relationships | Ioanna Arka

I can’t count the times I’ve made excuses for others.

And I can’t count the deliberations that have been going through my head when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Do they care? Was that thing they said a sign they care? Was the other thing a sign they don’t? How do I know? How do I judge?

The thing is, a simple metric exists, but many of us refuse to see it. It goest like this: if someone cares, they make time for you. Doesn’t have to be much. Five minutes are all it takes.

I can’t begin to count the people who’ve told me “I don’t have time” through the years. Sometimes it was understandable, of course. People have responsibilities – I have responsibilities, too. But, somehow, I always thought people were more important. They came first. I made time.

They rarely had time for me, though. Those same people who among their nights out and movies and dates and hobbies and everything they did for themselves and those they did have time for, just didn’t have a couple of minutes when you needed them. They didn’t, even if they claimed to care. Even if you were always there when they needed you, no matter whether it was convenient for you or not, if you took time from your family, your work, your sleep. Because you made time for them. You stayed up late into the night, talking when they needed it. You helped solve their problems. You even told your children–who shouted at you, “Mom, why are you still on your phone, why don’t you play with me”–to wait ten minutes, or twenty, or thirty, because you were doing something important. You were looking after someone you cared about.

You made time. You prioritized them. But they just couldn’t bother.

In nine out of ten of all cases, what people mean when they say, “I don’t have time,” is: I have time for a whole bunch of things. I make time for a whole bunch of people. I just don’t have time for you.

All of us, all of us make time for the things and people that are important to us. There’s no exception to this. Don’t try to find excuses for those you hope will, someday, give you their time. They don’t want to. It’s as simple as that. Barring serious problems–health or mental health issues like severe depression or anxiety come to mind–they don’t want to talk to you. (Note: If you have a friend with severe depression or anxiety, please, check up on them at least once a week. It’s important, trust me.)

Some people will make time for you, even though they do have serious problems. I have such friends: with children in therapy, elderly parents with health issues, family members with serious illnesses, being ill themselves, or combinations of the above and more. And yet, they make time. Those I’m holding on to. I’m never letting go.

I know it hurts to let go, but you have to be brave and see the necessity. You have to see it for the truth that it is: they don’t really care all that much about you.

If you’re anything like me, it’s difficult for you to accept this. You believe people when they tell you they’re busy. They just can’t find two minutes to check in. Week after week, month after month; what can you do, life! As if you didn’t have a life, problems, shitholes to climb out of. So, trust me when I say: they won’t make time. Walk away. It will be hard, oh, so hard. But, I promise you, once you do, your life is going to be better. Don’t fall into the trap of the sunk cost fallacy (“I’ve invested a lot in this relationship, so I can’t possibly stop investing now.”). Go on, remove them from your emotional map. It hurts, I know. So many relationships in life just rip your heart out. But, as in the finance world, so it is in relationships: sometimes you have to just let your investment go, because if you don’t, you’ll lose much, much more.

Don’t keep throwing mental and emotional resources into black holes. Use them where they’ll make a difference.

<< 9. Middle of the night anxiety / 11. Panic Attack Thursday >>

For months, I’ve been wondering why I get along so well with people with Borderline Personality Disorder. I have several close friends who have been diagnosed with BPD or exhibit most of the traits, and I really, truly get them. When they describe feelings, symptoms, reactions, I feel them, mostly because I’ve had similar emotions and reactions in the past. I relate, not in an intellectual way, but in the we-share-an-experience way.

I talked about it with my therapist today—I started therapy again, for stress management, you see—and she confirmed my suspicions. I have several borderline traits, she said, but my condition is probably not severe, and in all likelihood not diagnosable. I grew up in a loving family, I was held and soothed as a child. The only reason I can find for this near-disorder is the one month’s separation from my mother immediately after I was born. I was a preemie, you see: in those days, they left you in an incubator, and nobody touched you for weeks. The therapist says this could well be my early-childhood bonding failure, and I have no reason to doubt her.

