On Perceived Rejection

I have social anxiety and bpd traits. I was wondering how u got to the point of actually having a bf. There's this guy that likes me and I him, but anytime it's close to getting to that relationship point; I wreck it? Idk. I was wondering if you had any struggle in that area and how you managed it? Also, I have no idea how he still likes me and I keep thinking he hates me but then he still initiates convo?

I also have social anxiety and BPD. My boyfriend and I laid the foundation of friendship before we started dating. We were strictly platonic with no ulterior motives, which gave us a lot of time to get to know each other minus the romantic ornamental bullshit. He knew I had problems with intimacy and so when we got together it wasn’t such a shock that I had social anxiety and didn’t like to kiss.

There was a guy before him though who probably did not understand me at all. I felt a lot like you’re feeling now. I experienced perceived rejection when really I had no idea what he was thinking because we never talked about it. I blamed myself for the awkwardness, but looking back he wasn’t a safe person. There’s a reason why I didn’t open up and it’s because we just weren’t compatible. I didn’t feel he would understand my mental illness. 

I’m going to give you the advice I wish I could give myself back then. Your thinking he hates you is more of a belief that’s manifesting itself into perceived rejection. Remember that distinction. Perceived rejection. I know that it feels real. No one can say you aren’t feeling the rejection, but reminding yourself that it’s just perception can help you discern the root of your insecurity. Maybe you feel unworthy of intimacy or you think you’re incapable of being in a relationship? Whatever it is, it’s not you. It’s your insecurity, one that you can explore, accept, and hopefully change.

Aside from the inner work, if you really want answers, you need to ask for them. Ask for reassurance even if it makes you nervous. How does he feel about you? What does he want out of your interactions? And once you feel this person is safe, maybe you can open up about your mental health.

Penpal Love

i really appreciate your blog & your caring attitude and all your posts about what you go through help me so much bc i constantly doubt myself for not acting out like others w bpd and your posts are super reassuring and ily :)

Ily! Thank you so much. This made my day. I have been depressed all month and trying to find things to look forward to. Please feel free to message me if you’re going through bullshit. I really like to help and understand other people. I don’t care how small the triggers seem. I know they are rooted to deeper things and I will do my best to help.

On Being Your Own Detective

Is it possible for splitting to happen without a trigger or is it just a trigger I'm unaware of?

Personally my splitting episodes always come from a trigger. Now I am good about finding the source. I’m tired of letting black and white thinking mess with my interpersonal relationships so I do the work.

It may seem foreign to do, but if you’re tired like me, get into the habit of retracing your triggers. You need to be your own detective. Even if the trigger is as trivial as someone glancing at their phone mid-conversation because it reminds you of feeling unimportant. Get used to validating those triggers because they are always rooted to something deeper. 

Tips: Pause when you feel something is not right. Write down what you’re feeling (angry, anxious, paranoid, morose) and the activities in the day that could have caused the emotion. If you don’t have access to your journal, download the CBT Diary app, it’s free. Train yourself to explore what hurt you down to the nitty gritty details as weird as it feels. The more you do it the easier it’ll be to pinpoint a pattern until you won’t have to write it down anymore. Until you can anticipate each trigger before they happen. You’ll feel a sense of control like never before.

On Resources

Recently I was warded and diagnosed with BPD. Its been a hard road but seeing you answer questions about it makes me feel not as alone as I thought I once was. Thank you for the informative posts.

No, thank you for reading! I wish you the best of luck. Here are some resources that help me through recovery:

For understanding Borderline nuance: Dr. Fox and his BPD Workbook 

For relatability: RecoveryMum

For quick learnings: Therapy in a Nutshell

For mindfulness practice: Mindful Movement

For dark humor: Mental Illness Happy Hour

CBT: Work Trigger

Wrote this on my phone while I was out. You can do CBT anywhere.

BPD & Relationship Maintenance Skill

GIVE (for the relationships you want to keep)

G- gentle. Be mindful of your facial expressions/harshness in your voice. Inflections. Tone. Even in disagreement, state your claim respectfully and learn to tolerate a “no”. 

I-[act] interested. be mindful of your body language. Are you looking away or at your phone? Are you furiously tapping  your shoe, waiting to counter their argument? Even if you want to do all these things, give them your undivided attention. Act as you’d want them to act if you were expressing yourself.

V-validate. As much as you crave validation right now, you need to give it to get it. Avoid words such as “but” as it will negate the validation.

For instance, “I know that I messed up, but I had a bad day and you had no right to point that out to me”. 

Try “I know that I messed up and it upsets you because ______. I want you to know I had a bad day and wasn’t thinking clearly.” Big difference, right.

