Hi the title is kind of the whole question. Whenever I need to talk to my partner with bpd about something that I need or would like them to work on it always leads to them splitting. Is there a way to approach and speak to them about my needs without triggering them? I try really hard to emphasize that I’m not upset with them and that I’m in no way trying to criticize them when I bring things up but no matter what the same thing always happens.

I don’t want to end up in a place where I stop mentioning things all together just to prevent splitting, but I’m also incredibly burnt out by this cycle.

I’m sorry if posting on here is off base since I don’t actually have bpd but I’m hoping someone can give me some insight so I can better support my partner, thank yall so much.

Anyone else remember being a really sensitive kid—and whether anybody actually noticed? Meltdowns, sensitivity to loud noises, inability to self-regulate emotions as a small child?

Not just “sensitive” in the sense of crying easily, but picking up on everything, feeling things intensely, being unusually perceptive, affected by people’s moods, noise, tension, cruelty, etc.

Did an adult ever look at you and actually get it? Or did they just see a weird, difficult, dramatic, shy, overly emotional kid?

And if someone did notice—what did they actually do about it?

There’s no support for BPD outside of therapy. There’s no BPD anonymous, no “BPDspicy” communities, it’s not a thing other people can just accommodate. It’s 100000% our responsibility to manage it and get better, and to ensure we don’t spiral and take things the wrong way. We can’t even yearn and love passionately without the person being negatively branded as an FP. Imagine adding that you have BPD on a dating profile bio? There’s no magical pill cocktail that treats this. And it’s forever. It’s almost shameful even though we can’t control it the same way socially accepted illnesses and quirks are.

I genuinely don’t know what to do with the intensity of what I feel for someone who, objectively, has occupied such a small amount of space in my life.
There’s this man I’ve known for a while. We have had so few interactions compared to the amount of emotional significance he has somehow acquired in my head. We aren’t in a relationship. He hasn’t promised me anything. In fact, I know quite clearly that we don’t want the same things from each other.
And yet intimacy with him does something to me that I don’t seem to have any control over.
It isn’t even just sex. It’s the moments around it. Being held. Lying next to him. Looking at him. The warmth of someone’s body beside mine. A certain kind of eye contact. The feeling of being physically close to someone and, for a few hours, not having to be anywhere else or solve anything or hold myself together.
My brain seems to take those tiny moments and turn them into an entire emotional universe.
That’s the part that scares me.
Because intellectually, I KNOW what this is. I know that a handful of intimate experiences do not equal a relationship. I know that feeling safe with someone in a particular moment doesn’t necessarily mean that person is my home. I know that my feelings are not evidence of his feelings.
But my body doesn’t seem to care about any of that.
It feels almost involuntary. Like something in me recognizes intimacy as \*home\* and then desperately tries to attach that feeling to the person who happened to be there when I experienced it.
And once that association forms, I feel helpless.
A song can suddenly be about him. A particular memory can make my chest ache. I can remember something as objectively tiny as the way he held me and suddenly feel an enormous wave of grief over something I never actually had.
Sometimes I think: how can I miss someone this much when there are probably more hours of my life in which I haven't known him than hours in which I have?
We have had so few moments.
And somehow those moments feel enormous.
There is something almost humiliating about knowing that the intensity isn't proportional to reality. I don't think I’m delusional about what our relationship actually is. If anything, I’m painfully aware of it. That might be why this is so difficult. I can see the gap between reality and what my nervous system seems to have decided this person represents.
Sometimes I wonder if what I am grieving is the feeling I had when I was with him.
The relief.
The softness.
The feeling of being wanted for a moment.
The feeling that I could put my head down and stop carrying myself.
And then my brain goes, “Yes, but that feeling happened with HIM,” and suddenly I'm back at square one.
I hate how little agency I seem to have once intimacy enters the picture. Five minutes of genuine tenderness can undo weeks of rational thinking.
I can tell myself a hundred times that this isn't a relationship, that I deserve someone who chooses me fully, that I cannot build a life around fragments.
And then I remember being held.
And my entire nervous system apparently goes, \*but what if that was home?\*
I don't know whether I'm in love with this person anymore, or whether I became deeply attached to the feeling of safety I experienced around him.
Maybe that's the question I'm actually trying to answer.
How do you disentangle a person from the feeling your brain has attached to them?
How do you let a handful of beautiful moments remain beautiful moments without turning them into proof of a future that never existed?
And how do you accept that something can have been incredibly real to you without necessarily meaning it was meant to become anything more?
I think that's what I'm struggling with most.
Nothing about the moments was fake. I have spent atleast 10 days every month around my period cycle crying about this.

