dobie, I'm sorry you're struggling with this. I think it's a perfectly natural response after an intense, dysfunctional relationship with a disordered person.
No, relationships with non-disordered people don't have the same intensity and "rush." Those are signs of an unhealthy relationship; a healthy r/s isn't going to feel like that. Intimacy progresses much more slowly in a non-disordered relationship. There's some mirroring and love-bombing (these are just human nature), but it's nowhere on the scale of a Cluster B relationship. This can feel like a lack of "chemistry."
That idealization phase of a BPD relationship feels really good. The borderline is ensuring his/her attachment, and bonds as quickly as possible to avoid what they fear is emotional death.
I've had a fair amount of women and r/s in my life both before and after my high functioning ex left but none of these women got me or were as interested in who I really am as she was.
The hard truth is that the borderline is
never that interested in "who you really are." Their interest in you is because they feel you can fulfill their needs. The nature of the disorder forces the borderline to objectify people in their life.
It
feels like they're deeply interested in who you are, due to the mirroring, idealization, and desperate attempts to attach. Part of manipulation and control (even when done subconsciously) involves extracting a lot of personal information from the partner. Also, borderlines are usually very emotionally intuitive and can "read" people extremely well, which further enforces the idea that this person "gets" you like no one else ever could.
That adulation that awe of the things that make me, me its like a drug and I'm a junkie
This is a lot closer to the heart of it - yes, these relationships/people can be addictive. And like many addictions, just because it feels good doesn't mean it's good for you.
Ive met / dated non women now after the BU and they just seem so bland so nondescript they are more interested in themselves than who I am let alone get or admire the things I like . she touched a part of me and loved and admired me in a way no other woman has .
It's true that no non-borderline can love in quite the same way as a borderline.
Borderline love is disordered. A person without a sense of self, with such deep psychic wounds, cannot ever achieve or sustain true intimacy. Instead, their love is more like a child's idea of intimacy (superficial, need-based) - and it is always,
always trumped by their desperate need for survival.
Those of us who enter and stay in disordered relationships have our own issues with intimacy and relationships to work through, obviously. Part of the healing process is learning that, sometimes, what feels really right and familiar to us... .isn't necessarily healthy for us.