Why Love Is Different For Me
Love is a many, splendored thing.
As a woman, I experience love in typical ways. But as a woman with borderline personality disorder, I experience love differently than other people.
Borderline personality disorder is a mental disorder characterized by unstable moods, relationships, and behavior. It is a mental disorder that makes it difficult for me to regulate my emotions and express them in healthy ways.
I know this definition sounds negative, but it isn't always that way; I experience all the same emotions as the regular person, I just experience them differently.
For example, when I should be experiencing anger, I can experience straight rage instead. And when I should be experiencing love, I can experience infatuation instead. My emotions are either felt in a stronger way than most people experience, and though this can be bad, it can also be very, very good.
My BPD makes me a very passionate and emotionally sensitive person. Because of this, my feelings are easily hurt or intensified. I can be easily offended and easily brought down, but I can also be easily delighted and flattered.
This used to be an issue for me in romantic relationships. My partner would do or say something that should of either complimented me or bothered me, and because of my BPD, I would take what my partner did or said and either be overly delighted or overly offended. I say that this used to be an issue because I have worked really hard to keep my emotions and reactions to triggers in check.
Instead of letting my emotions be strictly in black or white, I've allowed myself to find the grey area. I've allowed myself to not just love or hate, and have allowed myself to feel every emotion in between in a realistic and healthy way.
Whenever I would meet someone that I had a romantic interest in, I used to fall in love almost immediately. It was as if my brain and my heart complete skipped the "like" emotion and flew straight to love. This is in the past, as I know how to slow my heart and my brain down and know how to experience being interested in someone, liking someone, caring for someone, and eventually loving someone.
Love is different for me because I feel it more strongly than other people. I am an empath because of my BPD, so when I feel love from someone else, I pick up on it and reciprocate it in ways that may come off as too strong.
I've reigned it in, and am determined not to come off that way toward my next partner. I will think before I speak and act, I will weigh our relationship and where it stands before using the 'L' word, I will not let myself fall too hard or too fast, and I will take things slow and protect my heart.
My BPD makes feeling love a different experience for me, and sometimes that can be good and sometimes that can be bad. I am hoping the bad experiences brought on by my BPD are in my past, and hope that in the future, I can use my BPD and how it changes my emotions to my advantage.
I enjoy loving passionately and intensely, but I do not care for that being one sided in a relationship. In my next romantic relationship, I will make sure that the passion and intense love I feel is mutual before I voice it or act upon it. I want my next relationship to be my last, and I will not let my BPD jeopardize that for me again.
