Hey BPD,

I just wanted to see if anyone else does this.

I was recently diagnosed and have been seeing life through a completely different lens (thanks to a mood stabilizer and generally having a diagnosis to help frame things). My family is basically two families smushed together. When I was a kid, I was best friends with a kid, whose mom in turn became my mom's best friend and we've all been one "super-family" ever since.

I've always been the black sheep of this "super-family" since the age of 20 or so. I'm 32 now. I keep putting "super-family" in quotation marks because they're only super in size, not behavior. They're quite riddled with problematic behavior. Both sides of it adhere STRICTLY to the unspoken family rules of "Don't rock the family boat for any reason," and if you do, you're the weirdo/problem/bad guy. They're the typical "We don't talk about unpleasant things" kind of people.  

I honestly think it took me so long to get a diagnosis because of these multiple times a year gaslighting fests. "Am I overreacting?", "If dad shoots the shit with someone and ropes you into the conversations, acting like you weren't just in a screaming match a week ago, am I supposed to pretend we're okay?", "If my uncle starts talking about his incredibly flawed political beliefs, am I supposed to just smile and not and not interject?" Well, if I don't just shut up, guess who gets the hushed "talking to"? Just guess. I'll give you two tries.

I chose not to do it this year because god damn, I do not want to play "BPD or Gaslighting". I am in no way shape or form interested in that. I'm wondering how many of us here have this issue, and if so, how much more complicated does it make coping with BPD?

I will add though.... I'm really lonely right now, but I know that loneliness would absolutely not be sated if I went to this thing today.