cheshire_chick

And why should anyone?
It is mine.
And when I am laughing, or giving advice, or flirting; then I am wanted. I am fantastic and worthy of your time. When I smile and give and lie I am worthy. When I'm hiding, and medicating, and sedating; I'm worth it. When I'm fun, I am worth it.
But not when I'm crying. Not when my arms are bleeding or I'm screaming at the walls. Not when I haven't slept in three days and cannot function. Not when I can't think, because all of the thoughts I didn't ask for are taking up all of the room in my head. Not when I don't know what to do, alone, with all of these feelings and inclinations toward not wanting to live anymore. This is not when I'm wanted. This is not happy. This is not entertaining, and this is not fun. But this is me. And this is unworthy.
I remember as a kid, my father used to yell at me or threaten to "slap that look off [my] f**king face" when I cried. It was usually him that had started it. Even with friends; they'll spend hours gaming and chatting with me, but ignore me as soon as I am honest about what I am dealing with. Even if it's a partial disclosure or hinting at my despondency, it's enough to make me no longer worth their time (in the way I had been previously). I remember when my (ex) fiance stopped talking to me like he used to, like when I was a close part of his family. He stopped wanting to listen. We were together over eight years, we were planning a family and a wedding. And I guess he ended up not wanting my pain either.
No one does. I can't talk to my parents. I can't talk to my ex, even though I live with him. I have no best friend, no close siblings, not even really any friends... Those that I am able to spend time with, well they are only around because of my first premise. The things I am worth to other people.
I am whole, and I accept who I am, and I live with myself every day. But not a single other person does. No one is in my universe, no one hears me - even when I'm screaming. I can't take being here any more, so often, that it's all I can do to make sure I'm not sober, or not awake. As soon as I'm real, as soon as I share myself - people leave. Whether they have been there for years and love me, or whether we just recently became friends. They back out, if I haven't already...
Everyone wants my laughter, my spark, and my smile. But nobody wants my pain. The thing that consumes me and fills me more than any other factor in my entire soul at this point in time. That's not worthy of anyone's time.

I struggle with dysthymia (starting around age 11 or so), and many other things including BPD and severe depression. But long story short; I started taking sleeping pills when I was 13. I got hooked on them for years. I ended up stopping that and self medicated with a green herb of sorts (yay censorship...) throughout college. And even now, when I have prescribed medications from a doctor - the night still holds me tightly. My medications work for sleep - I can usually fall asleep within an hour, and they keep me down and out for the count... but it's not the same feeling as real, natural sleep. It's all a self inflicted mini coma...
I've been friends with the night since I was a kid. And I'm sitting here now at 2:30am with markers strewn across the floor, damned if I won't commit myself to another spur of the moment creation because the cast on my arm is in the way... I have my pills here, too. A flavorful combination of tricks and splendid masked despondence. I could take them, probably fall into the dream world around 4am or so. But to what avail? I do not care for it. I wake up, and I wait some more. Wait for the cast to be off. Wait for time to take me away from this place. Wait for a doctor, and a psychiatrist, and another doctor, and a specialist; appointment, breakdown, crash, appointment, pills, sleep, drink, binge... rinse... repeat.
So I'm not taking them. Not quite yet. I'm comfortable right now, at least not panicking or sobbing or tearing my skin apart just for the sake of feeling it...
And the more I sit here and look at the dim candle light, the glow of the TV, the subtle whispers of the moon coming into my window - I realize it has always been this way. Even when I was 13. My mind is alive. I can think clearly - no one is bothering me, no calls, no texts. No faking anything. I am my own company and I am free. I have so many thoughts, ideas, questions, and artistic visualizations. I feel I could sit here and draw for hours if it wasn't all, in the end, completely useless...
So I pose the question; do we not sleep because we are mentally ill?
Or are some of us mentally ill, because we do not sleep? How many of us are just twisted and contorted shells of what we may have been naturally, had we not had to cohere to the standards and expectations that exist in this day and age? Work your 9-5, punch your card, eat your dinner, go to sleep, rinse... repeat...
I think we're all mad, here.