E-easy manner. Soften your approach. You’re angry enough to clench your teeth and scream or sad enough to close down and relapse. Ok, that’s valid. Now be objective. You feel that way, but it isn’t necessarily the reality of the situation. Save face a little bit. This isn’t about wearing a facade, it’s about not allowing the intensity of your emotions control the nature of the conversation.

Train of Thought

There’s a freight train in my mind, reverberating thoughts so encapsulating it’s hard to remember experiencing anything else. Flagrant disdain to an apathy I wish would stick around long enough for the train to shut up. 

Will I be able to get things done today? Am I a piece of shit or aren’t I? I wish my version of depression were served cold. If I really didn’t care, I wouldn’t be asking these questions. 

“If I can’t do my work then I must be lazy. And a lazy person does not deserve this job or any job for that matter. What will be my calculated response be when they let me go? Of course I’d feign surprise and with a stupid smile, masking all my self-hatred and anger, politely walk away, like I always do.”.

The ambivalence agitates, making the pull toward my vices so apparently there. Driving around to smoke another cigarette. Picking at my skin to keep awake. A glass or five to fall asleep. I belong to the things I crave. The itch I can never reach. —Why did I smoke? If I keep relapsing due to periodic mood swings then I‘ll never quit.  Oh! It’s because I am a piece of shit-visions of slashing my own arms, crashing my dirty car, choking my own neck.  Where does the impulse to hurt myself come from? An attempt to scratch my wildest itch? An expression of how badly I want to remove myself from...it? 

Funny that my mind feels of a place rather than a part of me. Me a part of it. I don’t think in terms of changing, I think in terms of leaving. As if the chemicals in my veins were the culprit, sending signals to my brain it’s time to leave.

On Pet Loss

Putting Lucky down was the hardest thing I had to do. Harder than fighting off urges to cut myself. Harder than overcoming substance abuse. Harder than not being on the right medication. Harder than telling my parents about my childhood trauma. I started to write about Lucky yesterday, but broke down. He was such a sweet and loving boy. I look fondly at our moments together, but I’m overwhelmed by grief because I’ll never get to experience them again. 

A few people who add insult to injury are my parents, brother, and M (who is a best friend, but not an emotionally available one). Sure they share their condolences, but they’re just not privy to communicating empathy, which is jarring while I’m so raw with emotion at this time. 

For example, my dad made small talk about the stimulus package while we waited for the vet tech to bring Lucky out. I’m waiting for our final goodbye and already mourning Lucky and my dad decides to talk about taxes? I don’t understand how someone can behave so casually at a time like that. We weren’t waiting at the DMV or in line for check out. We were putting my dog down. Another moment I found jarring was my mom greeting me in the parking lot by asking how I’ll pay for the vet bill. No “I’m so sorry for your loss” or “It’s ok to be sad. I’m here with you” -just a straight “How are we going to pay for this?”. I found it insulting. Despite this, I know that compassion and warmth are not their forte and didn’t hold it against them in the moment. I focused most on Lucky and the actual goodbye, waiting in anticipation to see my boy.

In hindsight, I’m fixating on how utterly alone I felt despite being surrounded by my family, and with that creeps darker thoughts. Negative what ifs and perpetual anger over the emotional support my family could never give me. I question if I really did give Lucky a good life, if my parents actually do love me, if anyone truly cares about me beyond niceties you’re supposed to say in the wake of tragedy. I wish I had discernible truth, but I’ll have to muster the will to entertain brighter thoughts to come to a balanced conclusion.

Here are my brighter thoughts. I imagine Lucky’s life through his eyes and can see the many family members he got to play with, the many households he could live in, and the holidays we all spent together. Introducing him to my parents as their grandson when he was a few months old. Giving him a daddy in my husband. Snuggling in bed and play-fighting until he got tired.

The sad truth is, at the moment, I can’t hold onto these thoughts for too long. I’m left with an all encompassing void, haunted by the places Lucky used to sleep, the idle way we used to play throughout the day. When I was present enough to bask in those moments with him, I savored them knowing our time was limited. This may be a morbid way to experience company with the one you love, but it’s my way of savoring the essence of a relationship. Time is always limited. For me, to acknowledge this while together is the ultimate form of appreciation and true love.

I’m worried about giving up the sadness. In a way it’s all I have left of him. The grief is a reminder of how deeply I loved and cared about him when we were together. The longing to be with him again is so apparent that I can’t think of happy memories without crying. His absence is so painfully present.

