I spent the weekend with my friend K. in the north suburbs of Atlanta. It was great to see her again because she really understands me (and vice-versa). Talking to someone who completely gets it is really nice because there's no need for pretense or for trying desperately to explain something to someone who'll never understand.
But she told me something really troubling. She asked me if I remembered several conversations and a couple of events that happened while I was in my super-fucked-up episode that spanned at least a year and a half. I had to confess that I didn't. She filled me in on everything, but I really thought I remembered every crazy thing I'd done. Apparently not.
Between the things she told me and some of the stuff I've heard other people say to me, I'm pretty sure I don't remember a lot of what happened during that episode. When I look back on it, there are LOTS of blank spots in my memory.
It's kind of scary. I had no idea until recently that I was going so wide open that I burned my brain out like that. It's...terrible. I wonder what all I did that nobody's told me about yet. :(
The other thing that's been bothering me is how people will tell me that, on one hand, they understand that I'm "sick," but then they turn right back around start blaming me for my actions during some of the worst times of my life. I'm not trying to shirk responsibility or anything here, but, for God's sake, I don't remember half of it. I don't remember a lot of the stuff K. told me about. I don't remember some supposed "intervention" that was done on me at some point during that time. I don't remember much of anything, honestly, and I wasn't really even drinking. It's literally the crazy that's fried my brain.
I wish people would just say that they don't believe there's anything wrong with me, rather than paying lip service to "Oh, honey, you're sick," while still holding grudges and ignoring my apologies and still being angry at me for something I truly could not help.
I'm sorry I was paranoid. I'm sorry that I turned it against other people. I'm sorry that what should've been normal irritation and anger turned to blinding, black-out rage. I'm sorry that I alienated the whole damn world. But I have to admit that I'm still a little pissed that I was abandoned by the people who should've been there for me because I was "difficult."
Let me just remind everyone what, exactly, I was experiencing. (I'm stealing this from this site, which is a repository of some old stuff from Usenet.)
Dysphoria is another type of mania. In dysphoria, one is "high," but in a different sense: agitated, destructive, full of rage, talking a mile a minute, mind racing, deluded with grandiose thoughts, paranoid, full of anxiety, panic-stricken.
Not exactly a walk in the park, folks. My manias--all of them--fit every single one of those descriptions and then some. The world looks like a really scary and threatening place, and there's a pervasive sense of something sinister, of impending doom, kind of like living 24/7 in a horror movie.
Also, I thought people were going to snipe me from outside my house, and I was having intrusive thoughts that weren't my own every time I drove that were "telling" me to drive my truck into a tree. (No, it wasn't like hearing voices. These were distinctly my own thoughts, but I wasn't consciously having them.) So it wasn't like we were dealing with a rational mind here.
I'm just tired of being punished for something I can't help. I'm tired of being abandoned. I'm tired of feeling unworthy and unlovable. I'm tired of being crazy. Most of all, I'm tired of being afraid that I'll never be happy.
Also, I started reading I Hate You, Don't Leave Me--Understanding the Borderline Personality at K.'s house. I ordered it for my Kindle. The book has basically confirmed what I've feared all along, that I'm most likely one of those sick fucks who's both bipolar and borderline. The kind of patient all the mental health professionals hate, the kind of person no one wants any interpersonal involvement with, and, worst of all, the kind of person who'll never find happiness and fulfillment because other people hate him so deeply.
Think I'm a hypochondriac? Read.
Beneath the clinical nomenclature lies the anguish experienced by borderlines and their families and friends. For the borderline, much of life is a relentless emotional roller coaster with no apparent destination. For those living with, and loving, or treating the borderline, the trip can seem just as wild, hopeless, and frustrating.
Jennifer [a BPD patient mentioned in the previous section] and millions of other borderlines are provoked to rage uncontrollably against the people they love the most. They feel helpless and empty, with an identity splintered by severe emotional contradictions.
Mood changes come swiftly, explosively, carrying the borderline from the heights of joy to the depths of depression. Filled with anger one hour, calm the next, he often has little inkling about why he was driven to such wrath. Afterward, the inability to understand the origins of the episode brings on more self-hate and depression.
A borderline suffers a kind of "emotional hemophilia"; she lacks the clotting mechanism needed to moderate her spurts of feeling. Prick the delicate "skin" of a borderline, and she will emotionally bleed to death. [Emphasis mine]
This is just from the prologue. Expect more passages to be quoted in the following days.
I flat fucking refuse to go and be diagnosed with this, though. The bipolar label's bad enough, thank you very much. I'd rather not have the kiss of death as far as stigma goes. Plus, I guess I think that as long as it's never named, it doesn't exist? I don't know.
Anyway. This is for you. You know who you are. I'm too lazy to quote the whole thing--though the whole thing is applicable--so I'm just going to do the best part.
Now I know we said things, did things we didn't mean
And we fall back into the same patterns, same routine
But your temper's just as bad as mine is
You're the same as me
But when it comes to love you're just as blinded
Baby, please come back
It wasn't you, baby, it was me
Maybe our relationship isn't as crazy as it seems
Maybe that's what happens when a tornado meets a volcano
All I know is I love you too much to walk away, though....
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