a-candle-for-the-dark-nights

[a-candle-for-the-dark-nights]

Sometimes I say things to one or another of my BPD friends, and they react with this mixture of happiness and squirming that I am pretty sure means that they feel Known and Understood. It makes me happy every time.

I just want people to know that they're not so broken that they're unintelligible. Your pain doesn't have to isolate you completely from others. You still make sense, and I love the beautiful patterns you make.

Knowing the patterns of someone who thinks they're broken and being able to help them because of it is the simplest and most profound way I can show them love.

[a-candle-for-the-dark-nights]

I came to the realization that I have a bit of immunity to one of the parts of BPD that causes the most pain and suffering to those who have the disorder. My friends with BPD don't register as "weird" to me, because EVERYONE does things that don't make sense from my perspective.

Ever since I was very young, I very consciously created what I called Algorithms for everyone I knew. I created long strings of logic to figure out which actions matched to which emotions, and what actions I could do to cause different reactions. I didn't understand human behavior intuitively, so I tailored Algorithms to help me interact with all my friends and people I cared about.

In that context, my BPD friends have their own algorithms, but so do "normal" people. I don't understand their behavior, but no one's behavior ACTUALLY makes sense. It makes it a lot easier to just roll with things and interact in healthy ways.

[a-candle-for-the-dark-nights]

One of the reasons I wanted to start this blog is because I seem to have the ability to form close bonds with people with BPD in ways that are health for both of us and not damaging to me. While my friendships usually are pretty straightforward from my perspective, one of the really challenging facets of these friendships is dealing with the toxic relationships that caused the traumatic circumstances that the BPD is a response to.

Each friend's situation is different, but recently a friend who has cut of contact with their birth family (for good reason) has been dealing with their abusive mother reaching out to them. I know how painful and difficult this has been for my friend, and it hurts to know how little I am able to do to help. I can reach out and support the friend, listen and validate their pain, but I can't fix it.

Recently I keep having the idea that I could reach out to their mother, tell her to leave my friend alone, that she's hurting them by doing this, but I know that it won't help. It won't alleviate their pain. It'll only prompt a reaction from their mother and make her act out more. At the end of the day, being a good and healthy friend comes down to not making it about me. It's not about making myself feel better by doing something. It's all about being reliable, steady, and supportive, because that friend is a wonderful person and I love them.

[a-candle-for-the-dark-nights]

At the end of the day, the point isn't to say that it's hopeless or that people with BPD are wrong or bad or anything like that. It's meant to be an affirmation. It's not just in your head. The world expects so much from you and it doesn't know how impossible and heavy those expectations are.

You are not wrong if that expectation feels crushing. It wasn't built for you. But you're still here anyway, and that's a good thing.

One of my closest friends is trying to work through a discovery process of figuring out of they have BPD instead of ADHD + anxiety, like they always thought they had. One of our most recent conversations was about why it's so hard to do everything that they feel like they're "supposed to be able to do," about why it seems so much harder for them to do "normal"things.

The comparison that I came up with is that everyone expects you to build towers and bridges with toy blocks. And they all assume that everyone has wooden or stone or plastic blocks. The more mental health conscious among them will even pint out that everyone uses different mortar to cement the blocks together, so it might take different lengths of time for everyone's structures to solidify.

But here's the thing. BPD doesn't give you a mind that has those kinds of blocks. Instead, your blocks are made of sand. You can't pick them up and stack them. Sure, you can shove them together and carve a beautiful castle. But your materials are fundamentally incapable of doing the things that everyone assumes they can do, and all because they didn't expect your blocks to be sand.

[a-candle-for-the-dark-nights]

One of my closest friends is trying to work through a discovery process of figuring out of they have BPD instead of ADHD + anxiety, like they always thought they had. One of our most recent conversations was about why it's so hard to do everything that they feel like they're "supposed to be able to do," about why it seems so much harder for them to do "normal"things.

The comparison that I came up with is that everyone expects you to build towers and bridges with toy blocks. And they all assume that everyone has wooden or stone or plastic blocks. The more mental health conscious among them will even pint out that everyone uses different mortar to cement the blocks together, so it might take different lengths of time for everyone's structures to solidify.

But here's the thing. BPD doesn't give you a mind that has those kinds of blocks. Instead, your blocks are made of sand. You can't pick them up and stack them. Sure, you can shove them together and carve a beautiful castle. But your materials are fundamentally incapable of doing the things that everyone assumes they can do, and all because they didn't expect your blocks to be sand.

[a-candle-for-the-dark-nights]

Hey everyone, just thought I'd do an intro to this blog. I am someone who has accidentally collected multiple very close friends who happen to have BPD (with varying degrees of certainty of diagnosis). Borderline Personality Disorder is known for the difficulties it can cause with having stable, long-term relationships, and while every relationship has its difficulties, my relationships with my BPD friends seem to be easier than most of those friends' other relationships.

I originally wasn't going to do this whole blog thing, but one of said friends encouraged me to. We've been going through a discovery process recently as this friend is figuring out that they seem to have BPD, and some of our conversations have been really impactful for both of us.

BPD is hard, and I can't say that I understand the experience of people who have it. But I do know what it's like to love people with it, and I want to maybe help a few other people to know that it's possible to love and be loved, no matter who you are or what tags and diagnoses you have.

Disclaimer zone! I am by no means a trained mental health professional! I am speaking only from my own very limited experience. If I make mistakes or misrepresent your experiences, I'm sorry and I will always be happy to educate myself and do better.

Ultimately this blog is here to support people, both those who have mental health stuff going on and people who love them. Have fun, and take care of yourselves.