Borderline Personality Disorder
Hello since therapy is so expensive I can't find someone to talk to. I'm struggling with BPD and it's preventing me from living a normal life. If there is someone who can try and help me it would be much appreciated.
@intelligentOwl901 Hi there. I'm so sorry to hear that you find yourself struggling to cope with BPD. It certainly can be tough but I believe there's hope with the right support. Therapy can be quite expensive depending where you are located, I hear you. I admire your strength to be here and to be able to express how you feel. While listeners cannot give advice, I do hope that by now you have been able to connect with one to help offer you support. I hope that you are able to manage dealing with BPD and stay strong. Remember you can always put in a general request in the queue or browse to chat with an available listener here. Take care!
@intelligentOwl901s
Not many people can help us, I have found (I have BPD like you)
Most people are like above, lots of generic words that don't do anything
My girlfriend has BPD. We have been together three years this coming May
I actually found the disorder. It was masked for decades by drug abuse and she has been in and out of incarceration for just as long
When I met her I didn't realize the extent of the addiction and we were just friends and I did at least see she wasn't the relationship type.
She told me not to fall in love with her so I honestly kept an arms length. But the more we hung out the more in common we had and she began to chase me
I knew I was not special, her entire adult life was hustling so I was any different. I thought if I showed enough kindness and transparency she would realize she could trust me
A couple of months later the split happened and it was a day to day roller coaster ever since
But.
I knew enough at that point that her behavior didn't make sense, it was very explainable by her childhood and life in drug addiction.
One day she looked at me and I saw a very scared very sad little girl looking back at me
Hindsight I say I had the right answers I was just asking the wrong questions.
For example I would tell her you're trying to push me away. You poke The beehive and you poke The beehive and you poke The beehive until you get stung. Then you say look see I told you.
Now I know that's called splitting
Everything has a name and an explanation now. What I'm struggling with is the fact that she's in jail again and can't get treatment until she gets out
And I'm afraid of that release rearrest hamster wheel that she's been running for decades
I don't know how much self-awareness I can expect with no treatment
I do know that she does have a favorite person and it's not me and he is extremely emotionally abusive and toxic
And she is a compulsive liar as well especially about him because she knows she can't have both of us
I tried to back off of that because I understand the relationship but it hurts. There's been a lot of lying and cheating over the years and even communication from jail when she swore there wasn't
So I don't know how to navigate this favorite person thing while knowing that she'll still lie to me about it
I tried to even offer that if you do something or you lie to me in that knee jerk moment I understand. But I'll give you 24 hours to come back around and tell me the truth
I'm sick of finding it out. And it always does come out. And that person will not turn her away. He just plays with her head and blows up all her relationships while his stays intact
I love her and I'm not going anywhere I've been researching this for over a year and like I said I'm the one that actually found it and brought
it to her attention
It took some time to get her to see it and now she wants help but can't get it yet.
I would really love someone to talk to about this stuff.
@The2Wolves
You're the supply
As someone with BPD I would say that you are abusing yourself by continuing with this but it's your life
You have hopes and I think you may eventually realise that they were a waste of YOUR life...
You're so concerned with her getting treatment and getting better that you neglect your own needs for happiness and a relationship where you are actually valued...
Thank you for your honesty. I'm definitely at the end of my rope and the strands are breaking. The last couple of days she's talking about not having any options when she gets released.
She can't come to me we already agreed on that. She needs to learn how to live on her own and hold a job budget money etc.
But her other option is back home to her mother. Her mother is a significant source of the disorder to put it mildly.
And there are drugs literally a 30 sec walk away. So if she gets no treatment, gets released and goes back to that same toxic triggering environment with accessable drugs....I'm not being unsupportive, just realistic.
I don't know how long she could fight that with nothing but self awareness, and bpd workbook and an armchair therapist with a degree from YouTube University.
I really think she'd be high within the day she got out like every other time she got out over the last 23 years.
P I think a treatment facility is the right place the right next step but she split on me and how did this regulation cycle and started to get upset that I wanted her to stay locked up after getting out of prison for another year
She's pulling the year number from that last place she was in that was in fact the year but that was court ordered as opposed to prison.
Long story short I gave up my car to pay for the lawyer to get her into that rehab as opposed to prison and then 5 months later she walked out of there
And in her defense it was 3 days after hurricane Ian hit and they would not let her call me to see if I was even alive. They didn't consider me family because we weren't married
I wasn't allowed to talk to her on the phone for the whole year. Unless they made an exception because she needed something but basically I couldn't talk to her we could only write so that was 5 months of difficulty
But anyway I was flooded and my feelings were caving in and all she could do is get messages from her mother while I still had power to my phone which wasn't very long. So she triggered and she told them it was the wrong thing to do but it was her family and she left.