I'm sitting on the floor of my living room. Working on an art project I've been going at for many hours these past few days, despite the general falling apart of my "home" environment... When I glance over at the kitchen, I remember the last breakdown I had where I ended up needing to call a crisis line at 2am - just sitting there alone on the cold linoleum, barely breathing. It doesn't seem alien, or out of place, or sad to me. It feels familiar. It's almost as if when that happens I am finally able to stop blocking out thoughts, I can stop straining and making every effort to put things out of sight and out of mind. Sometimes I wonder if all of those feelings, all of that severely tumultuous and turbulent emotion - is the real me. Everything else - every medication, every sedated day, every effort to distract myself - is just complying with the inherent and biologically programmed will to live. But to what end? Is progress really progress? Or is it just the reaching of arbitrary goals set out by society, medical professionals, and the people in our lives?
If I'm not having a break down, and I'm not caught up in the throws of severe emotion and despondency - I'm still not happy. It just feels like stagnation, like I'm wrapped in a blanket of complacency for the sake of just existing. So I suppose most of my battles with anxiety and depression, at least in these more recent periods of time, comes down to these thoughts:
Will I ever feel "happy" again, and find a reasonably consistent state of joy or satisfaction? Or will I always be drowning in the pessimistic reality of my critical and observant mind? When was I ever happy? Was this only truly achieved in childhood? Or through the delusional thinking that other external, independent human beings could be ever-present and constant in your life? A sort of blissful ignorance, where you are free to fly only because you believe someone will catch you when you fall... So if there is no one to catch you, are you just free falling? And what kind of life is the constant feeling of falling, when you know that others can fly?

I've always felt alone in some way or another. Detached or completely different from those around me. And for the most part, I never perceived this observation as a negative thing. Memories as early as four years old, feeling like someone on the outside looking in - not in a left out, mistreated way, but in fundamentally socially different way. Almost as if I would observe people, learn and listen, and selectively engage if I felt it was needed. Being alone was the predisposition.
Perhaps people with BPD are primarily better off alone? Or in most cases are generally alone in the first place. I don't mean alone as in a shut-in hermit, but alone as in being walled off from everybody; not having anyone that knows them well, not having anyone with which to place their trust. I remember frantically telling my boyfriend within the first year of dating that I am not the type of person that has someone connected to me, no one stays. And that I really should just be alone. After 8 years of being together, getting engaged, and living together - I'm back where I started, right at home in the state of alone. There have always been people around me; my parents, my partner (ex), my friends, my family. There have been no close bonds or meaningful mutual trust - other than that which I experienced with my fiance (and is now past-tense). I've sort of just always been like that, and I can't help but feel like I always will be like that.
There is a person in my family who I suspect also suffers from BPD. They too, have no close bonds with the people in their life. They have a loving partner, but the trust and communication aspect seems completely lacking from the rest of their life. It's like a lone wolf syndrome or something - the world is dangerous, make a small pack or stand alone. Either way you are silently ferocious, vigilant, and independent.
Observe, and listen - contemplate and evaluate, and rarely truly engage. It's either the mask of social pleasantries, or the minimal interactions for work or school or social function etc. I don't let people in to the "real me." I don't feel it's worth the risk or effort very often. And part of it feels just plain unnatural to me. There are nearly 8 billion people on this rock with us, and finding someone that fits into your puzzle of a mind is so severely unlikely that you will either have to settle for mediocre interactions and "relationships," or spend a ton of time (of which we are given very little at birth) to find those people that do really fit - and even they are uncertain and will likely fall away at some point or another as well.
It's been nearly four years (I would guess) since I've had a conversation with a person where I felt like it got at what I felt in my soul, where the depths of my mind were reached in reality - not just in thought. I crave this, but it is as rare as catching a falling star in your hands... I think much of daily human interaction, even if unintentionally, is highly superficial and pedantic.
If everything and everyone is spiraling towards a central gravitational pull; like the rushing pool of lives that burst into existence all over the earth - is it not better to be outside looking in? Does any of it really matter at all, anyway?
(This entry copied in part from a forum topic I posted, I felt I needed it here as well).

