17 May 2018

I want to say I'm feeling hopeful. He said he won't go out to hang out & drink in pubs anymore. He said he'll spare me the nights of worrying - not knowing whether he'd come back alive or in what state or mind or if he'd still be the same person if he made it back to me at all. And for a few seconds I felt hopeful, for half a day I felt purpose, I felt relieve, I felt alive & happy and like I could have a happy marraige, maybe even a happy ending, but then...the questions came. And the nightmares, with the dreams. Dread. 

What if. What if he didn't keep his word. What if I was just hopeful now, what if I climbed the mountain just to fall off the other end...again. It always happens that way doesn't it? No sunshine lasts forever. It is as fleeting as my emotions & moodswings, that are apparantly made worse by black and white thinking. No shades of grey here...ever. It was something I used to pride myself in, but then...lately I've been wondering...What if..

What if I could gain just a tiny bit of stability, just keep a tiny bit of sanity to spare in a pocket somewhere? What if there didn't have to be another huge battle, another fight, another open wound? What if I could choose to not fall off the other side of the mountain. Maybe, instead I can sit at the top, looking down at everything, feeling more...grounded...more not like me at all. What if I could pluck grace from the flowers at the top? I could hold onto hope, hold onto love, while I contemplate what way would be the best way to continue the journey, for continue I must. I know this much.

I've always had a sense of urgency in me. Like something is chasing me or like I am chasing something. I never get to the something though, and the something never gets to me, but it doesn't mean its not there. Or does it? This is part of the problem. It never gets me. My life never ends in the terrifying ways that my nightmares suggest it would, instead I'm trapped in nightmare after nightmare after nightmare ending that never ends. I'm trapped in false happiness everytime I find I little bit of a promise of it. It's like grasping at sun - all I'm left with is shadows.

Apparantly I'm not the only one like this though. These are classic "symptoms" of a mental illness called Borderline Personality Disorder in which the sufferer in essense keeps on causing their own suffering through not being able to process & cope with & regulate emotions? I wouldn't know...this has always been life to me... This has always been me to me... Although I did sometimes wonder, growing up, why other kids didn't find life as intense, as difficult, as I did. It was a fascinating phenomenon that my young mind put down to me somehow being different.

These kids didn't worry about their parents hating them & never coming back for them when said parents went out for the night. These kids almost kind of rejoiced in being "naughty" - something I could never comprehend. Its like they knew their parents loved them no matter what! What a foolish mistake. Right? I always knew that if I wasn't perfect my parents would abandon me for good this time. That's why I got good grades, always did as I was told,never argued, always stepped in line. And yet, even with that, it was never good enough.

I would always do something. even if I did nothing. to upset them. This would result in long winters of cold hard abandonment from father and/or tropical storms of epic proportion from mother and at the worst of times these would all form part of my reality all at once, topped off with snide remarks like little icicle darts from both of them - little words sent to hurt me where it would hurt most. I'm ungrateful...not good enough. I'm a bad person set on this planet to destroy them, eat all their food & then live off of them like a leash, just like the others... I resented myself for hurting these could people so much. Afterall - I owed them my life. Mom carried me from the car crash when I was just a baby all the two kilometres to the nearest hospital, with a broken toe. How much pain she must've been in. It's like I was put on this earth to destroy them.

And there I go again...up and down...up and down...on this rollercoaster ride of self-hate & self-love, idolizing & devaluing, fighting & battling, hurting and then hurting back, achieving nothing but survival...losing...everything. It is a lonely journey, but somebody has to be the sacrificial lamb right? What if...what if...this didn't have to happen any more...?