Dear lil.lily:

I will read and reply to you in about 11 hours from now.

anita

Dear lil.lily:

First I will summarize, with quotes, what you shared in your previous threads: the first seven were posted before I became a member here (May 2015).

In March and April 2014 (first thread), at 22 years old, you shared that you are “very out-going and friendly”, had a three years relationship with a man you were engaged to before the relationship ended. You were “broken hearted and depressed.. fell rock bottom”, but realized that he did not treat you well. Later, you studied abroad in the University of Amsterdam for 6 months and “gained a lot of European friends”, “met a lot of European men”, and enjoyed your  life in Europe. Four months into your stay in Amsterdam, you met a 26 year old Dutch guy, “and things got heated.. we became in love… never had this feeling with anyone.. It was very intimate”. When it was time for you to leave Amsterdam, he told you that you should stay longer, but you left in January 2014, telling each other that you will “keep in touch and see each other soon”. Back in the California, the two of you talked, skyped and planned to see each other in the summer of 2014, but by Spring of 2014, he seemed to have lost interest. Still, you were planning to fly back to Amsterdam in June 2014, stay there for a month, visit him and the friends you made there. You felt strongly at the time that Amsterdam is your home.  You wrote regarding the Dutch guy: “the feeling that I shared with him is special. I met him for a reason.. and that’s why I have to follow my heart. and show him that I do love him”.

In August 2014 (second thread), you shared that you did visit Amsterdam again, only not in June but in May. During the four weeks of your visit, the two of you “ended up getting back together and getting the love groove on”. Before you returned to California, you suggested to “keep an open relationship”, and he agreed. At the time you were working part-time, volunteering in a non-profit organization, active with friends and “a lot of extra activities”, and almost done with school, expecting to get your BA degree at the end of the year.

But then, something happened in regard to the Dutch guy: “I freaked out on him, and had a meltdown.. he hasn’t spoken a word to me… I think I might have scared him off.. I have apologized, called and messaged.. nothing.. he never answers”, and yet, you were planning on visiting Amsterdam again at the end of 2014. Later, you wrote that you lost your patience and hope and were done contacting him.

On the same month, August 2014 (third thread), you shared that you spoke to an ex-boyfriend online, that you don’t love him anymore, that he is a liar who emotionally abused you. You were angry at him.

In August and September 2014 (fourth thread), you shared that for some time, you “have been feeling anxiety and depression”, that you lost the Dutch guy, that you were still an undergraduate student, expecting your BA degree in Human Development at the end of the year, that you are a president of an association, of a project, and volunteering, as well as working part-time as a hostess; you hang out with friends, go to the beach, paint, work out, being “very active”, and even though you are so very active, living in a beautiful place (San Diego),  having  visited 16 countries, you feel “depressed all the time.. so stuck between the past, and the future.. I wake up. and feel like crap… Why do I feel this way when I know my life is good, and I have everything that most people do not have”, you asked.

You wrote that  life feels mundane, that you “feel incredibly lonely”, and you “want more of life”, “to have an adventurous life, where my life doesn’t feel mundane”, “like life is such a routine.. feeling so robotic in this routine life”, you thought about doing your masters “in a different country, maybe back in Europe again and feel that incredible happiness”; you wanted to “feel happy and wake up loving life all the time”.

In October 2014 (your fifth thread), you shared that you are an Asian American 22 year old, undergrad student, expecting to get your BA degree by Spring of 2015, that a lot of the time, you cannot keep your mind still, that you are “always over thinking.. ahead of myself. Always dealing with the past and the future”. You shred that after you get your degree, you plan on studying the GRE (Graduate Record Examination, a standardized test which is an admission requirement for many graduate schools in the United States and Canada), and get into a Public Health Program, then some time later, move back to Europe, where you “feel home”. You wrote: “I feel so lonely.. Love isn’t working out for my position. I want it so badly but I don’t see it coming my way. I then think.. is there something wrong with me?” You shared that you had an internship in Wash DC Jan-May 2015, and that you were “excited to get away from California and have a new experience”, and you added: “I am scared to be alone.. I just have to learn to be patient and not cry so much about it”.

In December 2014 (your sixth thread), you shared that you just graduated with a BA in Human Development and a minor in political science, and that you “feel so alone…. I currently live in San Diego.. and I feel so lonely here.. so lonely.. so overwhelmed and alone. Most of the time, I ask myself.. why can’t I just be content, why can’t I find love?.. why does it feel so lonely”, that “being done with undergrad is such a scary thing” , that you planned to visit Amsterdam before going to Wash .C., and that after your internship in Wash D.C., you were planning to find an entry-level job there, and that you were planning to apply to school for a maser’s program, then back to Europe.

