The entirety of my life I’ve pretty much asked myself “what is love?” and never really had a good example of it. When I look back, in hindsight, on all the crushes I had, I recognize better that they were firmly obsessions associated with BPD. These were “crushes” that lasted for YEARS with each person. It didn’t happen often, but when it did I would fixated on someone who I really wouldn’t even articulate to that I “loved”, just...think about them all the time, fantasize about them, reach out, stress about reaching out...it’s really embarrassing now looking back because it feels like nice girl™️ behavior, but it wasn’t and isn’t. It was fear based and the more I was rejected, or perceived rejection, the more my hunger for them/acceptance/recognition/love grew. “It hurts so good—I hate you, hurt me again.”

I’m just wondering, what is love for someone with BPD or even a cluster B personality disorder? What does it feel or look like? Is it enough to care deeply for someone intellectually and have strong sexual chemistry but miss the mark emotionally (because that’s unregulated and scary and not tapping into it at this point is a defense mechanism)? Or is there more to it? Because I’m at a point now where I question all my declarations and feelings of at least romantic love—like maybe it was never real, or at least not in the standard way. And thinking about having that third emotional love component makes me feel like I’d be destined to a lifetime of a chaotic push-pull relationship that’s toxic and hurts all the time.

How do you define love?