What it Feels Like to Not Leave and Not be Left - What it Feels Like to Stay (Part 3 of the Unintentional Trilogy)

I never knew there was a part three. I always thought the options were to leave or be left...I never knew anyone could stay. 

But it happened.

I stayed. They stayed. We all stayed together. Through the hard parts, the yucky parts, the uncomfortable parts, the bumps and hurdles - my church stayed with me and I stayed there. 

I never stayed anywhere before. I always got a favorite person and the relationship always imploded and it never worked out. It's like that bad song playing over and over in your head and there was nothing I could do to stop it. And it's true, there really was nothing I could do to stop it. I didn't stop it. In fact, if I were making my own decisions, I would have followed the script and left and I'd be sitting here today writing to you about the latest tragedy in my personal soap opera spiral. But I have a Father who loves me too much to let me parent myself and He stepped in and decided to teach me what it feels like to stay.

What It Feels Like to Stay

It feels strange, uncomfortable...it even kind of hurts. Not the painful kind of hurt, but the kind of hurt like when you stretch your muscles a little bit further than they want to stretch. It feels new and I'm still figuring it out.

It doesn’t feel peachy keen or happy-go-lucky. It does't feel like a fairy tale or a Disney movie. It feels real. 

It doesn't feel like the high from a drug that will make you crash and burn. It doesn't feel like water dripping that you can't escape, or the silence of loneliness. It feels like a deep breath. I never knew there was anything different than living in the horrible song stuck on repeat, but I knew I felt or numb and everything around me felt empty. Staying feels meaningful.

It feels safe - like the really, really good kind of safety. Not the boring, restrictive kind of safety and not the suffocating, authoritarian, over-bearing kind either - but the kind of safety that makes you feel protected and loved and yet allowed to make mistakes.

Staying is really hard. It means doing hard things and not bailing out whenever you want. It means working through your gross stuff and hard stuff and uncomfortable stuff. It means being honest with yourself and others. It means not demanding others fill you up but rather accepting the places in you that are needy and accepting the imperfections of others. Staying means being around people who have hurt you and knowing that you have hurt them too. Staying means asking for forgiveness from others and extending forgiveness all around whether you feel like it or not. Staying means not always getting what you want and not always having your way. Staying means hearing "no." It means not running away even when you really, really, really want to. Staying means knowing you don’t know everything and other people can teach you things. Staying means being open to change and compromise and it means listening when you would rather talk and having hard conversations and receiving correction and being hurt sometimes.


And yet, it also means being known. Really and truly known. It means feeling deep joy and contentment and peace that is impossible in a surface level life. It means experiencing a profound delight in seeing others grow and change and getting to share your growth and change with others. There's an unfamiliar exhilaration in having memories from five years ago. There's this palpable wisdom in knowing you knew this person when they weren't in college yet or weren't married yet or weren't a parent yet and now they are.

It feels like a marriage celebrating its 75th year anniversary. A marriage that got past the honeymoon phase AND past that year they both thought of the D word. It's the marriage that is sweeter than ever because they made it through those strong disagreements and big misunderstandings.

It's not that anything in my life is perfect, because it's not. It's not that I feel no one will ever leave me again or I'll never be hurt again - I always thought staying would mean that - that it was some sort of arrival at utopian stability - but I don't feel my life has reached any peak, I only feel less fearful of change. Having people stay in my life and me staying in theirs doesn't mean that I've finally obtained permanent status with everyone. I know God may call my friends to move or He may call me to attend another church or move to another state. Staying just means I don't feel obsessed with abandonment or like any big changes will be caused by a big falling out on my part or theirs. It doesn't mean no one will leave me, it just means I trust God will help me handle it.

But marriage is hard just like staying is hard. It's when you look at someone and they know every yucky and awful thing you’ve ever done. They’ve seen you at your very worst, deep in your sin, deep in your selfishness, they saw the time you were clinging to the toilet throwing up and didn't look pretty and they saw the days you stayed in bed and didn't shower. They've seen you when you were in pain and angry and when you were depressed and vulnerable. They've seen your ugly cry. And yet, somehow, they still love you. Somehow they are able to stand with you week after week and they choose to see the good parts about you too. And somehow you're able to look at them and love them through their yucky parts too. It's a crazy thing. 

Staying feels like living in the present, like there are no weird dripping sounds from the past and no fearful silence from the future. Like the only sounds are here, right now, today. Not dead. Not numb. Not silence. Not too fast like living in fast forward. Not too slow like living in rewind. Just right.

