Lived Experience Forum

[Anya11]

Hi everyone, I'm new on here and wanted to see if anyone else relates to favourite person.

I've never posted or really talked openly with others about my BPD, especially the favorite person aspect, as I find it's hard for people to understand without judging me. 

For as long as I can remember I've had a fp (favorite person). I know it can be different for everyone but mine has always been men.

I have only been diagnosed with bpd somewhat recently and have been surprised how much the favourite person isn't talked about, as for me and some other people I have spoken to about it who also suffer from bpd have found that it can be the cause of majority of their anxieties.

To be honest I really really struggle with the favourite person.

Sometimes it is not as bad as it can be but when it's at its worst (as it has been recently) I feel like I can't live without the person.

I have no meaning without them and I get depressed when I don't know when I'm going to see them next.

To give you an example, I saw my favourite person two days ago and before that four days ago.

Even though I only saw them two days ago I feel like I HAVE to see them again soon or I will never see them again.

I need some sort of interaction with this person throughout the day or my anxiety will be unbearable. All my thinking evolves around them and I feel like i'm holding my breath and when i see them i can finally breath again. I feel normal and happy!

But as soon as they leave, a few hours will pass and I will feel so far away from them and the anxiety will come back.

When i'm with them I feel like i can breathe. everything is fine.

But I am insatiable with them. The more I see them the less time it takes for me to want to see them again. 

Before they were full blown my fp I could go two weeks without seeing them. Now I struggle to go 2 days.

It's hard, a text from them would change my mood for the entire day, seeing them will keep me happy for a few hours.

Does anyone else relate or struggle to control this?

[Anya11]

My fp will also change. A lot of the time it is because it has transferred onto someone else.
When the person is no longer my fp it's like I can see them as a real person and don't feel so much anxiety towards their absence anymore

[Shaz51]

Hello and welcome @Anya11 

we have a thread called Raising Awareness of BPD - Flipping the Script  for you to click onto and have a look and i will tag you there too 

also @BPDSurvivor , @BlueBay 

[Judi9877]

Hi @Anya11 and welcome to the community. Nice to meet you👋 I'm a Community Guide here and 1 of my diagnoses is BPD.

To answer your favourite person, I've experienced that plenty of times and before my BPD diagnosis, I know I had a certain male teacher as a favourite person but could only link it to the fact that I had a bad relationship with my father. This male teacher was literally my rock and my whole world for 4.5 years until he left the school - he was on a contract of 5 years- and when he left, devastated was a kind word to use in terms of how I dealt with it. Let's just say high school wasn't a nice place after that for me.

Now that I have my BPD diagnosis, I can see that I guess I do often play the favourite person thing on certain people to an extent which is hard and I honestly don't like this trait in me but I've accepted it for the time being. It's hard when people leave and I try and keep my favourite person hidden but sometimes I show it when I defend them in arguments for example in front of others. Therefore, I can understand your experience to an extent of having it happen to me. 

I don't know how to deal with this as I haven't had therapy on the issue but I do know that it is common with BPD so you aren't alone with what you are experiencing. I'll tag the wonderful @BPDSurvivor in here as she might be able to offer some more insights into this area.

Take care!

Judi9877

[Aniela]

Hi @Anya11 

I don't know really much about the term favourite person. I have noticed though, that I always have a male in my life that my brain is obsessed about, and have constant daily fantasies about having their attention. Is that what the favourite person means?

This person for me at the moment is my psychiatrist, which is good, because he is keeping professional boundaries and he is a safe person to get attached to. I know there is something called "transference" and I'm not sure if that has anything to do with us needing to have a "favourite person?" If it's some need that wasn't met???

I'm very interested to learn more about this, because I've only heard people talk about the favourite person in a non clinical sense. Never spoken to my psychologist/psychiatrist about it properly though. 

[BPDSurvivor]

Hi @Anya11 !!!

Oooooo it sure sounds familiar! My life revolved around that ONE person. I leeched on and sucked the life out of them.

But you know what? I've moved on from it now (phew). Takes time, hard work and dedication, but things do get better.

And you know what else? The first step to making any sort of change is recognising there's an issue. And it looks like you've been able to reflect on it. Now it's up to you (whenever you feel ready) to make the changes you believe you'd like to make. Alternatively, you can also stay as you are if you think it works for you. There's no right or wrong here.

Main thing is, I think many with BPD can relate.

Hi @Aniela @Judi9877 @Shaz51 

BPDSurvivor

[Dimity]

Hello @Anya11 @Aniela @Judi9877 

I can relate to these emotionally intense and potentially distressing feelings. I was diagnosed with BPD and had intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy for it for over 15 years. I think having what you called a favourite person  relates to our attachment style. I came across the term "limerence" as contrasted with "love" as a form of romantic attachment and gained some insight from. information about it, although I think it comes from popular psychology rather than being a clinical term. 

These problematic feelings were troublesome and associated with build ups to more than one psychotic break. After my last hospitalisation, which took a different pattern, my diagnosis was changed to Bipolar. I remain in touch with my favourite person but it's not a healthy relationship and I'm suffering from the karma of not having significant others. I might even have to forgo medical procedures I'm currently needing.

Please be kind to yourselves, fellow forumites, and if you're uncomfortable with these feelings, ask for help. It's not trivial and you deserve happiness and resolution.

Dimity.

[Pato]

Hi all

Yes, 'favourite person' is a common thing I hear about from other people who have experience with BPD. I have done it before and it always ended in an incident of rage because I perceve that my FP had somehow abandoned me, and I went into splitting. One person is too much pressure for me.

To combat this now, i have multiple FPs and I manage each relationship in a categorised way and with firm boundaries. I have my mental health team FP who is my psychologist. I have my college FP who is a lecturer who understands my mental health. And I have 2 work FPs as I work in multi locations at differing times. 

For me having multiple attachments works well to reduce my stress over abandonment and prevent splitting. 

For me FPs are always mother figure attachments so my partner would not fall into my FP type - she is an equal. These women do not need to be older than me but are always more senior or a mentor in some way. For me it's all mum stuff. 

Currently however, my psychologist is working hard to deal wuth my attachment issues and meet my unmet childhood needs, which I believe is helping reduce my BPD symptoms massively.

One to one Schema therapy is working really well for me. I was anxious/avoidant in my attachment style before Schema but am secure now. I had many unmet childhood needs before (trauma, abandonment and abuse) but we are working hard to resolve them using imagery rescripting and chair work, as well as using the care and attention my psychologist gives me to heal old wounds. 

Thanks,

Ian 

[SJT63]

@Anya11 

thanks so much for sharing that. It makes perfect sense of beviours I've observed in my niece with bpd for many years an didn't understand.

S