Sorry that this is a bit lengthy. I once made a post about this on the anxiety forum because I didn't know that this was due to my BPD until my last pdoc visit. Anyway..I'm in a really, really bad place. I'm completely dependent on my boyfriend for my sanity. He works night shift, so he's at work when normally I'd be in bed. As soon as he leaves, I feel terrible anxiety building up inside of me and when I try to eventually sleep, I wake up every hour, sometimes even less, and anxiously check my phone to see if he's texted me. Usually he responds to me and it puts me at ease and I then go back to sleep until I wake up an hour later with the same anxiety. Sometimes though, he's busy and can't respond to my texts or calls. When that happens, I get severe panic attacks where I can't stop crying and kicking/punching around. I just flail around desperately and feel so certain that he's never coming home; that something must have happened to him. It feels like the end of the world and that I'm going to be forced to live alone with absolutely no one to take care of me. He's my lifeline. I have no idea how to function without him and I can't stand being separated from him. The only thing that calms my panic attack is when he responds to me. Otherwise, it continues on and on and gets progressively worse the more time passes.

These panic attacks don't occur only when I'm in bed, though. I've had them no matter what time of day. I've even had them when he got up to get popcorn at the movie theater and was gone for maybe 10 minutes while I sat in my seat. I started texting him and he couldn't respond at that moment so I started crying and did everything I could to prevent anyone else from hearing. He returned soon after, so luckily it did not get to the point where I couldn't vocally control myself. Sometimes I cry so hard I'm practically yelling.

The same thing happened at our public pool, both times we went. He was changing in the men's locker room and since I had to go through the women's locker room, we were separated for 10 minutes because the men's locker room was crowded and held him up. I was waiting on the steps a few feet from the pool and that familiar crippling anxiety started building up inside of me. I immediately thought he was never coming back and that it was a huge mistake to let him out of my line of sight. I tried to distract myself by stepping inside the pool a moment, but I felt even worse because I thought "we were supposed to do this together. why am I alone?" I got out and started pacing frantically back and forth, feeling more and more anxious by the second. I knew I was going to cry but tried my hardest not to. I guess I must have looked as anxious as I felt because a lady asked me if I was ok and if I was looking for someone. I told her that I was, and she tried reassuring me that the men's locker room was packed that day. I appreciated her efforts but I still panicked until I saw him return.

I have many more examples of this, but they are all relatively the same: he's gone for x amount of time, and I feel he's never coming back and break down. For me, this is the absolute worst part of BPD. I feel like a helpless child. I had one of these severe panic attacks last night when he didn't respond to my calls. I'm hardly able to sleep at all anymore and I'm constantly exhausted, which of course amplifies my mental exhaustion as well.