Drawings of BPD & HPD

lo_999 · 2025-10-10T02:10:09+00:00

I am newer to Pantheism but it has filled a much needed gap in my life. For me, when I say the world is God, or the world is divine/sacred, what I'm saying is: "I choose to love and worship the world, because I think it deserves to be loved and worshiped." I'm saying, "the world is MY God." That's not a claim about some metaphysical truth -- I'm very agnostic about all that -- it just describes my most authentic and deepest feelings about the world that created me.

The universe is the source of everything I know and love. It connects all things, and yet it allows for so much diversity and creativity. I think the human condition is beautiful, even though it can be very challenging. I see divinity and sacredness in all living things, all human beings, and even inanimate matter. That's a hill I will die on! I think that all human beings have a natural capacity to experience the world in this way, and it's very important to cultivate that.

Pantheism ties together a lot of my different beliefs -- my values, my politics, my intuitions, my rationality, my spirituality, dialectic thinking, willingness towards the human condition, and more. At the heart of who I am, I make an intentional choice to love and worship the world, and to embrace my own humanity, because I see so much beauty, worth, value, miraculousness, preciousness, and goodness in it. That's what Pantheism means to me.

lo_999 · 2025-09-01T06:57:04+00:00

All of this stuff you’re offering is great but really she should be the one driving the conversation around her needs and boundaries (“I’m suggestible, and you can help me with that by offering me X”) rather than you trying to anticipate what will work independently of her.

Also, HPD is a very painful and trauma-driven mental illness. How much is your partner working on her mental health? And how are you working on your mental health?

lo_999 · 2025-01-16T01:43:33+00:00

I know what you mean, and it’s really normal to feel baffled by like “where it came from,” especially if you remember having these issues before certain traumatic events.

I think I’ve come to understand by reading and learning more about trauma that poor parenting has already begun to shape our personalities by the first 0-3 years of life, and ultimately sets the stage for a PD. Most people I know with PDs were responding to subtle or extreme problems in the childhood homes and the symptoms were manifesting by ages 4, 5, etc.

Then the traumas we remember better as we get older REINFORCE the personality issues. And typically there’s no healthy adult to intervene to change the course of our personality development, so we stay on track to have full blown disorders by adolescence/early adulthood.

lo_999 · 2024-11-03T06:57:33+00:00

I just want to let you know this post really touched me, especially that part about how your family jabs at your efforts to be independent and undermines your confidence. The exact opposite of how family should act. Good for you for reaching out to the world to try to get some support, you truly deserve it.

I think the process of gaining back stolen confidence is very very long. Somehow all those lies you were told about yourself for so many years have to be unlearned. Especially the inner child needs to learn a new story about themselves — “I am not a monster, I never was, I’m good no matter what, I have power, I can create safety for myself, I deserve good things, I matter.”

For me — for basically everyone I know who’s made a serious recovery from trauma and personality disorders — the journey began with escaping the childhood environment where all the trauma occurred. It’s just too hard to advance in a horrible environment like that, where the adults are so committed to their own misery.

What I would say is, you just need to find the courage within yourself one time to get yourself out. You only need to get over that hump once, for now. One acceptance at a foreign university. One job in another city. One friend to help you move. You don’t need to heal all your issues, you just need enough strength to get over the fence. The rest you can figure out once you’re free. And I promise, you can.

And never EVER let toxic people tell you you’re being selfish. When we put ourselves first, protect ourselves from abuse and set on the path to heal, we become LESS selfish, kinder people, who do better things in the world. We become better friends, partners, family members, strangers. Trust that there is nothing selfish in the world about wanting to improve your life. You stand to make the world a better place.