When I wrote about being left, I felt like a victim. I felt powerless, like a hurt child who is always sad and broken, abandoned by others. When I wrote my post about leaving, I felt an empty sense of power and control and yet a deep fear of my facade being shattered. I wanted to be the person who abandons others before they have a chance to abandon me.

When I write about staying, I feel free. Not free because I finally feel like I can trust anyone in my life to stay, but free because I finally trust that I'll be okay if and when people come and go. 

Staying feels like you are neither sobbing at the window of your house nor in a field far away from it. It feels like you are inside your house, living in it -  Enjoying the space. Cooking in the kitchen. Living in the living room. Scrubbing the floors. Repairing things that inevitably break. Maintaining the things around that need constant upkeep.

It's hard work. And it's enjoyable. 

Staying is worth it. I like it. I think I'll stay with staying. 

Disney's Frozen and the Story of Borderline Personality Disorder

One time someone made a movie of my life and turned it into an animated Disney movie for kids. It's called "Frozen," maybe you've heard of it.


I was born with weird special powers (or actually a mental illness that makes me super intense)

When I was little I accidentally hurt other people with my powers (by loving them too much, scaring them away, jealousy, etc)
















I was told to put those powers away and not let anyone know I had them. I was scared of them and others were scared of them too. 

"Conceal don't feel"







I spend all my time and energy trying to hide my powers so no one find out about them. But sometimes, the more I try to hide, the stronger they seem to get.

Sometimes something inside of me will get triggered and I impulsively hurt others or myself.

I often run away. 

Occasionally, I build amazing ice castles while belting out my favorite tunes.

I live in fear and isolation. "Put on a show, make one wrong move and everyone will know."

But just like the wise trolls said, fear is the enemy. 

I also created my own creature who came to life and has a great and funny personality! (Karmel = Olaf!)

And that's the story of how I became queen....er, wait, I mean, that's the story of how Elsa has Borderline Personality Disorder. 

Realty Check: Living with BPD

There is much I want to say but I have given out my blog link to so many people that it feels harder to be honest now. My brain feels trapped in a "Borderline episode" at times and I want to process it here but it's difficult for me to explain things without using real life examples of real life people and that can make things sticky.

I keep experiencing things that I am now able to label as Borderline and with each experience I think "this is the worst part of BPD" but each new aspect seems to be the new worst part. By "worst part" I mean the part that interferes with my functioning the most.

What even is Borderline Personality Disorder? I'll tell you. (You won't like it but I'll tell you.)

*It's planning how to cut others out of your life because you feel attached to them and you don't want to get hurt.
*It's saying "no" to plans with friends that you desperately want to be a part of because you don't want to feel the disappointment of it ending when the day is over.
*It's self harming in the bathroom ten minutes before greeting people warmly and casually.
*It's feeling like your brain is working against you - thinking that people dislike you and then being angry with yourself for thinking those thoughts, and then being angry with yourself for being angry with yourself and then shame and guilt for being angry with yourself and then thinking no wonder people dislike you, and the cycle goes on and on and on.

*It's having a beautiful evening with friends and family, feeling completely fulfilled and then when it's time to leave you feel sheer panic. You frantically think of any plan of how to leave without saying goodbye because you can't handle saying goodbye. You feel ashamed that you're a grown adult who can't handle something so easy for everyone else. The shame, it eats you, and you go home and want to self harm. And you're angry with yourself for not being able to feel your feelings and angry with yourself for not being able to say goodbye and angry with yourself for feeling shame and angry with yourself for being angry with yourself and you can't talk to anyone about it because no one would understand why you could possibly be so upset after having such a fun night so you are just utterly alone.

*It's constant dread - dreading every conversation and every social moment because you know your brain is so fragile and you don't know what could wreck your world. Will someone tell me there was a birthday party I wasn't invited to? Will someone tell me they are going out of town? If I take a chance and text this person, will they respond or leave me feeling rejected? (People are known to say that interacting with someone with BPD is like "walking on eggshells" but you people don't understand that ME interacting with MYSELF is walking on eggshells!!)
*It’s when a friend decides they’re going on a vacation you know you're not allowed to be upset, you know that's insanely unreasonable and psychotic but you can't help the empty feeling that creeps in. You know it's RIDICULOUS but you feel like you're re-experiencing a trauma and being abandoned. But you know if anyone finds out you feel that way, they'll know you are a freak so you try to hide it. You feel so ashamed for the way you feel so you seek to punish yourself. You try to fix the situation by acting like you don't miss your friends when they're gone and you don't need anyone and you're fine by yourself.
*It's feeling "jealous" ALL. THE. DANG. TIME. I used to think having a favorite person was the worst part of Borderline, due to all the anxiety surrounding trying to not have one. After I accepted that I will most likely always have a favorite person, I realized the worst part is dealing with the anxiety and jealousy surrounding the favorite person. That's what destroys relationships the fastest. Give me any healthy friendship and I'll show you the quickest way to kill it - jealousy, fear, anxiety, and unfair expectations.

