#bpd + alexithymia

[borderline-culture-is]

questioning bpd + alexithymia culture is not knowing whether you experience mood swings/intense emotions because apart from them being internalized you also can't even tell what/if you're feeling most of the time

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[confusion-x-central]

me : "I don't think I actually have BPD because my emotions aren't really that intense. Like, I hardly feel anything ever."

also me : *had a full meltdown and was on the verge of unaliving after my family laughed more at my aunt's card than mine in a game of Cards Against Humanity*

[nova-alien-rants]

sometimes it can be really fucking scary to achieve the things you've always wanted.

i think i need to put this out there not just for myself, but for anyone else who may be having a hard time coping with change in their lives, even if it's for the greater good.

this past wednesday was genuinely a really hard day for me. like, really really fucking hard. one of my best and oldest friend bailed on me along with her entire family which i considered to be my own, my parents acted disgusting toward my brother and tried pulling the same shit on me, i came back to my dorm after 40 minutes of driving to discover someone came into my room and touched my shit, and then had some stupid freshman act like a brat when i brought it up to the RAs. i haven't felt as low in a LONG time as i did by the end of that day.

but while i was driving back to campus, feeling completely alone and like i had no one to talk to, my grandparents ended up calling just to chat. i was crying so hard that i couldn't stop myself and spilled everything that had happened to me that day, and to my surprise, they were... really nice. they comforted me and even offered for me to move in with them once they get settled in their new house. i told them i felt really worried about how my parents would take the news of me moving, but my grandma said not to worry about that and she'll take care of it. for once i'm actually glad the people in this family are crazy.

all i've ever dreamed about for as long as i can remember is getting away from my parents. no longer living with them, no longer being controlled by them, no longer being physically and mentally broken down by them. my life goal has been to break free from my parents permanently. not a career, not material possessions, none of those things can ever come close to that goal. but now that it's happening, i'm filled with a kind of fear i've never experienced. there's so much uncertainty about literally everything in my life now.

will this thing with my grandparents' house even work out? how will my parents react to it? how am i going to manage to move all my shit into my grandparents' house even if i am able to stay there? what will happen when next semester starts? if i move in with my grandparents, my parents will cut me off financially and i won't have any help paying for my university tuition and/or housing. how will i finish my degree? how will i be able to afford going to graduate school? how will i pay for my medical bills?

i know in time all of these questions will become trivial, and i'll be able to look back eventually and be able to laugh about the fact that i was ever worried. the universe always works in my favor, even if i can't see it at the time. things always seem to have a funny way of working out but it's scary in the moment to not know what's going to happen. i'm a person who desperately craves stability and concrete plans in order to function, so all this uncertainty is... a lot to deal with.

but i think all this is happening so i can shed my old life and start another chapter in which i can finally heal for good and stay that way. even if our old lives suck, we can get used to them anyway and changing them can be absolutely terrifying. i think that's why leaving one's comfort zone can feel so hard. we don't know what to expect, so how are we supposed to protect ourselves in the event that something goes wrong? but i've come to believe that things don't go wrong, they simply don't go the way we expected them to. and that's scary, but it's also okay to sit with that fear. everything happens for a reason.

i'm not one of those people who will say to just "be happy" under circumstances such as these, even when your feelings may seem irrational and/or confusing to you. we're human, we're not fucking robots. we can't go through life stone-faced. change is hard. it's scary. it's overwhelming and full of so many questions no one may ever have the answers for. it's okay to take some time to cry, to scream, to get those feelings out. our brains are trying to keep us safe, and it's our job to let our brains express themselves. not every feeling has to be rationalized. it doesn't all have to make sense. sometimes it's okay to Just Be.

i personally believe that the world would be a much better place if we all took more time for ourselves to really feel our shit, because that's the only way it's going to get processed and let go. if you're someone like me whose BPD makes every feeling seem like a nightmare straight from hell, or whose alexithymia confuses you about what you're even feeling, that's okay too. again, you don't have to have all the answers. let yourself cry. let yourself lie on the floor. let yourself engage in your comfort activities. let yourself rest.

change isn't supposed to be all sunshine and rainbows. it's hard work, but it will all be worth it in the end. after every single one of my darkest times, i found myself shining brighter than i ever did previously. i don't know why we have to go through certain experiences, but it will all make sense one day. every single person on this earth has trauma, even if they may not have been abused or deal with a form of a post traumatic disorder. we're all just oversized children who are scared and need a hand to hold as they navigate life. we're human, and we're allowed to feel. we're going to get through this.

there's a reason why people say bravery is being scared while doing it anyway. change really is fucking scary, regardless of how good it may be for us. i'm going to keep saying it. hold your breath and do the thing anyway. let yourself be scared. feel that fear. make room for it and live with it. your brain loves you and is trying to protect you, even if it seems misguided. it's doing its best to be there for you, so you may as well at least humor it, right? how beautiful is it that your brain loves you enough to constantly try and protect you, regardless of the circumstance? i think it deserves love back. love those parts of you which have always loved you.

you're going to make it. you love you.

