For the past month and a half I’ve been seeing this guy. I haven’t really had feelings for anyone or had an FP since my last serious relationship ended a year and a half ago before my diagnosis. I’ve spent the past year and a half single by my own volition, increasing self-awareness, doing DBT, working on mood control. I’ve actually seen improvement in myself. Of course the thoughts are there constantly and the mood swings happen in private, but I’ve become a lot better at controlling them outwardly to avoid hurting others like I have in the past. 

For first time since then, I finally like someone again. A lot. Every second I’m with him I’m absurdly happy, I’m laughing my ass off without breath. I’m being myself. Every second I’m not I’m thinking about him and smiling. My heart pounds like a little kid. Obviously BPD makes us more prone to jumping into things fast, but for the first time ever, despite the feelings still being intense and extreme like they’ve been before, they actually feel real. I haven’t morphed my personality around what his ideal ‘dream girl’ is. I haven’t split or exploded my emotions on him. I don’t say/do certain loving things for the purpose of making him fall in love with me like I used to. It used to be that every “selfless” thing I did in a relationship wasn’t selfless at all because it was always for my sake: to make them love me, need me, see me as so special they wouldn’t even think about leaving. Everything was calculated and thus kind of manipulative in the attempt to avoid abandonment. This time I’m not doing that and it feels “normal”. That’s how I know it feels real despite it being fairly new. 

Problem #1: I know that what I feel, the giddiness and pure joy and euphoria of just being around him, is not reciprocated. And after a month and a half of casually dating someone, I guess it shouldn’t be, right? That’s “normal” in the non-BPD world? I know he likes me because he says so, he thinks I’m goofy, nice, and smart, he enjoys spending time with me, but there isn’t the urgency or intensity. He never talks about having strong romantic feelings for me. It’s just fun and casual. We’re compatible and have chemistry, but it’s not life-changing for him. If I called it off he wouldn’t try to fight it. It wouldn’t be devastating to him like it would be to me.

Here’s the thing: I should be okay with that, right? Because that’s what non-BPD people experience? If so, why do I feel hurt? My BPD makes me lose sight of what is normal to others. I’ve only been able to love in intensity and I’ve never been able to “build” at something. I either know after a few dates if I deeply care about someone or not. But he sees this as something fun and I see it as something meaningful. For him, it’s casual. For me, it’s everything. It’s so hard to remind myself not to be offended or hurt by that. I find myself thinking I must not be special enough and he must not really have significant feelings for me if it hasn’t become a deep, meaningful romance yet. But is that what happens when you don’t calculate/manipulate the situation to make the other person fall head over heels for you? It’s a new concept for me and one I’m struggling with every minute of every day. 

Problem #2: There’s the second-level, the galaxy brain in me, riddled with worries that maybe these aren’t BPD thoughts/paranoia but actually intuition? Maybe he really just isn’t into me like I am into him because he’s just... not that into me? And that, more importantly, I’m being unfair to MYSELF by shutting down my worries prematurely and labeling them as paranoia when he really could feel the way I fear he might? 

To make matters worse, it wasn’t like this always. For the first two weeks, it felt reciprocated to the same intensity, so much so that I even felt confident enough to openly voice my strong feelings for him. He would call every night and talk to me for an hour, tell his friends all about me excitedly, beg me to come over, tell me how much he couldn’t wait to see me, jokingly say we would get married one day because of how well we clicked, and talk 24/7 and flirt constantly. For some reason, it slowed down to what it is now. Was that just an initial buzz that has settled down? Was it real and he has forced himself to act different now? Am I just imagining things completely?

Can anyone relate to this? Or offer advice? Or tell me what to do? I know realistically I should just relax and see where it goes, but it’s such a hard thing to do when the feelings are so intense. Because the longer I let it go on without questioning it, the more I get attached and the deeper I’ll get hurt. Someone please help. Losing my mind. I’ll appreciate you forever for reading all of this and responding even just a few words. 