BPD Favorite Person

Favorite person in the borderline personality disorder community

If you live with borderline personality disorder (BPD), you may have come across the term “favorite person bpd,” or “FP” for short. Though the concept of having a favorite person is one familiar to a lot of people in the BPD community, others might hear the term and think, “Oh, it’s like a best friend.” While a best friend can be an FP, it’s usually so much more than that — and it’s important to know the differences. To oversimplify, best friends are people you love and count on. A favorite person is someone you have an emotional dependence on, someone who can “make or break” your day. Later on in this article, we shall also explore how people with BPD can make the relationship with their FP healthy.

What is a favorite person bpd? – “Someone who can ‘make or break’ your day”

This is a person who someone with BPD relies heavily on for emotional support, seeks attention and validation from, and looks up to or idealizes. When referred to as a FP, it goes beyond what other people would generally refer to as their best friend or favorite person. FPs are the object of complete attachment and extreme love from people with BPD. Therefore, those with BPD feel unable to function properly without their FP.  A fear that their FP will abandon them. [¹] “While a best friend can be an FP, it’s usually so much more than that… a favorite person is someone you have an emotional dependence on, who can ‘make or break’ your day.” “You place the responsibility of your happiness onto them. They can make you feel on top of the world, or in the deepest pit depending on whether they are paying attention to you or not.” [²]

Favorite person–borderline personality disorder relationship type – “They are just my favorite.”

In most instances, FPs are friends, crushes, romantic partners, family members, or others with who the person with BPD interacts (teachers or therapists). While a romantic partner can be an FP of someone with BPD, FP relationship is not necessarily romantic, sexual, or gendered. Individuals with BPD are likely to have these relationships, in which the love they feel for their FP is all-consuming and so overwhelming that it is beyond their control. In other words, FP is someone who a person with BPD is especially obsessed with even when they have other close friends; FP becomes exactly who the person with BPD needs at that moment. “I develop what feels like a crush on that person, but it’s not romantic or sexual. Quite simply, they are just my favorite.” [³]

Favorite person–borderline personality disorder relationship happens – “It’s not really your choice…it isn’t the other person’s choice either.”

This FP–BPD relationship is more of an unintentional phenomenon that occurs than actively sought by individuals with BPD. Because FP-ness is internal to those with BPD, FPs do not have a choice to become or stop being an FP. It is not a relationship that either the person with BPD or his/her FP has control over as it happens over time. “It’s not really your choice. And, to be fair, it isn’t the other person’s choice either… it takes a lot for someone to suddenly stop seeing you as their FP.” [⁴]

Favorite person: who are they? – “The one I don’t feel I can live without”

Individuals with BPD commonly describe FPs as someone caring, sympathetic and understanding, and so on. FPs are always there and reassure them when asked. FPs accept those with BPD as they are so that the latter feel free and express themselves around their FPs. Without fearing being judged and feeling like a burden. Their FP is a good listener, easy to talk to, and takes the time to understand and make them feel better, always being supportive. Because FP is someone who the person with BPD feels stable and safe with, who is more likely to calm them down than fight back when they get emotional. They often get to the point where they believe their FP would rescue them. The more time they spend together, the more obsessed the individual with BPD becomes. Their FP gradually become someone who they rely on completely for almost everything and can no longer live without. “My favorite person is the one I don’t feel I can live without, the one [who] loves me unconditionally, the one I go to for everything,… the one [who] helps me breathe…” [⁵]

Favorite person: what do they offer? “It’s like they are all I need.”

Individuals with BPD need attention from their FP, often all the time, to validate them. Especially when they find themselves overwhelmed in fear or anxiety. “It’s like they are all I need, like my life is complete as long as they are constantly giving me attention…feel like I am totally worthless unless someone is validating me. I have it with all my friends and my wife to an extent, but it’s worse with an FP.” [⁶]

Favorite person: how do they affect? – “When we are apart I panic.”