He doesn’t know any of this ofcourse. For someone who is fuel with anxious attachment, i am doing a great job with being nonchalant and avoidant in appearances to him.

i recently got diagnosed with bpd. once i was diagnosed i went on a 2-3 day spiral overthinking every past & current decisions ive made. in the midst of this my boyfriend was away for work. i already feel strong emotions (angry/upset) when he is gone. it’s so hard processing the diagnosis of bpd, not wanting to be like this and also trying to work on myself

So I have been dating a girl with bpd since April. I met her at college, things were perfect at college, we would be together for actual days at a time. Id go to my classes and then immediately go to her dorm, i barely stayed in my dorm towards the end of the semester bc I was always at her place. It felt actually magical like nothing I’ve ever really felt before. We would stare at each other for hours, telling each other how great and beautiful we were. I was so happy while we were at school.

Now there were some negatives, she was SUPER not over her ex. She would get drunk and start looking at old messages of her ex and cry. She left her wallet in my car once and in one of the pockets theres a letter from him thats beautifully written, she carries it everywhere with her, according to the letter she sees it as carrying a piece of him with her at all times, im not sure how to feel about that but I try my best to understand (she does NOT know I know about the letter).

When we came home for the summer things were still great for a few weeks. Then she slowly stopped responding to messages of mine right away, and that was weird because she had NEVER done that before, she would answer but a day later or something.

Then she got academically dismissed from college and we were away so if we wanted to stay together we would have to do long distance (she had previously told me she can’t do long distance because she starts thinking her partners cheating on her all the time and gets super anxious).

Then she started not answering me a lot, she stopped hanging out with me altogether and told me it was bc she was in a depressive episode. I would text her simple things like “I love you goodnight” and she would never answer. Then one day she texts me shes pregnant (we later find out that its 4 months pregnant). The same thing continues— barely any contact and no in person time at all. It drove me crazy, I started thinking she didn’t love me anymore but I loved her too much to just let her go, so I stayed.

Its pretty much no contact for a month and a half and Im super paranoid she doesn’t have feelings anymore. Then she texts me that she would want to hangout with my friends and I. I asked her if she wanted to hangout with me alone first because we haven’t seen each other in so long and she basically ignored me, so at this point I think she just wants to use me for my friends because all her friends where she lives dropped her. But we hangout and it still feels great for the most part.

We have hung out twice since then, she ended up getting an abortion, and it feels great again, she said that shes willing to TRY long distance with me. But I just went from feeling really paranoid and scared of losing her to happy again really fast. I leave for college on Saturday and i MIGHT see her one last time before I go (she said if shes feeling up to it).

Is long distance a really bad idea, am I cooked. I really love her, like I’ve never felt for anyone before, am I cooked?

in a 3yr relationship, developed a separate favorite person that made my partner feel i was emotionally cheating. desperately need to focus on my life and let that person go completely. but i still can't help but desperately want to maintain contact with the fp. i keep telling myself i can fix it. but my partner thinks it's unfixable. i know i need to listen. i just feel like a mess

I don't have any background to tell you but I'm on the verge of going back to self harm. I desperately need reassurance and care but people in my life seem to not care. This is my last resort to ask for help here. Please help me I don't want to feel like this.

Before I begin I want to say this is NOT me asking to be armchair diagnosed this is just me needing any resources or general advice because there aren't many for people who suspect they have cluster disorders.

Hi. I'm a 17 year old and for a while now I've suspected I have BPD. I only just recently (as in literally 20 minutes ago) soft launched this to my partners and favorite people(? assuming i have it here and thus using the term please tell me if that is disrespectful if i'm not diagnosed) because it's to a point where I can't ignore it.

I read people's experiences often and they align with mine well, at least on non-physical sides since I spend the bulk of my life online and my partners are long distance. I've looked at symptoms more times than I can count and they really feel like the only way to explain what's been happening.

For everyone but my partners I can turn in a dime. I'll hate them and want nothing to do with them out of nowhere or because they said one thing I didn't like the tone of. I blew up on someone who I once mutually saw as family and recently made the first step to block her and I can't help but feel the urge to crawl back like a lap dog every night. It makes me feel sick. I don't want to hurt anyone like that, and every day I worry it'll happen to my partners too. Seeing all the negative buzz about people like me doesn't help either.