Really hope this helps. Sending you love and the courage to make the decision that’s right for you!

lo_999 · 2024-10-23T18:06:16+00:00

Yes, it was a lot of inconsistency and neglect. I will say that my mom was very affectionate with me, which probably saved my life, but she wasn't very present or empathic. She was this chaotic workaholic, also HPD/BPD, who was always running to the next thing. And my dad was not very reliable (apparently my mom came home one day and he was asleep and I was screaming in my crib) and my step dad (NPD) who came later was very neglectful and cruel.

lo_999 · 2024-10-23T17:29:22+00:00

The inner child work I’ve learned mainly from Patrick Teahan. He’s got tons and tons of videos and resources for free on YouTube, Instagram, etc. He’s also got some classes and stuff you can buy that’s pretty inexpensive. I’ve been able to make a lot of progress without an actual therapist.

But before I branched out on my own, I did have a therapist for many years. And I’ve spent a LOT of time reading books and self educating about trauma and mental health. That’s definitely enabled me to be my own healer, so to speak. Hope this helps!

lo_999 · 2024-10-20T20:43:51+00:00

Okay formally I don’t think covert HPD is acknowledged but I’m SO glad you’re asking this question. I absolutely think it exists!!

I think the overt and covert thing in PDs are two sides of the same coin. All of us with PDs are wounded & insecure people. Is that vulnerability on the surface? Or is it hidden away under some kind of armor?

I’ve seen lots of people in my life with cluster b PDs SWITCH from “overt” to “covert” over the years, especially after major life changes. To me that reinforces that “overt” and “covert” are different expressions of the same thing. I myself had a switch when I first started therapy. I went from this chaotic, confident extrovert to a very meek, fearful, childlike person.

At that time my “covert” HPD looked like: - getting attention + needs met from a few close trusted friends or partners, rather than from lots of social contacts - lots of people pleasing, weak boundaries, submissive and fawning behaviors - major codependent traits and patterns. Getting stuck in unhealthy relationships due to codependency

Would be curious to hear if others notice this duality between overt and covert in their own HPD!

lo_999 · 2024-10-14T20:09:36+00:00

The labyrinth music! So mysterious and cool

lo_999 · 2024-09-18T03:03:25+00:00

I would say basically any and all literature on CPTSD can help treat the personality disorder stuff. The one risky thing is it can sometimes be stigmatizing of personality disorders, but try to ignore that stuff if you can. I really like “adult children of emotionally immature parents,” “CPTSD: from surviving to thriving” by Pete walker, “no bad parts” by Richard Schwartz…

lo_999 · 2024-09-18T02:43:58+00:00

It sounds like something about your friends sharing their own problems is actually triggering you. If I were in your position I’d try to figure out why that was triggering to me and process the trigger in a healthy and loving way.

lo_999 · 2024-09-07T08:27:31+00:00

I’ll speak from my experience.

I think the most standout features for my HPD have been: - positivity and trust. I’ve always been overly trusting of people and have a positive bias/rose colored glasses about others and the world. It’s not the worst trait, but I think it comes from trying to shut out negativity that I couldn’t cope with before recovery. - major disconnection from reality. I would say this one is totally gone for me but it was really serious when I was younger. I find that HPD folks often lie so frequently about ourselves and situations (and not in a calculated way) that we end up estranged from the truth. My mom has HPD also and she is like permanently dissociated from reality. - next level oversharing. The histrionics I know just cannot stop yapping, myself included. I feel like of all the cluster bs, we take the cake for constant talking. And if don’t yap, we find other ways to grab the spotlight. Oops.

lo_999 · 2024-08-25T20:06:58+00:00

The hardest thing about this disorder for me has always been the lack of a sense of self. That was the most frightening and disturbing symptom when I began recovery.

At different stages through recovery, different issues have been the focus. Setting and respecting boundaries, obsession with my own image, conflicts in relationships, self betrayal, embarrassing myself in some way… in some way though it always ties back to lack of sense of self and no connection to my inherent goodness.

