hey all,

i've been having a major spinout for the last few months. i received a new diagnosis--borderline personality disorder. it's somewhat terrifying, as everything i read is about how everyone with bpd is a manipulative, lying, abusive monster. it's news to me, really. i have a solid group of amazing friends, most of them long-term. i don't struggle with developing community. i struggle with *myself*, and my own impulsivity, and developing and maintaining *healthy* romantic relationships, but i don't struggle with building platonic friendships at all. i don't understand why the people in my life love me, but they seem to, and many of them have stuck around for a long time, so i imagine that i can't be that horrible? right? i don't understand how this works. 

i was prone to lashing out when i was younger, but as i've matured, i've worked super hard to not be a person who does that. i also have an understanding that how i feel is not necessarily the *reality* and that my understanding of people's motives is flawed based on a long history of emotional and physical abuse--and i work around that understanding. 

amongst my friends, i'm known for being intuitive, highly communicative, thoughtful, and self-aware, as well as known for sticking to my principles and having a strong commitment to possessing integrity. i'm certainly not perfect--i'm abrasive and highly neurotic, a total perfectionist, and of course, as is to be expected, i feel *a lot*, which is not the easiest thing to deal with. i can certainly be selfish and i am terrible at managing my money. i smoke too much. 

it's so frustrating and horrible to read about how we're all obviously terrible, especially when i'm struggling to understand my own diagnosis and learn how to cope. like, will no one ever love me because the minute they find out about this they'll assume everything about me is fake and that i'm actually godzilla deep inside? is that really how this works? 

i'm afraid to tell certain people about this diagnosis, even though i think sharing it would be helpful, because it *does* explain so much re: the intensity of my emotions and why tiny things that *seem* insignificant to someone else completely destroy me. friends have expressed confusion about that in the past, and i wish i could elucidate on what i now know, but i'm afraid that if they google "friend with bpd," they'll just decide to never speak to me again because jfc have you read what is out there? i wouldn't blame them. 

the thing i'm struggling with the most: inconsistent support from someone i feel close to is *worse* than no support at all. the inconsistent support definitely sets off my abandonment fears and makes me feel all-consumed with hurt, shame, and anger. it's like, even support at a distance that is consistent and follows a predictable pattern is far more tolerable to me than coming/going. does that make sense? it's more pronounced right now when things are hard, like now.

i'm doing EMDR and i have a DBT workbook i'm trying to get through. i'm trying to do all the right things. i'm currently underemployed, and as a result, underwater financially. i'm desperately trying to hustle for another gig and everything is crumbling beneath me. 

i don't know how we're supposed to have hope when the world views us as fundamentally awful, which is the thing we're most afraid of being. 

i know this is really long. i didn't know where else to put this or who else to talk to about this, so thank you for reading. 