In April 2015 (your seventh thread), you shared that you were in Wash D.C., an intern at the Capitol, and that the Dutch guy broke up with you. In Wash D.C., you met a man two years younger than you: “We clicked immediately, and we are very intimate with one another.. and suddenly we were seeing each other more frequently, and he showed his eagerness by texting and coming to see me”, and too soon after, he told you that he can’t see you anymore.

In May 2015 (your eighth thread), you shared that your internship program in Wash D.C. ended and that you were still there, having applied to “soo many jobs, and networked here and there”, planning on working for a temp agency until you find a full-time job,  and you shared that you “also want to work for Development and work in the field for a developing country”, planning on going to Jamaica for a five days vacation, and feeling “alone all the time.. I go on dates, and meet people.. but I don’t feel fulfilled.. I feel like sh**…  I am so high strung, my back hurts, I am frustrated and all I want to do is cry… I am depressed.. I just want to sleep all day”.

In July 2015 (your ninth thread), you shared that at the time, you were a part-time and unpaid development intern for a mental health organization, that you were studying to take the GRE in August, that you were waiting tables so to be able to travel to Japan and Brazil in Dec, that you went to three job interviews, still trying to get an entry-level job in your field,  that you wanted to join the MPH (Master in Public Health) program with the Peace Corps, that for that purpose, you went to a Grad Fair at GWU (George Washington University in Wash D.C.) for MPH, and to a Peace Corps Reception, and you wrote: “I have been feeling this dark energy, the dark soul with me. Its when I feel so angry, sad, emotional.. I can’t get out of it. I have felt this way before many times.. the past days I was content, and then I am back to this feeling… I feel lonely… Love.. is something that I could never conquer.. I want love”.

I replied to you on that thread, addressing you: “Dear lil.lily.. When your hope for happiness is in LATER, some OTHER place, some OTHER time, when this happens or that, obviously you are left with dark energy. When the light is ELSEWHERE, then the darkness is where you are”.

In December 2015 (your tenth thread), you shared that your family is in California, Manila and Tokyo, that you are a “California Native.. half Japanese/ Filipino American”, that you were working at the time “full time as a medical secretary”, volunteering once a week, and “attend church as a new Christian believer”, that you are “young, creative, outgoing, full  of energy, traveler, thriller-seeker”, that you “think too much… overwhelmed and sleepless”, that you “seek too much pleasure.. shows, traveling, sex, men, drinking, smoking etc etc”, that you’ve been hooking up with a friend “once a week for 3 months”, and feeling “so aggravated over the fact that.. I cannot establish anything with him. He shows passion only when he wants to have sex. Most of the time, men think of me as a sexual  object.. I just want a companion.. and every time I had that, it always seem to dwindle”, about life in Wash D.C., you wrote: “Everyone works hard here… but there is no.. motion, no warmth. No compassion.. Sometimes, I think.. that the desire for a companion is out of sight… I do not ask for that much, but someone who I can just spend time with, and share my experiences with.. what if.. I could never find a companion”.

In that thread, I wrote to you: “Dear lil.lily.. When you wrote: ‘no.. motion, no warmth. No compassion’ (in Wash DC) I think there was no warmth or compassion for YOU in the home of your childhood.. Do you think that your childhood was lonely..?”. You replied to me another member, but you did not address what I wrote to you, nor did you answer my question. I posted you again, asking you if you addressed your childhood, and you answered me: “I was very observant when I was a child. I clearly remember a lot of things about my childhood. I am not too sure what you are asking me Anita.. I had quite a lot of tantrums as a child, but very observant”- you did not elaborate on what you observed when you were a child, on what you remember about your childhood, or about those tantrums.

Next, I asked you: “as a child, did you feel overall liked, approved of, accepted, safe? When you were troubled, did you have a person to reach out to and receive the understanding, empathy and comfort that you needed..?”- but you did not reply to me further.

In February 2016 (your eleventh thread), you shared that your interpretation of a good life is a life aimed at the following: (1) to “Live and cherish every moment.. Vivre du moment.. each moment is unique and different”,(2) “to give love every where you go… To give love, is a special thing”,(3) to “Help out others in small ways”,(4) to “Create and produce something for humanity and for the world… as an artist, I feel the need to produce art, whether it’s painting or photography, or cooking a simple meal. My creative mind keeps me going… if I can’t create, then I don’t feel human. Art.. keeps me sane”,(5) to “travel and experience new surroundings, culture, and people.. for as long as I live.. Observe people’s behaviors. And.. learn about myself, and get inspired (artist way of thinking)”,(6) to “Learn, keep learning, but use knowledge as a tool to understand and be open-minded”,(7) to “Stay humble.. to let go of anger and stay content.. I was very angry and very tempered for a very long time. Now.. I take a step back and say..gotta stay humble.. content, at ease, and at peace”, (8) to “Acknowledge people and learn from them”, (9) to “Stay true to Myself.. and understand who I am”.

