On Emotional Permanence

“Emotional Object Constancy, like Emotional Permanence, allows a person to understand that just because they are in an argument with someone they're in a relationship with, it doesn't mean the relationship is over or that the other person doesn't care about them.” (Better Help)

I’m looking at old photos of my mom and feeling like a shitty daughter. This always happens. I see pictures with people I once loved and feel sad and ashamed. It’s like I forget how it felt to love someone when there’s ever an argument or disagreement, and with my mom, there were many. This is splitting. Splitting is such a staple to intimacy in all my close relationships that I flinch at the thought of getting close to anyone. How confusing it must be to be close to me.

My mom and I were close. I still remember looking out the window every five minutes at the faint sound of cars, hoping it was her, like some needy puppy. I remember calling her work phone every hour. If I couldn't reach her, I became triggered, imagining she got into a car accident or was actively ignoring me. When she got home I’d fight with her almost like an angry spouse who had just caught their partner cheating. She was my original FP (favorite person) and I loved her the most, but this meant I also split on her the most -hated her the most.

I slept in her bed until I was 12 and couldn’t fall asleep without her unless I masturbated until I was too tired to stay up. I didn’t fantasize about anything sexual; I did it to fall asleep. My addiction to masturbating lead me down a weird path of feeling numb during sex in my 20’s, despite having a sex addiction, but more on my complex sex trauma in another post. I just wonder if she ever knew what I was doing. Why wouldn’t she stop me? Correct me? Give me other ways to cope?

At 13, my mom and I grew apart due to constant miscommunication. Though she doted on me, our relationship lacked trust. She would mislead me in so many ways just to get me to abide by her rules. There was never direct parenting. Aggressive passivity is what I’d call it, which in some ways feels worse than outright aggression because it’s just so mindfucky and confusing. I resented her for that.

Things started to get better when I got a job, moved out, and made decisions independently, like addressing my illnesses (that she didn’t believe in) with a therapist and moving in with my new FP, my boyfriend. I had one or two outbursts when I’d visit (she insinuated I looked ‘crazy’ and couldn’t get a job), but now out on my own and no longer at the risk of being tricked by her lies, things were less tumultuous. I even started to miss her.

In the past few years, our relationship turned into something new. Not exactly the kind of mother daughter relationship where I could tell her about my BPD (she isn’t very emotionally available), but the kind that relies on light banter and gift-giving to show love. A few seminal moments are her talking me through the night while I was grieving the loss of my dog and then through the day whenever I was swamped with work anxiety. We never dive too deep, but she is always there. 

I was up late having intrusive thoughts about my mom suddenly dying of an aneurysm and thought, “Oh I miss her…”. Why my thoughts of death are my strongest indication for love and care, I’ll never know, but that’s me -that’s my sliver of emotional permanence and I will take what I can get. 

Maybe I’ll frame the photos.

What Splitting Looks Like

Can you give me an example of splitting after a fight with your boyfriend? I'm sorry I've been asking so many questions. I'm just trying to figure out what a normal reaction and what a symptom would be in that situation. It's still so hard to differentiate for me.

After a long day my boyfriend is 20 minutes late to spend quality time with me. I feel distanced from him. Emotionally. I’m not consciously thinking it, but due to the rejection of feeling unimportant to someone I care about, I start to experience some emotional amnesia as in not remembering what it was like to feel secure in the relationship. <-The first sign of splitting.

I distract myself with other things. Youtube. Netflix. It’s numbing me out and I’m barely aware of the change in perception. I'm barely aware that I'm even feeling abandoned (because logically that would not make sense. He's sitting in the living room.).

When he finally comes to bed, I'm less inclined to put my arms around him. He's joking with me because in his mind nothings changed, but to me, as someone who has momentarily forgotten what it’s like to love him wholeheartedly, I find myself feeling annoyed. <-Second sign of splitting.

If my feelings were thoughts they’d say, “My passion for you is gone, how are you fucking laughing right now? Guess you never cared from the start if you have the nerve to take this shit lightly.”. <-Third sign of splitting. 

Mind you, I’m not expressing anything other than defensive body language because I’m so irritated and don’t know what to say.

I finally say something snappy out of pent up anger and annoyance. He defends himself. We argue. Even the way he looks to me is now tainted by those distorted black thoughts. <-Fourth sign of splitting.

I’m vaguely recalling what it felt to care about him just this morning. It was nice to find him handsome, clever, funny…caring. It’s weird and scary not to remember what that feels like. I'm angry his act of abandonment has taken those good thoughts away from me. I hate him. <-NAIL IN THE FUCKING COFFIN. I’M SPLITTING, AHH!!!

-end scene-

On the Borderline Lens

Hey, I talked to you about a month ago about my friend with BPD who I broke up with. I know this is vague, but I was just wondering if there was anything you could tell me about BPD. I know about it in general, but I was also wondering... How much does it hurt? What kinds of things trigger the most pain for you? I'm so sorry of this is intrusive or rude, I am just so curious about it. You don't have to get back to me by any means, and again I'm sorry if I've offended

For me, BPD is a terminal ambivalence towards life. My self-worth is often determined by external circumstances. I get a compliment, I’m not just happy, I’m over the moon. The job rejects me, I’m not only sad; more prominently, I’m a piece of shit. My boyfriend forgot to text, I’m not wondering where he is, I know he’s probably cheating. He won’t stop fawning over me and I’m tired of it, I think I’ve lost my feel for him and we’re going to be over soon. Everything is an emotional trigger, swaying me to view life through lenses that are not only polarized, but also opposed to how I felt just a minute before. 

My triggers: not getting the precise responses from people I regard important to me. Rejection in every form. Not being good enough. Not being perfect...even to people I don’t care much for.

It hurts all the time, and yet I can’t feel the pain because there’s nothing to compare it to. This is all it’s ever been. This is only my experience. Other borderlines may find it relatable and many others may struggle with the illness in a totally different fashion.

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.

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. 

---