so i've been dealing with bpd symptoms for as long as i can remember. i'm usually in either "vulnerable mode," so like putting myself out there and dating and stuff, which is when i sometimes have episodes, or i'm in "stonewall mode," which is when i'm purely focused on other stuff and not letting myself get close with people to avoid triggers.

this summer i've had some extra free time, and i had made a ton of improvements to my life in the last "stonewall mode." i got informally diagnosed (therapist said i was acting like i was in remission, which was a pretty easy conclusion to draw because i was avoiding any/all triggers), i had a great year at school, and i was overall feeling good about myself.

so i decided to start dating again. the first person i match with and i hit it off, too! not quite constant conversation, but really frequent messaging back and forth. apologies or explanations when we're unavailable. really adult, grown-up, mature dating behavior. we go on two dates, things are mostly good, etc. her job keeps her super busy and we rarely text during the workday. that's fine, we communicated about it. i send a good morning text, get a reply 80% of the time, then talk to her again later in the workday/after she gets done

one time last week she gets kind of unresponsive but then apologizes profusely and says she is sad that we met when we met because of how stressful her job has been lately.

then, i don't know what happens, but i continue to be really supportive and i start catching this unshakeable feeling of some distance developing between us. she cancels some plans because of a conflict she hadn't talked about when we made them and gets a bit less responsive. then she suddenly asks to meet up in the middle of the week, and i'm not sure whether it's to split things off or not, so i show up kind of nervous. but it's not, we have a *decent* time, not as great as the first two times we hung out, but i noticed a few things that concerned me:

* we ran into a co-worker as we were leaving who introduced her to his date/partner, but she didn't introduce me
* we talked about some topics where we had different opinions and she noted like, "oh, we've got some differences"
* she went for a hug when i went for a quick good-bye kiss; we had already made out before so this wasn't like a boundary-crossing thing

we text a bit after the date and it's flirty/fun but somewhat icy on her end. i don't know. then i don't get a response to my good morning text the next day, get brief (albeit instant) responses in our post-work conversation (she said her day went terribly, so understandable) but am left unanswered after the third one. so i send the usual good morning text this morning but couch it in some "if these are getting annoying lmk, just want to make sure you feel supported!" language b/c of how bad her job has been lately and am still awaiting a response.

these all feel like normal signs that a fling is naturally winding down, but i'm just absolutely unable to handle it because i feel like i messed up something that could have been more serious but don't know why. part of me really wants to believe that her job is just getting *that much* worse, so she is just super stressed rn. another part of me wants her to just say "hey yes you're being too much" so i can move on.  

idk guys. it just really sucks when you can't handle normal relationship situations because your brain is still broken from childhood trauma. just needed to scream into the void for a bit there.