What Sitting With Feelings of Rejection Is Like With Borderline Personality Disorder

It really sucks having borderline personality disorder (BPD) and experiencing rejection. It’s the worst feeling in the world when you are really digging someone and they just can’t like you back for various reasons. You might not be their type, they might be interested or pursuing someone else or they may still have ties to an ex.

Just to add some context to this, I’ve been borderline personality disorder “in love” (which actually means, totally obsessed in my individual case) with this man since March of this year. He’s a Pisces and his character synchronizes with that sign. He’s sweet, dreamy and soft spoken. Not to go into too much detail, as to keep some privacy, but he’s still tied to his ex and the rest is history.

I usually do things to distract myself from pondering on such hurt emotions, and part of that is because I can’t stand sitting with negative emotions. In the past, I’ve turned to substance abuse, alcohol abuse and other forms of self-harm to distract myself from facing how I truly feel about things.

Another way I’ve dealt with heartbreak is to escape to “LaLa Land,” also known as my fantasies. I’ve been living in LaLa Land, just loving my crush from afar since the love was in my heart anyways. I thought by avoiding the more negative reality and only focusing on the positive ways I feel about him, that I’d be OK… especially because I have a fantastic imagination.

I also wanted to lucid dream and see him, in dreams to help me cope. I had a couple of dreams of him and I woke up in sheer bliss, but at the end of the day, those are just dreams. The reality of my situation kept coming back to haunt me and penetrate my thoughts, without my permission.

So, after having a conversation with a friend about such a hopeless situation, I’ve finally decided to try to move on from my feelings about him. In this conversation, my friend asked me, “What is keeping you going if you know this will not go anywhere?”

This question made me realize that the fantasies I was living out in my head kept me in a cycle of pointless hope and gut-wrenching pain. After realizing this, I started wondering what would it hurt if I did try to move on? So, I thought I’d give it a chance for once in my life, instead of giving into my heart and only focusing on what it wants. I decided to attempt to go in the opposite direction instead. Now, I’m sitting here crying, listening to a song called “All For Me” by Mariah the Scientist.

So, how did I get here? I thought about how I was going about moving on. I stopped looking at photos of him and stopped fantasizing, but I also felt animosity creeping up for him. Where was this unwarranted animosity coming from? While listening to this song by Mariah the Scientist, I had an epiphany.

You cannot properly move on unless you allow yourself to face those darker feelings and truly come to grips with the reality of the situation. So, my brain started interacting with my feelings of intense emotional pain from rejection and insecurity.

“OK, so this person is interested in someone else and things are probably not going to change. Really take that in. If you need to cry because you feel rejected and worthless, cry.”

So, as I’m listening to this song, “All For Me” by Mariah The Scientist, Mariah’s lyrics really hit me.

“What does she have on me? What does she have?”

That’s when the tears really started flowing because it touched one of my deepest insecurities as someone who struggles with BPD, and perhaps, anyone with insecurities.

One of the hardest things about rejection is feeling as though someone else is better and more worthy than you are to receive the love you wish to have from the object or person of your affection. You wonder, “What is it they have that I don’t? Why aren’t I as special to them as they are to me?” You try to fathom that person’s state of mind.

You may even start to come to the conclusion the person they chose is better than you, which are thoughts I battle all of the time anyway, and they never end.

“They’re better looking. They have a more charming personality and have their lives put together while I don’t.”

That’s what my mind is going through, listening to these heartbreaking songs, attempting to face my own feelings of rejection. It hurts so much, it really does. Tears are streaming down my eyes as I write this. The man I feel like I love more than I have ever loved before… wants someone else. He not only wants someone else, he loves and is in love with someone else.

That stings so much. I’ve always felt incredibly deep about my romantic interests, but I fantasized about marrying this guy and having his firstborn. Seriously. This is a soul-crushing reality to face for me, especially because I battle intense feelings from BPD.

Usually, when I face these feelings, I end up battling terrible thoughts and feelings, such as, “I’m a worthless piece of garbage and everyone is truly better than me and better off without me.” I feel at the bottom of the barrel disgusting, because I tend to project all of my self-worth into the people I’m romantically interested in, as well as my favorite person. I have been put in psych wards in the past when worst came to worst because of my intense feelings of abandonment these feelings of rejection induce.

However, today I’m facing the reality from a different angle. My brain asked me the question, “What will happen if you just sit here and cry and that’s it? What if you’re not worthless and people just have their preferences? What if he thinks you’re beautiful, but your personalities just don’t match? Maybe he doesn’t know you well enough? Remember all of those people you have turned down in your past? Did you think they were all worthless?”

These thoughts of mine made very valid points. So, I’m choosing to listen to my brain for once because it is actually trying to steer me in the right direction. Yes, these feelings hurt, but perhaps if I get them all out of my system instead of running away or using self-harming distractions to escape from the reality of them, I can successfully heal from these feelings of rejection and finally move on.