I (22M) have BPD and PTSD and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what causes me to feel and acts certain ways and while obviously there is a randomness to it because even completely alone, following the same routine every day I still fluctuate a fair bit, I definitely have had periods where my volatility and emotional instability seem to go off the charts and I think I’ve figured it out. It’s love.

I’ve only ever been in love once in my entire life. I’ve only ever felt loved and cared about once in my entire life. It was with a girl, my best friend at the time, who I fell desperately, hopelessly in love with because she was the first and only person to show me unconditional love and care. Unfortunately she didn’t love me the same way I loved her which also probably contributed to my instability but still, there was a lot of love given and received at that point of my life. 

That was also by far the most chaotic I’ve ever been. I was addicted to alcohol, doing drugs I’d gotten handed by complete strangers, I had my only actual suicide attempt, I was self harming at an alarming rate, I was a complete mess. And it was all because I couldn’t handle loving someone that much or feeling loved by someone despite feeling as if I was constantly proving that I was unworthy of it. 

I don’t know what to do about this. Thankfully I really don’t like most people so the chances of me ever falling in love or being loved again are fairly slim, but still, there’s a part of me that hates to admit it but that really wants to be loved and love someone in return and on the off chance I do ever meet someone like that again and catch myself falling back, what the hell am I supposed to do? My instability is tied to my emotions and love is the most powerful emotion there is, is it even possible for someone like me to experience it without completely falling apart and ruining it for myself like I did last time? At the moment I feel like the answer is to learn to accept the loneliness and abstain from putting someone else through the torture of being close to me like that, is that the responsible thing for someone like me to do?