It's like your life is an empty cup and you don't have any resources to fill it. But this is how my life with Borderline works - these wonderful, amazing people come into your life and they are holding big water jugs!! You are so happy and you hold out your cup and these people WANT to fill it!! And you want them to fill it too!!! It feels like a win/win!! So you hold out your cup eagerly and they pour eagerly but like a cruel magic trick, all the water evaporates the second it comes in contact with air and only 3 dewy drops survive to the bottom of your cup. Both you and the amazing person look with furrowed brows at your cup.

"That's all the water I have" They say with deep sadness in their eyes. Because they care about you and they wanted what they had to work. They wanted it to fill your cup and be enough. 

"It's enough!" I say. I try to muster all my bravery. "It really is enough!" I try with all my might to reassure them. 

"See? Yum!!" I drink the half sip and my parched mouth throbs in anger at the tease.  

This happens again and again and again and again. I have so many wonderful friends. I have people who truly do love me. But something's wrong with my cup (or with me?)

The worst part of everything, is that when Christians hear anything about "empty" they assume you are not letting Jesus fill you. "Christ will fill you," they say. But what if this is not about being filled or not filled, this is about the way my brain operates? Stop preaching that God will cure all mental illnesses unless you also believe God will cure all cases of cancer. Stop preaching that someone struggling to be mentally stable is doing something wrong unless you also believe cancer patients did something to deserve their diagnosis.


I'm tired of this disorder. It's been following me around for so long. I thought now that I could name it that I would feel in control. I thought that it wouldn't have me, but that I would have it. Some days I do feel that, but not today. 

I'm exhausted from myself. I wish that I could escape from my own body. I wish my actions didn't hurt those around me.

I am desperately afraid people will leave me but I'm so much more desperately afraid of myself leaving them because that's what I keep doing and I don't know how to foil my own plans. Everything feels intense all the time and I want a break. My emotions are too big.

Borderline is impossible because I do what I don’t feel and I feel what I don’t do.
I miss someone = I completely avoid them
I have a good time = The urge to self-harm is overwhelming 
I want to be close to someone = I tell myself I'm not allowed to feel that way because I could get hurt

It feels like I am the king in that old children's story - the king who is granted one wish and he wishes that everything he touches turns to gold. POOF! Everything he touches turns to gold. But all the sudden, his loneliness hits him because he can't be around his wife or kids because if he touches them, they will turn to gold. He suddenly realizes the devastation of his powers and how anyone he really loves should stay away, lest he accidentally turns them to gold! I feel like that in relationships. I try to keep everyone at a safe distance, lest I accidentally touch them, lest they mistakenly believe their water will work for my cup.




BPD feels like utter defeat and failure every day. I fail when I fail, and I force myself to fail when I win. It's the epitome of a lose/lose. 






I am still practicing hope this year, but today, I just want talk about the way chronic mental illness sometimes robs you of hope.

Playing Favorites (The Bad and the Ugly)

I told you the good part about having favorites, but there's some major yucky gross hard sticky bad ugly things about it too. Every emotion with Borderline Personality Disorder is felt with extreme intensity so although the good can be really good, unfortunately the bad can be really bad.

A lot of times I have been labeled as being extremely "jealous" (even the word feels yucky to type!) but I would like to shed some new light on this. This is truly the ugly part of having favorites because I do, at times, feel "off the chart" feelings of fear, panic and possessiveness. I become the personified jealousy monster - the big, green, ugly villain with one eye and slimy goop arms, leaving a trail of sticky yuck behind me wherever I go.

This is not the kind of "jealousy" you feel about your friend's new car or house. It's really unfair that I have to use the same word to describe it because I believe the way I am using this word now has an entirely different context. It is not the same feeling you feel when you want something someone else has -rather, it is an overwhelming fear and panic, an anger over imagined or perceived betrayal.

