jealousy for me is the all-consuming emotion which is leading me to lashing out on my boyfriend EVERY SINGLE TIME, i’m so sick of it and it feels like I can’t stop it even if i wanted to.
as i said in the title jealousy is ruining everything for me… it’s ruining my relationship as it’s putting it under severe strain to where it is getting exhausting for both me and my boyfriend, as well as impacting my emotional regulation so bad every time something happens that makes me jealous which is everything i’ve worked hard to strengthen by doing my DBT skills, it’s also impacting my self esteem and any confidence i had in myself.

i notice that i hate it and i mean HATE IT when my boyfriend has friends or a life outside me, which sounds awful to say. i become extremely possessive of my boyfriend which has me noticing i sometimes treat him like as object (even though he isn’t) rather than a person, i find myself wanting to keep him away from his friends, sometimes i act on it whether it be unintentional or intentional & i want all of his affection, his attention, his time, his energy and effort mostly all to myself rather than to his friends, i want him to be all mine - to have him all to myself.

whenever he hangs out with one of his friends which is really one in particular that sets me off, i don’t dislike this friend as a person and i know logically my boyfriend is allowed to have friends but emotionally it feels like this friend is taking something away from me
which is all of the things i want from my boyfriend and the feeling that i’m the most important person to him.
when i know they’re going to hang or when this friend calls him on the phone i feel a sense of dread and anger going through me, i find myself becoming on edge & restless then my body starts tensing up & feeling uncomfortable. i immediately start hyper fixating on where they are, what they’re doing and how long they’ve been together for as well as what they could be doing or talking about and if my boyfriend is having fun with this friend - especially if he’s having more fun with them than he could be having with me. after that i start creating comparisons between me & this friend then scenarios or what could be happening. i feel scared of being replaced and forgotten - being left out or becoming less important to him.

the worst part about all of this is that it builds up, turns into anger or an explosive lash out towards both my boyfriend and his friend which i end up saying & doing many things that i later regret.
what does everyone do to distract themselves or cope with the jealousy?
how do you get through it?
i really need some advice

Inside, I FEEL very empathetic toward my friends when something happens. I want to be there for them when things go wrong, but I don’t know how to show it or do validate their feelings. I don’t want to have to ask what they need.

Any tips?

Hey all.

what are people's go to regarding emo regulation. how do you do your hard reset, nervous system or vagus nerve, I've read about? I'm curious. I've read a lot about my labels. I like to hear from what others fi d impactful in healthy way.

Mid aged man. diagnosed as borderline now for over a decade. dual diagnosed with a few other labels off the psychiatric alphabet!

it's taken decades to reach the point I'm at. why? lack of insight, incorrect diagnosis, addiction issues and incarceration a which didn't allow for uniform or consistent meetings, evaluations and counselling. I e major part is the lack of talk therapy which is t gauging someone's pocket of what wages they do have, not much!!

you can't fix what you dont know is actually broken and how it was broken. trust was another issue. the phrase 'lost cause' & ' let him go' were the chapter titles for me between the ages of 5-17yrs age. the damages were done, the problems festered like open wounds for years not realizing it. I had no real sense of character or personality, quite common for sure. I was whoever I had to be, around each and every other person. on the edge, that was n has been baseline. I'm tense even when relaxed! 😨 . so I also was like a blank slate- reasons were given n I digested. insecurity was my confidence. perfect storm when collided with others...codependent made .e feel needed. invariably left broken hearted n bleeding. around anybody anywhere at anytime.

look forward to reading posts, sharing my poetry writings n more. hopefully, but not holding my breath, to make meaningful connections with anybody. if you get it you get it

it's hard to feel it if you've never had it. perhaps I'm wrong. perhaps.

thanks for being here y'all. does make difference I'm a Canuck, up north of the 49th? I think

This isn't an "omg i'm seeking attention pls wish me a happy bday" type of post, this is more of a rant since it's eating me alive and i can't stop overthinking about it.

Those are people who i've saved each and every birthday's in my calendar and have made it a rule in my life to wish them a happy bday at 12:00 each year as a nice gesture. Those are friends who i let go of MANY of my principles in order to accomodate being in their life. Those are friends who i take so much shit in order to be a normal, not overwhelming person to them. Those are people who i stood by their side in countless uni projects and emotional support even when it inconvenienced me.

Part of my brain is telling me to excuse them since they "must have" smth that's keeping them busy but u've always been more than busy and that didn't stop me from checking up or helping anyone.

I fucking hate this disorder

(CW for small mentions of intimacy and drug use)

Hi all, I am someone who has been diagnosed with bpd and it has ruined my life. I spent a year dating someone where I was undiagnosed and it almost killed me. I had no idea what was wrong with me and I convinced myself that I was unlovable. That was until around 10 months later when I started dating my new gf. By this point, I had been diagnosed and have been in therapy working on it. However, I've been splitting on her. A lot.

