Love and Borderline Personality Disorder

This blog could easily be titled "Why relationships are a huge anxiety causing mess that make me retreat into the closet and become a sobbing wreck." From the time I was 14, even mentioning the word "relationship," was enough to cause me to run, screaming. My longest relationship that I boasted in high school was a meager 8 days. I called myself "fickle, bored, ADHD." I never mentioned the crippling anxiety I felt when I felt exposed emotionally. I never mentioned that I felt like there were ants in my pants and my brain would buzz with thoughts of rejection until I broke up with the person to put comfortable distance between me and the anxious thoughts. I never mentioned the intensity of the feelings. But in reading my journal as an adult, I notice that my feelings of angst and fear are very similar to the way I approach relationships these days.Flash forward to 2009. I had divorced my ex-husband (more on this later.) I was re-learning how to be myself, flaws and all. I was lonely. A single mom overwhelmed, trying to go back to school and manage being employed while overcoming a near crippling depression. (To this end, I was working at a daycare and got fired for attendance. I was too embarrassed to tell the daycare that I was so scattered and depressed that I had put my keys in my shoes and subsequently lost them.)At this point, I met a devilishly handsome dancer. He was everything I didn't know I was looking for. He was kind, understanding, and he told me that I could get my shit together. Within a few months, we were chatting on google for much of my commute to and from school. When financial struggles threatened to overcome my plans to get my Master's Degree, He suggested that I move to Purdue to attend my classes in Indiana, where I had residency. Within a month, I had a crush. Within two, I was living in the same city he was, attending the same school, and spending more than four days a week with him. Within three months, we had begun hanging out every day. We lived about three blocks from one another. I started referring to him as my best friend and then eventually my Dom. However, if anyone introduced him as my boyfriend, I didn't hesitate to correct them. NO. nope, wasn't going to happen. Sure we were spending all our spare time together, we grocery shopped together and I lived on his couch when I couldn't function. Sure he helped me pay my bills, gave me advice on life, I cleaned for him and he gave me writing assignments. But we had attempted to date for a sum total of three weeks. I got jittery. Anxiety overwhelmed me. I became cripplingly afraid that he was going to leave, and after three weeks of not being able to function, I told him we couldn't date.A year and a half later, when I finished my undergraduate leveling courses and moved to Ohio to pursue a Master's Degree, we were still in this pattern. We had moved into the same building, and I had planned on being around or with him for a long time after Indiana. When I left, I found other interests. I moved on. Albeit I pretended I had moved on two months before actually doing so through a really terrible rebound relationship. Shortly thereafter, my Domineeringly Adorable Man admitted that he had feelings for me, and considered me an ex.My current partner, also underwent a similarly harrowing process to get me to declare him my partner. I'm not quite sure how he dealt with the crazy outpouring of messages I sent him when I thought he was leaving early in our relationship. I seem to remember a hazy evening in which I showed up at his house to demand that he come talk to me so that I felt better. I should mention that in these cases, I was relieved of my sanity by the spiral of anxiety and terror that I felt. I'm not sure about all of the things I said, but I am fairly certain that these things were accompanied by a torrent of tears. I cried, implored, and bared my puffily teary face in hopes of being so straight forward and honest that this man would see my bared soul and choose me! After all, I am about as good at manipulating people as a kumquat is at being a pomegranate. Let's just say that I'm honest to a fault. Brutally honest. Unless I'm lying to myself. Then I will commit to a lie with the ferocity of a lioness hunting for a pride of lion cubs.Somehow, I managed to convey to this beautifully analytically minded man that I did have his best interests at heart. I managed to explain that although I frequently felt compelled to leave the relationship, I wouldn't leave. Through some miracle, he listened to my explanation of mental illness, and we lived happily ever after. Kind of. Not really. But that is a story for another time. You'll have to ask for his word on this, but I'm going to take poetic license and say that although I've been crazy since then, I've settled down a little.I have taken to calling this whole process Borderline Personality Disorder. Partly because someone way smarter than I am diagnosed me with it, and partly because it sounds a lot prettier to tell people, " I had a borderline moment," than, "I ran over his foot with my car on accident," the term "borderline," has become one of the best descriptive tools I have.As I've had a tendency to destructively impact more than just romantic relationships, I've cultivated an awareness of this disorder. Some of the clinical signs don't resonate with me. Some of them fit me to a tee. And as I sit, calmly explaining to someone who has endured a "borderline episode" that I have a disorder, that I'm in treatment for it, and it helps if I take space when I start feeling anxious and can come back to things that make me feel anxious later, I'm not always sure how to make it clear.I don't expect that other people are going to forgive me for sabotaging my relationships. I don't expect that it's okay that I have a disorder. I never expect when I make a mistake, call someone a name or push them away that they will accept my apology or that having a disorder makes it uncontrollable. I use my knowledge of my issues to try to prevent the major issues, sidestep confrontations that will trigger me, and explain as calmly and rationally as I can, how I'm feeling in order to work through it. I am a lot of work.This weekend was especially hard, after nearly feeling like one of my new friends was slipping from my fingers. The reality of the situation was not what my disordered brain was presenting. I went into fear mode, needing reassurance and feeling like I was a terrible person, a terrible influence. I cried and sweated and cried more. I moped around the house, feeling a compulsion to message the friend to try to move boundaries around to fix my perceived wrong.Luckily, I know enough to talk about my issues before they crop up in most situations. Sometimes, I just batten down and depend on my partner to help me through tough times. My partner spends a lot of time in therapy with me discussing things. We spend a lot of time talking about issues. Sometimes, I think that mental illness has given me a gift. I have to talk about my issues. I have to talk to people when I'm crawling out of my skin. I have to do things that are hard. I have been lucky enough to find a community of people who accept me for who I am. It's not always easy. But I've made it through this borderline episode up one friend and closer to my life partner. It's a good day.Disclaimer: I am not an expert! If you are experiencing symptoms like these, run, don't walk to a healthcare professional. There are things that can help. People, drugs....all sorts of options. My story is meant to help people feel like there are options. But please don't feel isolated and alone.(Published Nov 12, 2015 on Blogspot: Love and Borderline Personality Disorder)