Anyone with BPD will tell that that handling rejection is one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult, aspect of life. To make matters worse, rejection is everywhere. Everyone has experienced it - but for us it is extremely dangerous and almost impossible to handle with any kind of dignity.
Everyone hates being rejected, professionally, romantically, or in any other way. That feeling of “not-good enough” creeps up and suddenly takes us over. The negative thinking starts the circulating sentences “If only I were…” and “See, no one really wants me”, like a broken record. It is devastating and it used to destroy me for weeks. My already serious depression sank to another level of darkness.
Romantic rejections were especially brutal. I never had much luck in the dating department, so to feel whatever hope or courage I cultivated in myself to seek love just to be knocked out - felt like the ultimate blow. It broke me each time. I would swore off love, and promised to never hope of such affection ever again. My humanity always won in the end as I soon after craved love and connection, only to go through the whole process again. Desire to hope to rejection to devastations. Listening to friends saying “He’s not worth it!” didn’t help at all. I knew it - so why couldn’t I feel it?
Rejection affects people with BPD more than others, because without the core personality and sense of self, we tend to hold on to the most recent feeling. The emptiness we are so familiar with is often easily filled by a complement or an innocent comment that cuts like a blade. Whatever it is - is fills us. Rejections fills us too. The negative voice drags us down to the familiar place of emotional despair and reaffirmation of all of our shortcomings and failed endeavours. And that voice that loves to torture us with hurtful and overwhelming prediction “I will never be good enough” begins to carve its pain into our brains.
So what can we do about it? The solution is very simple but it’s not easy. It takes a lot of practice and as with any behavior changing exercises, results are slow to appear. Until, its hits you: the realisation of far you’ve come. From weeks of misery, crying, severe depression to few hours of sadness and the everlasting feeling of “whatever”. There are many ways of getting to that point of quicker rebound and greater emotional resilience. Many of CBT and DBT or any other behavioral techniques will work as long as you keep trying and focus on progress instead of perfection.
I recently had a great breakthrough. I was amazed that I was able to get over something in a matter of hours instead of days or weeks. I had a crush on a guy from work since the first time he made me laugh, about six months ago. I found him interesting and I wanted to get to know him. If you follow me on twitter, you are probably familiar with drama of J and I. Things were going slow at first but at least we were talking. On one small company event, seeing our colleague play in a band, we spend entire evening talking. He sat down next time each time and I shamelessly flirted with his beautiful eyes. We had fun. He walk me home and said “we should do that again”. I smiled, gave him a kiss on the cheek and left. I felt the infatuation hug my entire body as I laid down in my bed that night.
Over the next week or so, we said hi and chatted briefly but nothing more. I recently move here and didn’t have many friends so I invited him to the movies one evening stating I was going and he could join me. He didn’t reply. It was disappointing. Couple hours before the movie, I texted him a choice of answers “ Yes. No. Go away Sky. All of these are perfectly good answers”. He replied with apologies but couldn't join me. Fair enough. We spoke in passing and briefly. Couple months later he was away on training for about a week and texted him asking if he was having fun. Again, no reply. After that it became clear to me that he was not interested in knowing me, talking to me, or being friends. I deleted his number and proceeded to work emotionally to get over him. I remained distant, avoided his office, kept the eye contact to a minimum or none at all, and stuck to simple polite “Hi”. I was gonna get over the fact that I found him interesting while he found me irrelevant. I felt the lava of negative emotions that poured over me every single day. I was determined not to feel down, or negative about myself forever. Slowly but surely, I was succeeding.
