Hi all,
This is my first time posting in a forum. I was diagnosed with BPD a year ago, and also have depression, anxiety and my suspected PTSD (My therapist said this but no formal diagnosis). At the moment I am doing CBT sessions and a DBT skills group, which has been challenging but good. As it says in the tittle, I was wondering if anyone else struggle with relationships. I know I struggle with interpersonal relationships for a couple of reasons:
1. I have low self-esteem. As a result, I tend to verbally rely on external validation from others. Recently, I had an argument with my housemate how she finds this tiring, which is fair. I know I should learn to validate myself, but it is really really hard. Recently I was talking to my therapist how I hate listening to my friends 'boast'/always talk so positively about themselves. My therapist pointed out that the irritation and discomfort I feel is because some people would then share something positive about themselves, or their own accomplishments in response to my friends 'boasting' but I don't. I feel like I am a horrible person. I should be happy that my friend was raised in an enviroment where they felt comfortable sharing their accomplishments, opinions and thoughts and feel secure in their self-image. Instead I want to tell them to shut up and hold them to my standards of impressive.
2. I have negative self talk. For me, I find that a situation will occur, and then I magnify it myself as negative thoughts swarm. For example, I had never load a dishwasher before in my life and I asked a friend to help me. I was handing things to her when she says in a snappy tone, "Can you not? When I load the dishwasher, I want to load the dishwasher". In response, my thoughts immediately go: 'I am an idiot', 'you can't do anything right', 'They hate me' etc. I then completely start sobbing to my housemates surprise. This is one example, but it commonly happens at work, and sometimes I will cry at work.
3. I self sabotage my relationships. When I am depressed, I withdraw completely from my friends and will just ghost everyone. Then, when I feel a bit better, I am left with anxiety about reaching out to the people I ghosted, so I don't contact them ever again. I also tend to be defensive and argumentative by nature.
4. I feel chronically empty/feels like there is not on single person who can truly understand me. I also feel like I am weird and that people don't like me. This means I really struggle with making friends and feel isolated. I also will often feel lonely in a crowded room and I struggle as I have no family: my Mum died when I was 10, my Dad left when I was 12, and my Auntie didn't want me to live with her so I have been independent from when I had just turned 17. My only family: a twin sister also has BPD but she experiences hallucinations and I am a support for her mental health. I sometimes get jealous at other peoples family situations even though you can't compare people situations.
So, as you can see from the above, I am not great at relationships for different reasons. I just feel like so many of these are my fault, and I should just fix these but I find it so overwhelming. My therapist explained that some of these issues stem from have negative 'core beliefs'. I feel like there is so much I need to change and it's hard to do show kindness to myself when I am the problem 90% of the time. I also struggle with abandonment issues, so whilst my interpersonal life is on fire and burning down, I feel like if I argue with people too many times, they will leave (which they are allowed to do). With this combination of things going on, I find it hard to be motivated with for change and feel hopeless.
I guess I just wanted to hear if anyone else struggles. Thanks for reading and I am sorry for the long post.