In September 2016 (your 12th thread), you quoted two proverbs: “Fortune and misfortune are two buckets in the same well”, and “Good fortune and evil fortune come to all things in this world of time”, and you asked for help in “trying to find deeper meanings to these two proverbs in relation t chance, and luck”.

In June 2020 (your 13th thread), you shared for the first time that you suffer from BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder),that you live in Chicago, and that you “met a guy, PhD candidate in the midst of this Covid19 pandemic”, both just out of relationships. “But, he is angrier. I learned to stop being angry because it has afflicted my past relationships”. At first, the two of you chatted every day and saw each other a few times a week, then “Suddenly, we only saw each other once a week”. When he lashed out on you, you withdrew, “let it cool off”. At times he told you that he loved you, then “it changes so quickly”, and he criticized you, judged you and made fun of you. One day you worked from home a this place and he was making kits for protests (during the summer U.S. civil unrest). At one point, he expressed anger/ jealously over you having male friends, and at another point, he raised his voice and told you: “you know what, get out of here”. Your response: “I silently picked up my things and tried to give  him a hug and thanked him for dinner. His response: “He goes, ‘no, don’t touch me'”, and as you took a Lyft, he ended the relationship with you, saying: “We are not meant for each other.. we’re incompatible”. You wrote: he gives me such mixed emotions.. I lost him, and I don’t understand why he is so angry at me. What did I do?… I’m just open, approachable, and friendly. Did he take it the wrong way?”

In December 2020, (your 14th thread), you shared that you are a full-time nursing student and working part time. You wrote: “I did it again. I ruined a friendship with a friend because I lashed out. Every time I get too close to someone, I become vulnerable, and my anxious attachment style bleeds out”.

You shared that you met a man on online dating, hung out for two months last year, in May 2020, he reached out to you. You moved to a new apartment and he offered to help you move. The two  of you hung out once a week, “At first, I didn’t have any feelings for him. He would do whatever I wanted to do. We rode our bikes.. played chess.. I had other men in my life and never closely looked at him in that way”, but there were sleepovers, and it “became more intimate”. He told you that he was worried about you because you were “always stressed out”, “I am known to be high-strung and stressed out”.

“We spoke about our mental disorders (anxiety, depression) I told him about my BPD… Suddenly, I began to get upset with him.. We argued.. Another time.. I asked him about our status. He said he didn’t see me as a romantic type.. I asked him if he had feelings for me. He said, ‘not as strong feelings that you have.’..

“After Thanksgiving, I freaked out on him. I felt that he felt distant.. My fury started, I couldn’t control it… I said, ‘I hated him, f** you, etc..’ I tried to incite him, try to get a response. He was ignoring me. Until I went out of control, biting, spitting out slurs… I felt that he used me.. I just felt unvalued”.

Later, you apologized, “I told him that this was not me, the BPD isn’t me.. I’ve been hurting myself (crying and drinking).. I ruined it, he probably thinks I’m crazy… why couldn’t I just be okay with what we had, casually?.. I feel used, played, betrayed, hurt.. I want to.. wish him good luck, and give his x-mas present… I do therapy, but I’m not sure if it’s benefiting me yet. I always ruin my relationships, because I get needy. I don’t understand. How do I stop ruining my relationships, why does it have to be a cycle?”

*** The second part of my input will include my best understanding of what you shared. I re-told what you shared (above) because it helps me process information when I do that, a process that took me more than four hours today.

I will be able to work on this second part tomorrow morning. For now, I want to let you know that I was diagnosed with BPD myself in 2011, and suspected long before that I indeed fit that diagnosis. I no longer fit it-  to my surprise, I found out from my personal experience, that a personality disorder does not have to last a lifetime.

I will be back to your thread in about 17 hours from now.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by .

Dear lil.lily:

You added yesterday that your former therapist diagnosed you a year ago “with BPD traits”- my comment: this means to me that she did not diagnose you with the disorder (Borderline Personality Disorder, BPD) because although you fit some of what is required to make this diagnosis, you didn’t fit all the requirements for this diagnosis. This makes sense to me because after reading your 14 threads yesterday, I didn’t see evidence that you suffer from BPD.  I will keep in mind that you suffer from traits of the disorder, but not from all the necessary traits that are required to make the diagnosis.

