Part 1

A FP, in relation to BPD Is a favorite person or more realistically a fixated person. Many borderlines have a FP, but not everyone with BPD has a FP. I have found a definite correlation in those with an FP, and those who don't. It seems borderlines who have a FP are normally those without a solid support system. Those who have solid support from family such as those with good relationships with their parents, Siblings and or children, don't need a FP.

Someone needs a FP, For emotional support and this is much more than a supportive friend. It is someone they have a very unhealthy attachment to. Someone they feel they can't survive without. They are the very first one that they talk to in the morning and the last before bedtime. They are unable to regulate their feelings without them. They need.constant support and validation. If the FP has a bad day, they both have a bad day. If it is a good day for the FP, it's great for both of them.

The borderline is essentially obsessed, they put the FP on a pedestal that is so high, they believe they are the best person in the world. They want all of their time and energy and are even triggered by the thought of sharing the FP. For the FP, They may be flattered however, it's an unfair expectation of anyone. Favorite person is not a sweet. choosing that a particular friend is very special, it is an unhealthy attachment and reliance on someone who could never give them all that they need. It cannot be a healthy attachment until the borderline realizes they are just a normal person and are to be treated as such.

Part 2 The Borderlines perspective

For those of you that do not know me I’am Maddy, one of Lisa’s moderators on her Facebook group. I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder in September of 2018 while admitted on an inpatient stay. Today I am going to talk to you about a Favorite Person but more
importantly my experience with having a FP and the damage it did to my relationship with that person and what it meant to me.

