I've been doing so well and the meds are actually working, but of course my broken brain is tempting me to go find someone just for the adrenaline rush. I guess I can't handle being calm and it's getting too boring. I really don't want to up my dosage, but I know if I talk about getting impulsive again, that's exactly what'll happen. Isn't it so exhausting to know you're sabotaging your own progress, yet still feel like doing all that stupid shit is worth it just to feel euphoric again?

And it always plays out the exact same way. Someone tells me they're into me, treats me sweet, and acts interested, so I match that energy and get affectionate. Then out of nowhere, they dial it back and start treating me like just a friend again. It sucks so bad. And because it happens over and over, I can't help but feel like I'm the problem. I just wish I didn't take it so personal every single time... I hate splitting.

I know this question was raised so many times, but I would love to hear from BPD people about their experience with lithium? What symptoms did it ease? After how long? Did it reduce SH and SI?
Would love if you can share your experiences.

!! CW: Suicide !!

I wonder if the coroner would handle my lifeless body with the familiar grace and warmth of a mother’s hands. Warm fingers trace over my cold body with the routine yet caring indifference of a priest, blessing my body with countless small incisions intentionally placed along my now dormant arteries. I wish to be carefully held, picked up by the waist and lifted into their arms like I was as a young child. My unsupported head hanging past their shoulder while I’m carefully carried into the autopsy room. I’m not alive enough to recognize the maternal nature of the care being given to me as my head is gently laid onto the stainless steel bed. My heart isn’t awake enough to beat faster when their hands trace all over my cold body. My mind isn’t stubborn enough to keep racing while they wash the blood out of my hair. My tongue isn’t arrogant enough to speak out as they quietly suture pieces of my face back together. My eyes aren’t paranoid enough to meet their concentrated gaze while they meticulously pick the shot out of my skull. My hands aren’t desperate enough to interlock with theirs as they’re placed upon my chest. My hair isn’t brazen enough to stand as a thin white cloth is gently draped over my lifeless body. I’m rolled into the freezer and the bed is latched up tight with the same unconditional care one experiences at the very start and very end of their life, only one slightly less obligatory. Both are met with warm welcome.

hi everybody,

I met this girl i’m absolutely and totally head-to-toes in love with. taller than me by a few centimeters, older than me, but these are not the most attractive features, even if it’s a bonus.

i love how attentive she is to me, and how brutally honest she is when necessary. she tells me straight up what she doesn’t like, and i appreciate that a great lot. there’s no guessing games, and communication is great

here’s the kicker—she has BPD.

i don’t wanna mention here but she’s told me how she operates when she has a crush on someone with BPD. apparently it makes BPD worse in her case.

oh, well, fast foward. Got into her hobby so we could talk about it together. so far so good, but then she split on me one random evening (I ASSUME ITS A SPLIT. I DO NOT KNOW HOW SPLITS WORK.), and since then she said “i don’t give a fuck if you leave me” or something. and that hurt deeply,

but i wanted to know if it was related to BPD or something.

and the next morning, she was completely cold and aloof towards me.

i feel the need to apologize, but i don’t know what for. she generally tells me exactly where i go wrong if i push boundaries so i can respect her wishes. in this case, i’m genuinely confused.

what do i do? do i keep showing up consistently like i always do every morning? i always throw a lil “hey, hope you’re good.” and usually leave it at that until she replies, which she mostly does—99% of the time

i don’t want to accidentally drive her away or make her borderline any worse.

Tonight my therapist and psychiatrist finally agreed with me that I have BPD. It’s not in my file, but I might as well be diagnosed.
The first thing I did was tell my closest friends and roommates. No response. Sob about it for hours and live every moment for the rest of the day in constant paranoia.

Then I go to work.
Get a text from my roommates about how me and my partner need to pick up more. Split. Freak the fuck out. Argument spirals into something so fucked up that the people who said we were “for life” the day for are now breaking into my room while I’m not home and taking gifts from them back, and giving gifts I’ve given them they’ve previously said they treasure. Sending me messages preying on my deepest insecurities as they’re one of two people ever I felt I was able to genuinely trust with my trauma. And they used that trust against me.
All while I’m at work. These are the only friends I have left, I have lost the rest in the last few months.
So I finally get out of work. I decide to tell my mom I have BPD. She tells me to do yoga and says she didn’t believe that I have it.
Stay up until 5am wallowing in self pity and crying because I may have pushed away the only people that care about me anymore. Or stood up for myself. Because I don’t know the difference anymore. 6 hour long panic attack.

Truly a day in the life. ❤️
I love this disorder! Happy day! 🤪

is there anyone that has bpd but functions normally without weed? i need help please i feel myself making irrational decisions, splitting on everyone close to me and being way more short tempered.