Imagine the most extreme emotion you've ever felt in your whole life - the most crazy, fierce, off-the charts time that you were passionately happy, angry, sad, etc. Picture that moment. Do you have the moment? Get the exact moment in  your mind! Now take that emotion and multiple it by 10. That's how strongly I feel almost every emotion every day. That's why there is so much bouncing around between extremes, because I am constantly trying to allow myself to feel my emotions while also greatly limit them. I am constantly trying to over-correct my feelings to make them "normal." I understand that I am off the charts. I am trying to get back on the charts. Even a "10" would feel calm to me. 

Remember the BPD Lenses? Let's put them on. Here's what the view looks like:
My friends don't really know me or love me. They might think they love me but if they actually knew all of me, they wouldn't like me. Once they get to know me better, they will reject me. Anyone I love will leave me as soon as I feel safe and comfortable with them. My friends don't actually like being with me, they find me annoying and dramatic but they put up with me because they don't want to hurt my feelings. They feel I am a chore to hang out with. They will get tired of me and I will be rejected at any moment.

My brain already "knows" I will be rejected so it is looking for any moment to prove what it already believes to be true. When this filter is on your brain and a friend spends special time with someone else, your brain automatically fills in the blanks that you are being abandoned. This is not a conscious thought process - when the BPD lenses are on, this happens without even being aware.


I don't know if you've ever felt abandonment- true real abandonment, being truly alone. It is not like sitting alone in church or like when your husband takes a long vacation. It's not like a pain that you know will go away with time, it's an all-encompassing pain that you believe will never end. Abandonment is when 
you wake up and everyone in the world is dead and it's only you alive. You get in your car and there is nobody on any street, not one animal or car moving. All is silent and deserted. You drive to a store and you only hear the hum of the lights because not one single person is there. You run frantically through the isles screaming for anyone but your noises echo from the ceiling in the empty building. You look desperately in the parking lot, scanning for any movement of anything - a person, an animal, anything - but all is completely still. You feel a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. You call someone, eager to hear someone -anyone- and it goes straight to voicemail. You call another person and another and another but no one answers. Your body begins to physically panic and your brain feels like it's going mad. You try to swallow but all your saliva feels stuck in your throat. You scream as loud as you can but your screams echo in the sky and no one can hear you because no one is there. Your body feels hollow and EMPTY. Dread overwhelms you and covers you from your head to your toes. There is no one there - you are completely alone. 

I have felt this before, a lot of times. When a favorite person leaves, I feel this way every single day all day long, sometimes for months at a time. The feeling is more intense then I can even describe.

That's why I say this is not "just jealously" that we should "pray about." It is so much more intense than simply "needing attention" or feeling "the loss of a friendship." When a friend might possibly reject me, I am so so so afraid that I will have to feel this feeling of abandonment again. That feeling is worse than any other pain I can ever explain. The panic and emptiness is more overwhelming to my body than any physical torture I could ever imagine. I would do ANYTHING to never feel that feeling again. I avoid it at all costs. When my brain calculates there is a slight possible risk that a favorite friend might leave me, I feel thrown into a terrorized hysteria that I might have to go through that abandoned feeling again and I work to frantically avoid it.

It's like life is everyone living in the ocean together and everyone else is swimming fine, but you have drowned before so when you see a wave coming you can't ever tell if it is going to drown you again or not, so you automatically panic at every single wave. (which makes life exhausting because there are a lot of waves!)

When I feel "jealous" it is difficult to react normally and calmly because the pain it triggers is so intense. I work really really hard to accept the facts, to believe what people have told me is true, and I work excruciatingly hard to not overreact. But it is not easy and it is not automatic. My brain calculates "perceived risk" and fights me at every turn.

I have heard for twenty years what people tell me: People can love more than one person at a time. People can have multiple friends. Friends can hang out with other people and even be really close to them and yet still be close to you. 

It's so hard for me to believe that is the truth because it is not the truth in my brain! In my brain, I take my love away from one person to give it to someone else. My brain is singular focused. In my sinful shaded heart, when I don't spend time with someone it's because I am purposefully rejecting them. That makes it difficult to accept that others are not doing the same to me.

