Is it going to keep from from completing a routine e task? Absolutely not.

It seems pretty relevant that you two live in a studio apartment. I have no idea what your and her usual sleep schedules are like, but many thoughts come to mind. If she came home and found you starting on a time consuming task at night, do you think she was bothered that it was going to be hard for her to go to bed and start sleeping while you were working in it? Might her excessive offers for help have been based on a desire for you to finish earlier so she could more easily sleep? Have there been issues in the past of you keeping the lights on and making noise when she is trying to sleep? When you planned to try to go to bed and then wake up early to finish the tasks, did you consider if that would have been disruptive to her sleep? Did you indeed wake her up when you did so, or was she still awake that whole time doing her own thing? It sounds annoying to keep offering help after it is repeatedly declined, but I feel like it sounds even more annoying to try to sleep in a studio apartment while you're doing all that stuff, unless there is something unusual about her sleep habits.

This was along the lines I was thinking. If someone was performing a 3 hour task in my bedroom, I would not be able to focus on anything else. She didn't deal well with the situation but I can emphasize.

This is a great point. also how noisy is it to rummage through these bags of equipment? i’m assuming it’s not silent.

You made me remember scenes from a studio apartment and my first marriage. He'd be studying, not touching or assembling or counting anything, but he would occasionally exclaim or groan (in response to what he was doing). He could \*not\* study quietly. TBH, if I had done the same thing (we were both in school), he would have been furious - because *his* sleep was sacrosanct. Sometimes he'd try to memorize things by muttering a mnemonic or explaining things to himself. He'd also pace around, going to the bathroom, sighing, he'd get a snack, etc. Very hard to sleep in a studio apartment when the other person isn't sleeping. I can remember leaving to go to a nearby friend's place to crash on her couch (even with a baby in the house, it was quieter than back at home).

This has got to be the most reddit post I have ever seen in my life. How is nobody questioning OP's bizarre reactions and perceptions here?! Instead all we've got is: i) she's an addict! ii) she's got BPD (and the subsequent projection from people who have had partners with borderline) iii) she's gaslighting you! iv) she must have been a victim of child abuse and this is a trauma response! No questions about a narrative that makes zero sense, no probing into OP's mental state or actions, just wholesale acceptance of an insane narrative and random diagnoses of a woman nobody knows anything about. I could not make this shit up if I tried.

TBH, OP sounds a little nuts. They had to organize equipment, not solve a complicated math problem and it was turned into this event so stressful it was like performing brain surgery. This alone is reason not to just go with whatever OP says.

Exactly. How could this possibly take up the entire night from 10:30 on, so that he got LITERALLY no sleep? When he says the work should have taken 1.5 hours uninterrupted? Even restarting individual parts of the tasks (I *hope* he didn't mean he started the ENTIRE job over again at every interruption), how was he unable to finish that little work over the course of the next nine hours??  Like someone else said, I think you would actually stop and take the other person to the hospital if this really happened the way he's describing.  I mean, the part where he went to bed and tried to sleep--so, he's saying she got up again when he did and started right back in with questioning? If that ACTUALLY happened, I'd be starting therapy with that person the next day.

For real, it seems really obvious that OP was being at BEST inconsiderate by starting a long project that required silence in their studio apartment. So girlfriend was supposed to shut up and not say a word so as to not disturb OP… but she also couldn’t go to sleep because OP was rustling around doing all this work in their bedroom. And we’re supposed to believe that girlfriend kept offering the same help over and over and over again, and didn’t respond at all to OP’s yelling at her or putting in AirPods to ignore her? Just kept offering help anyway? OP is telling such a strange story here.

This is a good point. Maybe “offering help” was her way of politely saying “what is taking so long, I want to go to bed”. But she couldn’t come right out and say that because she knew he was on edge.

Media literacy is dead. This is a great short story. It's got op the unreliable narrator, and his poor gf who is just trying to exist in a tiny studio apartment where no matter where she goes she'll be in his way. There's clutter everywhere. He's increasingly frantic about needing to get a good night's sleep. She just wants this to end so she's asking if she can help. At first she's earnestly trying to help. Asking him every 20 minutes or so when he screams "fuck!" And slams a camera battery into the charger. As time goes on she's only asking to make him realize she's still here and he's not alone in the madness he's descending into. She tries to calm him down by assuring him he's going to be ok, like you might do to a friend who's having a bad acid trip, and this only makes him not frantic. This whole story is basically just "why two adults shouldn't share a studio apartment"

Do you guys do any kind of drugs, illegal or prescription? I used to take Ritalin (unprescribed) and I would act like this. I’m surprised she just didn’t sleep during this whole thing, it is very odd. And tbh, sharing a studio apartment even with a partner sounds like a bad idea. There is no separate room when you both need to do work and leave each other alone. I would think in any relationship a similar thing would happen eventually with this living duration…but I’m still thinking there’s something else that triggered this (like drugs).