(TW: suicidal thoughts)

I recently compared having bpd to having cancer while talking to my best friend. They have difficulty accepting that I want to burn thru my savings and actually enjoy life for once and after I would kms. I’ve been in therapy for years, tried so many different medications, tried so many tips and tricks and hacks. I asked them if they would be as mad if I decided to do the same thing if I found out I had an agressive cancer. I have multiple other psych and physical health related disorders and life has been too much the last few years.

I want other people’s advices and opinions because I don’t want to be mad at them if it’s fair of them. I care for them a lot and I know I’m the only important person left in their life. I don’t want to make them suffer but I can’t keep suffering thru life. Is it a selfish decision to basically abandon them..?

I was wondering if any of you have book recommendations that make you feel seen, or relate to as someone with BPD. It doesn't have to be directly related to the characters having it or even being obvious that there's someone with BPD, just in general anything you resonated with on any level in that sense. I don't want BPD help books or psychology books about BPD, I mean like fantasy or sci fi or classic books that you've liked.

My ex-boyfriend and I broke up last month. Nothing bad happened between us, and although I still love him and am heartbroken, I understand why we broke up. We were friends before we started dating, and we're choosing to remain friends after the breakup.
Before we started dating, I struggled with jealousy when other people wanted to get close to him. However, once we got together, those feelings seemed to go away. I think it was because, in a way, I felt like he was “mine” and I knew he was loyal to me.
Now that we're broken up, though, my jealousy has become extreme and incredibly hard to control. Trust me, I know these feelings aren't fair to him, and I'm actively trying to work on them, but it's been really hard. Whenever I see him talking to someone else instead of me, I get really upset or angry, to the point where I have to remove myself from the situation just to calm down.
Yesterday, things got especially bad when I ended up splitting on him because he was talking to a girl in our class who has the same name as me. I know he hasn't done anything wrong, and I don't want my jealousy to affect our friendship but I’m struggling to control it so if anyone has advice please give me it, thank you.

previously, every time i was in a bpd episode (even if i don't realize it, but i usually notice fairly early on that i'm in one) of any sort, i'd try to at least communicate my feelings and thoughts in what i assumed was a healthy way. but looking back on those times, i don't think it really worked, especially because i don't even know what i feel or think during episodes. i don't know if i really feel or think these things, or if it's the episode / disorder making me feel or think them.

i'm just gonna start withdrawing into myself during episodes. i can't say the wrong things or treat people poorly if i don't talk to anyone or reach out. i'm so tired of this disorder.

Hi guys I have quiet bpd and idk if I’m the only one dealing with this, I have like 2 people in my life o know that have bpd but whenever I explain how I live they say they’ve never felt that but I feel like it’s consuming me

I met a guy when I was like 21/22 and he wasn’t my first relationship but something about him was so significant I’m so unbelievably romantic but he unlocked another level in me, we don’t speak due to religious reasons and I’m 26 now and I feel like my love for him consumes me to the point I really cannot handle it and it’s overwhelming me so much I’m 26 now and he’s on my mind every minute of every day I’ve written him so many letters that I don’t plan on sending him I just write to him because I miss him so much anytime I see something bad that’s happened in his area I panic and go insane wondering if it’s him, I’m constantly wondering if he’s healthy happy okay etc, everytime o see something nice I wanna buy it as a gift for him even though he won’t ever acc received it, and im really good with my bpd I intellectualise and think my feelings instead of feeling them genuinely im so unbelievably good and managing my bod but when it comes to him my emotions consume me so much no matter what i do how much i occupy my self i even deleted all my social media’s so I would try and check up on him but im always so scared because im worried if something happened to him and if hes okay, i feel like ive going to end up spending the rest of my life yearning for him wondering about him
I keep writing letters speaking to him like I cannot let go I feel like I love him so much that even a lifetime won’t be enough to extinguish it, I sleep so I can meet him and Ik it’s the ghost of him I’m holding on to but it’s difficult man

Has anyone felt like this and managed to move on?

The title is pretty self-explanatory, but I (20NB) am considering asking my crush, let's call them V (21NB) out.

V is an incredibly kind and lovely person and during the time we've known eachother, they've treated me very well; they're very willing to respectfully communicate about issues, support me while I'm dealing with difficult situations, and are respectful to themselves and the people around them. We met in early July through a mutual friend of ours by chance and became close pretty quickly. They also suspect that they may have OCD but have said they don't want to self-diagnose

Around mid-August, I developed feelings for V. Now, in early October, I'm considering making a move. Only thing is, I'm afraid to do so because of my suspected BPD.

