Friendships as coping mechanism

I think my pattern of relationships is to move from one person to the next and narrowly and intensely focus on one person at a time that I think I use for emotional connection, emotional support, company, and way to feel like a real person who is stable instead of a lonely emotional wreck. But it seems I do damage to the other person, I feel like a leech in a way, seems that I drain the other person of their time and resources and when the relationship becomes strained enough I either drop them and move onto someone else or they drop me and I relapse into an emotional wreck again until I find a replacement. I've noticed this pattern for years now since my teenage years, I'm mentally dependent on others but I'm like a parasite to them. My friendships and relationships are very episodic and they tend not to end well, I think I put so much investment into one person at a time that I miss the larger picture about what healthy relationships or friendships are supposed to be like.

I've mentioned this pattern to my doctor and she sort of suggested it was a personality issue, so I read more about BPD thinking it would be related. Do other people here feel it is related or have these same patterns with other people?

I felt like when I was reading your post right now that I was reading about myself. I have been around here "lurking" the last few days but I didn't necessarily feel exactly like anyone until just now. I do the same thing, especially with partners.

I think that it's probably related to your disorder. It does fit part of the criteria for BPD anyway.

Why do you drop the relationships? You feel trapped, bored or maybe you drop them because you don't want to hurt them? or you dont want them to hurt you? Or you feel you don't need anything more from them?

I don't know what your reason is to drop your relationships so I can't tell you what you may have but maybe you should also take a look at this personality disorder: avoidant-personality/

I hope your doctor can help you more with this issue!

Maniacal wrote:I felt like when I was reading your post right now that I was reading about myself. I have been around here "lurking" the last few days but I didn't necessarily feel exactly like anyone until just now. I do the same thing, especially with partners.

I think that it's probably related to your disorder. It does fit part of the criteria for BPD anyway.

Hey Maniacal, glad I said something you can relate to so well. I do it with partners a lot too, but also close friends. Thing is, it's becoming suffocating, not just for the other person who I'm so possessive of but it's hard on me too, I can tell I have trouble with being so absolute about relationships. Like I just keep latching onto people until the relationship falls apart. Is this your pattern too? It becomes difficult to deal with, doesn't it? After a while you begin to just anticipate the destruction of each relationship but you get the most thrills out of the start of the relationship, during the honeymoon period.

DancingPuppets wrote:Why do you drop the relationships? You feel trapped, bored or maybe you drop them because you don't want to hurt them? or you dont want them to hurt you? Or you feel you don't need anything more from them?

I don't know what your reason is to drop your relationships so I can't tell you what you may have but maybe you should also take a look at this personality disorder: avoidant-personality/

I hope your doctor can help you more with this issue!

It depends, sometimes I feel too suffocated by my own behavior in relationships/friendships or I get bored and begin to lose interest after I feel I've gotten what I need from the person, then I move on hoping the other person won't get hurt, the loss of interest tends to happen very suddenly towards the end, I can't help it but it's confusing to me because I'm really worried about the other person rejecting me throughout the relationship so I cling to them very possessively and that could be what causes problems for them. Sometimes it makes them break it off with me and then I'm down and my illness gets really severe again until I find a new person to repeat the cycle with.

I wouldn't want to lobby to be diagnosed borderline because I don't think it would be particularly useful to my treatment but then again my doctor or counselor may have already diagnosed me without telling me. I just though my issues with others could be related.

I can relate with part of your post. The differences are that it doesn't ever happen intentionally - every new friendship I really do want to be forever. I always want to make it work. I also don't feel like I use them. The same things happen, but I'm never the one leaving. I do tend to make it hard for others to stay, and have no idea how or why that is. I want them to stay, but I only manage to push them away.

I'm with the others and can relate, but I'm more with Alexander here. Perhaps you can interpret my "intentions" as using, but usually I am in a fantasy world that I think is real. For example, my last attachment was to a best friend of mine who is older, and in my mind she was my mother, and it was necessary for her to fulfill that role. Usually with these types of relationships, they fail me too many times or we get into fights that never end. Thank God for my last friend, though, because she has stuck around and is seeing me through my treatment. She helped me seek it in the first place, actually.

I definitely understand what you mean, and I worry a lot that I'm like an emotional leech and that it will have an eventual toll on the person I'm obsessing over at the time, but that's not usually until I've been behaving in that way for a while and I slowly realise that maybe I'm being too intense, and that realisation generally makes me worry that the person doesn't reciprocate the same level of friendship/whatever with me and then I start distancing myself, and/or splitting the person, for fear of them getting tired of me and leaving.

I go through stages of it, moving from one person to another, spending as much time as possible with them. When I'm with them I'm planning ways that I can be with them again very soon, making arrangements, etc. and I get very possessive over them and very upset if they have other plans. It doesn't have to be a constant thing, though. I often have periods of being very avoidant and not wanting to spend time with anyone. Generally if I'm spending a lot of time with someone it's either because they're new to me and I want to... consume them, in a way, and have them consume me; or it's because I'm feeling endlessly lonely and empty and I guess I'm trying to fill that emptiness, which probably has a huge emotional toll on the people whom I pass that burden onto. I never do it intentionally, though, the obsession and love I feel for the person is genuine, I flip between idealisation/devaluing so often and it's usually a rotation of existing friends anyway - I don't discard them for good when I'm 'done' with them.

Thank you all for the replies. I see several people here could relate to my thoughts on this subject. I think I'm very possessive with the people I attach myself to. Unfortunately this means the relationships end in a dramatic way and it causes a lot of hurt. And I'm still doing it now, it just seems to be my pattern to move from one person to the next until it ends. I'm trying to figure out ways to lessen the intensity of the situation but it's hard not to focus on people so strongly.

Since I wrote this I've been attempting to improve the way I treat people, and trying not to rely on just one person at a time, it's harmful to both me and the other person. I'm doing better at maintaining multiple friendships and not making any specific person my absolute priority, it takes so much of a burden off me. I'm currently trying to choose between two people who have shown romantic interest in me but I kind of just want to stay friends with both of them and keep them both while I still have that option. I'd rather not plummet into more romantic problems just yet, I'm still recovering from the last one.

It feels like I could have written all of that myself. I recently lost a friend, or I'm not even sure what happened to be honest, and ever since that I feel like I can't live properly. Like I was so dependent on our talks and hanging out with her and I don't know, I miss that. And nothing seems to fill the hole after our falling out. This have happened a lot of times, I can clearly see a pattern between myself and my current and my old and previous friends . I feel really mentally lost right now and it scares me, because I simultaneously miss her and I'm also really upset and angry. Ugh.