I tell myself that what I feel is not the truth. I tell 
myself that my brain is scared of that empty hollow  feeling and that is why I am being a psychotic green possessive monster. I tell myself that people can love more than one person at a time and my friends do love me and they are allowed to have as many close friends as they want. I try to convince myself they are not rejecting me or punishing me by showing love to another person. It is difficult to accept these statements as facts since my mind doesn't operate the same. I am working to believe this is the truth in my hearts of hearts but for now I am satisfied when I can even pretend it's true and not overreact. 

This singular focus brain makes having favorites a "bad" thing when the friendship ends. When a favorite friendship ends, my life is in a state of emergency for an agonizingly long time. I feel that feeling of abandonment every moment I am awake. I feel an overwhelming emptiness like I am walking around without any internal organs. I believe that I might never smile or laugh ever again. 

Each new favorite friendship I value more than the last and each new loss makes me believe I won't live through it. Each ending of a favorite person friendship brings a wave of suicidal thoughts and the belief that life can never feel complete again because no matter where I go or who I meet, there will always be an empty space where that person used to be.

It still feels this way. Honestly, I still miss my favorite boss who became my best friend and that was two and a half years ago! I still do feel an empty space where she used to be. I still do miss my favorite work friend in Tennessee who giggled with me non stop for eight hours straight every day. Each new favorite friend has something so diverse and exceptional to offer and each time, my brain tells me I will never ever have a friend exactly like this again. And that's not a lie - I will never have a friend exactly like that again - but there will be other friends! My brain argues back that I don't want any other friends, I only want that one particular friend. The passion with which I feel that I only want that one particular friend is what causes the problem. 

But I am trying. I am not trying to not have a favorite, but I am trying to believe the truth about their motivations. I am trying to diversify my investments more. I am trying to remember that each new favorite friend brings a new light into my life, teaches me new things, and grows me in special ways. I want to remember how many wonderful people are in my life this year that I did not even know last year. When a friendship ends, I want to remember that in a few years I will have beautiful new friends and while they don't replace the empty spaces of the old, they somehow always create new spaces they fill.

When I look at the timeline of the favorites in my life, I see hope in the wonderful people God provided for me at exactly the right moment. I see hope in the ways God has enabled me to turn to Him as my steady and unfailing stability, even when my life is marked by instability and uncertainty. 

I am thankful for the good, I still need to work through the bad, and I will try to change the ugly. 

Playing Favorites (The Good)

This is the most intimate and personal post. I cannot believe I would ever share this with anyone. This post more than any of the others feels as though I am naked before a crowd but way worse because its my heart and soul that are exposed.

I have been learning in grad school that the difference between a mental disorder and a "quirk" is the way it affects your life. If it interferes with your functioning in employment, family, or interpersonal relationships, then it is a disorder. If it's something silly you do, such as checking the lock on the door three times, but it doesn't keep you from having a job or social life, then you are just silly without a disorder. At first glance, I don't have a disorder. When you first get to know me, I don't have anything "diagnosable." I have quirks maybe, things that may seem a little "odd" but I don't act in any way that leads anyone to believe anything is actually wrong.

Not at first.

At first, it's all good. I appear charming and charismatic. Smooth sailing! But then, a favorite person arrives on the scene, and then, well...then I have a disorder. Then my ability to function becomes impaired.

My Favorite.


This is my favorite way to say it!! In all my researching about Borderline Personality Disorder, other people talking about having "a favorite" is my favorite thing!!! This is the main part of my disorder that I never thought could be understood. This is the main reason I felt so isolated for years and years. I tried to explain this phenomena to people and no one knew what I was talking about. I tried to tell counselors but I had to change the subject when I was met with squinted eyes and raised eyebrows. People didn't understand. I learned at a young age that I was different because of this "favorite person phenomena" and that people did not like it. I learned in high school that I had better not tell anyone about this or my life will be destroyed. I learned to keep quiet and I learned that this - this whatever it was - was bad. VERY bad.

The words obsession and love addiction are gross, yucky, disgusting words. I HATE THEM and I NEVER want to hear them again and I certainly never want them associated with me. They were written on me like scarlet letters for the past twenty-eight years until a few weeks ago when I discovered the term "Borderline Personality Disorder's Favorite Person"

It was a sigh of relief. A breath of fresh air. A cold glass of water. It was life breathed into me that there wasn't something devastatingly wrong with me, that I wasn't certifiably insane and most importantly that I wasn't "BAD" or if I was, at least there were others like me.


