u/bluetoo1212

I broke up with my ex (we dated 3 years) last September, and then they moved to Chicago on New Years Day.

We've been trying to be friends since breaking up, but we're both shit at boundaries and they have lowkey been trying to win me back this whole time. They didnt do anything wrong or bad in the relationship, we just arent right for each other.

Anyways, after not texting or speaking to each other for a while, they just showed up at my house completely unannounced with soup and bread for me. I forgot that they are still in one of my big groupchats with our shared friends, and they would see all my posts I made about being sick and having a fever.

Well apparently they drove down from Chicago, got food, and stopped directly at mine and another friend, who is also sick, apartment. Even messier is that after breaking up, I ended up having a threesome with my ex (who initiated this) and said friend, who I'd developed a crush on since the breakup.

I have been TRYING to set and enforce boundaries. I never imagined they would just show up at my house. So now I feel so awkward and frustrated. Cause why stop over before you've even gone to see your parents or sister? I want to be friends, but I dont think we're quite there yet.

Anyways, yes this is partly my fault for even still allowing them to be in that groupchat. But also I'm genuienly so confused cause we live hours away from each other.

This post is aimed primarily at folks who dont think The OA is anything more than surface level or that its ever coming back. Im genuienly curious, why stick around for 7 years post cancellation? What brings you to this subreddit, still, after years of theories and connections and brilliant community conversation surrounding a show that according to Netflix, will never be completed?

Personally, I first watched The OA when it dropped in 2016, and it wasnt until 2018 that I started rewatching it with my friends and we picked up on all those missed details. I only created a Reddit account to discuss and save theories about The OA. And its my favorite piece of media, of art, of storytelling that I have ever experienced. I enjoy this community, and seeing your brains work and the interplay of logic and spirituality and skill. I love seeing yall get excited and being excited too, especially since I never believed there would even be a Part 2.

So I guess, to those who feel all the magic is gone forever, what keeps you coming back to this sub to read and comment on the posts from fans new and old?

I started a new med mid June, I really like it. Im happy again for the first time all year! It has also made me way more sexual than Ive ever been in my entire life. I had a very low sex drive with my now ex girlfriend and even before and after her. I was always more consumed with ending my life.

Anyways, now I wake up thinking about sex, its all I think about at work, and when Im with my friends. Suddenly im seeing the whole world in a new light. I can barely sleep, and Im like anxious and overwhelmed because I feel like a teenager again or like its my 1st day on Earth. Music makes me horny, food tastes so good it turns me on, like a really nice breeze and the sun, all the lights and sounds, I feel like Im genuienly off an edible or something.

Im NOT changing meds again cause these help so so so much and I get excited just to take them each night. But I do feel sorta like a new person with all my inhibitions gone and all I can think about is going out, clubbing, raving, parties, and who I can hookup with next. Its also frustrating cause I am a lesbian and so I have to go to specific places/ extra work to find people. And I am very stubborn, I refuse to get on any apps because I get an extra thrill from meeting people in person randomly.

I dont even think hypersexuality is a symptom of this med, I looked it up and everyone has the opposite problem, so I dont know.

So after I (27F) broke up with my girlfriend last fall, I wanted to stop Quetiapine cause I thought maybe it was numbing my emotions. So I talked to my psychiatrist and did that (it was terrible, awful withdrawls for weeks).

Then I gradually got worse, but my big dumb pride wouldnt let me admit that it wasnt the meds, its just me. Still. So around March I quit all my meds cold turkey without telling anyone. Cause I felt like the meds never did anything anyways so why take them.

That was a TERRIBLE move on my part. I am horribly self destructive unmedicated! I was also unable to accept or do any therapy (I kept trying IOP and stuff and would straight up refuse to do any of the work. I am 27. I voluntarily signed up for these programs) when off my meds cause I kept having episodes and I am stubborn and resistant to change.

