FRIENDSHIP AND BPD (Brace Youself)…
A person who is rich in friends is truly wealthy. I so love the aphorisms and epigrams that relay this message however, it really saddens me as it means that I am not a wealthy person. I have had BPD my entire life, although I’ve only known about it for the last 10 years. After having finally been diagnosed with what has plagued me a lifetime, I was flooded with relief. I finally understood why I have never been able to keep friends in my life, at least not for very long. Even those who had been in touch for many years, were eventually cut from my team, so to speak. Except for one...my friend from birth, Jennifer T (and I love you, Jennifer).
Trying to maintain a friendship is not only hard on the people who possess the BPD disorder, but so very hard on those who want to have a friendship, or any type of relationship for that matter, with one of us. There are many articles on the subject, many of which are great, but my favorite is this one from borderlinepersonalitydisorder.com. This article give great advice on understanding and creating ways to be a part of our lives.
What anyone in my life has had to understand the most is this: if you are in my life locally (as opposed to long distance), as a friend, and you do not hear from me much or I don’t seem to you to make the effort to stay in contact, it isn’t because I don’t want to or because I don’t care, it’s because I can’t, at least not very often. I can’t bring myself to contact someone for fear of rejection, an all-too-familiar outcome for having ever tried to get someone to chat with me or do things with me.
We don’t do rejection well...at all, and you need to understand that when we don’t hear from you for a week or more (and in some cases even a day), we take that as rejection and our first reaction is to cut you off...quickly and permanently making it even more difficult than ever for you to get back into our lives because in our minds you have already rejected us. Now logically we know our assumptions are not true, but our disorder makes it feel very true...to us. If you let a week go by and have not contacted us in any way, you now have your work cut out for you trying to get back in...but we deeply hope you will accept the challenge.
We are lonely most of the time because people don't understand us and we feel very isolated. But to those of you who do make the effort to understand and those of you who try everything to get back in...we love and appreciate you more than you can know. We thank anyone and everyone who hasn’t thrown us away.
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