This is my first time posting in this subreddit, so I apologize if this isn't organized or anything.

I recently learned (2021) that I struggle with BPD. I struggled admitting to myself any of the pain or the true debilitating nature of my BPD, and especially the ways it affects me about romance.

I am not ready for romantic love, which is not to say I don't deserve it (hard to think I do after this), but I am not ready, and I'm willing to admit that now which I wasn't before. I don't think there was a way for me to ever be ready for a relationship. I am 22 years old, and I recognize I have full responsibilities for my actions even if my intentions are different from my actions, but I do not have any of the emotional skills a 22 year old should have. I feel like a child emotionally developmentally speaking, I don't know if that is common but it's the way I feel.

However this conclusion only came to me after a time of crisis. I cheated on this person, we were not officially dating, however we were committed to each other and it was completely my idea to do so, and I spent a lot of effort to break down their walls because I genuinely thought and had the intention that I could be the best person possible for them but I could not be that without helping myself.

My childhood wasn't great, my dad used to be addicted to drugs before I was born and was/is an active alcoholic, I recognize the ways me and my dad are similar but he refused to get help for himself at any point (He's now 60 yo), my mother has put up with my dad's abuse the entire time they've been married, it took me until this week to realize the way my dad treats my mom isn't how any person deserves to be treated. However, my view of love is poisoned because I never got love (or felt it) from people it was supposed to come from. My dad abused me when I was younger and still continues to emotionally abuse me, and did not have any skills to pass onto me to cope with any traumas or illnesses or anything.

Besides that though, I was SA'd multiple times when I was a child from a really early age (between 8-11, I literally cannot remember when it occurred to me at all, which I think was a survival response from my brain, I wish my brain could've just completely blanked out that that happened but I can't. Every time that I should've gotten love from my family I wasn't met with love, and I don't think it's out of genuine want to hurt me or anything just I recognize I don't think my parents should have had me, because the conditions I was raised in weren't conductive to me having a healthy mental state unless I was getting support from a young age which I didn't. I also was groomed on the internet many many times from childhood all the way throughout all of highschool. I fed off the attention of disgusting people because I felt like that is what I deserved, and talking to those people was some of the only forms of attention I was getting as a child.

My intention in telling the above information is not to ask for pity, regardless of how I was treated, I shouldn't have treated this person this way if I truly loved them, because you do not cheat on a person you love. But I couldn't even love them, they were the first person to provide me true genuine love, and I couldn't do anything but reject it. Almost every romantic situation beyond this one went bad for me, I have terrible taste in people and I've continually met people who met me with more trauma. I was always the second option in every situation and I've been cheated on in every situation, which would make me think since it happened to me I would never do it to someone else but I did it to them.   


They have expressed that they want to be with me, like it is a genuine want in their brain however they cannot be with me, and I understand that now (during a 3 hour phone conversation last night I didn't understand this at all, and was just begging for them to stay over and over). They want to be with me, that's what their brain wants however, the conclusion they've come to every time is that they cannot be with me because their paranoia won't allow them to. I am willing to put in all of the work that is required to help them heal from that because I am not capable of hurting them in that way anymore (I know some may not believe me but I can only admit that now knowing I was capable of hurting them before because I had terrible coping mechanisms to deal with that.

They told me to move on, they told me I needed space from them so I could move on, but my brain feels a genuine need to fix this relationship if it's possible, and I am just wondering if it's able to be fixed. I want to love them and think I can be a genuine loving and healthy partner for them I just needed therapy in order to process all of my traumas. I don't think I am saying something wrong in saying that, but regardless of how I feel now, and my desire to be a better person, the overwhelming thought in their brain is me hurting them and I just don't know if I can ever fix that. So I am asking for perspective.  


I apologize for this being really really long but for anyone who reads all of this even if you don't offer advice thank you.