I feel an unrelenting sadness when I look at Lucky’s things. All the poop bags we’ll never use, his medication that was just delivered Monday, toys sprawled all over the living room floor, his favorite rug, the foot of the bed where he’d sit waiting for us to wake up. I remember him collapsing, passing out, and how dim his eyes looked on our way to the vet. I was in the car yesterday and couldn’t help but replay that traumatizing trip through his eyes  (or at least how I think he saw it). Through this lens, I can internalize his suffering and know I did the right thing by putting him to sleep. I can believe this was the best way possible for him to go. Painless and peacefully and with all the people who loved him so much. This was the most important thing to me, more important than how badly I would miss him. I’m grateful I could give him a peaceful out, surrounded by nothing but love.

Many things seem irrelevant in hindsight. Months prior to his passing, I was worked up over the fleas, annoyed by my parents on our trip to the Philippines, and stifled by the classic BPD triggers that liked to pop up and punch me in the face whenever I wanted to hang with friends. If I had known I’d be losing Lucky just two months later, I would have spent more time with him rather than obsessing over these minor inconveniences. Here goes me clinging to self-blame, the minimization of my feelings, and perpetual guilt. I wish being kinder to myself came naturally to me. Even at a time when suffering is at an all time high, I like to tack on more self-flagellation. I’ll have to let these undulating waves of guilt pass through me. Underneath it all, I’m only feeling them because I care and want so badly to be with Lucky again. 

I think of how hard it is for me to form strong connections with people and how easy it was to love Lucky, and I understand why it hurts this much to lose him. If it weren’t for my husband, I’d feel completely alone. Maybe not 100% of the time, but loneliness would be my default. I have to work extra hard to convince my brain that people really do care about me. This is why I’m terrified of loss. Losing the ones who care about me the most leave me with the ones who may or may not. 

Since recovery I’ve strengthened relationships and can even count a handful of people who are great at communicating empathy, but this doesn’t mean I’m always confident that they care. My mind is crazy talented at rationalizing why they don’t and it takes a lot of mental de-tangling to accept kind and loving words at face value. This inability to receive love may be why loss is my greatest fear. The pain it brings leads me to suicidal ideation, which is confusing and uncomfortable for someone who isn’t necessarily suicidal anymore. I don’t want to kill myself, but I don’t see a point in being here without the people who love me. It would be agony to live a life without my husband and Lucky, and now I have to endure half that battle. 

RIP Lucky.

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View pics and videos of Lucky on my IG: @yournewpenpal

Surviving

(Trigger warning: rape) If I were talking to anyone else, I’d tell them it wasn’t their fault. But for some reason, maybe a feeble attempt to own what’s happened to me, I believed I did it to myself. I knew he was angry and would be more dangerous that night; I went anyway. I’ve hated myself so vehemently that I chose the lion’s den over my lonely bed.

Like most things in my life that hurt and can’t be controlled, the rape still seems to me a grander form of self-harm. I tell myself I am over the rape. What lingers is the shame from my inability to numb the fear of abandonment when he chose to kick me out soon after. The fear taught me an important lesson that night. That I cared so little of myself; I’d rather be at the mercy of someone I loathed -at the hands of someone who had just assaulted me, in fear of being alone.

Over ten years later and that self-blame has shifted. I was responsible for the choices I made in seeing this person, yes, but not responsible for what he chose to do to me. And for that I have a right to be indignant. My hatred is justified and it is mine. Whether I choose to clutch or surrender it is up to me. 

But what I feel toward him or my trauma is not as important as how I treat myself today. No longer blaming myself is a step up for now; It’s OK if I can’t say I love myself yet. It’s OK if I don’t even like myself. One day I will master self-love, but today I am content with self-compassion. I live a life worth living again. This is surviving.

Grief and Quiet BPD

It’s been four months since I put my dog down. I think about Lucky everyday. The funny way he’d cock his head and flop onto the bed, his way of saying it was time to cuddle. His little under bite, constant neediness, and stinky dog breath. I miss it all. I made the decision to put him down after multiple visits to the emergency vet. He had severe heart disease and was eventually dependent on the hospital’s oxygen crate. I knew it was time. 

We said our goodbyes in a small tent just outside the hospital and because of his condition we didn’t have a lot of time. I held my boy, crying out loud, surprising myself. My untamed emotions don’t  normally present themselves with so many people around. “So many people” being my family who are not so emotionally available. Vulnerability and openness are met with discomfort and awkward silences. I shouldn’t have been surprised when my dad talked about the stimulus package and COVID while waiting for Lucky to be brought out.

Because of my upbringing, I rarely cry at funerals and in front of people, afraid that I’ll make the people around me feel uncomfortable. Afraid that my untamed emotions would be too much. It feels more  fitting to be an observer of grief rather than a participant. At funerals I find myself people watching, silently empathizing from afar.  I was never great at accessing my own  emotions unless alone. Granted, losing your pet is different from losing someone for whom you cared for, but was not in your care, I still found the distinction between the two processes of grief worth exploring. 

