One of the hardest things I had to learn with BPD was that feelings being valid didn’t automatically mean my conclusions were accurate. Because I do always say ‘your feelings are valid’ but I want to be clear on the fact that it doesn’t mean they’re facts.
For a long time, if I felt abandoned, I assumed someone had abandoned me. If I felt unloved, I assumed someone had stopped loving me. My emotions felt so intense and so real that it felt impossible they could be pointing me in the wrong direction.
And sometimes the feeling itself makes complete sense based on what happened, but the conclusion I draw from it is more extreme than it needs to be. If a friend cancels plans, it makes sense to feel hurt or disappointed. That feeling is valid. But it doesn’t automatically mean they secretly hate me or that I’m being abandoned.
What recovery taught me wasn’t that my feelings weren’t real. It taught me that feelings are experiences, not always evidence.
Sometimes my emotions are telling me something important. Sometimes they’re touching old wounds. Sometimes they’re reacting to fear instead of reality.
Learning to slow down and get curious instead of immediately acting on them has probably changed my relationships more than anything else.
