Last night I decided to turn my life around. Instead of obsessing over a boy, I am going to become more like him. I am going to study and do my homework and stuff. I went to my class today, and though it was practically unbearable I stayed for the duration. I will also go to my other class today.

I also applied for a job, and I kind of feel good about my chances of getting it.

I realized, the boy I like does homework all the time and he seems content. If I did well in school, I would seem like a success and people would congratulate me on everything I earn. There are certain behaviors which always work, like doing your homework and getting a job, and if I do them, people will respect me more. It will also kill some of the anxiety I feel about getting kicked out of school.

Also, homework and work could serve as a distraction from him and help me meet more people in the long run.

I hope I can stick to this.

3. Ask for what you want

I said in my previous post that I hadn't done this, but I have now realized that I did it before I even read the book! I have a huge crush on this guy who lives in my building. He's not my boyfriend but my boyfriend is cheating on his boyfriend with me so it's not a big deal. I've even told my boyfriend about this boy.

I usually did everything I could to catch this boy "by chance". I would take walks around my building in hopes of crossing paths with him. I would purposely take the bus that was going to the engineering facility, even if it would make me late or something, just because I knew I might see him there. I even stole his name tag from his door so I could almost ransom an interaction with him.

I don't care if he ever falls in love with me or even ever wants me. I just want him to spend time with me and pay attention to me and tell me things and let me tell him things and I want him to care about me in some way. The deeper the better.

So on March first I decided to do something I had previously been afraid to do. I decided I was going to knock on his door and see him once before leaving for break. I thought about apologizing for taking his stuff, but he never said anything about it so I figured to let that sizzle. I also thought of apologizing for being weird. But for all I know, the weirdness of everything is just in my head so I decided to let it go. I first had the idea to knock on his door when I was strolling about and I heard the TV on in his suite. I stressed about it for a good fifteen minutes as I looked out the window and wrote a song about what I saw, before going upstairs to my suite and deciding it was go time.

I also came up with an excuse. Lots of people had left for break already, so I could tell him I was bored and that everyone was gone so I wanted to hang out. I knocked on that door so confidently I felt as if I hadn't done it.

He answered and I told him I was bored and no one was there. He agreed. I asked him what he was doing and he said "just laying down" and I said "fun". I am happy I said that because it very covertly could have been interpreted as interest. I asked him if he wanted to hang out and he said his mom was on her way to get him. We chatted for a minute or two about where we were from. I wanted to touch him, so before I left I extended my hand for a shake, which he took. I was able to go all break without texting him (he never responds). I just needed closure!

I've been thinking about him a lot less since, possibly because of the emergence of my boyfriend. I would leave my boyfriend in a minute for this guy, however. I also think the closure was just what I needed, because I don't remember thinking of him much during break.

Today I saw him and he was extra cute because he got a haircut. We didn't interact because he didn't see me, but I knew where he was going and formulated a plan of action. I have been having trouble hooking my wii up to wifi. I don't really care about it, but as this boy is an engineer, I had reason to believe he might know what to do.

Surprisingly without any nerves, I went to his door and knocked on it boldly a good five times. It might be because my friend told me I looked hot today that I was so confident, but whatever. He answered the door and with the perfect amount of casualty, I asked him if he knew what to do. He told me he only had a Ps3. We asked his roommate, who has a wii, and his roommate didn't know either. He told me to check google. I made a joke saying my method of problem solving was wandering around and repeating the question until I got an answer. He said google was essentially the same thing. I said that's poetic. He agreed.

I asked him if he wanted to do something, or I asked what he was doing and he said chemistry before asking what time it was. When I told him he said he had chemistry in 30 minutes so he was about to leave. I think it's important that he asked what time it...

[ Continued ]

This is taken from the book Emotional Vampires. This is actually self-help for people who suspect they are "histrionic vampires" which is not the same as being personality disordered, necessarily. Vampires are to be considered people with HPD who are so functional that they don't necessarily qualify for diagnosis.

1, Let your thoughts be your guide-not your feelings. When I first went to the club, I wanted to dance but no one else was dancing. At first, the anxiety I felt had me sitting by myself and neutrally dancing in place. I remembered this tip and decided that anxiety was a feeling, and wanting to dance was a thought. So I got up and was the first person to dance and people followed my lead.