I remember when one of my best friends passed away. I was 23. This happened during a period of  ignoring her calls, texts, and soft blocking her efforts to hang out. Was I splitting?  (Hint: absolutely). My anger stemmed from the sting of rejection (real or imagined, I can’t tell now). I  thought she preferred a mutual friend over me and became resentful of their closeness (hello, insecure attachment), she made jokes about my suicidal ideation, and was just all around rude (or appeared that way when the idealization phase wore off), at one point humiliating me at a party about not having real friends. At her funeral, I watched her mom kiss and caress her cheek. I was sad for her mom, but still splitting and couldn’t feel my own feelings of loss until well after the funeral.

My delayed emotional reactions came like a phantom. A flurry of mixed emotions came through first thing in the morning-anger and guilt about not making amends. Regardless of how bitchy she was being to me, I still should have confronted her or at least ended the friendship. Then  came the spikes of sadness. A year later I finally grew to miss her.  A bitter pill to swallow is that I’ll never see her again to resolve any of this.

I wish that my relationships with people were like my relationships with animals: free of pesky BPD triggers, like splitting and premeditated grief. Comparing this to my relationship with my dog, the grief I feel about his passing is so straightforward. Your animal is in your care; you know to just love them unconditionally, flaws and all. You also don’t exchange words that run the risk of being miscommunicated, words filtered by the “BPD lens”.  With Lucky, I don’t have to worry about being rejected or humiliated. I don’t have those BPD defenses to  interfere with my love for him. I’m just this raw nerve when it comes to loving Lucky, which is nice but also cuts deep now that he is gone. 

This raw nerve feeling  may be why I keep friends at an arm’s length. I don’t want to experience the sting of grief when people inevitably leave; sometimes I think it would be easier for me to split rather than ever miss anyone. At my worst, I perceive closeness in relationships as a high risk, low reward venture. I’m ashamed of my emotional immaturity, but tired enough to crave change.

Steps to Change:

Detect premeditated grief as an expression of a fear of intimacy.

First thing I want to do is accept the logic behind the borderline’s intrinsic fear of intimacy.  I’m reminded of  how often I’ve experienced grief (premeditated or real) in relationships.  Borderlines experience loss in the anticipation that our loved ones will leave or reject us, just like I experienced loss when splitting on my friend (before she passed). I was angry, but I was also projecting.  My mindset at the time was “if I could be having these hateful thoughts about her, she’s probably having them about me. Time to split!”. I was afraid of her no longer thinking the world of me, grew jealous of the time spent with our mutual friend, and convinced myself to leave. The logic behind premeditated grief is “leave them before they can leave you”. In my relationships when I feel those “leave them before they leave you” vibes, I will now associate them with my fear of intimacy acting up again. 

Self-compassion, always.

Second, I want to validate my fears. The fear of abandonment is so severe that I don’t know how to experience intimacy, at least not completely. This is what makes it so hard for me to express my love to anyone. Because I know down the line the harder I love someone, the harder I will anticipate them leaving me. I’m afraid to love because I’m afraid to lose, but I know this fear stems from a zero sum mentality, which is nothing more than a cognitive distortion that prevents me from experiencing intimacy completely. I understand how this fear came to exist and will no longer shame myself for it by processing the feelings with sustainable coping skills, like venting to a loved one, journaling, and absorbing more content that will help me understand the fear of abandonment.

Learn from my mistake.

Third, I want to pinpoint the error in my ways. I remember feeling relieved when my friend passed away because while I was splitting on her, I felt like she was dead to me anyway. This isn’t a sentiment I can share with someone who isn’t familiar with BPD. Our mutual friends would have looked at me like I was a monster, and at times I felt like one . I shouldn’t have ignored her. I should have at least told her how I felt.  Deep down I know she was important to me, otherwise I wouldn’t be splitting on her in the first place. Sad that my only indication of having cared is the vitriol I feel once a bridge is burned, but at least I have the awareness of precisely what I will do differently the next time I’m splitting on a loved one. Talk to them, and if that isn’t an option -find the gray in between those gradients of black and white.

Find the Gray.

Ask myself: what was the incident that bothered me? What parts of this person am I not liking or finding compatible to me and why? Are there any aspects of their character that I appreciate? What are my values? Does keeping them in my life align with those values? What do I want out of this relationship and where do I see it in the long run?

What grief taught me:

It took losing my dog to reflect and see that I needed to change. My love for Lucky shines a light on a better version of me. One that will weather the inevitable BPD storms, accompanying relationships, for a fraction of sunlight experienced when I choose to love with my whole heart. In conclusion, I’ve learned the hard way that while it may be complicated to have relationships with people, I can’t live without them.  I might as well make the best of my time with my loved ones while we’re still here.  Even if it means I’ll be a sniveling mess when they leave. 

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