so i’m dating a girl, and last night she mentioned she had BPD. i didn’t think much of it, i wasn’t familiar with it. i just started doing research and went to reddit (maybe a big mistake) just to see what ‘real life’ people were saying about it. it’s /r/BPDlovedones and it’s basically victims of people who have dated someone with BPD...
it’s currently scaring the shit out of me and kind of making me have a panic attack. there was a post saying “Any advice for someone starting to date a person with BPD?” and literally everyone said “Don’t. they’ll ruin your life. the person they are now is not who they really are. they change themselves to adjust to your personality” and it all the basic patterns align with what i’m experiencing. it’s very scary. i don’t know what to do.
edit: yeah it’s just shitty non-BPD being very hateful and resentful. very insensitive, kinda dramatic. anyway
i know reddit is infamous for having these ‘victim’ groups who hate on a certain type of people who ruined their lives, and it feels very dehumanizing. i don’t think it is impossible to date this person and i don’t want to just stop seeing them. i don’t know what to do tbh. just very overwhelmed
Yeah trusting reddit about it might be a mistake, a lot of people 'self-diagnose' with it, and even more people are 'diagnosed' by their friends and family reading shit online instead of a doctor or psych actually doing an evaluation. Usually these people are just narcissistic or have mood swings or have anxiety and from there the hive mind does what it wants to stigmatize the wrong mental health issues.
It is however a serious disorder, so talk to this girl about it since she brought it up; see what she has to say about how she manages symptoms and to see if it is really something you can involve yourself with. Mental health issues can kind of compound so if you feel this is causing panic and increasing anxiety it might not be healthy for you which might make it worse for her and just starts a feedback loop.
If you can, maybe also talk to some of her friends or family to see what they have to say - not like going behind her back, but if they're people you already know or something then hit them up after talking to her. Maybe she is misrepresenting how she is affected or maybe she's selfdiagnosed it instead of working on personality flaws, or maybe they can genuinely say something like "yeah she was diagnosed a while ago and has managed her symptoms well for years".
That's the number one question for OP. Is this an actual diagnosis?
Think about people who are actually diagnosed with OCD vs. people who like to keep their apartment neat and say "I'm so OCD."