every second of being in a close relationship with someone feels painful
i'm not formally diagnosed with BPD currently, but it's been in talks with my therapist.
i'm 22, only started therapy like a month ago after some bad experiences with it at 15-16. i love my therapist more than anything in the world and she helped me clock a lot of my avoidant behavior and for the first time ever, i realized it might be a bad thing.
for the two years before starting therapy, it was the only time in my life i was ever emotionally regulated and it's because it's the only two years since i was 11 that i spent mostly alone. i had friends, but it was my first time without any extremely close friendships or relationships. it was also the only time i ever felt stable, at all. i had happy times before then for sure, but it was always in someone else's hands.
now that i'm older and proved i COULD be stable, my therapist asked if i missed close relationships. i wasn't really sure if i did. but then, about a week later, i start texting with a friend i'd only met in passing before and her and i have been talking just about 24/7 for three weeks now.
in those three weeks, we've talked about moving in together, and we're getting matching tattoos. i'm actively interviewing for jobs closer to where she lives.
she comes off really intense which is why i felt so safe falling into codependency with her, but i realized quickly we have some different priorities.
one being-- she has a boyfriend who treats her badly and she genuinely doesn't want to leave him. as an avoidant person, this bothers me and it reflects some situations that are deeply triggering to me, and i wanted to drop her because i didnt like him and she didnt totally agree with me on that, but i decided not to. i briefly plotted on how to force myself between them to make them break up, but i decided not to do that either. my therapist is proud of me for it and her and i talked and it went over... shockingly well? this friend is the only person i've ever met that doesn't respond to my anger with anger. she accommodates me. it's weird. the new rule is we don't talk about her boyfriend.
two-- she flaked on me one night because of plans with her boyfriend and i had the worst panic attack i had since my last break up, over two years ago. we talked about it. she's doing better with the plans, but i did straight up tell her i don't like that her number one priority is him and my number one priority is her. she said she understands. i was waiting for her to argue that with me but she didn't, and that was weird for me. she's trying to cut back time with him to spend more with me-- which i also feel like shit about if i think about it on my own but talking /to/ her is so reassuring, she stresses how much she genuinely wants to cut out that time for me.
three-- today she got jealous over me for the first time, in front of some friends, and she kept apologizing and it made me happy, but then she said something about being jealous over another friend, her best friend of over a decade. i wasn't going to say anything til she mentioned the friend again and clocked i reacted weird. she was understanding to what i said and reassured me she gets the most jealous over me, but she didn't believe me when i told her my jealousy issues are worse than hers.
i've not yet told her about my suspected BPD.
she's so lovely and does everything right, and my therapist agrees resisting the avoidance is good for me. i love this friend so much. but it's hard.
since the moment i became obsessed with her, i feel like i've been in pain in every single moment she doesn't spend praising me. which to her credit, she does like 50% of the day minimum all day every day, but i really cannot cope with the rest of it.
i just don't think i've ever been close with someone without feeling like i'm in pain for every single second.
in the past, people wouldn't work with me and try to get to the root of things. my teenage relationships we'd explode and fight. but even when i have someone who's so accommodating to me, it still doesn't make it easier.
is it possible to ever not feel this way?
even with all the effort on her part, it's getting so bad already that i think i'd rather lose her than keep living like this.
it's just very... discouraging.