I keep wanting to push them away...

I need some advice please....
I have Borderline Personality Disorder, I'm single and have no friends or family in my life. So the only people who 'care' for me are my Community Psychiatric Nurse and Community Support Worker. They visit me separately weekly and my nurse phones me every week day in between. My problem is, I feel I'm getting too attached to them both and this scares me as I don't want to get hurt again. I think I already have a crush on my nurse. They are both great guys and have told me they think I'm a lovely person and care about me. But I can't handle them being so nice to me.....because I'm scared of the boundaries getting blurred for me, as I know it is a common thing to occur between patients and their caregivers. If I start to like them and care for them too much I will be very upset when they eventually stop working with me....I can't have them in my life forever after all. So each day I struggle with my emotions about them, and I look for reasons to not like them.....I want to keep them at arms length. Sometimes when the phone rings I stand there crying because I want to answer it and talk to them, but I think it will only make me closer to them with the more contact I have. But I also want to 'go with the flow' and carry on having the close relationship we have developed and be open with them, as I know thats the best way they can help me. I have told them things about myself that I have never been able to tell anyone before.....its taken me 20 years to get the help I need and get my diagnoses.
Does anyone have anything to say that can help me work this out? Everyday is agony and I don't know whether I should just let it happen or try to control things.

Hi, Lennie, welcome to PsychCentral (PC).

No, you won't have your CPN and CSW with you forever but you won't be the way you are now, either! You have to think about both sides of the equation, getting better as well as having these great helpers in your life right now. As you learn to interact with them, you're learning to interact with others too. The struggles you're going through now are not different from the struggles one goes through getting to know any new, likeable people. You need to extend your interactions with the pharmacist down the street, your doctors, the grocery store clerks, etc. Everyone (even you :-) are here to help each other, there are always two sides to each situation; the take-away clerk is working because she wants a job and to have money but she's also "helping" feed you! Your smile and greeting to her, learning to commiserate about her job (standing on her feet all day? That can't be comfortable) and "share" your self and life with her is what you should be learning from watching and interacting with your CPN and CSW.

They want to help you and so, darn it :-) you should smile and be helped as best you can. Not answering the phone worries them because they do care about you. Learning to consider the "other" guy is an important skill. If you truly care about them too (as they do about you) then help them out by being helped and working hard to get well?

I appreciate your reply Perna xx
I can interact with other people and do so on a daily basis. My only fear is liking my carers and then losing them.....only because I've lost so many people in my life so far that I don't want to get hurt again. I've had a chat with my nurse about my concerns and he told me that they are completely normal and justified considering my life experiences so far. He understands that having led such a private life regarding my problems for 20 years, and then having to open up to a complete stranger is an overwhelming experience for me. He has encouraged me to accept my relationship with my nurse and support worker and not be afraid of it. He also assured me that he did genuinely care about me and wasn't just 'doing his job'. He told me not to feel pressured to answer the phone if I don't feel up to it, I must do what I feel I can cope with. After chatting with him I feel so much better and have agreed to carry on with the daily contact. He is visiting me on monday and says we can chat about it further. But as my moods and thoughts change so rapidly, I already feel ok so much better about things - I just needed to recognise it and 'let it all out'.

hi lennie, just my opinion but i'd show them this very post!!! this is exactly the stuff we need to work on when we have BPD. it's natural you feel this way...we get it extra extreme and our defenses go haywire...but this is what your inner work is about.

i'd show them, that way you can maintain a distance from it and then say...what do i do????

perhaps it will open up an area for discussion that will help alleviate your fears.

good luck hon!!
susan