Anyways like 2 weeks ago now, I started actually taking my new mood stabilizer, Depakote as prescribed (I was supposed to be taking these since April but I wasnt) and just waited. I feel so happy now! Eveything is literally fine. Like I dont even feel like I have BPD anymore. No draining euphoria spikes, no paranoia, the suicidal thoughts are basically gone. No dread in the morning or looping OCD like anxious rumination for 7 hours everyday at work. Its amazing!

I started making myself food again and eating multiple meals a day. I have some positive thoughts again. I cleaned my so much and organized today. I know its finnicky, because I have been medicated for over a decade now (I used to go off them to roll when raving, BUT I stopped doing hard drugs after 2021), but now I feel like maybe I can actually do the BPD remission thing.

Went with 5 friends and my ex gf (another really stupid series of decisions) to see Backrooms on its opening weekend. Im seeing my therapist tomorrow and I cant wait to explain that Im exactly like Clark psychologically and Im thinking about quitting therapy cause Im very worried theres genuienly nothing anyone can do to help me at this point.

Anyways I saw Obession last month too, and at first I only related to Nikki, and now I actually think I might be more similar to Bear (>!not a predator, but an insecure repressed cowardly mfer)!< Anyways, I'm IN NO WAY being dramatic, but I do feel like I might have given myself actual brain damage from simply existing inside my mind at this point.

Distractions are great, I've been reading some very great fanfictions. Currently reading and partying every weekend is keeping my mind a bit quieter.

Im not sure what to do about being alive though. I tell my therapist stuff, or I try to tell her and be honest about how I know im making everything worse. But Im not sure im doing therapy correctly. I get a feeling that Im doing it wrong.

Anyways, I felt very great and peaceful going longboarding with my friends. We had a picnic in the grass after and we all laid and looked at the sky. I was okay being alive, I liked it, which is rare.

When im not distracted and Im alone, (im usually alone by my own choice and im failing to reach out to friends and stuff but) I am thinking. Every thought I have makes me feel worse. I dont like being alive, I dont think Im supposed to be here or that I have the fortitude or brain chemistry for it or whatever. The older I get, and the more I experience the world and the society around me, the more I regret being alive.

Who should I tell this too? I try and be open and honest and sincere with my friends and therapist. Im not sure talking brings me any relief. I just keep going and get older and a bit colder inside I think.

Thanks for anyone who reads this. Its nice to think that its not all in my head maybe or like maybe other people could understand.

TLDR: How do I know if im lying to myself about my progress and my reality?

My friend asked me today why I think I relasped from my "remission". I thought about it for a bit because I think that it was coming long before I externalized some things and broke up with my girlfriend of 3 years. But. Its hard to be clear, hard to remember, hard to be confident that I know my own reality. So I went back through my journals today to try and see if I could identity "when" and better yet "why".

I had believed for a while I think, that I was in remission from this disorder for 3 years. 2022-2025. Im not sure why I thought I had somehow achieved "normalcy" or whatever it is I decided remission was. Its really tearing me up inside to know that I was somehow able to convince myself that I was fine. I thought I had been cured somehow, or that I had grown out of my BPD. I know I was doing the work, I remember years of putting in the work, and suffering the ups and downs and loneliness. I remember being brave and optimistic somehow, that I had managed to teach myself how to not be my worst enemy.

Thats what I think happened. But I have also been journalling regularly for 6 years. I have spent time rereading all my thoughts, all recorded as I felt them. And Im not sure if I was ever actually in remission, or if I just got better at masking, just so much better at repressing all my feelings and wants. I think I had to do it. I had to fake it cause I wasnt functional for a while and in this world, there isnt a lot of room to be imperfect, especially with this disorder. I often feel like its a "kill yourself or get over it thing" for me. I guess I started using all the therapy tools and DBT and CBT and all that stuff as a way to trick and invalidate parts of my psyche into being quieter and less disruptive?? Im not sure.

