Very interesting stuff...

I'm not a self-injurer or have the dx of BPD, but was/am a dissociator to various degrees, and I personally feel that DID and BPD are torn from the same cloth so to speak.

I just wanted to share what support forums (PC) has helped me with in association to my MI. I don't feel I'm addicted, though I one time that could've been arguable I'd say. I was clearly disabled IRL, with very limited capabilities of venturing out to others, and very fractured, fragmented intimate relationships with family.

The main plus I have from being online in reference to my relationships is, as a dissociator (much less now than then) I had very little confidence in my conversations due to memory loss, dissociation, etc. Because of that, a person could easily convince me that I did/didn't say or do something. I found myself withdrawing IRL. Nothing was ever 100% for me communication-wise and, because of that, confidence in those relationships were VERY low. Being online opened the world up to me...the world that I didn't function well in IRL for various reasons. It's been so healing in that respect, but in so many more that I didn't expect.

Being online allowed me to be 100% sure of my words and others (I could go back and read my and others words in black and white...knowing what I thought had occurred actually did, and helping to make it stick as opposed to being placed somewhere in a dissociative mind)...making conversations and, subsequently, the relationships behind them much more pleasurable, trusting and REAL.

Well, guess what? To my and t's great surprise, that bled over into real life, where ALL my relationships blossomed to equal the online as my confidence and surety was nurtured online.

Yep, being online has 100% affected my real-life relationships...in a 100% positive way. T was thrilled and very accepting and supportive...pointing out the positives of it that I didn't even see in the moment. I would find myself having words for what I could never explain before, then to be sure of those words? WOW.

I never planned for any of that to happen, but it sure did.

PC, and my communications/relationships here, has helped me be able to relate, communicate, and gain confidence regarding the same, in WONDERFUL ways...ways that have stuck to this day.