About your childhood, you shared that when you were 5 or 6, your parents separated and your mother moved to the U.S. to work, leaving you behind with your aunt until you were 9. My comment on this piece of information is that a young child being left by her mother for three or four years- without being provided with a lot of emotional support to substitute for the mother being gone- would severely traumatize any child.

You wrote about this traumatic happening in your young life: “I didn’t know till recently, a year ago that it made an impact in my life”. A year ago (2019), at 27 or 28,  you had no idea that you were impacted by the separation from your mother. It will take time and work for you to become more and more aware of the undeniable fact that you were indeed impacted, and in what ways you were impacted.

Your father has been living in a different country and has not been part of your life. On the other hand, you were reunited with your mother at 9 years old (?), but “mom worked a lot… I was left alone, met a lot of friends, was very social… my family was always apart or working”.

You wrote: “So my BDP manifests every time I get triggered (abandoned, betrayal, feeling uncared) the black and white thinking. I would always ask myself ‘Why would they do that?… There is this empty feeling that comes back and forth”- I assume it was a typo and you meant BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), not BDP-

– this quote suggests to me that as a child, having been left behind by your mother, and your father being out of your life, at five or six, all the way to nine- you felt abandoned, betrayed and uncared for; you felt a chronic painful emptiness: a chronic unsatisfied need to be reunited with your mother, to be cared for.

The child that you were asked herself again and again: why did they leave me behind, why would they do that to me???

And when you were re-united with your mother, the chronic emptiness remained because she worked a lot and therefore.. you were still left behind, alone. Being “very social” as a child and onward did not fill in that chronic emptiness.

You mentioned a more recent event involving your mother: “a verbal fight in the car with my mother. I jumped out of the car because she kept telling me to just ‘get over it'”- maybe, just maybe this was her attitude when you reunited with her at 9: just get over the last 3-4 years and act like those years (years that feel like an eternity in a young child’s experience) never happened.

I will now read my summary from yesterday, incorporating what you shared most recently into parts of the summary and continue to add my comments:

In your first thread, March-April 2014, you were 22. At the time you were not aware that having been left behind by your mother for what seemed like eternity had any effect on your mind and heart. You viewed yourself as very outgoing and friendly. It is now clear to me that this outgoing and friendly girl/ woman is chronically empty: you are friendly, having a normal, healthy need to connect to other people, but your overly active social efforts have been fueled by the fear of being alone, and feeling so dreadfully empty and lonely, by you wanting to not feel that dreadful, chronic emptiness.

Regarding the Dutch man you were involved with, you “never had this feeling with anyone.. It was very intimate”- you did not feel that emptiness with him temporarily.

You felt strongly that Amsterdam was your home.. because San Diego, living with or around your mother- was/ is not home; it is not where you feel connected, safe and warm.

In August 2014- Sept 2014,  still unaware that having been left behind by your mother, for what felt like eternity, had any effect on your mind and heart, you shared that you’ve been anxious and depressed, “I wake up and feel like crap”- when we have crappy childhoods, as adults-we keep experiencing the same crappy emotional experience. Biochemically, this happens as a result of the brain secreting the same chemicals as it did in childhood, having formed a chemical habit that produces these crappy feelings.

You asked at the time: “Why do I feel this way when I know my life is good, and I have everything that most people do not have?”- my answer today is that you feel this way because your life was not good when you were a child, that when you were a child you did not have a mother to love you and make you feel cared for, safe and connected. Your brain operates now in the ways it was formed during those formative years of childhood.

You shared: “I feel incredibly lonely.. want more of life.. where my life doesn’t feel mundane.. such a routine.. feeling so robotic in this routine life”- a human is a social animal, without adequate connections with others, we don’t feel humans; we feel robotic, like a machine. It is the connecting with others that makes us alive. It is the same with other social animals.

A month later, in Oct 2014, still 22, you shared that you are “always over thinking.. ahead of myself”- that’s you rushing ahead of that chronic emptiness, afraid of feeling it, not wanting to feel it, eager to feel something else.

You were “excited to get away from California and have a new experience” in Wash DC- similar to being excited about Amsterdam and Europe otherwise- wanting to get away from that emptiness with your mother, an emptiness that was within you ever since she left you behind at 5 or 6. But the chronic emptiness persists wherever you go, being relieved only temporarily, at times.