Relationally and functionally I got way better. I got everything I every wanted really. But I somehow tricked myself into believing I had changed. I have no idea how I couldve pulled it off. My journal entries are insane. So many entries from my "remission" period are filled with disordered and desperate thinking, guilt, shame, and delusion. I was better than the period before though. 2018-2021 was so much worse. I was worse. I was hopeless and desperate and deranged. I was spiraling often, I was younger and with way less positive, affirming life experiences.

Now I think Im way worse than all the periods before. But I dont know. Im not sure. How can I trust myself to know if my reality, if my thoughts and feelings and perspective is accurate? The facts say that I should be fine. I am so much better than I ever was. I dont have the spark I had before, I cant rememeber how to hope or believe that I can change. I feel like I have no idea whats happening or how or why I do this to myself. It just doesnt make sense.

I know that this post is vague and rambling on. I understand that rumination has saved me from nothing ever. But I would like to be able to answer my friends question. When did I relapse? How? Was I ever really even in remission, was I ever even making a real true progress or was I just learning new ways to hurt myself under a fantastical guise of obedience to society? I think I mightve spent years lying to myself and years falling my own desperate lies!!!

"Its fine. Everything is fine now. Im doing so much better! See! Im doing all the things Im told. Im logically happy now."

Or maybe, thats not my truth. I could be remembering wrong, it could just be more fallacy, more black and white thinking, another mess of thought and perception errors. Maybe it was real progress and I just cant feel it correctly? I was happy for real, I just didnt know it? Or I have some sort of amnesia about it? Tunnel vision. Maybe I cant shake this narrative because maybe I dont like the helpless feeling I have when things arent all my fault? Im not sure.

I have this feeling, maybe its a fear, that my confusion is my fault. My relapse is my fault. My stagnation and stubborness and paranoia are my fault. I must have done something wrong. I must be doing something wrong right now as I think and type this? Im not doing what Im told Im supposed to, im not using the skills correctly. Thats why I cant figure out my own truth. My own truth is maybe all of these things combined and not a single answer. I fucked it up, and I tried, and I was doing good and doing well, and maybe that wasnt good enough or maybe this is just how it is to be 27? I'm not really sure?

TW: SELF HARM AND DRUG USE (just pot)

[Bare with me, the beginning is some exposition before I get to the meat of it. I have diagnosed Bpd comorbid with major depressive disorder. This is a recent memory I want to share]

I was paranoid at work all Tuesday. This job is easy. Management respects me. But I fear my coworkers will use any information they discern from me to get me fired. So I come in, do my job, and go home. I speak only when spoken to and I try to keep my head down.

On Tuesday, I came into work and found that my coworker complained to upper management about our area lead and got him removed. This whole coworker drama where they act like high schoolers is stupid and I dont want to be caught in the middle. This has triggered my paranoia to increase, and every interaction I have with my coworkers has me triple guessing their real intentions and I feel like Im being tested.

The feelings of sadness, boredom, anxiety, and exhaustion cycle throughout my 9 hour shift. I struggle to eat from how anxious I get and when I do cave and buy food I always regret it. Everything feels disgusting in my body.

After work I picked up my new meds from the pharmacy and stopped home to change. My Dad had been calling and texting, trying to get ahold of me all weekend. I left work Tuesday to see that he started emailing me too. This fills me with anxiety. He doesnt like to be ignored, and I dont like to think about his existence. My avoidance of him and my mom feed into themselves, and these days I want to scream and cry imagining navigating even the tamest conversations with them.

My friend and I made plans to go skating together because the weather was a beautiful 75°F. When I got home and pulled my car into my backyard, I stepped out to birds chirping, warm air, and the pit growing in my stomach. I decided we would go longboarding, and it didnt take long for me to pick where. I would take my friend to the park I used to go to when I lived on the southside, and we'd skate the beautiful forest switchbacks. But my mood kept sinking, and I ended up taking hits from my bowl, pacing my room, and berating myself outloud.