All was heading in the right direction until the evening of December 28. I was returning to Dublin from visiting my family over the holidays, only to see J at the airport sitting right next to my gate. He was occupied with his phone and I felt too emotionally drained and physically tired to deal with any emotions I would find myself drowning in after I spoke to him. I sat few rows behind him. Waited for the delayed plane, tried to sleep despite feeling really sad, and finally safely arrived at my destination. He spotted me at border control and said hi. I let one person through before me and I stood next to him. We talked, we laughed, and I was slowly dying inside. All the feelings I have worked so hard to get over, rushed back to the surface because he has a charming smile, and funny sense of humor and to me, he’s gorgeous. We ended up waiting together for a taxi for about an hour at 1am. I asked him if he had any plans for NYE and found out that he didn’t. We got into separate taxies knowing we would see each other in few hours at work.
The next day at work I was exhausted and feeling the result of late night travel in very bone of my body. He didn't look much better. The office was quiet and I enjoyed that. The next day, after catching up on much needed sleep, I returned to work with great smile. He looked very happy too. He helped me with a computer problem and we both laughed about my choice of IT disaster. I then threw an idea his way: “So I had an idea, if you are still not doing anything tomorrow evening - I’m inviting myself to your party. And by party I mean you, me, a bottle of vodka and the Die Hard series. Doesn’t that sound awesome?” To which he replies “Yeah, that does sound awesome.” I left saying “Why don’t you think about it and let me know tomorrow?” He says OK.
Few hours later he came to my office to fix another IT issues and we actually had a conversation about him. He opened up a little. We end up laughing as usual. Everything about that interaction made me believe that hanging out with him and a bottle of vodka would be loads of fun. The next 24 hours my main objective was to relax. I told myself “It will be what it will be”. I saw him few times in the hallway but we only said hi. I decided not to ask about evening until he said something. At 3pm the office is pretty much empty and as I was going to be leaving soon, I stopped by his office to ask for weekend phone features to be turned on - only to find the office empty. He left.
My heart sank to the floor at the sight of turned of lights and computer screens. “Wow - how very polite of you J. Not even a no, thanks.” I was so angry I went home immediately. Feeling the familiar bitter taste of rejection and the clear indication that he didn’t even respect me enough to give me an answer. Everything started building and I again, felt small, insignificant, and worthless. It hurt so much. I got home and went to sleep. I felt afraid I might cut to relieve those feelings. I made no promises as I looked at the bottle of vodka I knew I was going to drink alone later.
Even in that teared-eye state, a part of me hoped for text asking what time I was coming over. That text - of course - never came. I woke up from my nap, had dinner and opened my vodka. I remember raising that first drink and saying “Fuck you J for making me feel this way”. I watched Die Hard and drank like I planned. Tried to have fun and I did. I decided to talk to him on Monday and tell him how shitty he made me feel. I wrote a speech after speech in my head. I made a list of points I wanted to cover from “the personal risk I took by asking him to hang with him” to “you have no idea how hard it is for me with my history of abuse, neglect, and disrespect”, with my final and main point being that I deserved an answer. I wanted to make him feel bad for how he treated me. The house was empty. I practiced my speech well. Everything I said was true and deliberate.
I asked my twitter followers for advice if I should confront J about how he made me feel. 78% said yes. I asked my friend the same question - she said no. “Act like you had something so much better to do than to spend time with him. Even if that isn’t true.” And that’s the advice I took. Somehow acting like I forgot about hanging out with him and being super happy as if I spend entire weekend with someone so much more fun than him - appealed to me the most. I felt better. The next day I woke up feeling fresh and disappointment free. I didn’t care. I was free.
The fact is, he doesn’t deserve to know me or spend time with him, if he can’t even treat me with a little respect. Last year it took me months to get to this sort of perspective and even longer to really feel that way. The New Year’s Eve events suggest the work is paying off and I’m definitely improving. Confronting someone when they hurt us is almost always the right choice. But not when you are barely friends. I’m not excusing J’s behaviour at all but I need to take responsibility for the million things I felt based on his one action. I owe it to myself.
I walked into the office on Monday morning with head held high and magic smile on my face. I acted like I had the best weekend ever - smiling to everyone around including J. Let him wonder - or not. It really doesn’t matter.
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