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I'm hoping someone can relate to this:
There's this one girl, she used to act very passive agressive towards me (nothing personal just her communication style). I pulled her up on it about a year ago, there was some very mild conflict between us and we are now polite but cold towards each other. No problem you might think: except of course that I am borderline and have such a hair trigger for percieved rejection that I get an impulse to self harm whenever I see her, hear about her or even see her name written down.
I almost never get into conflict with people but I am as sensitive to rejection/abandonment as any other borderline. The only difference is that the anger and hate I feel is directed against myself.
It frustrates me that what would have been a minor blip in a relationship for someone else is so triggering for me that I literally can't be around this person

Meangrrl,

I've only self injured a few times in my life. However, I think most of us here can most definitely relate to the frustration you feel at being hyper sensitive to rejection and to turning anger and hate in on yourself. I'm sorry you are dealing with feeling so very triggered by this. : (

Would it help to see it like you are choosing to take care of yourself by not being around her, as a very gentle and kind act to yourself because of your sensitivity right now? Is it that you are judging yourself as being different and "defective", unlike everyone else? How do you know who doesn't feel very hurt by rejection or who doesn't feel defective too?

meangrrl

don't be so hard on yourself. If you can't stand being around her, you can't. That's a fact, and so what? I mean it's okay. I would think that comparing how you feel to what you THINK other people might feel (if they were in your situation) is like shooting yourself and causing you more harm than good.

just my two cents

Liz94 and Meremortal,

Thanks for your understanding. Its true: I am judging myself as defective here. I am very frustrated by my reactions if the truth be told.
I would like to simply accept my decision to stay away from this person.
My problem is that the incident is not isolated: inevitably there will be others that are passive agressive (or outright agressive) towards me and adult life requires that I deal with it. This one girl is only an example. Today at work I had to face up to a potential conflict and it was almost as triggering again.
So my difficulty is practical too: how to cope with normal everyday tribulations without flipping out.

You're welcome, meangrrl.

It is a tough situation - being hyper sensitive and having insufficient coping skills for everyday situations. That is a practical dilemma. Meangrrl, I feel for you and I really relate.

It's true that you do have to deal with everyday life. But when you say, "normal everyday tribulations", I wonder if you are still judging yourself as being "less than adequate", or "less than average" at coping with "basic" or "easy" stuff. I feel the same meangrrl, so I'm not saying this as someone who's got it figured out. But as someone more objective maybe. I'm looking at your situation from the outside and I think it's easier for me to feel empathy at the things you are talking about.

For you, at this moment (and maybe not six months from now or maybe not even tomorrow or later today) some challenges you have in your every day life are *very* difficult for you personally. So it seems to me that some of these are not going to be "basic" or "easy" stuff. They are very big challenges.

Will judging yourself speed up the process of getting to where you want to be? Again, I struggle with this same question constantly and in fact I am struggling with it right now this morning, about something in my own life today so I don't have "the answer". I was just thinking maybe it might help you to converse about it either here on the board, or maybe just with yourself.

What are some practical things you can do?

I am this same way and so I understand completely how you redirect your anger with her towards yourself. I tend to do this in many situations...if not all of them. It's like in the very beginning of the situation or trigger, I am angry at them and feel all sorts of awful things against them but it isn't long and without even realizing it, before I am internalizing everything I am feeling and turning against myself. I think part of it is feeling, like you said, that I am damaged somehow and that is the problem, and also from feeling so awful that I feel that way to begin with. I don't have any advice on how to get past this at the moment as I am currently struggling with this very thing as well, but I simply wanted you to know that I relate very much to this. You aren't alone.

angel: yes this is a pretty good explanation for what goes on in my head..

Liz: about practical things.. I really don't know. In a way i feel like I fall into a weird in between place where i hold down a job and people think i am normal but it only works through this enormous effort of will and it feels like things will fall apart any minute.

Soo.... I am always very tempted to avoid triggers and hide as this feels like a practical solution to me.

On the other hand: if I do this, i lose ground that may be impossible to take back later, I reinforce that I can't cope and my world becomes smaller.

A lot of the arguments I have with my partner centre around him trying to push me to keep on with life (you know: work, socialising scary stuff like that) and me feeling he "doesn't understand" (or he would know how hard it is). The truth is of course he does understand he just knows I have to push through or become an invalid.

Ash wrote once here, that for her, her recovery was like discovering she had a problem with alchohol. To start with, she had to avoid situations where she would be triggered, like an alcoholic avoids drinking. But as you said, the world doesn't allow us to totally shut ourselves off from conflict, so eventually, once we learn tools to deal with conflict, it becomes easier to deal with those situations, like someone being able to have a glass of wine and not go on a binge. Have you check out the tool section on the left side of this page? I find the five steps and four agreements together have really helped me in the type of situations you are discribing. During the conflict, the five steps can lead you to an appropriate response and the four agreements can help you deal with the consequeses of any fallout. (Especially realising that Always do your best does NOT mean Always be perfect.)