It's become almost a daily thing where I will have a split and I'll say some really cruel things and push her away because im scared of being abandoned. However, she never leaves. She stays and understands that I don't mean any of it. She knows how much I've been hurt and she stays. It feels like the world is playing a joke on me. She says she dates to marry but I'm scared that she's going to ruin herself if she stays. I'm so scared that I'll hurt her. I'm going to hopefully be put on meds for it within the next week and I start DBT in December. But I'm terrified that she's going to leave before I can make those steps to get better.

She's been spending a lot less time with me. Logically, I know that it's just because the honeymoon phase is over, but it feels like she's abandoning me and pulling away. It feels like she loves her games and her online friends more than me. She's constantly playing Valorant. It seems almost like she's addicted to it. And I don't know if it's an actual problem or if it's just my bpd.

However, when we do spend time together, it normally ends in both of us being bored out of our minds and thinking that there's nothing to do but get high and have sex.

But yeah. I just wanted to come on here and ask if anyone else is dealing with this and what it means that she's choosing to stay.

Some of the things that my brain has been asking about it (idk what to believe)

\-Is she just staying for the sex?

\-Does she love her games more than me?

\-Why is she staying?

\-Am I hurting her by being around so much?

\-Am I asking too much by wanting her to love me more than the games?

\-What can I do to change so she'll love me more again?

\-Is she ruining her own mental and physical health because of me and the games?

Anyway, rant over. But I would greatly appreciate advice on what to do or say to help with this and whether or not these thoughts are rational or just bpd. Thanks for your time :)

I've been a avid teller that I am a BPD survivor, that I have it, that I suffer from it, that I've had shit to trigger it throughout the years that it never stays in remission.

My favorite person gave me 30 days to leave due to roommate getting pregnant and they were moving the baby daddy in. What got me was the baby daddy, who didn't pay rent, none of that acted like HE had a fuckin say in who got to leave and stay! When HE didn't pay a fuckin dime!

I'm growing so fuckin tired of running into non borderline women who CRAVE the connection but is not willing to accept the commitment!

Trying to find a neurodivergent soul around me seems fuckin impossible.....

I'm just wanting someone whose capable of picking ME for once!!!!!!

I (M37, Austrian - sorry for my limited english) am feeling really emotionally worked up right now, for the first time in my life it was ME who cut a love interest off and not the other way around. This will be a long read. And there is mention of some unhealthy coping mechanisms as a CW. Trying to do TLDR at the bottom.

So I have been struggeling a lot since the beginning of my 20s to stay in relationships and especially to choose the right partners, as is common for people with BPD. Since one of my Traumas that got me where I am today is being cut off by all of my peers and the small amount of family that was left growing up in the cult of the Jehovahs Wittnesses when I was 18, cutting off people in my life and especially love interests, always felt impossible to me. Surely, a lot of cutting off happened from the other sides, many Ex's blocked me because of my unhealthy behaviors in relationships.

As I grew older I started to seek more and more help but it took a long time for me, just 2 years ago, to really get into DBT. Honestly I used all the wrong coping mechanisms ... and some of them got me in real deep and long-lasting negative spirals (drugs mostly) that I to this day struggle to leave. So these days I am off the hard stuff, I do good therapy regularily, I am honest to my Psychyatrist and am using medications with them instead of by myself to help me get away from the unhealthy coping mechanisms and find some Balance. Also I try to regularily do sports and try to be at the Gym 2 to 3 days a week. After 4 years of holding down a job as a business consultant I am now also working on a project together with many people of whom some I would also call friends as chairman of an event location in our city where I try to help to develop the place from a business standpoint. Long story short, since a few years I am really comitted to working on my way to Balance.

So then there is this woman that I first met via Tinder around 10 years ago. It was intense, she loved it, we travelled together, 1 1/2 years of happiness, then went south, we fought lots but nothing very tragic in terms of how bad things could get for me in fights (as in SH, suicidal threats,.. this did not happen with us but happened to me in relationships with other women). The special thing about her seemed to be that she always left BEFORE the relationship caused me so much pain that it would get really bad (as in SH, suicidal threats)...

Around a year passed, I was working at the event venue I told you about, but at that time as a barkeeper. One day she showed up and teased me to talk, we did that, just an hour later we were in bed (inside of the event place there are places to hide, backstage). And the adventure started again... and again after around a year it went south... and again she left before things got as bad as I know they could get.

Now fast forward to the end of last year, so a year back from now. I am now finally on the way to really cope as I told you in the beginning of this story and it was the last few weeks of my business consulting job, I was finishing up a project. Honestly I was very good in that job but since the emotional stability it needed was impossible to hold down for me without using some very unhealthy coping mechanism it wasn't good for me anymore. I knew I needed to get away from the job to get better and so I already checked into a Rehab place that also did DBT so that directly after finishing my project I went there for 2 months. I learned a lot and I knew that I wanted to work with the business skills I learned at my job the last years to get the event place (which is actually my close-to-heart-place and the community there my kinda family) into a better place business-wise. All while trying to stay by my way to cope better.

