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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Exactly a year ago, I posted on this forum saying that I was diagnosed with BPD and frequently felt lonely. I’ve deteriorated a lot  since then, and I guess I’ve become a “failure to launch” now. Here’s the situation:

I’m currently 24. I was born in an East Asian country and moved to the US with my parents when I was 5. I moved around a lot as a kid, and I attended three different high schools all in varying parts of the country due to my parents’ frequent moves.

I attended an Ivy for college, where I made exactly zero friends (part of that was due to COVID, but also part of it was due to my unhappiness at the competitive, cutthroat culture at my Ivy). When I graduated college, I got an offer at a prestigious MBB consulting company in DC.

Cue my quarter life crisis. I hated everything about my consulting job, and I also really resented the fact that I had exactly zero people I kept in touch with from my childhood, high school, and college. I hated living in a city as transient as DC, which was difficult for me as someone who had no social connections.

I don’t want to sound woe is me since on paper, my life seems pretty great: Ivy degree, prestigious consulting job, student loans all paid off, etc. But… woe really is me.

I got extremely depressed when I moved to DC and started my job, and my suicidal ideation intensified. Going to therapy and taking meds was useless for me (as is the case for a lot of people with BPD), and I eventually got fired from my job back in January because I was ill-suited for such an intense, competitive environment.

After I got fired in January, I moved back home with my parents, where I’m subjected to daily shame (a cornerstone of Asian parenting).
I’ve never really found “my people” so to speak. It wasn’t in college or high school, and it wasn’t at work at my MBB firm. It’s certainly not with my parents, who (like many Asian parents) are critical and controlling.

My old therapist in DC dumped me, and my new therapist (based in my parents’ city) diagnosed  me with “extreme BPD.” She asked me how I would describe myself to other people…. And I couldn’t think of any words besides “bright and hard working.”

That’s when it hit me that I had such a weak sense of self, and such little idea of who I really am as a person, that the only words I could come up with to describe myself were “smart and hardworking.” My therapist reiterated to me that it’s difficult to be friends or coworkers with someone who has such a weak sense of self and doesn’t really know who they are.

I guess this can all be traced back to the fact that my entire life was a hamster wheel of achievement, and creating close relationships was never something that was deemed important to me. I feel lost, lonely, isolated, and deeply alienated from society.

I have to admit that I frequently dream about jumping off a bridge — and before you tell me otherwise, no, therapy hasn’t helped resolve this.

Has anyone else been in this situation? [/quote]

You seem pretty self-aware. Hang in there. Follow your heart. [/quote]

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