I LOVE that they call it favorite person. That sounds so much less threatening and scary than what it had been labeled for me before. I was labeled a threat, a scary person. I was told I was sinful. I was told to go away until I could fix it. And I wanted to! I really really wanted to go away and fix it! I felt humiliated at my own feelings and I wanted so much to change it but I had no idea how. I spent so much time in recent years trying to suppress all my thoughts and never let anyone see. I spent so much desperate energy trying to not have a Favorite Person.

I will not have another favorite, I will not have another favorite! I pleaded with myself. I made promises to myself. I demanded from myself. But no matter the amount of ignoring, pretending, suppressing, it proved impossible. Those favorite people kept rolling right along, one right after the other. A familiar song kept playing on in my life - New favorite person, extreme high, rejection, extreme despair, new favorite person, extreme high, rejection, extreme despair, new favorite person....on and on it goes.

I kept trying to interrupt the song but I was constantly failing. I see so clearly now how I got so discouraged - no wonder all the cutting, no wonder all the self-hatred. I remember my counselor praying over and over that I would stop having favorites (although her vocabulary was different) and I remember the intense anger I would feel. I was angry with God for making the "rules" so hard that I could not comply. I was angry with myself for not healing right. I was angry with others because I felt I could never meet their expectations of loving others normally. I was angry with my counselor because I felt she expected healing and for some reason no matter how much I tried to work through my past with her, I could never "fix" myself.

Each time I had a new favorite person, I would throw myself into a pattern of self destruction and pain, hoping that if I punished myself enough I could stop the bad cycle. Each time I would sit in a puddle of defeat, believing death was the only way out of this. I used to think if I could just be Christian enough I would be able to not have a favorite anymore. If I could just have my own family, then I would be distracted enough that I would be fine. If I could just get married, if I could just find the right medicine, if I could just go to enough counseling....

For years and years I believed that when I became a mother, I would no longer have a favorite because my life would be full. But last year I became a mother and I loved my kids with my whole heart and my entire day revolved around them...and yet, I STILL had a favorite.

Last year I didn't know anything about Borderline or the favorite person phenomena, but I began to realize I might always have a favorite, no matter what my life looked like. I realized that even when my life was full, my brain still played favorites. I began to try to grapple with the fact that this will most likely continue as a pattern in my life even when I am happily married, even when I am reading my Bible daily, even when I am being supported, loved, cared for, even when I have friends, even when I am healed and full.

The moment I realized this might never go away, things changed for me. Accepting this part of me and learning to work with it instead of desperately fighting against it, has given me an enormous amount of hope and energy that I never thought possible in my life. The defeat I felt every time I created a new favorite friendship was shattering me and the hope I feel now that I am not the most sinful or bad or crazy person in the world for my brain working this way, it feels redeeming.


It is so interesting to me that in every article I have read about BPD's Favorite People, none of them ever suggest to stop having a favorite, they simply give tips and tricks on how to live your healthiest life with it. They empower healthy choices within the situation. They give work-arounds and good boundary ideas and encouragement. I have yet to read something clinical that is critical or tells me to avoid, to ignore, to turn it off, to try and stop, or to "heal" better.

I remember so vividly my first favorite person. I was four years old and she was a cool older pre-teen. I remember the moment I met her and the moment she left and I remember the next person who came into my life when I was five to replace her. I can make the whole list for you of every favorite person I have ever had and exactly how long the relationship lasted.

"How do favorite people work?" you ask. Beats me! It's the craziest thing I have ever experienced, like straight out of some teen fiction novel with wolves imprinting. I haven't read anything yet that can adequately describe all of it, but Jacob imprinting (yes, my friends, I am comparing a real life devastating phenomena to a vampire teen fiction novel) is honestly a good way to describe it. I have no control over it and I don't get to pick the people it happens with. If I could, I would! It's like some cosmic force pulls my heart in and I am enthralled in platonic love that can often be misread or misconstrued since people have no frame of reference to compare it with. Most people only experience two types of loves in their life - one type for their family and friends and one type for their crushes/boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses. BPD favorite person love is a whole different category of love. When people see it, they can't fit it into one of the two types of loves that they've experienced, so they get scared.

I love writing about this because this is something I felt shame about for so long. This is something I felt no one could possibly understand about me. I had years and years of people scrunching their noses and asking, "Do you have a crush on her or something?" Nope. I don't. I am saved by God, loved by God, choosing God and someday I'll marry an amazing man. I am struggling with a mental illness that has a type of intense attachment that you haven't seen before. It's a third type of love that you haven't experienced. I can't tell you exactly how favorites work but I CAN tell you how they don't work. It's not an idol. It's not a crush. It's not me trying to find my identity in someone else. It's not a sin. It's just the way my brain works. Accepting that I play favorites, because that's how my mind works, and trying to learn how to honor and worship my Creator in the process, that has been the most freeing thing of my life.

