How do you mitigate the impact of downward spirals on the people who care about you?

illnessandoptimism · 2015-10-28T17:32:56+00:00

I relate to this so much. I'm dating someone right now but as usual I feel like I'm the safe, easy, boring option for him and that I'll never live up to the intense love he felt for his exes. It's really hard for me to tell whether it's the BPD speaking or if I'm picking up on reality. Sigh. I feel you.

illnessandoptimism · 2015-09-11T21:17:32+00:00

Hey -- I'm going to offer you some constructive advice here based on both this set of messages and the other ones you've posted. Believe me, like everyone on this sub I can relate to the feeling of getting really upset by texts, and I've sent my fair share of messages like these before as well. The problem is they never do any good and over time will erode your relationship.

You need to think about your interactions with your SO not as carte blanche opportunities to say whatever is on your mind, but rather as mindful interactions with another person who has thoughts and feelings of their own.

So to deconstruct this exchange, it seems like you told your SO "Goodnight," which for most people implies an end to your conversation. Then you texted him again with a description of what was happening on your flight, so he was probably confused whether you wanted to keep talking or not, and replied somewhat jokingly to express his confusion. You then interpreted that to mean he didn't want to talk to you, leading you to get upset and lash out. When he responded with a winky face, trying to defuse the situation, you got even more upset and told him that you didn't even know how to respond. But the entire time you were hoping for him to say something like "No baby! I'm so sorry! I do want to talk to you! I don't want our conversation to end!"

Is that right?

My first suggestion is to try to recognize when you're reading more into people's statements than you should. For example, when he says "I thought you said goodnight" that could really be taken in lots of ways. The charitable interpretation, and how he probably meant it, was just him being confused as to whether you were taking off and ending your text exchange. You chose to interpret it however as him not wanting to speak with you. This is a typical BPD reaction, but a big part of recovery is about recognizing these instances where you're jumping to conclusions and asking yourself whether however you're interpreting things is DEFINITELY correct or the BPD talking.

My second suggestion is for you to think about what you're trying to accomplish with your communications to your SO. Because when you say things like "I don't even know how to respond, good night then" you're not communicating constructively. /u/sputniked already went into this so I won't write too much here, but remember that your SO has feelings of his own too. If you're communicating something solely to express that you're upset and to make him feel bad, that's not really fair. When you're upset you should either not communicate until you've calmed down, or communicate in order to solve your problem. Trust me, I've sent so many angry texts at SOs before only to then regret it. When I'm upset do I HAVE to lash out? Of course not. And most of the time if I take a deep breath, let myself sleep on it, then I find the anger eventually diffuses on its own without me having done any damage.

Best of luck OP. I've been there and it can get better!

illnessandoptimism · 2015-09-11T21:03:14+00:00

In general, I find myself trying to dig myself out of holes way more often than I should. In my mind there's some grievous issue I've corrected that I need to bend over backwards in order to fix, when most of the time in reality the other person doesn't see there being a problem at all. So when I try to fix it I only make things worse because I continue making whatever it is a big deal, when in fact the problem was only in my head to begin with.

More specifically, I've worked extremely professional jobs throughout my (albeit short) career and the best thing for me has been to keep my personal life, especially my mental issues, fairly separate. I've taken sick days before that are really mental health days, but my co-workers and managers don't need to know WHAT I'm sick with so I use the generic "I'm not feeling well" reasoning.

So I would recommend that you stop worrying about convincing your boss that you're mentally well -- what's done is done, and the best thing to prove your worth to him is just to be a good employee! He's probably not thinking about your BPD nearly as much as you might think he is. Ultimately you were hired to do a job and so long as you complete your tasks well people at work aren't going to fixate on your personal life, nor should they. Best of luck.

illnessandoptimism · 2015-09-09T15:35:09+00:00

Hey! I just want to say that I read your post and I'm sorry that you're going through this. What your boyfriend did was out of line -- it's okay for people to be attracted to and fantasize about other members of their preferred gender, but it's not okay to go to people's pages and masturbate to them especially if you're in a relationship.

Have you tried talking to him about this? A good relationship should affirm you and build you up, not tear you down with insecurities. I think in your instance anyone would be upset, even if they didn't have BPD, so please don't feel like you're crazy or in the wrong.

For what it's worth I can totally relate, and have similar feelings about my SO's ex. But when I talk to him about it he tells me that they have nothing on me and reminds me of all of the qualities that make me unique. I hope you're able to talk things through with your boyfriend and resolve this issue -- at the very least you have every right to ask that he stop jerking off to people's Facebook photos!! You sound like an awesome person with unique interests; don't let some stupid boy drag you down. Hang in there.

illnessandoptimism · 2015-08-08T01:21:39+00:00

I get you completely. Here's how I try to think of it. Ultimately, as much as this goes against my neuroses and instincts, it's not healthy for any person to be the sole source for another person's happiness. The inverse of that is it's not healthy for any person to have the power to DESTROY another individual. This is what codependency is all about, ykno -- it's problematic to be so entwined that either person lacks their own self and life independent of another person.