The problem is her mother and her infinite wisdom sent a crackhead to pick her up who brought crack with him to the rehab so 10 months of sobriety went right out the window as they were driving out of the rehab facility
I'm choosing to believe that she doesn't know she sent a crackhead there.
But anyway I'm just starting to get to the point where it is going to be where I have to walk away because my sanity is suffering. I am depressed I am traumatized from the gaslighting and the lying and the cheating and everything for 2 years.
I love her to death but I just don't know what's true. And I have to figure out all the time I have to put things together I have to trick her into telling me the truth it's exhausting
And if she goes back to her mother's house, and I am in another place not even looking at her or seeing what she's up to then all I'm going to think is that she's back to her old tricks and no matter what she says I'm not going to believe her
And to be fair to me that's a result of her lying to me everyday for almost the entirety of our relationship. And when I found out or started to figure things out she would then flip it into a gas light and actually make me look more of a fool by believing the gas light part.
And now she doesn't understand why I can't believe her when I've caught her doing the things that she swearing up and down she doesn't do. I've said I'm concerned you might do this x y or z because I can't give you money anymore on your books and she swore up and down no no no
And then of course come to find out she was contacting the favorite person who's toxic and not supposed to be contacted anymore if she wanted to be with me for money for commissary
And I added it up the other day which I should not have done she was in that jail for 5 months and I gave her $1,100 in commissary. She did not need anyone near that much but she cried on the phone and thought she needed it because I could hear the emotional inner child crying not a manipulative addict to be honest I really believe that
But the tough part is from the beginning till now this could be BPD and she can't express emotions and everything is exactly textbook to the DSM or she's an addict and I'm an idiot and I fall for it every time
So the only way to know if I'm an idiot is to stop being an idiot right?
@The2Wolves
"I could hear the emotional inner child crying not a manipulative addict"
Yes you can and that is why she is an addict but the two are inseparable and you need to see her as a whole - not as a "lovely person who has bpd which ruins her"
She uses you and you know it and I get you don't want to abandon her but really you have to stop hoping and attempting to make her better. You either accept her as she is and carry on supporting (enabling) her or you stop and leave her to her fate... but seeing her as a lost child one minute and a selfish addict the next is not the way because she will NEVER be that lost child grownup. The way for her to gain control is to assimilate the 2 sides and become a more realistic adult. I'e she has to let go of that emotional child
If you like that "emotional inner child" then understand that is an impossibility for her ever to be a grown-up version of that because it is NOT functional. Hence why she turns to drugs and other things.. because she cannot function properly. So you are waiting for her to get better, perhaps not realising that if she actually did get better she might turn into the person you feel love for
What I am saying is - you are in love with an illusion
I hope that makes sense
Hi @intelligentOwl901, I fully understand and also have BPD. I have severe abandonment fears and recently two of my friends ostracized me after they got what they wanted from me. Then they gaslight me saying it is in my head. I still struggle to cope after ending the friendship. I saw them several times and they see themselves as victims after lying, ignoring, disrespecting and using me. I am at the point of considering to close off completely and never trust strangers again. I am getting therapy from 7 cups and also my parents are very supportive. The thoughts and hurt feelings still are not easy to overcome. Not sure but therapy on 7 cups is less expensive than in person therapy. So that's the only way I find for someone to listen to me. The listeners would not be compassionate enough and often I felt worse with the listeners on 7 cups. That's why the therapy is much better and feel good that someone is caring.
Hi there! I’m sorry to hear you’re struggling to find proper treatment for BPD. I was in the same exact situation as you a few years ago. It was awful and scary being alone with a serious disorder. Not many people can understand the depths of suffering people like you and I go through.
Although I wholeheartedly believe DBT therapy may help the most (it changed my life!), any type of support could be beneficial. Even if it’s to help you not feel so alone.
if you’re in the USA, this search engine may help you find free/cost effective group therapy (online and in person). You may not find something specifically for BPD, but PTSD or general support groups may be helpful.
https://www.nami.org/Find-Your-Local-NAMI/Affiliate/Programs?classkey=a1x36000003TN9LAAW
I wish you the BEST of luck ❤️
@intelligentOwl901
I am someone who can definitely sympathise with you as I also Han BPD. I am not going to say it’s been an easy journey because it hasn’t but the biggest thing for me has been education. Learning about the condition and actually understanding how it affects me. I have spent a lot of time on the internet reading about other people’s stories, learning about BPD and the best types of therapy’s and accepting where I am in my journey. I have been given a lot of resources over the last two years which I haven’t even been able to use until know. For me it has been about managing my emotions and dealing with the big black hole that is inside of me that I can’t seem to fill.
I wish you all the best on your journey and am here for you wherever you need someone to talk to.