The way a favorite person behaves—constantly giving attention, validating and reassuring whenever they are asked— tends to make BPD symptoms worse. Especially when they are not around. Individuals with BPD have to deal with intense jealousy. For example, when their favorite person spends time with other friends or does not answer their calls or messages immediately. While people with BPD need constant attention from their FP, they tend to internally analyze their interactions, looking for signs of rejection. Even though they know that their FP has the right to see other people and have alone time. They still consider that their FP is trying to drift away and no longer cares about them.

“I want to spend all of my time with him, when we are apart, I panic… gross overreaction that is and how unfair it is of me to put that on him… I can’t stop myself.” [⁷]

Favorite person- BPD

Whether intended or not, FPs know how to comfort their person with BPD and reassure that they are not leaving. This reinforces these intense and insecure attachment patterns. Those with BPD struggle with what is known as “splitting” on their FP.  Constantly shifting between idealization and devaluation; the shifting goes between these two extremes. When they are in the idealization phase, their emotional attachment toward their FP is strengthened. However, when their FP fails to fulfill their expectations, they are immediately devalued, causing anxiety and depression, sometimes anger and panic attacks.

“I devalued him over something as simple as canceling our plans…, if he made me happy, I’d put him on a pedestal… he was absolutely perfect. There was never any gray area.” [⁵]

Favorite Person: borderline personality disorder relationship gets worse – “The more attention she gave me, the more I got hooked on it.”

The FP–BPD relationship often gets worse with time. As the person with BPD needs more attention and validation from their FP to get the same feeling of being cared for. As a result, the FP faces more responsibilities and pressure to fulfill their person with BPD’s needs, such as constant contact. “My BPD thrived on her attention. The more attention she gave me, the more I got hooked on it and the more attention I needed to get the same “high” I felt.” [⁸] FPs are then highly likely to feel suffocated in the obsessive relationship, as they feel their boundaries are no longer being respected. Although they politely and cautiously try not to upset their person with BPD, it still strongly influences their emotions and behaviors.

ppe Favorite person–borderline personality disorder relationship ends – “She told me we couldn’t do this anymore.”

Generally, this favorite person–BPD relationship ends as the FP fails to keep an appropriate distance without their person. With BPD noticing it and decides to leave the relationship. FPs’ considerate way of saying that they cannot do what they have done for their person with BPD any longer, or withdrawal from the relationship without any notice—their tendency to avoid further confrontation—makes their person with BPD’s symptoms even worse.

“She told me we couldn’t do this anymore and that the right decision for her was to step away. She wasn’t mean, the message was reasonable. But I was very hurt… my FP had finally left me… my desperate attempts to stop her leaving had driven her away.” [⁹]

Conclusion

Overall, people with BPD tend to form an intense and insecure attachment towards their FP. Individuals with BPD experience intimate and unstable relationship struggles. While alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation, and making desperate efforts not to be abandoned. Studies show that struggles, such as fear of abandonment, constant splitting, and overwhelming feelings, experienced in FP relationship are even more intense and devastating.

Favorite person relationships seem likely to become unhealthy and destructive, sustaining and intensifying the expression of BPD individual’s symptoms. Consistently, research has found that BPD symptoms including hypersensitivity to rejection tend to emerge and get worse in close relationships with their attachment figures.

References

1. Jeong H, Jin MJ, Hyun MH. Understanding a Mutually Destructive Relationship Between Individuals With Borderline Personality Disorder and Their Favorite Person. Psychiatry Investig. 2022 Dec;19(12):1069-1077. doi: 10.30773/pi.2022.0079. Epub 2022 Dec 22. PMID: 36588441; PMCID: PMC9806505. Understanding a Mutually Destructive Relationship Between Individuals With Borderline Personality Disorder and Their Favorite Person – PMC (nih.gov). Accessed April 30, 2023.
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9. Kent K. What happened when my ‘favorite person’ left me. Available at: https://themighty.com/2017/07/bpd-borderline-favorite-person/. Accessed November 5, 2021.