Day: February 3, 2014

CURRENTLY HERE

 

ImageImage   Image

 

I’ve sat here, alone and quiet, staring at this blank piece of paper for over an hour and desperately wanting to find the words i need to say. But nothing…..nothing comes and i am so frustrated because i need to write to maintain my sanity. Maybe i’m greedy to want so many words to fall from my lips. I should be satisfied with my lot, not searching for something that may never be mine. 

 

I cannot write about how i feel today although i need to….writing is such a release, but today my emotional channels are blocked and i’m staring at his page thinking “where the hell do i start?”. Usually words trip off my tongue so easily and fluently but today, my canvas remains blank. But suddenly, i hear a voice booming out, saying “What about me? Am i not worth the paper i am written on?”, and yet i so want to express myself, instead of which this load of garbage fell out of my gaping mouth and splashed onto this page. 

I AM A POEM

I am a poem; vague, curious words

Creeping as if a green, woolly caterpillar

Across a blank, ink-spotted crisp page

Of the small, dog-eared notebook

On which my scrawled peculiar words

Fall like muddied drops of rain

 

With a particular, unconventional, rhythmic flow

And apt and occasional, original metaphors

My vital statistics consist of just a few

Six-line stanzas with varying quantities of words

Not formed of anything wonderful

Or of adventurous, challenging notions

 

I shall on this occasion, remain terse and curt

Not consisting of too much, neither of too little

I have no aspirations to be an eminent novel

With which one could occupy much of the day

And the author, pedalling, desiring to earn

A pretty penny or two, or a pound or a dollar.

 

See, i told you i was a waste of space because that is how i feel today. I am tired. Why, so early?iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. Whoops, sorry, i nodded off there with my finger still attached on to the letter ‘i’ as you can see!  I’ve been up since 3am this morning. That’s why i keep crashing out and my eyelids are heavy, inviting sleep to come into my world. But i plead with my mind, “If i give in to this approaching slumber, please promise me no nightmares, no night-terrors, no flashbacks of my abuse” otherwise i will refuse to give in and then force myself to stay awake. But then i realize that i don’t know anymore, whether the nightmare is worse when i sleep or is the nightmare, the waking up from the sleep to find myself thrust into this tortuous life, worse still? Either way, i am currently here and just have to get on and deal with it best i can. But i am only here, not from my own choosing, but by the care i received most ungratefully in intensive care a week or so ago after trying end this palty, sullen life of mine.

A GREEN TAIL AND PURPLE EARS!

Image                           Image

 

 

 

If i tell anyone what my mental health diagnosis is (Borderline Personality Disorder), they immediately think that i have a green tail and purple ears! It’s actually a diagnosis that wreaks havoc in my life all around me (and my family too).

 

The number one cause of BPD is having been sexually (or other) abused as a child. I was from the age of 4 – 13. I hated my Dad all my life, so, so much all my life and yet when he was dying and i’d always predicted my only response would be one of “good….i hope it’s painful and you rot in hell!”, i found myself sitting at his bedside, holding his hand…..those hands that had abused me so badly for the whole of my childhood! WTF! Before he died, from cancer of the brain and lungs, i found myself whispering “i forgive you, dad” and even kissed him on the forehead as i left! Yuk!! His fingers were yellow from having smoked a skanky pipe all his life, and his fingernails filthy from his work as a carpenter: But his face was now pale and he struggled for breath even with a pressure-pumping oxygen mask strapped tightly to his face. He’d lost weight since last i saw him, had white hair. I watched the machine next to him; his sats had dropped dangerously low at only 65%. He kept trying to pull the mask off as he couldn’t talk with it on; i wish i could have heard what his dying words were….I wondered if they might include a ‘sorry’ but i am never to know. He was a staunch atheist so didn’t believe heaven or hell existed. I’d always damned him to hell, but somehow, the human being in me found compassion for this evil man. His funeral was two weeks later. The hall was packed out with all the many friends he had lied to and held sordid secrets from for so long. I placed a rose on his coffin and as this disappeared behind the curtains, i felt myself scream inside and then followed floods of tears. You see, really, i’d always wanted a daddy but he was the monster who came to my room uninvited very frequently, at night, and he killed my childhood the very first time he raped me at the age of four, helpless and defenceless as i was. And still now, i miss having a daddy but then i don’t know what it means to have a daddy, only that i’d always wanted one who didn’t hurt me so much. I wrote this poem called ‘I Always Wanted a Daddy’: 

 

I always wanted a daddy

To love and cherish me

But what I got was you

Which was such a tragedy

 

You know what you did

I’m sure you remember well

You put me through a nightmare

And a childhood which was hell

 

And how can I be angry now

That you’ve not got long to go?

And how can I forgive you

When you dealt me such a blow?

 

I wish someone else had been there

To take the place of you

Those stolen childhood years

When nobody else knew

 

I always wanted a daddy

And now you’re going to go

And I ought to be dancing a jig

Yet that just isn’t so

 

My heart is full of sorrow

And God only knows why

A steam train’s running through my head

Because you’re going to die

 

And I’ve wished you dead every day

For so very, very long

And now it’s happening

That feels so very wrong

 

I don’t intend to contact you

To say my fond farewell

You’ll end your years in luxury

When it should be a prison cell

 

But you never even loved me

Now I, so full of hate

Am still pining for a daddy

But now it’s all too late.

 

Anyhow, enough of the emotional tosh and back to how BPD has affected my life. It has always ruined my relationships and friendships till i now have none left. it affects my perception of everything. I live in a different world to you. I am trapped inside this bubble and am in a permanent state of crisis and near breakdown). I self-harm; i cut my arms to release me from my internal agony, and taken more overdoses than i care to mention. Even though i am not successful in meeting my Maker, i end up in intensive care attached to a drip and bed bound for one long boring week. My family gave up on me years ago, apart from a sister and my Mum (who, nevertheless still does not believe that i was abused by her darling husband!).

 

Having BPD puts me in a world of my own that very few understand. And even if they understand, they ‘can’t come with me’ – it’s a journey i have to travel a long and lonely way by myself. And although i live in an emotional battlefield, and i see everything skew-wiff, don’t trust anybody, love too quickly and lose too badly; i am still anorexic and have had addictions to drink and drugs and a peculiar way of living for as long as i can remember. I never remember being any other way though i’ve so often wished i were another person(ality).

 

For those of you who know where i’m coming from, i thank you for reading this; and for those who don’t, thank you nevertheless and i can promise you a really haven’t got a long green tail and purple ears!