u/priestess_on_fire

What self-soothing techniques do you use when you feel you need reassurance from your partner/fp?

It’s not healthy or healing to continue relying on my partner for reassurance, and he’s tired of it.

I need some good soothing techniques to help take all the pressure off my partner.

I have severe and less severe splits. I’ve gotten to a point where I’m able to reel myself back in when I feel a less severe split coming on, but I still can’t get a handle on my more severe ones.

This morning my boyfriend told me that if I argue with him one more time within the next couple of months, he’s going to end things with me. He told me that it’s caused him to drink excessively, hate himself and feel unloved. He’s also tired of hearing me talk about my bpd and thinks I hide behind it.

I was very upfront about my bpd when we first started talking. I wanted him to know and understand what he was getting himself into. I’ve been working a lot on myself since I was first diagnosed about 5 years ago. I have come a very long way, and for the most part I’m proud of the progress I’ve made. He’s only known me for a year, so he isn’t fully aware of all the work I’ve done to get where I am now.

He told me that since April I’ve started 22 fights with him via text, and have had an argument with either my mom or sister once a month. He’s burnt out on me.

How do I stop/catch myself from having a more severe split? I can’t always control it. Sometimes it takes over and it’s like I need to be locked in a padded room without any technology for a day so I have no way of unleashing on him.

I’m afraid to talk with him about coming up with some sort of plan if I feel one coming on since he was very adamant about not wanting to hear about it anymore.

So, I’m on my own with this.

I really need some help and recommendations because my relationship is on the line right now, my mental health is fucked right now and I’m just so, so close to ending it all.

I have severe and less severe splits. I’ve gotten to a point where I’m able to reel myself back in when I feel a less severe split coming on, but I still can’t get a handle on my more severe ones.

This morning my boyfriend told me that if I argue with him one more time within the next couple of months, he’s going to end things with me. He told me that it’s caused him to drink excessively, hate himself and feel unloved. He’s also tired of hearing me talk about my bpd and thinks I hide behind it.

I was very upfront about my bpd when we first started talking. I wanted him to know and understand what he was getting himself into. I’ve been working a lot on myself since I was first diagnosed about 5 years ago. I have come a very long way, and for the most part I’m proud of the progress I’ve made. He’s only known me for a year, so he isn’t fully aware of all the work I’ve done to get where I am now.

He told me that since April I’ve started 22 fights with him via text, and have had an argument with either my mom or sister once a month. He’s burnt out on me.

How do I stop/catch myself from having a more severe split? I can’t always control it. Sometimes it takes over and it’s like I need to be locked in a padded room without any technology for a day so I have no way of unleashing on him.

I’m afraid to talk with him about coming up with some sort of plan if I feel one coming on since he was very adamant about not wanting to hear about it anymore.

So, I’m on my own with this.

I really need some help and recommendations because my relationship is on the line right now, my mental health is fucked right now and I’m just so, so close to ending it all.

I have severe and less severe splits. I’ve gotten to a point where I’m able to reel myself back in when I feel a less severe split coming on, but I still can’t get a handle on my more severe ones.

This morning my boyfriend told me that if I argue with him one more time within the next couple of months, he’s going to end things with me. He told me that it’s caused him to drink excessively, hate himself and feel unloved. He’s also tired of hearing me talk about my bpd and thinks I hide behind it.

I was very upfront about my bpd when we first started talking. I wanted him to know and understand what he was getting himself into. I’ve been working a lot on myself since I was first diagnosed about 5 years ago. I have come a very long way, and for the most part I’m proud of the progress I’ve made. He’s only known me for a year, so he isn’t fully aware of all the work I’ve done to get where I am now.

He told me that since April I’ve started 22 fights with him via text, and have had an argument with either my mom or sister once a month. He’s burnt out on me.

How do I stop/catch myself from having a more severe split? I can’t always control it. Sometimes it takes over and it’s like I need to be locked in a padded room without any technology for a day so I have no way of unleashing on him.

I’m afraid to talk with him about coming up with some sort of plan if I feel one coming on since he was very adamant about not wanting to hear about it anymore.

So, I’m on my own with this.

