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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