(Side note: this does get into a sticky topic of where the boundary lies between mental illness and God's laws. What is the answer for the Christian person diagnosed with anxiety and yet facing the reality that God says worrying is a sin? Where do we draw the line between what is mental illness excusable and what is sin? Idolatry is still wrong no matter what, even if you have a mental illness! I will write a future post on this and delve into this topic but for now, I am resting assured that all these struggles I had for so long were not me failing God or God failing me, but rather, it was the result of the fallen world I was born into that caused all types of sickness, illness, and sin to abound.)

Imagine a person with an intellectual disability believing if they could only pray enough, their brain would work like everyone else's. It won't friends! It won't. Imagine those with cancer believing if they could only "get it right" and not sin for awhile, their cancer would be healed. God is The Healer and He does heal people, but it is not by anything on our efforts! It is not because of our sins that we struggle with illness and disease and it is not by purifying ourselves that we are healed or made holy. God alone does the work and He does it in His timing and to whom He chooses. I have come to understand, much like an intellectual disability or autism, that this is how my brain works and I can learn to work with it. I see for the first time now that I can still be pure and holy and honorable before God without feeling like I am living in sin because of my brain working incorrectly. I had so many people tell me I was idolizing others, tell me it was a sin to love anyone that much, tell me I was sinning for finding my identity in others. It's so difficult to function when you feel like you are a sin for being you, a sin for being alive, sinning from the moment you wake up to the moment you close your eyes. But I want to take off the BPD lenses and think differently. The way I want to see this part of my life now, is what a blessing it is that I always get to have someone so special in my life. I always have someone who means the world to me! What a blessing it is that God has given me such a tangible way to understand His intense love for me and His unfailing favoritism of His children.

Accepting that this is the way my brain loves and trying work with it has changed my prayers profoundly. What used to be devastating and desperate pleas to make my life as short as possible so I don't have to sin by being awake, have turned into prayers learning how to ride this roller coaster with God by my side.

Make my favorite person ever point me to You. Let me worship You instead of any favorite person. Let me love You more than I love any favorite person. Let me hold them with open hands because they don't belong to me - they are yours and you have blessed me with them for a short time. Let me never cling to them but instead be thankful for every moment with them and know that you are my steady rock. Let my heart seek to be with You first and foremost. And if You choose, if you will allow me, God, make You my favorite person. But if that cannot be so here on earth, let me worship and honor you in the meantime, until we meet face to face when You will forever and ever be my heart's sole focus and absolute favorite.


Helpful Links:

What it's like to Have a Favorite Person

5 Things to Know If You are the Favorite of a Person with BPD

How I Love Others Through BPD Lenses

I explained previously about my BPD glasses - how it taints the way I process and interpret information. Everything is colored through the lens of fear and abandonment, so a normal situation to someone else may be interpreted incorrectly by my brain. Because of this, I love people weirdly. (And I love weird people but that's beside the point). It's hard to explain but I'm going to try to get you to see my logic - which may in fact be very illogical.  

Once upon a time, in a far away land, I went to high school and it was no fairy tale. I loved people as much as I wanted to love them because I had no idea you were supposed to limit that. I had no idea what normal was and while I never would have admitted it, I secretly knew deep down that something was very, very wrong inside of me. I worked so hard to hide it but it was very un-hide-able. Things escalated out of control. Kids at school noticed something was wrong and they poked fun which only made me act out in worse ways. They asked hurtful questions and called me names. Well-meaning adults asked me the same hurtful questions and planted the same doubts and insecurities in my soul. After awhile they got scared - they had never seen the likes of me before. I got scared because I had seen the likes of me before and I had no idea how to stop it. This thing felt like it was bigger and stronger than all of us and none of us knew what to do. This thing (the thing I now know as Borderline Personality Disorder) was rearing it's ugly head in a mighty way. The kids and adults in my tiny high school acted out of fear; they didn't know what else to do except to isolate me completely. They tore me away from friends, certain classes, sports, extra-curricular activities, and even my privilege of being around kids. Public shame and humiliation was my life for the next year and a half. Everyone knew what I wasn't allowed to do and they knew exactly why I wasn't allowed to do it.