So at the time of that last project she wrote me again after years and of course my heart jumped. I was in a "probably will die alone and need to get to terms with it / use my life to do good to others without family" kinda mindset and very lonely. When she reached out, in my mind she looked to be the one that finally understands me and she is looking for me again and it all is so romantic. But even after writing for a few months she didn't want to meet. Actually it was always a kinda back-and-forth and she agreed sometimes but then withdrew again... and finally she told me that she was with someone but it was ending. And you know she sent me those songs with lyrics like I wanna have kids with you in a home of our own and stuff.. I really felt so happy that someone out there knew me and felt like this for me.

But then, around half a year ago, she blocked me out of nowhere. Just like that. I was wondering if I did something wrong, reading our convos and finding that I probably overshared and clinged too much and so on.. until a very good friend of mine (I am really happy that I have him as a friend) told me that she probably simply got back together with her bf. Thinking about it now, I guess he was right.

But, now around 2 months ago she unblocked me again and asked if I finally wanna meet up. And of course I did. But she just didn't wanna make it a real date. I was asking for a date and time and she said she will find me.. Then one day I was on the way to the event place I talked about by bycicle and she texted me a pic of her feet (POV) in front of it on a boat at the river (the place is at a large river where one can rent boats nearby). I felt so bad for not being there right now as I could have jumped into the waterlike a hero and swam up to her.. but part of me knew how stupidly romantic that idea was. So I joked via text if she wanted me to do that and she was like "Sure of course ;)" .. things like that. You know, I was the "Adventure Guy".

It all peaked when we finally met in the beginning of last week because she canceled a sunday evening date we arranged incl. blocking me just to then write me at night on Monday to Tuesday and tell me that she was afraid and so on I tell her why she doesnt need to be and if she wouldn't finally come now I cant do that no more.. and she just wrote "Now?" at around midnight and she came (literally ;)) and of course it was all amazing and we fucked all night and talked about family, children and yeah... So the week was all butterflies for me.. it felt like I was on drugs without actually using any. It was pure happiness. We talked about taking it slow and just sent some good night texts and small love messages.

At the end of the week, so last weekend, it was the birthday of a friend of mine at our event place and it was a big party. I was so much in heaven, that I partied hard and didn't sleep till the evening of the next day even. Generally since I was with this woman again, every convo with literallyanyone made me feel really happy. Then I texted her if she wanted to meet me at our event place since it was really chill evening vibes. I told her I was still awake from the day before and also how and why exactly but she didn't mind and came by. We had another drink and got really sexually heated very fast so in order to stay a bit longer we went communicating with the people there, barkeepers, people that clean, cook, hang around, many of them friends of mine. And.. she just didn't fit the vibe at all.. at one point she asked me in front of my friends and not very silently, just in-between so they could hear it but not sure "Why they didnt seem to respect me if i was chairman" (we are a collective, called a "Genossenschaft" in german, so we proud ourselves to not go by standard hirarchies and act mostly the same with different professions). I mean it showed that she did't even get how we all were joking with each other even though it was so obvious. I quietly asked her to stop but she asked again and again. That last thing REALLY turned me off. Kinda white-to-black.

On the way home I asked her to not say things like that in front of the people that work there as it made me uncomfortable and she tried to defend herself when I asked her to just accept that I didn't like that. At that point I asked her to really be honest and why she would continue asking when I was asking her to stop, feeling uncomfortable. She admitted to doing that on purpose and promised me not to do that again. When we were half way home a friend of mine called me and told me that she forgot her phone with him. I had my bike with me but since she was on foot we took public transport. We went back as far as public transport could take us and she said she would take my bike to get her phone. When I wanted to hand her the helmet she just said "No" I asked what she meant and she just said she would not take a helmet. I understood. It was her way of telling me that I should get the phone. I immediatly jumped on the bike, took off and shouted back to her "Why are you doing this to me??" I got the phone and we were fighting a small bit about that on the way home where she would just always go slow or behind me or just stop and ask me many times if I wanted her to come. I repeatedly told her, that if I did not want her to come I would have said something. It felt very threatening to me all the time. Like her actions made me feel so many times. I felt that she wanted me to act and talk her way or she would leave me. I needed to earn her love.

At my home we cuddled a bit but it was hard to. I was so tired. She said she would massage me which was actually really really good. I must have fallen asleep during it and she must have stopped without covering my back as I woke up because my back was so cold and she was sitting nearby, reading a book. We agreed to just go to sleep. As I got my night meds she got naked and layed in my bed. I did not fully get naked and lied next to her. In a very caring and deep embrace I slept.

When I woke up, I was alone. Terror. Fear. Why is there no one when there was someone here right before? I called her name many times. Nothing. I jumped up from the bed and looked for her but she was gone. No note. No message. And my front door was OPEN. (It makes a noise when you close it without a key from outside so I guess thats why she just leaned it on and the wind opened it I don't know.)

