This is what borderline personality disorder feels like…to me…

It’s confusing. You never know exactly what you are supposed to feel.

fear

paranoia

doubt

insecurity

panic

The more I try to stop all the negative feelings, the more intense they get for me.

Everything is either black…or white; there is no gray.

I don’t know what to feel right now.

I may call you a lot just to make sure you’re still here, to make sure that you still like me. If we don’t talk, I fear that you are mad at me.

It feels like separation anxiety.

I’m always looking for the slightest sign that you will abandon me.

I know that you love me, but I don’t feel it.

I do whatever I can to feel your love when you are not here with me.

I read old messages.

I look through old cards.

I look through old pictures.

I can’t keep friends because paranoia and false assumptions chase everyone I love away.

I love you one minute and hate you the next and most of the time, it’s because of something petty.

alone

Most days, I just feel really empty.

I’m sick of not fitting in…anywhere…ever.

I hate the rollercoaster of emotions I feel just as much as the people around me do, if not more.

Sometimes I’m broken and I don’t know why.

Sometimes I am so angry at you and I don’t know why. I say things I don’t mean and I do things I shouldn’t.

I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough…but I tried to be.

I say that I’m sorry…A LOT.

But by then, it’s too late and I have hurt you. And now I hate myself even more than before.

regret

suspicious

needy

misunderstood

unlovable

BPD feels like shame…it feels lonely.

I need a break from the loneliness that is totally consuming me. The loneliness of being misunderstood, the loneliness that comes from not being able to express how I feel and from being unable to make people understand…not the loneliness of having no one around.

One moment, I feel completely happy, loving life, inspirational, creative…seeing beauty in everything…that the world is so beautiful…that nothing could ever go wrong again.

But then…

…I can feel it coming again and I just can’t stop it no matter how hard I try, no matter how fast I run.

What would be a bad feeling for you, a ripple in the water…to me, feels like a crippling wave.

You want me to just be and act normal. For me…this is normal…my normal…and it’s all I know.

If someone doesn’t like me, I must be a complete failure and I am flawed.

You point out my flaws, like I don’t already see them. We all have flaws.

People have scars. In all sorts of unexpected places. Like secret road maps of their personal histories. Diagrams of all their old wounds. Most of our wounds heal, leaving nothing behind but a scar. But some of them don’t. Some wounds we carry with us everywhere and though the cut’s long gone, the pain still lingers.

I am in so much pain that I self-injure just to feel something…or to feel nothing at all. Dying is always in the back of my mind.

One minute, I can be happy.

The next minute, for no reason at all, I’m suicidal.

The dreams in which I’m dying are the best dreams I’ve ever had.

I know what it’s like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can’t. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside.

pissed off

I spend way too much time over-analyzing and over-thinking everything. What you said and how you said it.

What are you doing?

Why are you doing it?

Is it a good thing?

What is its impact?

What’s next?

People tell you just to be yourself and then they judge you.

Trust me when I say that I’m doing my best.

You don’t know what this is like…what a day in the life of me looks like.

You’d never say, “It’s just cancer, get over it.”

I can’t just turn this off.

I didn’t choose to be like this.

“People with BPD are like people with third degree burns over 90% of their bodies. Lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement.”
~ Marsha Linehan