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!
Essentially Ellie 