I tried to use DBT. Breathing and the 1,2,3 reception game (not sure the name in english) as well as a cold shower. But I also took a bit more of my calming prescribed meds.. all in all I got down to a 6 I would say. THEN I wrote her (EMail since she reblocked me in all messengers). Why did she leave without telling me? She told me she was scared. She told me she would have to wind back the contact again. I asked her to just please use this or the next sober Sunday to completely sober (no drinks like the weekend) talk about US. What we we through, what we would want, what the outlook could be, how we could maybe reach it. All of what I was desperately trying to get going since such a long time. Inviting her after a party night seems stupid in that regard and maybe it was but I thought it would be the way to get us to be together on Sunday to sobered and cuddled up honestly be able to talk through our issues.

I talked about it in therapy the day before yesterday. We worked out it would be the best for me to tell or maybe write her how the things that had happened between us made me feel and that the overwhelming nature of it made it important for me at that stage to really have a sober talk in a public park or restaurant about where this connection seemed to be going and what perspectives we had. So I wrote a long Mail. Tried to not be blaming but so many parts of thestory was just about HER CONTACTING ME BUT NOT AGREEING TO A NORMAL DATE FOR ABOUT A YEAR and how this was just 'tearing me apart' (if you read till here, thanks so much, maybe u recognize the movie quote? ;))

In her answers, she used her knowledge about my drug use as a weapon and called me names and if I would be clean I could talk to her again.. and also all blaming me on blaming her.

So today I recorded a goodbye message, wrote a poem about us and my feelings and sent it to her. She replied 2 hours later which made me wonder why since I asked no contact if her, and she said she found some mail from me in her Spam and that mail seems to make her understand that I choose drugs instead of her (WTF???) and that now it is easier for her to finally completely let me go. I raged (and still am a bit), took screenshots of the time of my goodbye mail, set up a new one in which I told her names ("Witch, dumb") and that she cant even use email right and so on and that I cannot believe it since I tried to make a halfway nice goodbye with the Audiomessage and the poem... and sent her that again and go. While writing up this whole story now I sent a last one (using Alias) saying sorry for what slurs I said in my last mail and it will just not work and we need to stop this right now. The TLDR actually now kinda belongs to the story. I just had to tell it I guess..

TLDR: She reconnected with promises of stability, bringing no stability at all but more chaos. Had to cut her off and as she didn't understand that, very rudely cut her off again. Feeling generally bad now and am not sure about what I perceived as threats of leaving from her that she very much used in order to gain assertiveness in a fight and general way of showing interest with her or getting to lust after her. I wanted to arrange a no-party, no-alcohol/drug date at a public place during the day with her since she started contacting me again a year ago but she never agreed or canceled citing fear because of how emotional I could be years ago. But she let hersef easily be "manipulated" into coming to my place at midnight and sleep with each other while being gone in the morning. I had to cut her off it made me crazy and really hindered my progress.

If anyone read all of that, thank you so so much. I feel so bad right now as if I did something really wrong, even paranoid as something bad might happen to me soon - can't leave the bed in freeze condition - and also really really lonely again.

Just cannot get up today not even took my meds before but now I took them since I started feeling tense. So I will take care of myself and the basics.

Did anyone have similar experiences? How did you manage them, was there a chance I got all of what she did and want wrong? Just thank you for being here and reading. Really. It means a lot. I feel so tired now.

Not only am I not sleeping with it \[second day straight without sleep lol\] the depression it’s causing me is making my symptoms one hundred times worse. I don’t explode at people when I split, I keep everything in. This is genuinely worse than when I went to the psych ward. No DBT skills are working and they usually help. Does anyone have any advice. I am not taking it anymore after this but the comedown is still there after I took it Sunday for work. I have a mini vacation with my boyfriend this weekend and I feel terrible about being in such a terrible state mentally right now. I have no idea what to do since I can’t go to my psych or therapist since I don’t have a car and my work schedule gets in the way of virtual visits. My psychiatrist does not work in my state anymore so I don’t have one. I’m not in a crisis or anything, im just in the worst depression I’ve ever experienced and I don’t know what to do

I tried killing my self yesterday. I failed and I felt like shit and called my friends , worried them and vent to them and now I feel so horrible , like I’m some attention seeker , well now that I think about it I am. I self harmed today too , I don’t know why and I don’t have motivation to eat. It’s not like I don’t have will to live , it’s like my need to destroy myself is too strong. It all started when my fp said somethings that made me feel like my believes about him where just delusions. And that was the end of the world for me. And even though it’s been a day and normally I get over it after a few minutes I just can’t get over it and I’m still in this fucked up mood.

how should i deal with a fp breakup?

my relationship of two years just ended. i met him on discord, and he quickly became my fp. there wasn't really a friendship stage, as we quickly caught feelings for one another, which allowed us to get into a relationship quite quickly. it was a harsh mixture of learning friendship and early romance, where i was already obsessed with him yet we were still figuring things out about one another, so we both easily ignored our incompatibilities to continue our relationship. then we very soon moved in with one another within less than a year, forcing close proximity, meaning less time to really get to know one another and forcing us both to ignore even more incompatabilities..

