Dating and BPD

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I’m in ask you but I also have borderline personality disorder and because of that I have a very strong feeling and of fear of rejection, and I very often go to extremes to prevent my fear from coming through usually by being extra nice to people.

However I very often get rejected After telling the person I am interested in dating that I am autistic and this has happened very many times and I assume that was going to happen with every person I told that I’m autistic that’s not a typical and so far I’ve been 100% right. A lot of people who tell me oh you just haven’t found the right person but I’m already freaking 29 years old and I still haven’t given up on finding anyone and I still have never been in a relationship. after telling the person I am interested in dating that I am autistic and this has happened very many times and I assumed that was going to happen with every person I told that I’m autistic that’s not typical and so far I’ve been 100% right. A lot of people would tell me all you just haven’t found the right person but I’m already freaking 29 years old and I still haven’t given up on finding anyone else still I’ve never been in a relationship

The last person I tried dating, I was so sure they were going to reject me when they found out that I had autism that I already prepared a letter for them explaining to them that I expected them to reject me upon finding out that I’m autistic and that no matter what they say they can’t convince me otherwise or pin anything on me.

But the thing was the girl kind of turned the tables on me when she asked me if I was autistic. I told her that I was autistic and when she asked me Why I never told her that I was artistic I told her about all the rejection I’ve ever faced up on my previous dates finding out that I’m autistic.

She told me that she knew I was autistic because she had an autistic brother and then I reminded her of her autistic brother with some of my mannerisms.
When she asked me why I never told her I was autistic, I responded by telling her about all the rejection I’ve ever faced upon my previous dates finding out that I’m autistic. She told me that I have nothing to worry about and when I asked her if she was upset with me not telling her she said she completely understood and that it was OK.

She had told me that I had nothing to worry about and the date ended on what seemed like good terms and she told me that let’s go to the movies for the next date.

When I got home I heard a notification from my phone and when I checked she asked me to call her. When I called her she told me that she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with me saying that I violated her trust I immediately responded by telling her that I have a letter for her and then I was going to take a picture of it and send it via text message.

I tried to beg her to give me another chance but she told me that she didn’t want to give another chance to someone who Y to her and I reminded her that she lied to me saying that she had nothing against me for not telling her and I said if anyone is lying it was her. She got really angry and hung up the phone for calling her out on her BS. I then told her that the letter I wrote to her was an expectation of this very scenario.

After I sent her the letter while still talking to her she was absolutely livid and she told me that I could forget about Getting any “second chances quote from her and I told her quite literally you weren’t offering me any second chances when I ask you for when you told me no I told her to cut her crap and I hung up on her and blocked her number and I proceeded to block her on all social media before I told her I felt sorry her brother had to have such an ableist and autism hating sister.

This happened years ago and we were never in a relationship we were just dating for a couple weeks and that was the closest I ever got to having a relationship and I’m guilty as charged that I deliberately said those things to her to hurt her feelings for her hurting my feelings. I wanted her to feel what it’s like to be discriminated against each and every day.

I was so afraid of rejection that didn’t even try to pursue a relationship for several years until I was in at work several years later when my coworkers told me that my coworkers that I had a crush on also had feelings for me only for her to reject me just like I predicted and not only did she rejected me but when I asked her out not on a date but as friends to get coffee she rejected me saying that she didn’t even want to be friends with me and I told her that I expected that and then she told me that I shouldn’t be “negative“

It was dead after a hospitalization following a mental breakdown that I realized and was diagnosed by my therapist with borderline personality disorder and now I was able to understand why I was having all those theories of rejection and abandonment and why I was so distrustful of other people and always assumed the worst.

Today, I still have trust and abandonment issues, but thanks to my therapist and DBT my emotional issues are far better than they were a few years ago, however I’m still struggling to find my soul mate.

I am glad you’re in a “better place.”

This is tough. I’m normally the optimist on WP. The outlook on BPD, unfortunately, is pretty grim. I’ve dealt with similar issues throughout my life, but in my case it’s never been something I couldn’t think through or outgrow. With me, it was a matter of realizing I was in a toxic relationship and summoning enough courage to get out of it. I had to become willing to spend the rest of my life alone if that’s what it took. My relationship failures afterwards were a matter of finding where it was I was a toxic person myself, to understand and accept at the right time that a relationship had no future, and that I didn’t have to live my life desperate for a “soul mate’s” attention.

Over time I’ve come to realize that relationships don’t have to succeed to be successful. You want to know that this is someone you can be with long term. When things fall apart, you have your answer and you can move on. If you can view dating as exploration rather than relationship building, you don’t have to feel so attached. Don’t worry, relationships will develop naturally regardless. It’s dealing with abandonment as an actual healthy, normal part of the process that stings for most of us. Once you accept that breakups and rejection are actually positives, it starts to make a lot more sense.

With BPD it’s all emotion, and when emotions overwhelm reason you’re going to have behavior you cannot effectively manage. I suffer from severe depression. I handle it by consciously reminding myself that there is nothing actually wrong or worth being sad about. It’s just a mood and I have work to do. The toughest part is this sense of being frozen and completely shutting down. I get past it by doing small, repetitive tasks that need to be done anyway, and THEN making that important phone call or sending that email when the cloud passes. For example, in the fall I might go out to the marching band practice field and repaint the lines. I can stay busy long enough until I feel I can focus enough to order supplies or fill out requisitions or call parents or write lesson plans and other teacherly things. I imagine what you’re dealing with is many orders of magnitude more than my issues, and I’m not entirely sure for someone with BPD whether simply being aware of what’s happening internally is going to fix things. It’s good that you’re getting therapy, and I hope things turn around for you.

You did hit on one very important thing: Any time there is something you cannot help that becomes an unreasonable stigma for getting a date with anyone, no potential date even really deserves the truth. Exceptions to that are things that could cause real harm to someone, such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, terminal illness even if it’s not contagious, chronic illness, and certain mental disorders. Autism is hardly anything that by itself is a threat. There’s no need for someone to know about it if it’s not obvious. I’d be more concerned with your BPD diagnosis since that actually could result in unintentional harm to another person. And it means an inherent relational instability. I don’t mean to come across as harsh, but I think this is shaky ground. If you can honestly manage your BPD so it doesn’t harm your partner or destabilize your relationship, then there’s nothing to talk about. But on the other hand, have you considered that while dealing with BPD that romantic relationships might be too much for you to reasonably handle? I don’t mean to come across as harsh or judgmental, but there’s just no easy answer for you here.

My suggestion would be that you specifically seek out women who are autistic and have BPD, and who have also been in similar therapy for a while. (Co-occurring BPD seems to be fairly common among autistic women, from what I've heard.) That way you'll understand each other and be able to empathize with each other's emotional struggles -- and also have a shared cultural framework (via DBT) for coping with said struggles, in both yourselves and each other.

BTW, since you live in NYC and have a name like "climategeek," you might be interested in the upcoming (text-based) chat meeting of the Amateur meteorology club (a hobby-oriented social group for adults on the autism spectrum). It's not (currently, at least) a particularly good place to find unattached women, BPD or otherwise, but perhaps you might make some platonic friends there.

Also, are you aware of the various support groups for autistic people in the NYC area?