fleeingbellocq, thank you for feeling like you can be straight up with me, I will do my best to not let my BPD get in the way. lol I think Maranara probably put it better than I did, when it comes to anger everybody knows (getting better at this) for sure. When I'm upset/sad I have a tendency of underplaying it (could be from a upbringing of men don't cry). Sometimes I desperately seek attention and approval as I think we all do. I think people with BPD will seek this out sometimes in unhealthy ways, I know I still do (another thing I'm getting better at). Hey I just realized something, you said so which is it, it's both, it's a dialectic. Holy crap I used a dialectic! Now that is some scary @#$%. Sorry for the tangent, but seriously like Mara said I to think it depends on the situation.