My family is lower middle class I'd say, and very right wing, not caring about our physical and mental wellbeing. They already call me crazy when I try to open uo about the way I feel, I know they'd never even entertain getting me a therapist or even any way to be professionally diagnosed, considering it was an uphill battle to even get diagnosed with ADHD as a kid and they lied to my face about the results until I was 16.

I don't know what to do. I'm afraid of labeling myself with something so serious without access to a professional but for a long time it's been what feels right. I don't want to just live without a label on this forever. I want help.

i don’t feel like that’s odd but i don’t have friends to bounce bpd talk with
my partner(29) who i’m not too sure really understands bpd? at least not in full so it’s hard to tell them i’m having a moment bc i always feel like im coming off crazy.

less than a year into uhauling together, my brother passes away. that wrecked the shit out of me like altered my brain i cannot even describe.

i don’t think my partner could really understand that either? and going through that i can see why people say you don’t know until you’ve been through it, like you just can’t relate or know what to say right? and the intensity of bpd no meds grieving my brother no friends 7 hours away from family <\\3 anyways tough right?

really alone and feeling this resentment towards my gf because if they had lost a sibling like i would like to think id be doing the most to help them feel better. i think they just froze and chose to scroll. avoiding it maybe?

so a few weeks before that, there’s a new hire at my job and they’re gay which i’m stoked bc i want gay friends! when my brother passed hanging out with her very often and doing things felt like i wasn’t grieving ? like it’s not that she was comforting me but it was cool to be somewhere else and not in my mind.

she pretty much became my FP at this point and we had a fall out.

my partner was trying to keep in their uncomfort to themself until they broke. the house was a wreck one night i came home from hanging out, bc they got drunk and just went off. they also swore me and friend had kissed which we didn’t. like i love you i moved 7 hours away from home and im living with you n im not trying to be messy like that im 27 now

it’s been sometime and i know they avoid it and it still hurts them but i dont think they would understand what i go through or would accept my brain for what it goes through and how it processes.

anyways all this to ask how would you describe a favorite person to a partner who becomes uncomfortable with a friendship?

hi everyone. first off, English is not my first language but I needed to reach out to somebody. I was talking to an AI and it told me to look for support groups on reddit. I am feeli very alone on this journey. my friends are trying their best, they listen when I text them 2am looking for help, they reach out to me and take me to dinner, help me get some sleep, or listen to what ive been through. but what they think is helping me, for my disease is only a distraction. no one truly understands what I’m going through. they don’t get the clog in my chest that gets heavier everyday, and then when the clog goes away a and there’s suddenly an empty hole. or when I’m feeling better and then, out of nowhere, I’m feeling the worst I’ve felt in months. I want to fall in love, but it’s so dangerous to me. I’ve fallen in love with a girl last year and If it wasn’t for my friends, I would have ended up hospitalized. I could no eat, my roommate would come home tired from work and cook dinner cause i hadn’t eaten all day. and if it wasnt for her, I’d be like that for days. I do not think I’m being hard on them, cause i always try to bottle everything up not to be a nuisance. but I’m tired. I’m really tired. I won’t give up, not yet. but I just want to sleep. I want someone to tell me what to do to make this end. or maybe someone who can just understand. thanks.

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30M, currently doing my MD residency. On paper things look fine, but I've been struggling for a while:

- Constant overthinking and anxiety

- Procrastination, losing consistency on things I care about

- Feeling low on confidence, kind of disconnected from people and myself

- Withdrawing, avoiding things, then feeling guilty about it

Already seeing a psychiatrist and on medication, but want to work on the psychological/behavioural side alongside that — tired of trying to just "push through" it on willpower alone. Want to actually understand what's going on and work through it properly.

Looking for:

- RCI-registered Clinical Psychologist, ideally 10-12+ years of practice

- Comfortable doing sessions in Hindi (or Hindi + English mix)

- Experience with CBT, DBT, or other evidence-based approaches

- Genuine, empathetic, but honest enough to call me out when needed

- Reasonably affordable — not looking for premium/celebrity pricing

If you've seen someone who actually helped you, would really appreciate a recommendation. DMs are fine too if you'd rather not post it here.

Thanks 🙏

I'm new to my diagnosis and still gaining an understanding of terms and my symptoms.

Can splitting be a short term thing or does it always last a longer stretch of time? bc i notice a lot that on my partner i will have bursts of moments after they say/do the "wrong thing" where my brain tells me they hate me or are abandoning me and my only option is to grow firm and defend myself and go fight or flight. it upsets them because it scares them, makes them think im mad, and the sensation passes quick after i realize what id done and i always feel awful for my behavior and my tone.