I've always felt alone in some way or another. Detached or completely different from those around me. And for the most part, I never perceived this observation as a negative thing. Memories as early as four years old, feeling like someone on the outside looking in - not in a left out, mistreated way, but in fundamentally socially different way. Almost as if I would observe people, learn and listen, and selectively engage if I felt it was needed. Being alone was the predisposition.
Perhaps people with BPD are primarily better off alone? Or in most cases are generally alone in the first place. I don't mean alone as in a shut-in hermit, but alone as in being walled off from everybody; not having anyone that knows them well, not having anyone with which to place their trust. I remember frantically telling my boyfriend within the first year of dating that I am not the type of person that has someone connected to me, no one stays. And that I really should just be alone. After 8 years of being together, getting engaged, and living together - I'm back where I started, right at home in the state of alone. There have always been people around me; my parents, my partner (ex), my friends, my family. There have been no close bonds or meaningful mutual trust - other than that which I experienced with my fiance (and is now past-tense). I've sort of just always been like that, and I can't help but feel like I always will be like that.
There is a person in my family who I suspect also suffers from BPD. They too, have no close bonds with the people in their life. They have a loving partner, but the trust and communication aspect seems completely lacking from the rest of their life. It's like a lone wolf syndrome or something - the world is dangerous, make a small pack or stand alone. Either way you are silently ferocious, vigilant, and independent.
Observe, and listen - contemplate and evaluate, and rarely truly engage. It's either the mask of social pleasantries, or the minimal interactions for work or school or social function etc. I don't let people in to the "real me." I don't feel it's worth the risk or effort very often. And part of it feels just plain unnatural to me. There are nearly 8 billion people on this rock with us, and finding someone that fits into your puzzle of a mind is so severely unlikely that you will either have to settle for mediocre interactions and "relationships," or spend a ton of time (of which we are given very little at birth) to find those people that do really fit - and even they are uncertain and will likely fall away at some point or another as well.
It's been nearly four years (I would guess) since I've had a conversation with a person where I felt like it got at what I felt in my soul, where the depths of my mind were reached in reality - not just in thought. I crave this, but it is as rare as catching a falling star in your hands... I think much of daily human interaction, even if unintentionally, is highly superficial and pedantic.
If everything and everyone is spiraling towards a central gravitational pull; like the rushing pool of lives that burst into existence all over the earth - is it not better to be outside looking in? Does any of it really matter at all, anyway?
(This entry copied in part from a forum topic I posted, I felt I needed it here as well).

I struggle with dysthymia (starting around age 11 or so), and many other things including BPD and severe depression. But long story short; I started taking sleeping pills when I was 13. I got hooked on them for years. I ended up stopping that and self medicated with a green herb of sorts (yay censorship...) throughout college. And even now, when I have prescribed medications from a doctor - the night still holds me tightly. My medications work for sleep - I can usually fall asleep within an hour, and they keep me down and out for the count... but it's not the same feeling as real, natural sleep. It's all a self inflicted mini coma...
I've been friends with the night since I was a kid. And I'm sitting here now at 2:30am with markers strewn across the floor, damned if I won't commit myself to another spur of the moment creation because the cast on my arm is in the way... I have my pills here, too. A flavorful combination of tricks and splendid masked despondence. I could take them, probably fall into the dream world around 4am or so. But to what avail? I do not care for it. I wake up, and I wait some more. Wait for the cast to be off. Wait for time to take me away from this place. Wait for a doctor, and a psychiatrist, and another doctor, and a specialist; appointment, breakdown, crash, appointment, pills, sleep, drink, binge... rinse... repeat.
So I'm not taking them. Not quite yet. I'm comfortable right now, at least not panicking or sobbing or tearing my skin apart just for the sake of feeling it...
And the more I sit here and look at the dim candle light, the glow of the TV, the subtle whispers of the moon coming into my window - I realize it has always been this way. Even when I was 13. My mind is alive. I can think clearly - no one is bothering me, no calls, no texts. No faking anything. I am my own company and I am free. I have so many thoughts, ideas, questions, and artistic visualizations. I feel I could sit here and draw for hours if it wasn't all, in the end, completely useless...
So I pose the question; do we not sleep because we are mentally ill?
Or are some of us mentally ill, because we do not sleep? How many of us are just twisted and contorted shells of what we may have been naturally, had we not had to cohere to the standards and expectations that exist in this day and age? Work your 9-5, punch your card, eat your dinner, go to sleep, rinse... repeat...
I think we're all mad, here.

