Loving Her and Her Personality Disorder

My girlfriend V and I have known each other for seven years, have been dating for three, and each day I seem to fall more and more in love with her. I like to think that I know everything there is to know about her, and I guess to a certain extent I do. I know everything that she knows about herself, but given that we are ever-changing human beings, she doesn’t even know everything about herself. For as long as I’ve known V, and even since before that, she has struggled with mental illness: depression, anxiety, and most recently, borderline personality disorder. 

I never got the “I was diagnosed with BPD” conversation, and it may sound selfish, but sometimes I wish I had. Instead, her disorder was something that I learned to recognize over time, but I can’t get upset about it because it was something she had to learn about over time, too. She has spent many months out of her life going between different therapists and psychiatrists, just trying to get someone to listen to her. Only recently has she finally found a wonderful British woman who specializes in the disorder and has been able to give my girlfriend the help that she deserves. I love V more than anything in the world, she knows that, and everyone around us knows that, too. In the short month that she’s finally been getting proper care, I can confidently say that I have noticed a change. Progress isn’t linear though, and there are always days that are harder than others. Part of her progress, I assume, has to be from finally having someone other than me believe in her and validate her feelings. From psychiatrists turning her away, to therapists telling her that she could only have BPD if she was manipulative, to family and friends not knowing how to begin with understanding this disorder—I know it must be a comforting feeling for V to have found someone to help her who also believes her.

Art by Julia Smith

I’m a product of mental illness; I too suffer with depression, anxiety, and emotion regulation. I’ve seen many people that I love suffer with depression, anxiety, addiction, etc., so why do I sometimes feel like her episodes are personal and that there is something wrong with our relationship just because of how she’s feeling? I know it’s not personal, I know there’s nothing wrong, but when you’re stuck in the moment, sometimes it feels like there is a disconnect. What I see V go through is much different from what I do and from what I’m used to seeing with those around me. I’m not sure why, but sometimes it’s harder for me to watch V than it is to watch my mother struggle with her alcoholism. I have many theories about it, though the most painful one is that I’m scared that one day V will give up on treatment like my mother did, and that I will be stuck trying to hold together two women that I love so much, knowing that I can’t do anything to actually help them. There is so much unknown with personality disorders, and sometimes I think, “How am I supposed to educate myself on this disorder when mental health professionals themselves don’t even know enough about it to help her?” I see her getting better, but I can’t help to think the worst, and I guess that’s just because I’ve always had to expect the worst when dealing with my mom.

I get upset, anxious, and scared over what V goes through, and sometimes I hate myself for feeling even the slightest bit annoyed about her experience. It’s not because I don’t care or that I’m tired of being with her through this journey, it’s mostly that I can’t do anything about it but listen to her cry out in pain. It’s a lot for her to handle, I’m certain, but it’s a lot for me to handle too. Supporting her and making sure she feels loved will always be my main priority, but I finally know now that it’s okay when I get overwhelmed too. When I finally opened myself up and got the courage to communicate the different emotions that I go through when supporting her, things got a lot easier for us. BPD is a powerful disorder, so it only makes sense that her raging emotions are often met with my scared, drained, or upset ones. How I feel about her episodes is different from supporting her through them, because my support will always be there.

I think about V and how much I love her all the time, and whenever I do that, her illness never comes to mind. Maybe I’m able to look at things differently since I have my own experience with mental illness, because I can imagine it would be a lot harder for us if I didn’t know even a little bit about what it’s like to experience such mental pain. It’s tough, and it’s even harder to try to put it into words. Loving someone with a personality disorder is without a doubt the hardest thing that I have ever done. It requires an endless amount of care and attention that may seem a bit too much for a lot of people to handle, and I get that. It is a hard and tricky thing to navigate, but I would never just give up on V for something that she can’t handle. It’s certainly not an easy position to be in, but that doesn’t mean that its difficulty is not worth it. V is learning and growing to be the strongest version of herself that I’ve seen in a while, or possibly have ever seen. I wouldn’t change being in my position for anything in the world. Her emotions are intense, and when it hurts her, it hurts me too. But she loves so hard, and I could never abandon that.