The Love Life of a Chameleon by Belinda Tobin

Author:Belinda Tobin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Belinda Tobin
Published: 2024-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

I watched the dawn through the window, tea in hand and with tired eyes. The drink roused my body, and the sunrise stimulated my mind. I saw the colours start strongly, with distinct warm hues, strengthening and blending, and then bowing to the blue. This process was perfect and determined to capture it, I started sketching with coloured pens. Lines of red and orange became yellow lace, floating and folding into a broad blue expanse and evolving into the circle of a sun.

Still, I could not come up with an answer—who am I? Staring at the blank page, I started to rattle off the list of what I am—a professional woman, an orphan, a person with a mental condition, apparently. Still, nothing came forward to tell me who I was. I would just have to tell Bev this one was too hard. For further inspiration, I wrote, "I am Nora."

Still nothing.

Maybe that is what I was. Nothing.

So often, I felt that way, like a shell or some kind of tin man. Oh gosh. I had skipped over the criteria the doctor didn't see, but there it was, right before me.

The shape came easily then. I drew a yellow circle on my page, underneath my name.

That was just like the emptiness I felt and was exactly like the diagnosis described. Now, I had escalated to eight out of nine matches against the criteria. The book described the consequences of this emptiness perfectly. When I was with someone, I had a heart, I had a sense of purpose. I was their partner, their champion, their mother, their muse, their child, their slave, whatever they wanted. Giving them what they wanted gave me what I needed, a sense of identity, a colour to cling to, portray and perfect. But when this would wane, or when I was alone, I had to do something to feel, to prove that I did exist. This was when I would break out, do something stupid and harm myself. All of this was self-medication for the nothingness that was Nora.

Yesterday, when I sat down with the book on BPD, I was arming myself for combat. By the time the doctor walked in, I was waving the white flag. I could pick apart minute details in the painting. Still, the whole picture was sound and a very realistic representation of my life.

Dr Dempsey walked in to find me slumped in the chair, holding half a mug of tepid tea. I was swinging between the joys of revelation and the frightening prospect that I had just been found out. When I had walked in these doors, I believed I was fine. Now, I believed I was "afflicted."

For the first time, I did not care about the doctor's socks. I was not sure what I really cared about.

"Good morning, Nora. How are you?"

"Honestly, I don't know."

"Why, what's going on? Is it something about the diagnosis we discussed yesterday?"

"Yeh, I guess so. I have been reading the book and brochure."

"And"

"Oh god. So much of it sounds like me.

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