BPD love/hate symptoms

So glad to hear from you @Bumblebee2 !

Welcome to the forums and welcome to the BPD world! I know first hand what you are talking about.

So many people I adored and pretty much sucked the life out of... then because of sometime small (e.g. they looked at me the 'wrong' way), I completely flipped, lashed out and hated their guts. Sound familiar?

My life was like this for over a decade. Hence, I didn't have friends my age. I only had older people who were ready to 'put up with me' and my rages and adorations...

My BPD was so acute that I eventually got accepted into a BPD clinic. I had intensive MBT therapy where we practiced mentalising. That is thinking about out emotions and the emotions of others. By unpacking this each week in a group session, as well as having an individual session, after 18 months, things began to shift.

The main thing is to teach yourself to pause before you react. The more time you wait and delay reacting, the less likely you will need to react.

At the same time, set yourself boundaries so that people do get smothered. e.g. I'll see that person for 2 hours then I'll go home. That way, you don't fall into the trap of being overbearing.

I'm speaking from a borderline's perspective. This is what worked for me. It may not work for you, but I thought I'd share in case you were interested.

Hi! I created an anti-splitting chart where I put my most loved ones in the middle [imagine a whole bunch of circles like you've cut an onion in half].

Middle: close friends or friends who I can really talk to.

Next outer layer: people who are new friends or I see them every now and again.

Next outer layer: they're great, but don't rely on them [as proven by their behaviour].

Next layer: be polite if I see them.

Next, most outer layer: don't trust this person - keep them there.

This helps me to move people in and out of different areas so that I understand how much time and attention they can realistically give me at any time. Some are reliable, some are not, but there's no reason to go into splitting if you can categorise how we approach people and understand their values.

I've ended up getting friends with matching values over time. I also make sure not to rely just on one 'special' person too much but to spread out my worries with other people. It's also best not to worry alone.

I hope that's helpful.

xo Rose.

@tyme thanks for your help I really appreciate it it was very useful although thinking before reacting is very hard but something I am working on and I will ask my doctor about the therepy that you were using as that sounds helpful. Thanks so much for replying it's good to have help from people that actually experience this.