Dear noname;

“For whatever reason I can’t shake the feeling that I will be alone forever. I struggle to maintain closeness in friendships and can’t find/ choose a good partner. Without love and belonging what is the point? I need to come up with some kind of plan to build relationships  in my life”-

– you are alone, and have been alone pre-pandemic, because that which you need the most (“closeness.. a good partner.. love and belonging.. relationships”), you also fear the most.  It is not that every woman you got involved with was a bad-partner material, but that you intensely feared every woman you got involved with.

I mentioned earlier that at your core there is a fear of separation/ abandonment. That fear keeps you alone. The nature of this fear is the same as what is in the core of Separation Anxiety Disorder. A sentence you wrote yesterday indicates it: “Anytime I’m alone for more than an hour or two with no way to distract myself the despair sets in”. Separation anxiety in earlier life predates the development of Borderline Personality Disorder in young adulthood. You were diagnosed with BPD: “I was diagnosed with BPD as well. I fit the diagnosis very well”, Jan 8.

Your pattern has been to be alone for a long time-> feel very lonely and desperate for a relationship with a woman-> get together with a woman-> rush into intimacy with her-> panic that she is about to abandon you/ that you are about to be destroyed by separation from her-> quickly exit the very beginning relationship any which way.

How can you maintain a relationship when you fear a relationship so intensely, when for you, a relationship= abandonment, pain and devastation.

You mentioned coming up with a plan to build relationships. My input and quotes from Wikipedia: the plan should be based on your BPD diagnosis. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was  developed by Marsha M. Linehan “to help people increase their emotional and cognitive regulation… Linehan developed DBT as a modified form of cognitive behavioral therapy in the late 1980s to treat people with borderline personality disorder…

“DBT has been used by practitioners to treat people with depression, drug and alcohol problems, post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries, binge-eating disorders, and mood disorders.. including self-injury… DBT combines standard cognitive-behavioral techniques for emotion regulation and reality-testing with concepts of distress tolerance, acceptance, and mindful awareness largely derived from contemplated meditative practice… DBT.. is the first therapy that has been experimentally demonstrated to be generally effective in treating BPD”.

anita