Trigger warning: Mental health, suicide, rape, child abuse, self harm

If BPD had a song, it would be M83’s ‘Outro’. If it had a movement, it would be the hesitation before one would attempt suicide.

I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder in October 2020, which was pretty late in life. BPD, also known as EUPD (Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder) can either be genetic or caused by environmental impact. I still don’t know which one would apply to me, since my Mum and a few relatives display similar traits, and BPD is common with people who have either experienced neglect or sexual abuse as children.

I was 16 when I first attempted suicide. I had been cutting myself for months prior and came out to peers about the sexual abuse I was experiencing. My brain was very much melting away between the bullying at school and rapes at home. Some of the girls at school called me “a lying, attention seeking whore” or said I was “disgusting”. I had no safe space, and I felt that nothing I said mattered. This was a good few years before the “Me, too” movement, but people are just as cruel and uninformed today.

You can do a Google search of all the symptoms of BPD, but when it’s at its worst (at least, for me), everything spills out and I can’t absorb anything. I say I’m on “minus spoons” because I’m using resources that aren’t quite there. It’s like phantom limbs. I’ll mask so well, but then I’ll be the absolute opposite because I don’t have it in me anymore. Nothing feels real to me. Connection has been severed. It feels like my bones are taking up too much space. I don’t want to exist.

I’ve always known I was ill in some way or other. My earliest memory was when I was 4/5 years old, during playtime at school. I remember I had a watch on, along with a reversible puffy jacket, which had sunflowers on one side and a solid yellow/orange on the other. I didn’t know how to tell time, but I knew when the long hand went from right to left, it meant break was over.

I was standing to the side of playground, in front of the door to get back into class, watching everyone else play. I started looking at the big hand on my watch go from 3 to 9. Time moves so slow when you’re a kid, so it felt like I was there forever. I didn’t have a reason for it, but I was gently crying to myself. You know when tears just run down, and you just let them fall? I felt something in my chest and stomach. I was sad. A helper who was working at reception saw me, asked me what was wrong (which I couldn’t answer), took me inside, and let me sleep in the nursery until my Mum picked me up.

This feeling has always been with me, but it amplified when the rapes set in. It’s like that scene in Maleficent where she wakes up without her wings. I lost something/something was taken from me. Something is still missing and I want it back. Forever loss. Eternal grief.

I occasionally picture the DXXXRK part of me to be the one with the wings. Her skin is thicker in more ways than one. I might be sad, but she’ll forever be in a rage, encouraging me to go to sleep.

I wanted to say more, but I’m running on minus spoons. Take care.

– GOOD GRIEF / DXXXRK