I know that we with BPD are more sensitive than others, sometimes we just take things the wrong way or badly, that's our burden to learn to cope with- but there are times when people will actually try to take away some of our worth, our self esteem and our confidence. I have been in a series of relationships, some were lovely, some were not, some were just the normal type of relationship- some were more on the darker side. I just want to remind people here that no one, not even your parents, has a right to steal some of your shine or to make you feel worthless. No one has a right to say things like 'you're crazy' 'you're sick' 'you're stupid' 'you would be lucky to find another who would put up with your shit' 'you're incapable' 'you're attention seeking' 'you're a slut' 'you should be in a hospital' ....no. I was in relationships where the worst thing I had been told by a boyfriend was that I was treating him 'unfairly' and I was 'impatient' and those two things were fine, because they didn't attack my character. But then I was in a relationship where I was told all of the above at different stages. The first time I was told I was 'crazy' I just ignored it, thinking it was just something stupid they were saying in anger- until I started hearing it more and more often. Then came the other accusations, sometimes more subtle. 'You need to get a job, it's ridiculous at your age to never have had a job' when I had my own path, my path was to focus 100% on my studies and I didn't have time for a job. Then when I got a job, I was just not able to keep it and it hurt me more than it should have because I had been told that it's 'ridiculous' to not have a job at my age. So a chip of my self esteem got scraped off. Then when I actually did go into depression and had to take time off, I felt even worse than I should have because I was told by the person who claimed to love me, that I was 'crazy' and 'attention seeking' and so came the guilt and another chip of my self esteem fell off. 

Then I was dumped, by the same person who said that I'd be 'lucky' to find another person who would put up with my 'shit' and then I felt even worse than I should have, again. 

You see, words creep up on you at different moments. Just because you can brush it off in the moment, doesn't mean that it doesn't come back to haunt you at a later time. Having BPD is hard enough, the best thing we can do for ourselves is always respect ourselves, notice what people are saying to us, notice how it feels and if it hurts. 
I wasn't hurt the first time I was called  'a piece of shit' because I was having a breakdown on alcohol and the words just shocked me but didn't seep in until much later when I started to wonder about them, why they were said, if they had any merit. That same person also told me that I had 'shown them what love really was' and that they 'loved me' and told others that they 'couldn't imagine their life without me' so then, what about that time they said I was a 'piece of shit', did they mean it? Was I? .....Am I?
People say things in anger- but no one has the right to actually attack who you are. You can say 'fuck you' or 'you're acting like a bully!' because the word 'acting' implies that they are not usually like that. 

The hardest thing is when you fall in love who makes you feel on top of the world sometimes and also makes you feel like you belong in a ditch sometimes. And the thing about it all is, even after they leave, which they probably will, you're left wondering about everything... not just about the relationship-but about yourself. Them leaving just makes you feel everything terrible they ever said to you might just be true, and that leaves scars that take a long time to heal.

Even if you're in the wrong, no one has the right to make you question your worth. You can forgive someone for hurting you in that way if you cheated on them, but even with that, you shouldn't take that kind of treatment. Because it sticks, it sticks long after they're gone. And that's not what love is, and just because you have a mental illness doesn't mean you have to or even are capable of taking and handling that form of punishment. I just realised that fully tonight when I realised that for a long time now, my confidence, my smile, has faded all due to a relationship I had once where I thought it was love, but instead of just feeling sad that it's ended but happy that I had it or anything- I just feel like I went into it more full than I came out of it, and I suspect that's not what real love does. And I don't mean it in a kind of sorrowful way where I'm so sad they're gone, I mean it in the sense that I have questioned my value far too much since it ended and I didn't do that before I went into it. So now I know that I will never let anyone steal my smile, I will never let anyone tell me how to be or how not to be or attack my worth, even if that person also gives me butterflies and makes me happy a lot. 