I spent like $300 on movies and tv show boxsets off Ebay and Amazon when I got my last paycheck. Its been bad, my impulsivity unrestrained, my impatience childish and consuming me. A couple of packages came in the mail, and while I got the dopamine hit from seeing them and holding the media in my hands, I was so frustrated with myself. This won't fill the greedy hole in my chest. Its just more stuff to be weak and young about, stuff to tell me that I am still me. And I felt like my head was spinning, words falling from my lips to echo off the walls estranged. >!And I am upstairs into my bedroom, work clothes off, thighs exposed, and the knife. Only grant myself 4, two on each thigh to make it even. I am chasing this release so thoughtlessly, like second nature, but this time I dont allow myself the pleasure to taste the blood extensively. And why? Why did I need it, why does it feel so good to give in, self-satisfaction in the beads of red I am granted. I felt surprised at how quickly I bled, surprised to discover again that I must be human, that I can hurt just as well as the rest of them. !<

I'm swallowing my misery to climb back into my car with an extra longboard and drive to pick my friend up. My music is loud and teenaged, I'm wrung out of my years, pulled younger every second. When my friend appears on the steps of his apartment, I'm buzzing with anxiety. I have to call my dad back, or he will make his desire to know about my life a demand. So I asked my friend for a favor.

"Could you sit here while I call him, could you be my witness and my security?" Just for this conversation that I already knew would be mundane and underwhelming. Friend, would you not leave me alone while I straddle the fault line between here and there, adult and child, pride and choking on my fucking ego as I grow so small inside my body all because I am speaking to my dad? And my friend sat and listened, and looked up a place to eat on the southside.

The windows were down, city noises an intrustive barrier between Dad's voice and my stutter. He was worried. He was angry. He only wants to check if Im still alive. He wants to make sure his mentally unwell daughter hasnt blown up her life and fled again, that another rope hasnt found its home around my neck. Again. 'Said if I didnt answer him today he was gonna call a wellness check and send the police to my house. I am guilty and I am white-knuckling the steering wheel not to let him in. I give simple answers and useless apologies. "I still have my job. I am fine. Im sorry I ignored your calls. I have no excuses as to why Im like this. I still dont want to talk." Dont want you, dont need you, wont give you any in to force me any smaller.

When the call ends I want to cry, but my friend is empathetic and we talk about his life instead. He directs me to a Vietmanese place and the food is amazing. I feel my face light up and a smile pulling at my lips, my friend is a marionette tugging at me to adore everything they do. Im priveledged to read his poetry. Lucky to understand the framework of a new song he wrote. My eyes, a magnet to his art, I am hypnotized everytime, mind laid quiet, finally. In shapes and colors I see inner forests reflected back at me. I am trying so hard not to be greedy. So hard not to make a fool of us both. My BPD and his BPD are on a collision course in my mind, one where I ruin everything like I always do. I still ask that they send me their poetry so I can make a monument of it personally.

After dinner, I take us to the park, and the sky is blue-gray with dusk. Not many people are still out, and so I offer my friend a hit of green to sweeten the pot of activity. With a rush in my lungs, I am explaining memories of my past here. Alone on these trails and parking lots I found salvation in the sun and freedom in the moonlight. Remember cicadas and mosquitos, the feeling of sweat slicking my arms and the smell of sunscreen, and water, and my body gliding with the board. Its okay to ramble for once. I dont feel the need to hide from this friend.

Im lucky to find Ive stored my headlamps in my car, and even luckier that one of them works. Its dark by now, and the light now beaming from my forehead floods my body with adventure, the stolen treasure of time and space to exist illuminated from being prepared to face the night. We skate into the woods while I play chill indie music from the 2010s through my friends speaker. I see his face light up, and hear his voice lose tension as we are surrounded by trees. I know this path like I remember how to walk, where my winter coat goes, how to breathe. I talk him through each hill and bridge, and we pause often to look over the metal railings of the bridges at the streams below. We listen to the gurgling water, the fullness of the banks. I breathe deeply, taking in woodsmoke, and rain, and the coming Spring. Its okay again. Im okay again.

