Beyond Borderline by John G. Gunderson & Perry Hoffman

Author:John G. Gunderson & Perry Hoffman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SEL020000 Self-help / Mood Disorders/ General
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications

13. Survivor

Looking for support throughout my disorder has been like attempting to look for solace in a valley of landmines: all the recovery information I come across is about how others can recover from my existence. Article after article claims that I have no chance at normalcy, whatever that may be. Forum after forum claims that my scarlet letter dooms me to a lifetime of playing the victim and eternal distress. For some reason, few can imagine a life in which I’m happy and functional.

It may sound like a cliché, but I grew up a sensitive child. Riddled with oddities and sprinkles of what I later came to call abuse, my upbringing was chaotic. In my childhood mind, broken flowerpots justified guilt-ridden crying spells, and getting an answer wrong on a fourth-grade math exam was reason enough to cyclically doubt the progression of my future. People’s body language and tone of voice seemed to affect me more than others appeared to be affected. I had intense negative feelings in response to my perceptions of body language or voice tonality in others.

Close bonds were never formed between me and other children, and when I finally found myself dating, my relationships became even more erratic. Eventually I came to accept myself as the “crazy one,” finding it easier to marginalize myself than to think about the fact that I might have to take responsibility for an illness. I hurt a lot of people, and it was easier to point the finger at them as triggers for my anger than to look at myself as the problem. It was easier for me to blame other people than to think about the fact that my oddities might have been more than mere oddities.

Throughout middle school, I formed friendships with other girls, but they were nothing more than shallow companionships to fill the pathology-riddled voids and nulls of my life. An aggressive and profound emptiness wove its way in and out, severing the relationships I attempted to form, time and time again. Quickly, I became used to the isolation. Watching others, it was almost as though they were all interconnected, while I sat on the sidelines brewing in my own angst and jealousy. Nobody could handle the chaos I brought to relationships, and seemingly nobody knew why that was.

My first episode was in Washington, DC, of all places, in a café. I was jealous that my two best friends had decided to have lunch with another friend of ours, and I felt such rage that I reacted by sleeping on the floor of our hotel room. There was no reason for such, but I told them that I didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in the same bed as them. I got my period later that year.

In tenth grade, a companion of mine proudly displayed crimson lines carved into his arm, and curiosity got the best of me. He made it a point to flaunt his wounds to anybody who would look, and I figured it was

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