[whalien-flags]

welp bout to go to bed (finally) and I hope I have the ability/time/spoons to be active on here tomorrow so have my neurodivergent gay (vincian) flags i've done bc i love them yet never posted them to tumblr and i just spent hours being a perfectionist adding all their respective symbols (and altering the symbol i had on the tourettic one) which now adding these to the archive is on my to do list whoops !

in order: alexithymia gay, bpd gay, ocd gay, and tourettic gay

[darlingimtryingx]

All the words unsaid, I could rewrite our love story.. With the ending we wanted.

[crypticmotherfucker]

I feel things very deeply; can I tell you what I'm feeling? ... no... no I can't... I feel them very deeply tho.

[maepersonal]

anyone else with alexithymia go through a phase when you were younger of thinking there was something wrong with you bc you didn’t think you’d care if someone close to you left/died?

every time something bad happens to me, I’m always completely blindsided by how strong my emotional reactions are, I never expect anything to matter to me.

[hauntedselves]

is it possible to have alexithymia and BPD?

i have really big feelings, i know that now, it's just. really hard to identify them. and i have to sit down and think for awhile before i realize "oh im really fucking angry" or "i keep being unsure whether i think this person loves me or thinks they hate me"

(not sure if i have BPD but i know i am alexithymic and i suspect BPD, hence asking.)

"oh also (alexithymia + BPD anon) to be clear i read the post in your directory on alexithymia in PDs but it seemed to focus on mostly cluster A and C so i'm still unsure"

absolutely you can have alexithymia & BPD. @shitborderlinesdo has a post discussing this here

[mybpdbullshit]

I feel like a walking oxymoron having BPD and Alexithymia.

Like I'm just lying to myself even more.

[aphrodita-from-foam]

reflection

“How strange it is, how moving, that this hardness should be so fragile. Nothing can interrupt it, yet all can break it”-Jean-Paul Sartre.

I didn’t think I’d find my cracking in the changing room of Kohls. But it happened. I stood bare before a 360 mirror and met myself in each reflection. I never really take a moment to look at my eyes with intention, I avoid my own gaze. But this time I felt different. I looked, stared-even and felt something turn in me, a centipede awakening from slumber, moving its many limbs in the pit of my belly. I have been asleep. I dissociate from the true world every chance I get---shuttling my mind off to a place of echoing birds, waterfalls and wildflowers. I have done it so well for so long, I’ve missed entire conversations. I look and pinch every part of my body and then again meet the blackness of my eyes. Before this melody came into play in my life, I was infatuated with pain. Pain of anything and everyone. I harmed myself, physically, emotionally, willingly, happily. Miserably, I took it too far one day and found myself waking up under harsh fluorescent lights and cornstarch blankets. That was the first time I cracked. I saw my muffled reflection on the ceiling tile, and realized this was reality. This was the end road of my behaviors. I tend to live in extremes and avoid pain of any kind after that. I became comfortable with dissociating from painful things, and then all things in general because I realized the pain of my past, this centipede that dwells inside of me, can wake and grasp my throat at any time. Any moment of clarity and realization of who I really was-beyond existing-the pain would come back and I felt the burn of it bring me to my knees. But once again, I was meeting my eyes on the 360 vanity and stood naked and alone. And I tried hard to think of the last moment I was present and alive in myself. Most of those moments were with you. You hold something special that allows me to face the pain and feel some bravery to eat it, bit by bit. I feel most real and alive when I’m in your arms in bed and can talk about anything without the fear of being hurt. I thought of those moments, and I felt the cracking begin. I felt myself in that room, naked and heavy against the carpet floor and felt the bumps on my skin-I am real and I am here. I am real and I am here. And I was there, with you. And I realized I had let the melody take hold of me once again and fled from the intense emotions I felt towards you, with you, for you. I was afraid to awaken the centipede and find myself under those fluorescent lights once more. Preventive thinking-I thought, but I only harmed myself once more. The emotions and feelings I felt for you remained, only I was closing my eyes. And now I find myself flooded by the broken dam I’ve tried so hard to keep up. I often say, everyone has hurt me, but in truth I hurt myself trying to protect myself from the pain. So I stand naked, now lapsed 30 minutes, and feel all the things I’ve held back for so long and tremble. Out of coldness? Maybe, I was naked— but no, it was anger. I’ve let this melody carry me over the past few years and have not felt real in any place. People around me were warm bodies around who praised my calm and collected façade. And meant nothing more to me, a thing void of existence I felt the cracking, as I did 10 years ago. And I’ve broken the record of that melody.

[borderline-culture-is]

BPD + High Alexithymia culture is being emotionally unstable but also not being able to even tell or even feel your own emotion/mood at the same time.. ???

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[confusion-x-central]

umm..

so I didn't even know that you were supposed to actually feel empathy and not just force yourself to act a certain way based on how others seem to be feeling...hmmm

[fannishstuff]

I can't believe nobody has pointed this out before? (Small clarification for Robbie: he's happy in a secure romantic relationship. Wendy made him feel insecure, and he took it out on Dipper. Tambry did not, and his whole personality became healthier as a result.)