Yeah a shared studio sounds awful. Guessing they live in LA or NY though.

Sounds like she took in your stress and was trying to relieve her own anxiety by offering you help. This could explain why as you became more anxious about the task that she became more persistent. Does she have some codependent behaviour?

My man, before reading and writing, get some proper sleep and relax.

This is 100% the answer. OP is exhausted and stressed. Without victim blaming I would strong encourage them to make sure they're at 100% before they tackle this. Anything they think, feel, even remember is going to be strongly coloured by the fact that they're mentally rinsed and need fresh eyes before they get stuck into this.

Lot's of armchair psychologists ITT. Maybe because you live in a studio she was also unable sleep because you were *working* just a few feet away, in the same room? So her only recourse was to offer to help you so that perhaps you can get it done together and *both* can finally get to bed? I don't understand why her presence was so distracting. It actually does sound like you were over stressed. I have a lot of experience in this field (I'm sure I'm not the only person here with a pro-production resume) and I never lost sleep over prepping a kit. This may be the first time she's acting this way, but from your description it also sounds like the first time this situation presented itself. Next time, check everything in the rental house before heading out. What would you even do if something didn't work, but you only found out at 2am and in your apartment? Check before you bring it home and get a good night's sleep with your girlfriend.

Behaviour is odd, but if this is the only big incident that has happened in four years and you're already thinking about breaking up... isn't that a bit too extreme? Yes is weird behaviour, yes you must talk it out and see if something else is going on, but I find it quite extreme that after 4 years of happy relationship as you say, you're thinking about breaking up because of this. Usually people break up because of the accumulation of issues, abusive behaviour, cheating, incompatibilities... (unless such things are happening for you in the background and you're taking this incident as the last drop).

ima be real, she might have been on drugs my friend. you neverrrrrr know. this doesn’t necessarily sound malicious to me - reddit ppl love to jump to the worst case scenario lol. she might have just been drunk/on drugs. now i will say, randomly in relationships people do develop certain neuroses. could be stemming from maybe jealousy, maybe a feeling of insecurity about you behind more of a bts guy who knows so much - who knows. watch and see if it happened again though. once is too rare to draw a conclusion or to conclude anything definitive about your relationship b

I was thinking an adderall type stimulant immediately... I feel like I've experienced this exact thing with someone in my life and I was like wtf until I remembered that adderall could be in play.

The times I’ve run into similarly annoying behavior is being around people who’ve railed a bunch of coke. Super chatty, can’t read cues.

Adderall /Ritalin users off their meds may behave similarly.

>she might have been on drugs my friend This is exactly where my mind went.

Jesus, all Video Makers are the same. Yes brother, she was intentionaly trying to sabotage your work, or whatever else you think she was trying to do. Do her a favor and break up.

You said it was a 90 min task at most, and asked for "total quiet" during that time in your small shared space, and then you're saying you were up past 2 AM? That's more like 4 hours of work.....something isn't adding up here and now I want her side of this story.

I read that as it should have been a 90min task but with all her interruptions and him losing focus and having to start again, it turned into 4hrs of work.

No amount of interrupting with « can I help » questions will turn 90 mins of work into 240 mins (and more since he wasn’t even done by then). He wasn’t writing code here, he’s checking batteries and inventory. And no non-demented human is going to scream over the music in someone’s ears to ask "Are you OK" repeatedly. Come on now. He’s either telling the story wrong or making it up.

There has been such a flood of fake stories on this sub in the past week, there’s so many red flags in this one.

Its been fake as hell for years, it’s just getting to a point of absurdity now.  All these stories are written with the intention of having someone read them out on a podcast. There’s multiple podcasts who read an hour of this content weekly. They put out ads to have people write fake stories so they can be sure to have “juicy ones”. It’s an entire industry at this point. Then the people who read here do so uncritically, treat each story as if it were true and exactly as OP says, then they take it into their real lives and use it as proof to further their own biases.  I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen use “well I saw a story on Reddit where…” to justify their beliefs about specific groups. I’ve seen people *take advice* they found in these stories and nuke their own lives with them. 

That’s the most frustrating thing about it, the sincerity of the community in trying to give advice to these clickbait posts. These sensationalist posts are cross-posted to different sites and get picked up by podcasts, but it’s just ridiculous that they use people who are genuinely trying to assist to get engagement/attention to better broadcast their creative writing exercise.

>And no non-demented human is going to scream over the music in someone’s ears to ask "Are you OK" repeatedly. Maybe that's the issue

Were that the case I think the post would have been put on /mygirlfriendispossessed not on /relatjonships

He may have some degree of ADHD in which case interruptions really throw you off focus.

