Borderline Personality Disorder and Relationships

One of the hardest parts of having BPD is maintaining and establishing relationships, be that with friends, colleagues, family or romantic partners. This is something I've always found difficult, so thought I'd share my experiences and advice I can share.

On the outside, I guess it must seem as though I'm pretty good at relationships and friendships and coping with this aspect, but close up I've had a few difficulties and find my own paranoia and anxiety can threaten my relationships with people and I have to reign myself in a lot. From age 16 to 20 I had a boyfriend, and now a year later I'm with someone else and am incredibly happy, I have a group of amazing friends and I get on with the majority of my family. But that doesn't mean that I can find maintaining these relationships incredibly difficult.

I want to focus on romantic relationships when I speak of relationships for this blog post, as I feel it's the one I struggle with the most. My first long term boyfriend I had as I was first diagnosed and started to cope with it and cope with life so this made my relationship incredibly rocky for a while and ultimately became the end of us.

' Favourite Person'

People with BPD often become very overly attached to certain people, and rely on them for a lot, they can also become their 'FP' or 'favourite person' (there are a lot of interesting articles on this to google, one being this '5 Things to Know about being the favourite person of someone with BPD'),but what this essentially means is this someone (and there can be multiple) becomes someone you constantly rely on for reassurance, advice and guidance as well as approval for things you do and say. This isn't someone that you necessarily choose to be your favourite person, it just sort of happens as your attachment grows.

It doesn't mean you are attracted to that person necessarily either, it can be anyone you know that you suddenly rely on for a lot in life. There is very little that your FP can do wrong, you think the world of them and will always stand up for them, but when they are close to someone else this can spark intense jealousy and pain for the other person, even if it is unintentional and harmless in retrospect. Being someone's FP may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn't mean you have to do everything for someone, and you will very rarely know when you are someone's FP, nor will that person always know, it can be something that just happens and stays unnoticed. If you do know, then it's important to imput boundaries into the relationship, and understand what is acceptable on both sides and what to expect of the other person to avoid unhealthy reliance.

I've had multiple FP's over the years, my ex boyfriend was my first big one. I would rely on him for everything, the minute I felt anxious or started to have a panic attack I'd need him to come running for me, if he couldn't this would start a row and I'd shout and scream and tell him he didn't understand me. In retrospect this was a very unhealthy relationship on my part, I expected and needed too much that couldn't be asked for or given, don't get me wrong neither of us were perfect but this was a massive part of the end of us. I couldn't do anything without him for a long time, I needed his constant reassurance and approval for everything I did, and when I ultimately didn't get it this would cause me intense pain and cause intense rows that sparked my BPD anger and nastier side and it would be awful.

When we split I learnt to do things on my own again, and started to become a bit of a commitment phobe, I was terrified of ever relying on anyone like that again, terrified of the rows we used to have and going through that pain again. I saw people and dated, but I found an excuse to run away every time. The littlest of things when I went on a date or met up with someone I would use as my excuse to be single and free and not need anyone. I was convinced I could do it alone, I could cope alone and I'd never need anyone again.

Communication

Regardless of that, I found my current boyfriend and suddenly I wasn't afraid anymore. He helped me feel safe and to trust people and to more importantly, trust him. I still rely on my current boyfriend, and he has become my new FP alongside some other people in my life, but I know when I'm overstepping myself a lot more now with some help from his comments of "megan you're being needy". We live an hour apart from one another which isn't major, but to me when I'm having a bad day or just come home from seeing him it can feel like a million miles away. 

The best thing I've found is communication, it sounds so simple and maybe even daft to suggest, but talking to someone about your fears, anxieties and what you're thinking about can really take you out of your own head space and bring you from emotional BPD mind into wise and rational mind ( damned mindfullness group therapy wise mind bullshit is etched into my brain forever). I find that talking to my boyfriend, explaining when I'm feeling extra needy and why, or why I don't feel like talking or whatever is going on in my head, just getting all my whirring thoughts out can feel like lifting a burden off my shoulders but when it's to someone I love and someone who can help me rationalise what I'm thinking and tell me when I'm being daft has majorly changed me. 

For a long time I expected people to just know when I wasn't feeling right, to just know what to do and expected other people to take it away, telling someone how I'm feeling and what's going on really changes my outlook and getting someone who isn't as emotional (cough, unstable, cough) to talk through these things is a really good way of easing your mind.

Rationalizing and Wise Mind

As part of my DBT and mindfullness group therapy, we learnt about emotional and logical mind and pushing ourselves into wise mind when we are feeling emotional and not sure about decisions etc. What it essentially means is people with BPD are usually in emotional mind 24/7, using our feelings and strong emotions (and usually emotionally instability) to guide our decisions, usually by shouting, screaming and crying rather than tackling something, and in order to make good, wise decisions, we must use our emotions as well as our logical reasoning to find our 'wise mind' - yes I know, it sounds like utter bullshit but stay with me here okay.

So imagine you've had a row with your partner and he didn't respond to a text:

- emotional mind would causeimmediate panic and paranoia, start crying and thinking they are going to end your relationship because of your row and they don't actually accept your apology, they were just saying that and you mean nothing to them. (dramatic much? welcome to BPD brain)

- logical mind would think about the fight you had, realise you had a fight, see he hasn't replied and understand there is another step to take now and a decision to make about what to do

-wise mind would put these both together, realise that you are upset and you are worried about them being angry with you or wanting to leave you, and also realise that you have had an argument, and logically he may still be mad but may also be busy at work or not looked at their phone since your last reply, and decide to either send another message asking if everything is okay and you look forward to seeing them next, or leaving the text and waiting for their reply to gauge the situation again from there.

So what I'm saying is when you are having a fight or a disagreement and you want to initially fly off the handles and throw your whole weight of rage at them, stop, think about what has happened, what has been said and think rationally about the situation and what to do next. Realise that communicating and talking through this issue will be more beneficial than arguing and try that.

This is a skill that takes a long time of practicing to learn, and I can't say I'm perfect at it, I still find it difficult to be rational in the spur of the moment, but the times I do remember and I do put it into practice I can honestly say it has made me make wiser decisions and fly off the handle a lot less. It has also massively improved my relationship and caused a lot less rows than my previous. 

I hope this post is of some help to someone out there, if not just an interesting read on the shit show that is the BPD brain. As always leave comments below!

Meg x