What You Need to Know About BPD and Dating

It’s a minefield.

I’m very black and white. I’m not subtle in the least. I’m brutally and detrimentally honest. I can’t play mind games. I can’t fake how I feel. I can’t hide what I feel. I can’t pretend to enjoy things I don’t. I have no filter. I wear masks. I script conversations and rehearse mannerisms. I will sometimes adopt things they like in order to mask better and find common interests. I will research these extensively because I don’t fit in easily, and these social things that seem so effortless to others are incredibly hard for me.

I am basically an alien, who can only connect with people naturally and effortlessly through sex because it requires nothing except instinct. I trust my instincts.

I’m also a paradox, which is ironic because people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) hate paradoxes.

I can appreciate the irony.

I will obsess over the tone of your texts, the length of your texts and the quantity.

I am perceptive and will pick up on even the slightest change in your feelings towards me. This will send me into a tailspin of anxiety and self-loathing.

For example, I once knew an ex had cheated before he even did it. I’d merely picked up a tone over the phone, and that night he did it. Some might say it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, only I don’t act on these feelings; I merely let things play out as they should because it’s not like I can stop anything from happening.

I have periods of intense clinginess, where I’ll need lots of reassurance and validation. I’ll forget you love me, or even like me, because I have no emotional permanence. I can only base my emotional response on the here and now.

There are times I will withdraw and become distant. I will “work on myself,” or become absorbed in hobbies, or learning/researching things, and I will forget anyone exists except myself and my interests.

I love hard, and I love intensely, but sometimes you won’t think I do because I struggle to compartmentalize my life and to multitask.

For example, I struggle to merge different sectors of my life. Bring a boyfriend into my family. Bring my family into my home. Few of my friends have mutual friends. I struggle to juggle between compromising and working together as a partnership while finding time for myself as an individual. I struggle to separate myself from being mum, into being a partner, to being myself.

Maybe, one day, I can work on this and learn to fix these things, but until then I need a partner who understands my quirks and can work with them.

Follow this journey on the author’s blog.