💾 Archived View for gem.lizsugar.me › 2024 › 08 › 31 › BPD-is-a-real-fuck.gmi captured on 2024-09-29 at 00:24:03. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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// August 31 2024, 6 min read
// #life #mental health
I've started seeing someone new. Well, she's not new. I met her through my Ex over four years ago. Then we started talking again when my wife and I moved back to Chicago last year. Then she started dating my wife. And she and I finally got together a few weeks ago.
And my BPD is really not doing well with things.
I figured out I have BPD sometime in 2018, shortly before or after I started transition. Transition really allowed me to start working on it though. And I feel like I've made great strides in the past few years, but
Often my fear of abandonment leads me to pushing away the person I'm afraid is abandoning me. A real "you can't fire me, I quit!" response. And though my anger management issues are largely under control I am still including it because it has been a classic symptom of mine.
It's a combination of two really rough relationships I was in previously and the nature of the gal I've been seeing.
My Ex Josie was a lot. Being with her flared up all my BPD symptoms like constantly. The problem with her is that I was RIGHT. She WAS pushing me away and leaving me. Just she couldn't do it with her whole chest, so she led me on and gaslit me and hurt me directly in an effort to push me away. Living with her for eight months after the relationship fell apart (and I didn't even know it had right away) was a fucking nightmare. My BPD symptoms were constantly triggered DURING our relationship, so this post-relationship period was extra nasty there.
And then my other ex s required a lot more from me than I was capable of giving. I don't think she has BPD, but a lot of the things she struggled with in a long distance relationship presented very similarly to the way I struggle with my BPD in a relationship, to the point that I think her struggles were resurfacing mine. And I thought that since it's been half a year since we broke up, I might be ready to try again with someone, but local this time. I'm scared it's still too early.
So this new gal, L, she's really great and sweet and nerdy in a way that lines up with my nerdy. She's been dating my wife for a year, and she's been trying to get my attention for longer than that.
I kinda messed up last year when I read something horribly wrong, formed the worst assumption of the scenario, and ghosted her. I apologized to her over a month ago for that and it went over really well. Then a couple weeks later I asked her out on a coffee date. Which! Went! Really! Well!! And since then our schedules just haven't aligned to spend time together one on one. She's over here for two nights a week for my wife already, and I do hang out with them a lot during that. So I feel like I'd be asking too much to then have one on one time during the rest of her busy week. Also I really don't do well with being the one who has to initiate everything. She doesn't ask me over, and she's pretty much told me to come over whenever. I.. can't do that like that. I need an invitation at least a few times to make it real clear that I am wanted over. Otherwise it feels like I'm intruding and forcing something that is not wanted. I need some level of obvious desire directed at me so I can feel comfortable returning that.
There's also a major difference in communication style. She does not text very much at all. Well, not with me. My wife agrees that she is hard to text, but I see them texting a lot more and my brain twists things. The reality is that they've been dating a year, they have a really solid connection, and I kinda fucked up that year by ghosting her instead of getting to know her better. AND we haven't had any dedicated together time since our first date TO get to know each other.
But the lack of regular communication is really fucking with me. It makes me feel unwanted, undesired, unthought-about. It makes me feel bad and lonely.
Things like, she was texting me good mornings and good nights (since she hits both of those daily milestones earlier than I do), then she just stopped out of no where. Things like, she would send me updates about her cat, or talk about games, then she just stopped out of no where. Things like, I say something to her and she just leaves it marked read and doesn't respond. Things like, a week ago she said to me "I'm really excited to see you!" before coming over, but this week she only said that to my wife and I only saw it over her shoulder. Things like, we just spent nearly two days not texting at all and I felt so completely unwanted because of it. Not even a little "heya"? And I'm supposed to just be okay with that?
She has some really good reasons for not being into text messaging as a medium, which aren't mine to share publicly. And my wife did also have to contend with this when they started dating. She's just already become used to it. I'm struggling to do so with my BPD.
I'm gonna call a therapy place next week for a consultation. DBT is the premier way to manage most cases of BPD. I had done some on my own when I was living with Josie, but DBT is not designed to be done on your own. I did not get very far and I haven't looked at the green book in years. It is really difficult to practice without a therapist guiding and reinforcing.
I do need to tell her some of the things I'm struggling with I think, but NOT in a Too Much way. More like in a "hey I do really like you, this thing makes it difficult to connect with you, is there something we can do differently?"
I need to figure out how to spend time with just her.
Yeah. Why DIDN'T this? I have my hypotheses. I don't feel comfortable expanding on them yet/here.
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This post is gemini only to reduce audience size†but still put it out there somewhere, where someone might read it, and someone might briefly think about me. Because being heard is important to me.
†Actually I think she's aware of what my domain name is and I don't know if she ever pokes at my website, but I HIGHLY doubt she knows what gemini even is
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