So after learning about Quiet BPD for the first time, some of these details really resonate with me. I mostly have my addictive/impulsive behaviors in check at this point (took a while, in my late 30s now), but I also tend to move them around. So if I binge eat for a few days I’ll then switch it to binge drinking and then switch to risky behavior and then switch to something else with nobody knowing. It’s usually never more than a few days or a week of one or the other at an intensely unhealthy level.

Extended periods of extreme emptiness, and desperate attempts to fill that void. 

But the anger is one in particular that I identify with. I don’t directly act out on it, but if I’m being honest, I catch myself really hating on my SO. I absolutely hate them periodically, and it’s (mostly) disproportionate to anything they’re doing. It’s probably carryover from the same shit with my folks, this residual pent up rage and anger, that I don’t know what to do with because what good does it do now, but it’s still there. And then it comes out as passive aggression. Shutting down. Not talking. Being excessively sarcastic. Fuck this person. Fuck them. I don’t fucking need them. I don’t want to be around them. But I need someone. 

Another piece of the challenge here is that my SO is extremely timid and polite. Excessively polite, even when it's just the two of us, which annoys me to no end. It’s distancing and it feels cold and amplifies my own unrest and guilt and I wind up thinking, “They can’t handle any of this!” I just wish they’d take charge or start a fight or lean in somehow.

And I know it’s not their responsibility, but you’d think that after two years of living together a couple would be more in tune with what each other needs. I feel like I manage to rise up and be available when they need it. Yet when I’m sinking it’s like they get super uncomfortable and then they need to be the one taken care of. Sometimes I think that if I got hit by a car and I was lying lifeless in the street, they’d look at me and ask what they should do.

I feel like an alien 40% of the time with them, not remotely home. And I can’t tell how much of it is my shit versus how much is legitimate. And if at a certain point it doesn’t matter.

I realize there are (at least) two parts. One is my relationship, and the other is just me. I’ve had several relationships, I’m not getting any younger. Is it just going to be the same shit with whoever I’m with? I’ve been trying to make this work for a while (therapy, meds) but either I’m doing the wrong things, or it’s just not doable.

Mostly venting, but figured some of y’all might recognize things and have insight.