r/BPD • u/Mimipuppie • 14h ago
ðŸ’Seeking Support & Advice How to stop hurting partner.
Im not sure if this is my BPD or not, but lately ive just been extremely anxious with and without my partner. On calls, I just have this constant anxiety, my head is screaming that hes cheating or that hes about to leave and I just ask for reassurance..over...and over..and over...and over. To the point it gets irritating. Every single day and almost every minute I have this gnawing anxiety, and it keeps bubbling up into meltdowns. I hate to be like that, but I genuinely feel like im about to be abandoned lately, I sob all day, and then when im with him its like im hurting him. I dont want to be replaced, and I dont want to keep being this burden to him.
What do I do? What do I tell myself? How do I calm down? Is this my BPD?
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u/aaqucnaona user is in remission 13h ago
Lemme start by saying that the central fear of abandonment that drives all this really fucking sucks, and I know that addressing it is important. I commented on that earlier today, so I'll link to that here rather than repeating myself or copy-pasting it. The part of your post that stands out to me more than that is just... you seem to be struggling a lot with like, negative self-image and cognitive distortions. This is a very, very common way that BPD shows up.
You said you feel like a "burden" to him. I think that feeling is the real engine behind all this pain. Something I've learned is that for a lot of us, our brains have this old, glitchy "software" running in the background that was programmed by past experiences. That software's only job is to scan for threats of abandonment, and its favorite story to tell is "You are too much. You are a burden. They will eventually realize this and leave."
The problem is, this software is so powerful that it acts like a filter. It takes every single neutral event (like your partner being quiet for a minute) and twists it into "proof" that the "I'm a burden" story is true. The constant reassurance-seeking you described is your desperate, logical attempt to find data that proves the story wrong, but the filter is so strong it just dismisses the reassurance and immediately goes back to looking for threats. It's a vicious and exhausting cycle.
When your brain screams "He's about to leave because I'm a burden!", you can try to practice separating the facts from the story. A fact is something a camera could record. A fact is not a feeling or an interpretation. For example: Fact: "He answered my call." Story: "But he sounded a little tired, which means he's annoyed with me and is about to leave." The work is learning to hold onto the facts and to see the stories for what they are (just stories, not the absolute truth), even when they feel incredibly real.
As for anxiety, common grounding techniques like 5,4,3,2,1 can help, but honestly what helped the most was anti-anxiety meds. The beliefs and the physical sensation of anxiety are all just part of the same mess and they feed each other, so reducing any one of them will reduce the overall distress. Hope you feel better, OP <3