I really need some help and recommendations because my relationship is on the line right now, my mental health is fucked right now and I’m just so, so close to ending it all.

I REALLY need some help and feedback. Please read.

I just received this text from my boyfriend at 3:30 this morning

“Baby I’m hitting a point where I don’t feel like myself anymore. My drinking has never been so bad im experiencing daily complications related to my drinking, i don’t do anything but drink anymore.

I don’t get any enjoyment out of hobbies and games i use to play. When i get off work i drink, when i go on break i drink, when i spend time with you i drink, when you’re away i drink. I mentioned this months ago and its only gotten worse, the same time when i mentioned this months ago i asked you to stop arguing with me and make the relationship easy on me and none of that materialized.

We have had 22 arguments since November that im able to count in our text history, 12 since april. Each argument has resulted in me drinking more, each argument emotionally drains me, each argument makes me feel unlovable.

Every time we move past it i tell myself that i’m going to get my drinking under control and not let it get to me like that again, this should be something i’m able to regulate but im unable to. I dont even try to lie to myself anymore i just started drinking after arguments debating if our relationship is even worth it anymore.

I don’t feel like you support my needs. You give me space until we argue then i need to give you immediate all day if not several days of attention, that isn’t you respecting my space. It doesn’t feel loving and when i look back at the number of arguments and the days i’ve spent trying to bring our relationship back together i see so much drinking that its put me in the situation im in now.

I drink over $10 worth a day and in 22 weeks i’ve put myself into $1000 worth of debt that i cant account for, because i’ve been ignoring this. I’ve been calling it the cost of saving our relationship but i haven’t been able to properly sleep all week im up at 2am again tonight the drinking has gotten to a point where i can’t ignore it anymore

I feel like i can’t stop, i keep buying more alcohol i know i can’t afford because i’ve gotten so addicted and this has become my normal. You refuse to take any responsibility for our arguments you always blame it on your bpd your bpd your bpd i dont fucking care anymore i cant keep drinking wasting my days arguing with you wasting away trying to keep you happy. Im barely a person anymore, i’ve barely been a person this whole time it feels like.

My drinking is not your fault, i had issues before i met you but things have only gotten worse as the arguments keep coming, the arguments are always about you needing more and me not being enough. I’ve had a terrible time coping with being told im not good enough over twice a month every month.

I want to be good enough to love myself enough to stop drinking so much, i want to be enough for you to not put me down twice a month. This isn’t working out i don’t think, I don’t know where else to start recovering but i need unconditional love in my life. Not love that depends on my ability to put out emotional fires twice a month.

I need to be told im enough when things are bad, i need to feel like im a good person even when i’ve made a mistake, i want to be able to love someone but I cant do that if i fucking hate myself. I feel like a slow motion suicide right now, financially, emotionally, and physically. I’ve been trying to tell you this needs to stop i cant do the arguments anymore and it never ends. I can’t convince myself this is a normal amount of arguing anymore, I can’t blame this on your bpd anymore, i need real change.

I actually can’t take another frivolous argument again for a couple months, it needs to stop. I need you to stop emotionally dumping hate on me for a couple months. I need a couple of months of love and support so i can start putting myself back together.

Are you able to do that?”

I don’t know how to come back from this. I hate this disorder so fucking much. I wish I could promise him that I won’t split or have an episode within the next couple of months but it’s not something I can really control. I can catch myself and use my DBT skills and try to rein it in before it becomes an issue, but sometimes I get so triggered that I kind of black out and unleash.

He hasn’t even seen me at my worst. He’s seen me scream once, but he hasn’t seen me fully split and go into my rage mode. I’m so fortunate that that has quieted down over the years, so it’s a rare occurrence now, but I doubt he’d be able to handle it.

I always sit down with him and apologize after a split or episode. I know that doesn’t undo the damage but I really do try to take responsibility for it. I’m even about to start paying out of pocket for a therapist who is highly specialized and recommended for the treatment of BPD. I have my first session with him today. I have to go weekly and it’s $150 per session. I absolutely don’t have that kind of money to spend but I literally can’t continue living like this. I was on the edge of su*cide just last week.