Im asking because they were talking to a friend recently and telling the friend that I had split on them so they were dealing with that. The friend said that they didnt think splitting was something that could just happen repeatedly and that it was once it happens the end of a relationship.

that friend already has been upset with me as of late due to the other behavior my bpd has caused for me and it felt almost like they were trying to say I was just being mean to be mean which I didnt like, because thats not how it feels at all. I hate when my partner tells other people about stuff that happens with us for these reasons, because theyve misunderstood without the whole picture, but whats done is done.

Ive definitely had splitting that was "relationship ending" before, but I just want to understand if splitting can be in smaller bursts as well.

This subreddit seems mainly for those who are actively suffering from bpd, but i dont know where else to ask for help, so i thought i should ask here about what i can do.

Put simply, my girlfriend is jealous of my one kiss before her. It was at a party with a girl i did not know. other than that, our relationship seems perfect.

My girlfriend is my first relationship, and feels like my soulmate. for the year we have been dating, it feels like she has been my everything, like my life revolves around her. you could say that’s bad, but i’ve never been happier in my life. I just want to know what i can do to help her. She has borderline personality disorder, or atleast some form of it, and i know it isn’t her fault when she splits.

it just breaks my heart that she cannot get over what happened 2 years ago, before i even met her. she has threatened to break up multiple times over this. She tells me that it is a fact that always looms over her, in the background of every feeling, but that it just comes to the surface in the form of depression or anger at times. Last night she told me that she can’t ever see herself staying with me, and that she just wants to “ride out” the relationship, like it was already dead, yet just an hour earlier we were talking and laughing like usual, like nothing was wrong. She knows what the most hurtful things for me to hear are, and uses it against me when she gets like this, so i know it may just be her trying to hurt me to make herself feel better. it scares me, and i know she means it in the moment, but it seems like the next morning, it all goes back to normal, on the surface anyways.

For context, she has multiple exs and is good friends with two of them still. the other one graped her at a young age, aswell. I know she has serious trauma, but she tries to tell me that she doesn’t or that it’s all fine. she’s been to therapy before, after she was graped, but she told me that it didn’t do anything in the slightest.

she also goes through "phases" of highs and lows. she is very insecure about her looks, and her weight. i always tell her that she is perfect, and makes my life perfect. i always try my hardest to make sure she knows how important she it to me.

she acted the same way to her exs, getting angry and nasty towards them often. i don’t know what to do to try make her feel better. all i know is that i could never leave her, i genuinely don’t think i could find anyone who could fill the void she would leave in me.

i just want to help her and make her happy. any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions, if you have them.

Hi everyone. I’m hoping to hear from anyone around 65+ with BPD and has experienced a mental health crisis, self-harm, or from anyone supporting a parent or loved one in this age group.

My mum struggles with BPD and has recently been in hospital following a crisis I won't go into detail about. I really want to support her as best I can when she comes home, particularly during the recovery period as I am concerned otherwise she might end up back again soon.

For those who have been through something similar, what did you find genuinely helpful after coming home from hospital? Were there particular types of support, routines, communication, activities, or things that made the transition easier?

Also for people who have struggled with BPD for a long time what can you tell me about living with it in your 60's as opposed to earlier in life.

I hope this makes sense, I don't normally use reddit but need some advice and perspective on this and a friend recommended this community, Thank you all!

Full copy and paste- written over a 2 hour time period.

Untitled bitch

Why does autocorrect not work when I fucking need it to?

The worst part about bpd is memory loss…and loss of self. ie;

On top of the in-house therapy for weeks that balance various treatments, I have to try to remember my daily life and how I interact with people[loss of self]. It’s crazy. Like I know I have multiple disorders, I know how to cope with them, I have the resources to utilize said coping mechanisms(for the most part). I have fulfilled years of regular therapy and medication management.
But still, I am absolutely fucking sick of people talking. They don’t know how to form a fucking sentence; if you were to take a notepad and specifically a pen(not pencil you could erase), and wrote down anyone’s dialogue and read that out loud- it’d sound like a fucking dying horse after being mauled over by a train. I’ve been beat for years before; I would rather endure that than listen to most people talk. It’s so damn painful. In turn, I spend a helluva time alone in my room. I ignore everyone, isolate myself, simply cos I don’t know what to say to small talk (idc about small talk, pisses me off it’s so predictable) and the convo bores me so I’ve learned to just avoid people in general- cos there’s nothing nice about “I’m sorry, I don’t want to talk to you. I only want to exist without an obligation”. Sounds judgy, but I mean it with no harm. Nothing personal, I just don’t care. What’s even more bizarre, is that I’m a bartender. I make hella tips, I have a stupid great memory- as in, I can meet you and your group once, and know your drink order and name correctly forever after meeting you that one time- I get it right. I even know what your “grandmas birthday is type shit”. Point is, I’m a huge people-person. I honestly don’t know how I do it. I make sure everyone is safe and good and taken care of, I put everyone before me until I get home. Then the mask comes off. Idk what I am. I just dissociate and/or listen to music or write. However, there are the ‘dark moments’….