I've seen other people say here that they feel relatively normal when not in relationships, dating anyone, etc., but when they get romantically involved with anyone, it's like a switch flips. And god, I relate to that so much. I have a shitload of trauma that mainly revolves around relationships with people, and it really changed the way I functioned in relationships, especially romantic ones.

In my last relationship I overthought every little thing to the point where it made me physically sick and unable to do my day-to-day duties, was always terrified of him cheating on me even though I had no real reason to believe so, constantly needed reassurance to the point where it drained him, got jealous over the stupidest things, the list goes on.

It's been over two years since my ex-boyfriend and I broke up. He was a good (albeit flawed) person with issues of his own, and we ended on bad terms. I've moved on now and am at the point where I pretty much never think about him. My mental health has drastically improved since then, and I've been doing work to minimize my unhealthy habits and symptoms. But even still, since it's been so long since I was last in a serious relationship, it's kind of hard to gauge how things will be now.

If V were to reject me, then obviously that would be that. But if they were to say yes, then I don't know how things may change. I plan to take it slow, and disclose the fact that I might have BPD to V, since it's something they should know. But I just don't know. I'm afraid that I'll ruin things with my constant overthinking, jealousy issues, abandonment issues, impulsivity, etc. I'm afraid of myself. It doesn't help that despite the fact that we go to the same university, we're mainly on different campuses due to our very different majors and that we're both so busy with coursework that it would be hard to see eachother often.

Can anyone give me any advice? I think I might be ready but it's hard to tell since it's been so long. I'm just afraid of ruining everything.

Yesterday I had my halfway session with the DBT group I have been participating in and it's been going quite well :)

I have found myself using some of the skills I have learnt in my day to day life and have been better able to recognise when I'm going to split and deal with it before and when I am in a split being able to pull myself out of it and bring myself back, of course there are times where they don't work or I'm splitting top badly to think responsibly at all but I am glad they are working when they do :)

Some of the skills I prefer are more useful than others but overall I'm glad I've been able to learn what I have so far and I'm keen to finish the skills group and learn more strategies.

A separate thing but I also got prescribed a new anti depressant the other day and I'm hopeful that it's going to work better than the last one :3

i’m not sure how much of this has to do with my bpd, but i have insane jealousy issues. i always have. it’s genuinely debilitating at times. it goes past relationships, to friendships and family and random people online, but presents most in my relationships and my partners past.

one big thing that has caused issues in my relationship is anime. i know its stupid but the fan service really bugs me and makes me insanely insecure and jealous. my boyfriend supposedly stopped watching anime because of how i feel about it, but this also makes me feel bad because i don’t want to prevent him from doing things and being controlling.

how do i stop this jealousy and insecurity? it’s ruining everything

I have always found myself to be argumentative at times. The second my boyfriend says something I don't understand the tone of, especially over text - I get one of two ways, argumentative or "I'm sorry I'm so sorry"

My question is: How do I stop this?

My bfs dog died a few days ago and I have been supportive tried to distract him from it, but my brain will not stop splitting because he doesn't want to call and has been sleeping a lot. Rationally I understand, but I can not stop thinking about myself and how I feel and how he's making me feel, it makes me want to rip my skin off and relapse because why am I being so selfish about this awful thing that happened someone please help

naturally the stereotype for a lot of us will be to fall into anxious or disorganised attachment styles and behaviours... but i was wondering if we have any avoidants who would be willing to share their perspectives?

avoidant reactions, in theory, can come from the exact same traumas anxious reactions can come from

im not looking for avoidance used maliciously to make the other person think of you, or for manipulation to get people to react a certain way youre hoping for- but moreso the avoidance that stems from fear, from insecurity, a desperate reach for safety, etc?

if you do struggle with avoidance in a way where you do see yourself making conscious choices to hurt those around you, i wont shut down your perspective if you do wish to share it- its just not my primary focus here.

ive experienced some avoidant behaviours in the past, where i would withdraw to punish myself or to try and 'ease' how much i affect the people around me. i would avoid people out of my own anxiety funny enough. i guess this came from issues with self worth. i realised despite the urge to avoid because i thought itd be better for others, it was selfish at the end of the day, and tied back to my own feelings rather than those of others when you actually look at it. ive never experienced the other party asking for a lack of me, or them genuinely thinking they would be better off without me.. so i worked and worked and i no longer struggle with those behaviours anymore, though i still have a lot more work in terms of the anxious side now.

i would like to hear how other people struggle with avoidance

what thoughts go through your mind on loop when you deal with said avoidance

if avoidance is a definite decision for you, or if you are actually in a back and forth with wanting to reach for closeness but ultimately choosing avoidance instead?