To be clear, I'm not saying all of these characters have BPD. But I'm also not surprised that a show whose main theme is "Family is Important and Being Rejected Makes You A Little Weird" has a lot of characters that Feel Rejected, and as a result Get a Little Weird. All of these characters are given the chance to form healthy relationships and grow as a result, which is really cool.

For those who don't knows, Borderline Personality Disorder is a traumatic condition that's characterized by things like:

Extreme emotional reactivity

Extreme sensitivity to rejection

A tendency toward black and white thinking

A tendency toward intense but unstable relationships

Alexithymia, or inability to feel/understand/describe one's emotions

Severe anxiety

Self-destruction

It tends to happen when one is consistently rejected or taught to suppress one's identity as a child - usually through intense bullying, abuse, et cetera. People with BPD often struggle to form healthy support networks because the emotional disregulation can make you act inappropriately (stalking, yelling, destroying property) and because there is a lot of social stigma against strong emotions even if you have your behavior well-managed. Therapy can help with the behavioral symptoms, and a strong support network can make the emotions and anxiety much more manageable. (There is no medication for BPD. Medication for comorbid conditions like depression might help.)

Anyway, this is a kids' cartoon, so everyone's behavior is over-the-top and the story arcs are black-and-white by design. I still like them, though.

[momentsofamber]

so the other day my partner and I were talking about genetics ( science is his static SpIn ) and how the odds of their parents eyes in tcoaal would determine the kids' odds of having which color if their mother's green was a mutation ( based on how often their mom's shade changes between scenes, we decided it was like tcoaal hazel ) and if their father's pink was a dominant gene ( like brown irl ) and just looking at the odds data, it made me realize ... I kinda want to do multiple universes?

this is just some spitballing, but stay with me for a moment.

Role-Reversal: ( pink Andrew, green Ashley )

Andrew never outgrows the name Andy; his baby sister was the first person to call him that and that was that, that's his name forever.

Ashley goes by Lye as an adult; she went by Leyley as a child and Lye later became a nickname from it.

( rando: what's Lye short for? Lye: Leyley. rando: ... what? No, really. Lye: Reaaally ... Andy, nonchalantly: It's Ash-ley. Lye: -glaaare- Who cares what it used to be short for, it's just Lye now, okay? )

( Andy: 'Andy and Ashley' sounds so much better for a duo. You have to agree with me, right? Lye, flatly amused: ... You mean you don't like the sound of 'Andrew and Lye'? Andy, eyetwitch but pointedly ignoring that: So as I was saying -- )

These two will follow the canon story(ies) with everything as mirrored as it can be.

yandere twins: ( pink Andrew, pink Ashley )

not actually twins. but kind of.

they were born on the same day two years apart and share the same shade of pink eyes.

both have clinical bpd ( Andy w/ hpd traits, Leyley w/ aspd traits ) and thus suffer from and frequently demonstrate symptoms of obsessive and/or lovesick tendencies.

they've been sexually involved with each other since Andy hit puberty. of course Andy hits it first, being two years older, but they don't have intercourse until Leyley hits puberty too. Andy says their "real first time" 'won't be as special for Leyley if her body isn't ready for such a mature experience too'. it's torture for him to watch and wait for his sister to blossom, and Leyley repeatedly insists that 'no, she's ready NOW though!!' … but it does end up being well-worth the wait for both of them.

violence is flirting for these two.

'Do you know how badly I wanna kill you right now? Just so that I'll be the very last thing you'll ever see and feel.' is romantic.

they continue to use Andy and Leyley as names into adulthood no matter how often they get told it's childish or whatever.

kuudere twins: ( green Andrew, green Ashley )

same premise as above but the not-twins share green eyes. ( however, there is a high chance I will give them different shades due to their mother's eye color being a mutation. )

Andrew goes by Drew as an adult because he says Andy is 'too childish' now.

Ashley legally changes her name to Lillian as an adult so that she can go by Lily for short because it's close to Leyley and 'she doesn't feel like an Ashley and she never did'.

both Drew and Lily respect each other's name preferences and only use Andy and Leyley to refer to themselves or each other in the past.

their mother continues to call Lily 'Ashley' out of spite to the day that she dies because 'I named you, so that's what I'm calling you'.

these two are better at communicating their attachment and feelings for each other through things like physical touch and acts of service.

they both definitely have alexithymia.

they often don't quite know how to say things with words so they try to show things instead. ( sometimes they jokingly call their ability to communicate without words a twin bond. )

[darlingimtryingx]

Why do I beg for your love? I know I'm the second choice. That I'm only there when you're bored. Claim it's toxic, how I am. Needing attention. Being starved of my needs. I beg and beg, you broke me more and more. I wish I could walk away, I wish you wouldn't drag me around in circles.

[methed-up-marxist]

*depserately trying to invent a new kind of eugenics* BPD is a subclass of autism where the patient is intelligent enough to recognise their alexithymia is pathological and so feel shame for it