"I never liked you anyway."

bpd is very often found in people that have experienced trauma, and depending on who you ask, it’s very often sexual trauma. We’ve seen her engage in self harm and suicidal ideations, we’ve seen her act impulsively, we saw her really attach to grace quite quickly (although this is one of those that can be considered circumstantial, your first crush as you explore your sexuality can come with those really overwhelming feelings.) To so quickly jump to a sexual act with Zig in the wake of her intense emotions. We’ve seen her battle with issues of identity and feelings of emptiness. Substance abuse and other reckless behavior can be related to bpd and we’ve seen her struggle with that. And I very much think she feared abandonment. For me, the frequency of the sentiment of “I’m all alone” was something very familiar and altogether terrifying. She waited for people to leave (also fuck consuela for actually leaving) and that was something that also made me look at it through a bpd lens. One classic bpd feature I think we have NOT had a great example of in Zoe is the really intense emotional outbursts, particularly ones of anger. 

I’ll start by telling you what my experience with an FP has been as a borderline. It’s really hard to put into words how it feels to have an FP but I’m going to try. My FP is the first one I turn to when I wake up in the morning. Her opinion matters more to me than anything and I can’t fathom life without her. Often it feels like she can do no wrong, and I constantly want to make her happy, and intensely want her attention and love in return. A lot of the way I think about myself lies in how she thinks of me.    

Esme’s attraction/attachment to Miles was instant and intense. Starting with her cutting her hair, she was interested in keeping Miles pleased and happy. Some of you might think that her giving him drugs was just part of her being a bad influence, but from my point of view, a huge aspect of that was her actually trying to give him an escape. She recognized from his conversation that kept her from hearing about iambic pentameter, that dealing with his dad and getting through events like that made him miserable. She gave him an escape and fun (albeit dangerous fun). She connected to him and found in him someone that didn’t make her feel crazy (which I look at as a stabilization of her sense of self, especially in light of how we’ve seen in future seasons how often people call her crazy). He gave her some semblance of comfort. One scene that always stood out to me was the look on her face when he says he can’t see her anymore. She jumps in before he can finish, saying that he’ll probably call her an enabler, she knows the psychobabble. For me, her disappointment at him thinking of her in that way was palpable. I personally value what my FP thinks of me so much, and when she doesn’t think of me in the way I hope, I switch to angry first. And then often, I switch again and become desperate. Esme starts by telling him, “You have no friends and a crap family” and leaves, followed by a return to idealizing her connection to him and a desperate attempt to bring him back with a faked suicide attempt.

Now to Zig. The first thing I want to say is that although it is common, being a borderline’s significant other does not necessarily make you their FP, so if that is someone’s argument, I’d say they need to bolster their argument with some evidence. Esme’s connection to Zig was much more gradual in my opinion. To me, it was a more ordinary relationship progression beginning with her teaching him how to dance. The connection lacked the same intensity. Now, I will acknowledge that it is a possibility that Zig became her new favorite person. In the wake of losing one FP, in my personal experience, it is not uncommon to imprint on a replacement. She did start to enact some of those FP behaviors with Zig. Her desperation to keep him happy manifested as her willingness to bring Frankie into their relationship, her constant reliance on her sexuality to please him, etc. There have been some instances where we see how she values his opinion (e.g. season 3, when she asks him what if he hears people talk about darker stuff. In that scene she distinctly says, “I don’t care what other people say about me. Your opinion was the only one that mattered.” However, I think when everyone is calling you a slut, this particular instance is more of a circumstantial comment than a quintessential FP interaction.) But I’m not an expert. My viewpoint is distinctly tied to my experience. It’s hard for me to decipher how much of that is normal relationship stuff and what is FP stuff. I think for someone with borderline tendencies who has been in a relationship for a year (I’ll consider this long term), it would be extremely difficult to not reach a level of attachment that brings that fear of abandonment to the surface (even without the idealization that comes with an FP). And when your mental illness is untreated, it can start overflowing to the level of Esme’s breakdown this season. So I can see why you might see Zig as an FP but I definitely prefer Miles as my (and her) first choice example.