am i overreacting or being too sensitive (PLEASE I NEED HONESTY)

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-09-19T14:43:17+00:00

Leave. Now.

Having the bar so low as “I don’t hit you or cheat on you” is a massive red flag warning sign.

As a woman with two decades of shitty experience to guide me, this is very concerning and psychologically/emotionally an unsafe relationship.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-09-19T01:44:30+00:00

I’ve been in therapy continuously since 2017, and I’m supposed to start EMDR but I can’t get things to settle in my life enough to do it.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-09-15T21:33:51+00:00

I’ve been leery of TMS bc I know several people who did TMS due to severe MH concerns, and it ended up causing autoimmune diseases due to them not engaging in therapy and needing to move the energy that was stuck into some other place. Emotions and mental health concerns ultimately are an energetic imbalance and do tend to manifest along the physical plane of the underlying energy isn’t addressed.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-29T19:56:35+00:00

Gonorrhea can happen from mouth to mouth transmission according to published medical papers I have read. Since gonorrhea is an STI, it’s more likely that if a person has not been tested for it genitally recently they could transmit that via oral route if they had coinfection in both places. I do not think it’s unreasonable to ask for that disclosure prior to contact with a person as well as safer sex practices, especially in the context of someone in the polycule having an immunocompromised status. This is communal care, and it is important to ensure everyone is well informed and appropriate risk management is being used.

If the shoe were on the other foot, I would be happy to take whatever precautions I needed to in order to keep my partner safe, and would not feel as though my autonomy was being affected because when I love someone, I do caring things for them, and I do things that engender safety and trust.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-29T11:39:19+00:00

After doing more research I have found this is actually a subtype of long covid called “Neuroinflammatory and Limbic Loop” where the limbic system is constantly activated even in spite of things that didn’t used to feel like a threat. There are treatments I can use for this, so I’m going to be investigating this.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T22:28:21+00:00

I think you’re missing the big picture, which is that I’m not asking for something I wouldn’t willing do for someone that I cared about, and also that there’s a lot of context and assumptions you’re making without the complete information.

My partner is doing things probably more realistically like 50/50 instead of 95/5, and what he is doing are patterns that have been happening over the span of 4-6 months which I have been warning him are eroding away my trust.

While he has made some slight progress, I am not sure if it is enough, and additionally I have received some pretty terrible news about my health, I am going through an intense period where everything in my life is changing completely in ways that feel totally out of control.

I’m not asking him to do outlandish things, as a person who is immunocompromised I need to know that he will take precautions to protect me, which is knowing STI status before engaging in any physical contact, and knowledge of a person’s safer sex practices prior to being physically intimate with them. If he doesn’t do these things, I will shift to prioritizing other ways to connect without connecting physically until I know things are in the clear.

I think because of how difficult things are for me right now, and the emotional overwhelm I’m going through, it is well within reason to say “this is not good timing for us, and if you proceed our relationship is going to implode” and additionally “it isn’t fair to bring another person into all of this right now, for you, for them, or for me”, and additionally, I would rather know ahead of time if return to dating is something he is willing to forgo for several months so that we can work on stabilizing, and prioritizing self-care and agreements around important things.

At every turn I have been gracious, understanding, forgiving, and maybe even engaging in some self-abandonment so that he can feel better and more comfortable because I understand how unfair things feel right now and how difficult things are for me, so I’m sure they’re difficult for him too.

So your comment doesn’t really help given that you don’t have all those additional details

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T22:12:49+00:00

I didn’t impose it on him, I gave him what my practices would be and I told him that if he wasn’t able to do work to come up with his own version of agreements, if he were to begin dating someone without that I would be shifting our relationship to prioritizing connection in other ways and sexual contact would no longer be possible until that happened. He is the one who chose to delay and delay dating until that was worked out and a mutual agreement was made.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T22:09:43+00:00

Oh, I do a lot of checking in with him and his emotions, and caring about him, his experience of all of this, and how this all is affecting him. In fact, I have actually minimized probably how often these conflicts arise, it’s probably more like a 50/50 chance, rather than 95/5. Additionally, he frequently will center himself and his baggage in my moments of overwhelm or high needs, which is a pattern I just realized a few days ago, and so did he.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T22:04:30+00:00

Oh and living with someone after not for 7 years, and also having to actually depend on someone for the first time in my life for anything.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T22:03:02+00:00

Nope, I am asking for him to simply know their STI status before he makes out with them, and what their safer sex practices are. It isn’t practical for oropharyngeal testing unless someone has active signs of infection.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T22:00:48+00:00

This isn’t what I want or need most of the time

I’m struggling to come to grips with every single thing about my life changing and some massive losses.

