Today my friend JDS told me something that an earlier version of me would have found devastating: he likes my personalities, except for one.
That would be the personality that carries the ammo purse, the personality he has to tiptoe around, even if he’s trying to pay me a compliment. A compliment, in fact, was what brought that personality out today. I didn’t take that compliment at face value; I looked under the surface, and believed I found sarcasm there, believed he was trying to hurt me. Like the mistrustful dog who turns and snarls when you hold out your hand, I snapped at him.
If you’ve dealt with a person with BPD, you’re nodding your head right now. You’re saying, “Yes, I’m always walking on eggshells. I never know when she’s going to bite.” Bite, yell, cry, attack, love. It’s impossible to know which one of those is coming next.
I recognized a moment too late that I had wounded my friend. I apologized, explained myself. He called a truce. He told me later he doesn’t like that “Nixon in the middle of Watergate” feeling. Frankly, I think Tricky Dick deserved to have that feeling. But JDS does not.
I understand that what I felt in that moment was not correct, and that even if it had been a correct feeling, my reaction was way out of proportion to the level of the “slight”. This is the disordered part of the Borderline Personality Disorder. If I think I’m under attack, proportional response doesn’t even cross my mind.
I know there are ways to change this. I have been learning these ways, but it’s so hard to break out of a decades-old pattern: loathe first, strike hard, ask questions later. But I need to do this: not just for JDS, but for myself, and for everybody else who likes all those other personalities of mine. We all deserve better than this.
This story does have a happy ending though. I mentioned that an earlier version of me would have been devastated that JDS likes my personalities, except for one. Because I wouldn’t have heard the part about the personalities that he does like: only the part about the one that he doesn’t. And I would have hated myself for it. A part of me is unlikable – I am unlikable – I am not worthy to be a friend – I am not worthy to even exist. That’s what the disordered part of my brain likes to tell me.
Not today. I heard “I like your personalities.” There is a part of me that causes pain to others, a part that I need to work on. But overall, I am likeable. I am worthy to be a friend. I am worthy of existing.
Someday those other parts will override the part that makes people wary. Someday there will be no eggshells between us. Someday you will be able to speak to me as one human to another, and neither one of us will be afraid.
I’m looking forward to that day.
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