In my experience, one of the hardest parts of having BPD is that I know a lot of things, but I don't feel them. Somehow, because I don't feel them, it's as if they can't be true. My mind seems to tell me that if they were really true, I would feel them, wouldn't I?

Knowing vs Feeling

I know that my best friend loves me. I know she needs other people who give her other things. I know she can need me and other people, and love us equally. I know that her loving someone else and having a deep friendship with someone else doesn't mean that she can't have that with me.

I feel that because my best friend needs other people, I'm not good enough. I feel that I should be able to fulfil her every need, and that when she has me, she shouldn't need someone else. She does need other people, ergo I failed. I failed, so I'm nobody. I'm empty, meaningless, worthless. How can she love me if I failed? Nobody loves a failure. If she really loved me, I'd be enough for her. That's how I feel.

This is just an example of the contradiction. It's very hard to balance the two, and actively reminding myself that of what I know seems very hard work, to be likened to an intense physical activity.

My best friend has mental issues herself and doesn't understand emotions, so I tried to explain it to her. We work well together that way - I'm very in touch with my emotions and am able to explain them to her, and at times even explain her own emotions to her.

The following is a view on BPD and that balance between knowing and feeling.

Imagine the ocean. For those of you that saw Finding Nemo - imagine that world. You're standing on the shore, and something in the ocean glimmers, catches your eye, and you dive into it without thinking about safety or oxygen. You don't think - you follow that glitter. In the ocean, there are a lot of plants, corals, fish, mammals... nature of every size, sort, colour. You see one, and then another catches your eye and you swim over there. You're fascinated and you're completely into it. You're almost addicted - you can't stop. You swim from one thing to the other. You're so fascinated that the nature in the ocean becomes the world. It's surrounding you, and there's nothing else in the world but this.

But if you don't kick your legs and swim up to break through the surface of the ocean, you can't breathe. You just jumped in without thinking twice, so you're not wearing a wetsuit, you don't have oxygen tanks on your back, not even a snorkle. So you have to use the strength in your body to swim up and catch air, or you're in trouble. You were so blinded by all that oceanic beauty that you'd forgotten you needed to breathe. Only when you run out of breath, you remember. You break through the surface, and you see boats. You see boats, ships, islands, the coast... and you realise you were wrong before. You see clearly again - the ocean is not the world. The nature you just witnessed is only part of the world - and it's in the ocean. It's under sea level.

What is the link to BPD?

When you're standing on the shore, you're in a neutral state of mind. You're just chatting with your friend. Then something in the ocean glitters, catches your eye - that's your trigger. And before you know it, you're in the ocean. You're in the middle of your emotions, only the ocean is your BPD so your emotions are enlarged. Irrational at times. There's a lot of emotions, and you go from one to the other and you get further and further away from where you dove in. You lose track of the actual point to all this. The nature in the ocean is BPD. You get lost in it, wander forever, and forget the bigger picture.

Only when you are forced to remind yourself, you swim up to catch your breath. You actively use your legs to kick and swim up. Only when you are forced to, because you took it too far, or because the other person left feeling hurt, or because the other person stopped the argument, you pull back. You see the bigger picture, and you see that those emotions were your BPD talking. Only when you're above water - only when you're out of the ocean, out of the argument - you can see that the emotions are BPD. You get a clear perspective. You see boats, and ships, and islands, and the coast. In other words, you see reality.

So what is the point?

The point is that for someone with BPD, it takes very real energy to actively remind ourselves of reality. We have to actively remind ourself of that distinction between reality and BPD. We know, but it takes a lot of work to access that knowledge. And sometimes we're tired, or so scared, that we can't get to that place. It's easier to just keep swimming, and if we weren't forced to see reality because it affects our loved ones and ends up with us alone, we'd always just swim. We'd always just feel. We have to do more of an effort to hold onto knowing than non-BPD people.