[crabbypatty]

I have been in therapy nearly two years now - i know it is helping and I know I am healing and learning how to cope with my intense emotions. However today I just feel fed up with it all.

BPD just makes everything so much harder to cope with - doesn't it. I am trying to stay strong but i feel so much emotional pain. I have been learning ways to cope with my reckless behaviours and not act on my intense emotions by escaping into situations that will not help me such as self harm, relationships , spending.

One of the hardest things lately is that I really liked this person at work and we eventually started seeing each other however he finished things with me and i feel so heartbroken , i am trying to be strong and cope. I would normally throw myself more and more at the person and just **** everything up even more and get hurt even more. The worst thing about this is this person does like me but he has some stuff going on and so finished things with me. I miss him and I have to work with him everyday and its so painful.

I am trying to stay strong and look after myself but im struggling today.

Supportive HUGS to you.................

[lynn808]

hugs honey........just hugs

[Fuzzybear]

[bpdtransformation]

Patty,
The good thing is you have made progress since when you started. It is great that you're working on improving via therapy, although right now you may not be feeling good.

I had many failed relationships before I got into my current relationship with a woman which is very satisfying. As long as I was severely borderline, it was difficult to successfully carry on an intimate relationship of any length. But now that I'm not longer BPD (which is possible, contrary to what you find in some places online), relationships are still not easy, but they are much more doable than before.

[crabbypatty]

thank you all for your hugs and words.

I feel slightly better today - my therapist keeps telling me to turn the feelings i have for this person onto myself. She says I need to learn to be compassionate to myself and love myself first.

Do you think this is true?

[niceguy]

Babes, the strength you are showing and the maturity- awesome. Sadly, it shows you have been here before and had to learn the hard way, not to throw fuel to the fire, by pushing for a different outcome. For that much respect and love.
The truth is he will probs be back at some point. However, to have to see them
Day in and day out, acting like all is cool- well that's tough. Very tough
Best advice, vent here- do not give them an inch.
You DO deserve better. **** we all do xx

[Verity81]

I do think that self compassion is very important.

I am not very self compassionate and it does make my problems worse. It makes the emotions feel more painful and zaps my confidence.

[bpdtransformation]

Patty,

Self-compassion is really helpful. There is a book about this I really like, Compassion and Self Hate: An Alternative to Despair, by Theodore Rubin. It helped me back when I used to attack myself all the time.

But the biggest thing that helped me to learn compassion for myself was developing a good relationship with my therapist over a long period, and with two older friends who came to know me and my struggles, and took pity on me enough to regularly talk to me and try to understand my abusive history. In other words, I think you can work on having more self-compassion on your own, but only up to a point. Real lasting improvement has to come by having a vulnerable, trusting, dependent relationship with another person where you are intimate with them and feel loved by them, cliche as that they may be. That usually starts in a parental-type or friendship-type relationship, at least in my experience.