I posted earlier, chickened out, and tried another forum. But let’s go again! I’m 26F, for background. My girlfriend (25) has been in therapy for a lot of her life, but her therapist doesn’t believe in using diagnoses because she doesn’t feel like everyone fits cleanly in a box. Last night, after a terrible fight, she made a joke about being bipolar and I said “more likely borderline”. We went down the rabbit hole of looking up symptoms and behavior and there isn’t a single one she doesn’t miss. 

The thing is, I’ve been thinking this for a while. One of my close friends had been in therapy for BPD for years and my younger sister is BPD/bipolar. I didn’t know how to approach it because... her therapist didn’t tell her, so how would I know? 

Anyway, we’re both positive its BPD and she’s going to talk to her therapist about it ASAP. Which is great, because last night was really really bad.

It started out because she thought I was going to leave her if we didn’t have sex. My sex drive is super high, and hers is almost nonexistent. She’s fine with fooling around but at some point we hit a point where she had to stop because she’s uncomfortable. I tried to explain that I love her and respect her boundaries, but if we have different needs then it’s worth a longer conversation. She spent two hours telling me she’s worthless and trying to throw me out of her room so she could kill herself (and trying to shove me out when I wouldnt move), and she said all of these really awful things about our relationship to get me to go away (Like, our relationship was never real/I don’t know how to love/you deserve better/I’m a monster/etc etc). At one point she spit on me but later she said she meant to do it on the floor. When it gets bad like this, which it has before, she bangs her head on the wall if I don’t intervene. And when I do, she tells me she hates me. 

I got her calmed down, some other shit happened, but she apologized profusely and we ended up sleeping downstairs in my room (we live together, but have separate rooms for space). I left this morning for work feeling deeply uncomfortable and upset still. 

Before my former roommate left, she told me she thought my relationship was manipulative. And the thing is, I guess I can see why it would look like that to someone who doesn’t know her? I know how BPD works, I’ve always been around it. I know my girlfriend isn’t a manipulative person. She doesn’t say things to get me to behave how she wants, I understand it literally feels like the world is falling apart for her. We’re going to do a session together next week with her therapist. 

I love her, I want to try and be here for her. Some of this is a vent, because I’m at work and feeling uneasy. But I guess I have some questions. How do I handle situations like this? And how do I take care of myself after? For people with BPD, what helps you when it feels like the world is crashing?