I lead us through the suburban stretches of neighborhood, and we cross the main road to the next park. I mentioned turning around, I was growing meek and expecting that he would be too tired and was maybe reaching the end of some unspoken patience to hangout with me. Projecting my insecurities onto this moment was pointless. The park was nearly empty except for a couple walking toward us from the forest path beyond. We dropped our boards to get on the swings and my music enveloped the air as we rediscovered play. I could not stop the flood of memory, the surge of warmth that came to me. "How did I ever forget that I loved doing this? Its like I havent remembered myself until now?" My friend's face lit up and they produced a camera to get clips of our discovery. The playground was lit in a warm cinnamon light, the dark blue sky dotted with clouds and stars and light pollution from the city. I could hear semi trucks rushing through on the interstate, but only distantly. Only distantly...

I want to see my friends smile engulf his face like that again. We were children, Im small and buzzing, and for these moments it was in a good way. For the first time in too long, shame was not dragging me downwards, we were just free together as the minutes ticked away. My friend led me to the turtle-shaped feature, and we took turns standing on it and goofing around. We captured videos to send to the groupchat, and we each contorted our bodies to lay precariously atop the turtle while my friend showed me Adrienne Lenker. We went back and forth showing each other indie folk songs as I pressed my belly to the solid salmon colored turtle and resisted urges to reach out and touch him how I wanted to. I felt peace there, illuminated by the streetlamp. And then we moved on, back on our boards to find the farthest reaches of the trail.

With my headlamp lighting the way, we pushed alongside one another and through puddles left from the morning storm. I pointed out the strangeness of pylons and how some look like angry faces, and my friend excitely shared plans to visit the park on the northwest side and invite everyone. We walked up the final hill, the trail depositing us in a strip of old offices. It was 10 or 11pm by then, so no one was around, and we skated the smooth parking lots of the corporate suites. Concrete slopes dipped and dived like rolling pastures and the warm incandescent bulbs made it feel like summer. The woods lined the far lots and the grass earth at the edge of the pavement was spongey and forgiving to our daring bails made towards the treeline. My friend's speaker had died around this point, so I held my phone in hand and sang along to Unknown/Nth by Hozier. We took turns filming each other skate for the video project he is working on and I played Ease by Whirr and Sleepwalker by Julie Byrne.

The journey back to my car was reflective and we again paused several times to stare into the dark woods and at the water running beside us. My friend revealed memories of boundaries tested and pushed, his solo escapes into the dark before we ever met. These stories and this night reminded me fondly of The OA. The moon was high enough now to see without the headlamp so I turned it off and we spent time in quiet peace together.

I took the scenic route to drop my friend off, driving 10mph under the limit on streets that were empty. The windows were down and that warm spring breeze running through my hair reminded me again of the wind that speaks to Prairie in The OA (I still think of the show often, as it so deeply changed my life and how I view the world we live in). I played more melancholic indie folk for my friend and I felt my mind gripping tightly to each moment, creating a core memory. As we drove through the nearly empty downtown streets, a car of boisterous teens shared the lane next to us. They too had their windows down with upbeat music playing and they drunkenly cheered at us. They drove in tandem with us for several blocks and the hope and wild spirit of this Tuesday night kept its presence in our laughter. This is all I ever want.

Its always been this: the music, the movement, the people, our eyes and hearts wide with wonder and love. Its the art and the earth around us, seasons changing and nature holding me steady in the palm of her hand. Late nights and early morning drives, weed passed between us, and getting to be small and safe around the bravehearts and lovers we meet. With my friend by my side, I had this chance to gasp for air, breathe it deep into my lungs, and remember what it is that I love about being alive.

Everything else, all the systems that trap us and extract our souls to keep themselves going, that stuff is killing me. I wish that it never had to be like this. Everyone deserves to feel like I did that night, rediscovering the woods and music with my friend.

Went with my friend (who also has BPD) to see Obsession opening night. It was very good, I loved it.

Very quickly in, I realized that I was relating so hard to Nikki, and I kept whispering to my friend "why is this me???"

