I'm the "what the f*ck just happened" girl.
Somebody's energy shifts, just slightly. A tone changes. A look. A door closes a little harder than it should. Most people don't even notice. I feel it in my whole body, and I have to ask about it.
For years I called that "getting to the bottom of the issue."
I want to tell you what it really was, and what finally changed.
Not qualified, still patterned
Same disclaimer as always. I'm not a professional, I can't diagnose you, and I'm not better than you. What I am is patterned, and this is one of my oldest patterns.
What I used to call it
I would never have said I was lashing out. I would have said I was defending myself. Demanding respect. Trying to understand.
And here's the thing. I'm not a mean person. I don't tease people. I don't put anyone down. I'm the one who pretends not to see something embarrassing so nobody feels silly. I'm a nurturer and a people pleaser, so when I felt disrespected or treated unfairly, it hit me like a betrayal of everything I put into the world.
So I asked. Out loud. Right then.
And not once, not one time, did it end with "I'm sorry" or "here's why I acted that way."
It became about me. Because I wasn't calm. I was hurting, I was loud, and my tongue gets very sharp when I'm in a rage. I own that. Hurt does not excuse the words that come out of it.
How borderlines get the bad rep
Here's what I see now. When a person with BPD blows up, everyone remembers the blowup. Almost nobody remembers what led up to it.
So the story becomes toxic, dramatic, too much, go get help. Meanwhile the person who started the shift never has to look at themselves, because the "crazy" label is already sitting there, convenient and ready.
I'm not saying nobody has to be accountable for how they respond. I'm saying accountability is a two way street, and the street was getting paved in one direction only.
What I did instead
Eventually I figured out that the conversation I was trying to have was never going to happen. The apology wasn't coming. The explanation wasn't coming. All that energy I poured out, and nothing came back.
So I let go. Okay, ish.
I didn't turn rude. I'm still not rude to people. But I started holding back some of my generosity. When someone doesn't treat me well, they just get less of me than they would have gotten before.
And that left me alone with my feelings, with nowhere to send them.
Sitting with it was devastating
I won't lie to you. The first time I had to sit with those feelings without a fight to put them into, it was devastating. The hurt had nowhere to go, so it just stayed there.
But then something happened.
Sitting with an emotion gave me time. Time to reflect. Time to soften. And somewhere in that quiet, I began to realize that I was never the problem, and it was never really about me.
Hurt people hurt people. And healed people heal people.
That was the shift. It was the moment I saw the pain behind the mask of the people who hurt me. I got less angry and more compassionate, and that alone was a balm to my soul. (If that one hits you, read my post on compassion not being a relapse.)
Compassion doesn't mean you let people stay in your life to hurt you. It means you stop needing them to be the villain to make sense of your pain.
Silence is golden
You've heard "silence is golden" about peaceful moments. Quiet mornings. A still house.
Here's the part I only recently figured out. It also applies when you've been mistreated.
You can say nothing. You don't owe anyone an explanation, a confrontation, or a performance of your hurt. Most of the time, explaining it to someone who isn't listening is just giving your energy away. And giving away energy is giving away power.
Now, I want to be careful here. There's a difference between silence as a choice and silence as a freeze. Freezing is when your body shuts you down because speaking feels unsafe. Choosing is when you could say it, and you decide it isn't worth your peace. Learn which one you're in. They feel different.
Let them
So I'm learning to let them. Let them be who they are. Let them think what they think. Let them go.
A quick credit where it's due. I came to those words on my own, in the middle of my own healing, and only later found out that "Let Them" is also the name of a big idea from Mel Robbins, in her book The Let Them Theory. I had no idea when I started saying it. Now that I do, I'm giving her full credit for putting words to something so many of us needed to hear.
I'm not announcing it. I'm not making a scene. I'm just quietly building a life where I'm somewhere else, smiling, because I genuinely get to be.
Healing is my rebellion.
I'm still working on boundaries
I'll be honest, I still struggle with this part. It's one of the reasons I'm so obsessed with boundaries in my work. For me, a lot of it comes down to fear, and that fear runs deeper than losing a friend.
So I'm practicing. Not loud. Not cruel. Just plain, clear statements that tell people what I will and will not tolerate. Which, these days, is not a lot.
And I love how it feels to be so settled in my own peace that nobody can pull me into their storm.
If you're in the middle of it
If you're the "what just happened" person, I see you. Your radar is not broken. Your sensitivity picked up on something real.
The shift isn't learning to stop feeling it. It's learning what to do next. Maybe you ask, calmly, once. Maybe you decide it isn't worth the words. Maybe you sit with it until the sharp edges go soft. Whichever you choose, choose it on purpose, from a settled place, and not from a rage.
You were never too much. You were just taught that the only way to be heard was to be loud.
You can be quiet and powerful at the same time.
That's the work. And that's what we're going to keep figuring out together.
— Jen, BPD Unboxed