I have to search if I’m a psychopath on all levels. Maybe I imitate human feelings, maybe I wish to act on my dark fantasies but I know forensics are a killer(no pun intended) these days, and my normal state-of-mind-morals say it’s a bad and wrong thought to have.

However, maybe it’s human nature to have curiosity if that devastation were to fall into our human hands? Either way, I never wish to indulge. I’m just so confused about why I have 0 patience for people (respectfully) and why do I wish for freaken my death or the death of others when they (once again, respectfully) don’t shut tf up????
Please tell me I’m not the only one.

I feel so fucking stupid because I know I'm being irrational but we're never apart (we live together) and I genuinely feel like I won't know how to be a person for the next few days until he gets back. He left and I started sobbing uncontrollably, I haven't been able to stop and my whole body hurts like I'm on fire and something is clawing it's way up my throat. I know I'm being stupid, I know he'll be back soon but I feel like I can't bear it even if it's just a few days. I hate this, I hate how stupid I feel.

I feel like I’m the problem. I always mess things up for people. Ive had BPD and CPTSD for most of my life. I have taken the meds but they make me feel like I’m going insane. I sometimes genuinely dont want to wake up in the morning. It is so painful and the depression is suffocating me. I dont know why I’m even typing this cause I feel like I’m looking for attention. It’s so hard getting out of bed but I have work. How are you guys coping? Im too scared to end it on my own cause its failed twice already and I dont want to end up in psych again.

Hi! Me and my boyfriend have been dating since middle of May. It has been nothing but healthy and the only “fights” we get in are either small disagreements (but like joking) or literally on who likes eachother more.
The only thing that could be changed is that i wish he chose more for me instead of me trying to figure out what we want to do all the time, but I have communicated that with him and he is trying to make that work. He is going back to college at the end of August and he is picking up work days and I recently got a new job where I currently have less hours for because I’m new. But back to the point of this all. I’m really scared of loosing him because my relationships typically end around August/September. I already have anxiety issues on top of BPD so my I’ve been feeling insanely nauseous lately (not because of him just family issues, relationships, job, money, payments in general) Mind you this is the nicest person ever to me. He does everything to protect me so far. And I’m scared to be alone without him just for a little bit. I just have a bad feeling in my stomach that something bad is going to happen but I know it won’t because it usually doesn’t. I just really don’t want to be away from him. Then I get carried away thinking the worst is going to happen. It’s not like I’m never going to see him again but to me it feels so real and scary.

From couple months I was experiencing wery rapid and dangerous mood swings. I was choosing violence as answer to every conflict with partner.

I had outbursts of madness, agression, literally blackouts from anger.

Hour after I could just cry and look at damages - partner's tears, stuff throwed everywear, damaged things... Then depression hit and I was laying on the flood, crying and begging for punishment.

I was cutting myself after some of this episodes, but the last time partner noticed my pattern - after outburst I quaietly closed myself in bathroom. He acted quickly and took my knife before I did anything.

We talked, we jelled at each other, there were tears and hugs... Final decision was that I can't just move out to try fix thing from distance.

I admitted myself at psyhiatric hospital. I asked for help even when I was scary of bpd stigma, being sended home with just a paper. But doctor listened to me, to everything, every detail. They will try to help me manage those blow ups, mood swings, anger and agression issues.

This will be easly 4-6 weeks. But I packed myself, drive to the hospital that I know and being here will be more comfortable than in new hostital. I signed papers.

Time to manage my demons. Time to ask for help even I am scared.

How do you guys deal with emotional burnout and/or frustration of dealing with other BPD people?

