To The Person Who Left Me Because of My BPD

When I told you my secret, I was scared.

I knew the stigmas I could face, but still I trusted you. You should have considered yourself lucky. My trust is so rarely given, but there I was, open and vulnerable, trying to break my unhealthy patterns, trying to be honest enough to tell you…

I have Borderline Personality Disorder.

To my relief, you didn’t run. That was a good start.

I wondered if I could let my guard down more. Maybe, just maybe, you could accept me as I am, for all my good and for all my flaws. You told me things I wanted to hear. You said I deserved to be treated well. You said I could be open with you. You said you would listen whenever I was struggling.

But then I actually had a moment where I struggled. It was a low moment, a hard moment, a vulnerable moment, and the most ironic moment of all. I panicked and you saw me falling. I thought you would catch me. You’d told me you would, but you just turned away and left me to fall. It’s ironic how the moment where I struggled the most with the fear of you leaving turned into the moment where you actually left.

I think that’s one of the hardest things about having BPD. There’s this fear of abandonment, and you fear it so much and so intensely, that it ends up becoming reality.

It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy, but in the most painful and negative way.

You wonder if you’re too much for your loved ones to keep caring for you, and then you actually hear those words come out of their mouth, and they hurt a hundred times worse than you’d imagined in your mind.

There’s something different looking back on it now though. A good friend told me to look at everything in life as a learning experience. He said a turning point in his life was when he started looking at why things happened. That was what reminded me of a younger, slightly naive, but much more positive, and far less anxious me.

That younger me believed in dreams. She used to say that everything happens for a reason. She encouraged her loved ones when they were down, and she smiled and found joy in the toughest moments of her life.

So, maybe you’re gone now, and maybe it still hurts, but I think I’ve finally learned what I needed to take from our time together. I could have dwelled on the fact that you left me only because you didn’t want to deal with my BPD, but I know better than that now.

You can choose to walk away from living with BPD, but I’m not going to do that.

I once thought I could walk away from my problems and end it all, but for me, walking away isn’t an option anymore. I’ve fallen and hit rock bottom enough times to know that there’s always a way out of the hole and that there’s always a reason to keep fighting.

I know that I can walk with my BPD, and that I am stronger for it.

I’m not broken because I struggle with a mental illness. I’m a warrior because, unlike you, I’m not walking away from it, and that has made all the difference.