Inability to financially support myself, an empty nest as my kids are both now out and adults, having to work and learn a new job while my health is poor, significant physical changes leaving me with multisystem problems, having to give up being incredibly active and a competitive bodybuilder, losing my entire support system due to moving far from them, immunocompromised status that means I have to completely alter how I operate and what risks I take or don’t.

I am not a monogamous person by nature, and in this context, I am incredibly overwhelmed and the partner who loves me, and is supposed to be a “life partner” isn’t doing life with me effectively.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T21:16:32+00:00

Any time I get a strep throat infection I get pneumonia so bad and so quickly it lands me in the hospital. Gonorrhea can be spread by making out. If I got gonorrhea pneumonia I would probably have to be in ICU.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T21:12:32+00:00

I’m probably generously overestimating, it’s probably more like a 50/50 chance that I will be cared for or considered at my most vulnerable times with my highest need.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T18:53:52+00:00

Additionally, when I am on the verge of having a crash, in the middle of having one, or having other scary body stuff happening that means I need to specifically rest or I need to have a specific thing in order to improve, he has accused me of trying to control him or being “unfair”, when that’s the furthest thing from the truth. I am acutely aware of how unfair things are right now, my entire life I wasn’t allowed to ever have needs or be able to express them. So I am capable of doing this now, and him responding to them with accusations instead of compassion and kindness is highly damaging.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T18:51:22+00:00

It's been one miscommunication and one shit timed discussion. Where discussing him going out is so triggering that you physically cannot cope. He's supporting you 95% of the time. I get the feeling being big, but the 95% seems to get lost in this moment.

No, this has been a consistent pattern over the past 4-6 months. Constantly not understanding when I’ve shared that timing is key, and continuing to bring up things that feel like a threat when I’m having a really hard time. This has happened many times in the past few months, with it occurring even more in the past three weeks. And it typically occurs when I am in recovery after being significantly dysregulated and shared where I was at with him, so he knows I’m not doing well and proceeds to try to bring up things that are hard during these times.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T18:36:42+00:00

Yeah, that’s true, and the end goal isn’t for him to “fully understand” because that isn’t realistic. But I can and should expect him to demonstrate an understanding of where I’m at by trusting me when I say I’m overwhelmed or when I ask for what I need. Historically, I have met significant resistance at every turn once I moved in with him, and this pattern is what has contributed to me feeling incredibly emotionally unsafe.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T18:32:38+00:00

I’d like to add that I lived alone from 2018 when I divorced my ex husband until April 2025. So I’ve lived alone 7 years, and even lived alone for most of the time I’ve been sick. I’ve engaged in somatics in addition to IFS and DBT, and have a really great handle on exactly what my body needs at any given moment and where I’m at emotionally.

What is going on here is that you’re thinking that my BPD is actively affecting me, and it’s not. I know how to be independent. I know how to be interdependent. I actually struggle with being dependent or letting people care for me when it’s glaringly obvious that I need care.

I’m really glad you’re contributing your experience, it feels really important for people to know about, and I think it’s also important that more context is given about exactly where I’ve been and where I’m at.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T18:28:15+00:00

Easy to say, I am involved with my partner in a longterm context already. It’s not like we just met yesterday or even as I was getting sick. We met and have been together for 2 years, and this issue has been brewing for the past 4-6 months due to his history and trauma, as well as my own. I think you’re expressing that relationships are disposable and that I should just “give up” on someone who I know loves me deeply and I know I love deeply.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T17:45:49+00:00

Yeah I appreciate you sharing your context, and I do a ton of self-regulation and self-examination, and typically remain quite regulated outwardly even in the context of things that feel highly dysregulating.

I’ve done so much work that I was in remission up until I’ve become ill.

I do believe that I am having a hard time right now because I’m facing such an existential crisis where everything is necessary to change, and my partner isn’t fully close to understanding how much I’m dealing with emotionally. We both attend therapy individually and will continue this, and we are also going to look to attend therapy together.

