I thought I was doing alright not having anyone to talk to. I'm keeping my house clean, putting a big effort into my church's weekly newsletter, doing 30 minutes/10 km a day on my exercise bike, and I'm enjoying photographing the birds at my feeders, but it's all too quiet. There's only so much me time a person can take. Like everyone, I need intimate interaction with others to maintain a balance, and right now I am feeling so lonely and isolated it's hard not to feel sorry for myself.
Turns out that I don't have BPD after all, just an attachment theory problem that causes me to believe that every time I love someone they will find me unworthy of their regard. Unless the other needs me in some way, I don't feel secure in the relationship. Plain and simply, I expect from the world what I got from my parents. It's what I was taught to expect. It's not exactly hard wired, it's not part of my personality, but it was programmed into me at an early age, and I haven't exactly had a lot of close friends who've managed to stay the course long enough to change that theory. Truth is I scare them all away when they see what they think is my over reacting to what I'm thinking is a sign of their disregard. They pull away, I panic, I try to stop them from leaving; they pull away some more... It's my worse nightmare come true, and it happens again again. ...I don't think people would think it was over reacting if they experienced what I do.
According to my Therapist this path of expectation is so huge, so well worn, it's a honking big highway, and I can't see any other way because I'm stuck right in the damn middle of it, already half way there to unworthy and "good-bye, it was nice knowing ya". With my Therapist's help, I've gotta somehow make myself take another route, start forging another path, and then little by little make that path broad and deep enough to provide me with an alternate route, a choice.
At this point though, all I can see in the isolation I feel. It's so heavy and thick tonight that I can taste it in the back of my throat. I can't see how I'm going to learn how to stop myself from thinking that those I come to love are going to find me unworthy and then leave me, when nearly everyone of them has already left, and those that haven't, are keeping a safe distance between me and them.
I remember when I was a teenager, if I wanted to see my friends I'd have to hitch hike to the town where they lived. Sometimes I'd have to walk for hours on an unlit bit of road, feeling a bit frightened and very much alone...
Do you think if I stick out my thumb long enough, someone will come along and give me a lift?
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