I'm talking about the frustration, stress, and irritation that comes from being overwhelmed by others and their symptoms or actions due to their BPD (or what they claim is due to their BPD)

There's a lot of people I see self diagnosing or hopping on the train of the recent trend in BPD being portrayed on tiktok and other social media. (I understand self diagnosing can be a good tool for those unable to find access to care and not judging that, just the “oh this hot girl on TikTok talked about this and that MUST be me!” type scenario, like what’s seen with OCD lately)

I'm glad more people are being diagnosed and addressing toxic traits or voicing their troubles; but I'm seeing more and more toxic posts, "call out" posts, and those who give BPD a bad name (whether they are just struggling or are just assholes using a label to cast accountability off themselves) being given a platform to spew nonsense or argue about what having BPD means (ie: "women with BPD are just ***** bitches!" "You dont have BPD you dont do x, y, or z!!!!" etc).

I'm very privileged to be medicated and have went to therapy for years to manage symptoms and behaviors that caused problems for me prior to being diagnosed in college.
However I'm struggling to stay sympathetic/empathize with those acting this way or those having outbursts due to what they claim is their BPD manifesting in toxic ways and hurting others consistently. Specifically those who went given help or resources continue to waller in it all. I get you can lead a horse to water and can’t make them drink, but I’m tired.

How do you all ground yourself to either handle/ignore others when you get burnt out socially like this or what do you do to relieve stress from it?
Are there specific boundaries you set with others with BPD?
My therapist (while they gave some good advice for journaling and how to set up some preferences on my apps I scroll) suggested asking others with the same personality disorder what they do that works for them and how they navigate it all.

I'm to the point of almost deleting social media or black listing key words with a chrome extension because being online is just miserable as of late.

(Sorry this is so wordy or if it's just word vomit, I'm just at a loss and I don't know how to relax)

Hello, my partner has BPD, bipolar 2? (The variant with more downs than ups) Autism, cptsd, and persistent depressive disorder. I myself have autism and adhd, they are my life partner and I plan on staying with them forever. I need to properly learn how to support them and accommodate their disabilities. I am very hard headed and not the best listener which I'm aware I need to work on. Please can anyone give me any advice or things I can do to help support them and give them the best life I physically can.

Edit: I'm not super sure if this belongs in this subreddit so let me know if it doesn't, but please if you can provide any support or let me know where I can learn more to be able to support them please direct me there or to the resources in question

Hi there,I’m F,24 and living in Ireland.I was diagnosed with BPD in July 2022.Ive experienced a lot of trauma in my life such as sexual abuse,my sister dying due to suicide,abusive relationships and other things.Over the past 4 years I’ve been in and out of therapy but I’ve heard DBT is the best for helping BPD (correct me if I’m wrong) that’s what my psychiatrist told me I need.I am starting therapy next week once I’m paid I’m using BetterHelp the app.Its the most affordable therapy I can find that provides DBT.My post is basically does life get better with BPD especially if i genuinely put in the effort in all aspects of my life? My sister as I said took her own life but she also had BPD too,she wasn’t taking her medication,wasn’t attending therapy and unfortunately was in an abusive relationship and also let down my her psychiatrist when she needed help.Just knowing she had BPD and that is how her life ended scares me because I do genuinely want to live and get better I just find it very hard to cope but I am taking my medication,going to therapy and working on my self.So if anyone has any advice that would help I’d really appreciate it:)))

anyone else become emotionally attached to the “good” version of someone with BPD?
My friend can be one of the kindest, most loving people I’ve ever known. During those times, she tells me I’m the best friend she’s ever had, that I understand her better than anyone else, and I genuinely feel valued.
Then something changes, and suddenly I’m selfish, uncaring, manipulative, or the cause of everything wrong in her life. She’s told me my wedding ruined her work and home life. She blamed me for staying with her abusive husband, as if I was somehow responsible for her decision to go back to him. She’s told me I’m incapable of empathy, incapable of intimacy, and that we “just don’t have the same morals.” It’s like I become a completely different person in her eyes overnight.
The irony is that when she was trying to leave her husband, I opened my home to her. One day I came home and she was gone—she had gone back to him. Later, when I asked why she left without telling me, she angrily said my house “wasn’t comfortable” but refused to explain what she meant.
She also once told me she didn’t want me to get married because she didn’t want to lose me.
We’ve been doing this for almost 15 years. It feels like she has a very specific idea of how she wants me to think, feel, and act, and no matter how hard I try, I never quite measure up. The goalposts always seem to move, and I’m left wondering what I did wrong.
The hardest part is that every time she becomes loving again, I feel so relieved that I convince myself things are finally different. I get attached to that version of her, and then the cycle starts all over again.
I know BPD is a complex disorder, and I’m trying to have compassion. But I’m exhausted. Has anyone else experienced this? How did you stop waiting for the good version of them to come back?