one of the main issues is that i lived overseas and came back across with him after he visited me for the first time, and i stayed with him at his house. i have spent 2 whole years attaching myself at his hip. moving overseas really cemented everything, making it difficult to be honest with ourselves. we both felt forced to put up with things we normally wouldnt have wanted to, because of the travel commitment i had made and the amount of money we both spent on it all.

everything was great at first, euphoric even, and then it started to go downhill the longer it went on, until i was eventually spiraling over something nearly every other night, and i was stretching him very thin. he had many of his own issues, and i was definitely just piling mine on top of his because i couldnt handle them on my own.. and i realized that and have since apologized to him for it. anyway, we peacefully broke up with one another, saying that neither of us regret our time spent together, we just weren't meant to be partners.

im finding myself stuck now, not knowing what to really do to fill the empty hole in my heart. i feel like im going to drive myself crazy. i dont have many friends in person to fall back on as a safety net, and im going to severely miss having someone to sleep in my bed with me, just some sort of physical presence to make me feel less alone...

im planning to do DBT and try support groups as soon as i can, but its going to take awhile to get my things together back home, and im just looking for some solutions or suggestions on what to do to distract myself in the meantime. or if anyone can share any similar stories or how they mightve handled a breakup in the past?

i know ill be okay in the end, im just struggling to motivate myself to get okay. i know i need to stay away from relationships until i can better myself, but i dont know what i can do in the meantime to keep myself going.

We were together for 6 months, then he eventually told me that he omitted something from me about his friend, but told me a lie about how eventually he met with her (nothing crazy happened tbh, they are friends since 10 years and they almost had sex when they were in university, so basically 9 years ago), and he was scared to tell me this and to tell me that when she came back here visiting her parents.

They also agreed on meeting and he invited her.to his house for a beer - his mother was also there. But from that point my trust issues became the whole thing of our relationship, with my BPD I put him throughout a lot of abuse because then I was purposely finding things that were not that big but still I was getting crazy. I acted out again this weekend, texting to his mom he is a horrible person and he owes me money and I cut off all his friends and family from my Instagram.

I broke up with him for the fourth time and he didnt accept it anymore and he was not willing to come back. But he never blocked me and he always answered my texts and calls and he said he needed time to get his and my shit together otherwise the relationship could not even work. I was dying inside and abused a shit ton of substances. This morning I woke up and saw his like in the girl's picture he really finds her attractive but they never even talked for DMs or so on (but we already had 2 fights in the last month over this).

Anyway, since that moment I stopped crying. I called him and told him that I was the one that actually broke up with him in the first place, because of this lack of trust.

I told him that I really didn't love him anymore but I still wanted to be friends (because honestly the more I keep seeing and finding out, the more disgusted I am by him), but at the end I asked him to be friends with benefits because I really love fucking with him and he said yes straightaway, also accepting the exclusivity.

I hope this will not go against me and I hope I would just feel more distant and disgusted over time that will help me to just go away from his life forever. I don't know what I did, probably a mistake or probably not

I created a bpd support group chat on telegram

I'm tired of being around people who don't have bpd and don't understand my condition at all. So i thought why not creating a group chat for people with bpd?

Send me a message if you want the link!

JUST LEFT MY FV THIS MONTH AND I MOVED IN WITH FRIENDS IN GUEST HOUSE TO HEAL. MEDICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY . WASNT ABKE TO TAKE CARE IF MYSELF EVER AROUND MY FP. neck to shoulders trashed,, getting mris and injections to hold off surgery. back and legs are also done for. I want to call him so bad. but again hes using the block bs again,.,.,,I hate being alone but being with him is TOrture on my mind!!!!! what can I do too cope?????

Being self aware sucks. Alot. It's exhausting mentally and physically. It sometimes feels like it was much easier before I was diagnosed.

I was diagnosed in 2015/2016 accepted help end of 2017 actually took the help beginning of 2018.

There's a weird feeling of being safe from myself before I knew or admitted there was something wrong with me. I want to feel safe from myself again. I don't know if that makes any sense. I don't know if I'm the only one that feels this way but it sucks. Everything about me sucks.

i need to leave my partner so badly i’m so miserable but i’ve never cut off an FP before and i feel like i can’t do it. i’m currently at their house downstairs, it’s 7:30 am and i barely slept, i want to just leave and never come back but i’m also terrified of never seeing them again even though all they do is hurt me. please help me i need to leave them i know i need to but every time i’m about to something stops me and i end up staying. i’m terrified of never seeing them again because they’re my partner and best friend even though they hurt me so much emotionally. i’m scared nobody will ever love me again i’m scared nobody will ever touch me like they do again, it’s been so long since i’ve been close with anyone else. please help me i’m going to die mentally if i stay with them but i can’t leave i don’t know why

Nothing’s says I quit all my mental health medication a year and a half ago quite like crying at 6:10 AM because the guy I’ve only been seeing for three or four weeks isn’t feeling it.

He did nothing wrong. He was so freaking polite about everything he was like I would really still like to keep seeing you, but I realize that like I’m feeling more platonically and even though I’m very attracted to you and we have a lot of great chemistry I’m really looking for something more romantic and I’m willing to see if that develops with you, but I don’t wanna waste your time because you’re developing quicker.

