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Relating to Someone With Borderline Personality Disorder

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To someone without borderline personality disorder (BPD):

People with BPD often say that those without just don’t get it.

And although you haven’t felt this disorder, you have felt emotions. Which are a massive part of the disorder.

Much of what we go through daily, you’ve been through too, though we seem to feel more intensely.

You’ve felt grief, probably from losing a loved one. We can feel it when we wake up in the morning.

You’ve felt heartbreak, probably when someone else broke it. We can have a single thought that a loved one might leave us, and it’s as if they already have.

You’ve felt scared, probably with a plausible reason why. We can feel terror when a good night with our favorite person comes to an end, even though we are seeing them the next day.

You’ve felt guilt. We can feel it to the point our body is aching from the self-loathing because we forgot to say thank you when someone held the door open for us.

You’ve felt joy. But we can feel it in our whole body, in every single cell. Its such an indescribable, amazing feeling.

We don’t feel anything all that new to people without the disorder. We often feel emotions when you wouldn’t and more intensely than the situation requires.

So if you feel like you don’t understand our actions or the disorder, you can use your imagination. Try to relate it to your own past emotions, because we all have them.

Obviously, BPD isn’t only emotions, but they are a big part of it. I do think people without the disorder can get confused by our reactions to situations, which can cause the stigma. We are human. We are not “crazy.” We are not manipulative. We are not just extremely sensitive.

We are reacting appropriately to the emotions we are feeling. So if you think our reactions are blown out — imagine what we must be feeling.

Getty image by primipil

Originally published: October 15, 2019
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