I’m having a hard time figuring out if this is a symptom of my BPD, or if I’m simply a person who requires a lot of connection/closeness/intimacy with someone.

It feels like no matter what I do, I never feel like I’m connected enough or close enough to my boyfriend, mentally and emotionally. We have been together 6 years, so by now we are well out of the phase of needing to spend every waking minute together. We live together so we are around each other all the time. As most relationships go, we both get busy and there might be a week or two where we don’t spend a ton of quality time together. When I start noticing this happening, I immediately go into a dark place and immediately feel rejected by him. I find myself getting very sad when he doesn’t want to always cuddle with me, or talk to me, or do things together all the time.

The best way I can explain it is feeling like myself and my emotions are a half empty cup, and when each day passes that we don’t spend enough time together, the liquid in the cup goes down a bit, and with each passing day it becomes less and less. As it becomes less and less, my emotional stability and mood start to deteriorate. Once it gets to empty after about a week I feel like I’m on the brink of a meltdown, and start having thoughts that he doesn’t like me anymore, or doesn’t value my needs enough, to the point where my brain will spiral until I start thinking if I can be with him any longer. I have extreme thoughts of “I just can’t deal with this or take this torture anymore” At this point is usually when I’ll ask him if we can spend some time together. If he says yes, my cup is immediately filled all the way up and I instantly forget about all negative feelings I had, and feel wanted/loved and accepted like nothing ever happened. At the time I think to myself “I can’t believe I ever thought he didn’t like me and even questioned if I want to be with him still, how stupid!” Then immediately after spending time together, that liquid starts to go down again...literally within hours, and the negative feelings come back and I start to feel so disconnected from him again. Rinse and repeat.

I feel like the attention I get and crave from him is some type of pacification to a deeper issue having to do with the fear of him leaving, but I’m really not sure. Can anyone else relate to this?