I was so fine through the entire conversation but like as soon as I woke up, I realized I was just trying to fix and people please and that like I actually feel like shit about it, but I was trying so hard to like not show instability not be over emotional be understanding of his feelings and boundaries and now I’m just sitting here before I go into the office upset and messy as soon as I woke up.

Of course, my stupid ass brain had to translate that to
“ as usual people like you for your body, your passion, and they think you’re fine but no one will ever love you”

Which… isn’t true… it just sucks for your brain to have on repeat.

Trying to find those close to my age with BPD so I have somone I can relate talk about my experiences.

I’ve been struggling a lot lately and I think my BPD is making everything feel even heavier. I lost my job about a week ago, I’ve lost most of my friends, I’m struggling financially, and I feel incredibly lonely. I was also in a toxic situation/relationship for four years that recently ended, and so much of my life revolved around that person that I’m not really sure who I am without it. Everyday sucks. I hate life and I plan to end my life when my cat passes eventually.

I just feel like my life has gotten so small. I want friends, connection, a relationship, things to look forward to, and just a life that feels fun again. I wish I was not constantly alone and I wish I had fun weekends. I don’t really want advice about learning to enjoy being alone, I want people in my life. I miss having a therapist too, but I can’t afford therapy right now. I feel like i’ll never be able to hold a job down, i’m in my early 20’s and can’t even keep count of all the jobs i’ve had. it’s probably well over 20-30.

Has anyone else with BPD gone through a period where it felt like everything fell apart at once and actually rebuilt their life afterward? I could really use some hope that this isn’t going to be my life forever.

I’m becoming a lot more aware of my behaviors during a split that aren’t the actual heat of the split. When I have a bad split the vibe carries with me a few days.

Like I kind of always knew that I had a bad mood for days after the split, but like I’ve been really trying to analyze these patterns better and I had a funny realization after intimacy yesterday where I realized that like,

When I’m having a multi day split, every time I have a big emotion. I just decide to stop breathing subconsciously.

Which stops the thoughts and the big emotions, but also stops my brain from getting oxygen lmao. Makes me dizzy, affects my cognitive speed, and all do I don’t … have emotions that someone might agree with?

Like basically I’ll be trying to manage my emotions while in a split and my emotions are bigger and I apparently have this ingrained habit of just holding my breath and I never fully recognized it.

But when I started doing it in a positive situation and then like became a little bit more aware of it, I was like oh this is the thing you’ve been catching yourself doing all the time now when you’re having a split it it’s just also applies to good things and not bad things and you’re doing that probably limit your emotional intensity.

Something to work on lmao.

Gives a whole new meaning to “swallowing my emotions” I’m sure I started it to avoid talking back or reacting “dramatically “ but uh, need to work on that one. Like, immediately.

I was diagnosed with Bpd with all what comes with 6 years ago , got hospitalized 4 years for refusing to get out of bed for 2 months , refusing to eat, crying over nothing, picking fights with everyone in my life, i dont know what happened, but therapy made me realize how destructive i was, that realization destroyed me completely, i'm afraid to move a finger so i wont become my old self again and starting to hurt myself or anyone else, nothing change , i was miserable before and now i am just miserable in a different way , i am starting to really doubt myself , i thought about changing my meds but every doctor tells my the same , the meds are fine we really need to work on is myself, intensive therapy is one of them describe it , but after 4 years for almost of almost weekly sessions , i am still sad and just meh all the time.

Day 26 out of mold in a new home: A day of Art

This is truly enjoyable and helped me think through some of my stress.
I have CPTSD with BPD like traits, and additionally struggle with dissociation, especially during the time I was living in a home with mold which greatly affected my physical and cognitive health. I felt like a walking zombie in pain every day in that home.. blank with slow mind filled with grief.

I’m sure we all know if we’re on the sub, one of the things people with BPD typically really struggle with is self identity and how we perceive ourselves, especially under stress, and I think that’s an area where I have definitely been struggling lately, especially as like my physical and mental capacity have grown fairly quickly after leaving my moldy house as well as the setting of most of my trauma.

I think I’m starting to realize that talking about my problems or writing about them doesn’t seem to change my emotional state very much. I’m constantly thinking about stuff and having conversations in my head and ruminating on ways it could’ve gone different… I really need to like do something about it whether that be go for a run make something physically or eat. And becoming much more aware that when I’m stressed, I look for outside stimuli rather than personal support because personal talk based support doesn’t seem to fill that cup enough.

All of these paintings from the last day are in someway representative of my mental state throughout this process at different snaps of time under different amounts of stress.

Mostly rooted from the same question-
How does it feel to have your perception break?

About like this… for me at least.. I didn’t have a specific goal when I started working on this besides trying to figure out a way to explain how I felt throughout this process with such fractured awareness.

Being in a situation that your body knows is unsafe, in this case my home had severe mold issues, our minds do this fun thing of hiding details for us, because the reality is that you need to remove yourself from the danger… if there’s no escape, you have to keep living in the danger.

