My thoughts: I think that you and him share #1, 3 and 5: you both fear abandonment, you both feel empty, and you both don’t have a strong sense of identity. Also, neither one of you has a history of healthy intimate relationships.

Yes, I agree with that. I am only a bit more succesfull than him to make myself distract with work and social media, so I seem to be in a better condition than him. But you’re totally right.

1. Regarding BPD you/ he can look up Emotional Regulation Skills– there are online resources as well as books, maybe workbooks as well. Key for a person who cannot regulate his emotions is to learn and practice these skills over a long period of time. It can be done successfully.

I’ll read about it and I’ll try to send him notes, quotes and effect him in general. We have two different books about depression in general, but since he read too much in the past, he doesn’t believe that they would work. So he doesn’t read them. Although, I’ve started but didn’t keep going so we’re both to blame. I learned that this only gets better when one practice every day and every moment. There is going to be some relapses of course, but we have to resist them and keep practising. Your observations sound so true to me.