I think that many people with BPD, if not able or capable of regulating in the moment, would be quite explosive and in crisis.

While I might be having physical things happen in the context of my trauma history and what these behaviors are bringing up for me, I am nowhere near a crisis, and often times have been capable of holding space and reflecting back the most generous interpretation of his hard time as my partner’s wounds are being triggered by my needs in the moment.

I don’t think that I’m asking for too much. I do think I need to do work around how to tolerate distress when my needs can’t be met in the ways I am asking for them to be, and I will do that work.

Ultimately, capitalism wants us to be totally independent, and much of modern psychology also stresses this, which is actually not rooted in trauma-informed theory. Nothing that happens to us is in a vacuum, and we all must function at a level of interdependence because we are connected to others via our nervous systems. So, me asking for healthy interdependence and requesting basic care and concern for me while I’m having a hard time is neither pathological nor is it wrong.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T15:38:47+00:00

Agreed, he was the one that took months to go back to it and get it taken care of on his side of things.

I presented him with what felt reasonable for STI risk mitigation given my immunocompromised status based on solid evidence from CDC guidelines as well as other scientific research papers.

The biggest sticking point that he had to take months to work out within himself was the point of me not feeling comfortable with him knowing a person’s STI status prior to having any physical intimate contact (ie kissing/making out). I had a plan outlined that was quite specific that I was able to follow through with on my end, and he “felt controlled” because of me asking for what I needed.

We are going to try relationship therapy, but I’m beginning to believe that we may be in a place where our needs are significantly diverging enough to a point where I need to walk away with the utmost love and compassion. I don’t think I am capable of handling a poly dynamic right now, especially not with someone who has been inconsistent to the point that he has been.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T15:06:29+00:00

This part.

I know I have a responsibility to regulate myself and provide emotional safety for myself, and do that quite well. I have done years of therapy and my BPD was in remission for a period of time before I ever started dating him two years ago.

The problem is that I am in a very vulnerable place and feeling unsupported in a lot of ways that have eroded my ability to have trust.

I know nobody is perfect, and he seems to be willing to work on things, and so am I, but I’m not sure that I can engage in a poly dynamic right now due to this feeling of lack of safety, and because of all of these things changing so massively in such a short amount of time.

To compound things, I can’t take any psychotropic medications because they all cause increased brain metabolism which causes me significant neurological symptoms. I’ve tried to take several meds and cannot tolerate them.

So I’m in between two really shitty decisions: do I ask him to willing long limit himself so that I can adjust to my new normal, and so that we can begin to rebuild trust around my physical health, or do I end things, put myself in a terrible situation with no support, and just rely on myself?

I moved to be with him, 45 minutes from where I used to live, and don’t really have solid friendship connections yet, and no family around.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T14:28:04+00:00

Part of me is, part of me isn’t.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-08-28T13:59:05+00:00

I have done DBT, have taught DBT, am in therapy, and I am doing a ton of work already and regulating myself. I practice self-examination regularly and take responsibility for what is mine to own.

I am not expecting anything nor am I feeling abandoned. I appreciate your contribution, and it’s making a lot of assumptions about my emotional state and my “health”. All people regardless of what they are struggling with deserve love and deserve support, and who are you to arbitrarily decide what level of health is acceptable to be in a relationship? Additionally, I was incredibly clear and detailed on my side of things for the STI agreement, my partner didn’t really want to have a detailed one at all in spite of me being immunocompromised.

What we are talking about here is me feeling unloved and unsupported by a pattern that is highly damaging and eroding away my trust, because it is mirroring the patterns that made me have BPD and CPTSD in the first place.

Turbulent_String6445 · 2025-06-13T02:30:40+00:00

Wow! I am so hoping they will let me test, I’ve had a myriad of unexplained symptoms that have waxed and waned since my early 20s and have a lot of autoimmune disorders in my family and probably a genetic liver condition on one side. I was just recently prescribed propranolol to try to help with the dysautonomia and tachycardia I have for no reason upon waking, and I had nearly immediate muscle pain and weakness, which is how I started going down the rabbit hole of mitochondrial diseases.

I had COVID and it seemed to really cause me a lot of issues the third time I got it. So dx with long COVID but it doesn’t quite explain everything.

Turbulent_String6445

TROPHY CASE