I have been struggling a lot lately, so I figured today is a great day to write down some things that I wish. Things my mental illness steals from me. I have Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar II Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. To be honest, it is miserable to live in my brain. I don’t recommend it, but here’s a little insight into what goes on in here.

1. I wish I could let shit go, rather than replay it over and over in my brain. Unfortunately, it’s always there. Every time I upset someone. Every time there’s a conflict. Every time I feel bad about something. Every time I do something stupid. Every time I fuck up. It’s there, permanently, sometimes keeping me up at night, and it never goes away.

2. I wish that I really, truly, trusted anyone. Unfortunately, no matter how much you love me/I love you, and how much I should be able to trust you, there’s always a part of me that believes that you’re only keeping me around to toy with me, and at any moment it’s going to be revealed as an elaborate, horrible prank. Regardless of how good a job I do, I still wait for the call to tell me I’ve been fired.
 
3. I wish I could feel something in the middle. It’s exhausting to always feel everything all the time. It’s exhausting to go in one day/hour/minute/second from the most intoxicating happiness to the most violent depression.
 
4. I wish I could forget shit. My memory is crap except for when it isn’t. I vivdly remember every time you make me feel like shit. I still love most of you through it, but I remember all of it. I remember you boiling me down to a “blonde with big tits who liked to suck dick”. I remember you shaming me when I tried to tell you that losing my virginity was something I was coerced into. I remember you reminding me that I was the crazy one, I was the broken one, because so many of the stories with my exes are negative.
 
5. I wish that I could have a middle-ground opinion of myself. I wish it didn’t swing from loving myself more than anyone has a right to, to such deep hatred. I wish I had a normal sense when I look in the mirror instead of going from “god I’m sexy” to “wow, what a disgusting piece of shit”.
 
6. I wish I never had days where all my physical and emotional energy went into keeping myself alive. Frankly, I wish I never had days where ANY emotional and physical energy went into keeping myself alive, but I’ll take what I can get. 
 
7. I wish I didn’t feel the stifling need to have everyone like me. When I hear someone has a conflict with me, every fiber of my being needs to fix it. When you tell me someone has an issue and I’m a part of it, it lives in the back of my head until it’s resolved. If it’s never resolved, I always remember it, and every interaction after that goes towards resolving it. Sometimes I fix it by saying I was wrong when I wasn’t. Sometimes I fix it by staying in situations where I should have left a long time ago.
 
8. I wish I didn’t need to constantly identify whether or not the things I’m doing or saying are manipulative. Every action, decision, feeling I make needs to be evaluated to make sure I’m not passive aggressively manipulating someone. It leaves me with a blinding sense of not knowing how or what to be feeling. It leaves me overwhelmed by options because I’m afraid that every choice I make is going to be wrong somehow, and then you’ll realize I’m a manipulative monster and want to leave.
9. I wish I knew what was real, and what feelings were real. It’s impossible when constantly identifying whether or not your emotions are manipulative, your reactions are manipulative to feel like anything you say, any need you have, any negative emotion you express is real. Do I have a right to this feeling? Am I overreacting? Are these feelings valid? Things that should bother me often simmer in the back because I don’t feel like I have a right to address something that deeply hurts me, but is so trivial that anyone I bring it up with would tell me I’m being ridiculous. So frivolous, that when I bring it up with you, you tell me to calm down. I just wish I knew what to feel.

10. I wish I had my own identity. There’s a remarkable thing in psychology called the Chameleon Effect. Where people unconsciously mimic the mannerisms, expressions, etc. of the folks they’re around. That is my entire identity. There are some things I know I like, and I know I love, but my identity is so often swooped up into yours. It’s very, very isolating, and very hard to be alone when you don’t know who you are. It’s very hard to be alone when you aren’t actually a person, but rather a composite of the people you’ve known over the years.

These are just some of the things I wish. A little glimpse of the inside of my crazy, what it’s like in here. Yes, I work on it. Yes, I’m constantly trying to get better. It’s hard though, and some of these things (like where I’m constantly questioning my own motives and feelings) are what things look like when they ARE better. Some of these things are what things look like when they’re being treated. Even when in treatment​, my head is a mess, and I’ll be fighting this for the rest of my life. Cut those of us with the crazy some slack… we’re doing the best we can to survive.

The only creature that makes any of this even remotely okay.

1 Comment

  1. This was intense for me to read and it hits close to home. I also live in a love/loathe relationship with myself where I split on myself. Constantly.

    I trust and love a bit too easily, but I always want everyone to like me to the point where I’ll be up all night obsessing over a single online interaction. My forgetting doesn’t work either, to the point where I’ll remember a conversation word for word and the other party won’t, so I then have to make sure I’m not gaslighting them.

    This piece was helpful because it mirrors so many of the feelings I have by myself when I’m not performing. I hate that you have to go through this, that I have to go through this… that anyone has to go through this, but thank you for being brave and sharing for those who can’t find the words.

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