My therapist gave me the homework of doing DBT behavior chain analysis. After doing behavior chain analysis for a single incident, I took it one step further and tried to identify the larger patterns I have regarding dating/relationships/sex, which have repeated themselves again and again since I was a teenager:

1. Experience feelings of emptiness, boredom, and alienation (+ hypersexuality)
2. Seek out people to date or just have sex with, depending on how optimistic I'm feeling
3. Finally meet someone I like after many disappointing dates
4. Feel euphoric. Overshare personal information, express too much, enthusiasm, and usually have sex with them right away. May go directly to #9 depending on my subsequent perceptions of them.
5. Question my attraction to them or their trustworthiness
6. Feel ambivalent and distressed. May binge drink, cut, etc.
7. Return to them to resolve my ambivalence and relieve my distress
8. Attraction returns (possibly assisted by alcohol or drugs). Feel euphoric. Have sex with them. 
9. Become obsessively attached, idealize them, and want to spend every moment together
10. Realize they don't reciprocate my feelings to the same degree
11. Feel rejected, betrayed, and exploited. Experience overwhelming panic, grief, and/or rage.
12. Choose your own dysfunctional adventure: A) try to draw them back in by using sexuality or evoking concern, B) lash out and try to harm them in some way, C) cut off contact, and/or D) harm myself by binge drinking, cutting, or immediately having risky sex with someone else

I'm ALWAYS at one of these stages at any given moment. It feels helpful to have it laid out so clearly, but I'm not any closer to freeing myself from it. Even when I use DBT skills that prevent me from actually using many of the harmful behaviors on this list, I still feel the unbearable pain. Sometimes it feels like the pain is even worse because DBT skills prevent me from expressing it the way I would have before. Can anyone else relate to this list? Have you found anything helpful?