One random night I was struggling with my head and the poor self esteem and the lack of self worth and love, so I was in a BPD page on Facebook and I reached out to see if there were any other borderlines that understood what I was feeling and going through. Someone commented and said that they were going through some similar feelings and said that she had sent me a private message. We talked and she encouraged me and we shared stories and then we started to talk more frequently cause she would message to check in and vice versa.
Then one day we just decided to become friends and would message each other all day every day. My friendship with this person became more and more like they were a family member because they cared more for me than my family. I thought of her as my mother because I never had one because my biological mother died from a drug overdose when I was a very young child. I was in and out of foster homes my whole life until I was 12 and I was officially adopted to some very toxic abusive people. We texted all day every day and called each other pretty much every night. I could see myself becoming more and more reliant on this person although I never knew what a FP was even though this person was my FP.
The months started going by and my attachment to her only started getting worse and worse. It was getting to a point where if I wasn't texting her or talking to her I had a meltdown and felt like it was the end of the world but still had no clue that this was unhealthy attachment by any means.
I seeked everything from her from encouragement, validation, and what emotions I was gonna feel on top of a lot of other things. Fast forward a couple of months I got so dependent on her that she had to walk away from me or abandon me in better BPD terminology. We went about 6 months with no contact whatsoever and then one day she came back around and we talked again. It was ok for a while but then the extreme attachment came back and I was 100 percent reliant on her for everything again. It got a little worse this time to the point we had a
fight and stopped talking again but this time it was longer. We went through a period where we would talk and then not talk because my attachment was too unbearable and not able to be handled.
Then in the summer of 2020 she reached back out to me while I was living in Texas at a Halfway house from just leaving Drug and Alcohol treatment. We were talking again and I was trying to have a healthy attachment and she was getting better at setting better boundaries with me. I started to get a little dependent on her again but not as bad as it normally was. I was in a relationship with a girl that I was in treatment with. Well one day me and her got into a really huge fight and I had left her place without my phone and had gone and gotten my drug of choice and got high and while I was driving I nodded out.
The next thing I know I woke up 8 days later in the hospital. I texted my mom(FP). This is where the attachment got extremely out of control, I was so lost from the accident. I don’t remember what happened after I nodded out but I woke up paralyzed from the waist down. I'm still in a
wheelchair to this day working on learning how to walk again almost 4 years later. After the accident my attachment to her got to the point where even when I would be on the phone I would cry and freak out that she was gonna leave me. It also got to a point that I would base my emotions off of what she was feeling. Our relationship got progressively worse because of situations I got myself into. It got to the point where I tried to end my life a couple of times because she would walk away
from me. I didn’t want to live without her. She is what made my life worth living. Everytime she would walk away I would feel Like someone died, I would cry for months over her leaving. We went through alot more periods of talking and not talking because she walked away because the
attachment was completely out of control. Every time that she would come back into my life I couldn't comprehend that the reason she was walking away was because of my behavior and my attachment.
In 2022 I found out that I had a long lost biological brother that I didn;t know I had because our grandparents took him in and didn’t want me. Shortly after my brother came into my life, my FP came back and formed a relationship with me and started to with my brother as well. I started
having surgeries to try to help with trying to learn to rewalk and nothing was happening. I depended on her for everything emotionally and mentally in these times, anytime I was having a surgery I would have to have all kinds of encouragement and validation and reassurance from her
that everything was going to be ok.
In the fall of 2022 I had fallen and had some cuts and bruises and got sepsis and I had already had a yellowish tint to my skin and wasn't feeling right well,They found out that I was in Liver failure and needed a partial transplant. I went off the deep end and watched my relationship with
her spiral out of control to a point that it had never been at before. Shortly after my transplant she walked away from me again because I had gotten diagnosed with brain cancer that had spread from having uterus cancer a few years before and we talked on and off till summer of 2023.
Fast forward to the Summer of 2023 the lady that had adopted me reached out to her worried and to ask her to talk to me because she had finally gone to the doctor and they found stage 4 breast cancer that had gone untreated for quite awhile. MY FP told me, and we slowly started talking again and my relationship with her was going better than I thought. She stood by me and my mothers side through it all, walked her through her treatments and helped me handle having to get a whole liver cause I rejected the other and had been on a list for a few months at this point and I had to have another back surgery in an attempt to get me walking again. The more I saw my mom decline the more my attachment to the FP got worse again. To the point she didnt know what to do with me she thought about leaving me forever because she didn't think we would ever have a healthy relationship because she is borderline as well. We tried to work out a healthy relationship and then on September 27th of 2023 my mom passed away 3 months after finding out she had breast cancer. I went off the deep end and completely lost my shit and my
attachment and obsession got worse with my fp. We had a huge fight and I was told I lost her forever. I started spiraling out of control because I lost my mom and my fp all within a few weeks of each other and I tried to end my life once more and I failed and I had to be committed to an
inpatient facility in Florida. I have been talking to her again for about a month out of impatient and the relationship is as great as it has ever been and we are doing really well with having a healthy relationship with good boundaries. Us both working on our borderline has helped tremendously as well.
The point of this blog post was to give an inside look at how bad having a fp can hurt your life and make you feel like everything is crashing when someone abandons you for their own health. It can be so detrimental to a Borderline because it is the person they love and idolize the
most. It is their best friend whether it is a best friend or a partner or a family member.

Part 3 The FP Perspective

I met maddie when she wasn't eighteen years old, We were on a facebook borderline page and I answered third her call out for help. I remember the very night.I met her.She made me promise that I would never leave her. I had no understanding of a favorite person.Or what was about to take place. I'd never been a FP But I genuinely cared about this young lady. But it started to be clear that I could never give her as much as she needed. I would get frustrated because she was so dependent on me and I was mentally ill my self.So I could not handle all that came with what she needed. This caused me to have to walk away several times, Because she had no respect for my boundaries.and just wanted more. I would feel so Helpless talking to her when she would cry.Because I needed to get off the phone or she would cry because someone else was calling me and she didn't want me to talk to them. Then.After enforcing my boundaries she continued to try to take her life and blame it on me, And I thought it was so unfair after all I had done for her. I was there through her darkest.Dand even slept on the phone with her the night before her transplant because she was scared and so was I.

But I continue to walk away because I had To put up boundaries and she hated boundaries. It is not an easy relationship on either person in this situation. It is a miserable thing when someone constantly needs.You and you give them everything you have and it's still never enough. I couldn't stay away though, because I did love and care for her. I always will, And now.That she has taken some DBT therapy she is so much better and respects my boundaries.And we have a much healthier relationship now.