BPD like symptoms?
So I've been with my boyfriend for about 2 months now after taking a break when I broke up with my ex. I broke up with him because in the 3 months before I decided to break it off, I started realizing that he doesn't really care the same way I did for him. My ex treated me like another one of his friends and that really put me off. I felt like I was putting in all the effort in the relationship and he was kinda just coasting along. Now with my new boyfriend, I've started noticing habits or issues that I never had in my previous relationship. First of all, I'm starting to overthink everything. For example: I know he's a slow replier, yet I still get nervous whenever he takes long to reply. I start thinking stuff like "is he mad at me" or "did I do something wrong", when in reality he's just busy or forgot to reply. Yet that fear that a distance is growing between us takes over me, it becomes all I can think about. (Context: we are classmates and haven't gone public with our relationship.) Or maybe when I see one of his friends being "too friendly" or touchy with him I start getting jealous and angry at that friend, even start seeing them as threats. Again, it becomes all that's on my mind, then when I step back and think "dude he can have friends, it wouldn't make sense if he got mad when you hang out with your friends now would it", I realize how irrational my feelings were. Logically speaking, I know our relationship is in a good place. But in my head, it feels like extreme highs and lows. With every intimate and loving moment that makes me feel close with him, there's always a moment that just completely brings me down, whether for good reason or not.
Please help me guys
@OutisCyrko
I replied to your previous post, I hope you get the support and help that you need! 💕💜
@OutisCyrko
Hi there, welcome to 7 Cups. 💜 That sounds pretty chaotic going back and forth between those two states of mind that you mentioned. And they both feel really understandable.
It kind of reminds me of a concept within DBT (dialectical behavior therapy - main evidence-based therapy for BPD) called "Wise Mind". The idea there is that sometimes people have an emotional side, a logical side, and then the holy grail is finding this third hybrid way of approaching things that's able to harmonize the two sides. (I'm not 100% sure what that would look like in your specific situation, but it sounds nice, lol.)
https://www.7cups.com/forum/personalitydisorders/Resources_2667/Module1MindfulnessDiscussion7WiseMind_265026/
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Just brainstorming things that come to mind as far as possible strategies. Do any of these resonate more than others?
1) Satisfying the emotional side by creating more reliable sources of quality/intimate time with him -- so that you're getting your needs met and continuously building additional evidence and positive experiences to counteract the narrative of "something's wrong"
2) Sharing the anxiety with him in a non-accusatory way and working collaboratively with him to mutually establish some way of de-fanging the anxiety.
a) For example, maybe he's able to provide a reassuring mental frame along the lines of "hey, if I'm not responding, you can trust that it's just me being slow/busy. I like you very much, you're great and we're great, and if that ever changes I'll be sure to let you know so we can talk through it together 💜"
b) Or maybe there's some kind of minimal action he can do from his end like "if I know I'm going to be delayed in responding for more than X days, I'll try to remember to just send you a quick message saying 'hey, I'm busy but I care and will respond soon!' so you're not sitting there worrying." And maybe that's actually helpful for him too to have a mutually established protocol (e.g. "I've actually been thinking sometimes about messaging you to say I'm busy, but I was worried you'd get mad that I was writing you with nothing more than 'sorry I'll reply to this soon'").
3) Having some kind of self-care routine for calming or distracting whenever that anxiety pops up, and managing that on your own without involving him
4) Having some kind of mental script that you've prepared beforehand that you can use to reassure yourself that everything's okay when those feelings/doubts start arising
@QuietMagic damn this was a really in depth reply, thanks! I never thought of letting him know about how I feel because I always thought it might overwhelm him or scare him away even more, but I think its definitely something I should consider. I hope this isn't asking for a lot, but how can I approach telling him about this without making it feel awkward or tense?
@OutisCyrko
Glad you liked the reply. 😊
I'm kind of having trouble figuring out how to tackle that question. It's a great question but also a challenging one.
I could throw a bunch of links at you that are like "here's how to do healthy interpersonal communication in a perfect world". And yeah, here are those links--can check out all of the DBT skills under "Interpersonal Effectiveness": DEAR MAN, GIVE, FAST, etc. -- you can have all of the alphabet soup, lol. 😉 If you want the "right answer", it'll be found somewhere in there.
https://www.7cups.com/forum/personalitydisorders/Resources_2667/DBTuesdayMasterpost_274756/
The things that are giving me pause:
1) I respect what you're saying of feeling like you might overwhelm or scare him
2) I don't know anything about him, what kind of communication the two of you have, how vulnerable/deep the interaction is, or anything that would give me hints as to how he's likely to respond to different things (or whether those fears you have are justified--which they very well could be! It would be irresponsible for me to say "everything will go great if you just do this")
3) I feel like different people have different styles of communication. What works for me might not work for someone else and vice versa. A lot of that "without making it feel awkward or tense" might be internal and come down to your own sense of self-trust/confidence. And that's probably connected to finding a way of being/expressing yourself that feels natural for you or like it fits with your personality.
Example: right now as I'm writing this reply to you, I'm using a communication style that's kind of honest/informal, cognitively dense, and slightly light-hearted/irreverent. It's flowing out of me because it's who I am right now, and my instincts are telling me it'll work reasonably well based on past experiences of it working. My reasoning also backs up my intuition (i.e. you're someone who self-describes as overthinking so me expressing my own version of that is likely to build rapport rather than injure it, you've expressed gratitude already toward me so I have some leeway in terms of making mistakes, I've already proven that I'm able to respond professionally and I've already provided the 'professional' links so you'll recognize this shift in tone as a deliberate choice on my part rather than a manifestation of incompetence, etc.)
All of that alleviates some of the anxiety/discomfort I feel around "I want to help this person and they expect/deserve a good response but I don't know what to say but I still have to say something 😅". My intuition and intellect are both in-sync and telling me that this is a viable approach for interacting with you, even though it's probably breaking a lot of generic rules for how listeners should go about communicating. I trust in what I'm doing, and if I'm wrong and this is a mistake then I'll have more data that I can use to shape how I approach similar situations in the future. Or if I click send and a few minutes later get flooded with regret, then that's another data point--and I can give myself grace because I have a responsibility to reply to you and me saying something/anything is more important than what I say being perfect. I'll heal off the self-inflicted emotional damage and live to fight another day, haha.
I don't think I'd be able to tell someone else how to talk, any more than I'd be able to tell someone else "here's how you flirt" or "here's how to be attractive". Birds are good at flying, fish are good at swimming, etc. ... different people have their own personal styles and signature strengths.
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Overall, I have to defer to your instincts because I don't know what I don't know. 🙏
1) If you imagine yourself having that conversation with him and it going well, what do you think that might look like? What would you be doing and how would he be responding?
2) What's your superpower? 😊 💪
@QuietMagic Thank you so much you've been so helpful!
@OutisCyrko what outstanding help! I just want to second the dbt suggestion. Made my life livable.
@OutisCyrko o my gosh! That dbt section is so cool. It would provide a lot of ideas. I just looked at: Interpersonal relation ships and then valadation. always helpful when trying to communicate.