TW: Discussion of SA of a fictional character

>!The film is like, "what if a loser man made a wish and gave a regular woman instantaneous BPD and made himself her FP?" !<

>!And the film depicts the devastation of her complete loss of autonomy, self- control, and ends in the guy's suicide after he cannot deal with Nikki anymore. He forced her into this relationship and to be obsessed with him, have sex with him (showing a subtextual rape scene because she cannot say no, and after this scene she hides in the corner of the room as far from him as she can resist) all of it, then he decided he couldnt deal with what he has done to her so he tries to leave. And she splits on him BAD multiple times, then kills 2 people out of jealousy, BEGS him to kill her, the full nine yards.!<

Amyways, Im still thinking about it, and I just wanted to share cause I find media depiction of things like this so interesting. And the additional horror of relating so personally to a character who is both a victim and unable to control how they hurt everyone else around them.

Im in a really difficult place rn. Ive done a LOT of therapy in my life and tried a lot of med combos. I was in what I thought was remission for around 2 years until I began internally splitting on my now ex-gf and eventually broke up with her suddenly last Sept.

Everything has been getting worse since. I went straight back into therapy (after stopping in 2023), and ALL of my worst BPD traits came back along with my major depression.

Ive been really stupid and impulsive and very stubborn and resistent to actually trying again. Im aware of all the stuff thats my fault and how Im making everything worse. My problem is, even with my awareness and years of coping skill and positive improvement, I havent been able to bring myself to try again.

I recently did a bunch of humiliating and uncomfortable work to get into an IOP while dropping from full to part time at my job. Im on day 6 of the IOP tomorrow and I have only gotten worse since starting. I know that this is my fault. Im not ready to try again, so the therapy cant help, and Im going to drop out. The problem is just me.

I also have the past 6 years of my life written and recorded extensively in journals. I know exactly how I think at every stage of recovery and I keep rereading them because I am horrified that I keep going through this. Im in the cycle, and I know the next part is that I stop fighting myself, stop resisting getting better, and I try REALLY hard for years and years to get better. I make all sorts or progress, I "go into remission" I literally forgot why I was ever diagnosed with BPD and I am extremely high functioning. I have been here and done this already. I take my meds as prescribed, cut out drugs alcohol, have a strict sleep schedule, and I try. Thats it, I try.

But I always end up relapsing and realizeing that I have not really changed, I then self sabotage, resist everything for a while, and get very very bad. Im tired of it. Im tired of knowing that I could do everything Im told, struggle and fall and get back up over and over, genuienely believe that I can be normal and all that, just to be hit with my own truth again and again: I havent fixed anything, I just hid it from my consciousness again. "Faking it till I make it" isnt working.

So sitting in these IOP's with a bunch of non-BPD people as we rush through radical acceptance, and shame, and mindfulness, and ACT, and all the stuff I know how to use but WONT, makes me feel worse. Im tired. Im tired of the cycle, I feel like I already know all this and I will get better. I can do it. I probably WILL. I will stop fighting and get my hopes up and try again and be all vulnerable. I will get all the things I want, and for some reason, they wont make me happy, I wont be able to feel them or stop doing everything just to be "good". And I will split and push everyone away and the cycle will start over.

Can someone please explain to me how to actually fix quiet BPD, like actually fix it? Cause I can do all the functional stuff and I can convince myself and everyone around me, I can be so delusional and "stable" but I cant make it real. Its all still just the BPD driving my recovery, and its never actually recovery, its just me doing all the stuff Im told so I can deserve to be alive and people wont hate me. But I dont even want to be here, and I never have.

Very seriously, what is the point of continuing the cycle and trying again?? Years and years and years of the SAME EXACT THOUGHTS AND SITUATIONS whether I am trying or not. I think its making me insane. And also the world itself is just getting worse. And Im always in and out of existiential crisis. I understand things only matter if you decide they matter but why decide things matter if Im stuck in a loop? In any amount of time, I will forget these feelings, forget anything was ever difficult, and I will be estranged from this struggle and be so stable and "wise" and I know this is also a part of the cycle.