  I've struggled all my life with what I refer to as 'big emotions', every time something stressful or upsetting happens I tend to just self implode and that's just how it's always been. I've always worried more about what my emotions would do to others than what they were doing to me, it's like being the grenade and the soldier jumping on it packed up all together in a nightmarish box.   After getting into a serious long term relationship I started having to tear down those toxic coping mechanisms and work to be a more transparent and honest partner for my loving girlfriend of 7 years. It took time and work but I did it for the most part, I took down the long standing walls I had built up to protect myself and others because she truly just wants to see the way my head works and try to help me through it. Now I can see that it's just tearing her down too, my manic lows cause her to feel low too and when I do have emotional outbursts I can tell she cringes away. She's admitted that my big emotions are too much for her to handle and every time I have a breakdown it just ends in us fighting about how I chose to show my emotions. I try my best to not let them show as much and to be the happy person I know she wishes I was but sometimes the lows get the better of me and I can't help but have a bad day no matter how much I want it to be good. I know it must be hard for her watching me struggle through my own head and knowing there's no way she can fix it but it hurts when she gets frustrated because I wake up sad and I can't seem to make myself happy no matter what I do that day. It's awful to say but I miss the times that she didn't know how bad I was and she was happier because of it. It's so much easier to be a supportive partner when you have the facade of being the put together one. For me BPD feels like being a broken stained glass window, a bunch of little fragments of yourself scattered about and god forbid some beautiful idiot sees it and wants to try to put it back together because they're just going to get hurt in the process. I honestly don't know why I'm posting this, maybe in the hopes that someone sees it and has advice or maybe just to vent a little. Maybe you'll see this and know you're not alone but God sometimes this sucks, huh?