I can’t lose him. It’ll destroy me.
How can I fix this when I can’t make any promises?

Today I actually asked my boyfriend a question about something that’s been bothering me. I didn’t bottle it up inside and wait for a split to freak out on him about it.

Quite a few months ago, he told me that the amount of texting we were doing felt overwhelming for him. Since then, I've made a point to wait at least an hour before responding so I don't overwhelm him.

It's been eating at me a little because during that waiting period, and then while waiting for hours for a response I end up getting stuck in my head. I become a little obsessive, constantly checking when he was last online and comparing that to when he last messaged me. To cope with that I flip a switch in my brain to stop thinking about him so much. I also was making myself smaller because I thought that was the only way to avoid overwhelming him.

Over time, it's gotten easier, but I still catch myself checking when he was last online.

Today, I finally asked him, calmly, if me responding quickly actually overwhelms him. It turns out it doesn't and I’ve been torturing myself for months for no reason lol He told me I don't need to make myself small, that it's okay to ask him questions and that if he ever does feel overwhelmed he'll tell me.

I know it's a small win, but I'm really proud of myself for stepping outside my comfort zone and asking about something that's been weighing on me. Those kinds of conversations are hard for me because I'm so afraid of rejection.

Anyway, yay. 🎉

What’s your win for the day?

That’s all. I’m new to this and trying to figure this whole thing out ♥️

I’ve been disassociating since age five, and for the first time in my life (32) I finally have a therapist who specializes in this disorder. I still don’t know what type of DD I have and I’m hoping to find out soon.

I started taking klonopin for my dissociative disorder a few years ago and it’s been a life saver. But recently I went a few days without it and the third day in I started to have an episode.

I was laying in my bed with my boyfriend, watching him play with his cat, when I started feeling super panicky. My vision started to go out, my hearing was muffled, I started not being able to feel my body, and then I saw a ball of fire roll across his arm and heard a woman screaming my name in the distance. I started seeing shadow figures in my peripheral, lost track of time and was just all around silently freaking out.

Anytime I start to have an episode it starts off this way, with the hallucinations, and if I can’t get it under wraps I’ll completely leave my body.

Does anyone else experience hallucinations before/during an episode?

I wish I knew what my actual diagnosis was so I could understand this a bit better. I’m so lost

I don’t know if this is the right place to post this but I feel like I’m at the end of my rope. I have no idea what’s going on in my body.

I was first diagnosed with a dissociative disorder when I was 12. Again when I was 24 and then once more at 29.

I’m 32 now, and I’m realizing I don’t know that much about this disorder at all. I’ve always been told that I have a “severe dissociative disorder” but never what kind?

When I turned 24, I had my first out of body experience in an extremely long time. This was the first time I hospitalized myself. They put me on 2mg of clonazepam, twice a day. Minus a year, I’ve been taking it everyday since and it’s kept, whatever disorder I have, at bay, for the most part.

When I turned 29 I went to rehab (for alcohol), so it was the first time I hadn’t taken that medicine in years. The third day in, I’m having another out of body experience. They started to heavily sedate me. I was taking Seroquel three times a day, along with trazodone and prazosin at night. Along with that, they had me taking 800mg of gabapentin 3 times a day. It’s insane now that I look back on it. All of that on top of my normal psych meds.

While I was there I talked with a therapist who had a friend who specialized in dissociative disorders. She was interested in my story and asked if she could talk with her friend about it. She then had me fill out a very long diagnosis form. The next day she told me that she sent that form over to her friend and that she thought I have DID. She told me to not take it as a formal/proper diagnosis. But I never felt like I fit into that category because I don’t have multiple personalities.

I went without my clonazepam for almost five days recently and started to move towards having an episode, which leads to me severely dissociating. It’s weird because I can feel when it’s going to happen, and I spend a lot of energy trying to keep it from overpowering me. I have dealt with a lot of scary things in my life and this is by far the scariest thing I have ever experienced.

They start off with a panicky feeling deep in my heart. It starts to feel like my hearts burning and then my vision starts to go out, I start shaking uncontrollably, I become very hot, I start hearing and seeing things, I can’t move my neck muscles and all of my muscles are twitching, I am throwing up, I can’t feel my body and then things will go dark.