When people are dealing with mental illness, one of the most important (and most often overlooked) methods of healing is self-care. How can we even manage to identify what we need at times, when the thoughts in our head are so hostile anyway? Sometimes it comes from a gut instinct, or from the words of those around us. Sometimes we need to just close our eyes and remember our five year old selves again and just act on what we want; no what if's, no fear of judgment, no regard for timing or worthiness. Simple things like filling in a coloring book, having a bath with an awesome bubbles scent, baking a cake for yourself to enjoy! There are a lot of things we can do, but I'm not always sure how to stop the ideas from evading oneself. I keep a bullet journal, and when I am feeling a bit more sound of mind, I keep a list - a self care list, and a "good vibes" list. It's good to have reference from myself, for the times when I feel like the demons inside have taken me over and I can't remember anything that makes me, "me."
My current living situation is less than optimal, and often increases my anxiety, fears, and emotional pain to just be there. I don't really have any other choices, though, and even if I did, the answer as to whether or not I should leave is not a clear one. I'm currently not working and on medical leave, I struggle financially. But I've been trapped in here so long at times I feel it is literally suffocating... I have a small amount of savings for emergencies, and for the last few days I have been arguing back and forth in my head as to whether or not I should use some of it to take a "vacation" in February. I live with my ex fiance, who I was in a partnership with for eight years. I was thinking of going to a hotel on Valentine's day for a couple of nights - alone. Let my family know I am okay but to please   l e a v e   m e   a l o n e. The fake faces I put on, the silent suffering of my home that is not a home, I just feel like I need to put me first for once and get out for a while. I have no where that is safe. No where that I can take solace and just breathe. So if I did this, I might really find some healing. But then the realist me steps back in, and I know I might also really hurt my already damaged wallet...
Self care can be one of the easiest things to do to help us on the path of healing. But feeling better for a moment is much different than taking steps to feel better permanently. And those options are sometimes non existent. Do we make sacrifices for ourselves? The same way we might make the sacrifices for partners we love or children we care for? Or do we stick our heads in the sand of reality and wait for time to (hopefully) take us somewhere better?
Just keep waiting? Or move yourself with the risk that it might make things worse for you?

I'm typing through profuse tears at this moment - yet another thing my head likes to do without my approval. I come to the online community with the thought, and the inquiry; are we justified in very real grief, when the loss has not been the death of a person?
It's been nearly two years since I lost my feeling of freedom. Free and open and safe, with a partner at my side - someone to support and be supported by. Before I had this person in my life, I had been emotionally deserted in my childhood and teenage years. I had people to support, but no one to support me. I was reluctant to trust this (or any) person, reluctant to get so deeply involved, and hesitant even at allowing the continuation of something so integral to my way of life. I remember years ago, when I first felt the melding of two steel souls - the joining of us, the slow and steady creation of a partnership, actually discussing with him how I feared that I may reach that point of no return. The point when you literally can't forget their face. Where you don't think with just your own mind; feel with your own heart - but act and react with theirs in equal deference to your own.
We were lucky enough to share a wonderful relationship, full of complete trust, openness, and support. Almost too good to be true - there were no big fights, no big disagreements over the key aspects of each other. He asked me to marry him after we'd been together for 5 years. We lived together in a marriage like relationship for almost 4. We maintained a healthy relationship for over eight years. He is the only person that ever knew me that well, and trusted me completely. I am the only person that knows him as well as I do, trusted him completely... and loved him unconditionally. I still do love him that way. When we whispered vows to each other on special nights under the stars, when we discussed our family plans and adopting children, when we talked about our future and ideas about relationships - I never intended on going back on my word, I've never broken any promise to him. I would not have made such promises after building trust for 5+ years, if I didn't believe I would keep them. Whether I wanted to or not. I gave myself to him, and I don't think I ever get those parts back.
I'm left to remember, and to rebuild...
When someone dies, it is final, it is unchanging, and the grief is often shared among many. When a relationship dies, it can be final, it can be unchanging, and it is always grieved in isolation. This pain is very real, and extremely traumatic. I have lost the closest family I have ever had. But I also see him every day.
Since the day we met, we have been best friends, and that has yet to change. The circumstances over which he ended the partnership were such that not much could be done to change the situation - so I cannot even hate him, or hurt him back. It's complicated, and confusing, and I won't submit the people here to a novel of the details. I know we all have our demons, some are much larger than mine, but they all cut deep. I still live with him. We get along great and enjoy our friendship, though both of us are dealing with mental hells in which our demons don't always get along. It is severely painful, suffering with this loss completely alone. His smile haunts me, and I still see all of the wonderful things that made us so good together. Even though we are separated, not a lot has changed. We just don't share a bed, or the deepest parts of our psyche with each other any more. I can't move out because I can't afford to. I can't move back home, because it would greatly aggravate my mental illness'. I don't want to move out, because I know now that there will come a day I will not see him daily (or possibly ever again) - and why should I choose to make that day come any sooner than it must?
I said forever and I meant it. You are a scarred tattoo on my heart - still beating.

