I  want to tell you how sorry I am that I was not able to appreciate and  accept the love you had for me when you gave it. I want to tell you how  sorry I am for all the ways I rejected you and belittled you when I was  raging. I want to apologize for the ways I screamed and yelled at you  sometimes, the way I would call you in a panic and beg you to come back  to me. I want to apologize for the way my BPD did not allow me to be  soft and gentle with your love and instead always flung it back in your  face like a dagger.

I made things  so terrible that you had no choice. You didn’t storm out in anger,  though, rather you left in a sort of quiet resignation; like what you  had always known would come to pass had finally occurred. I want you to  know that I understand why you did that and I forgive you for it because  I realize now that I was at fault. I want to tell you that I forgive  you for all the ways I thought you failed me because now I see that I  held you to an impossibly high (not to mention imaginary) standard and I  know that it was so unfair of me to do so.

And  mostly I want to tell you that I miss you. Even though I could never  tell you when it really counted, I loved you more than words could  express. You were it for me. My fear of losing someone had never been so  great. And my fear of being shrunken to nothing by you had never been  so great. One could argue we could not have possibly known each other  that well because at that time, I didn’t know myself; I didn’t even have  a ‘self’ and I still struggle with a shifting self-image. So how can  love exist between two people if one of them lacks an identity? I’ve  made slow progress in therapy, but I’m not fully healed and I’m okay  with that.