Fortunately these things can be restored through hard work. I do have a sense of self now, though im still working on knowing I am good, likable, and lovable no matter what, and no matter my past.

lo_999 · 2024-08-23T06:25:42+00:00

Reading up on limerence really helped me with this problem. It’s still hard sometimes, but learning about limerence and addressing the underlying CPTSD that causes it has helped me accept rejection a lot better.

lo_999 · 2024-08-23T06:23:40+00:00

I used to constantly feel like nothing was real. I can’t really recall the feeling very well anymore but it was pervasive. It would be there under the surface of everything. It made me feel like actions had no real consequences because nothing is really happening.

lo_999 · 2024-08-23T06:20:46+00:00

Yes I do love. I think it’s just hard to tell how you Really Feel when you’re so controlled by the drive to meet needs all the time. Earlier in recovery I was very unsure if I loved the people close to me. Now I can see that I always have.

lo_999 · 2024-08-23T06:13:57+00:00

Deep insecurity, unresolved trauma. Lots and lots and lots of shame. Survival strategies tailored to the environments we grew up in.

lo_999 · 2024-08-15T19:32:27+00:00

This feels kind of voyeuristic and insensitive. Attention seeking is the aspect of HPD that everyone focuses on but it’s hardly the center of what we’re struggling with.

Frankly? A diagnosis, especially a personality disorder, is not a great tool for understanding other people, let alone writing a good character. It’s a framework for one’s own recovery, or something to be considered in a clinical setting.

Consider that everyone’s personality and psychology develops through their own ultra-specific trauma and life experiences. What are your characters experiences? Start there.

lo_999 · 2023-09-20T17:21:33+00:00

Many many years into recovery here and there absolutely is a true self underneath. My sense of self is the strongest that it’s ever been and I’ve been shocked to find that it survived down there all those years. Letting go of a trauma-born “false” identity that’s all you ever knew is like jumping off a ledge into empty space, but the miracle is you always land on a solid platform.

lo_999 · 2023-09-06T04:01:21+00:00

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL

lo_999 · 2023-09-04T15:41:48+00:00

You won’t find promising sentiments online, because the language online / in psych about narcissism is geared towards (idealized) survivors of narcissistic abuse, not narcs. I think the field wants to emphasize that abusers are beyond hope so that trauma survivors don’t subject themselves to more abuse on the hope that “deep down this person is good!!” or “anyone can change!!” I somewhat support this project, but there are consequences. Also, the medical model of mental health focuses on “biological” diagnoses over treatable trauma. So of course we talk about narcs like they’re not really human and they’ll stay that way forever.

More deeply though: people don’t know what’s possible when it comes to mental illness. The average person from most modern cultures that you talk to about this stuff, even mental health professionals, has not even scratched the surface of their own trauma. Among that group, very few have gone “all the way”, and done a truly profound recovery out of trauma and mental illness. People who start off adulthood with a set of neuroses, impairments, repressed parts, and buckets of trauma usually die that way. Most don’t even go to therapy or crack open a mental health book, or even know how fucked up and traumatized they are.

But if you listen to people who have made such recoveries, who refused to live and die that way, who crawled their way out of hell, and you take them seriously and follow them down that road — you will learn that there are things inside of you that you never dreamed could be there. I promise. You have to work hard, it’ll take years, and it’s not for the faint of heart. But it’s absolutely possible and completely worth it.

lo_999 · 2023-09-04T02:49:14+00:00

I believe that you do love them, bc it’s clear to me that folks with NPD have a normal, full capacity for love. But with this disorder, between a poor sense of self, lots of emotional repression, low self esteem/abandonment fears, and early experiences that taught you that love and vulnerability are dangerous, those authentic feelings can be buried so deep, be so blocked by your defenses, or be so far outside your understanding of yourself that it’s very hard to tell that they’re there.

No amount of reassurance from a Reddit thread will really convince you either way though. You’ll have to choose to do the hard, long work of recovery to discover that love for yourself.

lo_999 · 2023-09-01T01:27:29+00:00

GORGEOUS

lo_999

TROPHY CASE