What does it feel like to be a borderline? September 13, 2009

Thats an interesting question.   And I could answer it in so many different ways.

Its been a long time since I have defined myself as a borderline, an adoptee, an anything really.  For a while now, I have sorta just accepted some semblance of me and described myself as that. But there are parts of me I suppose that may never really go away.

I read about Borderline Personality Disorder and realize that even if per say, I don’t qualify for the diagnosis, what it feels like to be a borderline will never be far from my mind.   I will never forget what it felt like for me.  Hell still feels sometimes.  (although I feel like I need to put a side note here, that I have recovered from having to feel a lot of these things anymore, I am a lucky one)

It feels like being lost.

It feels like not belonging in your own body, in your own skin.  Sometimes its even hard to feel like you really do exist, that this body you live in exists, and that it is somehow connected to you and to the actions that you put it through.

It feels like sometimes pain is the only way to make you FEEL like you exsist again.  Of course I am not talking mental pain, no that is something that is felt on such a deep level, you have to close it off just to remain somewhat functional.  No physical pain, physical pain is the connection to the reality of everything.  Without it, sometimes you can get compleatly lost in the non-reality of the disconnection you feel.

It feels like your mind is disconnected from everything sometimes, like you can’t quite get a grip on anything because there is just no way to grasp it, instead it just slips through your fingers just when you think you might get ahold of it.

It feels as though other people don’t really exsist once they are gone.  As soon as they walk out the door, or hell even just go to bed in another room, it feels like they don’t exist anymore.  Of course somewhere in that rational mind you know they still exist!  But you can’t feel them any more.  Like a light switch that just gets shut off, every feeling you have, every feeling they give you, dissapears as soon as they do.  As if every essance of there very being is gone until you see them again.  And when its that one person, the one that is the center of your world at that moment, Sometimes the pain of just missing someone is so unbelievable, its like the inner parts of your soul will just come apart until you can just know that they exsist once again. So sometimes you pretend they are there, just so you won’t have to feel what it feels like when they aren’t.  And of course, there is that rational brain telling you that you are nuts… and just deal with it.  But the longing is still there, no matter how many times you try to rationalize your way through it, the longing is still there.  The missing is still there.

It feels like lonelyness… because once you are alone, you are ALONE.  You can’t feel those who love you, you can’t feel their love towards you.  After they are gone, its like they don’t love you anymore.  After all, if they are gone, how can their love remain.  Lonelyness is so central, so inside the core, it feels as though you practically are the only person who exsists in the world, and yet that existance is so fragile, so unreal, that the lonelyness becomes your exsistance, and soon it feels as if the whole world has gone.  And without others, your own exsistance fades, hence herein comes the physical pain, as said before, physical pain can become the only tie you have to actual exsistance.

It feels like dark… dark dark dark.  Like all the light in the world was just somehow sucked out.   All the energy and all the hope, just gone, sucked away to destinations unknown.  Only sometimes then there is light, LIGHT!  So damn bright it almost blinds you.  Your eyes… your body are unaccustomed to so much light and it practiacally blinds you.  Happy is just as stong an emotion as sad, only even more scary.  Because I never quite knew what to do with that light… and before you know it, snap, its gone.

It feels like being compleatly out of control.  Anger, rage, at NOTHING sometimes.  But there is no hope in controlling that anger, none at all.  Let it out, and it is distructive, violent, dangerous.  Keep it in and it makes the darkness even darker, until finally everything just goes black…

or RED

And watch out for red… because when RED comes there is no help.  When there is red, there is no rational, only rage, uncontrollable, uncomprehensible, inexplainable, rage.

It feels like death, like death of your soul, death of your mind.  And you can’t get death OUT of your mind.  Can’t walk by a window without wondering what would happen if you jumped out.  Can’t look at your own wrists without knowing how simple it should be.  Can’t stop obsessing about how or when or if it would work.  Cant look at a bottle of pills without seeing death first.

It feels like black and white, and nothing in between… well except maybe red.  But everything, everyone, every place good or bad.  And every moment the black and white changes.  Good self, bad self, good mother, bad mother.  And somehow the ability to keep the good and the bad compleatly separate.  You can love someone you hate, and hate someone you love.  But never at the same time.  You either love them, or hate them.  But that can change in an instant.  Borderlines can love someone abusive… and be okay with it.

It feels like confusion, like never knowing the answer to a question.  Even one as simple as whats your favorite color?  What IS my favorite color?  Is it black, I’m wearing black today I think I like black.  But Purple is nice too, but wait maybe I like blue… do I like blue?

It feels like insanity, because through it all Borderlines are just intelligent normal people… with some kind of messed up brain sequence.  We know we are messed up, but don’t know how to make it stop.  Don’t know how to just BE NORMAL.  Don’t know how to just be ourselves.  Have no off button… have no on button.  Have no button that turns the black and white into gray.  Have no button that makes it easier when someone walks away.  Have nothing like that.  But do have an intense need to be loved… which proves difficult for others to do.  Which in turn makes our lives more difficult too.  It feels like insanity because you just can’t understand what the hell is wrong with you.  Why you can’t make sense of anything or anyone.  Why people look at you funny and ask you what the hell is wrong with you.  It feels like a complete lack of understanding and place in the world.

Because it feels like being able to function completely normally while no one around you has a clue.

No one around you knows the war you fight within.