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I am completely stuck. I have borderline personality disorder among many other mental disorders which leaves me majorly over sensitive with extreme trust issues and a poor self-image. My boyfriend knows this and tries to help me as much as possible with it but unfortunately his idea of playfully flirting with me is to joke about other girls and things along that line which are major triggers to my disorder. Although I can logically process the comments and know he's just flirting with me my emotions take control and I get extremely upset. I have no way of controlling this except to continue with my therapy and with intense treatment I will eventually be able to control my own emotions. My boyfriend and I have discussed this many times and he feels awful and has tried to stop but he still does it some. I was wondering if anyone else has this specific problem and what you have done about it outside of therapy that has helped reduce the extreme emotions provoked? This is really becoming an issue in an otherwise very stong supportive relationship.

One big thing is that you should keep talking to your boyfriend about it. It's a habit of his and it will be hard to break, but it will go away with time and reminders. So keep reminding him, even if it makes him feel bad. If he feels bad he'll make more effort to stop. Also, talking about how this feels to him is good because it will keep the frustration level low. I'm sure you know that when you let feelings sit and fester without saying anything, they tend to blow up...so make sure you talk to him while the hurt is still small and mostly insignificant. Talk to him every time it happens so you can keep your feelings out in the open and tame enough to manage together.

I haven't had your specific problem, but I have been in a similar situation. I was in love with a friend of mine who didn't love me back, and this friend was dating someone else. I was also extremely depressed at the time. So she would mention things about this guy she was dating, and it was agony to me! I kept reminding her that it hurt when she shared certain details (like her sex life and cute things he did for her) with me, but it took a lot of time for her to break the habit. She still did it on occasion.

Part of the solution was learning to cope with the jealousy and depression that would come from these incidents. A big part of coping was talking to my friend and my therapist, being as open as possible. That helped me vent my frustrations in a healthy way, so I didn't take it out on myself or my friend so much. She's still dating him two years later and plans to marry him...and of course I hear details that make me uncomfortable sometimes. But I've gotten way better at dealing with those things so it doesn't control my life anymore.

Coping with your emotions is hard and I know you're already working on it, but it may be the key here. Nobody's perfect and your boyfriend is bound to slip up and forget sometimes. You need to be able to tolerate those little mistakes, which means getting your thoughts and emotions to agree. Remind yourself that he loves you, that you are beautiful, and think whatever thoughts you can that would boost your self-confidence. Hopefully your thoughts and emotions will stop being two separate animals and start agreeing with each other more, so the logic can help change or at least lessen your emotional reaction.

Have you done cognitive behavioral therapy? It focuses on changing the way you think, so that you will benefit from therapy even when you can't actually see your therapist. It tries to change thoughts like, "I can't do this" to "I can do this, but it takes a ton of work" and "Everyone hates me" to "No one hates me, they just aren't sure how to talk to me because I'm shy." Basically, it tries to train your emotions and thoughts to agree with each other, so that one doesn't take control of the other and make you believe things that aren't true.

I guess I didn't tell you much that you didn't already know. :/ I hope it helped at least a little, anyway. Good luck with your therapy and with your relationship. I know you'll get better at this, just give it some time. :)

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(Rating: 5) Though I did already know most of it due to years of therapy it was very beneficial to hear it put in a different way. Because of my specific disorders my therapist focuses more on dbt than cbt but I think I'll mention cbt. It sounds helpful. Thank you so much :)
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