This post discusses borderline personality disorder (BPD), the favourite person, intense emotional attachment, fear of abandonment, relationship difficulties, emotional dependency and suicidal thoughts.

My understanding of borderline personality disorder has evolved considerably over the years, as has my understanding of myself.

One concept I repeatedly encounter in discussions about BPD is the idea of a “favourite person”. It isn’t a formal diagnostic term, nor is it a part of the criteria for diagnosis, and not everyone with BPD experiences this attachment. But for some people, like me, it can be an incredibly consuming and intense part of living with BPD.

I wrote about my past experiences of a favourite person years ago. At the time, I was trying to explain something that I felt almost impossible to put into words. Now, I would like to try again. This is my experience, and it won’t necessarily reflect the experiences of everyone with BPD. But the concept is important, and it is seriously misunderstood.

So, what is a “favourite person”?

Broadly speaking, a favourite person is someone who becomes the focus of an unusually intense emotional attachment. They might be a romantic partner, a friend, a family member, a colleague, or even someone you barely know. The attachment can develop towards someone who isn’t a part of your life at all – a celebrity or someone you have encountered online, even an authority figure like a therapist, or a teacher. Basically, it can be anyone. It is not a choice, and you don’t get to choose who you have this attachment with.

The important part isn’t necessarily who the person is.

It’s the intensity of the attachment.

When someone becomes your favourite person, their behaviour can begin to feel disproportionately important. A message from them can make your entire day, while a change in their tone can break it. A delayed response – a cancelled plan – can both become “evidence” that they hate you, you’ve become a burden and they are about to leave.

Objectively, you know that none of these things will necessarily follow. Emotionally, however, it can feel completely real. And that is where things become incredibly complicated.

I remember asking my FP if I could sit with them at lunch, to which they said no because I wasn’t allowed in said area, and I had a huge meltdown. My mood plummeted, the voice in my head was screaming that everyone hated me, that I was worthless and there was no place for me in the world. All because someone had said that I couldn’t sit with them and I had taken it as a form of rejection from someone who made me feel safe in a world where that was incredibly rare.

I don’t think the attachment begins because the person is inherently extraordinary. Sometimes, they simply provide something that we have been desperately missing. Safety. Understanding. Acceptance. Stability. When you have spent a long time without those things, finding them in another person can feel almost life-changing. And when that sense of safety becomes attached to one person, the possibility of losing them can become terrifying.

But it wasn’t their fault. They had every right to say no.

One of the hardest things about having this kind of attachment is realising how much power another person’s actions seem to have on your emotional state; when things are good, they feel like safety. They understand you, reassure you, make you feel wanted, valued and secure. Their presence can quieten those voices, help you regulate your mood, give your life purpose.

But when something changes – anything – it can become excruciating. They don’t reply, they seem distracted, they don’t smile at you, they spend time with someone else… you tell them you miss them and they laugh. And suddenly your brain isn’t processing a small interpersonal event, but a catastrophe in the shape of abandonment.

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment are part of the diagnostic criteria for BPD, and it can be so intense that a seemingly small interpersonal moment carries the emotional weight of something much bigger.

This is one of the hardest things about the favourite person relationship for people on the outside to understand. And honestly, I’m not even sure ‘relationship’ is the right word when the attachment can be completely one-sided. Anyway, I digress.

It is the hardest for people to understand because it seems so, I don’t know, exaggerated? Dramatized? But to you, it’s real. They see a missed text message, but you experience abandonment, rejection and the terrifying possibility of losing someone you cannot live without – which becomes particularly complicated when that person is someone you should never have become so attached to in the first place.

This is perhaps the part I struggled with the most; I knew the other person was not responsible for my emotions.

I knew they had their own life.

I knew they were allowed to be tired, distracted, busy or upset.

I knew they couldn’t reassure me every single minute of every single day.

I knew that expecting another person to constantly regulate my emotions was neither realistic nor fair. But knowing something intellectually doesn’t make the emotional response disappear. That contradiction can be incredibly painful. There is part of you screaming, “I know this isn’t rational”, while another part is screaming, “but what if they leave?”

Looking back at what I wrote four years ago, really stands out to me: I was incredibly hard on myself (did I actually just say that? Wow! Therapy must’ve done at least something…) I described myself as obsessed, I described the attachment as unfair, and I had determined that I had ruined my favourite person’s life simply by existing.