All of a sudden I am floating in the air and looking down on myself. I feel the most intense sense of fear and paranoia I’ve ever felt in my life but I am not in my body. My body is moving on its own. It’s doing the same thing over and over again. Walking in the same path repeatedly. Opening the curtains and closing them. Taking all their clothes off and putting them back on. Throwing up. Flipping the light switches on and off. And my body just does all of this in silence. I can’t talk to it and I can’t feel it. I’m just watching from above.

Those are my scary episodes. I also will find myself in another room/places hours later. I’ll find my things moved around and no one else has been home but me. I will “come to” and realize hours have passed and will have no memory of it, but no has ever told me that I act differently.

I’m so up to date on all of my other diagnoses but I really don’t know much about this. I’ve never wanted to dive in because I am absolutely terrified of going back into that state.

Please help lol

I was first diagnosed with a dissociative disorder when I was 12. Again when I was 24 and then once more at 29.

I’m 32 now, and I’m realizing I don’t know that much about this disorder at all. I’ve always been told that I have a “severe dissociative disorder” but never what kind?

When I turned 24, I had my first out of body experience in an extremely long time. This was the first time I hospitalized myself. They put me on 2mg of clonazepam, twice a day. Minus a year, I’ve been taking it everyday since and it’s kept, whatever disorder I have, at bay, for the most part.

When I turned 29 I went to rehab (for alcohol), so it was the first time I hadn’t taken that medicine in years. The third day in, I’m having another out of body experience. They started to heavily sedate me. I was taking Seroquel three times a day, along with trazodone and prazosin at night. Along with that, they had me taking 800mg of gabapentin 3 times a day. It’s insane now that I look back on it. All of that on top of my normal psych meds.

While I was there I talked with a therapist who had a friend who specialized in dissociative disorders. She was interested in my story and asked if she could talk with her friend about it. She then had me fill out a very long diagnosis form. The next day she told me that she sent that form over to her friend and that she thought I have DID. She told me to not take it as a formal/proper diagnosis. But I never felt like I fit into that category because I don’t have multiple personalities.

I went without my clonazepam for almost five days recently and started to move towards having an episode, which leads to me severely dissociating. It’s weird because I can feel when it’s going to happen, and I spend a lot of energy trying to keep it from overpowering me. I have dealt with a lot of scary things in my life and this is by far the scariest thing I have ever experienced.

They start off with a panicky feeling deep in my heart. It starts to feel like my hearts burning and then my vision starts to go out, I start shaking uncontrollably, I become very hot, I start hearing and seeing things, I can’t move my neck muscles and all of my muscles are twitching, I am throwing up, I can’t feel my body and then things will go dark.

All of a sudden I am floating in the air and looking down on myself. I feel the most intense sense of fear and paranoia I’ve ever felt in my life but I am not in my body. My body is moving on its own. It’s doing the same thing over and over again. Walking in the same path repeatedly. Opening the curtains and closing them. Taking all their clothes off and putting them back on. Throwing up. Flipping the light switches on and off. And my body just does all of this in silence. I can’t talk to it and I can’t feel it. I’m just watching from above.

Those are my scary episodes. I also will find myself in another room/places hours later. I’ll find my things moved around and no one else has been home but me. I will “come to” and realize hours have passed and will have no memory of it, but no has ever told me that I act differently.

I’m so up to date on all of my other diagnoses but I really don’t know much about this. I’ve never wanted to dive in because I am absolutely terrified of going back into that state.

Please help lol

I'm in a LDR and I usually spend 1–2 weeks at my bf’s place. Over the past month I've actually spent more time at his place than my own. We've been together for almost a year and recently we've been talking about moving in together when his lease ends in February. Since I own my home, that would mean deciding whether to sell it or rent it out, so I want to be confident we're compatible before making such a big commitment.