I struggle with dysthymia (starting around age 11 or so), and many other things including BPD and severe depression. But long story short; I started taking sleeping pills when I was 13. I got hooked on them for years. I ended up stopping that and self medicated with a green herb of sorts (yay censorship...) throughout college. And even now, when I have prescribed medications from a doctor - the night still holds me tightly. My medications work for sleep - I can usually fall asleep within an hour, and they keep me down and out for the count... but it's not the same feeling as real, natural sleep. It's all a self inflicted mini coma...
I've been friends with the night since I was a kid. And I'm sitting here now at 2:30am with markers strewn across the floor, damned if I won't commit myself to another spur of the moment creation because the cast on my arm is in the way... I have my pills here, too. A flavorful combination of tricks and splendid masked despondence. I could take them, probably fall into the dream world around 4am or so. But to what avail? I do not care for it. I wake up, and I wait some more. Wait for the cast to be off. Wait for time to take me away from this place. Wait for a doctor, and a psychiatrist, and another doctor, and a specialist; appointment, breakdown, crash, appointment, pills, sleep, drink, binge... rinse... repeat.
So I'm not taking them. Not quite yet. I'm comfortable right now, at least not panicking or sobbing or tearing my skin apart just for the sake of feeling it...
And the more I sit here and look at the dim candle light, the glow of the TV, the subtle whispers of the moon coming into my window - I realize it has always been this way. Even when I was 13. My mind is alive. I can think clearly - no one is bothering me, no calls, no texts. No faking anything. I am my own company and I am free. I have so many thoughts, ideas, questions, and artistic visualizations. I feel I could sit here and draw for hours if it wasn't all, in the end, completely useless...
So I pose the question; do we not sleep because we are mentally ill?
Or are some of us mentally ill, because we do not sleep? How many of us are just twisted and contorted shells of what we may have been naturally, had we not had to cohere to the standards and expectations that exist in this day and age? Work your 9-5, punch your card, eat your dinner, go to sleep, rinse... repeat...
I think we're all mad, here.

When people are dealing with mental illness, one of the most important (and most often overlooked) methods of healing is self-care. How can we even manage to identify what we need at times, when the thoughts in our head are so hostile anyway? Sometimes it comes from a gut instinct, or from the words of those around us. Sometimes we need to just close our eyes and remember our five year old selves again and just act on what we want; no what if's, no fear of judgment, no regard for timing or worthiness. Simple things like filling in a coloring book, having a bath with an awesome bubbles scent, baking a cake for yourself to enjoy! There are a lot of things we can do, but I'm not always sure how to stop the ideas from evading oneself. I keep a bullet journal, and when I am feeling a bit more sound of mind, I keep a list - a self care list, and a "good vibes" list. It's good to have reference from myself, for the times when I feel like the demons inside have taken me over and I can't remember anything that makes me, "me."
My current living situation is less than optimal, and often increases my anxiety, fears, and emotional pain to just be there. I don't really have any other choices, though, and even if I did, the answer as to whether or not I should leave is not a clear one. I'm currently not working and on medical leave, I struggle financially. But I've been trapped in here so long at times I feel it is literally suffocating... I have a small amount of savings for emergencies, and for the last few days I have been arguing back and forth in my head as to whether or not I should use some of it to take a "vacation" in February. I live with my ex fiance, who I was in a partnership with for eight years. I was thinking of going to a hotel on Valentine's day for a couple of nights - alone. Let my family know I am okay but to please   l e a v e   m e   a l o n e. The fake faces I put on, the silent suffering of my home that is not a home, I just feel like I need to put me first for once and get out for a while. I have no where that is safe. No where that I can take solace and just breathe. So if I did this, I might really find some healing. But then the realist me steps back in, and I know I might also really hurt my already damaged wallet...
Self care can be one of the easiest things to do to help us on the path of healing. But feeling better for a moment is much different than taking steps to feel better permanently. And those options are sometimes non existent. Do we make sacrifices for ourselves? The same way we might make the sacrifices for partners we love or children we care for? Or do we stick our heads in the sand of reality and wait for time to (hopefully) take us somewhere better?
Just keep waiting? Or move yourself with the risk that it might make things worse for you?

I suppose that one of the main things that keeps me going, even when I think of shutting my eyes for good, is the acknowledgment and understanding that I will not ever exist again. I am rare, there are literally no copies,  nor will there ever be any. Same for each and every one of us. Our very existence, survival, and progression is so unlikely. Some people fight great battles. Some float through time without noticing it passing. Some people lose their chance at a real life realized before they even come of age. We are random chances, little twinkles of light in the vast darkness of the universe.
You matter. Every action, every thought - it changes something. It changes you; a behavior, an inaction, a response. Everyone around you matters as well; every comment, every gesture, every relationship sparked. Choose all of these things carefully. You are born out of the death of the stars themselves. We all return to dust eventually, and though it can be a nearly impossible feat for a lot of us: don't forget to shine brightly while you have the breath to do so.