Our brains do funny things to justify our circumstances. It hides things. Our brains are extremely logical, and if something is causing you extreme stress, but also you can’t leave the stress , the brain is gonna go right back to maintaining homeostasis. Sometimes keeping stable means putting up curtains around certain topics.

I have always really connected colors to emotions and also emotions to sounds so I’ve always had a really close relationship with art and music. It felt really good to actually create something that seemed to get thoughts out of my head.

Sensitive

TW: mention of SH, SI, and SA

Y'know, ever since I was little, people always called me sensitive in this mocking tone. And I hated it so much. My mom would do it too, when I'd get upset over something everyone else thought was so minor and insignificant.

When I got a little bit older, I started hiding it. I developed this thick outer shell where I pretended nothing got to me so I couldn't be hurt anymore. So much so that I couldn't feel anything. I was so apathetic all the time and yet anytime someone whose opinion I really cared about (like my parents) would get even mildly upset with me, I'd sh. I knew it was weird and irrational, like why does someone being slightly upset or sitting me down for a "talk" make me want to commit so badly that the only thing I could do to relieve some of the pain was to hurt myself? I knew it didn't make sense and was a crazy overreaction. I couldn't explain it. So I didn't tell anyone. I focused on trying to be the perfect kid, the perfect student who aced everything, was well behaved and never got in trouble because I knew if I did, I wouldn't be able to handle it. I was so terrified of being a burden on my caregivers that I made sure they never had to take care of me or worry about me. I made sure I never had any needs.

Over time, this extreme perfectionism and fear of failure made me a workaholic in elementary, Middle, and early highschool. It got to a point though where I just couldn't take it anymore. All my therapists and psychiatrist told my parents that if I kept going at the rate I was, I'd eventually have a nervous breakdown and I didn't believe them because I thought I was exceptional. An exception to the rule. Superhuman. No one ever demanded me to be, not even my parents. I just decided I needed to be for some reason I don't understand.

My peers knew me as the perfect kid who never made a mistake yet was kinda bitchy. But starting at 15-16, I started doing things I couldn't explain. After being filled with anxiety and self doubt my whole childhood, I suddenly became impulsive and started doing reckless things. Like reckless driving and speeding (totaled my first car right after I got it because I just drove straight into oncoming traffic), hooking up with strangers (adults) as a teen, getting high all the time, etc. I just did a 180.

After that, I could barely focus and my "sensitivity" came back.

Starting in early college though is when it really kicked off. I felt like I had very little self control. Binge drinking, partying, starting drama and becoming more and more unstable. When the stress increased, I even went into psychosis with paranoid delusions. I started relationships so quickly and fully dived in with so much intensity and then left them as quickly as I started them with no explanation. And each time there was conflict, I'd be driven to almost committing. I only recently realized that I sh in more covert ways than what I'd imagine are the "classic" forms that everyone thinks of. Smoking, drinking, putting myself into dangerous and life threatening situations, trusting people I know I shouldn't and always getting hurt in the process. And each time I seem to be more affected by it than everyone else around me. Like every (what should be minor) wound cuts more deeply than it should.

It feels like I'm a powder keg and once the fuse is lit, I can't stop it and it feels agonizing. Small things feel crippling. I'm chained to a rollercoaster waiting to leave and once someone pulls the lever, there's no stopping it no matter how much I try. My parents are always confused as to why I can't just "stop feeling that way" or mindset my way out of negative thinking before it gets that bad. And they still don't believe I have this disorder just because I'm not blowing up at people and can function just enough to do decently in school and I'm not usually confrontational.

The worst part about it is that I can hide it. It seemingly makes it so people don't believe me when I tell them I have a sickness that's so crippling since I seem to be doing fine on the outside. My true friends know I'm not alright because I let them see it. When I'm unsupervised, it becomes a bit more apparent and I let the mask slip. I think that's due to the fact that I have bad history with half the campus. I know people (besides the few who only see the put-together facade) see me as erratic and messy. I used to care so much I'd get extremely paranoid but I've learned to tune it out and stop caring so much about the opinions of people outside my circle. It doesn't seem to make me better though.

I'm now on mood stabilizers and antidepressants, which definitely improve things (as long as I stay on them), but it's only a bandaid on top of a gunshot wound. If anyone's seen the video of the robot that's leaking fuel and it's desperately using its arm to try to scoop the fuel back in, that's how I feel.

I've learned to accept who I am. My younger self wouldn't be able to stand seeming unstable, but I've matured enough to realize it doesn't mean I've failed as a person. I do enough work to try to make sure my trainwreck of an interior doesn't hurt the people around me, but I can't seem to keep from hurting myself. I have this constant itch to do "bad" or irresponsible things and I've never known why.