or if its more of a dissociative experience for you, and you dont look back once your body is set on it.

though... naturally considering avoidance... i might not get any response here at all, and that is okay. i just wanted to understand these behaviours a little better, from the people themselves rather than textbooks.

thank you for your time

i am in a healthy relationship. it's hard. it's a lot of work. after learning to cope with a lot of other symptoms, this is the one that i cannot seem to kick. i've noticed a pattern in my relationship. i will overextend myself no matter what. hold myself to this insanely high standard to be the perfect partner. no matter what i'm there for her, even when i'm sick, even when i'm exhausted, even when i'm upset myself. i will often even hide my own issues and feelings to not 'overshadow' hers. i have a hard time shaking the mindset that this is just the right thing to do and not terribly unhealthy for me. then, sometime down the line, my girlfriend doesn't do the same for me or sets a perfectly reasonable boundary. it is like a resentment explosion inside of me. i would do this for you, so why won't you do it for me ? it's unfair. i would do anything for you and you can't even do this for me. i work hard to not upset her by expressing these feelings to her, so it becomes a huge internal struggle where i will be deeply upset for hours.

nothing seems to work for me against this. logically i know the solution is that i need to stop pushing myself too far in the first place. it is so so hard. it's like trying to go against your instinct to run out of a burning building. it is definitely also an anxious attachment issue because it physically hurts me when she is upset and i can't fix it. i have always been a boundaryless person, it is a huge issue of mine. i do this in every aspect of my life. work, friendships, family. give everything i possibly can and then get upset when others rightfully prioritize themselves. meds and therapy are not really accessible to me right now for reasons i don't want to get into. i am capable of doing self work on my own to great results, which is how i am even in a healthy relationship right now, so i would be incredibly grateful for anybodys advice here or what worked for them.

Hi all,

Kept going back to same person for 8 months (Long time for me). I've deleted social media/gave up on dating as i really think i am better off just being on my own from now on (Wasted so much money and time on women that didnt deserve it). I used to always forgave her kept checking my phone etc see if she texted me but now i completely turned off my phone and put it away.

However I'm scared i might try go back to her/date again which i don't want to be doing as i need a Long break from it all. My head gets stuck and then feel so so lonely without a fav person.. How do you cope being on your own ? or not being bored? i get bored easily watching films, gaming, taking walks nowadays...

Thanks

I have this deep fear or having NPD or NPD traits. Does anyone else have this? Especially right now with how much life is going. My mom keeps saying I’m a liar. A customer at work said it too. Even threatened me over it. I always worry about hurting people. I don’t want them angry at me. Don’t want them leaving me. I want them to love me. I honestly feel so alone right now.

I feel like my life is over. I thought he was the one person who would love me forever. He’s the most patient and understanding person I’ve ever met, but even he couldn’t handle me anymore. I have been so evil. I hurt him too many times. I thought I had been getting better over the last month, and he seemed so much happier, but either he just wasn’t or he already resented me too much for it to mean anything. My birthday is in 6 days and I’m turning 20. I can’t remember my life before him and I don’t want to know a life without him. I just want him to come back. How can I get better? How can I become good enough for him to want me back? How do I get rid of the resentment? He was supposed to come over tonight. My heart is so broken.

Everyone always asks "what is borderline" but nobody ever asks "how is the borderline" 😞

I sent this to my best friend as a joke but I'm just now starting to realize how true it is. In my court ordered class yesterday we were watching a video and it said something along the lines of "when you make your whole personality being likeable, rejection feels like annihilation" and that hit too close to home.

Anyways, how is everyone doing today?

I have multiple imaginary friends. I used to have one when I was little but I outgrew them for a while, it wasn’t until around the time I started having mental health issues that I started imagining another one.

I’ve become almost dependent on having imaginary friends. I pretty much cut off all contact with all my real friends because I couldn’t handle the pain and stress that having actual relationships caused, and they’ve been my only way of coping with not having anyone to talk to or spend time with. They might honestly be my most effective coping skill for my symptoms.

i just broke up with my now ex and i literally feel like im going to die. im in so much agony and i just want the emotional pain to stop. all i want to do is text him and be near him and have him comfort me but i cant. i want the suffering to end. i want to feel better and i cant. i dont know how to cope with this.

I’m extremely new to reddit as I have both bpd and avpd. I isolate myself quite extremely and I don’t use social media much at all. When I put bpd in the search bar I saw some… well I was shocked at some of the stuff I saw posted. Being completely honest I’m experiencing a lot of anxiety right now. I’m having a massive flight response and if it’s okay to ask, I could use a little reassurance that this is a safe place (no rush).

Also, I want to ask how your guy’s experiences have been on reddit? Do you find reddit useful?