“I am scared to be alone”, you wrote in October 2014. Two months later, Dec 2014, you wrote: “I feel so alone.. I currently live in San Diego.. and I feel so lonely here.. so overwhelmed and alone”- this is how you felt living with/ around your mother, same as you felt from the time she left you behind 16 or 17 years earlier. You asked: “why does it feel so lonely?”- my answer: because that’s how you felt for 16-17 years, and your brain got in the chemical habit of feeling so lonely.

Four months later, in April 2015, you shared that you were living in Wash D.C. and met a man there, clicked immediately, were “very intimate with one another”, and then he broke up with you. A month later, May 2015, you shared that you felt “alone all the time.. not fulfilled.. feel like sh**.. depressed”, even though you “go on dates, and meet people”- you were meeting people but the chronic emptiness did not go away. At times, temporarily you got a break from it, but it’s been within you ever since childhood.

Three months later, in July 2015, you shared that you felt “this dark energy, the dark soul with me”- that’s the chronic emptiness, the chronic loneliness. “the past days I was content, and then I am back to this feeling.. lonely”- the feeling is always there, it’s just that sometimes you get a break from being aware of it.

Five months later, Dec 2015, you described yourself as a “young, creative, outgoing, full of energy, traveler, thriller-seeker” who thinks too much and is “overwhelmed and sleepless”, seeking “too much pleasure.. shows, traveling, sex,  men, drinking, smoking, etc. etc.”- what all this indicates to me is that you being outgoing and very active socially is about escaping that chronic emptiness, not wanting to feel it, seeking thrills so to.. sort of overcome the emptiness, kill it with excitement, newness and thrill.

Two months later, Feb 2016, at about 24, you shared that you interpret a good life to be one where you “live and cherish every moment.. each moment is unique and different”- when stuck in a crappy childhood, a person cannot experience anything for long but that crappy childhood. To experience something new, a person has to heal from that crappy childhood.

You interpreted a good life as one where you learn about yourself, “keep learning.. use knowledge as a tool to understand and be open-minded… understand who I am”- learning about that chronic emptiness, how it came about, will help you in the process of healing from it. Emotional healing and learning about yourself/ understanding who you are are synonymous terms.

About your experience in Wash D.C., you wrote: “there is no.. motion, no warmth. No compassion”= your experience as a child, left behind, it felt robotic, mundane= no motion; it felt cold= no warmth; you felt no compassion from your aunt (?), all alone.

More than four years later, June 2020, at 28, you shared that you live in Chicago, and you shared for the first time that you suffer from BPD (traits).

Six months later, December 2020, you shared that you lashed out at a friend, ruining a friendship yet again, that you have an anxious attachment style that bleeds out whenever you “get too close to someone”.

More of my thoughts and comments: you mentioned emptiness and I repeatedly mentioned chronic emptiness, which is a core characteristic of  BPD. What I mean by  chronic emptiness born in childhood is that in that lack of the most needed experience of being attended to with love and care- a most powerful longing is born, a craving so strong, so lasting. This craving is sometimes quiet but too often it is like a noisy, powerful hurricane, destroying the inside and the outside in its desire to find love, and its anger at not finding it.

Six  months ago, June 2020, you described yourself this way: “I’m just open, approachable, and friendly”- when the storm is quiet, I imagine.

But when you get angry, the storm is on: “My fury started, I couldn’t control it.. I said, ‘I hate him, f** you, etc.. I tried to incite him, try to get a response. He was ignoring me. Until I went out of control, biting, spitting out slurs”. Later, you apologized to him, telling him: “this was not me, the BPD isn’t me”-

– But the anger is yours. Your anger is not a bad emotion, as no emotion is bad. Your anger is valid and it carries a valid message: that you should not have been left behind by your mother, and by your father; that one of them, or both, should have been there for you, attending t you with love and care.

Healing will take attending to your anger with respect, and in so doing, mindfully and on an ongoing basis, containing it so that it does not develop into a destructive hurricane, taking you (and others) by surprise. Learning and practicing assertive skills will be part of this containment.

Healing will also take choosing responsibly who you get involved with. Just because you suffer from your own internal hurricane does not mean that other people, men you meet, do not have their own hurricanes that can destroy you.

Because you believe still (?) that “most of the time, men think of me as a sexual object”, to heal, you will need to see to  it that you do not get involved with a man sexually unless you know that the man values you as a person, as a whole human being;  not as an object.

anita

Dear lil.lily:

You are very welcome. I will  be able to read and reply to your recent posts (and any that you may add before I return) in a about 16 hours from now.

anita

Dear lil.lily:

A year and 2 months later, are you reading this, by any chance? If you do, how are you???

anita