One of the hallmarks of borderline personality disorder is experiencing incredibly intense emotions and having to wait a long time for those emotions to dissipate. Most of the time, those emotions are what you would expect them to be: anxiety, fear, depression, etc. For the last few days I’ve been suffering (yes, suffering) from an excess of love. I wouldn’t have thought it, but it’s just a troublesome as any other emotion when felt in excess.
I’m not sure what triggered it but I’ll do my best to explain how it’s manifesting and, maybe, get a little relief in the process. For starters, I’m projecting this love on one person in particular, L, but I’m fairly certain that what I’m feeling is transient based on some other things I’ve been doing as a result of this feeling.
First, I should say that I love L. Of course, she’s fantastic and very dear to me. How could I not. Recently, however, I have been head-over-heels in love with her. It’s this latter piece that I’m fairly certain is being driven by my BPD. It’s literally making me insane and I’m having to be very careful with what I do or say so as to not hurt anyone or accidentally blow up any relationships. I love her so much that it hurts. Literally. It’s in my chest and extraordinarily uncomfortable.
The reason I think it’s a borderline thing is that I’ve taken this feeling to the internet and started pouring my effort into online dating in an effort to make the feeling go away. I’ve been spending most of my time on OKCupid (it’s the most poly friendly site). I review potential partners and have chosen to write several of them. By the time I’m done sending a message to them, I feel like I’m in love with each of them as well.
It’s crazy. I’m crazy.
I’m trying to figure out what I can do to cool off. I’m thinking of working more on my memoir. I think that might work but, depending on what I wind up writing, I could get worked up emotionally in other ways which may or may not be better. I’m definitely going to try to meditate. I just hope I can sit still right now. Ugh. This sucks.
Hmm, no working on memoir please without your therapist
Would writing what you feel about her help?
I’m waiting for your DBT studies to actually help practically….
Love, light and glitter
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Oh, I’m being careful about when and how much I write and my therapist and I have worked out things to do before and after writing to minimize the likelihood of getting too spun up. Regarding the DBT, I actually do use the skills quite often and that use is the main reason I’ve been doing much better the last couple of months. Obviously I have been a off over the last week, though the last day or two have been better, but that’s to be expected. Or were you speaking about DBT working for you (I just realized that I can interpret that sentence in more than one way)?
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