Vulpine

"I wish I was popular" -> I want to be noticed and engaged with, and I need reassurance and the feeling of connection

"I wanna delete my blog and ghost my friends" -> I want to act out in a visible way that expresses how frustrated I am / I feel overwhelmed with connections and need time to cool off

"I wanna do something reckless/dangerous" -> I feel trapped in obligations and am buckling under stress, I need a sufficient outlet and more freedom to exist in peace

Obviously there may be different kinds of feelings or needs under your particular impulses, these are just some fairly common examples of what you could be feeling. The harder part is trying to figure out what it is that causes this impulse, and even harder might be if you don't have control over the situation, and are unable to have your needs met. It's not always your fault if you're feeling bad, but realizing where it stems from can help you seek out new paths to relieve it. This is something I've learnt working in therapy.

More specifically, the way they talk about things like "Favorite People" and the other variants of it.

It just seems very strange to us how it's treated. Don't get us wrong, we absolutely believe that people with a FP are telling the truth about it, but the way that specific experience is talked about is so weird. It's treated like a universal thing, like every person with BPD has one, and like everyone with a PD has their own variant of this that's almost identical to an FP, and this implication that you only have one at a time. It's never explicitly stated that you HAVE to have a special person, or that you can only have one, but the way it's talked about implies that you're "missing out" if you don't have one, as if you aren't whole or aren't fully experiencing a PD correctly.

That's weird right? Like, where would we fit into all this exactly? We've never had one specific Depended Person, it's always been a web of interconnected people we depend on for different things, ones we're extremely careful with how we interact with the keep them around because if one leaves, everything else is thrown into chaos. But you never hear about experiences like that, it's only ever about pwPDs having one, specific special person who keeps their whole life together.

It feels like a form of romanticization in all honesty. It's talked about the same way people talk about soulmates, and it kind of feels like it's also BPD disordered thinking being imposed on everyone, regardless of what PD they have. This idea that there's one special person in the world who can fix you.

I think it also ties into how heavily BPD-centric trauma communities are. This idea that pwPDs always have to be similar to a specific presentation of BPD to be valid. If you'll notice, the way people talk about their trusted person, or depended person, or equal person, or really any variant of favorite person, it's pretty much identical to how someone talks about their favorite person. It's treated as if it's the exact same thing with just slight variation. Again, we don't think people with these experiences are lying about it, but the way it's talked about and treated is so very strange. Can we please try and see things outside the lens of BPD? Can we please see things outside the lens of the amataonormative idea of having one soulmate that will completely fix everything?

This kind of thing is why so many trauma-focused spaces are insufferable. Because the conversation is only ever about BPD and certain, specific ways it can present, and those standards and that specific kind of disordered thinking is imposed on everyone else, and we aren't allowed to question it because "you can't possibly understand the suffering of pwBPD"

Just saying, I think we really need to reevaluated the conversations we have around this symptom, and what exactly said symptom is and means in the first place, because I feel like these conversations are so steeped in BPD-centric, anti-recovery thinking that it makes things so much worse for everyone else.

We as a system who went through a IOP DBT program (Intensive Outpatient Program, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy). This was when we were a teen, way before "system discovery", the front person was actually trying to actually "consolidate" everything.

We were 17, Christmas week, and snapped. In therapy, the therapist wanted to do EMDR and we had no idea what that meant. But I just want to say this now. EMDR is a great therapy. But NOT for those that have structural dissociation. It is one of the worst things to do in the beginning. It has to happen later after the safety phase of PoT.

EMDR probably made our persecutors lash out and woke up to being strapped to a crash car and paramedics in an ambulance. Frist visit to a behavioral health hospital and ended up in an my IOP.

I mention this because even though it was extremely traumatic. It what was we needed to start healing and to function in this ass world. Engaging in a FP or DP framework doesn't help this process. We definitely had these over the year and possibly now. But the terms were after our time. You can have a FP or DP, but it is only healthy if you try and engage in boundaries, emotional regulation, open communication with "I" statements, etc.

You need to know what BPD is (and NPD or ASPD, etc) to be able to understand how it affects you and others. But no matter how much you search and search for validation in others and of your symptoms, if you want to get better, its just not going to work. Also given that seeking that type of soical connection IS a part of the disorder.

Also let's not ignore that in these spaces, there's a lot of people in thier late adolescence. It is normal to have voilitile emotions and opinions at that time. If you have trauma at that point that normal process is 10 fold, but yet have the brain to fully take yourself out of that grief and think out what you can do in your situation. Teens have no autonomy in some countries (USA). I only started cuz I said "I will go to the IOP program".

This stuff is online now. DBT workbooks, CBT workbooks. EMDR, ISF, PoT books, websites, etc. Its not talked about in these groups and should be. But in our experience? No one wants to hear it. So if someone wants to actually help themselves and has no safe access to therapy? Search for it online. Use the public library or school laptop, etc. I know people are stuck. I once was.

But seeping yourself in these groups won't prepare you for the responsibility that will be shoved upon you as an adult. No one can help you if you don't open yourself to change. I finally learned I was hurting myself. That helped me realize others around me did not help to keep me accountable and always tried to bait me to go back into unhealthy coping mechanisms or situations.

(More under the cut)