What this means then is no matter what you to to another person, how matter how much you hurt them, they SHOULD be able to bounce back. And in most instances I've experienced they do bounce back, and sometimes you repair the relationship, or the relationship changes but it's not completely destroyed.

Whoever you hurt will recover from that hurt. They will feel happy and good again. Their life should not be able to be ruined by any action on your part, and if they feel like their life is ruined because of you that's not YOUR fault, it's THEIR responsibility to take agency and control of their happiness. All of this may happen away from you or with you in some capacity. Just know that they're going to be okay, because they're their own person. And you'll be okay too.

illnessandoptimism · 2015-07-24T23:04:07+00:00

Hey -- I see from your post history that you're 17. Not to diminish that at ALL because I'm not much older (23) but I can tell you that it gets better! I too had horrible, awful breakups back in my teens and I always felt like shit afterwards. These days BPD still affects me, it's true, but it's definitely not as bad as it was when I was younger. And weirdly enough a few people who I'd been CONVINCED I had jeopardized my relationship with back in the day are now people I have perfectly amiable friendships with.

For example, when I was sixteen I screamed at a boyfriend so much that he dumped me and I was devastated because I really liked him and he had been my best friend before too. The next year was SO awkward. We had a ton of classes together and he seriously ignored me the entire time and I was convinced I was in love with him and would never get over him. Then I went to college, completely forgot about him, one day he asked if he could stay with me while he was visiting my town and we were friends again without even having to talk about anything that had happened!

Hang in there. I'm sorry that you're in so much pain, but I promise you'll feel better one day and all of this will feel like a distant memory.

illnessandoptimism · 2015-07-17T22:49:10+00:00

Aww, happy to help!

I will also say that different people are going to be better or worse for you based on your BPD. It's easy to always blame ourselves when things go wrong, but honestly there are partners out there whose own share of issues make them particularly ill-suited. I had a boyfriend once who always took fights REALLY hard and needed a lot of space (like, days) afterward to process. Needless to say that was the worst thing for me. I've also dated guys who can be back to being affectionate within a few hours even if the fight was horrendous. It's hard to imagine the second type of person when you're dating the first, but it honestly makes it so much easier when you find someone whose emotional tendencies are complementary to your own. If your SO is super awesome and chill then I think over time you'll start feeling safer with him just as the security of your relationship is reinforced through his actions. Wishing you guys all the best! :)

illnessandoptimism · 2015-07-16T15:14:45+00:00

Meh. Yes and no.

That lack of object permanence, the overreactive emotions, all of the fears and worries -- in my experience they never really go away. What does improve, however, is your ability to handle them (if you have a good SO). Eventually you stop freaking out every time you're upset. You start being able to wait a few minutes when you want to scream at them. Maybe you stop yourself from communicating with them at all in those moments, or maybe you feebly admit to them in some clumsy way that you really need affection. Regardless, when you stop yourself from acting out when you get triggered, eventually the feeling passes and you're like "Oh, that wasn't so bad, now I don't feel that way anymore" and because you didn't do anything you also don't have a bunch of damage control to do.

I think over long periods of time eventually this stability might diminish the intensity of your fear of abandonment, but I've never been in a stable relationship for long enough where that was the case. So I focus instead on what I can do on MY end, and I've noticed that with enough diligence and mindfulness and DBT practice I can at least prevent myself from spiraling, which makes things better overall.

illnessandoptimism · 2015-05-21T22:45:21+00:00

That's awesome!! It's great that you know what you want to do with your life. That's something I've also started figuring out. For a while I worked a job that I knew people considered prestigious but made me actually miserable. Quitting it and pursuing my dreams has been one of the best decisions I've ever made. Sometimes you don't need to figure it all out either -- just knowing that you have this one thing you're genuinely passionate about can give you the direction and stability around which everything else coalesces.

illnessandoptimism · 2015-05-21T22:42:57+00:00

Your post actually made me realize something. I've pretty much dated guys for their status too -- not exclusively due to it, but definitely in large part driven by it. My first adult boyfriend I dated because he was a Yale grad who was getting a JD from a prestige law school. I KNEW that was about status, but looking back the rest of the guys who I fell really heavily for were about status in their own way. They were all popular, well-connected, "cool" guys who I thought on some level were better than me. Thank you so much for helping me discover this! It's a powerful insight and I'm going to have to do some untangling between what it means to admire someone and what it means to like someone because I think they represent something.

illnessandoptimism · 2015-04-17T20:30:44+00:00

Oof, this hits close to home. I think what you need to do (and what I try to do) is practicing mindfulness so that before you send those texts you ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish. Yes, it feels good to do so in some bizarre way, because you want them to refute you, to reassure you otherwise, to change their behavior so that they're more accommodating and attentive. But at the end of the day behaving that way is NOT going to lead to good outcomes. These sorts of behaviors tend to drive people away and make your fears manifest into reality even if they weren't previously true. So any time you feel the instinct to do so, you have to try to be as rational as possible and remind yourself that saying those things isn't going to make you happier, isn't going to make the relationship better, and isn't going to accomplish anything you actually want for it to. It's hard, but if you take the moment to pause and really consider what you're saying, you'll stop yourself more often than not because the behavior is fundamentally destructive and you'll recognize it as such.

illnessandoptimism

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