What Dating Someone With Borderline Personality Disorder Feels Like

Much has been generated by the gossip mills about Ariana Grande’s whirlwind romance with SNL comedian Pete Davidson: the splitting up with their respective long-term partners, the secret matching tattoos, the massive engagement ring… and finally the end of the relationship five months later.

- Erika Quan

What is less well known is Pete’s struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). “I started having mental breakdowns where I would, like, freak out and then not remember what happened after. Blind rage,” he told Marc Maron on an episode of his WTF podcast.

WHAT IS BPD?

People with BPD experience an ongoing cycle of instability in their self-image, moods, and behavior. These symptoms can lead to impulsive and self-destructive actions and problems with interpersonal relationships.

“People with BPD find it very difficult to regulate their emotions,” says Evonne Lek, a Systemic Family Psychotherapist who runs her own private practice, Reconnect Child and Family Therapy. “They might express very intense emotions like anger, fear, and sadness. They can also be very sensitive to innocuous things, and threaten to kill or harm themselves when emotional.”

“They often have an intense fear of rejection or abandonment, and when this fear is triggered, they may act in ways to ensure that others are kept close. Unfortunately, these behaviors only have the opposite intended effect of keeping other people away, which then reinforces their negative beliefs about themselves.”

DATING SOMEONE WITH BPD