Trying to salvage myself and my relationship

To start, I think its important for me to say, I have not been diagnosed by a professional. I have been reading a lot, trying to find an explaination to myself and I'm almost convinced that BPD is whats "happening" and has been for many years. I feel like I'm incapable of functioning in any of my relationships, including my relationships with family and close friends. I feel completely lost and out of touch with who I am. Any time a relationship goes bad its always, "I'm not good enough to love, I'm not worth the effort, etc."

I'll fight with my boyfriend, end up crying hysterically and end up asking myself, "What am I so upset about, and why am I crying like THIS?" I constantly feel out of control of my emotions and often, after some thinking, regret things I've said and done.

I have serious feelings of abandonment that come out every time my boyfriend tries to leave the house without me, even down the street to the store. When I'm in that state, I will fight and kick and scream until I get my way. I dont want to be this person, especially to someone I love. I know in my heart that in a healthy relationship you have to spend time apart and I really want that, for him. I feel guilty for not letting him "breathe" and have his own priorities. My dad left when I was 10 and I didnt see or hear from him in over 2 years. Even after the 2 year hiatus I saw him twice a year at best until I was about 16 (21 now). Although things with Dad have since been patched (mostly) I have trouble kicking the abandoned feelings.

I am constantly "falling apart at the seams" but there are always logical ways out of my problems (financial, relatoinship, work, ect.) I dont know why, and I'm frustrated with myself, but I fail to correct problems. I just let things develop until I have no other choice but to fix them and by then the problem has amplified. My friends are always pulling their hair out trying to give me advice. I know that I should listen I just tell them (and myself) that I'm too broken to move.

I feel like I am caught in a vicious, self-inflicted cycle that is getting worse every year. I care, I really do, I'm just always feeling too depressed to care (if that makes sense). I push thoughts and emotions out to help but I'm starting to realize that its making things worse.

Does anyone have any solid advice? Mental exercises? Tips? Things that worked for you? I know everyone is different and a real solution would be to seek professional therapy, thats just not within my financial ability right now so I'm trying to make the best of it.

Hi phoenix.soul,

Welcome to the forums.

I'm sorry to hear that you're having a rough time. I think it's awesome that you're self-aware. That's probably your biggest asset when it comes to recovery. I know how frustrating these traits can be...

I've heard that DBT works wonders, and that it's not just for borderlines. So even if you don't have BPD, you'll still be able to benefit from it.

I'm going to quote a member of this site who has been awesome at sharing resources, so the rest of this information is from her (AGCDEFG).

Good luck to you--and feel free to use this forum for support. That's what it's here for.

--Frayed

http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/index.html (this is an awesome self-help site)

http://www.amazon.com/Dialectical-Behav ... 689&sr=1-3 (this book changed my life. I was able to plan for stress in advance of the stress...it's out of this world)

http://www.amazon.com/Training-Treating ... 860&sr=1-1 (Marsha Lineham redefined and helped borderline be more understood. He workbook is great but expensive. You may want to try to borrow it from the library, but it's worth buying too)

http://www.bpddemystified.com/ (I can't say enough about both this easy-to-understand-updated site and the book. It was the first book I read after I realized what I had and it made me feel good and hopeful and had a lot of explanation in it. I wish everyone involved with borderlines would read this book.)

I hope these sites help you. I know it is a bpd trait to be impulsive (I know first hand ) but we can easily learn to stop and think and perhaps you should do that before jumping into another relationship that may fail NOT due to your being BAD but because you have emotional dysregulation problems and need to learn to control it (which you can do).

Whatever you decide, i wish you good luck

Well you seem to be completely aware of what you're doing...
That's really good. Now, we just need to get you to react in a more appropriate fashion, yeah?

So... next time you catch yourself doing something you KNOW to be illogical... stop.
That's the first step... you have to teach yourself to stop reacting so you can learn to react differently.
It took me a while, but I can stop myself, now.
It's kind of like closing flood gates. If you can stop it soon enough, you won't have a full blown episode.

From there you need to tell yourself it's okay and to relax.
If you do that enough, effectively, it becoems second nature, and you'll do it naturally.

DBT seems to really help a lot of people around here.
I think you should look into it.