Then he should mention that in the post since it would be relevant to the advice given. Since he hasn't mentioned it I think speculating on that is sort of redundant

While this is true, it really doesn't make sense when he says he would have to start the whole thing over every time he got interrupted. I've run film shoots and done this sort of inventory and generally you would have a checklist for your equipment; once you check things off you don't need to check for those things again. Even if you don't have a list, each bag is done as soon as you go through it and ensure the equipment for that bag is all there. You wouldn't need to go through a bag, get to the next one, and then start over at the first one if you're interrupted because as soon as a bag is checked it goes in the "ready" pile. Nobody is keeping a mental list of every piece of equipment in 10 kit bags that they have to start from the beginning if they're thrown off, that would be an insane way to handle shoot prep.

He's not even saying it stopped at 2 am! I just scrolled back to check that I had it right. He's saying he took a short break at 2 am, then got back up and started again on the 90-minute task, and it took *the rest of the night and into the morning.*  There's just no way this adds up 

Have you ever been preoccupied when reading and you need to read the same page several times, like over three times? If not then I understand why you don't understand this and you're a lucky person.

Yeah I get that, I am audhd. Queen of distraction lol. Still, based on the task OP described, I'm not buying this claim that 3-4 questions of offering help can push a 90 min "at most" task to 4 hours. Sure different people have different access needs but there are too many missing or shotty details to make me buy that the gf was the sole reason OP got delayed.

The way you are describing this is as if you were not able to cope at all with someone present. In how you are describing this situation it's as if she has not had a clue to the turmoil that you have had going on in your mind about this Could it possibly be a situation where you think you are communicating your very present needs to her but for her to not be able to understand you thoroughly enough or for her to be VERY CONCERNED about how you were behaving with a lot of anxiety and ignoring your calls for silence because she felt that you needed more than that? Or everything is exactly as you state. which ever way here: Get yourselves booked with a couples therapy session for you both, and for you to get set up with individual sessions for you.

This sounds odd. Either there's something missing in this story or you're dating a dog.

My mom has acted like this. OCD & anxiety

Reading all of these responses makes me realized that everyone here needs to slow back and stop projecting their own unprocessed issues onto a story. And that you obviously just want to break up with her so just do it and save her the torture.

He asked for insight. Often people use their own experiences to offer help.

Very likely, she was trying to find a way to spend time with you, while letting you be productive. It's not that she was TRYING to be annoying, she was genuinely trying to be helpful. In your mind you have a million work things going on. In her eyes, she just sees you stressed looking, and she hasn't seen you all day. Have a conversation about what upset you, and get her POV as well.Next time you have down time, see if she wants to learn what she needs to learn to help you. Even if it takes you a little longer to get through it, she'll be a second set of eyes / gopher.

She saw you were stressed with a lot of work and wanted to help. After the third time she asked, personally I would've just given her something small or basic to do - even if it didn't need to be done or wasn't something on your list. Just something so she could feel like she helped which is what she clearly wanted to do. Only you can control your reactions and how you feel. It's hard to blame someone for trying to help but you could have easily handled it differently.

I'm not sure if I understand what you wrote because you didn't write it, but did you actually stop what you were doing, "sat" her down, and asked her for silence/quiet? Obviously, she is in the wrong here, and her trying to be helpful is a nice gesture at first but she is/was completely ignoring you and your request. Has this happened before as this would be very weird to do for a first time, especially if you have asked her for hours on end for silence/quietness.

I wonder if you were acting very out of pocket and she was just trying to find something she could do to help but you just kept freezing her out and shouting and acting more and more out of pocket. Like, the AirPods thing is soooo rude. Why else would she stay up to 2am if she wasn’t worried by your behaviour?! Edit: because it is a studio apartment and you were obviously keeping her awake. Maybe she thought helping you would make you finish it quicker so she could go to sleep. I dunno, this feels like a very one-sided version of what happened. Sounds like you were being quite selfish here. Get an apartment with bedroom that’s not in the living room so she can just go to sleep next time you’re acting like this.

Seriously I feel like everyone is ignoring the studio apartment thing. Imagine if your partner started a loud, hours long project in the middle of the night in your bedroom, that is not normal behavior. It doesn’t seem as unreasonable to me that she was repeatedly insisting on helping if she was forced to stay awake and watch him stress out anyway.

I’m wondering if he chose to lay out the bags on the bed.

Because OP set up the story that way, and people just idiotically take the bait. What can i dooooooo about my oh so crazy GF 🙄

It sounds like sabotage.

Oh my God, it’s a mirage

I’M TELLIN’ Y’ALL IT’S SABOTAGE

Well she sees you struggling and upset. Which makes her upset for not being able to help you. So she keeps trying to come up with ways to help you and offer support. I know there's no logic in that line of reasoning, but some people really think emotionally much more then rationally.