There is truth in recognising that intense emotional dependency can significantly impact the other person. People need boundaries, and they are allowed to have lives outside of us. They aren’t responsible for constantly proving to us that they care. But there is an important distinction between taking responsibility for our behaviour and believing we are fundamentally wrong for having these feelings. They aren’t the same thing.

Having an intense attachment isn’t something I consciously chose and, given the state I was in mentally at the time, it is not surprising that I would latch on to anyone who made me feel even the tiniest bit safe. The feelings themselves were not a moral failing. My past favourite person actually told me that “morality lies with intent” and that has always stuck with me. I caused a lot of damage, a lot of pain, and that behaviour was wrong. But I had no ill intention. I simply believed this person was my best friend.

I can acknowledge that a behaviour was unhealthy and harmful, without concluding that I am unhealthy, harmful, or unworthy of love. After undergoing a lot of therapy, I understand this distinction much better now than I did when I first wrote about this.

However, it is also easy to forget that there are two people involved. The person with BPD may be experiencing an overwhelming attachment, alongside rollercoaster emotions, but the other person is still a human being.

They have needs.

They have boundaries.

They will make mistakes.

They won’t always know what to say.

They won’t always be available.

They might accidentally hurt us without intending to.

And none of that necessarily means they are abandoning us (sometimes, they were never with us in the first place).

If you are someone’s favourite person, you do not owe them your life.

You do not owe them constant reassurance.

You do not owe them unlimited emotional availability.

You do not owe them anything for that matter.

You are allowed to have boundaries.

You are allowed to say no.

You are allowed to have other relationships.

You are allowed to be imperfect.

And setting those boundaries doesn’t automatically make you cruel or abandoning. Sometimes, healthy boundaries are a part of creating healthier relationships.

And if you have BPD?

I think there is something very important that I would say to the version of myself that wrote the original piece: you are not a burden because you struggle with attachment.

You are responsible for learning how to manage your emotions, respect other people’s boundaries and maintain healthy relationships. But you don’t have to hate yourself into getting better: therapy, support, self-awareness and time can help. Learning to tolerate uncertainty can help. Building relationships outside of one person can help. Learning that distance doesn’t necessarily equal abandonment helps.

None of this happens overnight, and none of it is easy.

Recovery isn’t waking up one morning and discovering that you no longer become attached to people. Sometimes it’s noticing the attachment without immediately acting on every feeling it produces.

Sometimes it’s sitting with the discomfort of not receiving a reply and reminding yourself that you don’t actually know what that silence means.

Sometimes it is recognising that, yes, you are terrified they are going to leave you but not turning that fear into certainty.

And sometimes it is learning that you can love someone deeply without making them responsible for keeping you alive.

I understand now that the person I was years ago wasn’t pathetic, manipulative or broken. I think he was just desperately searching for safety and when safety feels uncertain, the human brain can become incredibly creative in trying to protect itself from losing it.

I also understand that another person cannot become the solution to everything that hurts inside of us, not because we are unlovable – because they are human. And so are we.

Maybe that is the biggest thing I would want people to understand about the favourite person; they aren’t simply a story about someone with BPD becoming “obsessed” with another person. The attachment doesn’t mean they are in love with you (seriously, get over yourself!), it is often a story about attachment, fear, emotional regulation, vulnerability and the desperate search for safety. Stability. Purpose.

That person deserves compassion, and so does the person on the other side of the attachment. Because, ultimately, neither person needs to be the villain. Sometimes, two people are simply trying to navigate something incredibly complicated and learning where love ends, responsibility begins, and how to build relationships where neither person has to disappear for the other to feel safe.

Below is a poem I wrote about my favourite person, during one of the hardest times of my life. I hope this post has made someone feel a little less alone, and someone else a little more informed.

My best friend wasn’t real

They were merely a figment of my own imagination

Created by my mind in desperate times

When being alive was a chore

I craved an ounce of understanding

And patience

I needed to be accepted as I was

And not dictated to

Because I’d never been enough before

UNTIL YOU. 

My mind got confused

Led me to believe in a friendship

That didn’t exist

And now I’m crushed

Over a friend

Who wasn’t mine

To begin with. 

© Zave, 2022