How My Mental Disorder Became The Biggest Part Of My Relationship

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We are all deeper than our outside appearance, so why do people run when they start to see parts of ourselves that we only reveal to few others? It took months to build up walls and perfect a facade, we are told we can trust them, so we do. Handling my disorder alone took awhile for me to get used to, but adding someone else who is a part of my life took a lot of hard work for my significant other and myself. I was in my sophomore year of college when I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and when I met my first love.

I had always been too intense in my relationships, too sensitive with my reactions, and too impulsive with my actions. I thought it was how relationships were supposed to be, I thought daily bickering was normal. My relationships had always been short, but they were always heavy, I was always “in love.” Guys usually left within my first or second mood swing, they thought I was crazy how I would go from ecstatic, to depressed, to livid. I didn’t understand it either and I truly believed there was something wrong with me. As my mood swings and impulsive actions increased with stress I decided to see a psychiatrist, I was later diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, I didn’t know anything about the disorder, I hadn’t even heard of it! As time went on, I continued researching BPD and kept going to my therapy sessions, I was feeling so much more comfortable with who I was.

That’s when I met him. I played hard to get for the lack of a better word, but when I first saw him, there was just something about him that was different from the rest. It only took a month for him to see my first episode, and I received a reaction I’ve never seen before. He stayed and he made me feel safe to open up to him. He opened up to me about his own illness, his depression. We took care of one another, I reminded him to take his medication, he reminded me to go to therapy sessions, and we loved one another like no other.

Problems arose eventually and we split up, my episodes of anger became too much for his sensitive nature to handle, and his shutting down, made me feel shut out and abandoned. We spent too much time together, and never gave ourselves times to recharge, never gave our minds resting time that we needed, we were each others crutch. Him and I were very new to our own illnesses, we hadn’t given ourselves all the time necessary to figure out ourselves and what we needed. It’s not that we weren’t right for each other, but we weren’t certain who we were ourselves.

Having a mental disorder and being in a relationship isn’t easy, they won’t always understand your needs, even if they are struggling with similar issues, because everyone handles things differently. Having a disorder like BPD can have a hindrance on relationships, but getting help should be something you seek, you can not use your illness as an excuse for bad habits. Your partner should be accepting and loving of you, but you have to be your biggest supporter.