BPDFamily.com

Have any of you experienced severe separation anxiety from your BPD partner when things are going smoothly after a major upset?

After my partner cycled out of "breaking up" and returned to me this past weekend, we went on a spontaneous trip and had a nonstop wonderful time.

After five days straight with very little time apart, she wants a few days of time alone and with her family, which is completely healthy behavior.

I've been having sporadic panic attacks since we returned to our separate homes yesterday even though we've been in touch via text every few hours. I feel crazy and scared. Her pattern is to decide on her own during "normal" time apart that this isn't working, distance herself, then spring the breakup on me, so I guess I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Yes.  I have experienced that a lot in the past, but what I've learned is that high conflict high drama/intensity relationships almost always have difficulties with comings and goings and push-pull dynamics that mirror the engulfment/abandonment fears of both partners and the corresponding actions (push-pull) creates a petri dish that encourages those fears to become even more inflamed ... .even in the "non" ... .unless the "non" works hard to learn skills in managing their own anxiety and understanding themselves and their own responses.  As you say it's healthy to have time away from a partner.  It's healthy to have good quality time together.  There is suppose to be an ebb and flow in togetherness and separation in any intimate relationship. Intimacy itself relies on this dance between togetherness/separatness, we can't really have intimacy w/out tolerating both states.  We all have to learn to let go and allow a partner to do what they are going to do, while digging deep to manage our own anxiety and fears if they are away or if we sense our own fear of losing them. We can't control anyone else, just ourselves. As adults, if we do break-up or suffer the loss of an attachment object, while it's very painful, it is not life threatening.  Anxiety and panic is our primal response to life threat, and we often move into that kind of panic, even when our life really is not being threatened.  :)istance or threat of losing a love object feels like it's life threatening. But it's really not.  The reason that is important to keep this in mind, is b/c you want to clam yourself and be in a grounded state, not a panic state which turns off your frontal lobes (smart brain) and causes you to act in primitive ways, as though your life were at stake. This is the personal work that needs to be done, how to sooth yourself (quiet mind/calm heart) and manage this anxiety inside.  It's your anxiety, it's yours to work with.  Paradoxically if you can sooth yourself and let go and allow the distance, the retreating object doesn't need to run so fast in the other direction, doesn't need to force more distance in response to an anxious partner's attempts to cling.  Any chasing or controlling behaviors, while understandable, helps keep the pattern of push-pull very much alive and it can teeter back and forth like this over and over again.