I did an online test based on ten yes-or-no questions, and I scored 6/10, where 7/10 can get you a diagnosis. Self-destructive behavior? Check! Binge eating is one of the first items on the list. Emotional dysregulation, outbursts? Check—although with lots of effort, I’ve improved that a lot. Self-harm? I won’t go into that, but let’s say, a tiny bit—enough to make “no” a dishonest answer. Anger outbursts? Towards Urban, mostly, yes. Also, towards some friends, back when I was pregnant, because somehow the hormones exacerbated the paranoia that my friends wanted to undermine me (or, to be more accurate, they caused some paranoia. I never exhibited this kind of thinking before that, and I haven’t since). Unstable relationships or lots of fights within relationships? Oh boy, the times I almost left my husband for dumb reasons. The only thing that saved me is that Urban has the inertia of a freight train. He trudges along, seemingly unfazed, and this saved the relationship. Thank God for that.

What else? Ah, the fear of abandonment. This is my “nobody will like me” mantra, which Urban is tired of hearing, and even more tired of refuting. I’ve had this feeling after every meeting with a new-ish friend since forever—since kindergarten, I swear—that now I finally did behave in an inappropriate way, and they finally saw how I truly am, and they won’t like me anymore.

Every. Single. Time. To this day.

It’s getting better, though. I have a lot of friends—my therapist has pointed this out often enough—and time and experience have proven that people actually don’t abandon me, even if I think my behavior or my personality is horrific. It’s an intellectually approachable result, for which I used the scientific method: observation, data gathering, statistics. Still, it’s not as easily accessible from the emotional side, at least not where new friends and new relationships are concerned. And the lack of boundaries… well, I’m able to regulate it, most of the time. It’s hard. I know it scares some people and drives them away, but my friends seem not to mind too much, and readers sometimes find it refreshing. It’s interesting, after all, to gain some insight into another person’s psyche. We are all relieved to see that we are not alone in our struggles, fears, insecurities. Most people hide themselves behind well-crafted facades. I just can’t—and believe me, I’ve tried.

I don’t experience dissociative states, though, and the above symptoms are mostly mild, and some of them have even subsided with the passing of the years. I can even feel the love of my friends these days, at least of old friends, although it is and will always remain a mystery to me why the majority of them rarely, if ever, initiate contact. “I love you,” they say, and yet they never send a message. It’s one of those great enigmas that have no answer, and my psychologist says I should just call them when I want to talk to them, and that’s pretty much that.

One might think finding out that you almost have a serious disorder when you’re nearing forty is jarring and disturbing, but to me, it’s liberating. I finally know why for thirty-five years I’ve felt wonky around others. Why I couldn’t adjust as well as I’d like in elementary school, why by the age of eleven I was convinced that no boy will ever like me, which continued in adult life as I’ll never find a boyfriend, and to this day continues as, if I ever get divorced, I’ll die alone.

(Evidently, I found a boyfriend. Phew! Hopefully, we won’t get a divorce. I mean, we won’t. Just think of the hassle!)

So, where do I go from here? I don’t think this new knowledge helps with the stress management, except as far as it gives me more insight into my condition, and therefore removes some of its general uncertainty.

One consoling feature of being on the verge of borderline disorder—a borderline borderline, if you’ll excuse the pun—is that you get the superpowers (increased empathy, deep insights into feelings and relationships) while still being able to tackle the debilitating symptoms of the disorder, even if that means approaching them from the intellectual side and not from the emotional one. Those superpowers you can use in multiple ways. I use them for writing deep characters in my books, for example, and my friend Chet, who has BPD, does the same thing. When I started reading his first book, I went Woah! I could have written this! He also gets my characters, and I get his. He even likes my deeply flawed and morally grey John character—whom I love—but I can assure you that few other readers do.

Anyway, I can’t change it, or rather, I can change it a little bit, with lots of effort. No point worrying over what you can’t change, as they say. I have to accept it and move on.

I did find a boyfriend, after all. He’s making pizza as we speak.