When I truly consider all that happened, I am still amazed that God brought me through that alive. It was the most traumatic thing I ever experienced. He was very gracious to hold me up during that time but I was left with scars, deep anger and a broken heart. I felt devastated by people I knew and trusted. With each tear that fell I became determined to not let this pattern repeat.


But repeat it has, like a bad pop song on the radio, it has gone over and over in my life and it seems like I am unable to get that song out of my head. My life often feels like a car that I'm not in control of driving. I explained this once last year before I ever knew BPD existed (see post here).





With each ended friendship I feel lost and devastated, alone and weak. So I build my walls higher, I make my resolve stronger and I become determined that I don't need anyone. Every action I take is my broken brain trying to learn what "normal people" boundaries look like so that no one sees that I don't have them. It hurts to be isolated for not being normal so I work hard to be seen as normal. It hurts to feel weak so I make goals to be strong. I created this goal to become self-sufficient if everyone leaves. Every action I take is working towards self-preservation, towards avoiding disappointment, towards being totally okay if someone leaves. I want to be fine without anyone's help. I want to be able to shrug my shoulders when someone's presence leaves my life.

When I start to love others, I feel so scared that I will be unable to meet those goals. I feel myself panic as I get close to someone new. The room begins to feel small and I begin to feel like I can't breathe. I want so badly to avoid repeating the pain again but my way of going about avoiding it seems to cause other pains in the process. I feel scared so I put all these rules in place to keep my goals alive of not needing anyone else. I put goals and rules in line so no one ever questions me like in high school or sees that something is very wrong with me or my boundaries. It's not just a casual thing - this feels in the moment like life or death to me. 


When I start to feel warm fuzzies in my heart for others or when I miss them when they are gone, I feel angry with myself for being weak, for letting them in, for loving them too much. I feel absolute terror that I might accidentally let others see what's really wrong with me - the lack of good boundaries. I'm afraid everyone will find out and they'll be scared and they'll take everything away from me again like they did in high school. So I punish myself.

I tell myself I am bad and the consequences for breaking my goal of being okay all by myself are that I need to break the connection, avoid that person, and take ten steps backwards in our friendship. This makes it difficult when it occurs with family members I have to see often or friends I am living in community with. This becomes sticky when it happens with my boss I have to see every day, or with a friend holding me accountable. Things feel complicated and I don't know how to find balance. So if you've ever been loved by me and you feel confused, it's okay, I am confused too!!! 😂


See Chart Above...through my BPD filter, I recognized that I am on the far left of the boundaries spectrum and I'm paralyzed with fear and absolutely terrified of anyone finding out since that has ruined my life before. So I run to the far right side and try to cling to it. When I feel myself start to move in the slightest even the tiniest ity bity movement towards the left direction (such as missing a friend when they are on vacation or wanting to sit next to them or being sad when our hangout day is ending), I over-correct and run as fast as I can to the Stonewall/Isolating Boundaries side of the chart. I would rather people think that's my problem. Healing from BPD, to me, looks like being able to land in the middle easily but I don't know how to ever make that happen.

I'm still lost about what to do with this and how to change the lens on this part of my glasses. I truly feel like this is my best attempt to be healthy, my best attempt at preserving my life. I don't know how to logic this one out because to me, it makes sense. I hope this helps explain why I am passionately friendly and then passionately resistant. It's truly only out of my great love for my friends that I attempt to push them away!


I don't know what the other option is. If I let myself love people, what if I can't stop? What if I move over to the left side of the chart and can't move back? What if my friends move away? What if they ask me to no longer speak to them? What if they decide they don't want to be friends anymore? Or what if they get other friends that they become closer to than me and then they don't have time to hangout with me anymore? I have to be able to be okay with that. I have to be fine when that happens. When I love people I don't know how to be okay without them, so the goal becomes just to not love people hardly at all. It feels lonely and isolating but I don't know the alternative. When someone insists on loving me anyways, I 100% of the time will do something self-sabotaging to try to scare them away. It's a lose/lose for both of us. I want to feel close to people but this happens and I don't know how to change it.  

I have learned that this doesn't make sense to a normal person but in my brain it is honestly perfectly logical. I get that I truly have a disorder because even writing this all out here it still looks perfectly sound to me! It makes sense to me!! But I have learned through the years that to a normal person reading this, it might not make any sense to them. This is the best I can explain it. I am open to questions or comments.