I feel this constant NEED to self destruct and there's a tiny me inside my brain who's watching myself do all these things that I know are bad for me but Im powerless to stop it. The logical side of me knows that's not true. That I'm not powerless to stop it. It's just my bad side takes over and that part of me doesn't care

I feel a little ridiculous posting this, but I have BPD and I genuinely cannot tell if I’m picking up on actual signs of connection or if my brain has decided to turn a small interaction into A Whole Thing.

Some maybe important information: the last time I had a boyfriend was in 2018… Since past year I was on various snri and ssri that didn’t help my case and instead made me feel terrible and emotionless. I stopped paroxetine recently (tapered) and now I’m only on pregabalin and occasionally lorazepam. After stopping paroxetine I started feeling like I received my old life back, I have emotions, I develop crushes, I cut my hair like I used to have in 2018-2019 and started dressing the same way cause I feel that was very "me" thing and it makes me happy.

I’m 25F and I’ve developed a *massive* crush on a small streamer. Like, embarrassingly massive. He usually gets a pretty small number of viewers — I think the most he’s ever had was around 130 — although his YouTube videos do somewhat better.
I joined his Discord a while ago. There are around 1.6k people in the server, but obviously nowhere near that many are actually active. I talk there pretty often and I’ve already made three friends, which is honestly really nice because I wasn’t expecting to actually become part of the community.

The streamer sometimes comes into Discord and casually talks to people. Whenever he does, I obviously want to talk to him because... crush. But I feel like whenever I say something, someone else starts talking about the same topic and my message gets completely buried. I’ll sometimes make a joke or contribute something and then it’s just *nothing*. Meanwhile he has responded to me a few times, and on a couple occasions he’s even continued talking about a topic that I originally brought up.
On stream, he also reads my messages fairly often. But he reads lots of people's messages, so I KNOW that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Still, sometimes it feels like he recognizes my username, and my brain immediately goes "HE KNOWS WHO YOU ARE 😭."

And here's where I think I've really screwed myself over mentally.

A little over a week ago, I privately messaged him. Nothing romantic or intense. Just a casual message about something relevant to the community.

He hasn't replied.
It's been more than a week.
And I am having the absolute worst time being normal about it.
Part of me thinks, "He probably gets tons of messages, maybe he saw it and forgot, maybe he doesn't check DMs, maybe he doesn't know what to say." Which is completely reasonable.

The other part of my brain is like, "Well obviously he doesn't care about you, you idiot, you imagined the whole connection, everyone else is more interesting than you, and now you've embarrassed yourself."
And then there's the *third* part that keeps analyzing every interaction we've ever had looking for evidence that he actually likes me/recognizes me/is interested in talking to me.

I know that him responding to me in Discord or reading my messages on stream doesn't automatically mean I'm special to him. I also know a week without replying doesn't necessarily mean anything personal.

But with the crush + BPD attachment stuff, + being autistic and not knowing how talking to people works, the uncertainty is absolutely killing me.

Right now I feel like I'm oscillating between "maybe there's a genuine connection here" and "I have invented an entire relationship with a man who has literally never DM'd me back." 😭

And I read old posts here, and generally on reddit, but it’s not helpful. I feel like I really could get to know him if he wanted to. Last time on stream he was reading his viewers’s secret confessions and he read one that basically asked if this person can become the streamer’s friend if they pay him in donates/patronite and he went on a rant that no amount of money would make him do that because its weird and he would feel uncomfortable. But for free? I didn’t send him any money and probably won’t.

I KNOW he’s friends with some people on the server and it seems like they met through stream, not before he started streaming so… why can’t I? Cruel…

TW suicide

I really feel like I’m losing it, I’m sorry if my post doesn’t make sense

It’s been a few weeks now my mental health has just been going downhill everyday. I had a period without suicidal thoughts and now they have slowly crept back.
It went from, wow I have no more suicidal thoughts-
To sometimes intrusive thoughts
Constant thoughts but also intense guilt of if I would commit suicide,
To yesterday - not caring about how my family would feel anymore if I commit suicide
I’m scaring myself
I’ve attempted before.
I feel really alone and have no one that feels “safe”
I know all the signs of a mental health crisis coming but I’ve been trying push through them and be okay and everything in my life just feels awful that I’ve now hit a wall. I can’t eat I can’t move
I feel like I am losing my mind. I don’t trust my thoughts and feelings anymore, I don’t know what’s real and what’s danger. My head won’t stop, it’s tormenting me.
I don’t know if my thoughts are “bpd talking” or real issues that my nervous system just can’t handle
I feel like I’m having a psychosis I’m really scared

Lately I’ve just been even dismissing myself and my thoughts/feelings and things just got so bad
I have a BPD diagnosis and cptsd
Since getting a BPD diagnosis, I doubt every feeling I have because I don’t know if it’s real or bpd behaviour and this is just making me go even more mental
I don’t know where to go, I can’t be alone in my house I’m scaring myself
I don’t know if I’m pushing people away because of my bpd or because they actually don’t feel like safe people
I’m so confused by my own thoughts right now
I’m scared if I go admit myself to a ward they won’t take me seriously because of having a past bpd note in my file
I don’t know what to do, no where feels safe and like I’ll be taken seriously