Recently, he asked for a day to himself because he wasn't feeling well. I immediately felt rejected and had a lil split on him. In my mind, situations like that are important because I want to see how we'd function together if we lived together, especially when one of us is sick or needs support. We talked about it in person and later that night I opened up about my mental health. I told him that he and my sister are my two favorite people and who I feel the safest around. I admitted that I often feel depressed or like something is missing when I'm not with either of them.

A few days later he brought the situation up again and told me he was still upset. He said he felt overwhelmed by how much time I've been spending with him and that I didn't respect his need for a day to himself. He said that I don’t listen to his problems or take them seriously, he doesn't want to feel responsible for all of my happiness and wants me to continue spending time with my own friends.

On top of that, he said he felt uncared for because the morning after he was sick, he ended up doing the dishes instead of me offering to take over. I genuinely feel guilty about that because I'm usually very caring and I'm not sure why I didn't step in.

Now he's saying that if I stay with him for two weeks, he needs the following week to himself so he can recharge and spend time with his friends. Hearing that made me feel insecure and rejected. I'd spent time with his friends before and thought he enjoyed including me, but now I'm wondering if he would have preferred those times to be just with them. I also didn’t meet his friends until last month, after 8 months of dating. I also feel he isn’t ready to move in since he feels “burnt out” after spending a few weeks with me.

Honestly, took everything in me to not split while he was telling me all of this. I wanted to leave so badly. I told him I wanted to leave and that’s when he brought up that I don’t take his feelings seriously. It’s not that I don’t take them seriously, I just felt a split coming on and I didn’t want to make an already uncomfortable situation worse, because I think it is fair for him to feel this way. I also like to run when I feel like I’m being abandoned.

I'm struggling to tell whether I've crossed healthy boundaries or if we're simply realizing we have different needs for closeness and independence. Am I being manipulative or emotionally abusive by wanting to spend so much time with him, reacting poorly to his need for space, leaning on him emotionally and making him feel like he couldn't ask for alone time?

I'm in a LDR and I usually spend 1–2 weeks at my bf’s place. Over the past month, I've actually spent more time at his place than my own. We've been together for almost a year and recently we've been talking about moving in together when his lease ends in February. Since I own my home, that would mean deciding whether to sell it or rent it out, so I want to be confident we're compatible before making such a big commitment.

Recently, he asked for a day to himself because he wasn't feeling well. I immediately felt rejected and had a lil split on him. In my mind, situations like that are important because I want to see how we'd function together if we lived together, especially when one of us is sick or needs support. We talked about it in person and later that night I opened up about my mental health. I told him that he and my sister are my two favorite people and who I feel the safest around. I admitted that I often feel depressed or like something is missing when I'm not with either of them.

A few days later he brought the situation up again and told me he was still upset. He said he felt overwhelmed by how much time I've been spending with him and that I didn't respect his need for a day to himself. He said that I don’t listen to his problems or take them seriously, he doesn't want to feel responsible for all of my happiness and wants me to continue spending time with my own friends.

On top of that, he said he felt uncared for because the morning after he was sick, he ended up doing the dishes instead of me offering to take over. I genuinely feel guilty about that because I'm usually very caring and I'm not sure why I didn't step in.

Now he's saying that if I stay with him for two weeks, he needs the following week to himself so he can recharge and spend time with his friends. Hearing that made me feel insecure and rejected. I'd spent time with his friends before and thought he enjoyed including me, but now I'm wondering if he would have preferred those times to be just with them. I also didn’t meet his friends until last month, after 8 months of dating. I also feel he isn’t ready to move in since he feels “burnt out” after spending a few weeks with me.

Honestly, took everything in me to not split while he was telling me all of this. I wanted to leave so badly. I told him I wanted to leave and that’s when he brought up that I don’t take his feelings seriously. It’s not that I don’t take them seriously, I just felt a split coming on and I didn’t want to make an already uncomfortable situation worse, because I think it is fair for him to feel this way. I also like to run when I feel like I’m being abandoned.

I'm struggling to tell whether I've crossed healthy boundaries or if we're simply realizing we have different needs for closeness and independence. Am I being manipulative or emotionally abusive by wanting to spend so much time with him, reacting poorly to his need for space, leaning on him emotionally and making him feel like he couldn't ask for alone time?