2. Do things for yourself and by yourself. This was the first tip I followed, by going to the club by myself. When I do things by myself, if they go well I feel really proud for going at it alone. If they don't go well, I can blame other people for not having my back... because I was alone. (;

3. Ask for what you want. I don't know if I've done this. It's hard.

4. Openly disagree with someone every day (politely). I have not done this. I haven't interacted with anyone but my boyfriend recently, because school is just now starting back up.

5. Banish the phrase "I don't know" from your vocabulary. I don't often use the "I don't know" card to cover up my repression. I use intellectualization to distract myself from conflicting thoughts and feelings, and that's going to be a really hard habit to break. I like this tip though. In "Hysterical personality style and histrionic personality disorder" by Mardi Horowitz, a case study notes in a child with a hysterical personality the frequent use of "I don't know" when asked contentious questions, even if they were only about her subjective experience of the world. I have found myself recently explaining things to my boyfriend with the phrase "that's life" when I don't want to talk about it anymore. I guess the same principle should apply.

I don't know if I actually have HPD. I fantasize about having it, because I guess I want to be flawed and delicate and require extra care from significant others. But I'm only 19 and understandably, histrionism isn't necessarily an inappropriate set of coping skills at my age. The personality apparently isn't done until mid-twenties.

I want to be able to call myself HPD, however. I know being personality disordered is not fun and that it shouldn't be idolized or romanticized, but I like to romanticize everything that I can. I just feel like HPD explains a lot of the things that were previously unexplained in my life.

I know everyone has issues. Everyone has some traits of a disordered personality, but a lot of those people also have the psychic sinews that I feel I do not. I cannot stay committed and I'm not good with responsibility unless it's rewarding. I have trouble appreciating long-term benefits of anything. That's why I have always done so poorly at school, despite being above-average intelligence. I can't handle the conflict of being expected to do hard work, so I play dead.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel like a problem completely inexplicable, like I'm just bad in all the worst ways.. like I'm just hiding how sick I really am on the inside. I feel like if people saw me for what I am on the inside, they would think I'm a robot or an alien or something. I think I saw a movie once where a victim of sexual abuse in childhood grew up to be attached to the fantasy of being a robot. Or maybe I just read about that movie. I don't really feel like a robot on the inside. I feel like nothing.

If people saw me for what I am on the inside, they'd see me when I was ten. I'm emaciated and afraid, terrified of conflict or disapproval, though I raise hell myself. Maybe I would actually be 12. I think I'm fat and I feel like I'm walking on stilts or walking with a limp that makes me look defective. Whenever anyone is laughing, they're laughing at me. Why can't I just be accepted? Everyone wants to be accepted. You just happen to be the exception, who doesn't get to. I want to be liked and enjoy my youth, but you're not going to because you messed up.

Maybe some people are meant to be alone forever, or cursed. My mom has been alone forever. Maybe that's why things don't work out for me. I don't know how people in relationships treat each other. I can only go by how my friends' parents acted around each other, and they were just being polite.

Maybe HPD is so important to me because I have always gotten what I wanted by being crippled by illness. I got out of gym in high-school because of my unstable joints. I also got out of having to change around other boys, which I never enjoyed doing. I could enjoy it now, because now I know I'm attractive and I know I look good in my underwear.

I once got made fun of in elementary school because when changing out of my gym clothes, I didn't take my shoes off. I was in my underwear and my shoes, and someone asked me if I was planning on going to class naked. I was so embarrassed, but I didn't say a thing. If I did, I probably apologized.

I've always enjoyed staying in hospitals.

Only time will tell if I am really HPD. What I do know, is that I'm conflicted. But I'm also attractive, charming, smart, and intelligent. Despite lacking a diagnosis, I plan on staying involved with the HPD community here. I really like the people. I like intelligent conversation and I like talking about personality disorder. I also want to be a voice for HPD, which is a diagnosis lacking in exclusive support, from my experience.

Limerence has always been a big deal for me. In fourth grade, I started dating girls and I remember being very clingy/controlling and obsessively afraid of being cheated on.

I don't think limerence belongs as a kind of OCD. I think it is a personality disorder. There is an obsession with your limerent object and with being loved in return, but because your obsession is an independent variable, no one compulsion or ritual is able to be perpetuated. In OCD, relief is found through briefly quenching the obsession. In LPD, relief is found only by giving the obsession new life through getting reactions that tell you there is hope of reciprocation. I think the two disorders are related, but I think they are not exclusively correlated.