Day 2: Unstable Relationships - The Push-Pull of Wanting and Fearing Closeness.

This post is part of a 10-day series exploring the nine criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), followed by my personal diagnosis story. These posts are educational in nature and rooted in lived experience - they are not intended as tools for self-diagnosis.

***

There’s a kind of love that feels like whiplash.

One moment, someone is your everything. Your safe place, your anchor, your reason to breathe.

The next, they feel distant, cold, unsafe, and you don’t know why.

You might pull them closer. You might push them away. You might do both in the same breath.

This is what the DSM describes as “patterns of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.”

In other words, black and white thinking, often referred to as “splitting”.

But that doesn’t capture the why.

It’s not manipulation. It’s not drama.

It’s fear.

Fear of being hurt. Fear of being left. Fear of being too much.

Fear that if you don’t keep them close, they’ll disappear, and if you let them too close, they’ll see the parts of you you’re still trying to hide and leave anyway. Either way, the result is the same.

What This Looked Like For Me

I used to think I was just “bad at relationships”.

Too intense. Too reactive. Too sensitive.

I didn’t understand why I could go from feeling completely safe with someone to suddenly feeling like I couldn’t trust them, even if nothing had changed. Even before you could finish an exhale.

I didn’t know that my brain was flipping between survival modes.

That I was trying to protect myself from pain, I hadn’t yet learned how to name.

That I was chasing closeness and fearing it at the same time.

It wasn’t about the other person being good or bad.

It was about me not knowing how to feel safe in connection.

What Helped

• Learning my patterns. Once I could name the push-pull dynamic, I could pause and ask, “Is this about them, or is this about my fear?” But don’t let this fool you, I still struggle with this. Multiple times a week, in fact. But knowing how to recognize it is a big step forward.

• Repairing instead of retreating. I started practicing staying in the relationships through the discomfort, not just reacting to it. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, I suppose), my husband is the first person I haven’t had the constant on-again, off-again relationship dynamic with. I don’t allow myself to self-sabotage to that extent anymore, even if I really want to.

• Therapy. Especially learning how to tolerate distress and build trust slowly, not all at once.

• Safe people. The kind who don’t take your panic personally. Those who stay soft when you get sharp. Those who remind you that love doesn’t vanish when you’re struggling. Even if they also get upset, they’re still there at the end of the day.

If You Relate

You’re not too much. You’re not broken. You’re not incapable of love.

You’ve just learned to brace for loss.

You’ve learned to protect your heart by testing people before they can leave.

You’ve learned to survive.

But you can also learn to stay.

To trust.

To let love be steady, even when your fear isn’t.