Borderline Personality Disorder:  Consumer Talk

I'm 24 now, going on 25, and was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder four years ago. All of my life I have been a shy creature...afraid to do a lot of things but wanting to so desperately. High School years were terrible for me, so I created a character that would laugh a lot and tell a lot of jokes so no one could get to the real terrified me. My college years just amplified that persona, and drew me into a terrible depression after a party gone wrong. I've been hospitalized, and treated with many anti-depressants and anxiety meds...but well, I've chosen poetry as more of a release these days. It doesn't leave me with the Euphoria that I felt on those medications. Here is a poem I wrote last year about the cycle I know I go through, and probably many of you go through too!

"The Demon Within"

There is not a day it doesn't come
The webbing falling down
The pictures fading from my mind
Silence the only sound

Happiness does not remain
The walls turn crimson red
The knocking sound continues
My conscious fills with dread

Whispers float around the room
Yet I am in the space alone
Time drifts by so slowly
My body turns to stone

Like the mirror on the wall
An image appears ahead
Try to make my body move
But it just sinks like lead

She shouts with bitterness and hate
Things I cannot dispel
Her voice shrieks so loudly
I fall into my hell

I cannot run or hide from her
And so I take her in
Suffering through another night
The demon under my skin

My night continues filled with rage
Hating every sin
I hurt, I cry, I hate myself
I guess I let her win

I awaken in the morning time
To another bitter day
Time to act the part again
Keeping her at bay

I wonder what I'll tell the man
Who thinks he holds my heart
I fear one day this demon
Will tear the both of us apart

And I'll be left here in my cage
Waiting for us to reunite
Thinking about what it is I need
For me to win this fight...

...Like I said, it's a constant struggle...but I manage. Thank you all for sharing your stories; it's nice to know I'm not the only one out there!

I've been to the ocean,
there are no fish in the sea!
Lord, won't you please help me!
Before I start this car,
A girl who can't be left alone,
I don't know where you are!
If I turn the key, I will leave this world
that will be the end of me!
I was married to a man
who said he loved me most,
and for years he used to say those words,
and always used to boast!
But for reasons, I fear, I will never know,
He lied and cheated and left our happy home.
But worst of all he left...
A girl who can't be left alone!
I've been to the ocean,
there are no fish in the sea!
My broken heart will never mend,
The pain I feel will never end,
In my hand, I hold the key,
Lord, won't you please help me!
A girl who can't be left alone,
I'll start this car, I'll turn to stone!
I've been to the ocean,
there are no fish in the sea!
If he'd only come back home,
and love the girl he left alone,
My ship will have come to shore,
I won't need this key anymore!

February 6, 2001

How can you not love me anymore?
You were always my ship,
I was always your shore!
We were coming out of some stormy seas,
How can you not love me anymore?
I can't go on, not knowing how you feel!
You may have signed some papers,
You may have made a deal.
You never gave me the chance
to make things right, to have my say,
I am slowly, very slowly,
slipping away,
slipping away...
into a cold night, I will slip away!
I miss you so badly, the pain I can't endure
How can you not love me anymore?
After 18 years of life together,
How can you just shut the door...
and not love me anymore?
Some say I'm a fool to say,
I haven't stopped loving you,
and I don't know how to make my own way.
After all you've put me through,
Not knowing how you feel is driving me insane,
and I feel myself, slowly, very slowly,
slipping away,
slipping away...
into a cold night, I will slip away!

February 16, 2001

I try to hang on, but nothing goes my way,
People are yelling, I don’t care what they say,
I’m tired of everything, I sit here and cry,
Thinking bad thoughts and wanting to die,
I’ve never felt this frustrated my whole life,
I cut and I bleed, I just love my knife,
No one understands just how much I feel,
Just how much I work for my soul to heal,
But nothing seems to help, it feels so bad,
I’m overwhelmed with feelings, I feel so sad,
Something is just very, very wrong,
I try to fight it, I try to be strong,
I smoke some weed and get so high,
Some days all I wanna do is die,
I hate my feelings and what they make me do,
Life is hard, and its getting worse too,
You say I’ll be fine, but that’s just a lie,
I’m still alive, and I ask myself why.

Three days ago you said you'd email me, am I delusional??? I’ve been checking my email past couple days but no emails from you.  Last night in the end of our phone call you said you'd talk to me today; am I still delusional??  I was home all day but you didn't call ....... it seems as though I am not very important to you..

I really do not know why I am writing this email to you now..pursuing more non existent attention and affection I suppose. Delusional again like you seemed to enjoy calling me. I think "brief psychotic episode" is a more accurate term if you are seeking hurtful psychiatric phrases to hurl like little ninja throwing stars at my already torn and bleeding heart.

Well at least my other partners may not have been capable of some levels of involvement but they did not physically abandon me when I had previous breakdowns. They continued to provide (emotional) caring, support and security as best they could, and other problems were not entirely their fault.

Your abandonment of us, our life together, and who I am , when it is difficult, is in fact, quite typical male behavior, and not, in my opinion very honorable, and certainly not what I had expected from you whom I had looked up to and respected a great deal and also learned over many months to trust.

Even objectively, if it was not ME in the situation I still would not think highly of you pulling out and ditching any person who was ill and in such a low and vulnerable period of time.

I know now that you are now just looking out for yourself which I guess I must do now as well, and once again rely only on myself, and shift back to that old familiar pattern of being tough and impenetrable, and have to do everything alone in my life with enormous amount of responsibility, and having "useless" men to cope with as well which I had longed to be free from.

I thought I had finally found someone (you) to be with and to trust and be safe with and be open with and be myself with and be my real whole self, for example: sexual, intellectual, emotional ....but now something difficult arrived for us to handle together, and it seems you changed the rules and the game is now every man for himself and it is not safe and I should not love because the one you love will (and does) hurt you the most..

So here we are guarded and self preserving which does not really work well in a loving giving harmonious flow.

And those agreements we made?? how can they possibly apply now?