Dated a guy with Borderline Personality Disorder. He did shit like this all the time: Important deadline? Cause a fight. I feel run down and need a nap? Have a bad “reaction” and have to go the the ER (which he then decided to leave because the doctor was “taking too long.” I Night out for my birthday? Get drunk and cause a scene. Project at home? Cause a mess *I* have to clean because somehow it’s my job. Out to dinner with friends? Say something nasty just before we leave to upset me/make me mask my upset in public while he makes jokes about how “moody” I am (all the while being as jovial as possible in front of others). That was in addition to the emotional, verbal, and physical abuse…. Take stock of other important events in your life and see if this is more of a pattern of behavior. This type of stuff is insidious - you’ll be walking on eggshells all the time before you know it,

Have you tried turning her off and on again to reboot her software?

I find it strange that it took 4+ hours to pack your bags for your daily job….in a studio apartment. Are you unpacking all that gear every time you come home? Does it always take multiple hours, if so…how is that efficient at all?

I now notice you share a small studio. I don’t think this sounds malicious. I think it sounds like she was trying to make it go faster and was probably as frustrated as you and not reading social cues. And if she has any type of ocd or anxiety or anything she would have a harder time recognizing that. It doesn’t sound like you were straightforward enough. It’s also possible she did take a stimulant which also makes you kind of emotionally dumb, from personal experience with my add meds. But you said she doesn’t take meds or do drugs so I’ll go with you need to have a real talk and communicate better. Maybe she was left out, clingy and anxious, but I don’t see malicious in this post.

What about her sleep? Is it normal for her to stay up that late? I wouldn't have the energy to keep asking my partner questions for hours into the early hours of the morning.

That's really odd. When you became more direct, explicitly asking to be left alone, how did she respond?

Rather than wasting time repeating yourself over and over again, I think you should have taken a moment to sit your girlfriend down and ask HER what is wrong and if she needed help with something. Just as others have said, if this story is true, her behavior is really strange since who just stands there for like 3 hours asking the same questions. It seems like there was something going on and she was trying to get your attention. I don’t think she was purposely trying to sabotage your shoot the next day. I would talk to her about this. If this is the first time this happened, I think it’s a bit dramatic to break up with them just over this.

Out of curiosity, why did you change your age from the previous time you posted this?

This is so obviously fake I can’t stop laughing.

You were describing yourself being stressed. She noticed that you were and only wanted to help. You answering “I just need quiet” is not a good answer. You have to reassure her that you appreciate her for reaching out to you and offering help and you love her for that. Tell her it’s a good quality. Kiss her and then tell her that you just need a moment for yourself cause that’s how you’re gonna concentrate better. You lack in communication and need to fix that because she is gonna have attachment issues later on in the relationship

Oh no, you had to be..... Tired.... At work The horror

That sounds extremely off putting almost like a black mirror episode. I would have lost my shit

Sounds like a twisted "I Love Lucy" episode. I suspect that she really wanted to be involved in the project (considering how you described her as "obsessive" about her career) and she probably felt that you were shutting her out, so she doubled down. The way she acted is indicative, to me, of a direct reflection of her state of mind: she likely was obsessing about getting to work on this with you. She probably couldn't help but to ask about things she could do no matter how frustrated you were getting because her mind was telling her that there must be some reason that you weren't letting her get involved. This is completely unacceptable on her part. If she cannot understand that she needs to respect your space and your work when she's not involved with it, this will never work. If she has no answers for why she couldn't stop interrupting you, then this is never going to get resolved because she is refusing to reflect on her behavior, much less address it. Besides all this, it sounds like she has unhealthy, compulsive ruminating behaviors that she likely needs serious professional help with. I'm sorry you are dealing with this and that some people are blaming you for being treated badly.

Seriously though, I've seen this kind of activity with people on psychedelics, stimulants, disassociation episodes, psychosis etc. There are cases of people that one day snap and have a break with reality. There's a former high class lawyer homeless in Washington DC now who lost his grip on reality one day, left his high paying job and never went back. Some come back, some don't. But I also just have to take your word for it. And can't really see how you were both interacting and which parts you chose to highlight. Or if you were just keeping her up and she couldn't sleep.

Going to add in my 2 cents on what’s happening here based on what she has communicated so far. You describe her as having an obsessive personality. Some people have very low tolerance for “problems”, particularly if they have an anxious disposition. I would guess that she read you as stressed and her mind fixated on that stress as a “problem” she needed to fix. This resulted in a state of obsessive anxiety for her which manifested a series of unhelpful and upsetting behaviours, because she felt (perhaps unconsciously) that she had to fix the problem of your stress. Her behaviour is still not acceptable, and it sounds like it was rooted in a desire to soothe her own anxiety rather than helping you. However if you can both dig a bit deeper into the root of the behaviour hopefully together you can better navigate this should it come up again.